Pedophilia

 

           There’s a rather stupid TV show where a female police officer goes on-line and pretends to be a 16-year-old girl. Chatting up grown men, the show lures some starry-eyed jerk to a rigged house where, upon arriving, he gets his one and only glimpse of his love object. “I’m running a wash! I’ll be right with you! Why don’t you wait in the living room?” she beckons. The fish willingly rises to the bait, getting caught inside the house by the debonair, urbane host of the show.

         “You knew this girl was underage when you came over here,” he informs the victim. “What are you doing here?”

         Mumbling incoherently, the stooge runs for his car.

         “But he won’t get away,” we are assured. “The police are waiting just around the corner to arrest him!”

         For what? E-mailing?

         Yet, according to this meshuganah show, the pornography and pedophilia laws make this very act of role-playing on the Internet drastically illegal. A pedophile caught in the act! Send that child-molester to jail and throw away the key!!!

        By dumbing down pedophilia, we make it harder to combat, not easier.  

                                                            *

         It would be erroneous, to say the least, to imply that every time I cast my gaze hungrily toward a teenage damsel, they respond in kind. Most times, it’s an unmitigated disaster!

         “Ew-w-w-w-w!”

        “U-u-ugh-h-h-h!”

         “Ooooh-h-h-h-h!” they grimace, sour lemon face.

          Those conversations never even begin.

           I once consolingly told a drop-dead gorgeous girl from a Catholic high school, who I met on the bike path, “Don’t worry about the taunts of your classmates. You’re better than them. You can always go into the Navy and make a career for yourself!”

          “Don’t worry about me, mister,” she giggled, flouncing her blond locks and eyeing me through turquoise-colored eyes. “Nobody taunts me. I’m one of the most popular girls in my school. I taunt them!”

         Open mouth, Kevin, squarely insert foot therein.

          Nor am I guilty of stereotype perambulations: I do NOT hang around the proverbial schoolyard, thank you! 

           If I’m shopping in Kessler’s or the grocery store, on my way to the bank or the library, and some wayward lass gives me the nod, I return the compliment. Not just any teenager, either. I am not so much predatory, as eternally lonely. Some ladies, regardless of age, by their mien, their gaze, the way they hold themselves, project the illusion of being both beautiful and ageless. They’re my partners in crime. I could say “They’re my meat,” but that’s not how they see it. Still testing their sexuality, they find me a ready subject, worthy of  experimentation. Mercifully, none has yet created a Frankenstein’s monster!

        On occasion, an over-rambunctious young person can’t wait to speak to me! The words come tumbling out in a high-speed stream and, truth be told, I cannot understand a word she says! The pitch, the southern accent, the sheer number of words per second combine to create a mélange of delightful, frustrating and unintelligible gibberish. She thinks I’m joking!  Tail between my legs, I can only smile wanly and slink off into the underbrush.

        My locale is suburbia, those endless streets of houses, shopping centers, intersections, schools, libraries and roads.

        In the name of honesty, allow me to tell of an encounter that did not work out well.

         I get out of my car to go to the library, and there she is, walking up the hill from the shopping center, carrying a white cardboard coffee cup in her left hand. Why left-handed maidens have this tendency to try harder, I can only surmise. She’s exactly my type: Around 15 years old; short, curly blond hair; a cute little chin and a pug nose; short shorts, black in color, that look like they’ve been painted on; a bright orange tee; and she’s looking at me! She is looking me over judiciously, head thrown back in a haughty glance.

         Forget the library!

         “Hi!” I shout, heading straight for her.

        “What’s that for?” she immediately asks, pointing at my briefcase.

         I love her voice, so shrill it could shatter glass.

         “I’m sorry, I was… at the office… of a political campaign where I volunteer. It’s got all my stuff, eyeglasses, ink pens, papers, sunglass case, cell phone.”

         “What kind of campaign?” she asks, making conversation.

         “It’s… for the Attorney General of Maryland.”

         “Is that what you’re gonna be? Maternal Gentleman of Maryland?”

          “Attorney General. No, that’s someone else. I just handle their signs and stuff.”

