My Bio - Part 21

Stacey was my biggest problem at the first complex I lived in during my time in Arizona, along with twenty-six-year-old Andrea (Andi), the woman living next to me in Andy’s building. Through Andi, I got my first real sense of just how much Arizonans despise complaining, no matter how legitimate your grievance might be.

While I was still in the first-floor apartment, I had to give up Shadow, my cat, because pets weren’t allowed on the first floor. Even if they were, I couldn’t afford the outrageous pet deposit. So, Andy and I left the cat on what we thought was Stevie Nicks’ property in Paradise Valley, only to later learn we’d given him to her neighbor instead. Andy eventually figured out which house was really hers by going through her trash. He somehow became phone friends with Stevie’s mother, Barbara, after finding her number through her business—a little crafts store in some small town outside of Phoenix. He eventually went on to actually meet Stevie a few times.

Stacey had a reputation for being a difficult person, but one day, she began targeting me in ways I hadn’t seen her do with anyone else. To this day, I’m not sure what triggered her. I discussed it with Andy, Kara, and Randy, but none of us could figure out the source of her wrath. Maybe it was because I was Jewish (Arizona was as anti-Semitic as it was anti-gay), maybe it was because I was on disability, or maybe it was because I was short with green eyes and very long hair. I honestly had no idea.

Then, I developed a theory: some people, when they can’t get positive attention, settle for negative attention. Perhaps Stacey really did have some kind of attraction to me and was struggling with those feelings, especially since she was married. Others had speculated about this too, particularly after it became clear that she was practically stalking me. This wasn’t an exaggeration—she followed me around the complex, and it felt like she was scrutinizing my every move. I was stunned by how much she seemed to know about my whereabouts and the people I interacted with. My friends and I even searched my place for hidden cameras or audio recorders, but we found nothing. The only way she could have known what she did was by either tailing me, having someone else do it, or somehow gaining access to my apartment while I was out. I doubted that last one, but who knows?

I’ll admit Stacey wasn’t bad-looking for a light-eyed blonde, which wasn’t usually my type. She was tall and slim, with a Kate Jackson vibe—her voice, hairstyle, and mannerisms all reminded me of her. But even if she had been my type, I knew I’d rather be alone forever than settle for a controlling bitch like her.

One day, Stacey summoned both Andy and me to her office. Oddly, she insisted on speaking to Andy first, then me.

"Why can’t she just talk to both of us at once?" I asked Andy on our way there.

"I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t want us to get our stories straight," he said.

"What stories?" I asked, confused.

"I don’t know," he said. "I’m just as stumped as you are."

Andy went in first, and then it was my turn. I sat down in front of her desk, and Stacey cut right to the chase.

"I have a report that you made some harassing phone calls to Ellie and Robert," she said.

"So?" I replied.

"So," she echoed, pausing.

"So I called them a few times. They won’t be hearing from me again, though. Besides, Ellie’s out of her mind. Ask the FBI agents trying to kill her with petroleum jelly as she claims."

"Then don’t have anything to do with her," Stacey said.

"I don’t intend to, but how does this concern you? You’re the manager, not our mother. Part of our rent goes toward your salary. You work for us."

She then mentioned some supposed vandalism but wouldn’t say what had been vandalized. I had no idea what she was talking about, and neither did Andy.

Next, she scolded me for asking to see the second studio apartment I had transferred to in Andy’s building before the previous tenant moved out. I couldn’t believe someone would complain about something so trivial! The girl didn’t have to let me in, and she hadn’t seemed bothered at the time.

Then, Stacey implied that I had been trying to invite people up to my place. I was completely confused. "What are you talking about? What people?"

"I understand that being home as much as you are can make a person rather lonely," she said, her tone patronizing.

"Oh, is that what you think I am? Lonely? And this concerns you because…?" I asked, beginning to realize what she was insinuating. She was implying that I was trying to get women up to my place for sex, which was total nonsense. No one in that complex appealed to me. After Rosemarie made her lack of interest clear, I backed off immediately. I didn’t want to push people who weren’t interested in me, and I expected the same respect in return.

Though I tried, I couldn’t get Stacey to admit what she was really implying. She never dared to use the L-word.

