Full Disclosure
James Kincaid


I didn’t get what you would call directions for this assignment, not that I’m trying to evade my clear responsibility.  If nothing else, I know my own interests well enough to see that they would not be served by dodging.  But I hope there is something else at work here, at work inside me.  While I do not want to lay claim to virtues you think I do not possess, it would be dishonest of me not to report that I’ve grown as a result of this ordeal, now see myself more clearly.  I would go so far as to say that I’m a different person.  But perhaps that’s not for me to say.  

Let me be direct.  I did molest the boy, a student entrusted to me.   

At the time this happened I had developed the ability to blind myself to the truth or hide it behind a nearby bush.  What I am not now is what I was then:  evasive.  I don’t mean to excuse anything by forthrightness, just indicate that there were many mistakes, large mistakes, I made, and evading things was one of them.   

(I will try not to be long-winded.  I really wish there were instructions on how much background you require.  I’ll just have to guess.  And I’ll try to form shorter sentences.  I always tell my students that there are no prizes given for sentences taking longest to cross the finish line.)
I’ll start wherever it seems to me most reasonable.  That OK?

I don’t know who is to give permission, there being nobody here but me and this recorder:  well three of us, really, me, the recorder, and my honor.  (I omit the person behind the glass, as I was told to ignore him.  OK by me.)  Anyhow, I plan to connect a pipeline directly to my conscience and let it flow.  

Excuse me while I take a drink.  Oops!  After they told me they’d take down every word so I should not prattle.  I’ll do better.  I certainly have gotten way, way beyond wanting to hide anything. For [unintelligible.]

Here goes:  straight to what I know you want to hear about, and that’s as it should be.  I’ve been spending long hours recently talking about my past, my childhood, both to the officials here, the doctors, and my friends, those I have made in the last several weeks.  “Friends on the inside,” as they say.  Those friends have become dear to me, showing more understanding than I had ever expected, more than I deserve.  And these are supposed to be hardened criminals.   I think the people who are in here with me are better than I, and I also think they have taught me to be better, which I take the risk of saying I KNOW I now am.

What I set out to say was about my childhood, but I got sidetracked talking about these dear friends.  You will think that I am not counting Terry as a dear friend, fearing your opinion on that count.  But that’s not so.  I am eager to be honest here.  It’s true that I stopped thinking of myself as teacher or older even, with him I mean.  That was wrong.  More than just a mistake:  wrong, wrong, wrong.  I know that now.  

Now I WILL get to my childhood.  Terry later.  I’m not avoiding that.  My childhood was like that of most white, middle-class, unspecial women my age, I would guess.  I think my parents were OK, treated me well in the way they figured they should.  They aren’t dumb people, though not educated.  I was the first person to complete college in the family.  My parents were religious in a moderate way, Methodist, and they made sure I had the kind of home where my friends felt welcome.  My childhood was happy.  

They didn’t molest me.  I feel sure about that.  I did read a pamphlet here that said the answer to whether or not you were molested had to be either “yes” or “I don’t know,” that nobody could say for sure they weren’t.  I guess that’s what the latest research shows, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that seems to me nonsense. Spend a half hour with my mother and father and you’d see how ridiculous that idea is.  

I’m mentioning this about my parents not because it’s relevant to my incarceration but because it just came up.  

Ha—choo.  Excuse me.

I have a brother, younger than me.  I know some people have suggested there was something in my relationship with Rich that could maybe say a lot about Terry and me, a forecast of things to come.  I’ve tried hard to think about that, and I can honestly say that there might be a little something in it.  I loved Rich and felt responsible for him, for his happiness.  I don’t anymore.  He has graduated from college, has a good job, and a wife who is expecting their first.  He and I are still close, but only in ways – err – that fit a brother and sister.  You know.

Anyways, there may be something in my feelings back then for Rich that gets replayed with Terry.  The difference, of course, is huge.  I didn’t comfort Terry or feel responsible for him – perhaps I should have.  [Unintelligible, static.]   I don’t mean to avoid the big difference, which is sex.  I can honestly say that no shadow of sexual feeling ever entered my love for Richie.  I’ve never denied that sexual feeling came to occupy an important, if certainly secondary, position with Terry.  I want to be frank about that.

