The Prison Inside Me

by Gilbert Brown

  When he was in bed one night, supposedly asleep, Tommy overheard a fight between his mother and his grandfather, in loud voices. “It could have been worse if you had married the good-for-nothing. At least we can be thankful for that. Now look how you’ve ruined your life with that kid!” Tommy’s only thought on hearing this was that all the other kids—well, almost all—had two grandfathers. He wished he could have two also so that one of them would take him out for ice cream and to a ball game—and maybe love him as all grandparents loved their grandchildren.

  George and Susan’s lovemaking became perfunctory. Susan attributed this to the constant demands of the work they were doing to make their Recovery Camp a success. Both were extremely tired at the end of the day, longing for the few hours they could save for the sleep they coveted.

  However, Susan noted an anomaly. Often, George would indicate that a boy needed extra tutoring to “recover”—it was, after all, Recovery Camp—work he couldn’t achieve in the regular group tutoring class during the day. When the others would get into bed for the Saturday night adventure story read by Susan, he would take a boy, not always the same boy, into his private office that the architect had designed between the dormitory and their living quarters. The other boys would be sleeping by the time George finished tutoring. He would take the boy to his cot in the dormitory, making sure not to wake the others, carefully tuck him in, and often, depending on the boy, kiss him good night. Even Susan would have gone off to bed and that welcome sleep she needed. Some nights, George would come to bed after one of these late-night tutoring sessions in a feverishly aroused state, awakening her with his embraces followed by uninhibited lovemaking from which both fell into completely exhausted and deep sleep. Despite her fatigue, Susan loved this infrequent attention and the fire that burned within her, awakened by George’s ardor. This is what I really wanted in my married life, she thought. He is so wonderful, so masterful, so loving; he makes me feel I’m a woman again.

  They began their summer camp plans, starting with one-week sessions, Monday through Sunday morning so that they could have Sunday off after breakfast when campers were retrieved by their parents. Some parents signed up for a second week, but the Nicholses established a two-week maximum for any boy during the summer to allow room for the great demand that George’s successful reputation had created. During these summer sessions, no room existed for girls, nor was there time for the home tutoring that George did other times during the year. They ran the camp for six weeks to allow them a few weeks off at the end of August for vacation, travel, and maintenance to keep the lodge in showcase condition.

  Susan’s work at CPS included recommending certain boys in need as partial scholarship students for some sessions of the summer camp. CPS could pay a certain amount of the rather high tuition that Recovery Camp charged. George and Susan’s budgeting allowed for one scholarship camper in each session, although most sessions were fully subscribed by full-tuition families.

  After the first year of the success of the summer camp, they agreed to extend the weekend camp program from Friday night through Sunday morning. One night worked without problems the first year, so why not extend it to two nights and charge a bit more, increasing their income?

  Their revenue increased, and their debts were melting away. They bought a new and bigger car and some artwork to decorate their part of the lodge, hired an exterior gardening service to beautify the entrance to the camp, and generally upgraded the appearance of the lodge inside and out. Despite their long hours, with the around-the-clock work George was doing including teaching, tutoring, college prep courses, and weekend camp, they were happy with each other, relishing sharing their lives. Despite the many demands on them, they were happy in what they had accomplished.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As Dr. Adeline Fisher opened the door to her consultation room and said good-bye to her patient, her receptionist whispered that Detective Szysmanski had called again, requesting help with a case in which he was involved. Fisher was the consulting psychiatrist to the Trout Lake Police Department.

  When the receptionist said, “On the line,” Fisher picked up her phone.

  “Listen, Siz, if this is about the Jay Street thing, you are talking to the wrong person. I don’t know anything about random shooters. You need a psychic, not a psychiatrist.”

  “No, doc, it’s not about that. It’s about the Nichols suicide.”

  “That I may be able to help you with. What’s up?”

  “Doc, we find that he may have been a pedophile. Help me understand better what kind of person a pedophile is.”

  “Go ahead,” Fisher said.

  “Well, first, we have information, really nothing great, that Nichols molested young boys maybe twenty or thirty years ago. How can we confirm something like that when the party they are accusing is now dead?”

  “That’s tough. Maybe you can look into old medical records or school records where the subject told someone of this abuse. If the child was physically harmed in some way, perhaps some physician or hospital that treated him—you say it was boys—made some entry that would confirm the accusation.”

  “Doc, this was only improper touching, as far as we know. We don’t have anything like sodomy or penetration yet. And we’re not talking about forced abusive behavior that would have left marks, as far as we know up to now. No one has come forward with anything other than inappropriate touching, maybe mutual touching, but that’s all we have.”

  “Siz, this is like the old joke of the police station whose toilets were stolen. You have nothing to go on. At least not with the information you are giving me. Maybe if you can get multiple sworn depositions from a number of children who were molested, you may have a reason.” She hesitated. “Reason for what? How are you going to charge and try a dead man?”

