Some of you may have heard me recant my tale of the summer of 95' when I had a brush with death. I've never attempted to write this down before, but seeing how this blog is somewhat of my journal, I will try to do justice to the "Bob Saga." Rest assured this really happened and the only exaggerations I've included in this story are for cosmetic purposes. I will try not to go off on a ranting tangent, but if I do, you were already warned by the title of my blog.
I was almost 18 and dating a pretty cheerleader from a rival school. She lived about a twenty minute drive away and though she was not LDS, I met her at stake dance. Back in those days, it didn't take me long before I grew tired of a girlfriend (or they grew tired of me, to be fair.) Two months was generally the cut-off date and it was no different for her. Note that I'm not including her name for fear that she might one day read this and post a comment of how our relationship truly ended.
A few houses up the street from my home lived a great girl named… we’ll call her Marcy to protect the innocent, who was dating a well-known psychopath named Bob. Marcy was LDS and her family was strong in the faith, but Marcy herself was a bit of a rebel. We had been friends since I moved to Alabama and we often chatted with each other about our relationship troubles. I would say how stupid my girlfriend was and how dull our conversations were and she would tell me what was the latest foreign substance Bob had ingested (Windex, Draino, all manner of narcotics,) and how many puppies he planned to murder by year’s end.
Since it was nearing the 2 month deadline with my current relationship and Marcy was a cute girl who I genuinely liked, I naively suggested that she break off her long ongoing relationship with Bob and start dating me. I've mentioned before... I used to be suave. Little did I know, that I was about to start the strangest and most frightening episode of fatal attraction that the town of Madison, Alabama ever saw.
Fast forward a couple of weeks... Marcy had done it, Bob was history (or so I thought.) For the first little while, we started dating and it was great. We had a lot in common and we had been friends first, plus Bob was only lurking in the shadows and I never saw him. Prom was up and coming and so I thought, since Marcy was somewhat of my girlfriend, we would be going together. When I asked her, she hesitated.
"Well, I've kinda promised Bob that I would go with him," Marcy said. "He asked me along time ago."
"So," I replied (I was so sensitive.) "You're not with Bob anymore, so you're not going with him. You're going with me." That seemed logical enough and she agreed. Prom arrived and we went, but so did Bob, without a date. This was when the beginning of the end started. Watching Bob stoned out of his mind, prowling the prom dance floor always with his eyes on me and Marcy and then the fact that he followed us everywhere we went for the rest of the night, kind of irked me a little bit. But I was laid back and in control of the situation, so I didn't allow it to escalate. I went home that night and thought nothing of the strange situation at Prom. Over the next few weeks as my high school days drew to an end I discovered that Bob had a death wish.
Bob never personally approached me in the hallways at the school, but his weird little cronies did. "Bob's been looking for you," or "Bob's messed up bad, man," or "Bob wants to meet you in the parking lot," were some of the things they told me, all of which I shrugged off, not too concerned by Bob. I went to one of Marcy's soccer games and while sitting in the upper rows of the bleachers I watched Bob on the front row start cutting his arm with a knife, over and over again. What a freak! I thought, but why is it my concern. I guess now, looking back, I was pretty stupid.
Anyways, things started happening to my car and though it has ever been proven to be his fault, I know he did it. First, my window was shot out of the back of my car, next the air was let out of one of my tires. No biggie, I just dealt with it. Then one day after school, the air had been let out of all 4 of my tires. Ok, starting to get a little peeved. My dad had to come pick me up. I told my parents what was going on, and even they had heard of Bob's strangeness. They were worried about me, but I told them not to worry, but if I suddenly got sent home suspended from school, they should understand why.
Finally, one night after coming home off of the bus from a track meet, the air had been let out of all 4 tires again. I was very perturbed. The next day Marcy approached me at school.
"Bob was going to give you this letter, but I took it from him," she said.
"Ok, what does it say?" I read the letter and it was at that moment that I realized Bob was a nut job. The letter rambled on and on about how if we didn't sort this Marcy thing out, he was going to blow my head off with a shot gun and then swallow the barrel and kill himself. He said he wanted to meet somewhere and hash it out. Had I read this on any other day, I would have been terrified, but since it followed the umpteenth time of my car mishaps, I was ticked.
