The Church of Dead Girls (5 page)

These five students constituted the reading group. Each week they met at Houari Chihani's small house on Maple Street to discuss what Chihani had assigned them: basic Marxist texts, for the most part. When the interview was published, Chihani had been on campus for about seven weeks and it was impressive that he already had a following, though a small one.

The IIR was jubilant about the interview. These were youngsters whose facial expressions ranged from the critical to the sneer. Now they looked happy. The public would understand they were a force to be reckoned with. And when Chihani's Citroën was vandalized, they were all set to picket City Hall until Chihani persuaded them not to.

In the week after the appearance of the interview five new members joined the IIR. Four were from the college: Barry Sanders, a biology student, who had grown up in Aurelius; Bob Jenks and Joany Rustoff, theater majors who had been dating since high school in Utica; and Oscar Herbst, a history student from Troy. He was a sophomore and said Marxism was terribly underrated. These four were young, uncertain, and average, with a vague disaffection that made them latch on eagerly to Chihani's group. The fifth new member was a different sort altogether. First of all, he wasn't part of the college. Though born and raised in Aurelius, he had gone to college in Buffalo. Secondly, he was older, about twenty-three, and he had returned to Aurelius after having been gone over a year. His name was Aaron McNeal, and his father, Patrick, had taught with me at the high school.

W
h
en Aaron McNeal came back to Aurelius, I was aware of a collective sigh of disappointment. We had followed his tangled story for most of his life. We knew his parents' depressing narrative and his mother's awful end. To see Aaron was to bring these stories back to us.

Aaron's mother, Janice, had left her husband when Aaron was six. Instead of moving from Aurelius, she bought a house two blocks away on Hamilton Street in order to be near her son, or so she said. Patrick was able to retain custody of Aaron because of his wife's sexual liaisons, of which she made no secret and which involved some of Aurelius's most eminent citizens, including Judge Marshall, who disqualified himself from the custody hearing in Potterville. There was even a question of Aaron's paternity, it being a popular joke that Patrick McNeal was probably the one man in Aurelius with whom Janice didn't have sexual relations.

Janice was Patrick's second wife. He was older than she and had been married to a woman in Utica by the name of Rachel or Roberta, I can't remember which. In any case, they had had a daughter, Paula, who, from what I can gather, was often the one to take care of Aaron. Some people argued that it was Janice's jealousy of Patrick's former wife and her resentment of Paula that caused her to act badly, but I'm not sure that Janice needed an excuse. She had a lot of energy and she found her husband dull, though she may have liked him in a sisterly sort of way.

Once Janice was separated from her husband she continued to have many men friends. She worked as a technician for the drug company in Norwich and, fortunately, many of her lovers came from there, meaning they were beyond the limit of our gossip. Aaron spent his time in both houses, though Patrick was legally in charge of him. Paula herself spent no time with her stepmother, which seemed to confirm the arguments of those who said that Janice resented her. I saw Patrick often at school and I felt sorry for him. The students knew of Janice's indiscretions and they made his life a misery. It was even claimed that three seniors had visited Janice one night and she had given them their pleasure. At least that was what they boasted. In a small town like ours, something that has happened and something that has not happened but is gossiped about are equivalent. Possibly these youngsters had never been with Janice, but considering the talk, it made no difference.

One would think, given the attention, that Janice was a great beauty; that wasn't the case. She was short, a trifle overweight, and her mouth was large. When she laughed, one saw all her teeth. She had curious eyes, tipped up at the corners and of a greenish color. Her nose was slightly puggy, her chin slightly square. She had short dark hair that curled beneath her jawbone. Perhaps I am a poor judge of female beauty, but I was surprised that men found her attractive. She dressed well, carried herself well, and clearly had a sense of dignity, but when all is said and done I found her somewhat dumpy.

If Patrick had been able to forget his ex-wife, his life would have been smoother, but he clearly adored her and any talk about Janice tormented him. My policeman cousin, Chuck Hawley, once found Patrick outside Janice's house at two in the morning. He offered to give Patrick a ride home but Patrick refused. Chuck said that Patrick was crying. He joked about that. I asked him if Patrick had been drinking but he said no. “He was as sober as a judge,” he said.

People expected either Patrick or Janice to leave Aurelius, but neither did. One felt that even though they were divorced, their main relationship was with each other, as if she enjoyed torturing him and he had a need to be tortured, though I am sure they would have denied this.

