the creepy guy

by fan taser

laurel had just pushed allie on a long arc on the swing when she saw the creepy guy walking past the playground. the playground was located on a small hill. a wire fence separated the hill from the sidewalk. a large sign almost covering the fence announced that the area was a playground maintained by the town. laurel had not seen the man looking at allie or the other children and mothers but she knew he must have been. in the three months since she had moved into the neighborhood and been bringing allie to the playground on a regular basis, she had never seen anyone other than mothers or children or an occasional nanny or babysitter enter the playground. she had never seen a single man in the playground. no “house husbands” or “stay at home dads”, just women and children. as for the sidewalk, she did not know, now that she thought about it, if she had ever seen anybody on it, other than mothers bringing children to the playground. most of the mothers, including laurel herself, drove over and parked behind the playground on the other side from the sidewalk. so seeing a man at all on the sidewalk came as something of a shock. laurel took a deep breath. you are imagining things, she told herself. after all, she did not get a really good look at the man. maybe he had a good excuse for walking around on the street by himself. maybe his car had broken down, and he had to walk home. no, that was ridiculous. if his car broke down, he would call triple a, and wait for them. and besides she had seen the guy, brief as her glance had been. and he was creepy! * there was nothing else for it. laurel knew abel would not take her seriously. but she would have to tell him before going to the police herself. “there was a creepy guy hanging around the playground today,” laurel told abel when he got home from work, as he was hanging up his jacket. “oh?” abel had that eyebrow raising look he had on his face every time laurel told him something. “hanging around how? was he actually talking to the kids? did he do anything?” laurel hesitated. abel sat down on the couch with a suppressed weary sigh. “what was creepy about him? did anybody else think he was creepy?” laurel described what had happened. as she had anticipated, abel was incredulous, but he tried not to laugh, or to shout at her. “so all the guy did was walk past, he didn’t even come into the playground, and you hardly even saw his face?” “he was creepy. i could feel it.” abel knew enough to never contradict laurel directly. “so what do you want to do about it? are you going to stop going to the playground?” “i thought about going to the police.” “i don’t think - i don’t think they will give you much satisfaction,” abel said carefully. “they might want a little more to go on.” “it is worth a try.” “then do what you got to do.” abel got up and headed to the kitchen. all in all, abel’s response had been a little better than laurel expected. she resolved to call the police in the morning, after abel left for work. * laurel called the local police. the person - and to her surprise, it was a person and not an automated message - who answered listened to her story and was polite and asked if it would be more convenient for her to come to the station or to have someone come to her home. laurel arranged for a careperson for allie and went to the police station. the station seemed a quiet place, almost like a doctor’s office. from watching tv, laurel expected to meet one male and one female police person, and this proved to be the case. johnson was a man and morris was a woman. they both wore plain clothes. they introduced themselves as “officers”, not detectives. they listened without interruption as laurel told of her encounter with the creepy guy at the playground. morris, the woman, listened with folded hands. johnson, the man, used a pen on a notepad but laurel thought he was just doodling. laurel saw right away that they were a typical male-female duo - the man “humoring” the woman but obviously contemptuous. johnson had a hard time concealing his contempt for laurel’s story, literally rolling his eyes a couple of times. finally, acting as if it were having a hard time not spitting out what he said, he asked, “so this person never spoke to you, or said anything to anybody that you heard of or know of, and you did not get a good look at his face?” “no, but i felt something. he frightened me.” “did anybody else at the playground notice anything, or say anything about him?” “not that i noticed.” “and you did not follow him, to see where he was going?” “no. that - that did not occur to me. i was just so relieved that he was gone.” “and so far as you know, you never saw him before.” “i am positive i never saw him before.” “do you think he could be a relative of, or staying with anybody that you know?” johnson continued to doodle on his notepad. “no.” laurel hesitated. “that did not occur to me.” “i see. well, ms lee, i am sorry but i really don’t see what we can do for you, unless you can come up with something more for us to work with.” morris, the woman spoke up. “we realize this must be very distressing for you, and we wish we could be more helpful. please don’t hesitate to call us if you have anything else to share with us. you called us from your home phone, can you give us your cell phone number?” or a work phone?” “yes, of course. i will give you my cell phone.” “would you rather we called on the cell phone? you would? good. and i will give you my private cell number.” “thank you.” laurel did not know if this was standard procedure or if morris was showing her some special consideration, johnson got up abruptly and left the room. “i will walk you to the door,” morris told laurel. when they reached the door, morris looked around, and in a low voice told laurel, “i will call you tonight.” surprised, laurel just nodded a thank you. well, that was something, she thought. not much, but something. * true to her word, morris called that night and arranged to meet laurel at the playground the next afternoon. when abel asked laurel who had called, she told him, not wishing to keep anything from him. abel expressed surprised at this development, but did not pursue the subject, and the evening passed without either of them mentioning it again. the next day morris showed up as promised. as they had agreed, laurel introduced morris to a couple of the other moms who were there as “a friend” but morris’s identity as a policeperson was not revealed. the creepy guy did not show up. morris did not seem surprised, and told laurel that she would come back for an another afternoon the next time she was free, which was in three days but for laurel to call her if the creepy guy showed up again. laurel and morris got to know each other in the next couple of weeks as morris came to the playground whenever she was able. morris became “debbie’. however, as the weeks went by, the creepy guy did not show up. laurel began to think she would never see him again. laurel and debbie had become such good friends that laurel took for granted that they would continue to see each other even if the creepy guy never surfaced or was heard of again. * eight months went by. laurel and debbie grew closer together. laurel told abel that she wanted a divorce, and he readily agreed. he also agreed that laurel could have sole custody of allie. laurel and allie moved in with debbie, and when the divorce was finalized laurel and debbie got married. abel came to the wedding. some of his friends also attended, including a few laurel did not think she had ever been introduced to before. but she thought one of them looked familiar.