I want to begin by stating that the penultimate dancing boy blind item, "The Dancing Boys of Hollywood, Part I" was the work of an impostor - someone clearly skilled in apeing my style, clearly unfamiliar with the real life experience of the subject concerned, and clearly aware of what I am actually working on.
There is a backstory here, I believe: for years, beginning as a teen, I had the feeling of being shadowed. I didn't like to walk alone? I didn't like to drive alone. But, time after time, I'd circle back around the block, and only find what I had passed. I'd turn off main roads, and no one would follow. Everyone, including my shrink, dismissed it as a phantasm.
But once, at eighteen, while leaving a summer job early and off schedule - I had just quit in anger - I walked out of the local mall into the harsh afternoon light. Employee parking was far removed. I stopped to light a cigarette, on the way, and felt the familiar emotion: someone was watching me.
This time, when I looked around, there really was someone. He was behind the wheel of a black, late model BMW 7 series, maybe 50 feet away. He had blond hair, like me, and wore glasses, as I did. If I had to guess he was the same age, give or take a year. When he saw me looking at him, he started the car, and drove off.
I thought only of this reoccurring dream, that started with the feeling of being followed: that I was not alone in that womb.
Coming on Monday: the *real* Dancing Boys of Hollywood.
