It interrupted Ben’s Thursday morning coffee at the desk in his bedroom, which was also his office:
You have a new sex offender alert!
ID Assured – a name meant to inspire confidence. Only sensible to want your personal information protected. It was one of those perks companies throw out to employees, like discounts on car rentals or a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card at Christmas. Ben had downloaded the app. Then, over the course of a busy week of reports that didn’t seem to end, he forgot about it altogether. It became just another icon on his phone, until the notifications started.
The alert was simple, clear. Still, those words didn’t seem to go together, and he had to read them a couple times. But damn, did it intrigue him. He opened the app and found the category at the bottom of the main menu – Financial Information, Social Media Accounts, Credit Score…Sex Offender Monitoring. His finger hovered over the symbol for a few seconds, but finally he ventured in. There was a list of people with their pictures, ages, offenses. Also, a map showing all of their addresses within a ten-mile radius, each person a red numbered dot. There were at least twenty of them. It was as if he’d searched for a good restaurant for dinner. According to the map, one guy – “Sexual Battery” was his offense – lived two blocks down the street.
So…that’s a thing, he thought. Told himself it was an amusing diversion and filed the thought away. He left his phone on the desk and got up. There were some dirty dishes in the sink, so he loaded them into the dishwasher and started it. He still began work at the usual time that morning.
Now and then, over the next eight hours, he looked at his phone and saw the icon, reminded himself, then pushed it out of the way. When he logged off for the day, he finally caved and reopened the app, scrolled through the list again. Nobody had ever produced a good mugshot, but these…a lot of blotchy skin, ratty facial hair on the men – they were mostly men but there was two or three women – predominantly white, with a few wonky eyes.
Among the four new names, Ben passed over Fredrick James Sadowski before he went back to it and stared at the mugshot. He had known him as Freddie back in school. Not that they’d been friends. Teachers had often sat them near each other in elementary school because their last names both started with S. By the time middle school came around, Ben had seen less and less of him, when Freddie was weeded out, sent to the classes for slow kids.
Twelve and a half years since high school, but that was Freddie Sadowski, if you looked hard enough. He appeared bloated, a patchy beard covered his face, which Ben recalled had never really cleared of acne, and may have been scarred now, under the hair. Of all his classmates, and Ben had thought about most of them as little as possible over the years, he had thought of Freddie Sadowski the least. Still, Freddie was there, on his phone, within a finger’s tap.
According to the map, he lived on the side of town bordered by a creek that ran into the Allegheny River. A neighborhood of old mill worker homes with chipping paint and overgrown lawns. That was half a mile away.
Ben had hoped to do some writing after work, but that plan went out the window. He’d ended up watching a few YouTube videos, then having dinner in front of the TV waiting for the hockey game to start.
#
O! u didn’t hear about that? said Marty, over text. yeah he got arrested 3, 4 years back. you were still in NYC.
Ben and Marty were texting back and forth during the game. Since the Penguins were filling the net, there wasn’t much for the two friends to critique. So, Ben had taken a screenshot of Freddie Sadowski’s photo and shared it. The app didn’t give any of the specifics, but Marty had the whole story.
they caught him jerkin it in the bushes next to the preschool at the presbyterian church. it was on KDKA and everything. it was night so there weren’t any kids there at the time but u know. (Vomiting Smiley Face)
Ben sipped his beer and tried to craft the perfect response. Then it came to him. hmm…he must really be into playground equipment.
After sending a gif of someone laughing hysterically, Marty continued: he went away for a couple years. got out last November. lives with his dad now. his mom died while he was in jail. think she died of shame.
Last fall, after his release, Freddie had tried to get a job at the construction company where Marty worked. Of course, the boss had quietly turned down his application.
he’s bagging groceries at Giant Eagle I heard. or they might keep him back in the stock room.
When the Penguins let the Flyers score a goal, the discussion moved elsewhere. Between periods, Marty shared the pictures of his daughter from her birthday.
jen was disappointed you couldn’t come, he said.
I had so much work to do, Ben said. all weekend. did Emma like the card I sent?
she’s 2. she can’t read.
then ur a failure as a parent.
Marty sent a gif of some white-trashy fellow flipping the bird.
#
Ben was able to ignore the app for the next couple of days. At least he tried to. Occasionally it would update him about one of his purchases, as in confirming that it was actually him ordering a book of Sam Shepard plays and toilet cleaner on Amazon. He’d lost his old copy of that book while moving apartments in New York. The toilet cleaner was one less thing to get at the grocery store the next time he went. He almost decided to order all his groceries online, but concluded he wasn’t yet one of those people. Also, there was no delivery service in his area yet that would do that. This town he’d grown up in was not Brooklyn.