If Aaron was damaged by his parents' relationship, he gave no sign of it. At least at first. Perhaps this was due in part to his half sister, Paula, who seemed very loving. Aaron was a friendly little boy who would politely greet everybody on the street by name. And he dressed well and seemed very clean, with his blond hair brushed and his freckled face shiny and smiling. While still in grade school, he began delivering the Utica and Syracuse papers, riding his bike with his springer spaniel, Jefferson, running behind him. He seemed to have few friends but he also seemed not to require them. This was untrue, of course, because everybody needs friends, but he seemed content by himself or with only the companionship of his dog and so no one worried, or if they did they soon forgot about it. It was only later, when people recalled his solitude, that they tried to make something of it, offering it up as a kind of proof.

Clearly, Aaron knew about his mother because she was very open about her boyfriends, and other children taunted him about having a mother whose morals were questionable. I had Aaron in two classes: eighth grade science and tenth grade biology. He was very bright, the sort of eager youngster who always raised his hand and volunteered to do extra work. I had the sense that I would get to know him well, but I never knew him any better than I did on the first day of class.

At sixteen Aaron had reached his full height of five foot ten. His blond hair had become light brown. He was thin without appearing delicate; rather, he had the body of a gymnast, though he took no interest in sports except for riding his bike. He would have been handsome if his eyes weren't so close together, which gave him a slightly fishlike expression. He also had a small L-shaped scar on his left cheek where his dog had bitten him. Aaron had been delivering papers when Lou Hendricks's malamute had gotten loose and attacked Aaron's dog. Aaron had flung himself into the battle and his dog had become so panicked that he bit Aaron, who was thirteen at the time. Even though Aaron received stitches, the scar remained obvious, especially when he got angry. Then, while the rest of his face grew pale, the L-shaped scar would redden.

Once, when Aaron was in eighth grade, his mother came in for a conference. I won't say she flirted but she made me quite uneasy. She stared at me with her slanted eyes and wouldn't look away, till I myself was forced to. Of course I knew Janice's reputation. It was one of those school events when parents go around meeting their children's teachers, spending a few minutes with each. Janice seemed mildly interested in Aaron's schoolwork, but after I established that he was doing well she asked me instead about living in New York City. Someone had told her I once lived there. “But why would you move back to Aurelius?” she kept asking. I was quite relieved when her time was up and the next parent arrived. During tenth grade parent-teacher conferences, Janice never appeared. Of course I often saw Patrick and he knew that his son was doing well.

Adolescence is a dreadful period. We tend to notice those youngsters who misbehave and call attention to themselves, but there are others, equally miserable, who receive no help simply because they are silent. I expect Aaron was as miserable as any, but it wasn't until his senior year we had any sign of what some people saw as his dark side. Perhaps we wouldn't have seen it even then if it hadn't been for another boy, Hark Powers, who had long been one of Aaron's tormentors.

Hark Powers was one of those youths who excelled at sports and little else unless it was bullying. Perhaps Hark envied Aaron's scholastic ability. Perhaps his sensibilities were truly offended by the behavior of Aaron's mother. In any case, by tenth grade, Hark had begun to taunt Aaron. Both were in my biology class and I had to seat them as far apart as possible. Aaron received an A, Hark a D. He would have flunked if Coach Pendergast hadn't convinced me to let him pass so that he could play football.

Hark Powers outweighed Aaron by fifty pounds. He came from a farming family, the youngest of five brothers who had wound their way through the school system without distinction. Hark wore jeans and jean jackets, kept his dirty brown hair long, and clunked around in black motorcycle boots with a chain across the instep. He seemed to find the behavior of Aaron's mother the funniest thing imaginable. The fact that Aaron's father was a teacher only egged him on. Even in my tenth grade biology class I had to chastise him for singing “I wonder who's poking her now” which he rendered to the tune of “Back in the Saddle Again.”

There were many small incidents between Hark and Aaron. Once Hark dropped a lit cigarette butt in the cuff of Aaron's khakis and set them on fire. Several times he dumped food on him in the lunchroom. I'm sure there was an incident every week: taunts or winks, passing notes around the class about somebody being a whore. I could give many examples that were sordid and typical of this kind of bullying. Aaron even had to stop riding his bike to school because Hark would damage it.

Aaron never responded. He wiped the food from his shirt, poured water on his burning cuff, and ignored the taunts as if they never touched him. And the fact that Aaron didn't respond led a few other boys to taunt him as well, though most left him alone, not from kindness but because Aaron was too peculiar in his silence. This bullying went on for several years, never violent enough to attract the attention of the authorities, never sufficiently negligible to be forgotten.

