Hofstra University Press, ? 2043
With the brick, all of Maple Street became complicit. We know now that nearly every family was represented. These families have been framed as a mob. Angry and intemperate, striking without evidentiary foundation. In the years since, many of them have voiced public contrition.
But many others have not, and it is these in whom I’m interested. A decade later, Linda Ottomanelli has only grown more adamant. “Arlo hurt that girl. Gertie covered for him. We knew that. I mean, the guy ran stark-naked through Sterling Park. Somebody even said he had a boner, and he was chasing Shelly so hard she wound up falling down a sinkhole. Can you imagine how frightened she must have been? I mean, before that, he’d hurt her so badly that she’d bled all over our trampoline. What more proof do you need?” Linda told me in an interview at her apartment in Floral Park, Queens, where she and Dominick have downsized to in order to pay outstanding medical expenses. “Can you imagine, my having to see that horror? To talk my kids through it? Their best friend was murdered right in front of them! The monsters who’d done it were living a hundred feet away, off scot-free. No wonder Mark had a nervous breakdown. No wonder he hung himself, God rest his soul! And Michael, who’s to say his multiple sclerosis isn’t from stress?… I could never get them to admit it—it’s so shameful when it happens to boys—but I’m convinced Arlo hurt them, too. They didn’t turn out normal… Something messed them up.”
Jane Harrison agrees. “What I learned from Maple Street is that you can do your best, try your hardest, prep your children for the brightest possible future, and then a monster buys the house next door and ruins everything. The day he moved in, I knew. I could see it in his eyes. Honestly, I know he’s long gone, but those eyes haunt me still.”
“We weren’t crazy,” says Marco Ponti. “We were protecting our own. I only wish we’d done more, sooner.”
Indeed, many of the Maple Street children have failed to thrive. The Ponti boys are in jail. Sarah Kaur ran away from home at twelve. Her older brother Sam Singh dropped out of soccer upon returning to school that fall, though he was expected to join the varsity team. He’s one of many children on the block who never went to college—a rarity for Garden City during that time. Finally, it’s been well publicized that FJ Schroeder’s best friend, Adam Harrison, became a heroin addict. What’s less widely known is that his drug use started that summer.
Given these outcomes, it’s no great leap to theorize that the children were traumatized. My contemporaries posit that the Maple Street murders caused irreparable damage. The children blame themselves for spreading a false narrative about the Wilde family, kindling Rhea’s madness.
But does this theory hold water? The evidence of Arlo’s innocence has never been conclusive. It’s entirely possible that his actions are what haunt the survivors of the Maple Street Massacre. They’re traumatized because, even more than a decade later, they’re too ashamed to reveal what he did to them.
It’s time we reexamine, giving credit where it’s due. In putting a stop to the Wildes, the people of Maple Street were heroes.
120 Maple Street
Monday, July 26
Peter Benchley was out of practice placing calls. He fumbled a few times, therapy mirrors reflecting his movements like silent ghosts.
“Hello? Something’s happening on my block!”
Outside, neighbors with anonymous faces assembled in front of the Wilde house. The moonlight played against their makeshift disguises; a luminescence that was both absorptive and reflective, emitting hues in blue and red. It wasn’t the craziest thing he’d ever seen. In Iraq, a kid with an IED had taken out his commanding officer while civilians watched through broken windows. Some of them had cheered. So yeah, he’d seen some crazy shit, which was how he knew what crazy shit looked like.
“Can you hear me? Send a car to Maple Street.” A bad connection. Too much static. Peter hung up and tried again.
Outside, the moonlight stretched the neighbors’ silhouettes. A slender man with broad shoulders took the lead. A small woman walking slowly, as if in pain, came up beside him. The man wound his arm. Released something heavy in a high arc—
Clink!
Glass broke.
Someone inside the house cried out.
“Help!” Peter panted into the phone.
Crackle.
Crossed signals. All he could hear was Arlo’s static-riddled song: You nod. It doesn’t mean “come in.” He hung up. Tried again.