The clock neared eleven, and Mordy and Elaine were among the
handful of customers remaining at the small coffee shop. An employee went about
the empty tables flipping chairs up while another churned his mop in a bucket
of murky water in the first’s wake.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Elaine said.
Incredulous, Mordy asked, “What do you mean you’ve never heard of the Shidduch Stalker?”
“Is this one of those dating blog things? I don’t read
those,” she rolled her eyes. “They’re full of such shtus. And you should see the comments,” her chin jutted forward as
she extended her neck and her mouth gaped slightly. “Talk about loshon hara!”
She reeled her head in and shook it back and forth in disapproval.
Mordy dismissed her remarks with a waggle of his hand. “No,
this is real. My friend’s chevrusa, who knew the guy it happened to, told him
all about it.”
Elaine raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Uhuh, sure. So it’s one
of those stories.”
Mordy rested his forearm on the table and leaned forward. “What’s
that supposed to mean? ‘One of those
stories’?” he injected an extra measure of sarcasm into his voice to surpass
Elaine’s.
“You know, one of the made up stories guys tell girls on
dates to impress them.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Mordy recoiled, presented both palms outward.
“Are you accusing me,” he flicked both thumbs back toward himself, “Of trying
to impress you?” Elaine giggled. “Chas
V’Shalom! I’d never be so gaiva-dig.”
“Mmhmm,” she murmured and rolled her eyes again.
“Anyway, so the story goes that about 50 years ago, there
was a boy from the city who heard about this amazing girl, really a ten out of
ten, gorgeous, with wealthy parents who were willing to support them forever,
with yichus all the way back to Moshe Rabbeinu-”
Elained pointed a finger at him, “Now I know you’re lying.
No one’s ever been able to trace their yichus back to Moshe Rabbeinu,” she
retorted disparagingly.
“B’li neder, this is the absolute emes,” he pressed both
hands to his chest. “No sheker here!”
Elaine sighed playfully. “I’ll be the judge of that.” She
spun her hand in a little vertical circle, “Nu, go on.”
“So yeah, this boy heard about this amazing, fantastic,
beautiful girl. The absolute best of the best. And seeing how he was the top
bochur at his yeshiva, he knew he’d have the best shot at marrying her. He knew
anyways it was meant to be because he had just gotten a bracha from the Rosh
Yeshiva for hatzlacha in shidduchim that very day.”
“This sounds too good to be true,” Elaine crossed her arms.
Mordy fixed a disapproving look at his date. “Weren’t you
the one who just told me to ‘go on’?” She made a quick zipper motion across her
lips with her index finger and thumb held together. “Thank you,” he nodded in
mock appreciation.
“So, he went through all the right channels, their parents
met and arranged everything, and it looked like everything was set all the way
to the chuppah, even before their first date.” He flung his index finger up,
hunched over and looked back and forth. “Then it happened…”
Elaine craned her head to the side, “Then what happened?”
Mordy straightened up in his seat and thumped the tabletop
lightly with his hand. “If you’d let me finish and quit interrupting, maybe I could tell you,” he flashed a
wry grin.
“Sorry!” she retracted her neck inward like a turtle, lifted her shoulders
land offered an appeasing smile.
“Please continue.”
He took a moment to clear his throat and sip gingerly from
the straw in his drink. “The shadchan had it all worked out. Everyone knew this
was it, and they all eagerly awaited
the happy couple’s return from their first, and most likely, only date with
news of their engagement. Alas, it was not meant to be…”
Elaine gasped.
“On the way home from their date, they were walking down the
sidewalk, so engrossed in their conversation, their stares glued to each
other’s face, that they didn’t notice the late night construction crew closing
up shop .”
Elaine trembled, chewing at the tips of her perfectly manicured
fingernails.
“As they happily strolled along, oblivious to their
surroundings, the boy smacked right into a construction worker! He quickly
turned to check on his date, and she was gone!”
“Gone?” Elaine squeaked with fright.
“Gone,” Mordy snapped his fingers. “Like that.” Elaine’s
breathing became rapid. “While her beloved almost-chosson had smashed into the
burly worker, she stepped right into an open manhole!”
“That’s horrible!” Elaine squealed, tears welling in her
eyes. “Did they rescue her?”
“Of course that was the first thing on his mind. The boy
frantically told the construction guys what happened and they sent two men down
there wearing those helmets with flashlights on the front to search for her.
After an hour, they came back and said they saw no sign of anyone in the
sewers. They thought she might have hit her head and gotten washed away, so
they called up their buddies at the processing plant to check.”
