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I walked by the window of a swanky downtown restaurant, and there he was.  In his coat and tie, and in my shorts and t-shirt, the act of approaching him through the restaurant crowded with beautiful people must have been menacing.

I sat down next to him and his wife, emptied his wife’s glass of water into the Ideastream stalker’s entree, and poured myself a red wine from his bottle.  Sat back.  Watched him sit there, mouth agape.  

I sipped.  The wine was o.k., but not great.  I lit a cigarette.  

“So…” I said.  

The Ideastream stalker started, “you can’t smoke in here…” as I ashed into his entree.

“My conclusion is,” I continued as I breathed the smoke into his face with my words, “that I needed to be hated for who I am for me to overcome…,” I took another drag.  ”…self-esteem issues.”

The Ideastream stalker was motionless.  ”You’re a…”  I stopped him with a slight increase in the volume of my voice which lay between the noise of the restaurant and the sound of my palm hitting the table, the snap of which caught his attention.  

“I KNOW quite well what I am,” I said, soft-loudly, into his eyes.  He stared.

“Now ask yourself,” I took a drag.  

“If you had done the same thing I did, would you be even sitting here today?”

“I….what the….” my stalker kept spouting.  

“Under the circumstances, of course,” I clarified.

“I’ll have you….”

“Or would you have already put a bullet into your head.”

“…you think you can come in here….wha……,”

His wife started, “How dare…”

“SHUT.” I shouted.  ”THE FUCK.”

Then I whispered.  ”Up.”  

My stalker’s wife obliged.  So did he.

“Answer me.  Would you be here?”

My stalker took a deep breath.  ”I wouldn’t do what you did.”

“Not what you SAY, or THINK I did,” I said, “but what I ACTUALLY, and IN FACT, did.”

“Never.”

“But you might?” I said.  I leaned my elbows on the table, sipping the wine.

“Never.”

“Not in your deepest, darkest moment?” I took his glass and drank from that.  Put it down.  ”C’mon, you know the facts, you know what I did….admit it.”  

I poured more smoke into his face.

The Ideastream stalker realized I meant business.  He just wanted me to go away.  I knew the waiter was on his way over to tell me to stop smoking, so I wanted to go, too.

“O.k., o.k.,” the Ideastream stalker said.  ”Maybe.  O.k., maybe…..now just leave us here to finish…”

“Judge me based on that, then.”  

I said, sitting back in the chair.

The Ideastream stalker paused.  

“Fine, o.k., FINE.”

“GREAT!” I yelled.  And stood up, waving to the restaurant with both arms, in a flourish.  ”That’s all I ASK FOR!!!!”  

Just as the Ideastream stalker thought he was out of the woods, I leaned on the table in front of him, into his private space.  Right where his breath is warm enough on exhale to be felt.

I whispered into his ear.

“Now, ask yourself this…”  He breathed visibily harder.

“Would you be standing here, alive, if you did what you TELL YOURSELF that I did.”

He looked down at the table.  

“Or if you did what you tell OTHER PEOPLE that I did.”

I rose away from the table.  

The Ideastream stalker was motionless.  

I threw down the rest of my wine, and softly placed the empty glass on the table.  

“Judge YOURSELF,” I said, “based on THAT.”

And I walked away.  

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