Spammer by Anel Viz

“Spammer”

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(Author’s note: In keeping with the theme of Internet spam, I have not given the main character of this story a name.)

1. Spamtown USA

He worked for Hormel Foods at their meat packing plant in Austin, Minnesota, the original source of Spam. Invented in 1937, the product went to war four years later in the backpacks of our heroic American soldiers, who introduced it to the rest of the world. They gave it to starving people in the countries they liberated, who, especially in the Far East, developed a taste for it and have come to consider it an inexpensive delicacy.

He did not; he loathed the stuff. In fact, his job at Hormel had turned him into a vegetarian. He saw more than enough raw meat during his workday to last a thousand lifetimes. He did not, unfortunately, see enough of it at night, not the kind he was partial to. To make up for it, he spent a lot of his time on the assembly line speculating on what hung between the legs of his better-looking co-workers.

To take his mind off his lonely evenings, he signed up for some computer courses at the Vo-Tech. It paid off. He learned how to navigate the gay porn sites without leaving a trace. More than that, he had a hand in designing the company’s website, SPAM.com (though he refused to click on “recipes” to check over the page), which earned him a whopping bonus, not to mention a fair amount of ribbing from some of the guys at work.

He could, he supposed, have become a programmer and made himself a lot more money, but he remembered how his current job had affected his eating habits and decided to leave his hobby a hobby and stay with Hormel. He was not an ambitious man, just a horny one.

He knew he had made the right decision when the company hired Norm and put him on his shift. The boy gave him plenty to fantasize about by day and dream about at night. Dream and fantasize only, because he was a boy, not a man, and nowhere near eighteen. Many families in the semi-rural Midwest expect their kids to get jobs a couple of hours short of full time as soon as they’re old enough to make it legal, and hold them while they finish their last two or three years of high school. Some businesses offer them modest scholarships when they graduate, but college wasn’t a high priority for them in the first place, and by then they’ve become used to a regular paycheck and having more money than the nerds in their classes. He judged that Norm would be around for a long time. He could afford to wait, hit on him later, and avoid trouble. So he kept his distance, ate his alfalfa sprout sandwiches at lunch break, and enjoyed the eye candy for dessert.

Kept his physical distance, that is. Ferreting out Norm’s email was child’s play; the kid even had his own blog. He wasn’t so foolhardy as to log on to it, much less post anything. Instead, to get him ready for when he’d make his move, he began spamming him – ads for Viagra and other penis enhancements, porn site notices, come-ons for shocking video clips of this or that Hollywood star. He had no idea if the kid ever followed through or even read down the list in his spam box (though he should have out of loyalty to his employer) rather than just clicking “delete”, sight – and site – unseen.

Once, when another guy at the plant was complaining about all the ads for “a monster dong” flooding his inbox, Norm said, “Yeah, I get those too”, which he knew was an understatement.

He couldn’t resist making a joke. “Monster dongs or info on how to get one?”

“Both,” the boy replied, and winked at him, no doubt flattered to be considered one of the guys.

It was summer, and Norm was working the full shift. At lunchtime he came and sat next to the man who, he felt, didn’t treat him like a kid.

He eyed his sandwich dubiously. “What’s in that thing?” he asked.

“Alfalfa sprouts, tomato, avocado, mayonnaise... Want a bite?”

“No thanks.”

“What’re you eating?”

“Spam. It’s dirt cheap when you work here.”

“You like spam?”

“What kind? The kind in my sandwich or the kind you get on the Internet?”

“Both.”

“Yeah, a lot.”

“You shouldn’t open it, you know. They shouldn’t even be sending it to you at your age. I mean the kind we were talking about before. But I guess the links are blocked.”

“Any moron can get around that.”

“Don’t I know it!”

“You’re good at computers?” He looked surprised. Did the kid think anyone over thirty had to be computer illiterate?

“Oh, I know my way around them pretty good. Did you know I helped put together the Hormel website?”

“You mean SPAM.com, with the catchy little tune and the chubby dude who can’t wait to tell you about everyone’s favorite luncheon meat? You did that? Cool!” He was obviously impressed.

“No big deal.”

“I got a blog. You blog?”

“Nah. I like games, Utube, things like that.” He didn’t say what else.

“Mine’s a blast.” He scribbled down the link on a scrap of paper and pushed it over to him. “Check it out. It’s wicked!”

For a second he thought the kid meant it literally – naughty, sexual – until he realized it was just an expression.

He logged on to Norm’s blogsite that evening and left a message: “Nice job.”

Not long after that he began to get ambiguously suggestive emails from “a secret admirer in Spamtown USA”. They always managed to bypass his spam box and he couldn’t trace where they came from, which meant that whoever sent them had to be computer savvy.

He and Norm were having lunch together every day, and since they always talked about computers and the Internet, he told him about it.

“You should write back and find out who she is.”

“I don’t think it’s a she.”

“How come?”

“The kind of things he writes. Can’t be sure, though.”

“Pervy! I’d like to see them.”

Was Norm his secret admirer? If so, he wouldn’t bite, but it gave him something to look forward to.

“No way, sprout. You’re under age.”

Norm cast a glance at his sandwich and smiled wickedly.

Posted: 08/29/08