“I can’t imagine how she must have felt, all that icky stuff
in her hair…” Elaine absentmindedly stroked at a lock next to her ear.
“Ahem,” Mordy furrowed his forehead at her.
“Oh, sorry!” She blinked a few times “So what happened in
the end?” Dread crept back into her voice.
“They never found her,” he paused to let that sink in. “It
was like she had vanished into thin air, like she had never existed in the
first place.”
Elaine dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue she
extracted from her purse. “That poor boy!” She sniffed “Whatever happened to
him?”
“He was totally heartbroken. Utterly miserable. Completely
torn up inside,” Mordy tilted his head to the side. “You gotta understand, this
was his bashert we’re talking about. His one chance at true love had gone down
the drain…” Mordy stopped midsentence, narrowed his eyes in confusion, then
refocused his gaze, “...literally,” he smiled at his unintended clever turn of
phrase.
Elaine snuffled into her tissue. “What’d he do with his
life?”
“Some say he gave up on getting married and dedicated his
life to becoming a Kabbalist somewhere in Israel,” Mordy glanced upward for a
moment. “Others say he was driven mad because of his grief,” he looked into
Elaine’s eyes which were widened with fear. “And now he roams the streets late
at night, plodding along in a crazed stupor, still looking for his lost love.
He stalks young couples who are out on shidduch dates… and they say if someone
happens to bump into him they’ll never been seen again!”
Suddenly, every light in the room shut off, engulfing them
in blackness. Elaine screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Sorry!” A voice called out in the darkness. The lights clicked
back on, and a lone employee stood by the switch on the wall by the exit. “I
thought all the customers had gone home already.”
“It’s okay, we were just about to leave,” Mordy glanced over
at Elaine, who was hyperventilating and clawing at the collar of her shirt as
though it were trying to strangle her. “Shall we?” He offered. Elaine nodded
jerkily and began to rise.
A cool autumn breeze blew past as the door closed behind them. Elaine shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her torso to ward
off the chill.
The remaining employee’s keys jingled in the door lock. “Goodnight,
stay safe!” He waved to them and disappeared around the corner. Mordy and
Elaine walked onward together in silence for a few minutes.
“So,” Elaine began furtively. “That whole Curse of the
Shidduch Stalker isn’t really real, right?”
“What do you mean?” He asked in neutral tone.
“It’s just a
story. It never happened,” her voice trembled.
“You can think that if you want to, but I’m pretty sure it’s
true. I trust my friend’s chevrusa, he’s a pretty honest guy,” he replied,
completely indifferent to Elaine’s mounting distress.
“Uhuh…” she nodded, rattled by her date’s total lack of
reassurance.
A sudden crash from a nearby alley made Elaine jump. They
came to a stop by a group of fading, white construction barriers. The blinking
orange lights had burnt out on two of them.
Mordy glanced at the alley and smirked. “Oh, that’s probably
some homeless cat knocking over a trashcan. It just wants some dinner,” he
declared.
“I want to get back to my apartment as soon as possible.
Where everything is safe,” she pursed her lips and hugged herself.
From the darkness of the alleyway a gravelly voice shouted, “Where
is she?!”
“What was that?” Mordy whipped his head around to locate the
source of the indignant question.
“Where is she?!”
the mysterious voice repeated.
“Mordy, you’re going to get us killed! That’s probably the
Shidduch Stalker!” Elaine’s face was a mixture of anger and terror. “Why’d you
have to tell me that stupid story!?” She demanded, almost hysterical.
A hunched over form appeared out of the gloom. It shuffled
along, holding its hands outward, crooked fingers splayed as though grasping
for something.
Elaine’s breath caught in her throat, stifling the scream
that had been building up.
The figure angled its head to focus on them. “Do you know where she is? Where did she
go?”
“Look mister, this isn’t funny. We don’t have any change to
spare. Leave us alone,” Mordy responded, doing his best to sound brave.
The figure hobbled into a circle of light cast by a lamppost,
revealing an old man. His remaining grey hair was frazzled, poking out in all
directions. An unkempt beard coated his slackened jaw. The scraggly facial hair Contained bits of food
and a streak of foamy saliva dripped down at the corner of his mouth. His eyes appeared
dazed, and his left eye was yellowish, cloudy and unfocused. An old, well-worn
suit practically hung off his gaunt frame, and a tattered, dusty yarmulke was
perched on his wrinkled, partially bald head.
“You know where
she is!” The old man pointed a kinked index finger with a lengthy, uncut
fingernail at
Mordy. “Tell me. Where did she go?”
Mordy began to tremble and fought himself to prevent Elaine
from noticing his panic. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.
