The Lecher

I've been sitting on this one for a bit.  I'm a bit embarrassed about the ending, though it was always the intent for it to go there.  I don't regret taking it there, nor do I think that a such a drastic tone shift is the wrong way to go, I just feel sort of "weird" about it.  Not really sure why.  Enjoy reading, and as always, I welcome all comments.

The Lecher

Oh my God, this story is so embarrassing! I can't believe I'm even telling you this, but I think you should really know. It explains a lot about how you and I got this far. You know, how we were able to build this relationship and everything. And, as sure as I am that you will just laugh at me, and possibly even hold all this over my head, I still think you ought to hear it in its entirety.

So, you remember my little “phase,” right? The time right before you and I really started talking, or maybe more accurately, before I actually started listening. The whole “I'm so dark” thing, right. Burton movies and... black everything.

My hair was dyed black. Eyeshadow: black. Lipstick: black. I would wear those weird silk black gloves up to my elbows, my legs covered in black fishnets. My skirt, a far-too-short little black piece of cloth. It makes me want to crawl up and hide under the covers just thinking about how I looked back then.

There was nothing but death metal in my CD changer.

I was even dating that bassist from The Bleeding Pussies. Remember, “the pincushion without a personality”? You were right, much as it pains me to say it. There was nothing behind those dead eyes. It was probably the heroin.

Don't freak out, we never “did anything.” Probably, again owing to the heroin. Or the fact that he was very obviously gay. He was just my version of arm candy, anyway. Rebellious teenage arm candy.

So, this was about the time that I got my first job. Mom and Dad always just supported me, even with my...odd decisions and decision-making processes. Just kept funding my purchases, my lifestyle. They actually would continue to for a few years after too, but I wanted to cushion the steady flow of unearned cash with a bit of my own supplemental income.

Weed money, if I'm being completely honest.

I thought the best place for someone like me to work at this time would obviously be where someone like me would fit in. A place where no one would question the way I chose to dress. Where no one had boo to say about the make-up I wore. Where no one would ever plug their nose at the smoke and sweat smell pouring off of me.

The obvious choice of course was that little counterculture haven, Hot Topic.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But that's the way I saw it at the time, okay? We all have these awkward little moments in our lives where we see the world through an unchangeable, skewed lens. This stretch of time when we are confident that we are alone in the the ways we feel, and that no one will ever understand us. That period when we are just trying to figure out who the hell we are. Times when we seek to fit in.

Those of my ilk, of course, wanted to think that they were doing the opposite, as many young people still do, and probably still will through the remainder of our species' time on this rock.

This was my time of self-discovery, thank you very much. Judge not, Lest ye....and all that.

Back to the story, before I get too far off track here, though. I applied first and only to Hot Topic, before exploring other potential avenues of employment. And of course, by exploring I mean looking at storefronts and repeating some indictment of corporate infrastructure (or some such buzz-term) that I'd heard from one of my many “anarchist” friends.

I pestered the manager daily.

He was this beast of a man with dreads and a lipring. Oh, yeah, and he had those big, thick-framed black glasses with the classic cheapy “Coke bottle lenses” that amplified the size of his eyes by, like, 5 times. He was always so pseudo-nice. He would always tell me in this low gravelly voice how he'd already moved my application to the top of the pile and would call me the second something opened up. His breath was so awful it still seems to be lingering deep in my olfactories.

And so I waited. And I waited. And I pestered some more.

This went on for at least six months until I finally got a call, went through the interview process, and was subsequently hired. In hindsight, my being hired was nothing more than the direct result of the half-blind, bad-breathed, aging butt-rocker managing this location wanting to stick his little dick in, on and around me.

Yeah, I know you don't want to hear all that, but that's just the way it was. Just a simple dose of the “way of the world,” as it were. I'm really just attempting to prime you for the things to come. Because, rest assured, it gets much, much worse. When I tell you some of the stuff Sasha said...

I'm getting ahead of myself. Just relax, okay. Sometimes the true beauty is in the warts, scars and imperfections. You taught me that, and it rings truer here than you could ever imagine.

