Hiding in the Weave by William Bayer

Author:William Bayer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: poetry, journalism, art, sex scandal, private school, teen suicide, prep school, performace art
Publisher: Crossroad Press

PART THREE

It crept up on us that Sunday evening, rumors at first, most of them, as it turned out, incorrect. Then just after senior check-in, the news spread virally floor-to-floor through north campus dorms, then throughout Delamere via e-mail and text. By morning I doubt there was a single student or teacher who wasn't aware something serious had occurred, even if the details remained unclear.

Though early reactions varied (confusion, incredulity, denial), in the end, when the rumors subsided and a narrative started to emerge, most everyone's feelings boiled down to sadness tinged with anger—sadness that one among us, especially one held in such high regard, could have been involved in such a thing, and anger that, because this individual was an important member of our community, we were, by connection, implicated.

As for myself, I felt crushed.

As pieced together, the precipitating event occurred that Sunday mid-February afternoon in Rollins Park in Concord, N.H., eighty miles from campus. According to most accounts, Mr. B, wearing a clown nose, a pink and white polka dot shirt and sloppy oversized tie-dyed pantaloons, was sitting on a park bench surrounded by half a dozen kids engaging them in a strange manner while handing out coins with which to purchase ice cream from a nearby vender. After a while a male-female pair of cops, summoned by a nearby encampment of moms with strollers, approached Mr. B and asked what he thought he was doing. Here the story became murky. According to the cops, Mr. B refused to identify himself, became aggressive, spoke to them incoherently, and, handcuffed, turned to the accusing moms and shouted "You have this all wrong!" At which point he was arrested for disorderly conduct and hauled away. Further, according to the cops, during the ride in their squad car from the park to the city jail, he continued to talk in a strange way, which the female cop described as "speaking in opposites."

All of which would probably have been treated as nothing more than a bizarre incident, evidence perhaps that the man in question was suffering from some sort of personality melt-down, if it weren't for the fact that as soon as his identity became know, that he was a teacher at a famous boarding school, the supervising officer became fixated on his case and obtained a warrant to search his house. It was this search that churned the rumor mill.

Just before senior check-in at ten p.m., half a dozen squad cars roared into town. They parked at odd angles in front of Mr. Bishop's small white clapboard. Officers wearing nylon jackets bearing the words STATE POLICE and VICE SQUAD in white block letters on their backs, used crowbars to break down his door, then stormed inside.

Their search lasted through the night and into the next morning. They were seen coming and going, carrying out boxes of papers and belongings. One of the investigators told a reporter for The Concord Telegraph that "we found a stash of kiddy porn."

Mr. B was my

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