Have a good night, we’re going,” a twinge of stutter broke its way into his
words.
“No, no,” the elderly man shook his head. “ You know. Tell
me,“ he took several steps toward them, stopping only a foot away. “Where. Is.
She?” He enunciated each word with what seemed like malice.
Elaine started backing away from Mordy, who stood his ground
shakily. She bumped into the group of temporary barriers set up around an open
manhole.
“I-I told you. I have n-no idea who you’re talking about.
P-please!” Mordy held his hands up in appeal.
“You know! Tell me!” The old man snarled and lunged at
Mordy. Elaine shrieked and took off running, knocking over one of the white
construction barriers to the pavement with a clatter.
Before Mordy knew it, his shirt was ripped, his glasses flung
from his face, his cheek was bleeding, and he found himself thrown onto the
street, sitting down while leaning back and supported by his elbows. The old
man crouched over him, struggling to get to his feet in preparation to strike
again. The orange blinking light from a maintenance barrier flashed eerily in
the elderly man’s eyes like flames.
Mordy quickly backpedalled on his palms while kicking his
feet in front of him, trying to put some distance between himself and his
attacker. His hand slipped in a puddle and he fell backward, knocking his head
hard against a fire hydrant.
Blackness swallowed his vision and he knew no more.
~~~
Mordy awoke in a hospital bed several hours later. A crew of
city workers returned from their routine coffee break and discovered him unconscious
in a puddle, blood smeared down his face and onto his shirt. The foreman called
emergency services, and they were able to stop the bleeding and get him to the
hospital where a doctor bandaged his cheek and stitched up the gash on the back
of his scalp. Despite a clear scan, his doctor decided to keep him overnight
for observation, just in case any unexpected effects from his head injury
became problematic.
Judah, Mordy’s friend from yeshiva dropped by to visit him
after morning seder.
“So you told her the Shidduch Stalker story, huh?” Judah
tossed the months-old Sports Illustrated magazine onto the bedside nightstand.
“I didn’t see any harm in it,” Mordy fluffed the covers on
his bed. “I was hoping it’d impress her, you know,” he added, utterly despondent.
Judah stretched out his legs and crossed his feet at the
ankles. “And she hasn’t called or texted back since last night?”
Mordy checked his phone for the umpteenth time. “Nope. I’ve
left her three voicemails and about a dozen text messages. The Shadchan just
texted me and said that she wasn’t interested in a second date and I should
move on.”
Judah nodded sympathetically and drew in a relaxing breath.
“No one is going to go out with me after this story gets
out,” Mordy pouted. “Even if they don’t believe the whole Shidduch Stalker
thing, they’re gonna say I’m not safe to be around or something.”
Judah raised his eyebrows and scrunched his mouth to one
side in thought. After a moment he looked over at Mordy out of the corner of
his eyes, “Unless someone proved the Shidduch Stalker was real.”
Mordy practically leapt from his bed, “What in the world are
you talking about? Why would I want to meet up with that murderous geezer
again?!”
“Who said you would? I think it might even be fun.”
The heart monitor started beeping faster as Mordy grew more
upset, “Are you nuts?!”
Judah held out a hand to placate his friend. “Look, you only
got into trouble because I told you the story in the first place. I didn’t
think it was true at the time. My chevrusa Shimmy is such a jokester anyways,
so I was always suspicious about his cousin who mysteriously ‘disappeared’
after a date.”
Mordy threw his hands up in frustration, “Now you tell me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he patted the railing on Mordy’s
bed. “I’ve got a date tonight anyway. I’ll figure this out.”
“Just watch your back,” Mordy leaned back into his pillow
and stared at the ceiling. “And don’t blame me if she turns you down for a
second date.”
~~~
Judah stole a peek at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven
and everything was on schedule. He watched another couple clean up their table
and slip out the front door. His date was finishing a story about her
neighbor’s cat getting stuck in a tree and how it was rescued by a fireman.
“You know, you only think those kinds of things happen in
movies, and yet it really happened to your neighbor across the street,” he
observed Avigayil as she finished up her coffee.
“It’s funny, right? Funny as in odd,” she clarified with a
smile.
Judah had been planning how he was going to introduce the
story of the Shidduch Stalker, but Avigayil started speaking again before he
could open his mouth.
“So, you heard about what happened last night?” She lowered
her voice and looked around the room as though conveying a secret, “With that
guy and girl who got attacked during their date?”
Judah raised an eyebrow and smiled inwardly. “You mean the
so-called ‘Shidduch Stalker?’” He mimed quotations in the air.
“Turns out the best friend of the girl in the story is a
big-time shidduch blogger, and she told her all about it. The post said the guy
was a total coward and she had to run for her life because he more scared than
she was.”
