P:
I’m trying. I’ll go in on the polygraph machine if you’ll ask me if I know this.
S:
Pete, you’ve been on the polygraph test.
P:
But that part of the question wasn’t asked.
S:
Pete, let me tell you something. I’ve sat in the other room and watched hundreds of these polygraph tests. OK? And, for once you got to realize that if we’re gonna get anyplace you’ve got to break down and trust me.
P:
I know it.
S:
OK.
P:
But I wish I knew.
S:
Well, I’m telling you, Pete.
P:
I want to know, that’s it.
S:
Pete, sit down and relax and give yourself a minute. All right. Your mother’s dead. Now this could be the best thing that ever happened to you. OK? If it is, let it happen.
P:
Well, it happened.
S:
All right. But let the freedom that you speak about happen.
P:
I’m really trying. I’m trying as hard as I can.
S:
I know you’re trying, but you’re so afraid that we’re gonna hurt you.
P:
I don’t feel afraid. I feel very calm, except that I’m getting irritable because everyone’s telling me I’m playing games. And I don’t mean to play games.
S:
Tell me about the knife, Pete.
P:
I don’t know anything about a knife. What’s the difference between my saying something about a razor or saying something about a knife? Either way I’m still saying that I did it, right? If maybe I made a mistake about the razor, then maybe I did, but I don’t remember that knife. If I did, I’d say it. That’s what I’m trying to put across. I don’t remember a knife.
S:
How did you—how did your mother’s clothes get wet?
P:
That’s what we were talking about, and I wasn’t sure, but I may have tried to wash her down and clean her up or something.
S:
Where?
P:
I don’t know. That’s blank.
S:
Why?
P:
I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to remember it. I don’t know. I still got to keep pounding it till it all comes out. I know that.
S:
Why don’t you remember?
P:
I’m trying hard as I can. I mean, it’s bad enough realizing and finding that my mom’s dead, but, finding that I did it makes it even worse.
S:
How many times did you cut your mom?
P:
Once is all I can remember. Slashing at her throat. That’s all. I remember jumping on her.
S:
Do you remember cutting her any other place?
P:
No.
S:
Do you remember when you got mad, at the door—the machete?
P:
I was—that was something when I got mad that night—and, uh—I was trying to sleep—it was three o’clock in the morning and she was singing opera just to make me mad.
S:
Yes.
P:
At the top of her voice. I’d close the door and she’d open it and I’d close it and lock it and she’d sing all the louder … I picked up the machete and I just put it through the door and the handle just slid down. And, she stopped. I just got so furious, you know. I just blew my cool then and I remember doing that.
S:
Well, you blew your cool then when you hit the door with the machete. Was that similar to what happened last night?
P:
No. It was different. Then she was just trying to make me mad, you know what I mean? Last night she wasn’t trying to make me mad, she was doing it and she wasn’t realizing how much she was doing it.
S:
Mm-hm.
P:
And, I just must have gone off the handle. Trying to get ahead and, every time I’d start to get ahead someone puts me down. I wanted this Vega and she’d say, you know, “Oh, gee, that piece of junk! Every time you pick out a car, you know, it’s a piece of crap.” That has to be what I flew off the handle about, because that is the main, the very most up-to-date issue at our house, was about a car.
S:
Now that you know that you were responsible for your mother’s death, do you feel a great sense of guilt?
P:
I feel guilty to the extent that no matter what she did, she shouldn’t of had to give up her life to pay for the things she did to me.
S:
Don’t you think your mother took your life?
P:
Not always. She didn’t cut it off like that.
S:
She might as well have.
P:
Why do you say that?
S:
Well, are you happy?
P:
No.
S:
Have you ever been happy?
P:
I can’t actually say I ever have been. I’m always being questioned about what’s going to happen.
S:
Do you think you have a—you had a normal relationship with people?
