Just four hours ago I had an encounter that had me so furious I passed out.
When I was twenty-two, in 1983, I taught my first and final year of high school in a backwater town in Mississippi. I was a terrible geek then - a typical Star Trek fan - had rarely dated and was awkward; in hindsight, extremely susceptible to the one student who for some reason became infatuated with me to the point of obsession. I justified the relationship that happened on the basis of her maturity in other ways -- or, to be a touch more specific, that there was not much innocence in her to corrupt. She had grown up dirt-poor and done a lot of suffering. However, I soon realized the truly erratic and disturbed nature of the girl and the potential for me to get into trouble. I ended the relationship, suggesting that we could try again when she graduated in a couple years, and my life became calm for a while. But soon she began threats and blackmail: and at first I found myself driving her wherever she asked, and then giving her 'loans' which were clearly never going to be repaid, and finally into blatantly scoring her drugs (today I learned of her surprising dedication to her little hobby, which ended only at the turn of the century; it happened in Philadelphia so I presume she found a bundle generous even for that city's famously high standards.) By this stage, I was having terrible diarrhea and panic attacks, and nightmares all night. Yet somehow the year ended, the summer came, and I found myself totally unpestered for a stretch of a few weeks. And on a particularly sweltering and tedium-filled day I had the most sublime epiphany: why not book a flight to some new country - maybe Thailand, or India - and leave this awful life behind me? As I packed my bags, I was so happy that I sang. Unfortunately, things did not work out. I was arrested just a few days before I was about to leave. As it happened, the girl had gotten caught scoring in Chicago and suggested I had caused her fall from grace -- which still makes me laugh bitter laughter, since the reverse is so much true. After a humiliating, mendacious trial, I had six years of the most brutal imprisonment I could possibly have survived and that without the consolation of knowing I had family or friends to one day see again. But I painstakingly put my life together again and did move overseas after all.
So now ... a quarter century later, halfway across the world ... I encounter someone I presume is a family member of hers in a restaurant. She proceeds to verbally attack me in front of my loved ones. I make no response to avoid conflict - and also so that I can more convincingly say afterwards that she was just a nutcase, or mistaken, or both - and she just uses that as an excuse to wildly escalate her unfounded accusations. Well ... haven't I paid my debt to society? If not, why was I released in the first place? And if so, shouldn't I be allowed to make amends and live out my life?
When I was twenty-two, in 1983, I taught my first and final year of high school in a backwater town in Mississippi. I was a terrible geek then - a typical Star Trek fan - had rarely dated and was awkward; in hindsight, extremely susceptible to the one student who for some reason became infatuated with me to the point of obsession. I justified the relationship that happened on the basis of her maturity in other ways -- or, to be a touch more specific, that there was not much innocence in her to corrupt. She had grown up dirt-poor and done a lot of suffering. However, I soon realized the truly erratic and disturbed nature of the girl and the potential for me to get into trouble. I ended the relationship, suggesting that we could try again when she graduated in a couple years, and my life became calm for a while. But soon she began threats and blackmail: and at first I found myself driving her wherever she asked, and then giving her 'loans' which were clearly never going to be repaid, and finally into blatantly scoring her drugs (today I learned of her surprising dedication to her little hobby, which ended only at the turn of the century; it happened in Philadelphia so I presume she found a bundle generous even for that city's famously high standards.) By this stage, I was having terrible diarrhea and panic attacks, and nightmares all night. Yet somehow the year ended, the summer came, and I found myself totally unpestered for a stretch of a few weeks. And on a particularly sweltering and tedium-filled day I had the most sublime epiphany: why not book a flight to some new country - maybe Thailand, or India - and leave this awful life behind me? As I packed my bags, I was so happy that I sang. Unfortunately, things did not work out. I was arrested just a few days before I was about to leave. As it happened, the girl had gotten caught scoring in Chicago and suggested I had caused her fall from grace -- which still makes me laugh bitter laughter, since the reverse is so much true. After a humiliating, mendacious trial, I had six years of the most brutal imprisonment I could possibly have survived and that without the consolation of knowing I had family or friends to one day see again. But I painstakingly put my life together again and did move overseas after all.
So now ... a quarter century later, halfway across the world ... I encounter someone I presume is a family member of hers in a restaurant. She proceeds to verbally attack me in front of my loved ones. I make no response to avoid conflict - and also so that I can more convincingly say afterwards that she was just a nutcase, or mistaken, or both - and she just uses that as an excuse to wildly escalate her unfounded accusations. Well ... haven't I paid my debt to society? If not, why was I released in the first place? And if so, shouldn't I be allowed to make amends and live out my life?
