"Can I help you, bud? You've been staring at me and following me for a while," Jamal Stephens said, and the big and tall young black man glared angrily at his latest stalker. Just another creep who became fascinated with Jamal and started following him around. This wasn't an act of cruising but straight-up stalking, the one thing which Jamal doesn't tolerate...
Where in Hell were they coming from all of a sudden? Jamal wondered, pissed off at this latest incident. The City of Ottawa was becoming stalker central, seriously. The stalker in question happened to be a skinny, pale, tight-clothes-wearing, finger-snapping creep whose eyes widened like saucers when Jamal confronted him. Got you now, Jamal thought, irate.
The two of them stood in front of Nordstrom, one of the Rideau Shopping Center's busiest stores. Folks walking by stared at the confrontation between the big and tall, dark-skinned African American man and his pale, slender opponent. They might assume they knew who was the aggressor and who was the wronged party, and they'd be dead wrong. Refusing to back down, Jamal was determined to get some answers out of the Pale Bozo, who just stared awkwardly, as though at a loss for words.
Jamal noticed the Bozo following him ever since he got off the number twelve bus which he'd been riding since Blair Station. The dude had a staring problem, to say the least. He gawked at Jamal the way a hungry man looks at fast food. When Jamal hurried into the mall, the bozo followed suit. Escalator after escalator, step by step, the dude followed Jamal.
"Um, sorry," the Bozo replied, looking clearly uncomfortable, and Jamal, seriously pissed, got in the fucker's face. The dude flinched, even though Jamal didn't touch him. The City of Ottawa, Ontario, is full of stalkers and weirdoes, and most of the time, the locals have a passive aggressive way of dealing with one another. Jamal doesn't subscribe to that doctrine. Nope, he believed in confronting a motherfucker...
"Quit following me if you know what's good for you, fucking weirdo," Jamal said to the quivering Bozo, and then he walked away. As Jamal exited the mall, a 95 double-decker OC Transpo bus heading toward Nepean, Ontario, arrived. Jamal boarded the semi-full bus and swiped his red and white bus pass against the mechanical reader while the bus driver nodded. Looking over his shoulder, Jamal was relieved that the Bozo didn't try to board the bus...
The 95 bus continued to barrel down the streets of downtown Ottawa. Jamal pulled a comic book out of his backpack and allowed himself to relax. Taking out his Alcatel cell phone, Jamal went on YouTube and looked for something to listen to. It would be a while before the bus reached Nepean. Jamal went to check out a video tribute to Megan, a tall, Amazonian MMA fighter of Australian descent whose work he admired.
Megan the MMA fighter reminded Jamal Stephens of Brigida, a young Italian-American woman whom he met in Mobile, Alabama, a long time ago. Brigida, hailing from Quincy, Massachusetts, was a newcomer to the Yellowhammer State and Jamal was quite taken with the tall, freckle-faced, dark-haired young woman. They dated for a while, but split after graduation. Brigida returned to Massachusetts, and Jamal moved to Ontario, Canada.
"Now that's more like it," Jamal said to himself, listening to epic music as Megan beat the living hell out of other female fighters in the Octagon. Jamal, who used to wrestle back in his halcyon days at the University of Alabama, had become obsessed with all things MMA and UFC in recent years. The UFC might eclipse professional boxing someday...
Putting down the comic, Jamal watched the video of Megan's highlights. He felt a stir down below as the Amazon's world-famous ass cheeks jiggled as she headed to the weigh-in before one of the many fights which she won. Dammit, if all Australian gals are shaped like Megan the MMA hottie, I might move down there, Jamal thought, smiling.
When the bus reached Baseline Station, a lot of people got on, and some got off. A couple of passengers caught Jamal's attention. A curvy, dark-skinned young African woman in a pink tank top and Yoga pants was laughing at something her white male friend said. The gentleman in question was tall, skinny, and although he was nice-looking, he sounded more than a tad bit effeminate.
"Can I help you?" said the young African woman in a haughty tone of voice upon noticing that Jamal was looking in her direction. She stood there, one hand on her hip, the other possessively gripping the waist of Mr. Effeminate. Jamal rolled his eyes, wishing that black women would stop trying to show off their white male friends and/or significant others to whatever brother happened to be nearby. It was a tired and boring game...
"Hello there," said Mr. Effeminate, and he stared at Jamal, who felt an unpleasant shiver down his spine. Jamal, a proud son of Tuskegee, Alabama's most liberal town, was by no means homophobic or intolerant, but he found men who acted and sounded like women to be...annoying as fuck. He was polite but distant when he had to deal with them in the context of work and whatnot.
"Not interested in effeminate guys or their female shopping buddies, I find both to be equally boring," Jamal replied loudly, taking off his headphones for emphasis. He looked at Miss Haughty and Mr. Effeminate and smiled as they gawked at him, as though they couldn't believe their damn ears. The sister looked pissed and started to cuss Jamal out, but her friend or whatever he was to her took her arm and shook his head.
"Whatever, let's go sit upstairs," Mr. Effeminate told Miss Haughty, and they walked away. When they went upstairs and disappeared from view, Jamal breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close one, Jamal thought. He was about to go back to watching YouTube videos when he felt someone looking at him. Looking up, Jamal's eyes met those of a most unexpected fellow...
"You handled that well," said the man, and he smiled at Jamal and nodded understandingly. Jamal looked at the stranger, who was possibly mixed-race, Black plus something else, forty-something and well-dressed. He had the look of a government worker heading home after a long day of toiling away at an office downtown. The man's voice was deep and his mannerisms were...normal. Jamal nodded in approval and returned his smile.