P:
Mm-hm. I’m very level-headed about that. I knew I didn’t have the greatest, you know, homelife. But, like when I was at somebody else’s house—like when I lived with my grandparents, I learned all my manners and everything. I don’t know whether you noticed how I always excuse myself and apologize for saying things …
S:
… trust people?
P:
Well, the thing is nobody’s ever given me a reason to.
S:
So, your relationship with people is not normal, is it?
P:
No, I guess not. There are very few people I trust.
S:
Don’t you think maybe your mother was taking your life in a sense?
P:
Yeah, but you see, she didn’t stop it. I still got another chance. I can still rehabilitate. I can still start again.
S:
Well, you can’t even trust me. You can’t trust me for five minutes.
P:
Well, what do you mean? I don’t understand this. I mean I’ll always say everything that I can think of but I can’t think anymore. Everything is so messed up. Nobody’s giving me a chance to think about it. They give me maybe five minutes or two minutes but they don’t let me sleep on it. They don’t let me, you know, be alone or just sit down. They don’t talk about what really built up to it, why I didn’t like my homelife.
S:
All right.
P:
You know my mom had a boyfriend, which is something I was ashamed of. And, let me see … I always had the things that I wanted but I never had the things I needed. You agreeing with me there? I mean the physical things that were given to me I could always have. But, if I wanted love or something or someone show affection toward me, it wasn’t there. And, I always felt kind of left out. Know what I mean?
S:
Yeah.
P:
That’s one of the things that I just faced up to right now, which I really hadn’t thought about too much. Things are going together a lot now. Everything is fitting together. Most of the background of it. I know my godmother had that kind of love for me.
S:
How do you know?
P:
She always wants to do things for me. She always wants to help me. Anything. She wanted to put me through college. It could be some other kid, you know? But it’s me. And whenever I need something she can stretch things to help me. Always has. And, I know she’s not physically showing me the affection but it’s the best she could at a hundred miles away. If I wanted something she came through with it. My mom always says, �
�I’m doing for you, I’m taking care of you. I don’t give you much,” she said, “but I try to arrange things for you.”
Barbara had arranged things for Peter with some success for eighteen years, from his baby clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue to the Converse sneakers and $15 shirt he was wearing the day she died. He had fine musical equipment—they had the Corvette. Auntie B. paid for the extra insurance that covered Peter as the driver.
The checks from Auntie B. stopped, though, when Barbara died. The police said they tried to reach her, the day after the murder. They called her at her house, and they tried a Teletype request to the New York police. But they couldn’t find her that day, just as they couldn’t find the public defender for Peter on Saturday either. They said they tried his office, and his home, and even a restaurant where somebody thought he might be having dinner, but they just didn’t seem to have any luck.
S:
I can understand … why you did what you did.
P:
I hope you can because I can’t. I can understand why I did it but I can’t understand, you know, how I flew off the handle just like that. That’s the thing I don’t understand ’cause I don’t have the background in that type of thing anyway.
S:
Well, were you treated like a human being?
P:
No.
S:
You’ve been treated like an animal.
P:
Yeah. I’ve been given my food and I’ve been given my place, but I’ve never been shown any affection.
S:
And you acted like an animal last night.
P:
But I still …
S:
Do you think this is unique? Don’t you think this happens every day of the week?
P:
It happens all over the place.
S:
Right. You know, if you could learn to trust …
P:
I don’t think I’m crazy. I don’t know whether you think so, I don’t.
S:
Of course you’re not crazy. But suppose I tell you you’re ill.
P:
Yes. It’s something that snapped in me.
S:
You got a problem.
P:
I got a problem.
S:
You got a problem.
P:
Right. The problem was I was never shown the proper love and affection that parents should give.
S:
Now, your problem is not insoluble.
P:
What do you mean, insoluble?
S:
It’s not beyond repair. It’s not beyond help.
P:
I feel new again. I feel like I’ve just woken up to a new world.
S:
Well, your problems are serious.
P:
But don’t you think that now that she’s off my back … what I think is I’ve got to find somebody that can show me the affection that …
S:
You got my help, Pete.
