Not accusing so much as yearning, wistful. And her mouth strained, ugly. And it was the final moment of Jess’s childhood, as it was, for Jess’s mother, the final moment of a phase of her motherhood. Though neither could have said. Though neither would have possessed the words to speak of their loss. At that moment in the gleaming and overlarge kitchen of the Hagadorns’ “classic contemporary” house on Fairway Drive overlooking the sculpted hillocks and sly sand traps of the North Hills Country Club golf course, it was clear that the mother could not trust the son even as the son, steeling himself against a sudden unwished-for gripping of his mother’s hand on his shoulder or a caress of proprietary fingers at the nape of his warm neck, could not trust the mother.
“Go away, then. Go.”
That night overhearing her speaking to his father and her voice quavering in disgust, reproach—“that terrible man,” “terrible thing,” “so close to home,” “should be put away for life”—and this time Jess stood very still in the upstairs hall outside the closed door of his parents’ bedroom, scarcely daring to breathe, needing to hear all that might be revealed. And more.
Why? It was the sex. It was the sex secret. That thrilled quaver in his mother’s voice. That look on his mother’s face. For now he would see his mother at a distance and recognize her as a woman, a woman among other women: female. In Health Science you were taught that sex was “normal,” sex was “healthy,” sex was “good,” sex was “nothing to be ashamed of,” sex should be “consensual,” sex should be “safe,” yet the fact was, everyone knew that sex was secret, and sex was guilty, and sex was sniggered at by the guys, and sex was a wild roller-coaster ride you were scared to climb into yet had no choice about climbing into, soon. (How soon? Thirteen, in ninth grade, Jess was one of the younger and shyer and less experienced boys but he was determined this wouldn’t last.) Sex was “porn,” and sex was “sex pervert,” and sex was “rape-murder,” and sex was that “terrible man” who’d done that “terrible thing” to a little girl whose name Jess would try not to remember.
Another time. A few years later. Not the same girl. And not Jess’s mother but Jess’s father interrogating him, not in the kitchen but in Jess’s room, from which there could be no escape.
“—know anything about this . . . abduction, do you?”
Quickly Jess shook his head: no.
“—boys in your class? Not friends of yours, are they?”
Quickly Jess shook his head: no.
It was so: Jess wasn’t friends with the boys involved in the “abduction,” and Jess didn’t know the “underage” girl. All he knew was what he’d heard: the girl wasn’t a student at North Hills High, her parents weren’t residents of North Hills but of Union City. The rumor was, there was only a mother, an “illegal immigrant.” The rumor was, the “underage” girl was in eighth grade. (But “mature for her age.”) (Girls were maturing at an alarming rate in middle school; you heard astonishing things.) It was possible almost to think that this girl was the girl to whom the “terrible things” had been done by the “terrible man” when Jess was in ninth grade, but Jess knew that this was unlikely. (The other girl, such a little girl at the time, would still be in grade school. And anyway, her family had moved away from North Hills and no one ever spoke of them now.) Still, Jess had to suppose that the two girls were like each other in crucial ways. Circumstances were similar. For this time too there had been “terrible things” perpetrated upon a young girl, and this time too there was talk of blood.
Bleeding on the mattress. Bleeding all over. And too drunk to give a damn how grossed out we were.
