The Stalker

 

Face blurred to protect the innocent

I was looking through some of my old photos and I came across this one from 1968. I was a senior in high school and that is a photo of my girlfriend. Why did I have a girlfriend? Did I mention that it was 1968? Sure I had a crush on a certain boy at school, but If I wanted a social life, I needed a girlfriend. So this poor girl was my beard, even if she didn't know it. She certainly didn't suspect that I was gay. Well, not at first. We would go to the Forest Preserve parking lot and neck (That means kissing and such, for you youngsters). I would take her out every weekend to a movie, and in the summer to the stock car races at Soldier Field (This was before the Bears played there, so they didn't give a damn that cars were racing around the field). Anyway, after a bit I think she caught on that she was not going to get what she wanted from me. Other than French kisses in the Forest Preserve, she got nothing. She even guided my hand to her bra clasp once and I freaked out, "Oops, I have to get the car home. My dad said I had to get back by eleven..." So my girlfriend dumped me for another guy. You would have thought I'd be relieved to be free of the burden of hetero, high school responsibilities. I wasn't, I was pissed. Nobody dumps Alan. I then teamed up with her new boyfriend's old girlfriend, and one evening we stalked them. It was sick, and very sad. We followed them all around Tinley Park in my dad's giant station wagon. That, of course, was stupid because no girl in their right mind would think, 'Oh, he's stalking me with my new boyfriend's old girlfriend. He must love me. I must go back to him'.  No, it was just stupid. What did happen, was that I realized what I really wanted, and it wasn't her. Later that year I stalked the boy I had a crush on in high school...