Sex Offenders

So I’ve never lived in a neighborhood where there is a very concentrated clutter of “red dots,” or registered sex offenders, until I moved out of my parent’s house. My boyfriend and I moved here a little less than a year ago to this city’s east side, which like most American metropolitan cities (has anybody else noticed this?), are where all the coin laundry, pawn shops, liquor stores, and taco trucks are. Yeah. We live near the airport and everything.

We’re on the “other” side of the freeway, so there aren’t really elementary schools over here. It’s just a sea of apartment complexes, duplexes, and community college housing. My boyfriend and I actually live in the nicest complex in the area. It’s gated and on top of a hill. The parties on the weekends aren’t too loud and the only thing behind the building is an open field, power plant, and VA hospital.

We live on the side of town where all the red dots are. The other day we received a postcard in the mail with a sepia tone picture of a grim-looking fellow on the front, squinting slightly and full of shame. It was an menacing warning that he, a dangerous sex offender, had moved into the neighborhood, complete with all his personal information.  Full name, home address, date of conviction, crime. It said he was convicted of the rape of a minor. A six year old girl.

I sort of wish they still made these people go door-to-door…you know…so I could castrate him with a dull butcher knife and paint him in tar and feathers.

No, seriously.

This story has something to do with my hotel, I promise.

Coincidentally, I spoke to a colleague just days after who acted as an informant with some highly sensitive dirt of my boss. Most of us at the front desk have written him off as a closeted homosexual. It’s already a well recognized cliché that men in hospitality are predominantly gay. Nobody really has a problem with that. And my boss is really only half creepy. He speaks with an articulate lisp and always reassures us that his interest in misogynistic hip hop (which he plays while working), fast cars, and women. We all kind of just feel sorry for him.

So yeah. My boss is actually a registered sex offender. One of the bellmen randomly Googled his name and he appeared on the national registry of sex offenders. Photo included, wearing a suit that looks like the ones he wears to work (how novel!).

I look at him a little differently now.

It's a little off-putting. I thought the bellmen were supposed to be the creepy ones.