"Fine, you call Bob and tell him to meet me at Shelton Park tonight and I'm going to kick his butt!" I said in probably those words.
"What? You don't want to do that. He's crazy!"
"Oh yes I do. Call him and tell him tonight."
So she did, and Bob was baffled by my brashness. He told her to call me back and say he was just kidding and what was my deal. I didn't buy it. I told her that I definitely wanted to meet him, but if he felt uncomfortable meeting at the park, he could come to my driveway and we would talk it out. She told him and he agreed. Later that afternoon, I told my parents what was going to happen that night. They were freaked out. They honestly were scared for my safety, but I was 18 now and pretty stubborn. Before our meeting, I went to Marcy's house and after a long talk we broke up. What? It had been 2 months, plus I was too young to be dealing with this sort of nonsense.
Bob came, stoned of course, and denied everything that happened over the past couple of months. I told him that I didn't want to see him anywhere near me again and that if I ever saw him near my car there would be trouble. It was about an hour of discussion, all the while my parents watched through the blinds of the living room. Bob left, and I thought that my troubles with him had ended.
Fast forward a couple more months… My senior year ended, anticlimactically. Marcy started dating another guy and he had to endure a few moments with Bob. Nothing to dramatic happened, and that relationship ended without many fireworks. During the summer, things got weird. Bob started showing up at church. Now, I avoided him at all costs because that was our deal, but the missionaries were very pushy. You see, Bob wasn’t LDS, and according to the missionaries he was very interested in our beliefs.
I remember the conversation I had with the missionaries one afternoon after church.
“Bob is really going strong and he needs fellowship. Aren’t you his friend?”
“Not at all,” I answered, smirking. “And I don’t think he’s really interested in the church.”
“You don’t know that,” they said. “We’ve had some really amazing discussions with him.”
“Because he’s probably been high. Look, he’s crazy about Marcy and that’s the only reason he’s been coming to church. It’s to be closer to her.”
The missionaries were a little miffed at my indifference to their investigator’s progress, but I had a history with Bob.
Still, week after week, Bob could be seen sitting in the very back of the overflow room at church. He never stayed for any of the other meetings, but I can’t necessarily blame him for that reason.
One afternoon I was swimming with some friends at one of their houses. One of my friends came around the corner and said that Bob was up by my car. I quickly jumped out of the pool and ran up the driveway fully expecting a scrap with Bob. Instead, he was there asking me if I wanted to go with him and some of his friends up into mountains to a bonfire. I thought about it for a second or two and said that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. He seemed a little dejected, but left quietly. Now I know, you’re probably thinking that I was being a big jerk not letting Bob turn over a new leaf. Had I not known now what eventually happened, I’d probably agree with you.
Bob started coming over to my house some nights to talk with me about the church. Many times I wasn’t there and my dad went out and spoke with him. He never let Bob into the house, but he talked casually on the porch. My dad told me later about how Bob had said he had been to a hospital several times for attempting suicide and that he had taken just about every drug that had ever been produced. When I was fortunate enough to be around, Bob would talk a few minutes about the church and then he would ask if I wanted to go hang out with him and his friends. Each time I said no, but I admit that I was starting to feel that he had changed.
Finally, yes this story will end soon, I saw Bob at church one Sunday late in the summer. He left promptly after sacrament and I thought nothing of it. Later, after all of the meetings, I was walking out of the church with my family when Marcy approached me.
“I need to show you something,” she said. So I followed her to her family’s van. Inside the van was one of Marcy’s stuffed animals with all of the stuffing ripped out and a picture of the guy Marcy dated after me. Someone had slashed up the picture, but had not left any note.
“Bob did this?” I asked. She nodded. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.” Marcy and I were still good friends, but whenever our discussions led to Bob, I generally ended them and left. This time was no different. I was thinking to myself, Oh well, it has nothing to do with me anymore.
I drove home with my folks and as we pulled into our driveway I saw Bob’s car parked in front of the yard. “Crap, I guess I have to go talk to him,” I said. My family went inside for lunch and I walked out of the garage and down the drive to Bob’s car.
The passenger window was rolled down and as I approached I stuck my head through the window.
