The sex offender next door

I always knew there was something strange about the man next door. Rarely seen outside, he was the kind of recluse the neighborhood kids whispered stories about, daring each other to run into his barren yard. On the occasion he would emerge, they would run away, eyes huge and frightened, into the safety of their homes.
I admit I was equally frightened by this man. Like the children, my fear was based on gut instinct, a deep and lingering fear with no cause or explanation. My husband felt the same, warning me first of his feelings and asking me not to go inside the man’s house if invited.
His was an easy request to agree to, and I took it a step further by never walking past his house to my mail box when he was home. I didn’t want the creep to talk to me, or even, in my worst fears, kidnap me and drag me into his home. I tried to tell myself that my fears were irrational, mean, and even unfair. This man could be really nice, and completely innocent, and yet I was worried about him harming someone.
Fueled by my suspicions, and a $100,000 reward offered by Oprah for information leading to the capture of sex offenders, I began to search for records on my neighbor. Heck, I figured this might be my chance, even calling, to take a criminal off the streets and pay for college at the same time.
I searched through the Oregon Sex Offender Registry, local criminal records, police reports, all to no avail. The man had no record. But still, the feeling would not go away. What if the man was a criminal who had never been caught? What if he just wasn’t on the registry?
I continued my search for information, asking the neighbor kids about their experiences with him.
“I hate him, he’s horrible,” one child told me.
At that moment, the man appeared from his house, watching us from his front porch. The children turned quiet, even cold. In the hot summer sun these children were shivering.
The same child then looked up at me with frightened eyes and what looked like glistening tears, and told me that he “bothered them,” and that he “asked the girls on the street to hold up their shirts.”
Finally I had the information I was looking for. I knew children did not show fear like that unless they had a reason.
Down the street I went, talking to parents to see if they had heard the same stories from their children, and warning them of the potential danger. Every parent agreed that they had the same feelings I had, but without a cause, they had no reason to be too suspicious.
It wasn’t long after that the man next door was gone and his house for sale. Then the police knocked at my door. Someone had reported the man for a sexual offense, and he was a long-wanted sex offender who had managed to avoid being on the registry. Now he was missing.
I immediately thought of the ominous feelings I had, and of the children down the street. I hoped it was not one of them who had fallen prey to such evil.
Later that night I sat down and thought about all that had happened.
My husband, the neighborhood children, and I had been right about my neighbor. In our society we are taught to be nice to everyone, to not assume the worst, and to not pre-judge. Paired with my suspicions had always been guilt for thinking something so bad about someone I barely knew. Now I am glad I had those suspicions, thankful for the thousands of years of built-in instincts that protected not only myself, but the handful of children that live on my street. I was glad that they had listened to their fears, not worried about judging someone else, and had been forthright in the information they gave. Being polite is one thing, but learning to trust what our mind and body tells us is one of the most important lessons a anyone can have. I am glad the children learned it well, and mostly that that man is out of my neighborhood, and hopefully soon to be behind bars.