GARY: A PERSONAL ESSAY
By Beth Wheeler
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copyright Beth Wheeler
Gary wasn't a survivor.
He was a kid, eight years old, with
white-blond hair and a scatter of freckles.
His eyes were strange; they seemed disconnected from the rest of his
body, fixing too strongly on what he looked at. Their lower lids drooped, as if they were too tired to cling, or
as if he never slept well. But he was a round-faced, fine-featured, bright and
sensitive seven year old.
So why did everyone say he was 'bad'?
I met him because I was a 'bad' kid, too,
in a different way. When I forged the
note from my parents saying I could have a puppy from a classmate's litter, my
sisters found out and told me I'd get into serious trouble if I didn't get rid
of the dog right then. So I went door
to door to find a home for the puppy I desperately wanted to keep. No one wanted a puppy. No one but Gary.
He was two grades behind me, but I was
hated by my own classmates, and could hardly afford to pass up a friend when
one offered. And Gary said his parents
would let him keep the puppy, but the puppy could still be half mine, and I
could visit him regularly. And sure
enough, his father said yes. I was
ecstatic; I wanted a dog desperately, and this was the closest I was
probably going to get to
having one. And I also liked Gary.
That was in the spring. I started coming over a lot, to see Rascal
(as he named the puppy) and to visit Gary, also. Gary was a good friend.
He had a vivid imagination and loved to play the pretend games my own
age mates were already outgrowing. His
tastes did run to the dark; he preferred to play guns and robbers or vampires
than tamer things. But that made him
more interesting to me, since my own parents had strictly outlawed games of
that sort.
I didn't like his house. It was one of the most filthy places I'd
ever entered, smelling of beer and cigarette smoke, and other odd scents I
couldn't place. In the center of the
living room was a large series of spotlights and cameras; his father, I was
told, was a professional photographer.
I didn't understand why anyone would want to come to a studio surrounded
by such filth, but what did I know? I
was just a kid.
Gary seldom mentioned his family. His father was around, almost too much. I
didn't like his father. He wore an
enormous bushy beard, and was very, very friendly to me, ostensibly as Gary's
friend. I found out how friendly one
afternoon when he took me upstairs onto his bed, put his hand under my skirt
and into my underwear, and put my own hand inside his pants. I was scared and confused, but I didn't understand
what was happening; I had so little knowledge of sex that I couldn't even put
words to my fears, and I had always been taught to trust and obey adults. So I let him.
I've got quite a number of blank spots
about what happened with my association with Gary's father (over the space of
two years) -- I know it went beyond fondling, but not how far. You see, it turns out that Gary's father was
a professional pornographer,
specializing in child pornography.
I know I was photographed, but I don't know how, or what the pictures
were like. Probably my dissociative disorder -- for many years I couldn't even
grasp sex as more than a clinical act; if someone made a sexual reference, even
a very obvious one, I couldn't understand it.
I could look at a picture of a penis and have no idea of what one looked
like the moment I glanced up. It still affects my sex life, even though I've
been married for nine years. I may never have normal sexual feelings.
That's what is was like for me. What must it have been like for Gary?
Gary was destructive and wild, that was
true. He set fires in the woods back of
his house. He encouraged me to try to
smoke some wild rabbits out of their holes so we could have them as pets. I couldn't ride a bike, so he taught me, by
trading his for mine, since his was a small one that let my feet touch the
ground (best way I know to teach a kid to ride a bike!) and mine was an adult
sized bike that he was really too small for, but which made him feel, I think,
more powerful and in control. He
encouraged me to ignore my parents' restrictions and rules, which generally got
me into serious trouble with them. He
would ride two miles down, on the street, to the local drugstore, and call me
chicken if I wanted to ride on the sidewalk. He and I got into his father's
cigarettes, lit up and pretended to inhale. Maybe he did -- I decided after one
accidental whiff that left my lungs burning for twenty minutes that I never,
never wanted to smoke.
And
he would encourage me to do the one thing I would never do, even if he teased
me; go down to the construction zone near the creek which my parents had warned
me was terribly dangerous.
Gary's father was always in evidence, but
his mother appeared seldom, and talked little.
