Squid Corners

by Ed Helenski

  We went to the municipal building and met Reggie. The folks from the State police were already there. Two troopers, and a woman who was apparently the abuse counselor were sitting around Reggie’s desk. Reggie excused himself when he saw me and came over. “Tom. Maggie. As you can see, the professionals are already here. I told them that you are a material witness, and that’s why you are tagging along. We are just waiting for Dr. Tastler. Maggie, I, uh, how about you can be OUR child counselor. How’s that?.” Maggie nodded, and we went back inside and were introduced. Trooper’s Johnson and Reed looked decidedly bored. Ms. Robison was a nervous, tight-lipped woman whom I took a rather sharp dislike to. I suspect Mags did as well.

  Around ten Josh Tastler showed up and we headed en masse to the school. We met with Baldy Cooter in the office. He had a conference room set aside for us. The troopers went about setting up a video camera and recorder. Ms. Robison began unloading a variety of materials from her large briefcase. Josh would use the nurse’s office.

  Baldy spoke quietly to Reggie. “I have Bert and Mac bringing the boys down after the next period ends.” He glanced at his watch. “That’s about thirty minutes. They haven’t been told anything else except that it’s a health concern. I figured it was better to let them worry about some sort of infection than …well, than the truth.” He looked over at Maggie and I. “What’s he doing here?” Before I could answer Reggie spoke up.

  “He is the reason we are all here. He is a material witness, and his information might prove useful.” I thought to myself that Meg was the reason we were all here. She was no doubt in a classroom right down the hall. She might have even seen us come in. I hoped she was doing ok.

  There was a brief discussion of what sequence things should take. Maggie and Josh both agreed the boys should be talked with first, before the medical exam. Given the nature of the examination, it would tend to be a bit traumatic to them. They were afraid the boys would be unwilling to talk after that. The troopers and Ms. Robison nixed their opinion. They needed the physical evidence first and foremost. Without it, they had no idea if anything had even happened; it was after all just hearsay. That last comment came from Ms. Robison and was clearly directed at me. Indeed, she said, accusations of this sort are often made for reasons of revenge or aggression rather than out of truth.

  I was going to object, but when I began to speak Mags squeezed my arm. Hard. I took the cue and shut up. Besides, I could see their logic. Of course, they hadn’t heard the tape, or seen Meg tell the story. They did have the copies of the diary stuff. I kept the original copy myself.

  The troopers had decided it would be best if the boys were kept separate, so while one was at the nurse’s office, the other would be brought to the parent-teacher meeting room. This was really just a small office with a table and some cheap chairs. The guidance office was much nicer, but they didn’t want the boys to see the camera before they had to.

  Maggie and I camped out in the guidance office with the troopers. Baldy would wait with Mike in the P-T room while Dennis was examined by Doctor Tastler. When that was through we would exit to the P-T room, Mike would go to the nurses, and Dennis would be brought in to see the counselor. The cops would watch on TV and come into the picture once he had talked.

  At the change of classes we all went to our respective places. The waiting was unbearable, and for a while I wished I hadn’t quit smoking. Mags leaned over to me and whispered "Where did Reggie get off to?” I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed him leave. Maybe he was down in the nurse’s station with Tastler.

  That turned out to be the case. After about twenty minutes he showed up, escorting Dennis into the guidance office to meet Ms. Robison. Dennis looked scared and alone. Reggie didn’t look much better. He came into the now cramped P-T office to let us and the troopers know that Tastler had found evidence of sexual abuse. Later Reggie would tell me that what Tastler had actually said was the kid’s ass looked like it had been gone at with a roto-rooter. I really didn’t care much for Josh Tastler.

  Ms. Robison, armed with the knowledge that Dennis had been molested, went about talking to him with a gentle, yet coldly professional manner. I could see it bothered Mags, but I understood. If you dealt with kids like this every day you had to keep some distance. If you didn’t you would go insane, never be able to stop the tears, not be able to do the job. Ms. Robison was a cold fish, but I was glad there was someone doing the job.