On Friday night, he had dinner at his parents’ house. At one point, he found himself blurting out what he’d learned about Freddie Sadowski. He hadn’t planned on it, but the conversation was going nowhere, and it was still on his mind.
“I remember that kid,” Mom said, handing out the baked potatoes. “Always looked a little, you know, not right in the head. Remember, Ron?”
His dad continued cutting his steak with no comment.
“I remember,” she said again. “He wound up in the classes for the retarded kids. They made them all walk around the school together in a group. Like one of them might wander off.”
“So,” Dad said, finally ready to talk. “Was he the one they caught diddling the little boy in his car?”
“No, Ron. That was the priest from Saint Stephen’s. Or was it Holy Mother’s?”
Dad stared at some spot on the wall, chewing between sentences. “Sure as hell glad I left the church… I was an altar boy…Lucky to get out.”
“Well, I only know that one case,” Mom said. “Truly, you know most of those ‘victims’ are just looking for money. It can’t really have been that many priests.”
Ben concentrated on buttering a roll.
“I mean it. My uncle Gerald, he was pastor at Our Lady of Virtues. Nobody ever had a bad thing to say about him.”
Dad then asked about Ben’s job, suddenly interested in any other topic. How was he making out? Was Jim Phillips an okay boss? Dad had pulled a few strings to get Jim to hire him, you know.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “It’s fine. Just me alone in that apartment. It’s…quiet.”
Dad looked bemused. “Well, let’s hope you get back into the office soon. They spoil you guys with this working from home stuff. I never had the choice to work from home and I’d never take it.”
This old chestnut again, Ben thought. Since he started at Three Rivers Insurance, he’d been hearing variations of this speech from his dad about how things were done when he worked there. Retirement hadn’t softened Ron Stawiski’s opinions on pretty much anything.
“I thank Jim every day for hiring me,” Ben said. “He says I write a hell of a report.”
Dad nodded. “I’m glad you finally found some use for that English degree.”
“Why don’t you show Jim that play you wrote, honey?” Mom said. “Maybe he knows someone.”
Ben thought of the thumb drive in his desk drawer. It held several short stories that had been politely rejected by various literary magazines, the first three chapters of a novel set during the Spanish Civil War, and his play. In his opinion, that play was the best thing he’d ever written. A slyly humorous take on office life in modern America, based on several temp jobs he’d worked in New York. A director friend-of-a-friend had expressed interest in staging it off-off-Broadway. That had been in January of 2020.
It didn’t work out. That’s what he’d said when Jim Phillips asked about his time in New York while interviewing him over Zoom. Jim had looked down to make some notes about Ben’s response. Then he’d looked back up at the screen, at Ben, maybe waiting for him to elaborate, but Ben didn’t. So, the interview had moved on. “It didn’t work out.” Four words to sum up the half a decade of his life after college. How he’d turned thirty in his parents’ home in the midst of a shut-down world. Ben thought he’d tanked the interview with that answer.
He’d started a new play upon moving into his apartment. One scene, saved on his desktop, a backup copy on the flash drive. And he hadn’t looked at it in months.
“Jim’s in insurance, Katy,” Dad said. “Who the hell would he know in the theater?”
“Well,” she said. “Sometimes companies sponsor the arts…as like a tax write-off, or something.”
“No,” Ben said. “I don’t think I’ve been there long enough. Maybe after, say, ten years. By then I’ll have Jim’s job. Then I can do whatever I want. Maybe I can make all my underlings perform it for me.”
Neither of his parents laughed.
#
Ben spent Saturday morning catching up on work. He was one of only three analysts in the department at the moment, so there was always one more thing to do.
Jim Phillips constantly joked during team Zoom meetings: “Be happy that you’re wanted.” The tepid responses to his jokes never seemed to discourage Jim. Maybe he thought it was because everyone was muted.
By lunchtime, Ben had his fill of report analysis for the day and made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, pretty much the only food he had left. Sitting on the couch, he looked at his phone while eating, scrolling through the news headlines – nothing he cared to know more about there. He rarely, if ever, went on Facebook anymore. It was either people ranting about petty annoyances that were somehow, in their mind, tied to politics, or pictures of their kids, sometimes both. He was interested in neither. And he had nothing to tweet. Instagram was amusing enough if you just wanted to spool through pretty pictures. He usually listened to music or podcasts at his desk, but at the moment that would just make him feel like he hadn’t left work. There were cooking videos, some for recipes he actually made. Breaded boneless pork chops were his specialty. Perhaps he’d find something new to make for dinner. Have to go to the store, though. Next thing he knew, it was thirty minutes later, and he hadn’t really done anything but stare.
