When I drove home from work (late today, as Boss Meg and I have started working out after work on MWF in the tiny and deserted exercise room in the not-as-creepy-as-I-had-expected downstairs -- yay fitness!) I saw Slightly Psycho Kevin pulling into the driveway just ahead of me on his bike.
Oh shit, I thought. And crossed myself.
Yes, Colette's Evil Ex has moved into the apartment that she deserted in order to move to a Kevin-Free house across the alley and down the street. Meaning that he is now my downstairs neighbor.
No problem, I thought, right? He hates me (as I've been committing the heinous sin of Spending Time With Her when he's the only person she should ever want to be around...this is a textbook case of emotional abuse, kids...text.book.) and I'm not remotely fond of him. Therefore we'll ignore each other and everything will be awkward but okay.
Not so. Saturday I'm on the phone wearing nothing, as the phone rang while I was in the tub shaving the old legs, and I didn't bother robing up to clamber out and chat with John (I love living alone). Then the doorbell rings. I logically deduce who it isn't (Colette, not while Kevin is moved in) and then logically deduce who it is. I ask John to stay on the phone. I throw on an unseasonally heavy but completely cover-me-up-and-disguise-my-gender terrycloth robe and tromp down the stairs to the door. Oh look. I'm right. It's Kevin.
I open the door and lean out and proceed to be brusque and almost rude. He looks innocently bewildered, and "just wants to talk with me, but he'll let me go because I look busy," to which I answer, "Yeah, I'm on the phone." (The Stories I Could Tell about this guy.) I close the conversation, shut the door, and listen to John laughing on the other end.
Crap, I think. He won't settle for ignoring me. As he has no respect for other human beings (not just from Colette's stories but from what I've witnessed firsthand), I can't expect him to settle for being ignored.
So I prepare a speech. I think very hard about how much Slightly Psycho Kevin I want in my life. (He's been tracking down all of Colette's friends and complaining about Colette and trying to garner sympathy. He has some sort of sociopsychopathological disease.) I decide I don't want him in my life at all. I prepare, and recite the speech in my head for two days.
I delivered it this afternoon when I parked my car and found him waiting on the porch in front of my door.
Here's a rough script of what happened. Picture me not raising my voice or reacting to anything he says, which is precisely true to what happened.
SPK (Slightly Psycho Kevin), looking at me too intently: I got the feeling when I rang your doorbell on Saturday that there was some tension there.
Me: Yep.
SPK: Is that because of what's going on between me and Colette?
Me: Yep.
SPK: Because when I rang your doorbell, I got the feeling that you were thinking, "What the hell are you doing here?"
Me: Pretty much.
SPK: Why would that be?
Me (adapting speech): Kevin, I think it's going to be awkward with you living here. I'll talk about the weather to you, I'll say hello and goodbye, but I am not going to discuss Colette with you.
SPK: I'm not here to probe you for information. [Proceeds to ask me general questions that probe me for information.]
Me: Kevin, I just said I'm not going to talk about Colette with you. Please respect that.
SPK: I mean, the whole thing just hit me like a hammer. I just came from her house and she won't talk to me, and...
Me: Kevin, you're talking about Colette.
SPK: I'm not asking you for anything specific.
Me: I'm not telling you anything general.
SPK (looking confused): I just want to know if there's hope of reconciliation.
Me: I'm not the person to ask.
SPK: Because she won't discuss anything with me...and I was always respectful. I wasn't abusive or manipulative...
Me: Kevin, you're talking about Colette.
SPK: I'm telling you my feelings.
Me: I don't want to hear them.
SPK: Why, because you're friends with her?
Me: That's right.
SPK: It makes me wonder, since you have such animosity towards me, what she must have said to give you such a skewed perspective of me.
Me: I'm not going to tell you.
SPK: Have you ever been in my position before?
Me: Yes.
SPK: Where someone has up and broken your heart?
Me: Yep. It's a common human experience.