Judah chewed his lower lip, biting back a defense of Mordy and
chose to feign ignorance instead. “You don’t really think they got attacked
by the man from that story, do you?”
“Hey,” she raised both hands in a shrug, “I only know what I
read. It seemed pretty authentic to me.”
“Tsshh,” Judah
enunciated in disbelief. “Not
everything on the internet, let alone shidduchim blogs, is even remotely true.”
Judah turned as someone gently tapped him on the shoulder.
“I hate to interrupt your date, but we’re closing up for the
night,” an employee informed them with a polite smile.
“Thanks for the notice,” Judah replied. “Ready to go home?”
Avigayil nodded and started gathering her trash together for disposal.
They left the café alongside the remaining employee and
started walking toward the nearby lot where Judah had parked the car. He had
deliberately chosen a lot that was in the exact path Mordy and his date had traveled
the night before when the so-called “Shidduch Stalker” appeared and confronted
them.
Avigayil talked on about another blog she read regularly,
while Judah listened and offered an occasional verbal acknowledgement to prove
he was following her narrative. His main attention was focused on scanning the
darkened alleys as they passed by for unusual signs of movement or anything
else out of the ordinary. Up ahead, he noticed a section of the street that had
its upper layer of asphalt torn up and was surrounded by beaten up white
barriers with blinking orange lights. A steamroller and an asphalt distributor
truck were parked off to the side, unoccupied for the time being.
“-then my cousin sent me this other blog I hadn’t heard of
before, but this one was written by a guy, and…” she trailed off and looked over her
shoulder. “Did you see that?”
Judah felt a tension mounting in his gut, “See what?”
“Something just scampered from behind the steamroller into
the alley over there,” she indicated with a nod.
Judah took a few steps closer and peered down the dark,
narrow passageway. “I don’t see anything.”
Avigayil yelped as something metallic clanged behind her.
Judah spun on his heel toward his date. An unkempt, elderly man wearing a
well-worn suit stepped out from behind the asphalt truck, holding a trashcan
lid and a soup ladle. He banged the ladle on the metal cover and flashed a
malevolent smile, showing off his missing or otherwise yellowed and crooked
teeth.
“Where is she?” He asked through clenched teeth.
Judah moved in front of Avigayil, who gratefully stood
behind him and peered over his shoulder. “Where is who? What do you want?”
The old man fixed his one clouded eye on Judah and gestured
with the ladle, “You know where she is, so tell me.”
Judah couldn’t believe this was actually happening, and he
started reaching for his cell phone to call the cops. “Let’s just take it easy
now, no need to, uh, whack anyone with that thing.” As soon as the phone
cleared his front pocket, the old man lashed out and smacked him on the wrist
with the ladle. His phone spun off into the recessed area where the asphalt had
been removed. Its screen glowed white from the dark crevice.
“Do you have your
phone one you?” Judah asked Avigayil, keeping his eyes facing forward in case the
elderly assailant made another move to strike.
Avigayil patted the pockets on her skirt. “Darn, I left it
back in my apartment,” she sounded disappointed. “If I could only have videoed
this for one of those blogs!”
“I think we need to worry a little bit more about making
sure the story the bloggers write isn’t about a dead couple than documenting
this guy to confirm he’s real,” Judah said, an edge of annoyance creeping into
his voice.
“Where iiiiiiis she?!” The old man practically sang, waving
the ladle back and forth in the air. “Tell me!” He poked Judah in the chest
with the serving implement then backed away tentatively.
Judah took a deep breath, trying to maintain some semblance
of calm. “Avigayil, I think we’re going to need to bolt in a minute before this
gets any more violent. I’ll count to three and you take off running toward the
busy intersection to flag down a cop or something.”
“And just what are you going to do?”
“Distract him so you can get away,” Judah sounded confident.
“I appreciate your offer of thrilling heroics, but I’d
rather not leave you to be spooned to death.”
Judah glanced over his shoulder at her, “That’s very sweet
of you.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She smiled.
Their bonding moment was interrupted as the old man
bellowed, “Tell me where she is!!!” and started charging toward Judah, ladle
raised high above his head.
“Oh, Fer cryin’ out loud! That’s the second time this week!”
A gruff, male voice shouted, the sound echoing off the buildings to either side.
Judah and Avigayil whirled around and saw a heavyset man in a stained grey
jumpsuit wearing a hard hat with an attached flashlight come running up the
street with two similarly dressed men in tow.
“Jimmy,” the rotund man said to his younger coworker on the
right, “Go call the home and tell them he’s out again and needs to be picked
up.”