His sandwich was half-eaten on the coffee table. Putting the phone down, he rubbed his eyes. Flashes of words and images continued to flicker behind his eyelids.
He looked outside and noticed the sun coming out from behind a cloud. It illuminated the budding green leaves of the trees that lined the street, made them glow. A spring day like everyone always hopes for after a cold winter. A walk, he thought. Why the hell not?
#
A light breeze blew against his face, waking him up. Why didn’t he do this more often? No commute, that’s why. Barely any reason to leave the apartment. Ben knew he’d put on some weight. That hadn’t happened since freshman year of college. Definitely have to do this more. Get a gym membership; they said that was safe now.
Two blocks down the street from his apartment he looked around, trying to decide which way to go. His eyes landed on the number of the house on the corner – 1408 Sycamore Street. The address was familiar. It was twenty digits off from his own address – 1428. Was that all, or…? He brought out his phone and opened the ID Assured app, consulted the map. His finger went right to the icon. Curt Rombauer – 1408 Sycamore Street, Age 46, Sexual Battery. A scrawny-looking guy, tattoo of a heart on his neck. Ben vaguely remembered going to school with his cousin Tiffany. Beyond that, not much else. The house was surprisingly well-kept. None of last fall’s dead leaves on the lawn or junk on the porch. Through the front window, Ben saw the glow of a TV.
How long have you been standing here? Start walking before Curt comes to the window. Or someone calls the cops on you.
He went another block down the street and there was the Allegheny. Alongside the river was a park where he and his friends smoked pot and drank beer that last summer before college.
Ben had wanted to see the guys when he moved back in the Fall of 2020. People were still staying away from each other then, mostly. His friends at least were trying to be sensible. The first meeting played out in his head. There would be questions about his time in New York. If not from the guys, there would be other people hanging around. Was he still writing? Why wasn’t he? Maybe some harsher words. Told you so. Maybe they wouldn’t say it out loud, but he could imagine. You thought you were better than us, didn’t you? Well, what do you think now, you stuck-up jagoff?
The guys were getting together more now, usually at Peter’s Pub. The trusty old hangout from their early days of drinking legally. Ben hadn’t gone yet, begging off because of work. And they were always on Marty for having to cut out early – if he was able to come at all. The kid and all that. He had been gloating lately, since they’d found out that Greg’s girlfriend was pregnant.
“They’ll find out how it is, soon,” Marty said. “The fuckers.”
Once in a while Marty came over when he had a free afternoon or evening. It was as close as they were going to get to that summer by the river, Ben feared.
Then he remembered. There was a hockey game that afternoon. Ben had a pizza to order before Marty arrived. He walked home by a different route to avoid making Curt Rombauer think he was under surveillance.
#
Marty let himself in just before the game started. He thrust a twelve-pack of some German hefeweizen into Ben’s arms.
“Pizza here?” he said, taking off his coat.
“It’s on the way,” Ben said. “I almost forgot.”
Marty reacted like Ben had confessed to running someone over with his car.
“You ok?” he said. “You look kind of out of it.”
“I’m fine. Just, uh, I was working all morning. Then I went for a walk to clear my head.”
“That job of yours stressful?”
“Not really. It’s…other things.”
“I was gonna say. Try spending a few hours up on some asshole’s roof on a ninety-degree day in July.”
Ben didn’t want to argue about whose job was manlier. He wouldn’t win that one. Not in Marty’s mind, anyway. I’ll have you know that carpal tunnel is the number one hazard of office workers…I have no idea if that’s true. He opened two beers for them and sat down on the couch. Marty claimed the chair for himself, and Ben let him.
“You ever seen anything like that app I showed you?” Ben said.
Marty looked at him. “What? The perv thing? No. And I don’t wanna know that shit. I told Jen about it and now she wants to sign up. It’s like twenty or thirty bucks a month.”
“Well,” Ben said. “I got a discount…but it is good to know who those people are, I guess…I’ve just been looking at the map…they’re all over the place. I felt like I needed a shower after seeing it.”
“Which is why you’re better off not knowing. People know too fucking much about each other nowadays.”
Marty still posted things on Facebook. Mostly photos of his daughter or his dog or his family’s vacations. But Ben saw the point. Maybe humans weren’t meant to release and absorb so much information every day. Perhaps their brains weren’t equipped to handle it. If he looked, he could probably find a study about that somewhere. Of course, he’d have to search on his phone. Then fall into some rabbit hole of competing articles, videos, comment threads, speechifying back and forth about this and that and whatever, until his eyes melted. And most of what you saw didn’t stick in your mind. Just left a vague feeling of being overwhelmed, of being trapped in a giant tank with water slowly filling up around you. It gave Ben the beginnings of a migraine.
