Ice: A good hit?

 

Leo: Of course, don’t you think so?

 

Ice: Man, that ball almost hit me.

 

Leo: Scared you uh?

 

Ice: You bet; you better know it did.

 

Leo: like that night back in ‘eighty-nine?’

 

Ice: What made you think of that?

 

Leo: Nothing in particular, I guess just the fact you were scared then too.

 

Ice: there’s nothing that compares to that night.

 

Leo: not even Vietnam?

 

Ice: no

 

Leo: You never told me everything about it; I just know a few details.

 

Ice: yeah, I know.

 

Leo: you told me that you’d tell me the whole story someday…

 

Ice: It came at me in a gentle way; its thread so subtle, so underlying, that I nearly missed it at first.  Someone was following me.  I’d been driving for thirty minutes or so, on my everyday route home from downtown.  Like you said, it was 1989, about this time of the year come to think of it; early November or late October, I can’t recall exactly now, but it must of been, because it was already dark.

 

Leo: you spotted the headlights behind - turning too many corners with you, wasn’t it?

 

Ice: yeah, you know how it is, you really don’t pay attention to people behind you, but on this night it became obvious to me that every time I made a turn, he did too.

 

Leo: you just assumed it was a man?

 

Ice: assumed it all the way, never thought about it being a woman.

 

Leo: but of course, as we both know – now – it wasn’t a man - even though you just referred to the person following you as a he.

 

Ice: yeah, even today after all this time I still initially at least, think that she was a man, eerie isn’t it?

 

Leo: cause you couldn’t believe a woman would do it?

 

Ice: couldn’t even imagine it my friend.

 

Leo: how far were you from home when you became aware of her?

 

Ice: that it was a woman following me, or that I was being followed?

 

Leo: just that you were being followed.

 

Ice: I was still a good 15 minutes away, but it instantly became a non-issue, for I wasn’t about to lead whoever it was behind me - to my house.

 

Leo: did you think about the cops?

 

Ice: Before I knew who it was, I thought about driving to the Police Station and parking.

 

Leo: So - whoeever was in the car - they'd go on?

 

Ice: yeah, but I didn’t like it because it didn’t solve anything. 

 

Leo: you wanted whatever was going on to be over right then, right?

 

Ice:  I wasn’t into.. any drawn out shit.

 

Leo:  Who’d you think it was?

 

Ice: I didn’t have any idea, and in fact, I wasn’t thinking at the time, that I knew.

 

Leo: then you saw her face in the headlights, right?

 

Ice: actually we drove beneath some overhead boulevard lights, and it was then that I recognized her.

 

Leo: as a woman and also – a woman that you knew?

 

Ice: Telly, yeah, we’d been with each other a few times  - a few months earlier, back in the summer.  I’d quit seeing her after we’d argued one night about something, I forget what; it wasn’t a big deal for me, and I didn’t think it was for her either.

 

Leo: the argument?

 

Ice:  no - the fact that we’d quit seeing each other - I figured she was moving on just like I was.

 

Leo: so.. before you caught her following you, when was the last time you’d seen her?

 

Ice: actually I hadn’t seen her since we broke up, but I’d talked to her on the phone about a week later.

 

Leo: after you’d broke up?

 

Ice: Yeah, she’d called me that morning at the office; she was asking what I was doing or how I was doing - I guess, I don’t really know, but in the process of all the talking - she started telling me about being out the night before at Zixons, a restaurant on the south side.  She told me that she’d had onion soup, with a ham sandwich, and some chips.  Told me she drank two Budweisers, and went home.

 

Leo: yeah

 

Ice: yeah, the exact same meal I’d had the same night at Zixons.

 

Leo: had you seen her there?

 

Ice: nope

 

Leo: creepy but not significant unless you count the fact that as far as you knew, she’d never been there before.

 

Ice: right, and I’d never mentioned it to her before.

 

Leo: did you think then – that she was stalking you?

 

Ice: not really, it wasn’t until the night in the car.

 

Leo: so, after you knew who was following you, why didn’t you pull over?

 

Ice: the look on her face, when I saw her - and recognized her – and - when she’d looked back at me.

 

Leo: yeah

 

Ice: it was like looking into the soul of insanity itself; a crazed look that both electrified and galvanized me.

 

Leo: you had the .38 in the glove box?

 

Ice: yeah, and by this time it was in my hand, and I was thinking of the best way to put her down.

 

Leo: you decided to do this so quickly…. why not drive tothe Police Station like you'd thought about doing?

 

Ice: I’d never been so scared in my life as I was after I saw her.  She was insane ..man, you had to know that this was the same woman I’d been with, drank with, danced with, went to bed with, we’d done it all.

 

Leo: and?

 

Ice: she was completely naked in the car, blood was smeared all over her - her face - her chest - her breasts had droplets of blood on them, I’ll never forget it - never.