Gary never mentioned adult brothers and sisters; I assumed he was an
only child. I wish now that one of them
would have rescued him, have challenged his parents for custody. But this was at the beginning of the 1970's,
when physical child abuse was only just beginning to be talked about, and
sexual abuse was never mentioned in reference to children. And maybe they were doing the best things
they could for themselves by staying away and cutting off all contact with
their father. Sometimes it's all a
survivor can do just to survive -- it's not always possible to rescue others.
I liked Gary a lot. He was one of the most exciting and
interesting friends I'd ever had. He
was creative, and possibly brilliant, though he didn't do particularly well in
school. And he had a bent for the
daring, dangerous things which attracted me, but which I didn't dare do by
myself. He loved Rascal more than anything else, and told me that when he died
he wanted a picture of Rascal on his tombstone. I didn't take that very seriously; after all, it's the kind of
things kids say sometimes, and they don't mean it as if it's ever going to
really happen.
Sometime after school started in the fall,
I stopped having as much time to go and see Gary. And he got really hostile toward me, finally refusing to talk
with me at all, and saying that I wasn't his friend any more. It hurt and puzzled me; after all, I wasn't
blowing him off on purpose! I think
now, with over twenty-five years of hindsight, that he was trying to protect me
in the only way he knew how. He was
right, very right, but I didn't understand.
He took up with a kid his own age, a boy
who I didn't like very much. So when I
rode my bike over and saw him playing with Paul, I backed away again without
them seeing me. That action has haunted
me over the years. I didn't know -- how
could I? -- but if things had gone differently, I might have changed what was
going to happen. And then again, maybe
not. But I'll always wonder.
That night Paul and my older sister's best
friend came over, white-faced, to our house to tell us that Gary was dead. He had convinced Paul to go down to the
construction site by the creek, and the entire bank had caved in on him. Everyone thought it was a terrible tragedy,
and suddenly everyone was talking about what a _good_ child Gary had been -- a
cub scout, a member of an evangelical church.
I never want to go through another funeral like that one, where they
talked about how Gary was such a good child that God had taken him to Heaven to
be with Him. It was a lie, and at nine
years old, I knew it was a lie, but everyone else seemed to believe it
sincerely. I'm not sure I've ever been
so confused and frightened over anything else in my life.
It hit me about five years ago. Gary's death wasn't an accident. He had spent all the time I'd known him
deliberately doing things that adults told him were dangerous. He may not have been consciously trying to
kill himself, but underneath, where it really mattered, I think he wanted to
die. And what sort of pressures make an
eight-year-old want to die?
By the time
of Gary's death, Gary's father had spent twenty years in professional
pornography. I'm sure that Gary was one
of his main subjects, absolutely sure.
He had all the signs, if I'd known what to look for. The intermittent contact I had with Gary's
father (one of the most truly evil human beings I have ever met or heard about
-- he _knew_ what he was doing to kids, and relished it) scarred me permanently
and severely. What must have living
with that done to Gary?
I continued my contact with Gary's father
for another two years. He was an expert
predator, and knew how to keep a child
hooked -- in my case, it was photography lessons and the kind of
interest and affection I didn't get from my own parents. Of course, it came with an enormous price
tag. Gary's father went on to molest
young children, mostly girls, for another twenty years before he was finally
caught. The police were horrified at
some of the things they found -- they said it was one of the worst cases they'd
ever seen. He kept detailed diaries, made children have sex with each other on
video, etc., and obviously, from his writings, knew exactly what he was
doing. I was one of three adult victims
who gave evidence to the police. He was
convicted of one count of child molestation -- _one_! -- and sent to prison for
a few years. He died there two years ago.
One of these days I am going to go there and make a point of spitting on
his grave.*
I know where it
is, because his tombstone was already there, two down from Gary's. I never went to Gary's grave until about
three years ago, and so I didn't know; an etching of Rascal decorates the metal
plate on his tombstone. I am crying now, just as I think of it, and crying
isn't easy for me. I was a child too, and a victim myself. Even if I'd known how to help, I wouldn't
have had the power. But for a short
time, at least I gave him someone to love, someone who wouldn't hurt, use, or
manipulate him.
Sometimes, in our struggle as survivors, we
forget the ones who don't survive. But
I don't want Gary to be forgotten.
*2001 update -- Loomis isn't
buried next to Gary. I assume he died
in prison and was buried there. This
makes me very happy -- Gary shouldn't have to lie next to him even in death.
Gary Loomis
October 8, 1964- October 1973
Last updated 10/12/04.
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