Jess hadn’t heard these words of disgust firsthand. Jess wasn’t a close friend of any of the guys who’d driven out to Bay Head. Though the guys were seniors, and Jess Hagadorn was a senior, and it was graduation week, and there were parties. Many parties, of which some overlapped on the same nights. And some of these were parties to which Jess Hagadorn had been invited, and some of these were not. For there were social circles— cliques—that excluded Jess Hagadorn, though the Hagadorns lived on Fairway Drive overlooking the North Hills golf course and Mr. Hagadorn owned Hagadorn Electronics, Inc. And Mrs. Hagadorn was friendly with many of the mothers of Jess’s classmates. Jess was seventeen years, ten months old and still one of the younger, shyer, and less experienced members of his class, but Jess did have friends, Jess did get invited to a number of parties. He’d taken a girl to the senior prom. He’d been coeditor of the North Hills yearbook. It was an incontestable fact, Jess Hagadorn hadn’t been one of the half-dozen senior boys who’d left a late-night party to drive twenty-eight miles to the beach house at Bay Head, at the Jersey shore, with the drunken underage girl. The beach house belonged to the family of one of the boys, who’d taken the key without his parents’ knowledge. Jess wasn’t even certain who’d gone on that drive: popular guys, jocks and rich kids. A Fairway Drive neighbor, three houses down. Maybe a few girls, in another vehicle. How many vehicles drove to Bay Head wasn’t clear. The girls would claim to have left the Bay Head party after only about a half-hour. The girls would claim to have left when they saw “how things were headed.” Meaning the drinking and drug-taking, and the deafening heavy-metal music. Meaning the underage girl. All that Jess knew, and was trying in a faltering voice to explain to his father, who stared at him with a grave gray gaze as if viewing him through a rifle scope, was that following the party at Andy Colfax’s house (to which Jess Hagadorn had not been invited, though, if he’d gone, like numerous others who hadn’t been specifically invited but simply showed up, Jess would have been welcome, or anyway not made to feel unwelcome) the “abduction” had occurred. It was an “alleged abduction,” for the boys’ claim was that the girl had gone with them willingly. She’d “insisted upon” accompanying them, she’d “practically begged.” And so the drive to Bay Head had been “consensual.” Whatever happened at Bay Head had been “consensual.” At least at the beginning, at the North Hills party, “consensual.” If Jess Hagadorn had been invited to join the half-dozen guys and the underage girl on the drive in Ed Mercer’s father’s Chevy Trailblazer to the Jersey shore, possibly Jess would have been flattered, grateful to be included by such popular jocks and rich kids after years of being excluded. So maybe, yes. If he’d been invited, maybe he’d have gone with them; this was a possibility. This wasn’t exactly what Jess’s father was asking, but it was what Jess’s father seemed to be implying. No matter that Jess would have been the only boy at the Bay Head house to be graduating summa cum laude. No matter that Jess would have been the only boy to be attending an Ivy League university in the fall. And maybe now Jess Hagadorn would be one of seven North Hills, New Jersey, senior boys arrested by Bay Head, New Jersey, police on charges of statutory rape, sexual assault upon a minor, providing a minor with alcohol, forcible abduction of a minor, resisting arrest. Except Jess hadn’t been one of these boys. He hadn’t so much as glimpsed the girl. He didn’t know her name. (If he’d known, he had forgotten.) He’d heard that she’d lied about her age. He’d heard that she was fourteen. He’d heard that she was sixteen. He’d heard that she was thirteen. He’d heard that her birth date was unknown for her single parent, her mother, was an illegal immigrant and had no papers. He’d heard that the girl herself was an illegal immigrant and had no papers. He’d heard that she was “physically developed,” “mature for her age,” whatever her age was, as a white girl would not have been. Nor would any white girl, at least any white girl from North Hills, have climbed into a vehicle with a gang of drunken high school seniors on an impulsive drive sometime after 2 A.M. to the Jersey shore twenty-eight miles away at Bay Head. (And especially no white girl who was having her period—this is what Jess heard, at second or third hand—would’ve gone with the guys unless possibly, considering how drunk/drugged the girl was, she hadn’t realized she was having her period and would in this way disgust the guys, or if she’d known, she’d forgotten. Another possibility, the girl began having her period at the time of
the “abduction,” “assaults.”) Jess knew nothing about any of it. Jess had not glimpsed the girl. Jess had not heard the girl’s screams, and if he’d heard, Jess might have thought the girl was laughing. When girls drink, girls scream with laughter. Like birds being slaughtered, girls scream with laughter. Girls high on drugs scream with laughter. And when girls have sex, girls scream with pleasure, or so Jess had reason to believe.
