... which is where this page comes in. Here we have a delightful, yet true, tale of one such fellow. The date was Saturday, July 22, 2000.

PLEASE NOTE DISCLAIMER AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS REPORT!

Keith Henson. Seen here innocently sipping iced tea.

Keith Henson must be contagious: I somehow caught one of his Private Investigator / clam stalker viruses. And from what little I could glimpse of him, a more disreputable, decrepit looking louse one would be hard pressed to find in even the most seedy of seaport towns. The guy was swarthy, sweaty, chubby, and greasy-looking. But then I could be wrong: he was like a shy, blushing maiden on the first night of her honeymoon--- coquettish, demur, and crimson behind his hands and camera. He seemed unwilling to have his photograph taken, which is odd since he was so willing to take mine. Tit for tat: the Law of Goose and Gander. As Hillel said, "That which you find distasteful, do not unto others."

(Parenthetical element about chronology: the non-picket picket Knowledge Reports hit a.r.s. at around 11:54AM. The OSA must have downloaded them, consulted the proper Issue, "regged" twenty dollars for a cheep PI, called him up, and sent him to Barb Warr’s tower with a picture / plate number of my pickup--- all within 5 or 6 hours. Pretty fast, I suppose. I blush when I think that they believe I was worth the twenty bucks.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. So at 5:44PM I thought I would finally go home. Two or three weeks ago I moved into a condo a few miles away from Barb’s place, but since I’m a lazy bastard I drove there instead of walked. (The parking spot right outside the door was available so I grabbed it.) The way back to my condo is around the block, down three blocks (to First Street), then hang a right, go down a few more blocks, then left, then down a bit more until suddenly I’m home. I figured my car had just enough gasoline to make it--- the red "EMPTY" warning light was fading on and off when I stopped at red lights as the ounce or two of remaining fuel sloshed back and forth.

So I walked up to my car at Barb’s place at 5:44PM and looked around to see if anyone was watching the building (which is now a habit of mine), and hark! What do I see?! Mister Swarthy in a pale tan Dodge Challenger mini van with California plates 4KOY604 sitting up the street. I assumed he had the engine running and the air cooling system running, otherwise he would have been a dead swarthy sweaty chubby PI / clam.

Naturally I did the usual counter-surveillance maneuvers to see if he really was following me. I proceeded on my way to my new condo and right on cue he let slip his transmission and off we went like a two-car parade. Around the block, and down to First street just like I would when going to my condo--- until I did the old, hackneyed "fake him out at the red light trick." I timed my car’s approach to a stale green light, willing it to turn red. Just as I got to it, it went amber and just as I was a few inches passed the limit line it turned red. I pretended to be stopping, and then GUNNED THE ENGINE and flew across the intersection and "pushed the legal envelope" as it were: my front tires crossed the line when the light was amber, but the hind tires crossed the line when the light was red. It was legal, but just barely.

I looked behind me and my PI / clam caudal appendage (look it up) GUNNED HIS ENGINE and ran through the red light, hot on my tail. He clearly did not wish to lose me: the intent to stalk was thus established. Or he just liked running red lights--- what I did was legal (barely) but what he did was grossly illegal and dangerous.

The stalker had to pull up behind me because traffic got too thick. Unfortunately, my WWW.XENU.NET sticker blocked his face, but it would probably have not shown up well in the image anyhow. This picture was taken via holding my camera up to my rear-view mirror and guessing at the angle of incident--- too sharp and all I would phtograph is the camera; too narrow, and I would have photographed the ceiling of my car. I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Which I do. :-) As it is, you can see the reflection of my fingers on the bottom left.

My first thought was to lead this guy across the boarder into Mexico and head towards the Badlands and into Mexico’s version of Hell (a place I love and which I find very pleasant and comfortable). But I only had a tiny sip of gasoline (petrol) in my car so I had to fill up the tank first. I drove right past the correct turn to my condo and made a wild left turn (cutting through two lanes) into a gasoline station. My tail was caught a wee bit off guard, and could not make the sharp turn with me.

Smirk. It was my hope that he would sit and wait for me up ahead.

I got a full tank of gasoline, hoping that he would not take the chance to pull over and fill his tank--- if he had, I might have been able to speed away and leave him at the fill pump. I figured that he must have burned up a lot of fuel running the air conditioning in his mini van while staking out my pickup, and so I assumed that I could just out-drive him into the ground. If he was happy and willing to drive into the Badlands after me, well, I’m sure the buzzards who would pluck out his eyeballs in the desert would be most appreciative. (I always carry spare water, oil, coolant, shovel, plywood, and tire chains just in case I find myself in the desert.) This mini van would never be able to go where my pickup can go.

So all I had to do was head South on Interstate Five--- but with the street I was on, I had already passed the south-bound ramp, and the street is "one way." The only options I had was to circle around and risk losing the PI (I discarded that option), or head Northbound (the option I picked) and hope he would pull in behind me.

Which is exactly what he did. I would have MUCH rather gone to Mexico and have some chili rellenos served to me by some blushing, giggling Mexican girl, but North it had to be, so off we went.

I drove slow enough so that the mini van could keep up. It hung well back and changed lanes now and then to try and make it look like he wasn’t following me, but hell--- I spotted him ten seconds after I stepped out the door of Barb's building! (Are they making only stupid Private Investigators these days, or was this a Scientology OSA goon?) The traffic was spread out rather well so he could keep an eye on me and make any off ramps I might choose to make: if he were too close, it would have been too obvious.