So, yeah, standard job stuff. Training, paperwork, videos. I ran tons of computer-based modules and simulated hypothetical service situations. I remember thinking at the time that there sure was a lot of what I saw as “corporate-mindedness” in the way this business was run, but my confidence in the counterculture and the anti-estabilishmentarianism inherent in my new job was not to be shaken by a few stock customer service training videos.

Before I knew it, it was day one of the sales floor. I was stocking the shirts with logos of video game and comic book characters from when I was still in grade school. Folding and refolding.

I was refilling spinner racks with dangling cross earrings, like the one Keifer wore in The Lost Boys. I was organizing the sew-on patches for bands I considered capitalist pig sell-outs and simpleton posers.

And that was the first day I worked with Sasha.

Sasha, who swore more than anyone I had ever met before. No sentence would leave her mouth without having a “fuck” attached somewhere. My all-time favorite Sasha sentence: “That fucking fuck fucked the fuck out of this fucking bitch I went to fucking summer-school with.”

Beautiful.

Sasha, who talked about her promiscuity so candidly. She was first person to ever make me question the “slut” label.

See, back then, even with all the “damn the man” approaches I had to life, the idea of anything but a monogamous relationship was still the most damning thing to one's character to me. To put it lightly, I painted the scarlet “Slut” across the chest of many a female foe. Sasha made me question this convention.

“Basically, if he shows interest, he's not a douchey athlete or daddy's-boy rich kid fuck...I'll let him take a shot,” she had told me, leaning on a glass display case. The store had been packed with customers, but Sasha “didn't give a fuck,” and for our customer base, that was just part of the appeal. The shoppers would just smile as she raised her voice, saying “fucker just better not expect me to swallow his load.”

I'd known her for fifteen whole minutes.

Cue Herman. The whole thing was so surreal. Day one of my employment, period, and here was Sasha, talking about how she would under no circumstance, swallow the spunk of any man. Then here comes Herman, moving in through the steel-and-glass archway of our little anti-establishment. He's hunched over his cane and moving in the sort of slow motion induced by the crippling effects of time. His eyes already attached to me, Sasha stopped her cum-babble mid-sentence, her jaw agape.

“Oh fuck, girl.”

“Huh?”

This is all I could squeak out in response to her. I know what she's referring to, but I'm scared to ask what her reaction really means.

“Herman, bitch. He's locked the fuck on.”

“Herman?”

She looked to Herman, then back at me, back to Herman.

“Oh shit, you look just like her.”

“What? I look like who, now?”

Before she could respond, Herman was two feet from me. He was taller than me, but the effects of age and gravity had bent him below my even eye level. His hair was combed neatly atop his head, and the pastels and khakis he was covered in were foreign to his present environs. He was the classic stranger in a strange land. And yet, he seemed so utterly comfortable in here. Like this was where he truly belonged.

“My God,” he had said to me directly, not breaking his glossy stare into my eyes, “you look just like her.”

“Lecher,” Sasha coughed into her hands behind the counter.

Neither myself or Herman reacted to this.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, young lady. I was just looking for a nice set of ear gauges for my granddaughter.”

I couldn't help but smile. This old foreign object was acting in support of something he clearly didn't know or understand. Out of pure love, probably. He just wanted so badly to make his granddaughter happy, even if he had no concept of why one would seek out any type of “body modification.”

“What gauge are we talking?”

“The director told me double zero.”

“That's pretty big, sir. Are you sure she has stretched that far?”

“Well, like I said sweetheart, its what the director told me, so who am I to argue.” His smile was warm and genuine, his tone absent of that condescension I had become so accustomed to in men of his age.

I grabbed the jingling set of keys hanging from my belt. Fortunately I had just filled the rack, so I immediately knew which key I needed. There's nothing worse than looking like the new guy, clueless to your basic job functions. Deftly popping the case open, I pulled out a set of double zeros and handed them to the old man with the gravity-ravaged spine.

“These are Mohogany. Very beautiful, handcrafted in Venezuela,” I told him, really selling it. I was appealing to the consumer's assumed tastes, just like the videos had told me to.

“Heh. Its just something to hold those giant holes in her ears wide open. Keep the lobes from sagging. But, thank you young lady. You have my eternal gratitude. These are going to be perfect.”