Sex secrets. He’d heard his own mother scream not once but many times. He was sure this was what he’d heard, in the night, in the upstairs bedroom when the door was shut. As a young child, years ago. That was when he’d heard the screams, he believed. Not that he wished to think about it; he did not. He would not think about it. His mother and his father. He would not think of how profoundly they disgusted him, as he would not wish to think of how profoundly he would disgust them if they knew him. There was a chill solace in this, that Jess’s parents did not know him. No more than you would know the heart of a stranger glimpsed on the street, at a distance. By the age of thirteen Jess could no longer bear to be touched by his mother; all that was finished between them. Jess’s little-boy love for his mother, whom he’d adored.
And now Jess’s father. It was hateful of Jess’s father to enter Jess’s room without being invited inside. Rapping his knuckle on the door and opening the door in nearly the same gesture. And now interrogating Jess. Grave gray distrustful eyes fixed upon Jess and both fists clenching, unclenching, as if of their own volition. “You’re telling the truth, Jess, aren’t you? Look at me, son.”
“I am looking at you, Dad! I am telling the truth.”
Son. No one in actual life said son.
Son! Jess was no one’s son.
Always now he would realize this: no one’s son. For his father did not believe him, and his father did not love him. From this time forward, Jess would long remember.
Especially Jess could not have told his father about the blood. He had not seen any blood, that was a fact. That was the truth. Hadn’t seen any blood smeared on the girl’s body, the insides of her fleshy thighs and in her tight-coiled bushy pubic hair lavish as a strange wiry growth. And on her young round breasts, olive-skinned, with nipples like purple stains. So much blood, on the girl’s legs, on the sheets, and on the mattress, on the guys’ penises and groins. A wild crazy scene made deafening by high-decibel music. You couldn’t have heard the girl screaming.
It was known that the girl was drunk, and drugged, and out of her mind, hysterical. Crying, and accusing. Making threats. Yet she’d been eager to go with the guys, she’d been flattered, made to believe that they “liked” her. Maybe one of them “loved” her. Maybe he’d be her boyfriend. (Maybe!) By that time no other girls remained at the beach house. All the white girls had left. These were senior girls, departed by 4 A.M. Originally a half-dozen vehicles had been parked in the coarse sand above the house. Bay Head police would determine from tire tracks, but by the time police officers arrived, summoned by Bay Head neighbors, at 4:40 A.M., only the Trailblazer remained. Jess Hagadorn had not been there, of course. Jess Hagadorn had not been within twenty-eight miles of the Jersey shore. This was a fact to be pledged to his parents: Jess had been home at that time, in his bed. Through the night sweating and sleepless and by 6:25 A.M. still awake in a misery of nausea and head-hammering pain, having stumbled into the bathroom adjacent to his bedroom not once, not twice, but three times to vomit into the toilet bowl. And with shaking fingers flush the seething vomit away. And Jess’s parents had heard him, of course, and had reason to claim Our son was home. Our son came home early from a graduation party. Not long after midnight, our son returned home. Our son is a good boy, a trustworthy boy and an honor student, we trust our son and had no need to wait up for him. Our son has said that he had a few drinks—beers—at one or another of the graduation parties, but he had no drugs. Not ever drugs. Our son has pledged to us: not ever drugs. Our son knows nothing about what is alleged to have happened to any underage girl, our son has pledged to us that he has told the truth, and we believe our son. Our son will be attending the University of Pennsylvania in the fall, an Ivy League school.