  “Well, it’s not really about him. We have good reason to believe that his suicide was staged and that it may be homicide by someone he abused years ago.”

  “OK, that’s different,” the psychiatrist mused. “What else can I tell you?”

  “Out of pure curiosity, I see cases being settled from many years ago where the abused kids, now adults, are awarded even millions of dollars. How can a jury make such awards on accusations that can’t be proved other than the word of kids who say they were abused?”

  Fisher hesitated a moment. “Their attorneys make a case of pain and suffering. These adults who were abused as kids show signs of trauma, sometimes even a post-traumatic stress disorder, that has caused them grief, medical expenses, and loss of ability to hold a position that would pay them more than they have been able to earn. Because of the trauma of early sexual experiences, these affected kids in adulthood present depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, alcoholism, and other forms of anxiety. This early sexual exploitation is very confusing, and as they grow older, it may be repressed psychologically and emerge in physical disorders.”

  “Doc, how come they never talk about it until some kind of stimulus, like the Nichols suicide, makes it all pour out?”

  “Oh, boy, Siz,” Fisher sighed, “this is going to take hours to explain. First, in many cases, kids think it was their fault, something they did that made the adult take advantage of them. They feel guilty about this. Everyone grows up with some form of warning from parents about inappropriate sexual behavior. They think, ‘What have I done?’ That’s not something one talks about to anyone. No teenager comes out of the bathroom and announces he or she has just masturbated, much less a younger child taken advantage of, in a nice way, by some adult. Then, in case you haven’t noticed, the abused kid may have had a feeling of pleasure in the arrangement and doesn’t want it to stop. Now, I’m not talking only about sexual pleasure, but perhaps the adult has awarded the kid with something. It can be as simple as money, or sweets to eat, or even praise. But more often than not, the abuse, as we call it, is from a trusted adult, a teacher, a related and revere
d adult like an older cousin or uncle or aunt, whom the child loves. This older person may be giving a child, otherwise deprived, the kind of warmth, attention, and even love that is missing in the child’s life.

  “There is also a bit of confusion in the child’s mind. ‘What have I done? What does all this mean? I don’t understand why anyone wants to touch me there.’ Remember, we are talking about kids who are preadolescent. They don’t understand the sexual needs of adults as they will when they enter puberty. No one draws pictures for a six-year-old of what his parents had to do to create him. Why not? Because they wouldn’t understand. This is the lack of understanding on which pedophiles foster illicit and inappropriate touching, and worse, with very young children.

  “There’s also a big thing about denial. Children have an easy time blocking out things they did that are unpleasant. They know, but they don’t know. They clean their memory so they don’t have to think about it. It’s not that it never happened. It’s that they don’t want to know that it happened, which kids are very good at. They repress, like it happened to someone else, not to them. ‘I can’t understand what happened, so I’ll fantasize that it never happened.’

  “To close this whole thing, we come to perhaps the principal reason that kids don’t talk. Who is going to believe them? Some trusted adult, a respected community member, a great influence in the family, is about to be accused by some kid. If the kid knows to accuse him, or rarely her, of inappropriate sexual conduct, the kid knows he is not just spilling the beans about Uncle John buying him an ice cream just before dinner. No, the kid knows he is about to drop a bombshell, whatever age the kid is. He thinks, ‘Who is going to believe me?’ He knows what happened the last time he lied when he took an extra cookie, or when he stole his brother’s toy. ‘I’m going to be a liar again, and I’ll be punished for it.’ Siz, some kid comes forward and accuses me, or you. Who is anyone going to believe? Kids just don’t come up against adults in a verbal ‘he said, she said’ game, because they think they are going to lose. Better just to shut up, bury whatever it is he doesn’t like, and get on with living. It’s so easy for kids to repress ugliness. Kids are horribly physically abused by drunken parents, and yet they still love them. Their beatings never happened in their minds.”

  “Doc, you’ve been great. But I need more info about how pedophiles work. What makes a successful man like Nichols become a pedophile?”

  “That’s easier from our research. One mustn’t think that homosexuality is a cause of pedophilia. It is common in both homosexuals and heterosexuals. One very common cause, at least from recent findings, is that pedophiles were abused when they were children, too. The confusion I mentioned is still present. They may need contact with young children to get sexual pleasure.”

  “But Nichols was married for forty years, seemingly happily, with two kids, now grown. How could that be?”

  “Lots of pedophiles are happily married, leading normal sex and professional lives. I’m sorry to say that even people in my profession have been guilty of pedophilia. One has nothing to do with the other. Pedophilia is not a genetic structure akin to most human sexuality. It is a psychiatric pathology for which, unfortunately, medical and psychiatric science has not been able to effect a cure or even a treatment. The government posts a registry of convicted pedophiles because once convicted of this crime, really a malady, we believe that the adult will remain a pedophile for the rest of his or her life. The procedure is prevention, keeping them away from children.”

  “You mean every sexually abused child will become a pedophile?”