SPK (taken aback): Well...yeah, I mean I'm sure it is, but...I've been talking to strangers about it, and they can relate, I've found warmth there, where I haven't had reason to expect it. And I come knocking on your door, and I'm your neighbor, and I'm hurting, and you're cold.
Me (shrugging): I'm not a good crying shoulder.
SPK: Why do you think that is?
Me: Because I've been in this situation before, where exes come asking me for advice. I don't do that.
SPK (looking suddenly mad): Do you have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to guys?
Me: Do I have a chip...? I'm going upstairs. [I turn and walk up the porch steps toward my door.]
SPK: I mean, I mean, we've had good conversations in the past.
Me (turning around): Neighborly conversations. Yes. I can have neighborly conversations with you. But I don't see the point of your ringing my doorbell. I know Colette much better than I know you, and I like it that way.
SPK: So should I say hello when I see you, should I bother with the niceties?
Me (shrugging): If you don't feel moved to say hello, it won't bother me.
SPK: I guess there are two kinds of people in the world -- people who respond to you with human warmth, and people who don't.
Me: Looks like you'll find the latter in me.
SPK (looking really helpless and furious): So I'll just say hello.
Me: Hello is fine. Hello is plenty. Take care, Kevin. [I close the door behind me and walk upstairs shaky, headachey, but snickering.]
The vibes this guy gives off would make a cobra nervous. Here he is, thirty-five, almost middle-aged, and can't handle being dumped. And can't respect a veritable stranger (moi) who tells him she won't discuss something with him. He tried to browbeat, manipulate, insult, and cajole me into pitying him and listening to him and giving him advice and information.
And there was a time not so long ago when his tactics would have worked and I would have found myself unhappily and uncomfortably sitting down with him to discuss what he did wrong, what his approach ought to be, what Colette has said about him, what chances he has. The way he's treated Colette -- even in my presence -- has led me to want to slap him up and down and have a restraining order put on him. (I was over at her house in Kalamazoo for the weekend of the Fourth, when they were semi-broken-up for the twelfth time in a year, and she and I returned late at night from an outing and found him waiting in her driveway, because he had called without leaving messages all weekend and sent her a long nasty e-mail, to none of which she responded, so he came to her house WHILE she had an out-of-town guest and proceeded to fight with her for the better part of four hours while I sat in the house wondering if she would be safe, and what the hell I was supposed to do.) And he thinks he can bully me into telling him all about her and taking his side.
No. effing. way. I thought hard about what role I can possibly play in this insane and all-too-common drama, and that can only be as Colette's friend. I owe nothing to Kevin. In fact I dislike Kevin. He has all of his family and all of his friends...and all of her friends (because Colette told me, after I went to her apartment to fill her in on what happened, that I'm the first person to refuse to talk to him about it)...and random strangers. He could stand a good dose of being alone. Like for the rest of his life.
So it's going to be uncomfortable around my house for awhile, because I'm not going to back down (in fact the plan is not to talk to him at all anymore, and if he tries to talk to me, simply to walk away) and I'm not exactly sure what he's going to do. He is aware of all my goings and comings, as his door along the porch has a nice clear view of mine. I'm a little concerned for my safety, not badly (I don't think he would break into my apartment), but I do suspect he might try to waylay me, either conversationally or somehow physically, especially once it becomes clear that I'm not going to be his friend.
But there's always my landlord, and always the police.
And better yet, there's prayer.
I hate being involved in any kind of direct way with conflicts such as this. Hopefully he'll move out. I don't want him around. He's icky and I've just really pissed him off, and plan to continue doing so, firmly and without ire. I really have no idea how he's going to react.
But he's not getting the better of me. Colette, her decisions are her own; I hope the best for her (freedom! respect! a full life! joy!) and will always urge her in that direction; and only she can get rid of Kevin. I believe she can do it for herself: she is strong and smart, and has strong and supportive friends and family. Me, that's as involved as it's healthy and right for me to get (unless I think she's in danger). He might keep trying to bully her, but he can expect total non-capitulation from me. And I know the right trees up which to bark should the situation call for barking.
No comments:
Post a Comment