Hadn’t known the girl. He had not. All he knew was, he’d tried to help her. He’d been the only one to help her. Driving home, and his mistake was, he must’ve made a wrong turn off 1-95. Exiting in the rain at a place he’d never heard of, Glasstown, or Glass Lake, somewhere beyond Trenton he had needed to fill up the gas tank, in a 7-Eleven beside the gas station he’d bought a cola drink for the caffeine charge, needing to clear his head, badly he wanted not to be making this drive home, Thanksgiving weekend and his mother had insisted Jess you must come home, what will the relatives think, yet he’d delayed leaving campus, leaving Philadelphia in a stream of slow-moving traffic on the expressway, the drive to North Hills wouldn’t take more than a few hours but he’d been awake much of the previous night and as he drove hunched over the steering wheel something fluttered teasing and tormenting at the periphery of his vision like those tiny white moths you see batting themselves against screens in summer in the night; in the grubby 7-Eleven store he’d been distracted by the TV set above the cashier’s counter, a surveillance TV showing a fraction of the interior of the store, and Jess saw his own figure on the screen, his back to the camera, shift to the right and the TV figure shifts to the right, shift to the left and the TV figure shifts to the left, turn and walk toward the rear of the store and the TV figure walks out of the frame but (you have to assume) is picked up by another TV monitor in another part of the store. Except in the men’s room there were no TV monitors. (Were there?) Leaving the men’s room, he was surprised to see—at least he thought this was what he was seeing, happening so fast as these things do, you don’t know how to assess what you are seeing, even to know if in fact you are seeing it—the door to the women’s restroom was being opened and shut again, and opened and again shut, as if to tease, had to be a child playing, a little girl with shining dark eyes peeking at Jess from behind the door, giggling, Jess smiled at her but kept on moving for there was something strange about the little girl, quick Jess left the 7-Eleven store without a backward glance and immediately forgot the incident, if you could call it an incident; now having taken a wrong turn to get back onto 1-95 he found himself on a narrow country road outside a small town (Glasstown, Glass Lake) and that hammering-harranguing pain in his head was beginning Why! Why are you here! waiting for a freight train to pass, long lumbering noisy train humping and hammering at his head, Jess’s eyes ached as if he’d been staring into a blinding light, gripping the steering wheel of the Audi (his mother’s former car she’d passed on to Jess when she bought a new one) waiting for the damned train to pass, badly he wanted not to be here, badly he wanted not to be driving home for Thanksgiving, he had disappointed his father by declining to study engineering, he had disappointed his mother by declining to be the reliable loving son his mother required; and in a nearby field a child suddenly appeared, a small figure running and stumbling in the tall grass, in the icy rain, out of a stand of scrubby trees the child seemed to have emerged, Jess stared blinking and incredulous: Is that a child? A little girl? She was lightly dressed for the chill dank air of November, in what appeared to be a dress with a short skirt, and over the dress a soiled sweatshirt, her legs bare, she was bareheaded and her small face contorted in a look of terror. Behind Jess the driver of a pickup leaned on his horn, for the freight train had passed, the last of the noisy lumbering cars had passed, red lights were no longer flashing but Jess had not noticed, and when Jess failed to move forward across the railroad tracks the pickup swerved around him in an explosion of pent-up annoyance, and other vehicles followed, for no one seemed to have noticed the child so strangely alone in the field, or if they’d noticed had not cared. Quickly Jess shifted to park, got out of the car, and ran into the field to approach the little girl asking what was wrong? had something happened to her? for clearly this was an emergency situation. Clearly the little girl was in distres
s and needed help. All this Jess would explain afterward and many times he would explain, though to be precise, what happened would have happened so swiftly, yet so disjointedly, like a badly spliced film, mysterious pleats and gaps in the narrative, and the figures blurred and not always fully within the frame. The fact was: a little girl of about nine had run out of a scrubby woods about fifty feet from the road where Jess Hagadorn had been waiting for a freight train to pass, near dusk and an icy rain was falling, the girl appeared to be desperate, ill-clothed in a pink cotton dress and a sweatshirt, her legs were bare, on her bare feet were filthy sneakers and in fact the girl’s clothing was filthy, stained and covered in burrs, and her hair was disheveled and matted, her mouth looked soft and bruised like a fish’s mouth after the hook has been torn out. Her hair was ashy blond, almost white, ghostly and luminous on this dark November day, and as Jess stooped over her he could decipher only part of what she was saying: “—want go home. Want go home.”