“It’s the dilemma of the 21st Century,” Ben said.
“Hmm?” said Marty. The Penguins were moving the puck up ice. He’d already forgotten what they were talking about, it seemed. “Oh, yeah.”
“I just don’t know what I’d do if I saw Freddie Sadowski, you know, out in public.”
“Yeah, any of those creeps comes near me or my family, I’ll show ‘em my gun.”
“Well, he works at Giant Eagle…I’m going to need groceries at some point.”
“So, go. You see him, ignore him.” He belched, softly. “Where’s that pizza? I gotta go to Jen’s parents’ tomorrow. Her mother makes the worst fucking pork chops you’ve ever tasted. They’re like, well, hockey pucks soaked in grease.” He pointed at the screen as the two teams were facing off.
“I can give you a recipe, if you want,” Ben said.
Before Marty could answer, a Flyers forward checked Crosby hard into the boards.
“Shit,” Marty said. “They always turn into goons when they’re losing.”
Ben agreed with him and let the subject go.
#
The next day, Sunday, there was nothing but sugary dust in the bottoms of Ben’s cereal boxes. The bread had started to mold over. The milk was gone. He’d eaten the last banana.
He was already pulling into the Giant Eagle parking lot when he realized he could drive twenty minutes to the next closest store. Yeah, do that. But he was there. It didn’t seem that crowded. Gas was going up.
“You see him, just ignore him.” It was so easy for Marty. He was on top, with his wife, child, home, and job. And his self-worth was pristine, shining for all the world to see. He had what he had, and he was happy with it. That was all well and good, in Ben’s view. But what about the rest of us?
Well, you tried to show the world something, and the world said, “No thanks.” That was apparent, painfully so. But he’d come so close, that one time. One pesky little deadly disease had put an end to his career. That’s right, he thought. Make the whole pandemic about you.
Now and then, he saw a way back in the new play. He would catch himself thinking of a scene to write, a character would introduce themself. There was a notebook half-full of ideas, many of which he would later read and shake his head at, then stuff the notebook back into a drawer. Go have a beer or catch up on a show that everyone was talking about.
Walking through the front doors of the store, he selected a cart and consulted the list on his phone.
He found the shopping itself relaxed him. It was still before noon, early enough that people weren’t clogging up the aisles. He could shop at a leisurely pace, select the best produce, consider how much he wanted to pay for dish soap. The loudspeakers played a selection of 80’s and 90’s rock and pop that he found himself humming along with while comparing cans of soup.
In the checkout line, he was perusing the headlines on People Magazine and The National Enquirer when he looked up and saw Freddie bagging the groceries of the woman in front of him. Ben’s throat tightened up. When it was his turn to check out, he tried not to make eye contact, focused on emptying his cart onto the belt. The girl at the register rang up his purchases and shoved them along to Freddie. When it was done, she handed Ben a receipt and told him to have a good one.
He thanked her in a whisper. Then he turned and met Freddie’s eyes for several seconds. Looks just like his mugshot, Ben thought. I don’t think he recognizes me. Ben may have nodded slightly, but he quickly pushed the cart toward the exit without a word.
Out in the parking lot, he loaded his groceries into the car while congratulating himself. That’s how you do it. Don’t acknowledge. Freddie might have thought you were being rude. Why care about that? Just have to do it every time you shop here.
He pushed the empty shopping cart toward the cart corral still debating with himself. So preoccupied, in fact, that he tripped over a crack in the asphalt and lost hold of the cart. He landed on his hands and knees. The downward slope of the parking lot grabbed the cart and sent it careening toward the big red rear end of a pickup truck that was sticking out from the row of vehicles. There was a prominent decal of an AR-15 in the rear window. Aw, shit, Ben thought. A shooting in the making.
Then, as if he’d been beamed there from another dimension, a guy in a black apron grabbed the cart before it struck the pickup. Only after Ben ran up to thank the man did he realize it was Freddie Sadowski.
“You okay?” Freddie said.
Ben opened his mouth, and nothing came out.
“Huh?” Freddie said.
“I, uh…yes. Yeah, I’m alright,” Ben said. “Thank…thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it, man.”
“Well, uh, have a good one,” Ben said and began heading back toward his car.
“Hey,” Freddie said. “Ben Stawiski, right?”
Ben stopped and closed his eyes. Where was that guy with his gun? His throat tightened up again as he turned back.
