High school was difficult enough without having one's first visit to the 9th grade counselor's office involve an "interview" with a police officer. I was called to Mr. Soule's office and was introduced to Detective Evergreen. And, what a joke. It was several minutes of an accusation of wrong doing with never stating the time and date of my alleged burglary and never asking if I were guilty. I wasn't given an opportunity to tell the alleged detective where I was on the night in question.
We both sat mute. My counselor never said a word. I was maddened by the droning on of the detective's accusation and his promise that I would forever remember what I did. Yes, I will always fucking remember how this police officer failed me. He never asked me if I robbed that house on my paper route. He never asked me where I was...
When I got home that afternoon, Mom told me that the officer had been to the house. He inquired about my winter gloves. We had a drawer full of the same large brown Jersey cotton gloves and if, as he said, a glove like "ours" had been left behind at the Willow Street house then he had very little evidence. We, my brothers and I, always had an odd left or right glove in the drawer where we kept them.
If he had only asked the questions that we all expect to hear from police professionals. Yes. I sat silently waiting for a question and none were asked. Not one. And, I never said a word.
I didn't tell him.
Yes. Maybe I looked guilty of something. Maybe there was evidence of my distress. Maybe.....
I didn't tell him that when a burglary was occurring in the middle of my route, I was with a man, a stranger, being raped. I didn't tell him how I'd been lured out to meet this man claiming to be Bruce's friend. I didn't tell the detective about the road in the middle of nowhere and all that was done. No, I didn't say a word.
And, maybe, just maybe, it would have ended there........... But, he never asked.
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