P:
Right.
S:
Now you got to start. And you can start right now.
P:
I’ve tried as much as I could, but nobody’s helping me out with what I’m supposed to say. They’re not helping me out with what they found down there. You can’t give me any hints?
S:
You know I can’t give you any hints. I’m asking you to trust me.
P:
I trust you, but you’re not giving me the help I need.
S:
If you trust me, Pete—you hear what I said? If you trust me—listen now and listen and feel. If you trust me, I’ll see that you get the help you need.
P:
You personally?
S:
Yeah.
P:
I’ve got to find something. Are you married?
S:
Yes.
P:
Any kids?
S:
Six.
P:
Six! How old?
S:
They run from a year and a half to twelve.
P:
It was a dream, but I was hoping I could find someone. Like maybe you’d be willing to help me.
S:
Maybe.
P:
Anything, ’cause nobody really …
S:
Go ahead, cry. Go ahead, cry, go ahead, come on …
P:
Nobody’s really right there to help me, never.
S:
I know it. Maybe I can get you some help. Why don’t you cry? You know you’ve been trying to cry for two days.
P:
Yeah, I have.
S:
Sure you have.
P:
I haven’t cried, till I found someone to turn to.
S:
Crying, you know, is a very normal and very healthy function. I’m going to tell you something, Pete. You may find it hard to believe.
P:
What?
S:
I don’t feel sorry for your mother, I feel sorry for you. ’Cause you’ve been a victim for years.
P:
I’m not a victim again now though, am I?
S:
No.
P:
Can you, ah—where do you live?
S:
I live in Granby, Connecticut.
P:
Is there any chance that someone will take me in, you or someone?
S:
Sure there’s a chance.
P:
God, I’ll do anything. Work around the house, chores, anything. I’d love to do it.
S:
You’ve got a big problem.
P:
Mm-hm.
S:
And, you got to straighten it out first, Pete. Now, I can sit here and lie to you and bullshit you. I’m not going to. You got a big problem and that’s got to be straightened out first.
P:
I realize now, I definitely did do what happened to my mother last night. But, the thing that I don’t realize is the exact steps that I took doing it. They’re the things that I’m foggy about. But, I think the main thing is that I am waking up to the fact that I did do it. I’m not afraid to admit it now.
S:
Let me tell you something. People have the wrong idea about death. People think that when someone dies, that’s the end of them.
P:
I’ve sat down and I’ve thought about that. What it’s gonna be like to die. Whether everything—like the basic part of your body, you know, if your head hurts or … There’s got to be something that survives.
S:
Your spirit, your soul.
P:
Right. But my mom was atheist. And since she was atheist, I was never given a chance to believe in something. Now, I’m getting my own views on it.
S:
Good.
P:
I’m starting to do things for myself. We had a thing in Contemporary Problems, just last week … I got a sheet that you’re supposed to fill out, and then I was supposed to take it back to school. It asks how you brought up your child. How old he was when he was weaned, how old your child was when toilet trained. Ah, when you show affection to your child, do you just say “that’s good” and give him a pat on the head. And, that was what I’ve been going through. If I did something good, it was “OK, Pete, move on.”
S:
You know that if a baby’s born and it doesn’t receive handling, it dies.
P:
I didn’t know that it would die. But I know it feels rejected.
S:
You know that children that come from orphanages as opposed to children who come from normal families do not achieve academically—do not succeed in later life, socially. Just by virtue of the fact that they don’t receive the attention or receive the love that they should from their
parents.
P:
I didn’t receive all the love that I should have received.
S:
You perhaps got maybe one little hundredth of what you should have gotten. What you needed.
P:
That’s right.
S:
You know, you don’t need money to be happy.
P:
I know it.
S:
How many families do you know—families who don’t have any money but they’re happy?
P:
The families that I always go to their homes.
S:
Sure.
A Death in Canaan Page 13