It starts with a frown. Sometimes the cocking of a head, the pursing of lips. They watch me, even as I look away. I can feel their gaze on me, taking in the shape of my jaw through the beard, my nose, the big hand raised to my brow trying to disrupt the viewer flipping through their memories until they find my face wherever they saw it. On the news, in the papers, on the internet, on someone’s Facebook feed. Maybe all of those places.

When they get it, their mouth drops open. They stop what they’re doing. Maybe they’re sitting across the plane aisle from me, pulling the lid off their tiny container of milk, a steaming paper cup on the tray just inches above their knees. An elbow juts into someone’s ribs. There’s pointing. A sort of sixth sense ripples out through the people around us, other people noticing the recognition, the whispering, starting to recognize for themselves. At first there’s a sort of stiff, confused calm, the same sort that causes people to pretend they haven’t seen mega movie stars sitting in the café near them, walking along the same Florida beach. Everybody act normal! The same way they flipped through their memories to find me, they flip through their emotions for the appropriate reaction, and they all find the same one.

Rage.

Most of the time, people turn away from me. If they’re a little more adventurous, they talk loudly about my case, glancing over to see if I’m listening. “They should bring back the death penalty in this country for pieces of shit like him.” Sometimes, people loiter menacingly, follow me to my car, write down my license plate. People sometimes take pictures of me, video me for citizen news. Now and then physical confrontations arise, but they’re usually halfhearted. Someone shoves past my table at the bar, knocks my beer over. Blocks me from entering the supermarket, chest puffed, saying nothing, daring me to push past.

If I’m recognized and things become hostile, I leave before there’s a fight. The last thing I want to do is challenge a member of the public. The people of Crimson Lake did me a massive favor simply by not running me off the way a number of towns did with Dennis Ferguson. After his conviction for the abduction and sexual assault of three young children, Dennis attempted to resettle in Bundaberg, Toowoomba, Murgon, Ipswich, Miles, and Ryde before angry mobs chased him out each time. He was eventually discovered dead in a flat in Surry Hills. No one found his body for several days. A mob had come to my door in Crimson Lake, with all the fanfare Dennis had been treated to—the placards and the chanting and the TV live-crosses. Police officers standing outside my door. I hadn’t left, and the panic and anger had died down.