So last year, Keyser found on Facebook somebody that he he’d been friendly with back in high school. (It seems that one of FB’s main purposes is to find people from grade school and high school and see if you look better at this age than they do.) This friend was on vacation at the time and posted fairly frequently. Then at the end of last August he got back home and stopped posting. If you do much FB, you find that some people are on all the time, some have accounts but never post, and the last category are on rather sporadically.
Keyser didn’t think much about this disappearance and let it slide. Then the other day, an entirely unrelated matter about another school acquaintance put Keyser in mind of the person from last year, so he decided to check out the friend’s account. Hmm, that’s odd, he doesn’t seem to be in Keyser’s list of “friends” any more. Somewhat retardedly, FB alphabetizes by first name, so Keyser tried by “real” first name and nickname, but to no avail.
Well, okay, let’s try out Google. Keyser knew the name, obviously, and remembered the home state, so type type type, and let’s see what we get. The first few “hits” were doctors, but clearly not him. Then… “Oh, Keyser’s fucking God!” A notice that someone with this name was arrested on felony child molestation charges last August! Later searching reveals that the person is now about to go on trial, being accused of having molested a 12-year-old. Now, being accused and being guilty aren’t necessarily the same thing, so we’ll have to see how things turn out, but… not only is the age of the accused appropriate for Keyser’s high school buddy, but the arrest photo they stuck at the top of the article seemed pretty clearly to be the same person, with the wear and tear of three decades added on to Keyser’s memory. (And, boy, you should see the reactions in the comment section of the article. No doubt people are influenced by the circumstances, but do they ever take a dislike to that image!)
Jesus Christ. A 12-year-old? What in the fuck is the matter with people? Perhaps more importantly, how do you look at people and hang out with them, not knowing that in three decades they’d do something so appalling? Not sure why Keyser finds this news so disturbing… Perhaps the idea that you really can’t know what goes on in other people’s heads? Or that people you interacted with so non-chalantly turn out to have some sort of awful black pit in their heart?
Anyway, whatever the legal outcome, let’s hope the accusation isn’t true. For everybody’s sake…
[Post scriptum. Good God, it's worse than Keyser thought. Not wanting to know too much about this, he sort of skipped over the details. The inestimable Dr. Phibes, however, is a veritable student of human depravity, so he carefully perused the fine print and has brought it to Keyser's attention that he was being a bit lenient with the perp. Turns out the charge was sex with a minor under the age of 12, and that this person was also charged with coercing the minor into having sex and then filming and shipping the footage. So Keyser's old chum is not just a pedophile but a filmer and distributor of kiddie porn. While Keyser is, as always, grateful for corrections, in this instance he can't say that he feels better for being better informed. Perhaps Phibes' darker understanding of the human psyche is more accurate than Keyser's somewhat rosier view. In any event, you'll have to excuse Keyser while he goes to pour a bit of lye into his memory's eye...
Post post scriptum. You'd think it couldn't get worse, but oddly enough, it did. Keyser just checked the latest news story, and the victim was age four at the time of the crime, and it's said to be unclear whether the victim will be called to testify in the upcoming trial. Four? Keyser can't take much more of this.
Post post post scriptum. Among his many skills medical and otherwise, Dr. Phibes is an expert at forensic medicine and he created the following imagine of what the accused would have looked three decades ago.
Good God, that's him! Modern scientific procedures are truly astounding. Who would think that you could take a picture of a 48-year-old pervert and recreate the spitting image of a 17-year-old would-be pervert?
And for those who think that joke is in bad taste, that's probably true. But some things are so awful that all you can do is laugh (or at any rate, the alternative isn't very appealing). And it really does look like him now. The whole thing is just too much to think about.]
Posted August 9, 2010 by Keyser Söze under Bad Thought of the Day, Horrible, Keyser, Keyser is an Idiot, Keyser man of Mystery, Keyser's Personal Hell, Personal Relationships, What in the Fuck is the Matter with People?
August 10th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Actually he bares an uncanny resemblance to the late Yves St. Laurent
http://www.swotti.com/tmp/swotti/cacheEXZLCYBZYWLUDCBSYXVYZW50UGVVCGXLLVBLB3BSZQ==/imgYves%20Saint%20Laurent3.jpg
But we won’t go there.
And for the record, I would like it known that I feel defiled by any form of association with this fiend.
And coming from me…
Yours with a certain amount of self-disgust.
A. P.
August 10th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
But how were we to have known? There wasn’t anything creepy about him back then, was there? Maybe a bit nerdy, but not… malevolent…
Sharing in your sense of defilement,
KS
PS And you better be careful about implying any connection with defunct fashion figures, or the lawyers of someone’s estate may come calling at your door…
October 11th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
[...] to his horror at having learned that someone he was familiar with back in high school had been accused of pedophilia of the worst kind. Keyser felt sullied at having been friendly with such a person, even thirty [...]
January 31st, 2012 at 5:31 pm
[...] 2010 your old friend Keyser was horrified to discover that a high-school acquaintance was first accused and then convicted of charges of child [...]