The Meanness of #MeToo

Early indoctrination in the War Between the Sexes.

In the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I worked for Pier 1 Imports. Back then it was a brand new store, and I was excited to have been hired to help create the company's full-page newspaper ads. The store was located in or near -- I can't remember exactly -- the Roosevelt Field shopping mall on Long Island, about a 20-minute drive from my home. Most days I took the bus, and on weekends my father drove me.

One Sunday I was at work, as usual sketching some of the merchandise for the ads as well as handling the cash register for the occasional customer. The store's manager was an Indian man whose real name I forget, which will make it hard to find him and accuse him and mess up his life today, although if I contact the store they might be able to help if they keep such records. Anyway, he told the staff to call him Peter, saying it was easier than his Indian name. He was about 25, maybe older, married and the father of a new baby.

This particular Sunday Peter came into the stockroom where I was set up drawing pictures of the merchandise. He locked the door, approached me and put his hands on my breasts. He kissed me several times as I backed away from him, crying for him to stop. He became more aggressive and I was sure I was about to be raped, even though I didn't fully understand what being raped meant. I ran away from him and started pounding on the stockroom door, and a customer heard me and called out, "Are you locked in?"

Peter opened the door and walked out like nothing had happened, and began helping the customer. I used the store phone to call my father to come pick me up.

We did not call the police. My father did not beat Peter up. We did not tell his wife, or the newspapers. We simply wrote him off as an asshole schmuck. (I did tell my co-worker and good friend Norman, who was gay. Norman quit the next day.) I was not traumatized in the long-term, although I became cautious when it came to dating after that experience. The good news is that I continue to adore Indian food to this day.

But now I'm thinking maybe I should try to find this "Peter" and see if he's any sort of bigwig and try to ruin his life and reputation. You know, because of #MeToo. Just my luck he's probably a big nobody, or maybe even dead by now. But surely with all those men who groped me over the years, some of them quite important, there must be somebody whose life I can ruin ...