Sixth Grade Was Pretty Bad — But It Could Have Been Worse.

We all knew he was a pedophile. The fact that our parents didn’t see it, that our other teachers didn’t see it, was a continual source of surprise for us. Was it really so hard to put the pieces together?

He was the only male teacher in our school, a balding, late-middle-aged man, who lived alone in the house he had grown up in.

Most days, he wore button-down shirts and brown sweaters, the thin chain of a crucifix hanging from his neck. Sleeves rolled up, arms hairy and grey, he would stroll up to us in the schoolyard after lunch, teasing and making small talk, interrupting our discussions without any hint of apology.

“Here he comes,” said Patrick,⁠ rolling his eyes at me.

He’d approach one of us from behind, putting his hands upon our shoulders, knobby fingers poking into the neck, kneading the scrawny muscles like a bony lump of pizza dough, before moving to the next person.

It was a stiff, uncomfortable massage that we hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. But we gritted our teeth and stood through it, because at least this was above the table, out in the open, when it could have been much worse.

****

Patrick was on the basketball team, which Mr. Tennyson coached, so he spent more time with him than I did.

“He’s always around while we’re changing,” said Patrick. “And when we’re in the shower. Like, more than he has to be.”

But that didn’t seem like something we could report him for. My uncle-in-law was in charge of the sports leagues; surely he wouldn’t let Mr. Tennyson coach there if he couldn’t be trusted.

In French class, Mr. Tennyson would stroll between our desks, huddling over our shoulders to read aloud from our textbook or look at our notes.

“Huit, neuf, dix,” someone would declare.

“Dis!” he would correct.

If we raised a hand, or spoke out of turn, we might be called up to his desk to stand beside him, within the orbit of his stench. “The Punishment,” we called it. More often that not, it was only the boys who were eligible.

During the holidays, he scheduled field trips, buying us tickets to the circus, or the Harlem Globetrotters. I always found an excuse to stay home.

Sometimes, he would hire Patrick to mow his lawn for him on the weekends.

When we found a book on molestation in our school library, we joked about it. It was a textbook case: the lavish gifts, the authority figures to vouch for him, the occasional chores and errands to get us alone with him.

But he hadn’t crossed any lines yet — hadn’t reached for those parts that he shouldn’t touch — so we kept our mouths shut.

****

At the end-of-year party that he hosted at his house — where he was the only chaperone — we drenched ourselves with Super Soakers and water balloons, running around half-naked in our swimsuits.

There was Patrick, sitting shirtless on the couch, squeezed between two female classmates. He grinned at me, pleased at his luck.

It was easy to overlook the leering old man in our midst, preoccupied as we were with our own friendships and rivalries and crushes. In an odd way, it was as though we had the power over him; we could, if it came to it, hold him in check with our words and accusations.

When my mother arrived to pick me up, I couldn’t believe the strangeness of the situation wasn’t obvious — that our parents hadn’t figured out what we, as children, already knew.

****

Years later, wondering what had become of him, I searched online and found out that he had, in fact, been accused of molesting a student.

The incident in question was from years ago, but the legal case was recent, and the details were eerily familiar: I could easily imagine the awkward shoulder rubs turning into something more sinister.

I told myself that we’d been lucky, that by the time we’d been his students, it had been too risky for him to openly molest us.

But for all I knew, we hadn’t been lucky. For all I knew, I’d been the lucky one, by turning down his fields trips and lawn-mowing opportunities. Could I be sure that Patrick had made it through the year unscathed?

****

Ultimately — whether he turned out to be guilty or not — what he had done had been bad enough. We hadn’t wanted those hands on our shoulders. We hadn’t wanted him huddling over us while we did our homework.

These were gestures reserved for fathers and friends, men we trusted. They may or may not have been sexual, but they weren’t asked for, they weren’t consensual. He had placed us on the defensive at our own desks.

I wished that we had spoken up; but mostly, I was angry at the adults around us. It was their responsibility, with their more nuanced understanding of sex, to protect us from its darker side.

Instead, they’d left us to deal with it on our own, to reach conclusions that we knew instinctively, but couldn’t yet put into words.

****

*Patrick is a composite character; the teacher in question was placed on leave after charges were filed. I don’t know the outcome of the case.

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