And with that, He went to Sasha behind the register, reaching for his wallet and never so much as looking to her face. She completed the transaction, all the while mouthing sexually explicit things in my direction, feigning orgasms and fellatio as she handed back his change.

And just like that, he left.

“Do you know that guy?” I asked her, once he was out of earshot.

“That dirty, old lecherous fuck is Herman. He's been coming in here almost every fucking day for months. Used to always come in and chat up that fucking girl you replaced, actually.”

“Who do I look like?”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

I looked at her, confusedly. “You both said I looked like 'her.' Who is the 'her'”

She laughed, and I wasn't sure why. “Amber. The girl you fucking replaced! Look, the way I see the shit is this: Old motherfucker realizes his life is drawing to an end, right? Starts trying to fucking sew his wild oats or some shit. Catches sight of some BDSM fucking in a porno mag, and starts to seek out his very own little plaything.”

“Ew.”

“No fucking kidding, 'ew.' So, this old deviant fuck wants to try something new with some waify little goth chick that looks like the ones from his sticky pages, right. Ball-gags, cat-o-nine-tails, assplay, et cetera, and fucking so on. He's all prim and proper, sexually, though. His wife just kicked the bucket, and they only ever fucked missionary style,” she was humping the counter when she said this, rattling the glass case with each thrust.

The customers were starting to look at items closer to our conversation, pretending not to eavesdrop on Sasha's colorful characterization. And me, I was just nodding and smiling at this point. Playing it cool, disturbed by the picture she was painting, but intrigued. Like a car crash, or rather, like a full-on pile-up.

“So rather than going into sex shops, or hitting up craigslist or adult friend finder, assuming the aged little fuck even knows what the internet is, he comes into our safe little storefront in the middle of commerce-town. The safety net of the fucking mall makes this lecher feel okay ogling the barely legal stock girls.”

“He didn't really seem to be ogling me.”

“Shyeah! Motherfucker was picturing tonguing your browntown. He's just from an age of fucking gentlemanly conduct. Put on that vinear, show some fucking class, you know. 'Just put on the smile and elderly charm, and don't tell the bitch about your rape dungeon.'”

I couldn't help but make a face at this. Even the growing flock of customers, semi-circled around us and pretending to browse, all squirmed a bit.

“A rape dungeon? That's a bit severe.”

She tongued the ball of her vertical labrea piercing and raised her eyebrows.

“What do you think happened to Amber?”

“What?”

“The bitch you replaced..”

“Yeah?”

“She got murdered.”

“You're just messing with me, Sasha. It's really not funny, either. I can be as dark as the next guy, but hat old man did not kill some Hot Topic stock girl.”

She reacted like I'd offended her deeply.

“Bitch, this is fucking real. Read a paper. They just found her body in the woods yesterday, tied up and raped just down by Dash Point. Some fucking jogger found her.”

“Bullshit,” I fire back, joining the profanity party.

Rolling her eyes, she rocked back on her heals and folded her arms across her chest.

“Don't believe me then.”

I said nothing and went back to folding some shirts, as Sasha stormed into the backroom like a child having a tantrum.

“That girl really did get killed,” some pitchy teen squeaked into my left ear. I looked at him silently, giving him the “really?” eyebrows, teaming them up with a nice little “yeah right!” pout.

“No really,” he told me. The boy couldn't have been more than 15, so I really had to give him credit for even talking to me. However, the fact that he was head-to-toe laden in Juggalo gear put my judgmental thoughts into high gear. Pink hair, cloudy contacts, and a hatchet-man jersey 3 sizes too big were laughable, even to the pseudo-anarchist, black-clothed, black-thought metal hounds in my crew.

In hindsight, it was a “six of one, half dozen of the other” scenario.

“I used to see her in here all the time,” he continued. “Then when my old man was reading the Times the other day,” this was back when people still regularly read print, “and I saw her face staring back at me. She looked different, 'cause it was like an old High School yearbook photo. Before she had all the black make-up and shit.”

I could feel my face dropping. I could recognize that lying served no purpose to this little clown.

“I had a little crush on her, truth be told.”

