Thursday, April 12, 2007
for those who feel
I was reading the news yesterday and stumbled onto a story of a man just convicted of child sexual predation. He will serve 65 months behind bars for abusing little girls in Thailand. It’s an ugly story, not funny in the least. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that his name was Koklich, and that made me think about how strange things can be, how totally humorlessly funny. Whereas we’ve just lost Kurt, who was hilarious, but in a very unfunny way. It is as if the universe is daring you to laugh, while compelling you to care. And that, for some reason, made me want to share this story with you. No, not share it with you - I wanted to get it out of my brain. Sorry, I guess you’re just collateral damage today.
His office was pretty good-sized, but bulging files and bundles of stodgy paper filled so much of the floor and the generous desk that the room felt much smaller. No windows opened to the outside world; the walls were sparsely decorated. The only real marks of cheer were a collection of little knickknacks huddled behind an outdated clock radio: a little rolly car, a bendy guy, a figurine of a “dad,” a squeezy stress ball in the shape of the everloving planet earth. And of course, all the family photos – the kids, the dog, chronologies of holiday gatherings and little league teams....
He sat behind his desk in the traditional position of authority, and though we conversed as peers with easy casualness, he was the expert and we were the acolytes. When he queried, we answered; when he spoke, we listened.
So we were listening as he sat back and advised us with avuncular unction that parenthood was full of surprises, you never really knew what was coming next. “It’s crazy,” he expounded thoughtfully. “My daughter, she’s in eighth grade now. She cuts. Well, I think we may have gotten beyond that now but, yeah. She was a cutter. You never know.”
We sat for a moment on our respective chairs, not knowing what one says to this kind of revelation. Then he just shrugged and went on with his spiel. For him, it was little more than the admission of a condition of living, like where he worked or whether he snored. It was just another fact for him to share with us. But hearing it had been like opening a window onto someone else’s private little hell. The image of that unknown girl mutilating herself grew unendurably compelling to me - yet at the same time it grew vaguer and less distinct in my mind, as I realized how many lurid and critical details I lacked about her. Why did she do it? How did he learn? What did they say when they talked about it - if they ever did? I didn’t even know which smiling face was hers in the family portrait sitting dusty before me. It was like he had stubbed out my brains in the middle of our meeting.
I don’t know why he told us that story. It had nothing to do with our trip to his office. Honestly, the rest of the visit is rather a blur to me now.
