Because of A Safety Pin

This is a work of fiction. All characters are conceived in my mind and were born and raised in the bits and bytes of my computer.

My public defender suggested I write down my story so the Judge and jury might better understand the events leading to the reason I was before them. Her staff interviewed Misty and helped fill in the blanks.

***

A lot of kids grow up in one house, go to school and make life friends with the other kids they meet and stay with during the different phases of their education. Not me. I probably go to ten different schools during my twelve years of organized learning. I never knew my dad. When I am about fifteen, my Mom tells me about him. They were high school sweethearts who dated about a year and were making plans to get married. I get conceived, and when he finds out, he is gone, never to be seen or heard from again. Being a waitress is a hard life. Bar and restaurant owners are a fickle bunch. Some forget to pay their taxes and the IRS seizes the property and assets leaving the workers (my Mom) in the dust. Others create such an antagonistic atmosphere that she has to quit. Still some others get busted for drugs, selling alcohol to minors, and in one case, assault with a deadly weapon. My Mom then scrambles to find another job and a lot of times that job is in another school district or even another city. We move a lot.

Even though I never meet many other kids and we are quite poor, I always have a warm bed to sleep in, me belly is full and feel loved. I remain an only child. If my Mom has any relationships with other men, I don't know, though, sometimes in the morning when I am getting ready for school, I see an extra towel in the hamper or I smell a faint odor of aftershave in the house. I get my driver's license when I am fifteen and find part time jobs to help my Mom with expenses. Mowing grass here. Working in gardens there. Whatever I can find. I am seventeen when I find at part time job in a grocery store. It was just a week after my Mom and I celebrated my eighteenth birthday. (Don't tell anybody we shared that bottle of champagne.) I get home that fateful Friday evening, fix my dinner and watch some TV. I'm expecting my Mom home from her new restaurant job around ten. She doesn't show. I get worried. Somewhere around midnight, there is a knock on the door. Upon opening it, I see two somber police men. "Are you James Mack?" I nod although I am known as Jimmy to my teachers and classmates. "Is your mother Helen Mack?" I nod again, feeling dread. "May we come in?" I invite them in and offer some water. They decline. Ask me to sit. There was this horrible accident. Two teenagers out on a date were groping each other while driving down the road. They were doing more groping than driving. Drifted into the oncoming lane and crashed into my Mom's car on her way home from work. Killed her instantly. I discover later the kids survived but had to go through years of physical therapy. My school finds out and has a grief specialist counsel me. They try to engage the students in my tragedy, but, because I have only been at this particular school for about a month, they don't really have any connection with me. Other than a couple of morbidly curious strangers, I am the only one at the funeral. Even though she didn't cultivate friendships, I loved my Mom. She was a good Mom and good person.

My boss at the grocery store where I am working finds out too. His secretary informs me of an appointment with him. I arrive early and sit in the front office listening to Janice type and answer phones. About fifteen minutes after our appointed time, Janice motions and I enter his office.

"Have a seat, Jimmy. Take a load off. Sorry about the wait. A last minute thing came up that had to be taken care of now.

"No problem, Mr. Burke."

"Jimmy, I heard about your Mom's death. I am so sorry for you. How are you doing?"

"I suppose as well as can be expected. The funeral bill took all Mom's savings. I have to move. I can't afford to live where I am now that Mom's paycheck isn't there. I gave my notice to the landlord that I will be out at the end of the month. I am not sure where I am going then. I've started looking, but haven't found anything affordable yet"

"Here. Call up my friend, Tom Maxwell. He owns some properties. Tell him I sent you." He hands me a business card.

"Thank you, sir."

"You have been working after school Monday through Friday. That's right, isn't it?

"Yes, sir."

"Your manager tells me he likes your initiative. How would you like to work Saturday and Sunday also?"

"That would be great! Thanks!"

"Stop and see Janice on your way out and give her this." He scribbles something on a piece of paper, folds it up and hands it to me.

"Thank you, Mr. Burke. I'll call Mr. Maxwell this evening when I get home."

"He'll be expecting your call."

