Think Twice

Once that foreign chick Katiana started working the deli counter — Katiana who on her very first day smiled at Walter and touched his arm, clearly flirting with him even though he sported a wedding band clear as day — ever since she complained to HR, it was over for him. That’s how it is. No one cares about the other side. A woman complains about you, you’re cooked. And all Walt did was try to be nice. Katiana was a recent divorcée (smart guy her ex, escaping that bear trap of a bitch) and so Walt figured he’d make her feel better about herself, compliment her figure and whatnot. She wore tight clothes for a reason, no? Suddenly his transfer to the store in Pompton Lakes, poof, gone. Oh, they didn’t fire him. They let him stay until the store closed. Three weeks’ severance after thirty years. A week’s pay per decade. Bastards. And now, months later, here on this goddamn computer, all these smug online bitches just like Katiana are spouting off these brain-dead rules about how men should act in defiance of all natural laws, as though the world just started yesterday. Jesus H. One bitch who calls herself “Fit Amy” if you can believe that, she keeps going on and on about how she’s scared to get into an elevator alone with a man — that, get this, the man should wait and take the next elevator if he sees a woman is alone in one. Seriously? And so Walt wants to lay a little knowledge on her. Not a big deal, right? He sets up a second account because if you just tell the truth in this world, they come after you. That’s how it is now. Fuck freedom of speech. You want to go online and tell this man-hating elevator rider, “You’re so ugly you’d be grateful if a man raped you on an elevator,” well, the truth hurts now, doesn’t it, sweetheart?

So Walt, a smart guy, a quick learner, made up a fake account with the name Rotten Swale. Not because he was afraid to speak his mind. Not Walt. He wants everything out in the open, believes in the free flow of ideas, so that stupid feminazis get drowned in an avalanche of logic. But that’s not how it works anymore. Not in today’s sissified world. These chicks are zealots. If they find out who he is — “dox” is what they call it — they’ll write to Stop-N-Shop or that new Green Grocery opening up in Ridgewood and threaten to boycott or sue or whatever if Walter gets a job there. That, my fellow Americans, is how nuts these people are. So yeah, he sets up the anonymous account on a whim. Like he won’t really use it. That’s what Walter thinks until the desire — no, the need — to set these bitches straight is too strong to resist. So that’s what he does. Or should he say, Rotten Swale does. They get an earful of the truth from Rotten Swale. They may not listen. But they’ll hear. And that one chick who calls herself Fit Amy, that my-shit-don’t-stink profile with her fucking bio talking about BLM and rainbow flags, this chick with these giant knockers and the shirt buttoned low, always bending forward into the camera during her rants, inviting men to stare down her blouse, and so Rotten Swale tells her in subsequent comments that a) “No one would watch if you didn’t have a big rack” and then b) “You’re a dumb lying whore who sucks cocks at the truck stop” and then c) “Your seven-year-old daughter deserves to get ass raped,” which, well, Walter doesn’t really believe, but you need to say something that will get their attention, and boy, does this chick need a good solid fucking from someone like Walter, from a real man who will pin her down and show her what’s what.

This goes on for a year.

Walt posts more and more. Worse and worse. Rotten Swale gets blocked after a while, but — no problem — Walter just takes on another identity. Late Towners. And then other. Seattle Worn. On and on. He remains anonymous.

That’s what he thinks.

But you, sitting outside his house in the dark with the gun — you found Rotten Swale.

It took time to track down his real identity, but not as much as people might think. The Rotten Swale account could still be accessed. You check through all the posts. Not much there to give you a clue — Walter has learned to be careful — but one time he posts a photo taken through his front windshield driving past a sex shop he claimed was “ruining our neighborhood.” Dumb. A quick google told you the shop was on Route 17 in Paramus, New Jersey. Okay, so now you know approximately where he lives.

Next step: Go to the bottom of his followers list. That’s where the first profiles someone follows are to be found. You can learn a lot there because they are often people you know in real life. Walter had followed these people because when he set up the account, he fooled himself into believing he wasn’t a crackpot, that this account would be legit in its own way.

This was a fairly common practice with budding stalkers.