Day: November 13, 2011

Sunday (blood drive-less) Sunday

What did I do today? I did the Sunday crossword and I wrote this in my weekly writing group:

The assassin analyzed the unlocked door, not so much frightened as puzzled by its sudden appearance and by the possibility — or threat — of what might lay behind it. There had been no door the first time she had circled through this room, perhaps only an hour earlier, she was certain of that, and all of the other doors she had encountered scattered through Benedict’s maze had been firmly locked, or had opened to brick walls, empty rooms, traps meant to deceive, distract, or kill. Benedict’s strange sense of humor showed in every one of them, and the assassin remembered, not for the first time, why she had taken special delight in the thought of killing him.

And yet she had been sloppy. She’d not taken him seriously; a madman, she’d accepted that, and the newsreel footage her employers had shown her would have been reason enough to end Benedict’s life, even without the mountains of other, even less palatable, evidence they had accumulated. But she had thought of him as just another target, and an easy one at that, and that, obviously, had been a mistake.

He’d trapped her in this maze of windowless rooms two, or maybe three hours ago now, and there was no reason to think he was even still in the building, still in the city. She knew him, or his file, well enough to know he’d want to watch; this whole basement expanse was obviously some kind of torture playground; just because she couldn’t see the cameras or Benedict’s laughing eye didn’t mean they were not there. But Benedict could be watching on the run, his private jet at the ready, perhaps already in the air. The sooner she got out of here, the better chance she would have of picking up his trail.

So the door. It was obviously another trap, or dead end, but she had limited options. She’d been drugged when they left her here — again, she’d been sloppy — and if there was any other way out, it had not revealed itself in the last few hours. She tried the doorknob, felt it give, but hesitated at pulling the door open. She knew she’d seen this room before — there were the notches she’d carved in the far column with her knife, the blade they’d for some reason left her. She’d been traveling in circles for twenty minutes before she decided to start marking her trail, but this room had definitely been along it. She remembered the columns, the gray walls, and lowered ceiling. She did not remember any doors, least of all this one, in this particular wall.

She was being foolish hesitating, she knew; Benedict was on the run and she needed to escape if she had any hope of tracking him, stopping him, killing him. She didn’t know where the door led, or how it had suddenly just appeared, but she knew she had to open it. She’d been everywhere else down here, and opening this new door was the only option left.

Opening it would turn out to be a huge mistake.

At the time, though, it had surprised her by being just like any other door, swinging open not to reveal any new danger or pitfall, nothing jumping out at her to find itself at the other end of her knife. It was just a door, and it swung open to reveal what was just another room.

But it was the woman sitting in that other room that caught the assassin’s immediate attention. The assassin could see the woman through the doorway, leaning back in a wooden chair against the opposite wall. The lights above the woman flickered, then came on stronger, perhaps activated by movement or the door opening or Benedict’s own sick whim. The woman was older, her thinning hair beginning to gray, but there was no mistaking who she was. She sprang to her feet when she saw the assassin, the chair falling to the floor beneath her, and raced over to the open door.

“Oh thank god,” the woman said. “I was worried you’d never come.”

No, the assassin thought, there was no mistaking who the woman was, but there was also no way this could possibly be. This was some kind of trick, Benedict’s worst yet, and she readied her knife for whatever would come next.

The woman staring desperately at her now was the assassin herself.

Not the most eventful day, but that was Sunday.

Blue and white

So, as you may have heard, my alma mater of Penn State has been in the news a lot lately. I wish I could say it has been for something positive, but in a short week we’ve seen allegations of horrible sexual abuse, scandals that have led the Board of Trustees to fire both Joe Paterno, the school’s head football coach, and Graham Spanier, the school’s President, and rioting in the streets of downtown State College.

I’m a little tired of giving over mental real estate to this story, which I had to do all of last week, given the ugliness of the abuse, the many years in which those who should have acted didn’t, and the disgrace that it’s brought on to the school. But I do think it’s worth noting — which, especially in the news coverage of the protest/riot, it often hasn’t been — that this tragic and disgraceful moment does not define the school.

I’m an alum and also a one-time employee of the University. Graham Spanier became President the year I started as a freshman, and I’d always had genuine respect for both him and Joe Paterno, for how much they obviously cared about the school and what they had both done for the students and community. And yet I think the Board absolutely made the right decision. They — particularly Paterno, for whom the grand jury evidence in Sandusky’s case is more damning — should have acted, should have reported the child abuse to the police, should have followed up to protect the young boys in Sandusky’s “care,” and failed to do so. He and Spanier may have legally met their responsibilities, but they failed morally.

They’re not the only ones, and anyone ready to rally behind Paterno — as so many of those rioters the other night were, as even I wanted to in the beginning — would do well to read this timeline of events, which delves into the actual testimony, revealing not just the alleged abuse but where so many people failed to report it and hold Sandusky accountable for his reprehensible actions.

One would also do well to read John Scalzi’s piece, Omelas State University, which I think sums up a lot of the horror some of us have been feeling over this:

At Pennsylvania State University, a grown man found a blameless child being put through hell. Other grown men learned of it. Each of them had to make their choice, and decide, fundamentally, whether the continuation of their utopia — or at very least the illusion of their utopia — was worth the pain and suffering of that one child. Through their actions, and their inactions, we know the choice they made.

What Sandusky did is horrible; what those around him failed to do is, in a way, almost worse.

And yet, this does not define Penn State. This is a terrible time in the school’s history, which is still ongoing and from which it will have to heal, but I’ve taken heart in the vigils for the victims, the students and faculty and alum who have stood up to say no, Joe Paterno should have been fired — maybe even got off lightly just being fired — that it wasn’t the media but his own actions and inactions that caused this to happen. He is, in his way, culpable, and should be held to account. And I’ve been really pleased to see ProudPSUforRAINN, which in just a few short days has raised over $300,000 to support victims of rape and sexual abuse, like the young boys attacked by Sandusky. I’ve been pleased to see this glimmer of hope amid the ugliness of the case, the misplaced support for those who don’t deserve it, the quickness by some to cast Paterno or the school (and not those boys) as the victims. That some of us have been willing to stand up and say no, this won’t stand; despite the good they’ve done, these men need to be held accountable; but also, we won’t allow this, their horrible mistakes and these deplorable crimes, to define who we are.

If you’re at all able — and even if you’re not a Penn State alum — I hope you’ll consider donating even a little to RAINN, which is a great — and sadly much too needed — cause.