The Neighbor

instead of me.

Now, approaching my front steps, still not seeing signs of men in blue-or, more likely, SWAT team members in flak vests-I realize it’s Thursday night and if I don’t hustle, I’m gonna be late for my meeting. I can’t afford another deviation from my schedule, so I hustle, bursting into my bedroom for the five-minute shower-and-change, then I’m back out the door, hailing a cab for the local mental health institute; it’s not like eight registered sex offenders can hold their weekly support group meetings at the neighborhood library.

I arrive at the front doors at 5:59 P.M. This is important. The signed contract states you cannot be even one minute late for meetings, and our group leader is a stickler on this point. Mrs. Brenda Jane is a licensed clinical social worker with the looks of a six-foot blonde cover girl and the personality of a prison guard. She doesn’t just run our meetings, she controls every facet of our life from what we do or do not drink to who we do or do not date. Half of us hate her. The other half are extremely grateful.

Meetings are approximately two hours long, once a week. One of the first things you learn as a registered sex offender is how to do a lot of paperwork. I have an entire three-ring binder filled with such documents as my signed “Sex Offender Program Contract,” my customized “Safety Plan for Future Well-Being,” as well as half a dozen “Program Rules for Group Sessions,” “Program Rules for Dating/Relationships,” and “Program Rules for Offenses Within the Family Unit.” Tonight is no exception. Each of us begins by filling out the weekly status report.

Question one: What feelings have you experienced this week?

My first thought is guilt. My second thought is that I can’t write that down. There is no confidentiality when it comes to statements made in support group. Yet one more piece of paper we all had to read and sign. Whatever I say tonight, or any night, can be used against me in a court of law. Adding to the daily paradox that is any sex offender’s life. On the one hand, I need to work on improving my skills in the honesty department. On the other hand, I can be punished for doing so at any time.

I write down the second answer that comes to me: fear. Police can’t deny me that, can they? A woman has gone missing. I’m the registered sex offender living on her block. Damn right I’m afraid.

Question two: What five interventions did you use this week to avoid unhealthy situations?

This question is easy. First day in group, you receive a list of approximately one hundred and forty “interventions” or ideas on how to break the abuse cycle. Most of us laugh at the list first time through. One hundred and forty ways not to re-offend? Including such winners as call the police, take a cold shower, or my personal favorite, jump in the ocean in the middle of winter.

I go with the usual: Wasn’t alone with children, stayed out of bars, didn’t drive aimlessly, didn’t place high expectations on myself, and snapped a rubber band.

Sometimes I include “avoided self-pity” as one of my five, but even I know I didn’t achieve that this week. The “didn’t place high expectations” makes a nice substitute. I haven’t had expectations in years.

Question three: What five interventions did you use this week to promote a healthy lifestyle?

Another rote answer: Worked full time, exercised, avoided drugs and alcohol, got plenty of rest, and stayed on an even keel. Well, maybe I didn’t stay on an even keel today, per se, but that is only one day out of seven, and the form is technically a weekly status report.

Question four: Describe all inappropriate or uncaring urges, fantasies, or sexual thoughts you had this week.

I write: I fantasized about having sex with a bound-and-gagged adult female.

Question five: Explain why you think each fantasy occurred.

I write: Because I’m a twenty-three-year-old celibate male who is horny as hell.

I think about it, then erase “horny as hell” and replace it with “in his sexual prime.” Mrs. Brenda Jane, the group leader, has rules about proper language for the meetings. Nobody in our group has cocks, pricks, or dicks. We have penises. Period.

For question six, I get to describe my emotional state before masturbation, during masturbation, and after masturbation. Most guys describe feeling angry or anxious. So much pressure out there and it builds and builds and builds until they have to do something about it. Some guys report crying afterward. Feeling guilty, ashamed, intensely alone, all for whacking their willy.

I don’t have anything like that to describe. I’m an auto mechanic and my masturbation these days has that same clinical feel. I’m not blowing off steam; I’m simply making sure all the parts remain in proper working order.

Question seven: What mutual sexual activity did you experience this week?

I have nothing to report.

Question eight: What age-appropriate relationships (nonsexual) have you had or attempted this week?

I have nothing to report.

Question nine: For all child contact, please list child’s name and age, child’s relationship to you, kind of contact, and name of chaperone present.

I have nothing to report.

And so it goes. Another weekly report, another support group meeting.

You know what we really do in these meetings? We rationalize. The father who slept with one daughter pretends he’s better than the priest who slept with fifteen altar boys. The guy who fondled pretends he’s better than the guy who penetrated. The predators who entice their victims with promises of candy, affection, or extra privileges argue they are better than the monsters who resort to violence, and the monsters who resort to violence argue they inflict less damage than the enticers who make their victims feel like they are an equal party to the crime. The state has lumped us all together, and like any organized group of people, we are desperate to differentiate.

You know why these meetings work? Because no one can spot a liar like another liar. And face it, in this room, we’re all pros.

We spend the first thirty minutes of the meeting running through the weekly status reports, then, for the first time in months, I finally have something to say.

“I think I’m going to be arrested.”

That halts conversation. Mrs. Brenda Jane clears her throat, adjusts her clipboard on her lap. “Aidan, it sounds like you have something to discuss.”

“Yeah. A woman has gone missing on my street. I figure if they don’t find her soon, they’re gonna blame me.” The words come out angry. I’m a little surprised by that. Up until now, I have considered myself resigned to my fate. But maybe I do have some expectations after all. I find myself snapping the rubber band on my wrist, a sure sign of agitation. I force myself to stop.

“You kill her?” Wendell asks. Wendell is an enormously fat white guy with neatly trimmed black facial hair. He’s well educated, quite wealthy, and has a voice that comes straight from a helium balloon. Wendell is also the reigning master of the rationalization game. He’s just a poor, picked-on exhibitionist, all show, no touch. For him to be grouped with the likes of us proves just how inhumane the criminal justice system really is.

I don’t know if Wendell is all show and no touch. In theory, as part of the intake process for the sex offender treatment program, he supplied a full autobiography of all crimes he ever committed, then was polygraphed against this history, at a cost of $150. (Which we pay ourselves, I might add, and must keep paying until we pass the polygraph test.)

Personally, I think Wendell is a freaking psychopath. Poor, picked-on exhibitionist, my ass. Wendell always targeted a specific victim group. For example, he liked to visit old folks’ homes and flash three hundred pounds of white ass before the bedridden patients who barely had the strength to shield their eyes. Then he’d motor over to the teen health clinic, where he could wag his dingdong in front of the overwhelmed fourteen-year-old who’d just learned she was eight weeks pregnant. Mostly, however, he liked to operate outside rape crisis clinics, where he could spring a massive mountain of flesh upon already traumatized women.

His final victim went home and hanged herself. But as Wendell will tell you, he’s not as bad as the rest of us.

“I didn’t touch her,” I answer now, ignoring Wendell’s knowing grin. “I didn’t even know her. But it doesn’t