Mr. Maxwell rents me a great place to live. Extremely affordable with my part time wages. Close to work and school. I am totally surprised by the amount of my next pay check. Not the hours of course, but that dollar an hour raise that I get. I now have enough to live on, pay for my school supplies and still have enough left over to start a savings account! Whoo, hoo!

I finally graduate high school with a C average. Two weeks before the prom, I ask a girl I like to go with me. Three days before she says yes. I buy a corsage and pick her up. We dance two dances before she goes off to the bathroom. When she comes back she says she is going to talk to some people. Then I see her dancing with a guy. Half hour later, she tells me that she is leaving with her friends and walks out arm in arm with that guy. Well, at least she is kind enough to tell me. Yeah, I have a great time at my prom.

After searching a bit for full time work, I get hired at The Port with the blessings of Mr. Burke. Janice too. I start out sweeping offices, running errands, and the like. They give me heavy equipment training and like how quickly I master the forklift and my career is off and running. I don't get to know my workmates much. We meet for the morning's briefing then off I go, forking around. It seems every time they decide to go to happy hour at the end of the day, something comes up that precludes me from going. A shipment comes in that I have to work overtime to take care of. A late afternoon appointment I have to go to. Always something. It's ok. I have been a loner all my life and don't need any friends. After a couple of years at The Port, I save enough money for a down payment and convince a bank to loan me the rest and for the first time in my life, I have a permanent place to live. It feels good. I even have enough money to feed the hobby I have developed over the years. Tinkering with vintage audio equipment. Tube radios, gramophones, wire recorders, all that stuff. Over the years I have been enjoying this hobby, I start understanding the circuits and wiring with the help of the books I check out of the library and, of course, the internet when not talking to my babes.

I'm living a decent life. Work and home. That's what I do. Sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night, I walk on down to Sasha's, the local bar. No, not to pick up women. Gave up on that silliness a bunch of years ago. Probably about the time the internet came about. After being humiliated, rejected and ridiculed by most girls I try to talk to, I find my internet babes are much more friendly. They get even friendlier when I give them my credit card number. They keep me satisfied and content with my single life. So I head to Sasha' to drink a few, watch the live music and the dancers. Maybe chat small talk to some of the patrons. Cheap entertainment and it gets me out of the house for a few hours.

[Finally, I was able to move out of my parents house. I kept thinking I was overstaying my visit after I received my Bachelors from The University but it was difficult finding a job. After way too much time, I was hired by The Company. Saving up for a few months, I found a place to rent and, with my parents help, moved in. Modest little place. Used to be lived in by this old couple and was freshly remodeled. Their daughter rented it to me. Clean and bright. What really made the place interesting, though, was this guy down the street. My dad was helping me with a table. I was walking backwards, saw him involved in yard work. He didn't see us as we moved my few possessions in. I saw him, though. Those shoulders! That dark wild mane. I forgot where I was going and oof. I backed into the door frame. "Watch where you're going, Misty." My dad said. I had to meet him. That Saturday, I noticed his garage door open and decided to take the opportunity.]

I (and the bank) have owned my house for some years now. I find a Saba tuner really cheap on Craig's list. I get it home Sunday evening and spend the whole work week looking forward to the weekend when I can closely examine this little beauty. This Saba was made in the late fifty's and was pretty advanced at that time. It has a wired remote control with about twenty feet of cable to switch between the five bands with a few other functions such as a little antenna that, if you pushed a button on the remote, would spin until you would find the best reception. Push another button and it would spin the other direction. It has that 'Wow, very cool' factor. It is Saturday morning when I am finally able to get to it. I had set up half of my two car garage as a workshop so I could indulge in my passion and it was such a beautiful summer day that I kept the garage door open. One thing that is fun working on old radios and stuff is the smells I get with them. They often spend many years in the same house absorbing the odors of their occupants. In smelling these smells, I often draw little pictures in my head of what I imagine the previous owners looked like. I stick my head in this Saba sniffing around to see what I smell. Hmmm. Interesting. Smells like jasmine. Probably belonged to some woman. Let's see. Oh, maybe blonde hair, shoulder length. I'll have to check my internet babes later to see if I can put a picture to

