Monday – Only One Road out of Idaho
Oct. 5th, 2009 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
A strange thing happened last night as Jeff and I sat outside and talked about his brother. Jeff's anger and my dislike of Pete sort of dissolved, and we found ourselves feeling something akin to sympathy.
"He wasn't a bad guy," Jeff said, "I mean, he wasn't a good guy, but any means, but he wasn't…" He stopped, and seemed search the sky for the right word.
"He wasn't evil," I suggested. "He was a schmoozer and grifter."
"He was a conman, but he didn't have a malicious bone in his body. He wasn't mean. He didn't take pleasure in hurting people, I think he just didn't realize the damage he did. It honestly didn't occur to him that what he did was wrong. It never did, from the time we were kids."
I wonder if some people are born without a moral compass, or are born with one that doesn’t point true north the way it should. I think it might be some sort of innate defect in some people I've met.
"He didn't deserve to wind up like that," Jeff said. "I understand why he did it, and I know he had problems, but he deserved better than how he wound up. He was trapped. He had no place to go, and no way out of his situation. He was a pariah after what happened. He couldn't get a job, he couldn't get a girl, and he couldn't leave for some other place where he might have a chance. The court told him he had to stay in Idaho for 15 years. He was stuck and he didn't see a way out."
Jeff doesn't believe Pete committed the rape the authorities in Idaho charged him with, and from what I know of the case it doesn't sound like they had that strong of a case against him. Unless someone challenged him in a bar fight, Pete was not inheritably violent. Jeff claims that rape was simply not his brother's style – seduction was. He got his way with his charm, not his fists.
His mistake was that he charmed and conned the wrong woman into sharing his bed. During their encounter someone came to the door and interrupted them. The woman composed herself and spoke with the visitor, then she and Pete finished what they were doing after the visitor left. She did not run crying out of the house or beg to be rescued. There was no gun or knife involved, either. She turned out to be the daughter of a local politician, and when she cried rape a few days later she had the full force of the local authorities pursuing her claim. She was not bruised, nor she was not threatened, nor did she ask for rescue when the opportunity literally came knocking at the door. Still the District Attorney pressured Pete to take a plea bargain, probably in a ploy to avoid trying a case so flimsy most juries would have acquitted the defendant and laughed the DA out of office.
At the time, we thought that he probably wasn't guilty of this but that he was guilty of so many other things that the rape charge was something akin to Karma catching up to him. We suspected that pleading guilty was the worst thing he could have done, and we were right. After he got out of jail (the bargain was that he would not go to prison, and most of his sentence would be probation) he had to register as a sex offender.
Here's the thing about being a registered sex offender on probation: not only can you not find work, no one wants to be your friend and no one wants to date you. He met a woman at a dance a few weeks back who was taken with him and told him he had pretty blue eyes (my husband has the same pretty blue eyes, so I can vouch that the compliment was honest). He told her about his situation. After talking with her friends and family she told him she could have nothing to do with him.
Considering Pete's nature as a man who leached off of the kindness of women until they either got sick of it or he found a new woman to leach off of, this decision was in her best interest. Still, Pete was a sleaze and a con artist, nothing worse. Nevertheless he was now stuck wearing a scarlet letter "R" for rapist, a designation so vile that even other lowlifes would have nothing to do with him. The plea bargain set him free, but only in a Bobby Magee sense of the world: he was a pariah.
Fleeing the state to greener pastures would make him a wanted man, and he had no stomach for that. Nor did he want to assume another man's name and deny his own. All he wanted out of Idaho. The only means he could think of that would not compound his troubles even more was a noose.
"I didn't like him. He gave me the creeps," I told Jeff. "I hate what happened to him, but if had shown up on our door asking for help I wouldn't have let him in."
"Well, yeah, he was a creepy guy, but he wasn't a monster."
"No, just a conman," I said. My shoulders still felt heavy from the tears of the conman's mother from that afternoon when she got the news. I could still hear her saying, No, no, no! Suicide? Why? Why did he think he had to do this? He had just called her two weeks ago on her birthday, and she said he sounded good, cheerful. He never forgot her birthday, not once, no matter where he was, she told us.
"I hope he's found some peace," I said.