  “Hardly; that’s something we don’t understand. Some become abusers, and others just live through it and have lives like the rest of us. Some abused people internalize certain protective psychological processes that protect them from repeating the abuse they suffered. I wish I could tell you more of this, but it’s difficult to fathom. We really need more study of this, but people who have made a good adjustment to life rarely come forward to speak of unpleasantness in their childhood.”

  “Yeah, doc, but how do these pedophiles get the kids to accept their advances? Is there a technique that works with all kids?”

  “Pedophiles are gifted in determining which kids will yield to them. They sense a need in the kid, and then they groom them, even for long periods of time, to make sure they are approachable. The last thing a pedophile wants is to be denounced by some kid who has become alarmed at the pedophile’s advances. If the kid shows the least sign of resistance, the abuser backs off and finds another kid who is susceptible, who won’t reject him. The susceptible kid always wants something the pedophile is offering. Remember, we’re not talking here about some monster, some rapist, who takes a kid into the woods to rape or sodomize him. We’re talking about someone the kid trusts. That trust has to be confirmed in the most firm manner by the pedophile before the advance is made. It may take a lot of time, but the pedophile is willing to take the time to avoid being unmasked. I guess if a pedophile has a lot of money, he can go to a foreign county where children are for sale for the sexual pleasures of the adult. Hey, Siz, normal heterosexual adults are willing to spend a lot of time to seduce someone who is attractive to them! Some of you guys have a sixth sense about this. That sixth sense is also present in perverted adults too.”

  Szysmanski laughed at this analogy.

  Fisher continued, “One more thing. Pedophiles often need the stimulation of illicit contact with young children to become aroused. You can understand this from the thousands of kiddie porn sites on the Internet. Who looks at these? Why? It has to be for some form of perverted stimulation culminating in sexual pleasure of some sort. Maybe we can’t understand how that works, because we are not susceptible to that form of prurience. Maybe they can’t achieve sexual climax, something all of us perceive as normal, without such stimulation, for some reason unknown to us. Siz, it’s a crazy world out there. Ask me; I’m in it ten hours a day. If it didn’t exist, I’d have to become a cop or find some other kind of honest job!”

  “Thanks for your help and for all your time, doc. I’m not sure what I can do with it, other than understand where Nichols is coming from and perhaps why someone would want to kill him for it. I’ll be in touch as things happen. See you later.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was the third year of their marriage. Their finances were finally coming into a very normal flow of monthly receipts and expenses. Susan’s salary at Child Protective Services and George’s at Trout Lake Community College began to pale in comparison to the results of their camp operation. The various credit card debts were now eliminated, and the interest and amortization of the mortgage on their lodge were a normal monthly cash outflow within the budget of their income. They were even able to make small, albeit irregular, payments to their parents for the advances they had received to help buy the lodge and start Recovery Camp.

  The operation of Recovery Camp was a business now aided by retained legal counsel, with assistance from an accounting firm. The presence of these two expert appendages to their business gave them more time to concentrate on the core of the camp, attracting more children to attend. Susan had convinced her superiors at CPS that many of the families with whom she was working to resolve their children’s problems could benefit if they could be aided by the camp’s tutoring services. Although CPS paid less for the services that Susan recommended, a small percentage of the camp’s receipts came from CPS. The greater benefit was the good name of the camp that was spread by a growing number of satisfied clients from all levels of the community.

  Both looked long and hard at a major expansion of their facility to attend to more children in need. George was the principal demurrer in their conversations. “Let’s face it, Susan,” he would argue. “Yes, of course, I would love to enhance our income. But the success we know is the result of two principal aspects of our operation. First, we are most efficient in our use of resources. We don’t have paid e
mployees, other than absolutely necessary maintenance people. We get those teenagers in my college prep courses to work for a reduced tuition. We only need them a few hours a week to help out with cleaning and some cooking. We don’t need counselors and other support personnel with special skills and salaries that would burden our operation.

  “But the principal asset we have,” he continued, “is my ability to teach kids mathematics, to bring that subject to life for them, to turn them around where all other attempts to help them have failed. If we bring in too many kids, I can’t clone myself to handle them. And we can’t find anyone else with this skill. I can’t train or mentor others to do what has come to me naturally, to use this very special gift with which I have been blessed. We run the risk of a few failures, and that will destroy our name and fame. Our business will go right into the ground. A few disasters, no matter how many others we are successful with, and we’ll lose everything.”

  Susan listened carefully to all this, wanting to find a flaw in his reasoning but unable to do so.

  His next comments really pleased her. “Let’s not forget that we can see the light at the end of this tunnel of our debts, mortgages, and other obligations. Once all this is paid off, we will be generating income beyond our dreams. Imagine if all these payments we make each month to the bank, our credit card companies, and our parents are no longer going out. We can do other things we really want to do, like finally furnish the lodge the way you always wanted, take a vacation at the beach, or go on a cruise…”

  Susan now interrupted him, “Or even start a family, at long last!”