News from Small Town America

I saw an old teacher of mine on the news the other night. It was the mug shot of a bedraggled old man. He was crumpled and defeated - layers of sagging skin and fat washed white in a bath of florescent light. The story behind the wrinkled, puffy eyed picture: child abuse. Rape, is the word used to describe the alleged crime in the local papers.

I come from a small town. Downtown is two one-way streets that meet in a Y by the corner of an old mill. The public high school is two hallways, one stacked on another, housing enough classrooms for grades 8-12. I graduated with less than 60 other students. Many of my former classmates still live in town - working at the new offices that have been built in the remodeled mill landmark.

They still walk the two one-way streets, eating at the same sandwich shops or at the McDonald's - the only fast food to be had in town. They have settled alongside their parents and their aunts and uncles and their grandparents. It's the type of town that you're born in, you live in and eventually, you die in. Case in point: the middle-aged officer, who arrested the teacher, was a former student of his.

It's a place where roots run deep, sunk firmly alongside the muddy banks of a slowly churning river. Headlines reading: Beloved Teacher Accused of Rape send shockwaves. Violent, rippling ones - shattering the quiet, droll life of a town stuck in itself.

News teams wondering the streets, poking their nosey microphones in the faces of shocked citizens How do you feel about Mr. So-and-So and the rape allegation against him? They don't understand, that in a town like this - they might as well be asking How do you feel about Uncle Charlie touching your neighbor? The town is knit too tight for outsiders with lights and cameras and questions.

And yet - someone, born and raised beneath the shadow of the 'ol Clock Tower was bold enough to shout the accusation: He Raped Me.