He watched the teenagers spill out onto Arguello Boulevard, leaving the three-story art deco building with its crisscrossed brick patterns shimmering on the edges of his vision.
He stood at a safe distance, across the street.
He watched the ninth-graders laughing, talking, smiling. As if the world was a sweet, wonderful place, full of fun and friends. They would learn.
And then he saw her.
Robyn. He knew her name. Blond hair feather-cut. Bare legs. Black platform shoes. Black pleated skirt, above the knee. White blouse under a dark blue sweater. White, white skin. Blue eyes. He could imagine.
Yes, he could imagine.
Even though his attraction to her wasn’t something he initially wanted. It complicated things.
She was like that other one, years ago. Margaret. In Golden Gate Park that night. He tensed up at the memory.
Robyn would be easier.
In his dark warehouseman’s jacket, with its leather shoulders, he wore his black watch cap pulled down tight on his head. His kinky black hair stuck out like wire, complemented by a bushy Fu Manchu mustache and sideburns. The snug cap kept his glasses firmly in place. He wouldn’t lose his glasses again. He pulled both hands from the pockets of his jacket, touched the heavy black frames tucked under the cap, made sure they were secure. They were. It was something he did many times a day. Ever since that night, so long ago now, when his glasses had been knocked off and broken during the struggle with that woman. Margaret.
The price he had paid. A decade in Valley Oaks, talking, talking, talking with the doctors, finally convincing them he was cured. His father thought he could lock him away, silence him. But he couldn’t. Not forever. His father would pay once again. For what he did to his mother.
His dear mother.
He watched them. He watched the ninth-graders leaving. He watched her. Her. A mixture of emotions swirled through him. She was someone he had to deal with. But he couldn’t deny how she made him feel.
“See you, Robyn!” her friend shouted. The black girl. He didn’t approve of that. There were plenty of white girls she could be friends with.
Robyn placed her fists on her hips and made a little dance motion and a funny face.
“Not if I see you first!”
Robyn couldn’t hurt him. Not like the one who broke his glasses.
He watched Robyn walking toward Golden Gate Park, a few blocks from here, on her way home, putting one shapely leg in front of the other, her pleated skirt swinging.
He wondered if she would stop at the carousel in the park today. She liked to sit on the bench and watch the merry-go-round.
That would be the place to deal with her.
Trembling with excitement, he checked his glasses again. Safe. Looking side to side, he crossed Arguello Boulevard.
He would follow her. Just for a little while.