Intimate Strangers, Trading Misfortunes

At the beginning of a new year, I always stop and think about where I was a year ago, and where I was ten years ago. I guess it's easier for my mathematically challenged mind to wrap itself around these periods of time. Ten years ago puts us at 1996 (no, my calculator is still off, smartasses), which was my sophomore year of high school. I struggled with math class, I was in plays, I was nervous around boys.
My best friend in high school, Nina, was dating this guy, Pat*. Pat was a year older than us, in his junior year, and was our friend Mandy's brother. They were Irish twins, a little more than a year apart in age. I was pretty close with Mandy, but never really associated with Pat much, and wanted to associate with him even less when he took to making out with Nina on the benches by the teacher's lounge. In retrospect, it's surprising Nina tolerated Pat's sloppy kissing style, but he had his driver's license, and in a rural town that's more important than having your lipstick smeared by drool.
Nina eventually broke up with Pat, and ended up dating his friend Tom. I don't remember why they broke up, but it seemed amicable enough, and Pat never struck me as a bad guy, if not the world's best kisser. When I'd go over to Mandy's house to work on our spaghetti bridge project or have a sleepover, he kept to himself most of the time.
I liked Mandy, but I never knew what I was getting into when I was going to her house. Her father was a nice enough guy. I always liked his booming laugh and loud voice. He worked for a waste-disposal company, and must have made decent money to afford their huge house, the in-ground, nearly Olympic-size swimming pool in their backyard, and keeping Mandy's mother as an at-home mother.
Mandy and Pat's mother was weird. Sometimes, she'd welcome me warmly. "Hi, Amy, come in! Are you guys working on the spaghetti bridge today? Do you want a snack?" Other times, I'd commit some grievance that I didn't even know about, and she'd barely acknowledge my presence. Mandy told me she was mad at me because the spaghetti bridge we built barely held the wood block that separated it from the weight, and her mom was worried that Mandy would fail math because of the shoddy construction.
"She's mad at me for that? I mean, we both worked on it. We tried."
Mandy shrugged her shoulders like it wasn't unusual. And it wasn't. Mandy would tell me about her mother being mad at other friends for small issues that another parent would just roll their eyes over. Mandy's mother didn't let her shave her legs until she was a senior, and didn't want Mandy to go to college out of state, even though Mandy had a good mind for science and wanted to be a doctor. I wished for her to get out of Rhode Island, away from her mother, and get out on her own.
We graduated, and we lost touch. I couldn't get out of West Greenwich, and then out of the state of Rhode Island, fast enough. I wanted a life that I chose for myself, not the one that I got from being born and raised by my mother in a small town. Some people, like Alicia and I, couldn't fathom a life set in rural Rhode Island. Some people couldn't imagine a life outside the small towns with dirt roads and sand dunes. Some people, like Mandy and Pat, were on the fence about it.
I'd ask my mother to keep me up to date on people. Mandy ended up getting pregnant a couple years after graduation, and was working at a Friendly's. Pat worked at the same grocery store he'd worked at in high school, and worked his way into management. My mom told me he'd gotten married, and had a kid. After a couple of years, the people I saw daily in the halls of my condominium-looking high school faded from my memory. Occasionally, I'd run into someone while I was home, and they'd fill me in on the gossip they had. But I never seemed to run into Mandy or Pat.
Yesterday I checked projo.com at the end of the day, looking for something to write about. At the top of the page, there was a headline that read "West Greenwich man accused of abusing infant son." I opened the link to see who it was, if it was someone I didn't know, just some new yuppie who works at Amgen or G-Tech who snapped.
"Pat ___, a 25-year old man, is due to be arraigned today on charges he shook his infant son, who is in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital."
"What!?" I exclaimed. Kristen asked me what was up, figuring it was baseball-related.
"A kid I went to high school with beat his son into a coma," I replied, shellshocked.
"Oh," she said.
It's odd how you realize that these people you're so close with now don't understand all of your history. When you're in high school, especially in a small town like mine, everyone knows your past. You talk about the bitch you had for a teacher in fifth grade; the time Rachel was walking down the hall and barfed, seemingly out of nowhere; the time you drank a whole case of soda at a sleepover and Rachel's dad got mad. These things seem to be a part of you, like a patch of beautiful fabric in a quilt, and when other people don't see them, it's a shock.
I emailed Alicia, who graduated in the same class as Pat. I tried to call my mom for some details, but the line was busy. I sat at my desk, shellshocked, not knowing what to think.
Alicia called me later, and we talked about it.
"Pat? PAT? It's unbelievable. He seemed like the last guy who'd hurt anybody, nevermind a baby. I just checked the TV station's site, and it's more detailed. Apparently he beat his wife a year ago too. And there's a picture of him and everything."
"I hope Mandy's okay," I replied, "she seemed like the most normal one in the house. It's so sad, for everyone." I kind of wish I had her email to tell her I was thinking of her.
I watched TV with Kristen and Marianne for a while longer, (shut UP, Santino!) and then went home. I sat in my room for a while, and decided to check the TV station's website.
