Beating Followed Molesting, Police Say

Vincent waited for the bus with both hands burrowed deep into the pockets of his hoodie. A light drizzle fell all around him, onto the gravel beside the road and onto his freshly cut hair. He squinted trying to see through the haze passing cars sprayed into the air, looking at the distance for a bus that would take him to the prison where his father had been locked up for the past fifteen years. Vincent made the two-hour trip every Saturday in order to sit with his father for no more than thirty minutes.

His father’s presence in his life was not defined by the content of these weekly visits. Vincent heard stories about Manuel from practically everyone he knew, and even those who had no stories to tell had a formed opinion of the man. In the small town and its surroundings most people could recall the news of his father’s arrest, and he had often experienced that confused embarrassment on people’s faces when they connected the dots and realized where he, the son, fit in the story.

The truth is that after all these years, after all the recounted versions of that event, after all the explaining his father had done during the visits and through his letters, Vincent could no longer remember his own experience of that night. So many renderings dangled in his mind that distinguishing his own from the imagined fiction brought the sharp pain of a headache, jumbling all possibilities into a blur. He was only three years old when it happened and was pretty sure most people couldn’t remember that far back anyway.

He trusted his father’s side of the story, because if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to trust anything. He had heard his father tell it many times, slowly building on the foundation of what became the defining moral tale for Vincent, however cryptic it may have been to him.

His father Manuel had befriended a man named Luke when the two of them worked together roofing a house one summer. Manuel was ten years Luke’s junior but they got along as though they were childhood buddies. They went fishing at the lake together and played cards in Luke’s smoky apartment. They had both been locked up and could bond over memories of childish mistakes. Manuel was finally clean and starting his life anew, devoting his energy to work and family in a way he himself had thought impossible. Luke had no family of his own, but was also dedicating himself to a new life, if only to stay out of jail. He kept to himself and made few friends, believing this loneliness would keep him out of trouble. In fact, Luke had barely left his apartment that entire summer until he met Manuel, who was friendlier than anyone he’d encountered since moving into town.

Manuel would often say that after the incident with Luke he’d never be able to have a friend again.

On that night Vincent’s grandmother cooked a big dinner and Luke was invited as a special guest. This was Manuel’s unsubtle way of announcing that Luke should be welcomed as part of the family. It was his way of pulling Luke out of his solitary existence and into the respectable new life he imagined two adults might share. Never mind that no one who knew Manuel thought any of this would last very long, he was determined to put the past behind him and settle for the family life he’d never had.

For fifteen years Vincent heard his grandmother say that she’d never seen Manuel as happy as he was that night. She only realized he had been lonely for most of his life when she saw how different he acted around his first true friend. But she also repeated again and again that she’d known from first seeing him that Luke was a troubled man. There was something in his eyes, she would say. Although Vincent was consistently impressed by the eerie sixth sense she seemed to possess, he was also weary of his grandmother’s hindsight. Manuel told him that she talked too much, always had. Vincent took this to heart and cultivated his own silence over the years. Talkative people lacked mystery and were generally untrustworthy. He had never met a strong talkative person and concluded that the weak used words as a shield, a screen to hide their frailty. So when strangers would strike up a conversation with him Vincent would simply walk away. He knew words could ruin people’s lives. He knew it when he was three years old, or imagined he must have. But it was important to tell the truth, if only because the truth had the power to burn through past present and future. Silence was a powerful weapon. 

Vincent remembered playing with the poker chips scattered on the table while the adults laughed and hollered. He remembered the thick smoke in the air and the unusually messy kitchen. He couldn’t remember much more.

According to his father Vincent had woken up crying the next morning. Vincent tried hard to remember what he might have told his father, the words he might have used. You told me that he touched you, his father would say, and Vincent felt his stomach sink every time he imagined or remembered his father’s reaction. He thought he could remember the screaming coming from outside. He thought he could remember hiding under the bed, putting his hands over his ears and closing his eyes as tightly as he could. He thought he remembered his grandmother calling his name. He thought but he couldn’t be sure.

When the bus finally arrived, Vincent made his way to the very back and slumped down into his seat for what would be his last trip to the prison. In a few days his father would be released and everything would change.