  She tried a variety of tactics, and everything was recorded for the courts. After nearly forty minutes, Dennis finally broke down. Robison had repeatedly asked him if he knew how his anus had sustained the damage the examination had revealed. Considering the kind of examination the kid went through I am amazed he wasn’t crying or screaming when he came out of the nurse’s office. He was stoic as hell. But when he finally broke, he broke. He screamed and cried and through it all came one simple refrain. He did it. He shouldn’t do that but he did. And the question, over and over, who? Who did it? He didn’t know. Didn’t know the man’s name. It was the fireman. At the fair. In the end that was all she could get out of him.

  When it was clear he was done, she took him to Baldy Cooter’s office. There he would wait while his parents were summoned. I did not envy Baldy that meeting. Mags looked terrible. “I had Dennis in class several times. He was a sweet boy. Quiet. He didn’t deserve this. Life can really suck”.

  “You got that right.” I replied, holding her close to me, much to the amusement of the two troopers. “And these days it seems to suck continuously. Except for one thing.” She smiled at that, and knew what I meant.

  I stayed out of sight while they brought Mike up. I could hear the sobbing from the P-T room though, and when he came on camera he was a shambles. I suspect the exam was traumatic, and he probably knew what this was all about. Reggie came in at that point, and the troopers updated him on what Dennis had said. He looked at me, very depressed, and said “I guess when Mike is through I will have to go pick up Bobby. He will still be at work in Siegly. I don’t want to do this, Tom.”

  I nodded. I certainly understood. Maggie suggested he let the troopers pick Bobby up, but Reggie shook his head. “They will come with me, to take him into custody, but I can’t let a stranger do it, Maggie. Wouldn’t be right.” I understood that, too. I didn’t envy anyone at this moment.

  Mike’s interview was much more disjointed and difficult to follow than Dennis’. She was a bit more aggressive with Mike, though I am not sure why. He kept denying that there was any problem. Kept saying he didn’t want to talk about it. She kept asking how the results of his examination could be explained and he kept saying that she was just sick. When the dam finally burst it took us all by surprise.

  The words that rang out so loud I could hear them not just on the TV but from the hall. They were words that will stick with me forever. They remind me, every time I am about to make a mental leap, that it’s important to remember what you are leaping over. For the umpteenth time Ms. Robison asked “Does your father hurt you?”

  This time, instead of the denials, Mike said “No! It’s not my father. It’s the other one. It’s…Mr. Shickley. It’s him. He hurts me.” It went on for quite a while, but that was all I heard. Art Shickley. The old man at the bar. A volunteer fireman. It wasn’t Bobby. Bobby was innocent. And worse, this had been happening to his son, I knew it, and I hadn’t told him. My God. I nearly fell from my chair, and only Maggie’s strong grip kept me upright. Eventually we got out of there. The parents were being brought down to the school to get their kids. Reggie left with the troopers to pick up Art Shickley. It was a good thing Eustice had died. With Shickley’s closed he would have had nowhere to go.

  I heard the rest of the story over the course of the next few days. It didn’t take long after he was picked up for Shickley to confess. There were other’s, he said, over the years. He didn’t know most of their names. It didn’t really matter at this point. Mike was the only one he had come back to over and over. It was really a ma
tter of convenience. He went to Bobby’s house nearly every week for the fireman’s business meeting, or to play cards, and he would just excuse himself and go to Mike’s room instead of the bathroom. I heard from one of the other fireman that they used to joke about Shickley’s old bladder, and how long it took him to piss.

