The Flasher

When I was 12 years old, I saw a flasher. That may not seem like too big a deal if you are from a big city like New York or Chicago, but when you live in a three traffic light town that folds up the streets on Sundays, it is a huge deal.

We lived in town and my mom had a small store there. It was summer and I was watching my little brother, age 5, and had to deliver him to her at the store. This was nothing new. It was commonplace to walk everywhere, to the sundry store, to eat, to shop, to the movies.

I was holding his little hand, he was a talker, that kid, and funny too, even at age 5. He was chattering away as we walked down the sidewalk past some old storefronts. These were no longer stores, but had been turned into apartments, so they had long, heavy drapes covering the full length windows.

Some movement caught my eye, and as I glanced to my left, a man stepped from behind one of the curtains wearing nothing but a pair of dark socks. I quickly turned my head back forward and stepped up the pace. I think I was probably dragging my baby brother by this point, because I heard a tiny voice say, "Kim....hey, Kim, snap out of it!" (Funny kid).

I looked down at the confused little fella trying to keep up and said, "Didn't you see that?"

"See what?"

"Nothing," I said. I wasn't about to tell him. If I was in shock, what would he think? So I kept going and delivered him, safe and sound, to the store. I never said a word about it for a very long time. My logic was, if my little brother hadn't seen it and he was standing between me and the window, nobody would believe me.

When I look back on it now, I have to laugh. Not because some perv thought showing his junk to a little girl would be a turn on, but because of how my little 12 year old brain worked at the time and how much people change over the years.

I was an incredibly shy kid, so at the time, I was absolutely terrified. I never walked on that side of the street again for the remainder of the two years that we lived in town. When I thought of it, it sickened me. I buried it in the depths of my brain and tried not to ever think about it.

But what is really funny, is what it looked like to me. That thing looked like a nasty, 2 feet long missile that had its radar honed in on me.

My reaction then was like someone who had seen a war atrocity. Keep going, don't talk about it, don't think about it. Nowadays, I would probably try to make the guy feel like crap by pointing and laughing or saying something like, "Hey buddy, if you're trying to put out a fire, you're going to need more hose."

The moral of this story is, that if you ever see a flasher, point and laugh and say something to make them feel like crap. Because they are. Then call the cops.