So I waited and plotted my revenge. I figured that around San Onofre the traffic would bunch up because of the Boarder patrol check point, so my tail would have no choice but to pull in tight behind me to keep track of me--- which is exactly what he did. Once we hit the waiting line at the check point (about three miles of cars) he was then five feet behind me. Our average speed was perhaps 3 miles per hour, with stop-and-go movement. Problem is, I felt the urge to get behind him and follow HIM for a while just for the fun of it. "A MiG on you ‘high six’ is better than no MiG at all," as the fighter pilots say.

I saw my chance and made my pickup -LEAP- sideways into the left-hand lane where only a podiatrist using a shoehorn could have found room, and as the lane I used to be in staggered ahead of me, the guy had to drive past me. He sure as hell was trying not to! He was hanging back and moving so slowly that people were honking at him to get moving. So he HAD to drive past me.

His sudden acceleration caught the person behind him off guard, so there was suddenly a space behind him for me to -LEAP- back into his lane--- and there I was, five feet off his rear bumper. Prestidigitation.

Instead of the usual fighter pilot "kill position" of being "high six" (i.e., above and behind the target), I managed to do some fancy James Rockford / Batman turns and twists and got on his "low six," which I think was good enough. One cannot see it in the image, but the PI in the image (at the moment I snapped this picture) was spinning his head 360 degrees and looking desperate. Sort of like a chicken, having its head lobbed off, trying to escape the disaster after the fact. Bummer, dude. As for the license plate number, I was going to blot it out but after thinking about it I decided to leave it as it is--- if this person was NOT stalking me, then I just made an honest mistake. I am allowed to make mistakes, and I am not posting the image out of malace: I'm posting it for education. If the guy is "innocent," then he has my humble, but sincear, apology.

Ever see a chicken with its head recently removed? That panic is NOTHING compared to the way the flood of angst, dismay, and bewildered hysteria seemed to come pouring over my PI / clam friend. I raised my camera with my right hand, steadied the steering wheel with my knees, and waved to him with my left hand as I took pictures of his van and license plate. He was not pleased.

To make himself feel less unhappy, he managed to slip into the lane on the right, trying to once again get behind me. (Recall this is all going on at the pace of a crawl--- literally!) Cars would lurch forward; gaps would appear; a mad dash would be made for strategic repositioning; the cars would clump together and then cease all motion; pause; repeat.

Since I had acquired the photographs, I was pretty much willing to end the game. I got into the far left lane, with him struggling to keep behind me. Then in a dastardly, sinister move, I pulled off the freeway and PARKED in the emergency "break down" lane. His angst seemed to double. No, I mean triple. My Machiavellian craftiness meant he would either have to pull off the freeway behind me, which meant having a wee chat with me and suffer a stunning photo shoot the likes of which only Vogue Magazine could equal, or drive past me just ten feet away at a turtle’s pace, and thus have his every orifice photographed as he was helplessly caught in a snarl of traffic.

Come to me, pink boy! Closer and closer, with no where to go but into my photonic embrace. There was a car to his left and behind him, so he could not jump into the left lane. It was either move forward and past my camera lense, or pull over and chat with me. Note my shadow--- camera at the ready, with the sun falling full on his face. A perfect photo op! Though he seemed camera shy for some reason. He was very happy to take my photograph while in hiding himself, but was strangly unwilling to be himself photographed. Why is that? Also note the heavy traffic: three miles of the stuff! The poor bastard didn't stand a chance of being undetected.

He chose the latter course. I stood on the side of the freeway, camera poised, as he inched forward. "Clooooooosssseeerrrrrr" I muttered with a cackle. "Come cloooooosserrrrr my dear. A wee more KAHlowwwwwwwssserrrr, hee hee hee!" There he was in all his unglory, driver’s side well lit by the setting sun falling full on his face. In desperation he grabbed his camera and held it to his face and took photographs of me taking photographs of him taking photographs of me taking photographs of him taking photographs of me. (I.e., Standard Scientology Camera Tech.)

Standard Scientology Camera Tech(tm)(r)(c). This guy is driving three or four miles per hour in heavy traffic without looking in front of him--- his van was moving when this picture was taken. Left hand steering, right hand holding the camera, one eye shut, and the other eye gazing balefully through his camera at me. Maybe the stitching on his basebal cap reads "TALON" but then again, meybe it does not--- too far away for me to read it. Bummer. I wonder what his instructors at Private Investigator School told him about situations like this.

Mission accomplished, I waited a few minutes for traffic to stumble on and carry him far, far down the road, and then I pulled my car back into the herd. The next off-ramp I took, and headed back to San Diego and my condo. I was -NOT- followed: my tail, humiliated beyond all endurance, seemed to have just keep on heading North. For all I know, he’s in Canada by now.

Funny thing: On my way back to San Diego, I stopped at a Chinese food restaurant and got some egg rolls. They also gave to me a "fortune cookie." I broke open the fortune cookie, and pulled out the slip of paper and read my fortune: "YOU ARE AN ADVENTURER" it told me in bold, pink letters.

Fortune cookie's fortune, plus 'lucky numbers.'

So now I wonder what the hell all this was supposed to accomplish. WTF follow me?! It makes utterly no sense! I do not have bad breath. I bathe regularly. I’m kind to animals and children. I fornicate with practiced perfection. I feed wild birds and leave fresh water out for them. Even the street people like and respect me. Who would want to stalk me?

DISCLAIMER: Above are my opinions only: I could be radically, fundamentally incorrect regarding my opinion that the person described above is a Private Investigator, or a Scientologist, or was even actually following me. Maybe it was all a coincidence. Perhaps he was following the car in front of me.

Perhaps he was just this guy on the road who liked my face and took photographs of it. I have no way of knowing.