California, 1984

"You don't understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable. I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil..." — The Night Stalker, before sentencing at his trial

The newspapers said he targeted yellow houses

so I hated our apartment building—

its peach stucco exterior, shunned.

Then it was written he preyed

upon the elderly, deeming

my nine-year old body useless.

Too many of his victims were Asian

so I cursed my Mexican grandfather.

That summer, I learned, finally,

what a pentagram looked like,

and what it meant—

an emblem of fear stitched

upon the hearts of a god-fearing

America who could not comprehend

how a soulless man could

climb into our homes

to rape our wives and slit our throats.

And I, defiant as a swatted bee,

propped my bedroom window

open with a book and said his name

in the dark, the way a lonesome pig

might summon the butcher:

Richard. Richard.

Each morning, I awoke, soaked

in the piss of envy

as a new victim's name

staggered through our city

like a bloodied lamb.

Then the photograph: his face

on the television screen,

so sharp and empty

it seemed drawn on.

When he was captured,

he smiled for the cameras

and stuck out his tongue.

All the women in the

neighborhood became less

important, all the guns

were emptied, then put away;

and the stranger's hands

that finally found my body that year

were softer than I had hoped,

as if he were doing it more out of

pity than of want, a monster

suddenly aware of the harmless

child standing before him,

a child who had discovered

every way to say Please

without saying it