The Neighbor

Colleen knocked on my door just thirty minutes later.

“Can I come in?” my parole officer asks, very polite, very firm. Her red hair is spiked tonight, but it doesn’t distract from the serious look on her face.

“Sure,” I say, and hold the door wide open. Colleen has visited once before, in the very beginning when she was confirming my address. It’s been two years now, but not much has changed. I’m not exactly big on interior decorating.

She walks down the cramped hallway to the back of the house, where my thrifty landlord, Mrs. Houlihan, has converted a sitting room and screened-in porch into a five-hundred-square-foot one-bedroom apartment. I pay eight hundred bucks a month for use of this magnificent space. In return, Mrs. H. can make the property tax payments on the home she’s owned for fifty-odd years, and doesn’t want to lose just because some yuppies finally discovered the neighborhood and sent property values sky high.

Truth is, I kind of like Mrs. H., even if she did hang lace over every damn window, as well as place crocheted doilies on all pieces of upholstered furniture (which she pins into place, as I know because I get pricked by the pins at least every other day). For starters, Mrs. H. knows I’m a registered sex offender, and she still lets me stay, even though her own kids yelled at her for it (I heard them from my apartment; it’s not like the house is that big). For another, I catch her in my room all the time.

“Forgot something,” she barks at me, playing to her age. Mrs. H. is eighty years old and built like a garden gnome. There is nothing fragile, absentminded, or remotely forgetful about her. She’s checking up on me, of course, and we both know it. But we don’t talk about it, and I like that, too.

Just for her, I half tuck my porn magazines underneath my mattress, where she’s sure to find them. I figure it makes her feel better to know that her “young man” renter is catching up on adult titty magazines. Otherwise, she might worry about me, and I don’t want that.

Maybe I could’ve used a mother growing up. Maybe that would’ve helped me. I don’t know.

Now, I lead Colleen into my little slice of paradise. She peruses the tiny kitchenette, the sparse sitting area with a pink floral love seat graciously supplied by Mrs. H. Colleen spends about sixty seconds in the main room, then moves on to the bedroom. I watch her crinkle her nose as she enters the room, and it reminds me that it’s been a while since I washed the sheets.

Well shit, I think. Can’t do anything about that now. Fresh laundering of bedding will be interpreted as a sign of guilt for sure.

Colleen wanders back into the family room, takes a seat on the pink sofa. A doily scratches her behind the neck. She straightens for a minute, stares at the crocheted Kleenex, then shrugs and leans back.

“Whatch’ya been up to, Aidan?”

“Work, walking, support group.” I shrug, remain standing. I can’t help myself. I’m too antsy to sit. I snap the green rubber band on my wrist. Colleen watches me do it, but doesn’t say anything.

“How’s the job?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Got any new friends, new hobbies?”

“Nope.”

“Catch any movies lately?”

“Nope.”

“Check any books out at the library?”

“Nope.”

She cocks her head to the side. “How about attending any neighborhood barbecues?”

“In March?”

She grins at me. “Sounds like your life is quieter than a church mouse’s.”

“Oh, it is,” I assure her. “It really, really is.”

She finally cuts to the chase, leaning forward, away from the doily, and planting her elbows on her knees. “I heard there was some excitement in the neighborhood.”

“I saw the cops,” I tell her. “Going door to door this morning.”

“You talk to them, Aidan?”

I shake my head. “Had to get to work. Vito tans my hide if I’m late. ’Sides,” I throw in defensively “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’.”

She smiles, and I can almost hear her thinking, Oh, if only I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one.

I start pacing, quick, agitated steps. “I’m writing a letter,” I say abruptly, because she’s staring at me with that knowing PO sort of way, and you just have to say something when an authority figure stares at you that way.

“Yeah?”

“To Rachel,” I say. She won’t know who Rachel is, since it’s an alias and all, but that doesn’t stop her from nodding understandingly. “Gotta put into words how it feels to be helpless. Been tough to do, you know. Nobody likes to feel helpless. But I think I’m getting pretty good at it now. Think I’m gonna get a lot of quality time to know just what helpless feels like.”

“Talk to me, Aidan.”

“I didn’t do it! Okay? I didn’t do it. But this woman is gone, and I live five houses away, and I’m in the friggin’ sex offenders database, and that’s just it. Game over. Got pervert, will make arrest. Not like anyone’s gonna believe anything I say.”

“Did you know the woman, Aidan?”

“Not really. Just saw her around and all. But they got a kid. Saw that, too. And I’m following the rules. Don’t need no more trouble, not me. They have kids, I stay away.”

“I understand she’s very pretty.”

“Got a kid,” I say firmly, almost like a mantra, which hell, maybe it is.

“You’re nice-looking.” Colleen tilts her head as she says this, almost as if she’s appraising me, but I’m not fooled. “Living a quiet life, not getting out much. I can imagine how frustrating that must be for you.”

“Trust me, I whack off every day. Just ask my support counselor. She makes us tell her all about it.”

Colleen doesn’t flinch at my vulgarity. “What’s her name?” she asks abruptly.

“Whose name?”

“The woman.”

“Jones, I think. Something Jones.”

She’s watching me shrewdly, trying to figure out how much I know, or how much she can trick me into giving away. For example, will I confess that I met with the husband of the missing woman, even though the child was at home? I figure this is a detail I should keep to myself. Rule of thumb once you’re a felon-volunteer nothing, make the law enforcement officer do all the work.

“I believe it’s Sandra Jones,” she muses at last. “She teaches over at the middle school. Husband works nights. Tough gig, that. Her working days, the hubby working nights. I imagine she might have been feeling frustrated, too.”

I snap the elastic at my wrist. She hasn’t asked a question, so I’ll be damned if I answer.

“Kid’s pretty cute.”

I don’t say a word.

“Precocious, I understand. Loves to ride her trike all over the neighborhood. Maybe you’ve seen her a time or two?”

“See child, cross street,” I report. Snap, snap, snap.

“What were you doing last night, Aidan?”

“Already told you: nothin’.”

“Got an alibi for the nothing you were doing?”

“Sure, call Jerry Seinfeld. I hang out with him every night, seven P.M.”

“And after that?”

“Went to bed. Mechanics have an early start.”

“You went to bed alone?”

“Believe I already answered that, too.”

Now she arches a brow. “Really, Aidan, don’t dazzle me with your charm. Keep up this attitude, police are