Oh, and about Detroit...

My friend is still in Detroit, by the way--the one I mentioned in the last blog post. We don't speak anymore, but I'm not sure why. Because she's there, and I'm not, I guess. But I can't imagine it's gotten much better for her. Whenever I hear about Detroit, it's something that causes me anxiety. There was an item in the news this fall about a Florida prosecutor, coach of youth league teams, father of three, busted getting off a plane in Detroit bound for a liaison with a five year old girl. The girl's mother was a cop posing on the internet as some incredibly foul skank who would actually pimp out a little girl to strangers for, what? It didn’t say. For a hundred dollars? Five? What kind of price do people put on these things? So this "mother" who was actually a cop offered a daughter (who didn't exist) up for sex to whatever child-snatching perv comes along… (how must she have felt, this cop, when someone really did come along? There are things in this world you don’t want to believe. But you have to. You have to believe that there are really such mothers, and there are really such men...and you have to have some really good method of coping with your soul sickness when you go home at the end of the day. I used to feel that way, after a day of working at certain crime-sodden newspapers.) But don’t leave me, now. I'm asking you to think about this for only a moment. Good necessitates evil, you know, so here's what our goodness hath wrought: He wore a goatee and he shaved his head and he had these two little slits-in-a-wrinkled-puff sort of eyes, and he told that fake mom he thought he was chatting with, “I’ve done it plenty.” He said “I’m always gentle and kind,” but what kind of kind can he think he is being when he violates a little girl? “Gently?” I know I know, I don’t want to think about it either but here on earth, it’s what they’re doing and we have to know this. The man who wants to do this thing will never go away. It doesn't matter that in the end, he hung himself in his jail cell. He will be with us always. And I read the story about this guy thinking, Oh my dear sweet vengeful fucking God, strike him dead right now, let him die, because it says right there in the New York Times that he came to Detroit bearing a Dora the Explorer doll to give his victim. I wanted to cry. He had a Dora the Explorer doll. A Dora the Explorer doll. I would have wanted that doll. I want that doll now. All the dolls I ever had are still up in my parents' attic. Okay, so I didn't really have many dolls; mostly just stuffed animals. But I would have wanted the Dora doll. I want right now, and I want one to give to all the little girls of the world, so that Dora can tell them to go out there and be someone, explore, discover the world, know that it is wonderful, and that you are wonderful, and that it’s good to be a girl. It really is. But it isn’t always safe. It may not ever be safe. Not really. There is no such thing as safe. When you’re five, you can best hope for love and protection. And there, there, there, is the real origin of all these anxieties. If you're reading still, read on--but don't tell me I'm nuts to worry all the time, about everything. It's just like, cleaning out my parents' attic, you know? It's there. It isn't going to go away, unless I plow through it, and let it go, and hope it doesn't all just get piled up again somewhere else for me to throw out all over again, later.