ugly

you guys are great...

i figure that i must enjoy the arguments and jokes on the message boards more than anyone else. it's always fun to hear what people think about menlove and menlovian, even those who don't like it. thanks for the constructive criticism, thanks to those of you who stick up for what i'm doing here, thanks to those of you who keep the mood light, and thanks to 10:05 for your advice.

today was a normal monday, except that even the professors are starting to hint at how the end is in sight. hella mentioned that we only have something like five more class meetings (is this right???) and beryl casually mentioned how some of us might not be in attendance on wednesday.

in the strangest way, i'm actually starting to become a little bit fond of professor jones. she was basically in a good mood today, and when she's in a good mood, the class can be somewhat interesting.

but what always cracks me up about her is how she's constantly encouraging us to ask her to slow down, or to repeat herself when she's going too quickly for our note-taking. yet when we ask her to do so, she invariably loses track of what she's just said. if you ask her to repeat something, it's as if you've asked her a question about something she's never even mentioned before.

i imagine that her brain is like this really frantic computer that spits out memos at a terrifying rate, and her mouth is like the paper-shredder that destroys the words systematically as they exit from her mouth... or that each sentence she utters is like a chain of lemmings taking a suicide leap off of her tongue, never to be revived again.

she's truly a one-in-a-million personality.

con law was basically slow today, but the highlight was hella's digression toward the end of class about (i wish i could remember the party names) that bronx attorney who had his girlfriend blinded, and how she stayed with him while he was in jail, and how he then "played around" on her afterwards...

but of courst the best part of the story was when shammy tossed off what was perhaps the funniest line of the month, about how it didn't matter because his girlfriend "couldn't see him cheating anyway."

that was some funny shit. i would never have the balls to toss off a one-liner like that in the middle of one of hellerstein's bronx tales. here's to you, david!

***
so i know that sometimes you guys write to me looking for advice about dating or school or whatever, but today i sort of need some of you to return the favor. i've found myself in a sad and strange situation, and was wondering what course of action some of the wiser souls among you would advise...

this story is true. i know i always say that a story is true, and then it turns out to be a bunch of outrageous, tracheotomy hole-sucking nonsense, but this one is really true, no matter how much i wish that it wasn't.

so there's this guy i've known since i was five years old. for the sake of this story, i'll call him B. actually, to give you a sense of my relationship with B, here's a brief timeline of my relationship with him. the number after each bullet represents how old he and i were when each thing happened.

• 5... i meet B in a local community thingy, and we become friends. our parents become friends as well.
• 6, 7, 8... B and i play on various community sports teams together. each of our dads coaches at various times. B is a good athlete, but already sort of a spaz.
• 9, 10, 11, 12, 13... B and i fluctuate between being decent friends and just casual friendly faces. i have crazy adventures with him, like when he and i broke into our middle school basement to "explore," and eventually came upon the room where the janitor lived. B steals candy from the janitor's room. i ate it with him. at bar mitzvahs, B leads our group of friends out of services to go mix shit up. at one point, the rabbi's wife tackles him as he sneaks out of a service. when we are twelve, some girls ask B to see his penis, and he obliges. he also starts rolling "joints" made out of herbal tea, and we try to smoke these in the bathroom at my church. you get the point. meanwhile, our dads play softball on the same team for many years, and B's parents treat me like family whenever i'm at their house (which is a few times per year), because they like my family so much, and find me to be a calm and kind influence on their son.
• 14, 15... we're at the same high school, but B doesn't fit in too well socially. he is so brash and confident, but always aloof and clueless. the cooler kids tolerate him, even hang out with him, but treat him like garbage. as the months go by, he is viewed like more and more of a freak. B is also getting high and drinking almost daily by the start of sophomore year. (by the way, B is the youngest of 3 boys. both brothers are druggies, and his parents should be divorced, but aren't. his mom is also getting pretty sick with liver issues, i believe brought about by drinking, but i don't know for sure.)
• 16... B stops by my place of employment to tell me that he's running away from home. his parents call me the next day, and i tell them what i know. he lives with an uncle in florida for a few weeks, then they ship him back home. his folks enroll him in the snottiest private school in town. from what i heard, the kids there treated him like total garbage, beating him up and so on. i hardly hang out with him at all anymore, and when i do, i try to keep us out of public, because he's always on the verge of making a scene, offending someone, acting like an idiot, or whatever.
• 17,18... pretty much out of contact with him, but still am friendly with his folks when i see them.
• 18,19... he manages to graduate, and we go to the same college. he's in my latin class freshman year, but he attends only once every other week, and usually falls asleep in class. one day he shows up to class without a shirt on, and wearing a necklace with all these crazy feathers all over it, then immediately falls asleep at his desk. the professor has had enough, and tells him to get out. a week later, he's dropped out of school.
• 19,20... we're barely in touch. i see him maybe twice a year, and try to keep it on the DL, as he's even more of a social pariah than ever. i still care about the kid, and know that he has a good heart, but it's just too damn embarrassing to be in public with him. he came once to my dorm and shamed me by hitting on every one of my female friends in an obnoxious and rude manner, then nearly got his ass kicked at a party, then got literally thrown out of the party, flung through the air onto his ass on the sidewalk.
• 21... he came to a party my friends and i threw senior year. we actually had a good time. he stands on a ping-pong table in the middle of a crowded room, and shouts out the following declaration: "i can out-drink, out-smoke, and out-trip anyone at this party." people sort of seem to like him for once. his mom has a stroke and some major throat surgery. his brothers have their acts together, and now have families and graduate degrees. he's still not really in school, and gets fired from some jobs in our home town
• 22... i graduate, he doesn't. we speak on the phone maybe 3x per year. i'm always rooting for him, hoping that he'll get his shit together, but he's basically grown into one of the most wacky people i've ever met. he's still got what i think is a good heart, and it still bums me out how much trouble he's having getting a foothold in life.

