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BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT - - - - Stalking Gracie, Part 2: Mr. Gracie is a security guard at the Standard Oil Building. I saw him again for the first time a little over a month ago, while I was walking to the beach on my lunch break. I recognized him immediately. I stopped on the sidewalk, and people had to walk around me. I wait for him today after work, as I have every weekday for the past month. I watch him pull his coat from a hidden closet behind the security desk, tip his hat to the man arriving for the next shift, and push through the revolving doors to the subway line. I follow him to the train, keeping a few people between us. I shouldn't be wearing a jacket in this hot weather, but I am. A light blue denim with an inside pocket. I'm hoping he doesn't apologize. If he apologizes, I don't know what I'll do. We take the underground pedestrian tunnel between the two main subway arteries of the city; the long corridor amplifies the sound of the commuters' footsteps. I swear I can smell his cologne. The traffic in the tunnel runs both ways. I push against people and walls trying to get through. Mr. Gracie gets on at the front of the car, and I get on in the back. The blue line hurtles toward the Kennedy Expressway and the northwest suburbs, out by O'Hare International Airport. He sits on the outside of a two-seat bench. No one sits next to him. When I first saw Mr. Gracie, I was surprised that he didn't look very different: the same short black stubble on his chin, top two buttons open on his shirt. But then, it's only been a few years. People don't change that much when they're in their forties. I look different. I have long hair now. In the juvenile center they kept it cut close to the scalp. My hair is straight and blond and hangs past my collar. This could be one reason Mr. Gracie hasn't noticed me following him. Another might be that he isn't looking. A third might be that there were so many boys, he can't remember us all. We pass Fullerton and the barrio. The Polish restaurants and the Ukrainian village. I tug on my jacket, adjust the weight in the pocket. He's just sitting there. A few weeks ago, on a Saturday, Maria and I went on a picnic with our friends Dave and Nadia. Nadia's pregnant, and Maria rubbed her face against Nadia's belly and put her hands inside the waistband of Nadia's shorts, on her stomach. "Babies," Dave said, handing me a paper plate with a tuna sandwich and potato salad on it. "Who gives a fuck about babies?" He laughed. I took a seat next to Maria. She didn't want to eat. She didn't want to move away from Nadia's stomach. Maria's the smartest person I've ever met, but she had a hard time getting through the system. She taught me multiplication and has won every game of backgammon we've ever played; she always locks up my last five spaces. She carefully explains every move, but I never get it. I'm smarter than her in one way, though: I know every major street in Chicago and the address numbers of each block. I knew the boundaries of all the neighborhoods by the time I was thirteen. At Foster, a Chicago Transit Authority officer boards the train and stands next to where I'm sitting, his holstered pistol inches from my nose. He's scowling and his hand drops heavily over the gun, his fingers pressing the leather. The third time I followed Mr. Gracie home, I hid in his neighbor's bushes across the street. I thought someone had seen me, so I crouched quietly in the dirt and waited. I felt as if I were naked and hiding in the bushes so that nobody would see me without my clothes on, like in a dream. I crossed my arms over my chest. I thought the police were going to come and surround me and ask what I was doing, and I was going to have to admit that I was following Mr. Gracie. They would grab me by the arm and ask why. They'd laugh at my nakedness. They'd want reasons, but I wouldn't have any to give them. When I run through this in my mind, I shake my head slowly and also kind of nod knowingly at the same time. I say to myself repeatedly, I am following Mr. Gracie. Nobody saw me behind the neighbor's bushes, and I hid out there and watched him come home and waited for the lights to snap on. I learned that he has a wife and two children, a boy and a girl. They live in a bungalow in Jefferson Park. After eight they sit together in the living room and watch television. He has children; that kills me. When I first started coming home late, Maria thought I was cheating on her. She broke all our dishes. Standing in the mess she'd made, I told her that I had seen Mr. Gracie and I had been following him. She knew who Mr. Gracie was and what had happened between him and me. At first she was interested. She'd be waiting at the table when I got home. "What did he do today?" she'd ask. "Eat an apple? Read the newspaper?" Sometimes Maria would have bruises or a bloody lip. "I tried to wait for you, but it got late, so I had to go out." Yesterday she told me I had to finish the job, or she was going out and not coming home again. For Maria, being alone is the hardest thing. Mr. Gracie unzips his bag and looks inside of it. Satisfied, he zips it back up. The CTA officer exits the train, hand still massaging his gun holster, and looks both ways in the station. In juvenile, none of us knew anything about the staff's outside lives. We didn't even know their first names. The staff carried nightsticks and handcuffs. We had baggy brown pants and T-shirts. I had been in a glass cage for two days when Mr. Gracie came to get me. He told me to walk close to the red lines on the floor. Western was dark, and everyone's gym shoes were out in the hallway, their doors locked from the outside. Mr. Gracie took me into an empty office. He told me to put my stuff in the corner. "You think you're tough?" he said. "You like to fight? You want to fight me?" He stood a foot taller than me. His arms were like tree branches. He slapped me hard and quick across my cheek. I knew better than to try and cover myself. Then he strip-searched me and made me do squats while he pressed on my shoulder. He told me to stand up and place my hands behind my head, and he poked at my ribs, flicking his middle finger hard. Then he bent me over the steel table and raped me, occasionally hitting my face, his hand flying out from some unseen place behind me. When he was done, he took me back to my room. In a perfect world I could sit alone with Mr. Gracie and ask him questions, and he would tell me the truth. Maybe we would have a drink, a beer or coffee or something. We'd have time to spare. I picture us sitting on a bed, fully clothed, in a cheap hotel. The first thing I would ask him is how he lost his job. Did he get caught? I don't think he got caught, because I don't see how he could get a job as a security guard at the fifth-largest building in the world if they had caught him. They could have just suspected something; or maybe they made a deal. But I don't think so. Then I would ask him how he met his wife. Did he know her in high school or did they meet at a bar or through a personals ad? What kind of games do his children play and does he worry about who's watching them when he's not around. I'd like to tell him about Maria, about her uncles and her grandmother. How she masturbates until the insides of her thighs are black and blue, and I masturbate with her until the skin on my penis breaks. How she calls me at work crying, saying she's been shoving the vacuum cleaner between her legs, and she's hurting. How, once, because I had done something wrong, Maria whipped me across the face with her belt. I got down in front of her and held her legs. She yanked on my hair with both hands and yelled, "You're worthless!" The next night I brought her flowers. I was hoping she would hit me again, call me names, tell me how worthless I am. I rushed home from work every day, hoping. But she wouldn't do it, not even when I asked. That's when she really started cheating on me. She said whipping me made her feel bad about herself. She wanted to be abused. But I wanted the same thing. "I'm starting to hate you," Maria said. "I want you to hit me, and you want me to hit you. This is terrible." She went out nights. She met a man with a red beard who held a knife beneath her nipple and dared her to move. She got into cars with strangers. A man stuck a screwdriver in her ass. After a week of this, I started hitting her again, because it keeps her home and safe. When she goes out looking, walking down to the gas station late at night in her underwear, anything can happen. Somebody's going to kill her someday. I'd like to tell Mr. Gracie about Maria. I'd like to ask Mr. Gracie for his advice. What should I do? - - - - To purchase Happy Baby, click here. - - - -
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