Richie and Terry look slightly alike.  I admit that too.  But I don’t see how this connection is helpful in explaining what happened.  Maybe the doctors can see it.  All I can do is to be honest and leave it to others for thorough analysis.  

To sum up:  my childhood seems to me to have been unexceptional.  I went to summer camp, was a cheerleader, attended LSU and graduated with a degree in education, had boyfriends, a few who seemed serious at the time.  (I’m trying to overcome my embarrassment at talking about sex.  I think it’s a natural reluctance, but I have a feeling you might want to hear this, so I’ll say it:  I did have sex with five boys, two in high school, two in college, and one after college, for a period of two years.  Very OK sex.  I didn’t rebound to Terry from unsuccessful adult sexual relations.)  

The first several weeks of the school-year in question went along as usual, though what is usual in my classrooms doesn’t fit what most people have in mind, what is conventional and commonplace, so I should explain.  Hope the tape doesn’t run out, and I’ll try to be brief on this, my theory of teaching.  It’s vital in understanding what developed, so I’ll just go ahead and explain fully. 

What?  I don’t understand.  Read the note?  “Forget the theory and get to the criminal activity.”
Nineteen second of silence.

I guess that puts it on the line, though I thought I had free reign here to explain myself and wasn’t going to be. . . .  Gotcha.  No need to rap on the glass.  I’ll do as ordered.  Excuse me.  I need a drink of water.

I imagine it’s permissible to say that it is a tribute to the power of the theory I am not allowed to explain that, in seven years of teaching, I have been the recipient of several notable awards for teaching but never one significant complaint.  Students know sound practice when they see it; they recognize healthy physical expression when they feel it.

But that’s not what happened with Terry, I admit.

One day in the third week, Terry lingered after school, dawdling at his desk in a way most unlike him.  I noticed, of course, but pretended not to, knowing he had some reason to lurk.  I won’t soon forget what happened that afternoon.  [Unintelligible.]

Finally, when everyone had left, Terry abandoned his charade of gathering belongings, sat back at his desk, and looked up at me with eyes so full of pain anyone would have responded, not to be making excuses.  Whatever other people might or might not have done is not the issue, and I certainly am not pretending that “other people” would have found themselves having sexual relations with a thirteen-year-old.  

I went back, scooted up a chair and pulled him to me, out of his chair and onto my lap.

“What is it, dear?  You can tell me.”

“I know I can, Ms. Belty.”

“Ms. Belty!”

He smiled a little and snuggled close.  “I’m sorry.  Anna.”

“That’s better.  Now what is it?”

To be honest, Terry was attractive to me at that moment, though that attraction had nothing to do with his vulnerability.  I was drawn to Terry at least as much out of my vulnerability as his.  What I mean is that it was his strength that drew me.  I am fully aware that this is difficult for most people to understand, filled as they are with false notions about the immaturity of children.

The idea that children are “immature” arises as a natural error, mistaking what we want to see for what is there.  Put another way, “immaturity” is a disguise kids adopt to get by, a survival tool.  Adults are so sure kids are one way that almost all kids find it easier to play along.
So [unintelligible] and [unintelligible] where were we?  No need to rap the glass.  Oh yeah.

“I am fine, Anna, really.  It’s just. . . .”  He didn’t seem confused, more like trying to gauge my response.

“Go ahead,” I said, trying to encourage him.

“Well,” he said, “I guess you know that I’ve gone through puberty, physically I mean.”  He broke off then:  “Of course you couldn’t KNOW.  What am I saying?”

To ease his embarrassment, I smiled.   And. . . .   I don’t quite know how, but we soon found ourselves embracing, our cuddle having, without warning, turned into full-fledged passion.
Before I knew it, his hands were all over me and---[unintelligible.]  