“Is that right?” I responded in my coldest, monotone voice. “Well, dead or no,” I told him with a dead stare, eyes half closed, “that man didn't kill her.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He was getting the message, clearly just trying to put in the last word before he left. Making sure his impression was strong. It was sweet, in its own way, his true intentions notwithstanding. But, also, altogether the whole thing pretty pathetic.

“But he's right. You look almost exactly like her.”

–

I only thought about this little claim that the kindly old visitor had attempted to seduce and had ultimately killed my young predecessor for a few days. It was only after the whole thing had left my mind that I saw him again.

Sasha had gotten over her tantrum pretty quick, back to her usual verbal excess before the shift's end that day. She had even insisted that we began hanging out together. I found her interesting, to say the least, so of course I went along with it. Besides, I remember thinking, if my expression of doubt to the validity of one story caused that reaction, there was no telling how she might react if I denied her a relationship outside the work environment.

And so we became friends. Mostly just so neither of us were smoking our weed alone, but we were hanging out regularly nonetheless.

The day I saw Herman next was actually prefaced by a bit of foreshadowing, relating to this newly formed friendship. That's why I'm mentioning it. It is relevant, I swear.

So we were sitting in her little shitbox of a car, a rusty little Geo Metro or something. We were just sitting in the middle of the mall parking lot, the power of youthful indiscretion leading to a scenario in which we are just passing a pipe back and forth, filling the enclosed space with skunk-scented smoke.

Its called hot-boxing. I'm just saying, I don't know how familiar you ever made yourself with the whole weed-culture. Gravity bongs and knife hits and all that.

In the middle of this parking lot, in a car filled with marijuana smoke, khaki donning baby boomers casting disapproving gazes in our direction, Sasha told me more about Herman's relationship with Amber.

“I'm not just fucking with you when I say I think he killed her,” she told me.

I was mid-light, staring absentmindedly at the flames as they coated the dark green nugget in the bowl of the pipe. I heard her, but my focus had narrowed so fiercely from the THC that I wasn't really involved in the conversation yet. I locked eyes with Sasha and passed the pipe toward her, holding the hit in my chest.

You hate this part, I can tell. I just want to paint the picture, you know. And, I will never convince you, but its not really some evil drug. This is just part of my life. Part of the reason I am who I am. Besides, I haven't touched the stuff for ages. Paranoia and all. I think this might have actually been the last time I... Just listen, you'll understand in time.

I was holding my hit, keeping the side of the plastic lighter over the bowl so the nugget didn't burn out and Sasha is looking at me angrily, asking if I heard her. I did, but only now are the words actually connecting. But, I was starting to forget them.

“I am genuinely worried about you,” she said, putting the pipe up to her lips and attaching the flame back to the blackening ball of weed.

“I think he's going to try the same thing again with you,” she told me with the smoke still in her lungs, holding it so as to increase the effects of the drug. “I think he wants to pump and dump your ass.”

“Sasha!” I offered back blowing a huge cloud of smoke into the closed box.

“What? The fucker wants to tie you up and fuck you.”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“Look, its Wednesday right,” I nodded, not really sure in my cloudy-headed state whether this was actually a true statement or not. “Herman used to come in to see Amber every Wednesday. She loved it. She had built this sick fucking relationship with the old lecher. Just fucking hugging him when he came in.”

She was killing my high so much that I waved away the pipe when she offered it up. Shrugging, she just went in for another hit.

“There is zero evidence from what you have told me that...”

“Herman,” she filled in, holding another hit.

“Herman. There is no evidence that Herman killed Amber. She probably just got involved with some of the wrong people. Maybe she got into some heavier shit: Coke, or heroine, or Amphetamines, or something.”

Sasha shook her head and took another puff.

“You're filling in the blanks with what you want to be true.” I told her, starting to really get upset, “There is no, like, detective work involved in your conclusion. An old man, like, sometimes coming in to visit a...a...a... young woman at work is not, like, damning evidence in a murder trial Sash.”

“He. Fucking. Did it.”

That was the end of it. The long and short of it. I spent so much energy getting upset with Sasha and her unsubstantiated accusations, and it was most likely just because I didn't want her to be right. The unfortunate truth was, I did find the whole thing a bit suspicious.

