Private eyes, watching you!

jcp-reallyIt was one of those searing hot days.  Some like it hot and some sweat when the heat is on.  Me, I like it hot, but I still sweat.  It was a manic Monday, and this guy walks into a quiet establishment in Istanbul, not Constantinople, and looks this girl, Jenny, straight in the face and says, “I got your number.  867-5309.”

This seems odd to me, but I’m thinking it’s nobody’s business but the Turks.  Her response, however, caught my attention, like a solitary gunshot on the stillness of the night.

“Private eyes are watching you.  Private eyes, watching you, watching you.”

At this point, I was getting unnerved by the bizarre nature of the exchange, but it reminded me of one night I had in Bangkok.  I’m here to tell you, one night in Bangkok makes the tough guys tumble, but it also makes a man as curious as a shocked monkey.  So, I watched the train wreck unfold, oblivious to how the reflex would eventually worm its way into my life.  The reflex is a lonely child, waiting in the dark.

“I always feel like somebody’s watching me.  I have no privacy,” the enigmatic man said to Jenny.  Then he asked, “Are you Jesse’s girl?”

“Yes,” she replied with a flip of the hair and a rebellious sigh.  “But Sharif don’t like it.”  Then she made some secretive hand gesture as she leaned in and said, “Rock the Casbah.”

I found this strange due to the Casbah being three streets west of our current location.

“Have you eaten?” the man asked.  “I’m hungry like the wolf.”

At the word ‘wolf’, Jenny froze, perhaps in fear, perhaps like the predator before the kill.  She handed the stranger something secret, something that would change all our lives.

“Every breath you take, I’ll be watching you,” she said ominously.  The man turned and left, changing the world forever.

As for me, how could I stop that destined, nefarious deed?  There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.  It was unstoppable, unless you count the rains down in Africa.

Source: David Swann