so this is where shit gets horrible, and some very unsettling things start happening. B manages to piece together some sort of associate's degree in horticulture, and actually somehow becomes a franchisee for fairly major chain in our hometown, opening a store close to his folks' home. he also moves into his own place. he's got a steady job and the store is doing well (or at least it's not going out of business), but he's still doing all sorts of coke and LSD.

we rarely speak. he calls one time to catch up, and i ask him about his dating life. he asks me my opinion about whether it's ok to hook up with a girl who is under 18. (apparently, the only friends he seems to have are the high-school aged employees who work for him.) i'm like, god no... you've got to be joking... under no circumstances... don't even maintain non-professional friendships... don't put yourself in a situation where things could even be remotely romantic... etc, etc... all the stuff any sane adult would say in such a situation. B seems to understand, and thanks me for my advice.

some time passes, and a girl from my high school class who also knew B from when he attended our school calls me to tell me that she heard that B was registered as a sex offender in our home state. i tell her that i don't believe it, and i do some pretty extensive research into the available sex registries, but can't find his name.

last night, i'm doing the property reading, and get to the stuff about the condo association that wants to bar tier-3 sex offenders. it reminds me about B, so i do some more internet searches, and sure enough, there he is. it's his name, his picture, his height & weight, his home and work addresses...

i feel like i'm going to vomit looking at his picture on my laptop. his crime is "gross sexual imposition." i do a little westlaw work, and pull out the applicable statute from the state code.

basically, he's guilty of either using force or threatening force to sexually assault someone, OR using drugs or alcohol to get someone to submit to sexual contact, OR having sex with someone too old, injured, intoxicated, or insane to say no to sex, OR having sexual contact with someone under the age of 14.

so basically i feel really sad, disgusted, confused, and angry about what he's done.

of course a part of me, the part who played t-ball with B when we were 5, is thinking, "maybe he didn't know her age... maybe he didn't know she was drunk... maybe he was falsely accused," and so on.

but the rational, adult, law student part of me knows that the vast majority of people who are prosecuted and convicted of these crimes are indeed guilty, and deserve harsh punishments and the social condemnation and stigmas that go along with it.

i'm realizing that this was a really long story, so thanks to those of you who have stuck with me. it feels good to get it all out in writing, even though i'm embarrassed even to say that i know someone who has committed such a heinous crime.

so what i'm struggling with here is trying to figure out how i should handle it the next time B sends me an email or gives me a call.

i have always had the utmost contempt for sexual predators, rapists, molesters, and so on, and believe that the punishments for these crimes should be much stricter than they are. it has always killed me to read statistics that say that one out of four women are sexually assaulted in college, or that only something like five percent of rapes ever lead to convictions. to me, these facts have always pointed to just how fundamentally sick and fucked up our society has become.

yet on the other hand, i have always been able to loathe these perverts in the abstract. true, i've always viewed them as monsters, but it wasn't until last night that any of these monsters had a face.

my heart right now is telling me some conflicting things:

1. i was wrong about B having a good heart. maybe he did once, but not now.
2. i would be horrified to have to speak with him again, and don't want to even hear his voice. if i did, i would probably have to confront him about it.
3. he deserves to be shunned by society. his face is on that registry for a reason.
4. he hurt an innocent person, possibly a child. this person's life may not get put back together again because of B's actions.
5. some people truly learn from their mistakes. maybe B learned from his. maybe he is truly sorry. but maybe he is just a sick fuck who would hurt someone else if he could get away with it.
6. even though we've never been best friends or anything like that, i've known the guy for the better part of my life. i've also probably been one of the only people in B's life who has always rooted for him, and treated him with civility. maybe he needs a friend now more than ever before.

i could go on, but the point is that i don't know what to do. should i care about B at all, and should i value what little bit of friendship we still have? when he calls, do i pick up? when he emails, do i reply? if so, how do i handle this? do such people deserve second chances? am i a fool to hope that there is still some goodness in him?

i guess i should have paid more attention to all of that stuff dressler wrote about the different theories of punishment. anyway, i would be grateful for any advice or feedback you guys might have. thanks for listening.

***

i'd hate to end on a bad note like that, and fortunately i have some good news... our 10 day streak without a donation is over...

much thanks go out to the lovely person who pitched in today to our BLSforGood cause. we've now raised well over $600 for Africare. this is a major milestone, regardless of whether we reach our goal or not, so thanks again.

i'll see you all with the dozer. much love...

-menlove