
Sometimes people die and you don't feel sorry. Of course, their relatives and close friends feel sorry, and some people feel sorrow at any reminder that they, too, shall die. So it doesn't do to say out loud, "Such-and-such is dead, and I'm not sorry." We have the fine motto of "
De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est", which means "Of the dead, say nothing but good."
Which is why I did not, after all, leave a nasty comment on the deceased Stalker's webpage amongst the notes of condolence.
The Stalker, a nominal Anglican, is likely to have a grand and glorious funeral in a beautiful Anglican church. Although there were few in his social set before his illness, there are over 100 fans on his facebook page and there may very well be a crowd at his funeral. There will be speeches and chuckles. The convivial atmosphere will not be disturbed by me, or my dearest friend, or any suggestion that the Stalker was ever in serious spiritual danger, save, perhaps, for a rueful remark that the Stalker could be "difficult", followed by knowing, forgiving, laughter.
The Stalker was the only person I ever knew well enough to fear that he was in imminent danger of hell. And because I thought so, I told him so, through the medium of my blog, which he often read, because I simply couldn't stand to talk to him. He sulked about this on his own blog, not denouncing my belief in hell, mind you, but expressing a frustration that I did not think he was capable of change. (I did, though, which is why I bothered.) He was over 60 at the time.
The Stalker was born to devoutly religious, Protestant parents. He went to an evangelical college and showed a talent for art. He came to Canada, married, had children, pursued his artistic interests. He was a huge fan of the neo-platonist writer Charles Williams, and he tried to slough off the evangelicalism of his youth by joining a very "High" Anglican Church. He also indulged, rather heavily, in alcohol and marijuana. The marriage foundered.
The Stalker believed in romance, however. He craved it like alcohol and marijuana. He fell hard for his women, and when each affair ended, he had a hard time letting go. He stalked at least one, lying under her porch, listening for men. He grew old.
He grew old, but he could occasionally attract women with his erudition, his artwork, his dreams and, I believe, his melancholy. Success had eluded him, but he had undeniable talent. He owned an attic apartment in an old house in a bohemian district, and it was a fascinating rabbit warren of books, paintings, dust and dirty plates.
One night he went out to a bar/concert hall, and he met my dearest friend.
My dearest friend has a soft spot for old men, talented artists and failures. The Stalker was old, talented and, in his own estimation, a failure. My friend called me to tell me about this fascinating man she had met and wondered if she should date someone 30 years her senior.
"You'll be bored," I said brutally. "You'll miss young bodies."
At the time my friend was a true believer in the sort of love once called free. Free Love, however, turns out to be very expensive. "The woman always pays," says
Live Alone and Like It, and ain't that the truth.
I liked the Stalker the first time I met him. He was "a Christian", and I thought he might interest my friend in Christianity. He had a lot of books. He was mostly bald and cadavernously thin, and he had yellow and grey teeth. But my friend adored him, and he was a talented artist.
The second time I came to visit, the Stalker discussed his failures. He sighed. He looked melancholy. My friend looked on in sympathy. My hackles rose. I loathe self-pity in men. And this guy was swimming in it. Swimming. But I did not say this to my friend. She was smitten, and at the time I believed discretion was the soul of friendship.
She moved in with the Stalker. They discussed the future. They bought a house together, a fixer-upper. He continued to drug and drink. When she had parties, he would withdraw, feeling uncomfortable among her young friends. When he had parties, she seethed at the amount of alcohol and drugs consumed.
He was a bad, selfish and brutal lover.
My freespirited friend lost all interest in sex. She moved into a room of her own and tried to renegotiate the relationship. She tried to convince the Stalker to drink less and to give up drugs. She eventually refused to allow his druggy friends into their house. Eventually, their romance was dead, but the Stalker would not bury it. Instead he assailed the slowly rising walls of my friend's privacy with passive-aggressive plaints and emails. Hundreds of emails. Eventually I was to read some of them, and I wondered if the Stalker were insane.
The Stalker stalked my friend. This was quite easy, as they lived on the same property. And it was quite obvious, as he blogged about it. He watched for her car. He watched the door. I came across him one night as he paced around to the front of the house, ever watchful. He obsessed over who my celibate friend might be sleeping with, and blogged his speculations.
I came home from studies abroad and found my friend half-crazy with frustration that the Stalker could not understand that their romantic relationship was over and had been over for years. To my surprise, when I offered to talk to him, she immediately agreed.
So I went to talk to him, "as a Christian", since I knew that at heart the man was still, despite his drinking, drugging and flirtation with Anglicanism, a Protestant evangelical. And as we talked, he suddenly turned melancholy and said that he might as well kill himself. As an example of emotional manipulation, it was breathtaking.
That was the end of my polite association with the Stalker. Not having known how bad things were between them, I had not known there were sides to be taken. I took my friend's side. Seraphic et Amica contra mundum.
The Stalker continued to obsess about sex, to write emails, to stalk, to blog about my friend. He read my blog, searching for information. He left comments. (Some of you may remember.) I erased them. I told him to stop. I called the police. The police called him. He left one or two more messages. He continued to drink and drug. My friend worked desperately not to lose the house. She rented rooms. She held down jobs. She felt guilty about the Stalker. I am sure his daily email rants encouraged her guilt, her self-reproach, her attempts at a kind of friendship.
And then--cancer.
Cancer. It was, he blogged, a wonderful thing, for it made my friend be kind to him. She took care of him until relations took over. She visited him in the hospital. And, in return, he continued to blog about her, his sexual frustrations, his sexual obsessions. Was she having sex? He revealed increasingly intimate details about her. He sent her abusive messages. He was obscene. Even as an old man, even as death approached, even wasted with illness, he could think of nothing but the erotic love he longed for.
I begged my friend to stop visiting him. It only made his behaviour worse. His new caregivers were horrified by his excesses. My friend felt happier, relieved that at last there were people (other than me) who understood what the Stalker was really like. And I, suffering when my friend suffered, for after my husband she is my dearest friend, realized that the Stalker would not stop obsessing sexually about, blogging about, writing about, her until he was dead.
And now he
is dead, and my dearest friend is free. Miraculously, she is still sane. May the Stalker rest in peace. May his life be a lesson to us all.
Please stand now for the hymn.