This Cowtown Crime is a bit different from previous entries, as it was written entirely from memory and without references such as news articles or court documents.
The television program “Dateline: To Catch a Predator” was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. Drawing gargantuan ratings in its original run and millions more in syndicated and online replays, an entire generation of viewers tuned in for some good, old-fashioned schadenfreude. Online vigilantes, teaming with law enforcement and blow-dried, award-winning journalist Chris Hansen, would lure a seemingly endless array of losers into a sting house under the pretense of sex with a young teen. Upon arrival, with gifts like candy or Mike’s Hard Lemonade in tow, the sorry suitors were interrogated, humiliated, and arrested. The schlubs came from all walks of life; From already registered sex offenders with cowlicks and dirty sweatpants who seemed too dumb to realize what they walked into, to school teachers and doctors who had full-blown panic attacks upon confrontation. You could actually watch the latter types die inside, in real time, as they neurotically came to terms with what was happening. The show was monstrously entertaining and has birthed an entire sub-genre of fandom, complete with wiki sites, subreddits, and YouTube channels, dedicated to all things TCAP. My own repeated viewings of this show have always brought one question to the surface: Where the fuck were these guys in Vacaville, 40 years ago?
My junior high years were frustrating, as adolescence tends to be. Puberty swept over me like a nuclear winter, lighting a series of short fuses of the explosives that were my hormones. To be in a constant state of arousal with an absolute zero chance of scoring was a state of angst that I have never known since. My particular taste in girls did not help. I fawned over the bad girls. Heavy metal types, in faded denim, moccasins, and Metallica t-shirts. That or the Mexican cholas with thick eyeliner and hair that was Aquanetted so high it added an entire foot to their height. These were the types who put out, just not for me. The fact that I was completely devoid of any charm and had no game whatsoever did not help. Also, a factor was that too many of my 13-year-old crushes were dating men in their 20s. Even at the time, this seemed creepy and weird to me. Sure, there was some bitterness and sour grapes, but even my young mind couldn’t wrap itself around the question of why the fuck was this so common and why nothing ever seemed to be done about it?
One girl my age, who was a friend (I was friend-zoned by every girl whom I lusted after), was quite the looker. We had gone to separate elementary schools, and her reputation had preceded her into junior high. She had developed early and carried herself with the full knowledge and confidence of the effects that her blossoming had on the horny males who surrounded her. At 13, she had a boyfriend of 24. He was a buffed-out, long-haired guy from Fairfield. Girls described him as having “a body that don’t quit.” I asked some other girls, with probable bitterness in my voice, why a 24-year-old would mess around with a girl of 13. “Because he’s got the body that don’t quit and he knows he can get some off if her,” was their non-answer. At the time, I couldn’t help thinking, so why not go get some off of a 20-year-old? Was it that difficult? Apparently so.
For the rocker girls, many of them straight out of “River’s Edge” or “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” statutory dating was almost par for the course. Two friends, both in the 9th grade (Freshman still attended the junior high back then), had boyfriends in their 20s. There was no scandal involved and both girls’ parents were well aware of the situation. In fact, I can’t ever recall anyone ever getting busted for this. With the way the rumor mill went, surely there would have been at least one story making the rounds. It was so common and out in the open that I don’t even remember anyone, outside of my own mind, even acknowledging that something creepy was going on.
The real inspiration for this rant was a guy, who for anonymity’s sake, I will refer to as Pinhead. Pinhead was a local fixture. If you hung around Taco Bell with the stoners, burnouts, and hacky sackers in the 1980s and '90s, you absolutely knew Pinhead. He was a filthy, often homeless guy in his mid-20s who could be seen on any given day riding his bicycle around town, often with a teenage girl on the handlebars. He was funny and likable (if you were 13 and had shit-for-brains) and the guy you could always go to if you needed someone with ID to score you a pack of smokes or a 40 ouncer. He was also fucking his way through so much illegal cooze that, to this day, I am still shocked that his face never ended up plastered on an online registry. Pinhead would not have been at all out of place sitting across the table from Chris Hansen, making up excuses over a plate of brownies and glasses of sweet tea. The guy was absolutely disgusting looking, and that’s what blew my mind the most. It’s one thing to fuck a creepy old guy, but why one who has a face like a ferret and smells like a garbage disposal? As always, I was alone in my assessment. Pinhead got more teenage action than I could have ever wished for, seemingly trading in a new ones weekly. As far as I know, he was never in any danger of being busted. I never heard of a single scandal or threat of law enforcement ever being brought up. Pinhead had a whole entourage of cretins who engaged in the same shit. One of them was a friend’s uncle, who “dated” two different girls of 14 while he, of course, was in his early 20s.
And so it went in Cowtown, for as long as I cared to live there. There was another guy who, while I wouldn’t call him a friend because I never cared for the asshole, ran in the same social circles as me. He impregnated his 12-year-old girlfriend when he was around 23. This was a guy who had no problem snagging women his own age and, once again, no one ever seemed to bat an eye at what was absolutely predatory and illegal behavior. I have no idea how common this was in other places. But, using Solano County as a model for “Anytown, USA,” I would guess it happened pretty goddamn often. I am unable to recall a single instance of a man ever being arrested or even investigated for batting in Little League when they should have stayed in Triple A.