  Mags cried that night. For a long time. I held her, but didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Despite the fact that the evil had been perpetrated on Dennis and Mike, despite the fact that Bobby and Susie and Dennis’ parents would never be able to get past this, we both felt it too, we both felt a loss. Something had been taken from us, too. I had written about child abuse many times. It was a fact of life. But numbers and case studies and statistics are not the story. Photos of people with their hands over their faces are not the story. The story is in the loss, the loss that is shared by all of us. And it is only understood when it is personal. For Mags, the loss would be there every class she taught, every student she saw, every parent she talked to. For me, the loss was a loss of innocence, a loss of the ability to wall off and ignore. I would never be able to look at Meg the same again. Knowing what she knew, what she uncovered, what she lives with now. Reggie, I would be different with him and he with me. I had pointed the finger at a friend, and been dead wrong. He would never be able to set that aside. And, of course, with Bobby and Susie. I could not even imagine what it would be like to talk to them.

  As it turned out I didn’t have long to wait. On Wednesday Maggie told me the news that Bobby and Susie were leaving town. They had decided to move and were going west, apparently to Utah, where Susie had family. Maggie didn’t really know any details, but I imagined that it was because of what had happened, that maybe Mike didn’t want to be here anymore, or maybe it was Bobby. I didn’t know. I would find out early on the day after Thanksgiving.

  Thursday didn’t feel much like Thanksgiving. Earlier, it seems like a lifetime ago; Mags had asked me to come home with her to Apollo. I had said yes, and so it was we found ourselves driving at eight AM on Thanksgiving day. It was less than 3 hours to Apollo, but Mags wanted to show me around the town before we went to her parent’s house.

  Apollo was a very small town, though not as small as The Corners. It sits along a riverbank, and climbs the hillside. Wooded, millish, working class; it was like a hundred little towns that dot southwestern PA. Most of them were either born as coal towns, or as steel towns. Many of them are dying as the same. I saw the elementary school where Maggie went, the park where she played, the cemetery where she played hooky in high school.

  Maggie was so cute. She was excited to be sharing her town, and I realized that she was opening up to me more than ever before. I wondered if it was because we were back in her hometown, or if it was because of the events of the past few days. “Look over there.” she told me, pointing at a large Chestnut tree that stood at the corner of two residential streets.

  “Ok,“ I said, “it’s a big tree alright.” She poked me in the ribs.

  “That, silly, is where I got my very first kiss. Carl Detwiller kissed me on the way home from school in second grade. I won’t show you where I got my first FRENCH kiss. You might get jealous.”

  I laughed, though the truth was I WOULD be jealous. I was becoming very possessive of this woman I had met scant months ago. Around the corner from the kissing tree Mags pulled up in front of a small brick home. It was the sort where the roofline slopes from a two-story peak all the way down to the first story, and the second floor rooms have shed dormers that stick out through it. Almost A-frame like, but turned so the roof ridge runs parallel to the front of the house rather than perpendicular. The roof covers a large front porch, as is typical of all the houses in this area.

  We went to the front door, and it startled me a little when Maggie didn’t ring the bell or knock, but simply opened the door and went in. I had been too long in the city. The house was already filled with the scents of food. The door opened directly into the living room, where an older man sat with another, younger version of himself. On the floor two little girls played with Barbie doll knockoffs. The old man stood up saying “Marjorie! We were getting worried about you. Come give your Dad a hug.” Maggie threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight.

  The younger man was muscling his way in for a hug too, and Maggie said “Tim! It’s been too long. Where’s Kat?” I gathered this was her brother and Kathy was his wife, and hopefully the mother of the two girls. The girls didn’t want to be left out of the hugging and so gathered around Maggie, crying out “Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie” and giggling. They pronounced it ANT Maggie, which was a bit of a shift after living in Connecticut for so long.

  A woman about our age came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Maggie! Long time no see. Who is this handsome guy?” she asked, elbowing Mags in the ribs and looking my way. The two little girls seemed to notice me for the first time and raced to hide behind their mother, peering out at me from either side of her legs with wide eyes. Tim and Dad took me in now as well, though with a bit less good humor. I got the feeling they had seen their share of potential men for their Marjorie, and none of them had ever been up to snuff. I had to agree. Maggie was something special.

  “Everyone, this is Tom, Tom Tharon. He owns the paper in Squid Corners. He and I, well, we are sort of an item now.” She smiled broadly as she spoke of me, and I saw pride in her eyes. She wasn’t worried at all about how they would like me. She had confidence. I wished I had.