          Up close and personal, we stand on the street corner, looking each other over. At least I have clean tennis shoes, white knee socks that don’t sag, clean khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt. The fact that my wraparounds are industrial grade UV and my black cotton cap says “Mort’s Diner” just show I have style. She keeps alternating facial expressions: grinning at me one moment, marshalling a serious expression on her face the next, then returning to that glorious grin! She knows she’s got me. “What’s your name?” she asks.

          “Kevin… Feingold.”

         “You’re name is Gold?!” she exclaims excitedly.

         “Feingold.”

          “I knew… we had a hook-up! You know…” She starts waving her fingers in my face. “I’m Silver.”

         “Your name is Silver?” I ask, dumbfounded, mouth hanging open.

          “I’m SanDee Silver,” she primly chirps.

          “Hello!” I greet her more formally. “Hello, SanDee! I’m Kevin!”

         “Is that a football jersey you’re wearing?” she asks. “Why isn’t there the name of a football team on your jersey?”

         “It’s a T-shirt.”

         “ ’Cause if you’re into football, you could give me a football pendant on a chain to wear at school. School starts next week!”

         “Yeah, I know when school starts.”

         “Give me a gold pendant on a silver chain.”

         “You mean brass.”

         “No. Gold.”

         “Colored gold. Gold-colored. The pendants are made of brass.”

         “What is brass?”

         “It’s an alloy made of copper and zinc.”

         “You talk funny!” she chortles, dancing around me in a tight, little circle.

         “Is that coffee you’re drinking?” I finally get to ask. Fifteen years old and drinking coffee, it’s not right! I’m thinking.

        “Naw, it’s hot coco. Taste!”

         Here we go! Young people always do this. They share. I take a slug of hot chocolate. “Mmmm,” I have to admit, “it tastes good!”

         “They make them for me at the ice cream parlor.”

         “Oh, yeah, right!”

         “Bubba. He makes them for me.”

         By now, she’s ambling along the sidewalk, up the gently sloping hill. Walking beside her, I cannot miss her small, pointy breasts pressing against her orange T-shirt. “Wha-at?” she drawls, playing offended.

          “How old are you?” I ask.

          “Old enough to know better! I’m 14. This year, I’m caboosing middle school and starting high school. Major bummer!”

          “Why is it a bummer to go to high school? I think you’ll like it.”

          “And have all those boys throwing themselves at my feet? Slobbering on me? Pawing me? It sucks! When they see me, they look like they’re gonna wee-wee all over their pants! Not like you! You look like you’re gonna upchuck!”

         “ ’Scuse me?”

         “Just like you look now! See! Like a little baby who’s had his bottle and is about to upchuck all over himself!” she guffaws loudly.

          Ouch! I think. This lady plays rough! “I’m… I’m sorry,” I reply, kind of lost for words.

          “Yeah, well, look at you, mister! I know I’m beautiful, but I like to have fun, too! Without boys undressing me with their eyes!”

           The comedy is that we are sitting on the concrete steps to her house, her above, me two steps below, gazing up at her, as she delivers these barbs of condescension. She smirks at me, but she doesn’t tell me to leave.

           It’s a measure of her hold over me that I’m risking my reputation, my freedom, you name it, by sitting here in plain sight of the entire neighborhood. A grown man sits on the front stoop and flirts with a 14-year-old schoolgirl? Call the cops!

          “Wait here!” she says, rising, turning and unlocking the front door. She disappears into the house, leaving me with a crystal clear mental snapshot of her gorgeous little derrière. While she’s gone, I contemplate the fact that she is so fresh, young and unblemished, I simply cannot find anything to fault. Blue eyes the color of the sky. I should leave. But then she comes back out and says, “There’s nobody home, let’s go on the back porch!”

          This is a little more private, not much, and we sit in garden chairs facing one another. She takes the opportunity to say, “My mom works in an office, but sometimes she gets home by now.” Crossing her curvaceous, flawless legs, she begins kicking her foot at me. 

