Age 16 - 1991 thru 1994 - The Lee Chronicles


My friend Iyung liked to go to the mall. She was an old public school friend of mine, one of the many I kept to keep me grounded in reality while I went to private school for high school. One trip there, we met this seemingly cool guy named Lee. He had just broken up with his girlfriend, our friend Millie. He seemed to like me a lot, and invited me out for my first real date. You know, the adult way, not the teenage hanging-around-in-groups and going-en-masse-to-movies and sneaking-kisses-before-curfew.. I had a formal invite, a time set, and he arranged to pick me up.

Two nights that week he took me out to nice restaurants and bought me roses. I had loads of fun being "wined" and dined (no wine, though - I was underage), and I let loose more than I normally would have because Lee kept telling me that he had to move to Minneapolis the next week. Except, on the second date, the dinner had made me late for play rehearsal that night at school. My car was not at the dinner. I had to bite the bullet and hand my car keys not only to the first person to drive my car except myself, but also to a guy I didn't know very well at all, and ask him to bring my car up to school once rehearsal was over. I got to play rehearsal on time and had a very enjoyable evening, until we were let out and I walked into the parking lot. My car wasn't there. After 30 minutes passed, I was having a heart attack and almost crying. My parents were adamant that I had to be home right after play rehearsal; they didn't like how it lasted until 10 p.m. on weekdays, and they were exhausting me emotionally by challenging me every night, because they suspected that I wasn't really in play rehearsal and lying to get to stay out so late. So, getting home on time was -mandatory- and I had explained that to Lee!
So why the fuck wasn't he there?

An hour after we were supposed to meet that night, Lee finally rolls up in my car, with another car following. Smoke is billowing in clouds out of the back of my car. A rather cheerful, somewhat country girl gets out of the second car and explains to me that she was following my car to make sure it didn't explode. I could taste the electricity of my rage. I turned to Lee for answers, and he had none. He'd ignored my pleas to treat my Mustang with care. I drove it home, alone - no one followed ME to make sure I didn't get home in a burning, fiery wreck. All the way there, my automatic was driving like a standard whose clutch wouldn't change gears; the gears sticking, the car drifting forward and backwards dangerously near other cars when stopped at traffic lights.. the whole car bucking and kicking like a horse dying to get out to the fields for a long canter.. Later, after I'd asked some friends with some car know-how, I found out that he'd been driving 60+ MPH down the 30 MPH city streets with lots of lights.. and screeching to a halt when the lights turned red. My first car, that I had owned for just over one month.. now had to have its transmission REPLACED, at a hefty $500. And by the time I had discovered that, Lee was safely in Minneapolis.

During the months that he was away, I finally ran across Millie again. She took me aside and told me that I should be thankful that that's all that had happened to me. She told me how Lee had never really broken up with her, but the last night they were together - Valentine's Day - they had happened to have slept together, and on that night he had given her CRABS! She also had done some digging. Lee was often gone all summer. During school, he always had wads and wads of money to throw around. We all knew he wasn't from that wealthy a family, and everyone wondered how Lee got his money. Millie had found out the answer. Horror upon horrors: this guy made his money by being a gigilo in New Orleans every summer. That's right, boys and girls, a prostitute ruined my car!

Six months after Lee left, he called me in the middle of the night on a school night. Sometime around 3-4 a.m. I assumed he was drunk. I cussed at him, I told him never to speak to me again, and slammed down the phone. I thought that would put it to an end.

One year after that late night phone call, Lee moved back to live with his mother once again. Iyung told me that he was now going to our old school. He showed up at my home, looking greasy and unwashed, with this ugly friend of his and invited me out to watch him play tennis. (That is almost a laughable thing. Lee playing tennis is about as ridiculous as Marilyn Manson playing golf.) My dad saw how strangely I was behaving and instructed the two to leave rather forcefully. Again, I thought that would put it to an end.

Yet another year down the road, however, there is one more chapter to this. Iyung once again kept filling me in on the stories that are told at my old school.. It seems that Lee had purchased a Mustang exactly like the one I had.. the same year, the same model, the exact same interior. The only difference was this: that his was black, and mine was white. He went around school talking about his girlfriend, and saying that she and he had "his and hers" cars. I asked Iyung to set the record straight, and repeat the things I'd told Lee myself - not to come near me, not to speak to me, and to quit spreading lies.

I was mortified and terrified about Lee. I hadn't really spoken to this guy in two and a half years, and here he was, telling people he was dating me. He was obviously mental, and I wasn't sure what he might be capeable of next. I was frightened, and I often pulled off the highway whenever I saw a black Mustang anywhere near me. A few months went by with no contact, and I eventually settled in to self reassurance once again that I would never again see Lee in my entire life.

Then, one day after school, I saw a black Mustang parked right next to my white Mustang. I looked around further. There was Lee, making his way towards me.

I am fortunate for having been raised with a mother with an immense amount of rage. That had been brought about by her intense fear that I wouldn't love her because she had endometriosis, uncurable in those days, and she hadn't actually given birth to me. It was a silly fear to have had; I loved her then and I still do now. However, during childhood she went through a lengthy psychosis about it, transferring her fear into rage and passing that rage onto me. It wasn't a bright and happy time in my life. However, it gives me a certain strength and a certain je-ne-sais-quoi for dealing with insane and psychopathic maniacs with whom no other method of communication can work.

I was tired of Lee. I was tired of living in fear. I was enraged that he still had the gall to show his face to me. Much like a cat does when it begins to fight, I tried to make myself larger and taller than I actually was, and more intimidating. I made a beeline FAST towards him. My hands were clenched, held out a few inches from my sides. I made long, strong, assured, stomping steps with my feet. I stopped about 10 feet away from Lee and began screaming at him. "HOW DARE YOU SHOW YOURSELF HERE?!" I screamed, throwing one of two really heavy bookbacks full of journals and heavy tomes of studying materials for either upcoming midterms or finals at him. I continued screaming at him at length and throwing more heavy things at him, telling him I had no room in my life for a fucking mental psychotic, and to get off the private property or I would be marching right back inside to call the police to have him escorted off. (Oh, the joys of private school!) After all the years of hearing the next new lie Lee was telling, and all the months I'd lived in fear of him, I really wish I had had a camera to capture the look of shock on his face. I suppose he had imagined that I'd never aged, that I still had the same level of naïvité and timidness that I had once had when he first met me. I suppose he had never realized that he was one of the people who had corrupted my innocence, that it was he who taught me one of several of my early lessons that you can really only trust yourself, that it was he who taught me just how careful a woman really needs to be with strangers, and finally that it was he who taught me that you have to be crazy to get someone crazy out of your life.

I've fortunately never had to be that woman ever again. Recently, I've come near it - more about that in a bit. Oh, sometimes you'll see bits and pieces, like the time I cussed out a drunk man who was not only walking through the drive-thru of a Burger King, but also had the gall to pull out his dick and piss in the bushes right next to my car.. But I've never really had to be that way again with anyone to date. I hope I never have to again, especially because.. well.. an adult mind is freer than a teenage one. Someone like Lee, as an adult, would probably be prone to violence of some kind.

Out of every female friend I grew up with, I'm one of the few who was never raped as a teenager or young twenty-something.

My bravado and insane act has kept me out of trouble so far. However, if ever in a dangerous situation, it could very well get me into great trouble, or end up in my own death.

This is why I like to nip things in the bud. I advise every young woman to do the same. If you come across someone who seems strange to you, with some sort of borderline personality, who has some strange attachment to you of which they will not let go, do everything in your power to get them out of your life. It's better to be cruel and safe than polite and dead.