“Fairview High School,” Freddie said. “Class of ’11?”
“Oh…right,” Ben said. “Freddie…Sadowski.”
“Yep,” said Freddie. “I heard you lived in New York.”
“Well,” Ben said. “I…used to…after Pitt…but I moved back…new job, you know.” He shrugged.
“I thought you were gonna be a writer.”
“Uh, well…now I write reports for Three Rivers Insurance.”
Freddie nodded, sagely. Been there, brother, he seemed to say.
Then Ben kept talking: “I came close. Almost got a play produced…before…That hurt…but…way it goes, I guess…. think I might be done with all that.”
For a moment, Ben didn’t believe he heard himself say it.
“Yeah, man,” Freddie said. “Sorry that happened. Must’ve sucked.” He smiled, shrugged, then pointed at the store over his shoulder. “I just started here last month.”
“I heard,” Ben said.
“Right…” Freddie looked away for a few seconds. “Everybody around here knows, I guess. I was fucked up. Drinking a lot. One night I was walking home from the bar. After I got turned down by this hot chick, a blonde. Was horny as hell. I was also drunk enough to think nobody would see me, middle of the night. Then a cop drives by, he shines a light right on me. It was Bobby Mancuso. Remember him? From the football team, senior year?”
Thanks for that, Ben thought. Jesus, man. Well, you shared first.
“Sorry,” Freddie said. “They made me see a counselor in jail. I got used to dumping on him every time we met. Now, I just seem to do it to anyone I talk to.” He chuckled, just a bit.
Ben smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Good…well, I gotta go. I’ll, uh, see you around.”
They shook hands; it was instinctual. Ben didn’t want to, but Freddie’s hand came out, and it just happened.
“I hope you…” Ben started. “…keep up the good work. Just, uh…have a good one.”
After walking back to his car, Ben couldn’t remember having a more uncomfortable conversation in his life. He began to think that a twenty-minute drive for groceries wasn’t such a terrible trade-off. Or he could move farther away. Where to, he didn’t know. Rents around Pittsburgh were going up. The apartment he had was a steal, in comparison. A hipper city neighborhood, one of those up and coming, young progressive havens, was out of his price range at the moment. Remember sleeping in a crawl space, sharing an apartment with three other guys and no air conditioning? Not going back to that. He could find a better job; but he was lucky to be where he was. It wasn’t so much a fallback as a fall-into position – as in falling into a pit and not being able to climb out.
Pulling out of the parking lot, he caught a glimpse of Freddie in his rearview mirror, pushing a line of shopping carts. He was bent over, laboring to control all that interlocked metal on wheels, like trying to steer an oil tanker through rough seas. His face was red with exertion.
Ben pulled into traffic, almost on autopilot. An encouraging feeling of release grew inside of him. Maybe the church was right about confession being good for the soul. They were wrong about so many other things, but they could be on to something there. Let’s not get carried away, he thought. I’m not going to be visited by Jesus in my dreams or see the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast.
Surprised that Freddie seems to have a handle on himself. Well, as much as a person like that can. Good for him, he thought, then immediately felt gross inside. Then chided himself for feeling gross. He didn’t know what to think, about himself or Freddie. But something had broken loose inside of him.
#
After he put all the groceries away, Ben walked into the bedroom and sat down at his desk, placing his phone in a drawer, on a whim. He opened his laptop. A file marked “New Play” was waiting for him on his desktop. He told himself that maybe he wasn’t actually done with it all, that he just had to guide the story to its ending point, and he’d be fine. It was there, lying dormant, for him to discover and then reveal to the world. People would be quoting his lines for weeks afterward…
…A rumbling in his desk drawer, as if someone was clearing their throat to get his attention.
The sound of it made Ben think it could be important. Perhaps the guys wanted to meet for drinks. Or his parents needed him to get something for them at the drug store. ID Assured might have an alert about some compromised data. Or Jim Phillips had an emergency for him to manage. That had happened before. As the drawer rumbled again, Ben’s hand gripped the handle, but hesitated. He felt a migraine coming on.
You just told yourself you weren’t done, didn’t you? I thought we covered this. No. His hand was not listening to his brain. Drawer open, phone lighting up.
make a new friend at Giant Eagle today? Marty’s text, adorned with kissy faces, then a follow-up message. Greg saw u 2 shaking hands. you got warts on your palms now?
Marty had added Greg and the other guys to the conversation. So, they were seeing all this. And a response was not coming to Ben. He had a vision of himself, caught in a playground at night in the spotlight of a cop car, his hand down his pants, unzipped to the chilly night air.