You know that feeling like someone is watching you-well- because someone is. She had experienced that feeling all day while working at the library. Then, she eyed him, first at the anime collection in juvenile fiction, then from behind the lighthouse in the children’s section, next staring lazily at her from behind a pc in computer arts. The whole ordeal would have been off putting if it wasn’t so funny. He was in his late 30’s to early 40’s. She was a divorced old maid with greying hair and grandchildren. It’s not that the attention wasn’t flattering, but it wasn’t nor was it welcomed. Mom and dad may have been divorced, but they had loved each other at fifteen years old and they loved each other at almost seventy years old. They just couldn’t stand one another.

Mom came home for a late lunch, because she was working that evening. She regaled the story of her admirer to Granny and me until we were all in hysterics. As she went out the door to return to work, Granny commented, “You be careful tonight.”

I later understood the meaning of this warning when Granny explained to me where the man lived. There was a tall, old brick building behind the library that was built to house low income males mainly veterans and the disabled. Now, the housing unit had become a den of thieves filled with ex cons and drunks. “Great,” I thought, “and Mom’s been targeted by one of them.”

That evening at quitting time, Mom answered a call at the library. “I’ve got a little something special planned for us tonight,” he promised and hung up. She turned her computer off, grabbed the buck knife she carried, opened it thinking- I have a little something special for you, too. Turning the lights off, she quickly locked the door and spun around toward her car. A squirrel hurried into the bushes. Damn squirrel! We nearly had vermin for dinner. She refocused and made it into the car okay checking the backseats and locking the doors along the way. Up to her right, she noticed a bright light coming out of a window of the all male building.

Oh, no she thought. Mom couldn’t let him see her satisfy her curiosity of her something special. So, she backed up with her back facing the well lit room. While putting the car into drive, she glanced up with her eyes only to find him in only leopard skin briefest of briefs striking his best Tarzan pose.

Later, when she and I were hooting and hollering over it, she added, “That wasn’t the worst part. He was dripping in some kind of oil, and his biceps weren’t the only things bulging.”