"Maybe," Jeff said. "Who knows?"
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
A strange thing happened last night as Jeff and I sat outside and talked about his brother. Jeff's anger and my dislike of Pete sort of dissolved, and we found ourselves feeling something akin to sympathy.
"He wasn't a bad guy," Jeff said, "I mean, he wasn't a good guy, but any means, but he wasn't…" He stopped, and seemed search the sky for the right word.
"He wasn't evil," I suggested. "He was a schmoozer and grifter."
"He was a conman, but he didn't have a malicious bone in his body. He wasn't mean. He didn't take pleasure in hurting people, I think he just didn't realize the damage he did. It honestly didn't occur to him that what he did was wrong. It never did, from the time we were kids."
I wonder if some people are born without a moral compass, or are born with one that doesn’t point true north the way it should. I think it might be some sort of innate defect in some people I've met.
"He didn't deserve to wind up like that," Jeff said. "I understand why he did it, and I know he had problems, but he deserved better than how he wound up. He was trapped. He had no place to go, and no way out of his situation. He was a pariah after what happened. He couldn't get a job, he couldn't get a girl, and he couldn't leave for some other place where he might have a chance. The court told him he had to stay in Idaho for 15 years. He was stuck and he didn't see a way out."
Jeff doesn't believe Pete committed the rape the authorities in Idaho charged him with, and from what I know of the case it doesn't sound like they had that strong of a case against him. Unless someone challenged him in a bar fight, Pete was not inheritably violent. Jeff claims that rape was simply not his brother's style – seduction was. He got his way with his charm, not his fists.
His mistake was that he charmed and conned the wrong woman into sharing his bed. During their encounter someone came to the door and interrupted them. The woman composed herself and spoke with the visitor, then she and Pete finished what they were doing after the visitor left. She did not run crying out of the house or beg to be rescued. There was no gun or knife involved, either. She turned out to be the daughter of a local politician, and when she cried rape a few days later she had the full force of the local authorities pursuing her claim. She was not bruised, nor she was not threatened, nor did she ask for rescue when the opportunity literally came knocking at the door. Still the District Attorney pressured Pete to take a plea bargain, probably in a ploy to avoid trying a case so flimsy most juries would have acquitted the defendant and laughed the DA out of office.
At the time, we thought that he probably wasn't guilty of this but that he was guilty of so many other things that the rape charge was something akin to Karma catching up to him. We suspected that pleading guilty was the worst thing he could have done, and we were right. After he got out of jail (the bargain was that he would not go to prison, and most of his sentence would be probation) he had to register as a sex offender.
Here's the thing about being a registered sex offender on probation: not only can you not find work, no one wants to be your friend and no one wants to date you. He met a woman at a dance a few weeks back who was taken with him and told him he had pretty blue eyes (my husband has the same pretty blue eyes, so I can vouch that the compliment was honest). He told her about his situation. After talking with her friends and family she told him she could have nothing to do with him.
Considering Pete's nature as a man who leached off of the kindness of women until they either got sick of it or he found a new woman to leach off of, this decision was in her best interest. Still, Pete was a sleaze and a con artist, nothing worse. Nevertheless he was now stuck wearing a scarlet letter "R" for rapist, a designation so vile that even other lowlifes would have nothing to do with him. The plea bargain set him free, but only in a Bobby Magee sense of the world: he was a pariah.
Fleeing the state to greener pastures would make him a wanted man, and he had no stomach for that. Nor did he want to assume another man's name and deny his own. All he wanted out of Idaho. The only means he could think of that would not compound his troubles even more was a noose.
"I didn't like him. He gave me the creeps," I told Jeff. "I hate what happened to him, but if had shown up on our door asking for help I wouldn't have let him in."
"Well, yeah, he was a creepy guy, but he wasn't a monster."
"No, just a conman," I said. My shoulders still felt heavy from the tears of the conman's mother from that afternoon when she got the news. I could still hear her saying, No, no, no! Suicide? Why? Why did he think he had to do this? He had just called her two weeks ago on her birthday, and she said he sounded good, cheerful. He never forgot her birthday, not once, no matter where he was, she told us.
"I hope he's found some peace," I said.
"Maybe," Jeff said. "Who knows?"