"Hi." A women's voice speaks. The way she pronounces that one syllable sound, is like she is singing a song. The most angelic song. I get a twinge. Then, for a split second I get a chill up my spine thinking the ghost of the radio's previous owner is talking to me. This voice sounds real enough though and it didn't come from the radio. I turn around and there she is. The light is playing tricks on me. She is framed by a sort of an aura, a soft glow. Her shadowy curves are very sexy, pretty. Like those angels I see in those books. Now, an actual woman talking to me personally and not for business is something that just does not happen. Maybe I'm not very handsome or I have a personality that turns women off. Maybe I have BO. I don't know. Like I said, I gave up on ever finding a girlfriend much less a wife. She comes closer. That jasmine smell comes from her not the radio. As she approaches me, the light shifts and I am able to see her in more detail. Thin, shoulder length, curly red hair, freckles. Sexy green eyes. Her height comes to about my eye level.

"Uh, er, hello?" I stammer.

She smiles demurely and holds out her hand.

"I'm Misty. I just moved in a couple of doors down."

"Uh. Er. Nice to meet you. I'm, um, Jimmy."

My heart is beating furiously as I take her hand. So delicate. So soft. The freckles. First time I touched a woman in years. My pants immediately become uncomfortable. I remember that National Geographic magazine I found at the thrift store about a month after my Mom died. I always enjoy vicarious travel and have a small collection of Nat Geo's. I was leafing through one at the store and this picture of a girl was in there. Even though I saw her for only a fraction of a second, that brief glance stirred my loins, and I knew right then that magazine was coming home with me. I nervously paid the twenty-five cents for it feeling like I was buying some perverted porno or something. Oh, but I was. This was the prettiest girl I ever saw in my whole life. Just a close up of her face. Curly red hair with freckles. Had no name. I can't remember the article cus I cut that picture out and posted to my wall where I could see it from my bed as soon as I got my pretty home. I would look at that picture and massage my privates thinking about the face in the picture. Sometimes I would take that picture down from the wall and start kissing it. Trying to believe that she was kissing me back. Oh! I had many, many glorious fantasies with Katherine. Oh, yeah. I gave her a name. One time, after thinking about a story I had read, I released my load on that picture. I immediately regretted it and rushed to clean it off in the sink. That picture disintegrated into a thousand mushy pieces. I was crushed. Katherine's picture is still in my mind but is becoming fuzzy and out of focus. Losing pixels, as they say. I no longer spend hours and hours searching everywhere for that issue of that magazine. Must have become a collector's item or something.

I couldn't say anything, afraid my heart would pop out my throat. An awkward pause.

"Uh, do you have a safety pin?"

"Er. Yeah, I have some. I'll go get them." I get up turning quickly hoping she won't see her effect on me and go into the house grateful for the time to let my erection subside. I was thinking about getting a lab coat. I won't think about it any more. I come out a minute or two later. She is looking at the Saba.

"Here you go." Showing her a box of safety pins.

She smiles brightly as she chooses a medium size one.

"Thanks so much. You saved my day. By the way, what's this?" I explain the Saba to her.

"Ooh. That's cool. I'd like to see it when it's working. Thanks again. See ya later."

She starts walking away, then stops and turns around with a big smile.

"Nice meeting you. I'd give you my number but the telephone company hasn't bothered to hook me up yet. Maybe I'll see you around."

[A safety pin? Well, I panicked. I didn't know what else to say to this man who I'd just barely met, and was already making me feel all warm and tingly and he wasn't even saying anything. That radio stuff was cool though. I hope I wasn't too forward with my explaining my telephone situation. Maybe he'll get the hint.]