It was out first time having sex.  Yes, on the floor there in the classroom and, yes, both of us fully unclothed.  [Unintelligible.]  I don’t want to hide anything, but I don’t want to be lewd, certainly.  Let me say this:  the sex was a part of all this but it wasn’t by any means the center.  It was there; but it was also on the periphery, if you follow me.  

If anything about this was unremarkable, even routine, it was the sex.  It’s ironic that this feature attracts all the attention.  I imagine hundreds of thousands of people have had sex pretty much like we had.  Ho Hum.  With the one difference.

There were times when we were together, alone, and got so involved in our conversation that we forgot to have sex.  That sounds odd, but it’s true.  Our relationship was much more intellectual and emotional than it ever was physical.  I don’t expect to be believed here, but I’m not going to lie just to sound more convincing to those who think they already know all the answers.

I was asked to indicate how I feel now about all this.  OK I think  – I think [unintelligible].
I’ll restart.  Wish I could rewind and back up this machine.

It was a giant mistake and I apologize to all those I let down.  To Terry and his parents, to all my students, to all those uncounted numbers of completely responsible teachers whose careers I have made a little unsteady by my self-indulgent activities.  Faced with a similar situation – and I don’t pretend that a similar situation might not arise when I return to teaching and [unintelligible], I would act different because I am different.  It is my fondest wish to return to teaching, to do what I love best and am, if I do say so, immensely gifted at.
 
Those who make mistakes fall into two categories:  those who have tapped into some permanent defective part of themselves and will continue to behave in that way AND those who learn from their mistakes.  I know in the deepest part of my being that I am of the second category:  it’s hard for me now to recognize the person who raped that little boy.  I recognize that it was rape, had to be, as how could a thirteen-year-old child give consent?  It's legally impossible and also violates common sense (as well as [unintelligible] human decency).
I'm not asking for another chance, as I'm not the same person who did that unspeakable thing.  I want a FIRST CHANCE for the entirely remade Anna Belty.  Please let this person, talented and chastened, back into free society and back into the classroom where she belongs.

[Pause.]

[Forty-seven seconds of static and unintelligible sounds.]

 I see.  There's the off button.  Fucking assholes.  Bite your tongue, fool.  How can I---[Unintelligible]
    
[Twenty-two seconds of unintelligible sounds and disconnected speech.]

Off?   Whirring piece of shit.  Yeah.  Off for sure.

 [Eleven seconds of static.]

Hope this works – didn’t overdo it.  Stupid fucks – that’s my cushion – bottom-feeder psychologists.  I feel like throwing up.  How could I have said all that?  Oh me oh my, how perverted I was but ain’t now, no sir.  I just couldn’t help myself.  This beautiful boy.  [Laughter.]  Hope they see it, the recognizable Oprah type:  obsessed but redeemable female pedophile.  
Bull-fucking-shit!  [Unintelligible.]  Beautiful boy?  Take a look at him: uni-browed moonfaced shit.  Seduced me with his helplessness.  Oh how he needed me.  How could I ever have fallen for that?  

Then he wormed his needy little self into my sympathies, ripped my clothes off, slugged me, raped me.  That’s impossible, right?  Why?  Because I’m eighteen years older and you can’t imagine a poor little thirteen-year-old could do such a thing.  Never mind that the thirteen-year-old is a snorting, rutting pig.  In the eyes of the law, he has to be an innocent little child.  “Little child” my ravished ass!  He outweighed me by a good twenty pounds, a tough specimen of trailer-trash selfishness.  He wants what he wants, he says, suckin on his teeth, and by lordy jesus is gonna jes take it.  
​
They asked me what I’d do if I got out, clearly worried I’d be drawn back to him.  They should worry.  I get released I’m going to hunt him down.  The family was moved “for his safety” by do-gooding morons.  But I’ll find that little bastard.  I’ll find him and cut him into bits, slowly, starting with the one part of him that truly is little.

About the Author:
James has published many non-fiction and academic books, several short stories, and two novels, one of them co-authored with Percival Everett. Two new novels will be coming out in early 2016: You Must Remember This and Wendell and Tyler. He taught for years at Southern Cal and currently he's at Pitt.
.

---