The old man froze like a wilderness creature staring into
the headlights of an oncoming car.
“Hey, Gramps, gets away from those two kids. Your ride is on
the way,” he jerked a thumb to indicate
Judah and Avigayil should get behind
him.
Judah’s eyebrows knotted in confusion. “What’s going on?” he
asked.
“Just hold your horses a minute until they gets here, then I
can tells ya all about it,” the worker waved his question away.
While they waited, the head worker introduced himself as Sal
and his co-workers as Jimmy and Tom. Judah also had time to sneak over to the hole in the street and retrieve his phone. The old man was like a statue, appearing as though he wasn't even breathing.
A few minutes later, a
dark van pulled up and two muscular men in white coats piled out along with a
short middle-aged woman wearing glasses and her hair up in a tight bun.
“I’m dreadfully sorry about all this, especially since this
is the second occurrence this week,” she gushed an apology as she trundled over
to them. Behind her, the men tussled with the elderly fellow and managed to
disarm him of his makeshift weapons.
Sal scratched the back of his neck, “Youz really need to
beef up your security, miss-”
“That’s doctor,
thank you,” she shot back curtly.
“Whatever. I can’t have this guy interrupting our work over here
every other night. The city manager is gonna dock our pay if we don’t get this
job finished.”
The doctor, who carried herself with an air of authority,
scribbled a few things on the clipboard she had previously held tucked under
her arm. “I realize your predicament, and we will do our utmost to resolve this
situation.”
“Thanks,” he hooked his thumbs into his belt and stretched his shoulders.
Judah and Avigayil watched the exchange in silence. “So, uh,
anyone care to explain why we were attacked by an old man with a ladle?”
“Oh, did he hurt you?” The doctor looked alarmed and held a
hand to her chest.
“No, just knocked my phone out of my hand,” Judah showed her
the still-functioning device.
“Thank goodness, I’d hate to have a lawsuit on our hands.”
“Sparky over there,” Sal motioned with a thumb, “keeps
breaking out of the old folks’ home three blocks that way,” he pointed past
them, “And goes roamin’ the streets at night, causin’ mischief.”
Avigayil regarded the doctor with concern. “Isn’t that
dangerous? How does he escape, anyway?”
“He, uh,” she cleared her throat into a fist. “He has a
knack for deceiving his caretaker, who gets replaced every so often since he is
simply so difficult to deal with,
into not taking his medication. He disposes of it in some convenient location
such as a nearby potted plant.”
“And he goes a little wacko whenever he ain’t on his meds,”
Sal interrupted, spinning his finger next to his temple and whistling. The
doctor shooed him away with her clipboard.
“So who’s this woman he keeps talking about?” Judah asked.
“What woman?” The doctor seemed surprised.
“He kept asking us where “she” is,” Avigayil added.
“Oh my, what a misunderstanding!” She glanced over at the
old man, who was presently being secured in a straightjacket by her two beefy
assistants. “I think he was referring to Shia,
his wealthy nephew who finances his stay with us. The man has no children and
never married, as far as we are aware. His nephew placed him in our care well
over a decade ago and rarely visits. I imagine he’s wondering aloud why his
nephew left him at our home.”
Judah nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Well, now that everything is taken care of, I bid you all a
good night,” the doctor announced with finality. She signaled her assistants and
they began moving the old man toward the open side door of the van.
“Hotcha!” he cried and slipped out of their grasp, bounding
over to Judah and Avigayil. When he reached them, he suddenly stood ramrod
straight, inclined his head toward Judah’s ear, and said in a low whisper, “I will find her, you know. Tee hee!” He cackled as one of the brawny
men clamped down on his shoulder with a meaty fist. Judah stiffened, his eyes
wide.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever
grandpa, it’s time for a ride in the nice van over there,” the assistant
grumbled. His partner joined him and grabbed the old man’s other arm with both
hands. They hauled him bodily down the street toward their vehicle.
“All right youz guys, back to work!” Sal told his team and
waddled over to the steamroller.
As the van started up with a sputter and drove away,
Avigayil looked askance at Judah. He remained stock-still with a blank look on
his face.
“You okay? What’d the creepy guy say?”
He snapped out of his reverie, blinked a few times and shook
his head. “Oh, uh, just some incoherent babble. Let’s get you back to your apartment,”
he began walking.
Avigayil sidled up beside him, practically bouncing from the
adrenaline flowing through her bloodstream. “I can’t wait to write about this
for my own blog! Just imagine, a firsthand account of the infamous Shidduch
Stalker,” she said with pride.
Judah rolled his eyes and shuddered.
