him, keeping track of his habits, his whereabouts. This was only a few years ago. “I wouldn’t have hurt him,” Sean says. “I gave my guns to my pastor.” He says he just wanted to convince this man to leave him alone, but the way he says it suggests something larger. Like the real message he was trying to get across to this man, and maybe to me, was that there were forces larger than himself at work in this world. By engaging Sean this man was coming in contact with things bigger than he could comprehend.
We talk about finding God.
“I’ve also been looking for something to give my life meaning,” I say.
Sean tells me about the commune but doesn’t give me names. He uses the word “hunting” to describe the periods he took off from work before 1996. He tells me about Julian Adams, a scoutmaster he claims was involved in a child molestation ring. “Look it up,” he says. Later I do. Julian Adams had been convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior and a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America is still pending. He died of natural causes in 2004. 6 In our conversation Sean seemed to be hinting that he had something to do with Adams’ death, but that’s clearly false.
“So this is all off the record?” Sean says after a while.
We stop on a corner, facing each other.
“No,” I say slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“Then let’s go back,” he says, turning toward the station.
I get a call and then a note from Sean. He writes, “I can see you’re a person attracted to the limelight.” He wants to sign a contract, something I had originally proposed. We should do a book together. Sean urges me to think big. He’s considering a prison ministry and thinks his story of finding Jesus could help free the souls of people like him behind bars. But he’s not yet in prison himself.
In the morning I take my pill and sit down at my desk. I think of taking an extra one just to go further, but I don’t. I keep thinking about Sean and Hans. I keep getting Sean and Hans confused, perhaps because their names sound the same, or perhaps something else. I think about a young Sean, his pale arms poking from the blue sleeves of his dark blue scout uniform. I think about Nina Reiser and the two children she left behind, Cori and Lila, only four and six years old when their mother disappeared. 7 They’re living with their grandmother in Russia now and it’s unclear if she’ll bring them back for the trial.
Sean said wolves mate once for life. He said he was Nina’s wolf. When he pulled out of the Bart parking lot I saw a sticker of two wolves facing each other on his rear window. When I see my psychiatrist again I might ask her for sleeping pills. Something to help me so I don’t stay awake all night thinking about murderers, and where they hide their thoughts. Something to help me hide my own.
I’m in bed with Miranda, a recent Stanford graduate. She’s a friend of some of my former students and I feel a little strange about that. She just turned twenty-four. She’s a burlesque dancer and a political activist. When she does her burlesque show she dresses like a maid and mops the floor with her hair and when she’s done she’s almost naked, shaking her shoulders with a sign taped across her chest: EXHIBITIONIST. In bed she wears boxer shorts and a tank top. She’s tall and dark with kinky hair dyed with streaks of gold, a pierced lip, ivy tattoos circling above her hips. She could easily be a model, but she doesn’t care. She believes in revolution.
Miranda grew up in Haiti, in a large house on a hill outside Port-au-Prince. All she’ll tell me about her family is that her father works for a fruit company and doesn’t agree with her views.
“What about your mom?” I ask.
She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something awful, her tongue plastered against her bottom teeth, then shakes her head and pats me on the cheek. “You’d like my mother,” she says. “You have a lot in
We talk about finding God.
“I’ve also been looking for something to give my life meaning,” I say.
Sean tells me about the commune but doesn’t give me names. He uses the word “hunting” to describe the periods he took off from work before 1996. He tells me about Julian Adams, a scoutmaster he claims was involved in a child molestation ring. “Look it up,” he says. Later I do. Julian Adams had been convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior and a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America is still pending. He died of natural causes in 2004. 6 In our conversation Sean seemed to be hinting that he had something to do with Adams’ death, but that’s clearly false.
“So this is all off the record?” Sean says after a while.
We stop on a corner, facing each other.
“No,” I say slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“Then let’s go back,” he says, turning toward the station.
I get a call and then a note from Sean. He writes, “I can see you’re a person attracted to the limelight.” He wants to sign a contract, something I had originally proposed. We should do a book together. Sean urges me to think big. He’s considering a prison ministry and thinks his story of finding Jesus could help free the souls of people like him behind bars. But he’s not yet in prison himself.
In the morning I take my pill and sit down at my desk. I think of taking an extra one just to go further, but I don’t. I keep thinking about Sean and Hans. I keep getting Sean and Hans confused, perhaps because their names sound the same, or perhaps something else. I think about a young Sean, his pale arms poking from the blue sleeves of his dark blue scout uniform. I think about Nina Reiser and the two children she left behind, Cori and Lila, only four and six years old when their mother disappeared. 7 They’re living with their grandmother in Russia now and it’s unclear if she’ll bring them back for the trial.
Sean said wolves mate once for life. He said he was Nina’s wolf. When he pulled out of the Bart parking lot I saw a sticker of two wolves facing each other on his rear window. When I see my psychiatrist again I might ask her for sleeping pills. Something to help me so I don’t stay awake all night thinking about murderers, and where they hide their thoughts. Something to help me hide my own.
I’m in bed with Miranda, a recent Stanford graduate. She’s a friend of some of my former students and I feel a little strange about that. She just turned twenty-four. She’s a burlesque dancer and a political activist. When she does her burlesque show she dresses like a maid and mops the floor with her hair and when she’s done she’s almost naked, shaking her shoulders with a sign taped across her chest: EXHIBITIONIST. In bed she wears boxer shorts and a tank top. She’s tall and dark with kinky hair dyed with streaks of gold, a pierced lip, ivy tattoos circling above her hips. She could easily be a model, but she doesn’t care. She believes in revolution.
Miranda grew up in Haiti, in a large house on a hill outside Port-au-Prince. All she’ll tell me about her family is that her father works for a fruit company and doesn’t agree with her views.
“What about your mom?” I ask.
She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something awful, her tongue plastered against her bottom teeth, then shakes her head and pats me on the cheek. “You’d like my mother,” she says. “You have a lot in
Similar Books
