I wrote on Friday about my shock and hearbreak and learning of the arrest of Jesse Dailey, the computer geek who escaped a poor town in Idaho to get to Chicago, entered and graduated from the University of Chicago, and become the subject of my book Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode The Internet Out Of Idaho. It is in so many ways my favorite of my books, it reminded me that America is still a country where loners and outcasts can build meaningful lives for themselves.

Jesse, who went on to move to Brooklyn and work as a programmer was charged by police last week with first-degree sex abuse, forcible touching, and endangering the welfare of a child. He is also charged with felony assault, resisting arrest, obstructing government administration, and assault for allegedly attacking a police officer and dislocating her shoulder. He was chased down the street like some wild animal – one of the Good Samaritan stories the media loves – and was confronted, and the idea of Jesse brawling with a police officer left me stupified.

Jesse’s attorney – he has a strong reputation – says the arrest was a case of mistaken identity.

Jesse and I lost touch a few years ago – I think in some ways I made him uncomfortable, he was unnerved by my expectations for him  – but I loved Jesse almost from the first time I met him in a seedy apartment in the very grim town of Caldwell, Idaho, which he was about to flee in a rented truck with $50 in his pocket and little more than the clothes on his back.  Jesse would never take any money from anyone, I would have to slip cash in one of his shoes or under the computer keyboard.  He made it out of Idaho and went a lot farther. Later, I remember buying a sweatshirt with a hood and putting it in his closet – he had no winter coat for Chicago. He went on to New York City, where he is in a loving and strong relationship with someone who is absolutely committed to him.

Jesse’s mother reminded me this morning that Jesse was a boy who carried spiders out of the house rather than ham or kill them. Maria is the only other person I know who does this. You have to draw your own conclusions from it.

Friday was a dark day for me – much darker, I am sure for Jesse – I was simply in shock,  bewildered and struggling to make sense of the arrest of someone I  knew so well and admired so much for groping young girls. I have strong ideas about many things, but I know the world is gray, not black and white.

Jesse is brave, loving, honest, generous and incredibly smart,  you can’t describe too many people that way. What I was reading in the New York papers about him did not in any way make sense when I thought about the person I spent years  talking to and getting to know – and to his friends, family, teachers too. He is much loved.

A friend advised me to wait a day or so, to be patient,  to let my feelings evolve, to get past the shock, so I have. Since Friday I have heard from a number of people in Jesse’s life, and from Jesse himself. He is much loved, the people around him are standing by his side, none of them has thought for one second that any of these charges can be true, they are completely shocked and horrified.

So I am beginning to make sense of this. Here’s where I am: Writing is the way I make sense of things, especially here on the blog, somehow this is the place where I speak and find my truth, and thank God for it, I have not often in my life seen my world rocked the way it was last week.

I believe in boundaries and perspective, that is hard in our world, filled with hysteria, judgment, thoughtlessness and self-righteousness. This is tricky stuff, it is hard, it is not easy. But whenever I feel bad for me, I think of Jesse.  I was a reporter a long time, and a good one, and reporters quickly learn some basic and sad truths about the world.

– You never know for certain what is going on inside the lives and minds of other people, not even if you live with them or next door to them or grow up with them. You think you do, but the archives are stuffed with shocked and disappointed people who did not. People who seem completely normal, suddenly are not. That does not make them monsters, even if they act monstrously.

– Lawyers like to say our criminal justice system is far from perfect, it is just the best one we have. This is so. Police officers are over-worked, underpaid, pressured and harried, they often make mistakes, they are very susceptible to public pressure and media sensationalism.  I have covered so many stories where line-up ID’s were wrong, judgments were rushed, the media and public become howling and vengeful mobs howling for blood who need to be sated.  Truth is elusive, fragile and uncertain. Newspapers are quick to tar people who are arrested, the frequent retractions, clarifications and corrections are never on the front page, if they come at all. Even if he is innocent, Jesse’s nightmare will be on Google forever and follow  him throughout his life.

– You cannot know from the outside what the truth is, even though people are quick to proclaim they do. You cannot save other people. Good lawyers make all the difference. Justice triumphs more often than not.

– Our country is barbaric, cruel and punitive. We have lost the idea of helping people who are disturbed, we brand them as untouchables and hide them away in brutal jails. Our country has more people – and the greatest percentage of people – in jails – than any country in the world. More than 10 percent of people convicted of capital crimes are eventually acquitted or have their convictions reversed, the strongest imaginable argument against the death penalty that most Americans support.

Sometimes the whole country seems like a shrieking mob to me.

I need to be clear on this. I do not know what happened in Brooklyn, proclamations are easy, the truth is hard to find. I just don’t know what happened, that is important to say.  I can not be the hero here, the knight on the White Horse. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe Jesse, it means I don’t know what happened, I was not there.  The stakes for Jesse are high.

What I can do is be there for Jesse if he needs me, show my faith in his character and decency, help him if it is appropriate and possible. I love Jesse, almost like a son, I admire him, I will certainly help him if I can.

The truth that has crystallized for me during the long weekend is that  I know Jesse as well as I know Maria, better in some ways, I probed into every aspect of his life for years, I spent thousands of hours with him in person and on the phone.  Jesse has had a tough life, he has worked brutally hard for every single thing he has, he loves his friends, his family, his work. He is a worthy human being, he is very much a human being, something lost in our many hysterias and shallow portrayals of the world. I remember of Jesse getting his hands on an old discarded computer  when he was a child, and re-building it. He was on his way. Writing a book about someone is profoundly intimate and personal, it is a marriage, a connection, an unbreakable bond.

I cannot prove Jesse’s  innocence, or even proclaim it, that is the boundary. Like it or not, perfect or not, the process has to reveal itself and it’s own truth.  I am privileged to stand with Jesse if he wants me to, to let him know that I love him and believe in him – I do, my mind will not accept the Jesse Dailey I read about in the tabloids or that the police have accused of awful crimes.

Over these last few days, I see that I just do not believe it, my mind will not accept it. I am impressed by the early work by Ben Fractenburg a good reporter in New York – the only one who bothered to cover Jesse’s arraignment as story after story referred to him as “the Park Slope Groper,” and the only one noticed he was the subject of a book. He says something isn’t right about this story, that is important to hear. Like all good reporters, he isn’t so quick to throw somebody under the bus.

I could well be one of those people I used to write about who could not accept awful truths about the people they know and care about. But I was a very good reporter, I lived off of my instincts, they rarely failed me, I do not believe they will fail me know. That’s where I am. As always, I will share this story with you, I hope to talk to Jesse often and see him soon.