involved in the crime, we also wondered why
he
, out of all the children the Landrys cared for, became the constant. Through a little research of my own, I’ve since learned that it is not unusual for a family like the Landrys to keep one individual child with them throughout their fostering years, to adopt him, so that the other children they host will have a playmate. This is called anchoring, in the literature, and is the benevolent interpretation of this process.
The truth, I believe, in the case of the Landrys, is that Jason was kept around for a different purpose. Erratic and troubled, Jason was used more as a normalizer than an anchor. He was, in the technical sense, a socializer for the other foster kids. To put it more simply, hiswell-fed existence, no matter its quirks, was empirical proof to the other orphaned children who came in and out of their doors that a life could be made with the Landrys, that you could survive it. This, of course, was also proof to Child Services. So if a young boy or girl felt uneasy during his or her first weeks at the Landrys’, if they thought perhaps there was something amiss, Jason could tell them, “Cut it out. Suck it up. This is normal.”
A relative term if there was one.
Jason Landry had thin white hair, even in his youth, yet he was not an albino. His eyes were the color of clean river sand and he had gaps between all of his teeth. I have no idea what tribe of man he was birthed from, no idea of his origin. Perhaps no one does. His skin was yellow, in how I remember him now, and he smelled constantly of the cigarettes his mother smoked in their kitchen. He had been kicked out of the Perkins School in eighth grade for reasons that were never disclosed to me—rumors about him and another boy in a bathroom. Rumors that he’d sexually threatened Ms. Gibson, a fragile Spanish teacher who had lupus. And since he did not attend any youth soccer or swim leagues, he did not play with the rest of the neighborhood kids often. Whenever he did, it ended poorly.
Jason once fought with Bo Kern, for example, over a ten-dollar bill they found in the street, and he was beaten soundly. He ran home screaming. Later, when we had finished up that afternoon’s game of tackle football and forgotten about the skirmish entirely, Jason Landry returned to us with a knife. He didn’t speak to us, or confront Bo, but instead stood on the opposite side of the road and jabbed the knife into a pine tree, again and again. He wore camouflage pants and a green T-shirt as if he couldn’t be seen and ducked to the ground when cars passed between us.
This behavior was neither new nor isolated.
Jason was also known to tackle the neighborhood girls in strange ways that they complained about. He would lie on top of them a bit too long, perhaps. He would press himself against them. Artsy Julie held sticks in her hand like a crucifix when Jason appeared. Lindy refused to let him cover her on pass plays. Whenever we rode go-karts around in the summers, Jason would beg us for a chance at the wheel. When we would finally relent, he would take off down the road and not return. He had inexplicable scars, shaped like dimes, on his back.
Some days, when he was trying to be friendly, he’d pull out clumps of his thin white hair and say, “I bet you can’t do that,” and we hated him. It was easy to.
Even before Lindy’s rape, his behavior looked like evidence.
Yet one day, or perhaps on many days, in the year before the crime, I sat with Jason Landry on the top of the hill behind his house. He lived next door to Randy, two doors down from me, and we rested our backs against a steel storage shed. I have no idea what brought me there that afternoon. What level must the boredom have reached? We picked at the grass, dug around at the dirt, and played with roly-polies that curled fearfully in our hands.
After a while, Jason nudged me on the shoulder and pointed out into the woods.
“Jackpot,” he said.
At
he
, out of all the children the Landrys cared for, became the constant. Through a little research of my own, I’ve since learned that it is not unusual for a family like the Landrys to keep one individual child with them throughout their fostering years, to adopt him, so that the other children they host will have a playmate. This is called anchoring, in the literature, and is the benevolent interpretation of this process.
The truth, I believe, in the case of the Landrys, is that Jason was kept around for a different purpose. Erratic and troubled, Jason was used more as a normalizer than an anchor. He was, in the technical sense, a socializer for the other foster kids. To put it more simply, hiswell-fed existence, no matter its quirks, was empirical proof to the other orphaned children who came in and out of their doors that a life could be made with the Landrys, that you could survive it. This, of course, was also proof to Child Services. So if a young boy or girl felt uneasy during his or her first weeks at the Landrys’, if they thought perhaps there was something amiss, Jason could tell them, “Cut it out. Suck it up. This is normal.”
A relative term if there was one.
Jason Landry had thin white hair, even in his youth, yet he was not an albino. His eyes were the color of clean river sand and he had gaps between all of his teeth. I have no idea what tribe of man he was birthed from, no idea of his origin. Perhaps no one does. His skin was yellow, in how I remember him now, and he smelled constantly of the cigarettes his mother smoked in their kitchen. He had been kicked out of the Perkins School in eighth grade for reasons that were never disclosed to me—rumors about him and another boy in a bathroom. Rumors that he’d sexually threatened Ms. Gibson, a fragile Spanish teacher who had lupus. And since he did not attend any youth soccer or swim leagues, he did not play with the rest of the neighborhood kids often. Whenever he did, it ended poorly.
Jason once fought with Bo Kern, for example, over a ten-dollar bill they found in the street, and he was beaten soundly. He ran home screaming. Later, when we had finished up that afternoon’s game of tackle football and forgotten about the skirmish entirely, Jason Landry returned to us with a knife. He didn’t speak to us, or confront Bo, but instead stood on the opposite side of the road and jabbed the knife into a pine tree, again and again. He wore camouflage pants and a green T-shirt as if he couldn’t be seen and ducked to the ground when cars passed between us.
This behavior was neither new nor isolated.
Jason was also known to tackle the neighborhood girls in strange ways that they complained about. He would lie on top of them a bit too long, perhaps. He would press himself against them. Artsy Julie held sticks in her hand like a crucifix when Jason appeared. Lindy refused to let him cover her on pass plays. Whenever we rode go-karts around in the summers, Jason would beg us for a chance at the wheel. When we would finally relent, he would take off down the road and not return. He had inexplicable scars, shaped like dimes, on his back.
Some days, when he was trying to be friendly, he’d pull out clumps of his thin white hair and say, “I bet you can’t do that,” and we hated him. It was easy to.
Even before Lindy’s rape, his behavior looked like evidence.
Yet one day, or perhaps on many days, in the year before the crime, I sat with Jason Landry on the top of the hill behind his house. He lived next door to Randy, two doors down from me, and we rested our backs against a steel storage shed. I have no idea what brought me there that afternoon. What level must the boredom have reached? We picked at the grass, dug around at the dirt, and played with roly-polies that curled fearfully in our hands.
After a while, Jason nudged me on the shoulder and pointed out into the woods.
“Jackpot,” he said.
At
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