  I stepped up to her father and offered my hand. “Pleased to meet you, sir.” He was a heavyset man with a bushy shock of grey hair. He took my hand with a bemused look.

  “Sir, yet. How about we just use Dan? And I’ll call you Tom.” He indicated his son. “This is my boy Tim”. Tim held out his hand and shook it with a surprisingly strong grip. “Tim is a bricklayer in Pittsburgh.” He saw my surprised look and went on, “You would be amazed how popular brickwork is these days, especially at the fancy houses. Tim has himself quite the business.”

  “Knock off the bragging, Dad.” Tim turned to me. “Business is good. I make a nice living. And it keeps me outdoors and out of trouble.” Kathy laughed at that. She held out her hand.

  “I’m Kathy. You can call me Kat. The two behind me are Lindsey and Megan. They are a little shy.” Giggles from behind her legs. “You want something to drink? Some beer, or coffee, or a pop? And there's nuts and chips and such, and some date bread and oh, some muffins from breakfast.”

  I saw that Dan had a bottle of Iron City by his chair, and so did Tim. When in Rome, I thought, and said “I guess it’s not too early for a beer. But I can get it myself.” I followed Kat into the kitchen while Maggie allowed the girls to drag her upstairs and show her their new stuffed pig.

  I expected to find Maggie’s mom in the kitchen but there was no one there. Kat pulled open the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer for me. She took one for herself. Opening it she leaned against the counter and eyed me appraisingly. “So, where did you come from? Maggie hasn’t said a word about meeting a nice handsome man.” I felt myself blushing.

  “I, uh, well I moved to the, to Squid Corners from Hartford. I used to work on the Courant. Now I’m running a small local paper.” I took a swallow of the beer and tried to calm my nerves. Somehow I felt like it was very important that I pass muster here.

  Kat was about five-five with dark brown hair and green eyes. She was dressed in a nice pair of jeans and a good quality button down shirt that I couldn’t help noticing fit her very well. She walked over to me, and leaned in close. I was suddenly afraid she was going to make a pass at me. She said “So. Just what are your intentions with our Marjorie?”

  “I love her.” I blurted out without even thinking. “I want to marry her.” Where the hell were these words coming from? I couldn’t believe I had just said them. Kat smiled and backed down.

  “Well good. I wouldn’t want to see that you were not a serious person. Maggie has, well, she has been hurt
. Hurt enough. She deserves some happiness. You make her happy?”

  I nodded. “I guess I do. I can’t believe I just told you all that. I didn’t even know it myself.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did. Now shoo out of here so I can get things going. Dinner is going to be late enough as it is. And besides, you don’t want Tim thinking you are in here making time with his wife, now do you?” She laughed when she saw my face turn even redder, and knew that I had been thinking just that. I got out.

  The men had returned to their seats and were engaged in an animated debate over the still undecided presidential election. I knew when to keep my mouth shut and sat quietly on the sofa, nursing my beer. I tossed a few nuts in my mouth and tried to be inconspicuous. I kept wondering where Mom was.

  Maggie came back with the girls after a bit, and I mostly listened as she and her family got caught up on news. Maggie bragged about the library drive, and her brother said he had brought a couple cartons just for her. They will bring our total to the needed number, so Maggie was very excited at the prospect of getting the place set up.

  It was when dinner was served that I found out about Mom. It was apparently Maggie’s job to say grace, and she said “Thank you for all the bounty of the past year. Thanks for family, gathered together here again. Thank you for the children, who keep us young, and for the all the good fortune we have had. Thanks for new friends, “(everyone looked at me with that) “and thank you for watching over us. Mom, if you are watching, we miss you. And Kat did a great job with the turkey, didn’t she? Amen” I had had no idea that Maggie’s mom was gone. I guess I needed to ask more questions. For a reporter I was being noticeably reticent when it came to Maggie.