Month: July 2022

I wrote a story in 2011 that came to mind after some recent reading.

CW for mentions of sexual violence and murder.

…

When first asked why he did it he would have no real answer, no apology, no regret. They would accuse him of being a pervert. They would call him pathetic. They would grimace at the revelation of his crime. They would shake their head in shamed acknowledgement of his existence. The news among his neighbors would vary in scope and ferocity. Some would speculate that he was going to rape the wife; others, that he intended to murder the husband. Most would believe that he was sexually depraved and got off on the entire affair. Eventually, sex factored into every opinion of him, and they would insist that he be removed from the neighborhood for fear of what he might do to them or to their children. Even those who had some vague feeling of compassion would fall in line with the general opinion of his character.

They would say he was unremarkable. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin that showed promise of a tan but was never in the sunlight enough to attain one. He shaved every morning and always dressed in button-down shirts, slacks, wing tips, and ties. The police would report finding twenty-three ties when they searched his home for evidence of photography or other keepsakes that were typical in such cases. He remarked on unremarkable things, like the weather, and the state of his car, or the cars of those he spoke to. He mowed his lawn regularly and cleaned the gutters every six months, or more frequently if the rains had been heavy. He was forty-three years old, owned a home, earned a good wage, and was in the phase of his life when a man should have a wife and begin having children. He went on dates and accepted good-natured ribbing from his married neighbors when they told him he needed to get himself a family. When questioned by police and, later, a single reporter from a national magazine they had never heard of, they would say that he was nice, always agreeable and in good spirits, but that it did seem strange that he remained unmarried, as he was a good-looking and successful man by all accounts.

After he was gone his every past deed would be questioned. The assistance in Mrs. Foster’s garden would become reconnaissance of the house next door, where the Bellfields and their three young daughters lived. They would feel ill at the realization that the potato salad that he brought to the Fourth of July block party could have been laced with something intended to pacify them and keep them unaware of his presence. No one knew what he could have been planning when he joined the Christmas carol troupe that covered every house in a three-block radius. From then on they would make sure that their doors were locked, that the curtains and blinds were drawn, and that all sounds from the outside were immediately investigated.

His former neighbors would read an account in the national magazine of his life before the arrest, his experience with the police, and his life afterward. They would become confused by his reasoning, doubtful of its veracity, and sickened by the twisted nature of the article. Their opinions of him would remain unchanged, even when they read of his “lonely upbringing in a stern household.” They would not care for the passage about him being “nestled among the bushes outside the living room window where he found his peace,” nor the “moments of bliss that for one reason or another eluded him elsewhere.” They would not understand witnessing “the thrill of the wife’s promotion; the pain of the husband’s father’s death; the comfort of footsteps from the carpeted hallway; light from the television on their tired faces; the hum of the garbage disposal unit in the kitchen; the sense of a complete life found at last by peering into the window and watching it all unfold.”