“What’s up Bob?” I asked. I must have startled Bob, because he immediately sprang back and stared at me. It was then that I looked down and saw the gun lying in the passenger seat. I was speechless. I looked at the gun and then at Bob not knowing what to do. Bob’s face grew cold and he reached for his weapon. I started to back away, scared to death of what was about to happen, but not sure of what to do. Just before Bob grabbed the gun, he stopped. He looked at me for a moment and then chucked his wallet through the window into my hands. Then he sped off.
I stood there for quite a while wondering what had happened. I had just been seconds away from being shot, but somehow I had survived. I opened the wallet and inside one of the pockets was a picture of me and Marcy at Prom. Psycho!
When I walked back into the house, my dad asked me what Bob wanted. I said nothing and started walking up the stairs. My dad saw Bob’s chain wallet and asked me what it was.
“It’s Bob’s,” I said. “He gave it to me.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I don’t know dad,” I ran up the stairs and grabbed the phone. I needed to call Marcy, but her line was busy. Shortly after, my dad came upstairs to my room to talk to me.
“Why did he give you his wallet, Frank?”
“I don’t know dad, he’s a nut,” I said.
“Was there anything else in the car?” he asked. This was a weird question, but I think my dad was inspired.
“No, why do you ask?”
“Well, knowing Bob’s history, I’ve heard when people start giving away their possessions it’s because they’re planning on killing themselves.”
I freaked. “Oh crap dad! He had a gun!”
“What!” my dad shouted.
“Yeah, I thought he was going to shoot me, but he didn’t. He definitely had a gun in the car.”
Twenty minutes later the whole family sat down in the living room with a police officer as I rehashed the entire story. The cop seemed to be a know-it-all as if he had heard the story before and after a short while; he started to get on my nerves.
“Tell the officer what kind of gun it was,” my mom said. This was stupid because I had no idea what kind of gun it was. It could’ve been a ray gun for all I knew.
“I don’t know what it was, mom,” I said.
The officer than piped in and told us what kind of gun it was. When we asked him how he knew, he told us that it was the same gun used just earlier in Marcy’s house. Apparently, right before Bob came to my house and nearly shot me; he broke into Marcy’s home and shot up the place. He stole all of her stuff and slashed most of their family pictures. The officer told me that if I see Bob, don’t approach him because he was obviously dangerous and that I should call the cops immediately.
The rest of the day I spent in doors. I called Marcy and she was fine, but everyone was very disturbed.
That next day my brother and I were home by ourselves as my dad was at work and my mom went to the grocery. I think I was playing the Nintendo or something upstairs when there came a knock at our front door. Since Michael was downstairs I didn’t budge. Again the door knocked, and Michael didn’t answer.
“Get the door!” I shouted.
Michael came running up the stairs and said that Bob was outside. What the??? We ducked down by the window and peaked through the blinds as Bob circled around our yard and finally walked to the front of the yard, where he slid a note into the mailbox.
I waited for about 15 minutes after he left to go check the mailbox. After doing a barrel roll or two to insure I was not seen, I snagged the letter and high-tailed it back into the house. Scrawled on a scratch piece of paper were the words: I’ll be back for you at 4:00.
“Yep, and so will the cops,” I said.
To make a ridiculously long story short, the cops nabbed Bob on the way to my house right before 4:00. They used unmarked police vehicles and they even borrowed the mail carrier’s car for optimum surveillance. In the end, all of Marcy’s possessions were in Bob’s car as well as a lock picking kit, a garage door opener that opened any frequency of garage door and of course the gun. Bob was stoned beyond belief and in his statement he told the officers that all he remembered was that Marcy’s stuff just walked out of her house and into his car.
Bob was only 17 and was released that evening to his step-dad. This is all hearsay, but Marcy told me that she found out later that night, Bob tried to borrow his step dad’s car to take care of some “unfinished business.” When his step dad refused, Bob bashed the car up with a baseball bat. Because of this, he went to juvenile prison and to this day his whereabouts are unknown. I did hear that after he got out of juvenile prison he served hard time for selling stolen perfume and using stolen credit cards. Fortunately, for me, he never got the opportunity to finish his business.
