— I don’t know what this has to do with you and boys.
— I’m not a rapist. You’re presupposing that anyone I brought into my house I intended to rape. But that wasn’t the case. Just as it wasn’t the case that you intended to have sex with every woman who ever entered your home. Your argument is circumstantial.
— But why bring the kids to your house? Why not just meet them after school?
— Why don’t you meet every woman in, say, a public park?
— Because I might want some privacy.
— Am I, too, allowed privacy?
— Not with kids.
— Is any adult allowed to be alone with any child?
— Yes. Listen. You made whatever point you meant to make. And I don’t care. Now you have to tell me about the tailor game.
— The what game?
— See? Your face just tensed up. You didn’t think I’d remember. Do you remember the measuring tape?
— Yes. The tailor game was also inappropriate.
— Tell me what happened.
— I had a measuring tape and we measured each other’s arms and legs and shoulders.
— You don’t think that’s sick?
— It’s inappropriate.
— I can’t have anyone crouch near me without thinking of you holding that measuring tape against my leg. When people kneel down to tie their shoes anywhere close to me I think of you.
— That couldn’t be my fault.
— Of course it’s your fault! You think I had a problem with all that before you and your fucking tailor game?
— Okay, I’m sorry.
— That’s it? You’re sorry?
— I’m sorry, but tell me this: Did I touch you?
— I have no idea. I assume you did.
— But there you go again. Your mind is filling in what didn’t happen. You’re filling in with what you assume were my intentions. But I never touched any of you kids.
— But you wanted us to touch you.
— That’s not true either.
— You had us measure your inseam, too, you fucker. Why would you have us measure your inseam if you didn’t want us to touch your dick?
— Do you remember touching me there?
— No, but I assume we all did. I remember looking up at you and you were looking at the ceiling, like you could barely contain yourself. You were about to jizz.
— Thomas, I admit it was a little thrill when you would measure my inseam, but I didn’t actually have any of you touch me. I did not touch you and you didn’t touch me. It was all highly inappropriate, yes, no doubt about it. But I was acutely aware of the law, and I did not break any laws. It wasn’t rape. It wasn’t assault. I acted inappropriately, and that’s why they asked me to resign, which I did. And that was the correct punishment. I didn’t belong in a school, and it was decided I should leave, and I did.
— So you went on to do it elsewhere.
— No, I did not. You have to stop making these leaps. I’m not part of some larger narrative. I’m me. I am one person, and my story is absolutely unique. I don’t conform to any established modus operandi. I’m not a priest who was shuffled around from church to church or whatever narrative has been established in your mind. I was asked to resign, and I did, and I was relieved.
— You were relieved?
— I was. Being around all of you was too much of a temptation. But once I left, the temptations were removed.
— That is really hard to believe.
— But you must believe it. I’m chained to a post, and I’m telling you the truth.
— But it defies belief. It defies all known pathology. A pederast who just reforms himself? It’s not possible.
— Thomas, do you know anything about addiction psychology?
— No.
— Well, this conversation is reminiscent of my time in AA. For a while, probably while dealing with my own proclivities, I was occasionally drinking too much. And my AA friends were convinced I was an alcoholic. They brought me to meetings, and they insisted that I quit drinking for good. But I was not an alcoholic. They couldn’t accept that even though I used alcohol to cope sometimes, it didn’t mean I was out of control or that alcohol was hampering or altering my path through life.
— I don’t know what this has to do with you and your tendencies toward boys.
— The point is that it’s similarly polarized. The thinking is similarly flawed, and it makes people crazy. Tell me, do you have any friends who are alcoholics?
— Yes.
— Are they all the same?
— No.
— Do they all go on three-day benders and kill people in drunk-driving car accidents?
— No.
— Do they all lose their jobs and families because they can’t quit drinking? Because they’re drinking twenty-four hours a day?
— No.
— So are you sure they all have the same disease?
— I don’t know.
— If I walked into an AA meeting and suggested that I had a “problem” with alcohol but was not an alcoholic, they would run me out of the building. And yet maybe I do have a small problem. Maybe, twice a year, I have one more drink than I should, and I say something I regret. Maybe once or twice a year I pass out, alone, at home, after drinking too many Manhattans. Once a year I drive home when I should take a cab. Am I an alcoholic? Many would say yes. Many would say you either are or are not. They use that old chestnut, You can’t be a little pregnant. You know that one?
— Yes.
— It’s trotted out in situations where nuance is unwelcome.
— Like yours.
— Right. I’m not an alcoholic, and I’m not a rapist. I’m a flawed person who has wandered into territory that could be very dangerous, but then I wandered back to a less problematic path. You can call me a sick man. I am. You can say I did a number of things I should not have done. But I am not a rapist and not a pederast. And I have never touched any naked part of a child, nor have I asked them to touch any naked part of me.
— But you twisted the minds of many people.
— Did I?
— Of course you did.
— Can I give you a corollary?
— Can you give me a corollary?
— Yes.
— Sure. Give me a corollary, you sick fuck.
— When I was growing up there was a house on my street that was overrun with foliage. You could hardly see the house through all the trees and ivy. But this house was known by us kids as the place where you could go and get candy. You could just knock on the door and this older woman would invite you inside and you could choose candy from a bowl. Now this, today, would seem wildly inappropriate, right?
— Yes.
— And telling that story to anyone, which I’ve done over the years, has always provoked disgust. People assume that any child walking inside that place was a victim and that the woman had some ulterior motive. That there were cameras somewhere, that there was some sick purpose to her inviting us in. It all fits some narrative that’s now so well established that it’s crowded out all other possibilities. There was the green-shrouded house, the gingerbread look of it. You assume dark and terrible things are happening inside. But they weren’t.
— How do you know?
— Because they never did. I’ve talked to a dozen others who knew the house and went inside and nothing ever happened to any of them. The lady just wanted it to be Halloween every day. She was lonely. But we could never accept that now. We categorize everything with such speed and finality that there’s never any room for nuance. Let me posit that the mind-twisting you speak of comes from outside, not within. That is, those who want to name things, to sweep them into categories and label them, have swept your experience into the same category as those children who were actually raped, those who were lured into showers and thrown against the wall and had a grown man’s penis inserted into their rectum repeatedly.