By Spencer Michlin, KERA 90.1 Commentator
Dallas, TX –
A couple of weeks ago, our dry cleaners gave me the wrong stuff. I stuck it in my trunk and went to the gym. My wife called to let me know what had happened and that the cleaners said the other guy was desperate for his clothes, so I headed back.
The manager was standing out front with my plastic bags. I pulled in next to an SUV and was about to open my door when I saw that the rear door of the SUV was opening and that our two doors would collide. "You go first," I called into the dark space between the opening door and the SUV's frame. There was a shriek, and the SUV's door slammed hard. Then two young girls, about eight or tem, scrambled out of the opposite door, ran to the store front and, never taking their eyes off me, edged their way along the wall and into the cleaners.
The manager and I looked blankly at one another, then I opened my trunk, we made the exchange and I promptly forgot about it. Ten days or so later, having returned from vacation with both body and brain baked by the Caribbean sun, I wandered back into the dry cleaners. My friend the manager gave me a hug and said, "I'm so glad I was there that day and saw everything." "What day? What everything?" She continued, "Those little girls came into the store crying hysterically. When their mother finally calmed them down they said that you had tried to coax them into your car. They put up a big argument when I explained that I'd seen and heard the whole thing."
So there I stood, a 15-year volunteer in the Dallas school district, one who, by the way, has to pass a police background check each year, as well as a guy who happens to be working on an advertising campaign to raise private funds for the Dallas Police Department, realizing how close I'd come to being accused of the sort of crime that - even though there'd never have been a trial - could have damaged my reputation horribly. No one can argue that we live in dangerous times, just as no one can argue that kids often have overactive imaginations. We must protect our children and arm them with the information they need to seek help on their own. And yet...Surely a mother does more harm than good by instilling terror of all strangers, especially men, in her children.
Had that been a store where I was not known; more important, had the entire event not been witnessed, the store owner would have had no option but to call the cops. I know I would have in that situation, and an innocent man's life could have been ruined as a result. And yet...as of May 1, there were 3,350 registered sex offenders living within the Dallas city limits. That's 3,350 people who've been caught, convicted and who've paid most of their debt to society, people who must make their whereabouts known to the authorities for the rest of their lives. This number, however staggering, doesn't include offenders who haven't been caught or convicted. And even that total is dwarfed by the population of general creeps whose cars kids should never get into.
So, mother knows best. And yet...is replacing innocence with terror the answer?
Spencer Michlin is a writer from Dallas.
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