Page 23 - Contrast1988Spring
P. 23
Mel
"... He starts to shake and cough,
just like the old man in that book by Nabokov."
--the Police from Don't Stand So Close To Me
. I, like most kids growing up, had not one religious bone
111 my bony body. However, parental discretion dictated that I
attend church/Sunday school every week. When I was nine or
ten a certain late-thirties member of our church, Mel Lessiter,
~,O~ka liking to me. In a word, he terrified me. He was
. shghtly retarded" and a known child molester, my mother
~nf?rmed me. Some years before he had been fired from a
]al11torial job for trying to manhandle a young boy. I had this
fear that one Sunday I'd be pissing in a restroom in some
remote wing of the church and he'd walk in and start to fondle
me ~ith his large paws. He was gangly tall, with an
oversIzed, misshapen head topped by a nest of unkemp.t,
rather greasy hair. Shaded coke bottle glasses clung to his
nose as he bumbled along pigeon toed. He was an accepted
member of the church community, even though everyo~e
knew of his past penchant for little boys. He lived with hIS
mother, a white-haired widow who attended our church and
kept an eye on him. He had one passion/forte: phot?wap~1Y·
He was quite good with a camera and held the unofficial title
of church photographer. ..
. He saw his camera as a way of nurturing a friendship
with your truly; he began clicking pies of me. He would click
me coming out of the sanctuary, or coming from Sunday
school class or in the Parish Hall during coffee hour. He even
started coming to my soccer, baseball, and basketball games
and snap snap snap. I'm not sure how he knew when my
gat?es were. Maybe he pilfered schedules from the PAL
offIces or maybe he looked in the paper. But for years he was
at almost every game. And after every game he'd approach me
and hand me the action glossies from the last game. He was
very shy and stuttered in his rumbly voice: "Here, these are
!for you" or something eloquent like that. uttere~ my breezy
thanks and politely ohhed and aahed the pICS. This obviously
Contrast Spring 1988 19