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RiskSeptember 03, 2006 Front and center in last Thursday's Martha's Vineyard Times:
I read the story in slow-mo split screen, text in one window, internal commentary in the other. "Scott Donavan, 34, Does he really spell his name that way or did the copy desk screw up again? of Tisbury Whereabouts? What street? is scheduled to appear before Edgartown District Court Judge Donald Carpenter this morning, when he will have an opportunity to seek a reduction in the $1 million bail Edgartown District Court Magistrate Liza Williamson set at his Tuesday morning arraignment. Whew. He's white. Looks like he's been sleeping on the beach for a week. Hey, it's a mug shot. All mug shots make you look like you've been sleeping on the beach for a week. . . . Ms. Williamson told The Times $1 million is the highest bail she has ever set. You go, girl. She said it was appropriate in light of what she called the totality of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Donavan and the attack of which he is accused. So did the victim know this guy or was he a total stranger?" My mind was fencing with the news, lungeing, parrying, dancing back. Rapes and attempted rapes and violent assaults happen on Martha's Vineyard, but rarely. This kind of rape, following a break-in and linked to a violent assault, is almost unheard-of. I don't lock my front door when I go out. When I come home it doesn't for a moment occur to me that someone may be waiting for me in my apartment. Sometimes I remember to lock the front door before I go to bed. Sometimes I don't. It's the kind of lock that any credit card could open. More people lock than used to, but many don't. If I had to identify the way that living on Martha's Vineyard has changed me most, it would be this: I don't lock when I leave the house, I don't carry any keys in my pocket, I take Rhodry out most nights for a stroll around the neighborhood. I've walked in the woods in the middle of the night, I've walked home from town many times along dark, deserted Causeway Road. Freedom to walk when and where I want to walk: what woman can take this for granted? My mind parried, looking for an opening. Did she know the guy? She must have known him. Translation: If I don't know guys like that, I'm at less risk. Several paragraphs down on the inside jump page, sure enough: "Although [the victim] was acquainted with Mr. Donavan, police believe there was no existing relationship." I'm intrigued, fascinated, obsessed with how we, as individuals, as groups, as a whole society, perceive, assess, and respond to risk. What risks are we willing to take? What does it take to make us feel safe? When does the price get too high to pay? In the months after my right retina detached for the second time, I wrote an essay on the subject: "My Terrorist Eye: Risk, the Unexpected, and the War on Terrorism." Working around and riding horses is risky, but it seems the risks loom larger for those who don't do it. Since my friend Marie-Lynn had a bad riding accident a week ago, probably every horse person who knows her has considered the risk; has asked, "Is it worth doing?" and answered, "You bet." Which confirms the non-horse people in their certainty that we are crazy. I don't think I'm taking my life in my hands every time I go to the barn, or when I go for a walk in the middle of the night. A registered level 3 sex offender used to live in my neighborhood. I walked by his house nearly every day. Never thought about it. No, that's not quite right: I would occasionally think, A level 3 sex offender lives in that house and here am I walking by with my dog. Then one night he tried to assault a cab driver who'd brought him home from Oak Bluffs. She fought him off and called the cops. I don't think he lives in that house any more, but his mother still does.
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