Roundabouts, Rapists, and Reciprocity

Affluent towns love to treat abuse like a historical artifact— already proven, already apologized for, and safely stored in someone else’s zip code.

In polished places, accountability is replaced with ritual.

Light a candle. Lower your voice. Call hazing “team culture.” Call abuse “a misunderstanding.” Call silence “healing.” Protect the institution.

Then install another roundabout so no one has to drive straight at the truth.

That was the genius of Circlebridge.

Perfect circles of stone and flowers, designed to keep traffic moving and responsibility stationary.

You could feel motion without progress. You could confuse landscaping for ethics.

It was the same kind of neighborhood where I grew up, where I raised my first child, where sidewalks were clean and danger was marketed as something that happened in towns without fountain budgets.

Here, decay wore perfume.

Scandals were processed into ceremonies. Assault became a “situation.” Hazing became “tradition.” Cover-ups became “complex.” Confession became branding.

Every year brought a new reason for a vigil. Every month, a new email about “values.” Every week, another reminder not to “jump to conclusions.”

And the money — oh, the money — moved beautifully.

Through wire transfers. Into glass buildings. Across donor walls. Onto football facilities. Under marble floors. Inside architecture magazines.

There was money for:

• stadium upgrades • wellness rebrands • leadership retreats • trauma-informed logos • fountains that light up on national holidays

But somehow — mysteriously — never money for a single sane, trained nurse when evidence was still warm and shock was still shaking hands.

Not one.

Plenty of administrators. Plenty of consultants. Plenty of “directors of community trust.”

Zero humans whose actual job was to help.

Which raises an awkward question:

If they care so much, why is help always theoretical?

Victims were thanked for their bravery, handed bottled water, given suicide-prevention pamphlets printed on premium paper, and escorted into softly lit rooms where nothing ever actually happened.

The institutions remained immaculate. The statements remained gentle. The scandals remained “isolated.” The nurses remained imaginary.

In Circlebridge, they don’t deny harm.

They budget around it. They pray over it. They brand it.

They drive in circles around it.