The dark truths that lay beyond the shiny over-polished surface of everything was where I dwelt. The dark recesses of humanity were the core truths of humanity to me. For some reason, though, even as I believed the world to be so much more fucked up and awful than anyone could actually perceive it to be, I had such a hard time believing Sasha's truth about Herman.

After 15 more minutes of stoned silence in her car, we emerged and made our way into the mall, not ready in any way, shape, or form to put in our measly five hour shifts.

–

Herman came in every Wednesday. Just like Sasha had told me he would.

It made me feel uncomfortable, just as I had imagined it would.

He never seemed capable of Sasha's implied actions, but really, they never do.

Shit, Ted Bundy used to fake all sorts of injuries/handicaps to get his victims' guards down.

But, Herman was always sweet, giving me a Werther's Original every time he came in. I would always tell him I wasn't allowed to eat on the sales floor (which definitely wasn't true), then pocket the candy for later disposal into the break room garbage. He would just smile and tell say, “that's alright sweetie, you eat that whenever you like.”

The lecher was coating the candy in something, I just knew it. Some sort of Roofie or the like.

I wasn't just going to hide from him, though, running to the back as soon as I caught sight of him like prey fleeing a predator. This was a safe place and I would not let him intimidate me. I was so much stronger than that.

When Herman started looking sick, I still kept my guard up. This was pathetic. He really was taking pages right out of Ted Bundy's “How to Kill Young Women.” With each successive week, I would just amp up the happiness and excitement at his arrival, showing Herman that I would not fear him, and no false sickness was going to get me to in his van.

He never asked, but I knew that he was going to. It was just over the horizon.

When his skin started looking more yellow, I started hugging him. I would not be intimidated.

When the circles under his eyes darkened, I kissed him on the cheek. I would not be intimidated.

When his hair started falling out, I held his hand. I. Would. Not. Be. Intimidated.

When he stopped coming in, I looked him up.

I found him with ease. I knew his surname from our many conversations, and there it was in the directory.

When the number was disconnected, I breathed a sigh of relief.

–

Three weeks after Herman stopped coming in to see me at Hot Topic, these two well-dressed thirty somethings came into the store. Their entrance was not welcomed by our patron, to put it lightly. There were practically boos and hisses as they approached Sasha at the counter. From the folding table at the back of the store, I tried to read their lips, failing only until I saw the man's mouth form my name.

Sasha's finger went up in my direction. Our relationship had faded into professional nods to one another, owing mostly to my aversion to pot ever since she had took a big shit on my high. As she pointed to me, I could see the disgust in her face, but I wasn't sure if it was related to how she now felt about me, or if it was more about these unwelcome guests.

The young, suited man approached me slowly. Behind him, the young lady hung her head and followed, keeping her distance. Verifying my identity, he handed me and envelope. He placed his hand on my shoulder, as if to console me, then turned and left.

He never even bothered to identify himself.

If you don't mind, I'd like to read you this letter. Herman wrote the whole thing by hand, mind you. Its hard to express, in these times, how sweet...how endearing that truly is.

If you are reading this, Then I am afraid I am no longer with you. My dear, I wanted to thank you for everything you have done for me in these past few months. You have shown me a level of warmth no stranger has ever shown, let alone most members of my own family. The only exception to this being my dearest granddaughter Amber, who was taken from this world far too early. I never questioned any of decisions that our dear Amber ever made, believing then, as I still do even now that everybody needs to make their mistakes in order to learn from them. This being said, the only mistakes we might not learn from may be the ones we don't know we are making. When was the last time you gave your father a call? Your mother? Your Grandfather?

With Fondest Regards,

Herman

I called you, that night Grandpa. And Dad. And Mom. As you lay here in this bed, and I know you can hear me, I just wanted you to know the true story behind our relationship, warts, scars and all.

I wanted you to know about Herman. I wanted you to know that even during the times we think are our darkest, the unpredictable kindness of strangers can change everything. And when it comes time for you to leave us, I will know that I dodged what could have possibly been one of my biggest regrets. I learned more from the greatest mistake I didn't even know I was making, than any I ever knew.

I love you.