She also rattled off a bunch of trivial facts about my daily life, things like what I had for lunch, and this unnerved me. I was amazed at how well she had done her homework. With the exception of the vandalism and the absurd insinuation about my social life, she was frighteningly accurate.

Andy later told me he was just as shocked by Stacey’s knowledge of my activities. "She even encouraged me to dump you," he said.

On January 6, 1993, I finally decided to see about getting a job dancing. I didn’t have any marketable skills that would land me a decent job anytime soon, and I wasn’t about to flip burgers or clean houses again. Dancing seemed like a good option. Kara, who was a pretty big woman, acted as my bodyguard, and the three of us—Kara, Andy, and I—went to a nearby club with exotic dancers.

After just two dances and $18 in tips, I was hired for the 6 PM to 1 AM shift. I was excited, thinking I’d make tons of money, but it didn’t turn out that way. Maybe in Vegas it would have.

I eventually built up a small group of regular cab drivers. One of them even offered to be my bodyguard if I ever made it in the music business, and I gladly agreed.

Though dancing was preferable to most other jobs, there were downsides. I hated the sore feet and the way the owners used us to pay the DJ, bartenders, and bouncers. We had to give them a cut of our earnings because the owners were too cheap to pay them themselves.

At the clubs, we rotated sets on stage, where customers could tip us—or not. Table dances, one-on-one performances in front of a customer, earned the dancers $5. Dancers weren’t allowed to touch the customers or engage in anything explicit.

My stage name was "Mystery." Maybe if I had been a chesty, blue-eyed blonde with long legs, I would have made more money. But as a then flat, short, green-eyed brunette, I didn’t exactly fit the bill for a T&A bar. Still, I danced on and off for the next eight months at a few different places, including all-nude private room dancing with two-way windows, cameras, and armed staff. We often sat around for hours in between customers, bored out of our minds in front of the TV.

After I moved to the studio apartment behind Andy, I started accumulating some furniture. My parents sent me a blue card table with matching chairs. A friend of Andy’s gave me a twin bed, and a guy I met later on gave me a couch, a desk, and a TV.

At first, the building was relatively quiet. The guy below me eventually moved out, giving me a few things he didn’t want, like clothes hangers and a fake plant in a wicker basket. For a while, the apartment below me was a model unit, and the new tenant who moved in was quiet. Even Andi didn’t make much noise initially. She was hardly ever home.

The person I heard the most in the building was actually Andy. Despite his feminine demeanor, he stomped around like an elephant and slammed doors instead of closing them.

I had yet to learn just how sensitive Arizonans could be about noise complaints, but I started to get an idea when Andi had her fifteen siblings over for a few days. It was a nightmare—constant bumps and bangs at all hours. After being ignored when I knocked on her door to ask her to quiet down, I had no choice but to complain to Stacey.

Mary, a thirty-year-old woman with muscular dystrophy who lived directly below Andi, also complained. She was getting the worst of it. Mary informed Stacey that if she wanted her rent, she needed to be able to sleep so she could work for it.

Even Andy, who lived diagonally from Andi, could hear the commotion. The whole building shook.

When Stacey came to investigate, Andi tried to shift the blame. Our doors were right next to each other and standing just inside mine, I could hear everything they said.

"She does the same thing," Andi lied.

Right, Andi, I thought sarcastically. I have fifteen kids over, too.

The next day, the kids finally left, and I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking peace had returned and I could finally get some sleep. But I was sorely mistaken. Andi was furious that I had complained, and she wasn’t about to let me forget it. That was lesson number two about Arizonans: they weren’t quick to let go of grudges. They wouldn’t let you forget or ignore them either, no matter how wrong they were or how valid your complaint was. She was going to get her revenge!

Andi made sure to shake the building with her every move when she wasn’t at work or asleep, clearly not caring who else she annoyed along with me. She began staying home more frequently, just to make her presence felt. Since I knew I couldn’t physically force her to quiet down, and Stacey couldn’t monitor every slam, bump, and bang, I was seriously considering confronting her when a new idea popped into my head.

I doubted it would work, but I figured I’d try it before resorting to more drastic measures. So, I sat down and wrote a note, pretending to be a neighbor who had just moved in behind her, politely asking her to keep the noise down. I signed it with a bogus name and slipped it under her door.

To my surprise, it actually worked!