I read the story, about how he'd been charged for beating his wife a year ago. How he'd lied to the EMTs and the cops, saying that the 3 1/2 month old had a seizure like Pat always had, and had fallen limp in his arms. That doctors think the baby had been abused before the shaking. Then Pat called his wife from jail and said that the baby hadn't stopped crying, and he shook him until he did. His lawyer maintains he didn't admit to it, but it's odd that he'd lie about it. Pat worked with the volunteer emergency services in our town, and must have known any EMT would know the difference between a seizure and a shaken baby. His mind must have snapped.
There was also a still image of Pat, and it broke my heart. He's standing in a gray fleece, with his arms shackled in front of him. He had a couple days worth of growth on his face, making his goatee look unkempt. His eyes were cast down to the side. He and Mandy were always solidly built-- not fat, but tall, broad-shouldered people. Pat had gained at least a hundred pounds since I last saw him. Just looking at his shoulders alone scared me. I stared at the picture, feeling terrified, sad, and angry.
It's easy to look at someone on TV, who shows up to court looking like he's spent a night out behaving badly and cast him solely as a monster, as this evil thing without a trace of good in him. It's something else entirely to see a person that you know, who made out with your best friend sophomore year looking like hell. I can't cast Pat as entirely a bad guy because he isn't. I think back to all the other elements of his life-- his mother, his job, the sad look he had on his face at the grocery store, how I'd pretend I didn't know him when I'd see him there when I was visiting from Boston, how he was twenty-five and still living with his parents-- and wonder what made him do it. But I imagine if I lived with my mom, if I had a wife and kids, if I worked management with a bunch of bratty teenagers at a chain supermarket, and if I'd had a bad stretch and a kid just wouldn't stop crying and I lost it, it could have been me. It could be anyone.
But there's also no excuse. You don't hit your wife. You don't shake your baby. My mother said when I used to wail, cry, and nearly drive her insane (if you know me, you know I've got some pipes on me) she'd feel tempted to shake me, or react violently, and would have to walk away. I've had times when I've worked in daycares where I've been frustrated with a kid who won't stop crying. One day a new baby cried for six hours, stopping only to nap. I had to walk away for a few minutes. As long as a baby isn't in imminent danger, you put him down in a safe place and leave until you can calm down and can act like an adult. Same thing with your wife. If you're mad, you blurt out that you need to calm down, and go punch a tree. Do not punch a person. Ever. A three and a half month old has no chance. No chance against a furious man with huge shoulders shaking him. Something about the picture of Pat is sad, but it's also terrifying. I want to shake him, break him apart, put him in a coma like he did his son just as much as I want to tell him how sorry I am. It could have been anyone.
I feel sometimes like I'm watching all these events that happen in my hometown in a bubble, floating above all of them. A few years ago, a classmate I'd been close with in elementary school died in a motorcycle accident. It was the same thing-- I just clicked on a link out of curiosity and fear, afraid it was my friend Pete who I am still friends with, figuring it was no one I knew, really. But it was someone I knew, if only from my memories from fifth grade. We both loved dirty jokes, and he'd always crack me up at lunch by asking the lunch monitor if she could show him where the "gar-BITCH" was. We drifted apart in junior high school-- I hung out with the semi-cool smart kids, he hung out with the early-drinking redneck kids-- and continued on our separate paths in high school as I went to college prep classes and honors classes, and he drifted out of my life. But he's always a part of that history, sewn together from different people, held together with all our experiences in that small town. He had a wife and young kids, and was in the service (I think). I wished I could send flowers, but who would care? What would I write on the card to his wife? "Ben was really funny in the fifth grade, and enjoyed swearing as much as me. I'm sorry for your loss."
I called my Mom this morning, who had surprisingly heard about it on the TV news, and not from her coworkers. She usually knows about everything before the news outlets do. We talked about it, and she commiserated with my feeling of wanting to console Pat and smack the shit out of him at the same time.
"It happens," my Mom said, "and it starts young. I remember one girl I went to school with died in a motorcycle accident, and she was pregnant. Once in a while I see an obituary for someone who had cancer."
It's stunning to see that the town in which time seemed to stand still, things keep happening.

I had guards like watchdogs
Dogs in a manger
I could feel the protection
Possession and anger
And I drove out of there
With no on behind me
Feeling funny and free
All you pretty pretenders
Negligent vendors
Aren't you precious inside
I have no need for anger
With intimate strangers
And I got nothing to hide...
We act empty and innocent
But we are fueled by distortions
(I remember you)
Of lives led in discontent
(when we were shiny and new)
Trading misfortunes
(now you guard your faith)
Cause faith is one thing
That is hard to deliver
(temper your speed)
It feels so funny to be free...
-- Reunion, Indigo Girls

*Some names were changed. Yes, I know you can find out the real name by looking online, but I wanted to respect his privacy.