There is a lunch counter in Aurelius—Junior's—where students go after school to play video games and have a snack, usually pretzel rods and a cherry Coke. And there is a magazine rack and a jukebox. Some days there might be thirty kids in Junior's. Hark was in Junior's nearly every afternoon, but Aaron never went there, not even to buy a magazine.

One afternoon in May of his senior year, Aaron entered Junior's around four o'clock. There had been another incident that day in the lunchroom in which Hark had poured his drink, some orange mixture, onto Aaron's plate of macaroni and cheese. That seems trivial and Hark had done worse, but this behavior had been going on for a long time. Later I heard people say that they would have thought Aaron had gotten used to it, as if being a victim were something one got used to.

When he saw Aaron, Hark called out, “Hey, whore boy.” He sat at a table with his girlfriend, Cindy Loomis, and two other young men, all of whom looked forward to being entertained.

Aaron wore a white shirt and khakis, which was important, considering what happened. Cindy told me later that Aaron was smiling, not a particularly friendly smile but certainly harmless-looking.

“Tell us how your mother does it with sailors.” Hark laughed. He was smoking and flicked his ashes on the floor.

Aaron approached in a relaxed manner and Cindy said they expected him to say something, maybe make a joke of his own. When he reached the table, Aaron winked at Hark, then bent over to speak to him in private. Hark was surprised but he leaned forward so that Aaron could say something in his ear. Aaron had never spoken to him. Otherwise, most likely, Hark wouldn't have leaned forward like that.

Instead of speaking, Aaron grabbed Hark's ear with his teeth and bit down. Hark yelled. He kicked out at the table, knocking the glasses onto the floor. Hark grabbed Aaron's shirt but the pain must have been excruciating. Aaron backed up, dragging Hark out of his chair. He had most of Hark's ear in his mouth. Hark kept trying to hit Aaron, but he was stumbling and kept yelling. Junior hurried out from behind the counter. Aaron dragged Hark backward as he bit down. Then he clamped his teeth shut and gave Hark a shove. Hark staggered across the restaurant, holding his hands to his bloody ear. Aaron stood by the door, then he reached in his mouth and removed something. It was Hark's ear, three-fourths of it, at least.

Junior shouted at Aaron, “Give it back!” Presumably he thought that the ear could be sewn back on. Of course everyone else was shouting as well.

Aaron put the ear back in his mouth and began to chew it. His white shirt was covered with Hark's blood. Hark himself was lying on the floor with his knees drawn up, screaming. Cindy was with him but most of the kids just watched Aaron chew up Hark's ear. Then Aaron spat it out and the ear plopped down on the white marble floor. One of the boys described it as looking like those chewable wax Halloween lips: a pink formless blob, lying on the white marble and half across a green plastic straw that someone had dropped.

Aaron ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and glanced around him with perfect calm. Junior called the police.

Aaron spent several hours in jail before being bailed out by his father. During his last years of high school he seemed to despise his father. They were never together and in school Aaron would pass him without even a nod. And Chuck Hawley told me that when Patrick picked up his son at the police station, Aaron refused to look at him.

Although Aaron was charged with assault, the matter never came to trial. Many people said how Hark had tormented Aaron. It must have been clear that Aaron wouldn't be convicted. Instead, it was decided that he should seek psychological counseling. He didn't return to school but studied at home and took special tests. He was an A student and had already been accepted at Buffalo. The point was to keep him out of school because he was certain to cause a disruption.

Hark stayed out of school as well. There was no question of the ear's being replaced. Aaron had chewed it to a lump. The ear was put in formaldehyde and kept as evidence. Chuck Hawley told me it was quite an item at the police station. Deputies from other towns and even state troopers showed up to look at it.

Aaron went off to college. Patrick continued to teach. Janice worked in Norwich and had her boyfriends. Once during the summer I saw Hark on the street. He had a bandage over the place where his ear had been. Later it healed to a pink scar. Hark let his hair grow over it. I don't know if plastic surgery could have given him another ear or if he chose not to do it. Patrick certainly would have paid for it.

Aaron was gone for three years. I suppose he might not have come back if it hadn't been for the death of his mother. It isn't new to say that a town is like a family. Even strangers share your experiences. You drive down the same streets, shop at the same stores. Nobody could be more of an outsider than I am, but Janice's death was a rude invasion into my life as well. It affected how I saw the world, how I saw my neighbors. If it did that for me, others must have been affected more drastically. And of course it wasn't just a death, it was a murder.