         “You want me to meet your mom?” I ask, checking my watch. Three o’clock. After that, I sit riveted to my seat, staring, fascinated, at her bouncing foot clad in a blue canvas sneaker.

        “Naw, not really! You wouldn’t believe what boys and I do when I babysit. They come over and we drool on each other! It’s wacko,” she snorts.

         “I’m sure it is!” I laugh.

         “D’ya have, you know, any kids n’ stuff at home that I could, you know, babysit for?” she asks, gushing, blushing, waving a hand in my face.

         “My neighbors do,” I reply, thinking aloud. “The Sabatini’s across the street have a one-year-old, and Lee Lechner and his wife Betty, two houses up, they have a kid who’s almost two…”

         “Well, see!” she exults. “Just get your name on the list of emergency telephone numbers and then I can call you and you can rush right over!”

          “I would… I will… What does your daddy do?” I wonder.

          “Whaddya mean?” she asks in turn. “He doesn’t ‘do’ anything. He lives in Portland, Oregon. We never hear from him. My parents are… divorced,” she says bitterly.

             Aha! That would explain what I’m doing on her back porch. Surrogate dad. Straw man. Stand-in upon which she can vent. Bull’s eye for her little darts of venom.

             Five fingers splayed in my face, she says, “Give me five dollars!”

             If I was hard before, I am solid as a rock by now.

             Glancing at my swollen pants, she says, “Better make it ten!” She sounds about five years old, her peepy little voice, her stifled laughter.

             I pull out my wallet and give her both, a five and a ten.

             She looks momentarily shocked, but holding the money, she considers and says, “Oh, well… okay!” Lifting her T-shirt, she folds the bills and slips them between her shorts and her satiny skin. “What’s your phone number?”

              I give her my card. “Don’t let your mom get a hold of it.”

             “No-o-o-o!” she wails, making the word sound like it has four syllables. “Ne-ver!”

               I leave, being careful to neither slobber, paw, wee-wee nor upchuck. Walking down the hill, I go to the library and send an annoyed e-mail to the Town Traffic Calming Committee requesting permission to peruse the ballots from the recent speed hump election. This is the second time I’ve tried to get a response. By the time I get home, there are two messages from my little friend on the answering machine!

             “Hi, I want you to come tomorrow to the ice cream parlor at, like, 12 o’clock and buy me coco and we can sit at one of the tables outside an’ talk. Bring money. Lots and lots of money. Maybe we’ll go shopping in your car. They have all these Back To School Specials and my mom and I don’t have enough money to get me stuff. My deadbeat dad doesn’t send any!!! Why aren’t you home???”

            Followed by a matronly, furious voice that says: ”This is Louise Silver, mister. I don’t know who you are, apparently some creepy neighbor. You call me, y’hear?!” She then recites her number, slowly and clearly, three times!

            I call her.

            “San-Dee!” a young, vibrant, childish voice chants into the telephone.

            “Hi! It’s Kevin! Your mom called.”

            A muffled sound of the telephone being passed, SanDee in a distant voice saying, “It’s him!”

            “Hello, this is Louise Silver!” says the mother in a no-nonsense growl.

            “This is Kevin Feingold. As you surmised, we are neighbors.”

            “What are you, some kind of nut case?” she asks outright. “Even a child-molester knows better than to carry on like a besotted teenager. Walking my daughter home from the store, sitting on the front steps, retiring to the porch. Did you touch her???”

            “What? No, of course not!”

            “Why? Not ready yet? Forget I said that. If you ever go anywhere NEAR my daughter… What did you two talk about?”

            “Babysitting. She babysits. A lot of my neighbors have young kids, one and two years old. We talked about getting her… work.”

            “Yeah, yeah, you’d love to lure her over there.”

            I can hear how this lady is just waiting for me to say something creepy, so she can call the cops!

            “Where the hell is this address on your card?” she asks.

            “By the 1812 Highway.”

            “Now I know you’re a pedophile! What were you doing all the way over here?”

            “Going to the library.”

            “Mister, you are unreal! KEEP AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!!!”

            Not wanting to go to jail, I do as the lady suggests.

                                                           *