Pervert

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awkward, blog, childhood, fiction, fiery, flasher, ginger, humor, pervert, redhead

I didn’t always enjoy being a pervert magnet. In fact one of my earliest encounters with one was actually almost frightening. Fortunately, I was with my best neighborhood friend, Chrissy, which made it slightly less terrifying.

The summer between seventh and eighth grades Chrissy and I had dedicated ourselves to the intense pursuit of getting ourselves into the Guinness Book of World Records. I don’t know if kids still do this but I know that back then many children our age were doing the same thing. I think the whole endeavor became so popular because the Guinness Books were available for purchase through the ubiquitous Scholastic Book Club which had managed to infiltrate itself through elementary and middle schools throughout the U.S.

In any case, Chrissy and I spent day after torrid summer day attempting to topple one ridiculous record after another and succeeding at none. We failed at simultaneous hula hooping, penny stacking, tennis ball volleying, flapjack eating, jump rope skipping, bubblegum bubble blowing–to mention a few.  Just when we thought we had happened upon one we could conquer, our hopes collapsed yet again.

Late one disappointing afternoon, we left Chrissy’s to go to my house. I don’t recall the purpose. Maybe it was to ask our mothers if we could do a sleepover or maybe it was to ask if we could walk to the mini-mart down the road from our subdivision. All I crystal clear remember is Chrissy grabbing my arm and whispering at the top of her lungs, “Oh my God, don’t look! Don’t look!”

So I didn’t.

When we got to my house she asked me if I had seen. I said, “No, you told me not to look.”

“Holy crap, dummy! I meant look, look. You need to look. We need to go back so you can see.”

“See what?” I shrugged, thinking Chrissy was going off her nut.

“See Mr. Finkel playing with himself!”

“WHAT?!”

“I swear. Let’s go back. You need to see it,” she insisted.

Truthfully, I was pretty grossed out for the most part. In the best of circumstances Mr. Finkel was a creeper. He was old like our parents with a fat gut, pasty white skin, practically no hair, and he always looked sweaty. I had next to no interest in looking at him touching his thing. But there was no way that Chrissy was going to let it go that easily.

“Come ON!” she insisted.

There’s nothing like a bossy blonde to compel you to do something that’s not going to end well. And this redhead was dumb enough to be compelled. Away we went back down the street to Chrissy’s. Sure enough there stood Mr. Finkel out in front of his garage. I tried to be casual in looking over at him but the shock of what I saw  made my jaw drop.  There in the fading light of day he stood, a sad pair of ugly track shorts pulled down to expose his nasty pink wanker which he was rapidly having his way with!

I seriously thought I was going to blow chunks. We grabbed hands and raced for Chrissy’s front door. We were completely freaking out and had no choice but to leave and walk by YET AGAIN. How else were we going to report this terrible incident to our mothers?

Incredibly, he was still at it as we raced by running to my house. We burst in my front door, in mutual tearful hysterics, tripping over one another to tell the lurid tale. Our moms didn’t seem to want to believe us but apparently we convinced them enough because we saw the lights of the police car from the window in my bedroom to which we were banished while they determined the proper course of action.

I don’t know what happened after that but I never saw Mr. Finkel again. On the other hand, I have certainly encountered plenty like him.