Then she's gone but not before the light creates another halo around her. Wow! What a walk! Wow! What a body! Wow! Wow! The last time a woman smiled at me was my dear mother. What does she want with a safety pin? I can't work on that radio anymore. I shut the garage door and go inside. No girls ever smile at me—that way!! I am trembling as I unzip my pants and bring myself to release. My fastest one ever. Barely had I started stroking myself when I erupted. All over the place. Takes me a half hour to clean up that mess. That evening I visit my internet babes, but they just aren't doing it for me. I can't sleep that night either. Tossing and turning thinking about Misty. When I finally get out of bed late Sunday morning, I am able to collect myself a little bit and do some more work on that radio with the garage door open. I have a hard time concentrating though. Every time the wind blows a leaf around, I look up from what I am doing hoping, wanting to see Misty again. She never appears. I knew the house she had moved in to, though. Used to belong to the Graber's. Nice old couple. Mrs. Graber would bake me cookies. I would shovel their snow, mow the grass in their small yard and help them out with other stuff every so often. Mrs. Graber passed away about a year ago and Mr. Graber followed her about six months later. I went to both funerals.. I saw some workmen there a little later and a For Rent sign went up. I want to go see her, but don't know what to say if I do see her. Does she really like me? I think so. Hell, I don't know.

Wednesday, I am not calmed down enough to do my work and almost have an accident. I am pulled off the job and sent to see my boss. Ms. Spatal is all business as she always is. A fair enough boss. She always wears some shade of a grey, formless pantsuit. Blouse buttoned up to the neck covered by a jacket with horn rim glasses and hair tightly in a bun. I have never seen her smile.

"How long have you been with The Port now, Jimmy?" Ms. Spatal never looks up but then again, that was the way she is. Always head down, scribbling something when talking to me.

"I think about fifteen years, ma'am."

"When was the last time you went on vacation?"

Hmm. I have to think a bit.

"Well, a couple of years ago there was that vintage radio convention when I took four days off."

She looks up at me with a snarly look.

"You have been a good asset to The Port in the past, but this week your performance has been unacceptable. It appears some issues have come up that you need to take care of. You have plenty of accrued vacation time. I strongly suggest you use it."

She looks back down and starts scribbling again.

"We will mail your checks to your home . Call me when you think you are ready to focus on your work."

"Yes ma'am."

I sit there soaking all this in.

"Anything else?"

"I. Er. Uh. No ma'am."

I take the hint, leave her office, pick up the stuff in my locker and go home.

Ms. Spatel was right. I am having issues. Misty issues. Not many guys are friendly to me, but girls? Most women I meet are some shades of Ms. Spatel with varying degrees of sneer. Like I said, I am used to it. But Misty! Her beauty, smile and smell has turned my life upside down.

Two days later, I get that radio working. At the time of the Misty meeting, I only had about two hours worth of work to do. All I can do is think of Misty. Misty this. Misty that. If I verbalized to my dog that I don't have, that dog would be begging to go outside and run away as fast as his body would take him to avoid my insistent drabble. Saying the same things over and over again. I attempt to work on the radio but only because I am hoping for another encounter with her. I leave the door open just in case. First shortwave receiver I had. Lots of fun listening to the ham operators, foreign radio stations, police, fire, aircraft radios and what ever else I can pick up. I spend all Friday evening and most of Saturday discovering what that Saba has to offer. I have oodles and oodles of fascinating fun pushing those buttons and watching that antenna spin around. First one way, then the other. It takes my mind off of Misty for a while.

After dinner, and visiting my internet babes, I decide to celebrate getting the Saba working, so I walk on down to Sasha's for my night out. Maybe the band and the general hubbub that goes on down there will get my mind off of Misty. The bartender recognizes me as I walk in and has my favorite beer ready when I reach the bar. A fly goes in and out of my mouth before I am able to close it. I hardly ever frequent Sasha's and this guy recognizes me and remembers what I drink? I pay him with a good tip and sit down in my favorite place where I can see the band and the dance floor. I am on my second beer when I see her. So much for my plan. She is sitting with two guys and a girl. One of the guys is doting on the girl and Misty and the other guy are laughing and having an animated discussion. My heart sinks. That must be her boyfriend or something. I watch the band and the dancers but can't avoid glancing over to her table every now and then, lamenting my loss. I am thinking about her so much I think I smell jasmine. Even thinking about that aroma starts twitches. I feel a light touch my shoulder and my heart is palpitating furiously as Misty sits across from me and smiles that big smile. I am flabbergasted and immediately feel that twitch turn into a full blown throbbing in my crotch.