The weirdest solicitor

This is one of those entries I’d probably post on my other blog normally, but since I’m trying really hard to only post in one place, I’ll post it here instead.  That said, I've warned you.

Back in high school, there was this guy named Charles. You had to feel sorry for the guy.  He had a LOT of unruly hair and an unkempt beard.  He wore the same thing every day.  At first, I thought he might own 5 of the same t-shirt and 5 of the same pants and, you know, wear different clothes each day that just looked like the same clothes.  However, once I saw that all 5 of his brown t-shirts had the same hole in the same place, I realized that it was indeed the same outfit every day.  And Charles smelled.  All that hair didn't look it was washed very often, the same clothes every day, yeah you could imagine why he smelled.  Charles didn't talk to anyone, and he walked around in a daze most of the time.  I'm not sure what computer games were around back then, but you got the distinct impression that he played something along the lines of World of Warcraft most of the time he wasn't in school.

I had wondered if Charles was poor.  After all, he looked like a homeless man.  Maybe he was. When I asked someone, she said he lived near her, and he had a typical house.  That doesn't mean he wasn't poor.  I mean, who really knows.  But given that he lived in a middle class neighborhood, it was most likely that he chose to dress and take care of himself that way.  As one can imagine, Charles wasn't treated well by other students.  He was frequently picked on by the other guys, and the girls were visibly creeped out if Charles was within smelling distance.  

He was an easy person to pick on.  In my group of friends, they’d talk about him.  From my perspective, it really got annoying.  He was this defenseless guy who, yes, wasn’t going to ever be voted Homecoming King, but he didn’t hurt anyone.  So the people I hung out with were making fun of him one day, and I was sick of it.  I said that Charles probably would look decent if he bathed, shaved, cut his hair, and put on a new outfit.  Probably no one would recognize him, and most of the girls would think he was attractive. I left off the part about his incredible shyness and social awkwardness because it would take him a lot more than a makeover to overcome that.  I was just talking about looks. And somehow that got to us talking about makeovers, which led to someone talking about new jeans, and then we got off the Charles topic.

The next Saturday afternoon I was hanging around the house with my mom, and the doorbell rang. I answer the door, and it’s Charles.  I had no idea how he found my house; I had no idea he knew my name.  We didn’t have any classes together, and he was a grade or two ahead of me.  He had his bicycle with him, and he was wearing a bike helmet. Apparently he biked to my house.  I don’t know what I said exactly, but it was probably something along the lines of, “What are you doing here?” or maybe just, “Charles?” 

I will never forget what Charles said because it was the first and only thing he ever said to me.  “Will you make love to me?”

I really try to be nice most of the time, but that was a bit out of left field, considering we had never even talked before.  And my mom was 10 feet away and if she could hear him, she might become psycho mom.  I was probably not the nicest person in the world when I said NO, and I shut the door in his face.  But hey, in my defense those were the first words he ever said to me. 

My mom asked who was at the door.  I said a solicitor (well, he was).  And as the evening wore on, I couldn’t stop thinking about the weirdest solicitor ever.  My first thought was that one of my friends thought when I defended him that it meant I liked him, and she told him.  I suppose it was possible, but even if someone told him, wouldn’t he – say – call me or talk to me in the hall instead of coming to my door and expecting…?  And what did he expect?  (Don’t answer that.)  In what crazy mind of his did he think that would work?

My second thought was that perhaps he overheard us in the hall.  We were in the main hallway of the school and weren’t watching who was around us all that well.  Maybe he saw me try to defend him.  Maybe he thought that meant something more than it was. 

I totally wanted to tell my friends.  Charles – yes, THAT Charles – came over to my house!  And guess what totally embarrassing thing he said?  I thought about it that night and the next day and decided to let it go.  The poor guy had been through enough in his however many years of school.  We already knew he had issues; there was no reason to point them out and embarrass him yet again. 

I still thought the incident was odd.  And I wondered about asking him how in the world he thought that what he did was a good idea.  Did someone tell him something, did he hear something?  I did want to ask.  But I think I was even more creeped out than usual by him that I didn’t want to ever talk to him again.  So I never asked him, and it will forever remain a mystery.