to date, i have been abused three times. twice in the little town
where i used to live as a result of my eyesight. my mother contracted
german measles while i was in utero and i sort of popped out with bad
eyesight, poor hearing and a heart condition. as a result of my eyesight,
i wound up in a special school which catered specifically for the problem.
it was here that i met the young man who was later going to abuse me.
as far back as i can remember, i've always been interested in computers
and what they can do. i remember i was writing a logo program, [remember
logo?] the computer laboratory was dark, because one of the other people
who was coding with me had a problem with light in general, i don't think
he had very good light filters, so any light, no matter how small the
amount, tended to hit him really badly.
i don't know why, but there was no-one with me in the computer laboratory
on that particular day...i think it was a wednesday. i could see the light
from the passage through the door and i could make out the darkened keyboard
on the desk in front of me. idly i watched as my little logo turtle span
little green webs of light on my monitor.
quite suddenly there was a movement in the room. not heeding the noise,
i went about my business of trying to code an endless loop [the kind of
loop that never ends.] when there's this movement behind me...and a hand on
my shoulder.
i turn around and there he is...craig.*
if i close my eyes i can still see his face. at age twlve i was a little
mite, tiny and unschooled in the ways of innuendo, or other adult
diversions, whereas craig was sixteen and slightly more versed in these
things, i suppose. he was taller than myself, but than that's no mean
feat. he had milk-white skin, which covered a large, ordinarily jovial
face. i seem to remember that he smoked...his hair was brown, and as is
usual for me, i don't know what colour his eyes were, possibly they were
brown, but i just don't remember and i never bothered to ask.
anyhow, craig was standing behind me, one hand on my shoulder, the other
beginning to move downard. very softly he told me to keep watching my
monitor. i looked up at the turtle and couldn't think of what to do, or
what was to come next. the turtle didn't seem to offer any clues, or
salvation.
now his hands were down there, where no other hands had been before.
trying to get away, i squirmed in my seat. craig dug his nails into me
and told me to stop moving, but i felt wrong. as if this wasn't
correct...or it wasn't meant to be happening, or something.
i think i remember screaming, but i don't know. i just know that after
that i went to whoever i could, winding up in the principals office and
explaining to him what had just happened. i think that if it had got
beyond the borders of the school it would have looked pretty awkward for
them, but he still asked me if i wanted to press criminal charges. i
declined the offer. i'm not sure of why, but i think that it had alot
to do with the fact that i thought that it sounded like too much trouble
to go to for something that had only lasted about two minutes, but that
spectre was going to haunt me wherever i went. maybe i should have
pressed charges, but it was hard to prove anything, there was only
speculative evidence, nothing real, nothing true. for all they knew,
i was doing this because i didn't like craig. this was a theme that
was going to repeat itself much later in my life, but just right then
i was happy to be out of the situation and have things return to normal,
if they could.
much, much later, after it had happened, i sat down with craig and i
asked him exactly what had gone through his mind when he'd reached down
there. he replied that he didn't know, he'd just been curious.
the second time i was abused was about a year later. i walked to the
hostel from school and went on up, to change, as was pretty usual.
back then i was living with a senior in a two-man room, which isn't
something that all of the juniors were allowed. anyhow, i went down
to lunch and came back up. alan* was
upstairs...i can't say that i think he was waiting for me, but he was
there.
and he didn't look happy.
i don't know what had happened to him that day, but he just utterly
lost control, throwing both of his shoes at me and chasing me until
i was in the corner of the room. the next bit is rather vague, but
i think he threatened to hit me with his belt, which he was probably
all too capable of doing.
alan wasn't big, but he was tall, with blackish hair and squashed
features. he was pale, with large, black glasses.
now he was walking over to me, reaching out a hand to drag me to the
middle of the room. he'd laid one of the brown mats in the centre
of the room, because the floor was tiled and cold. i didn't
understand...and i remembered the freezing feeling, that feeling of
helplessness, like i'd felt it with craig. nothing i can do here.
the hand dumped me on the mat...and then the command came for me to
stand up. so i did. by now there was a crowd in the room...i still
can't believe that people just watched. i closed my eyes as he knelt
down in front of me, then his hands were at my pants, undoing them.
trembling, i looked down and saw him reach inside of my pants.
i think about then i snapped. as he worked his mouth around the tip of
me i kept chanting, over and over, like it was a litany that i'd sue
him. he just looked up at me and smiled, as if he didn't care, and i
suspect that he didn't.
when he was done he walked out of the door and i remember him saying
that he'd be back. afraid and rather confused i just lay on the mat,
my mind not going forward or backward, just lying there.
after a while, i pulled up my pants and went downstairs, trembling,
i knocked on the housefather's door and he appeared. looking up at him,
i explained everything.
the thought of having a potential homosexual on his hands probably
scared the housefather more than what had actually taken place, and in
his rage he found alan. i remember that he took both of us into his
office and had me tell him what had happened. after that he dismissed
me to wait outside the office as he caned alan...standing there, with
the closed door just inches away from me i heard the whole discourse
of cane and screams.
alan was packed off and moved to another hostel, not so far away from
me, but he never saw me again after that.
the last time i was abused, i was nineteen and sort of coming to terms
with the whole idea of being homosexual. it sort of struck me that i
might need some help with the whole concept, especially since it
related to god...grins wait, wait. i'm getting rather ahead of
myself. :)
i've written several essays about it since it happened and i'm now
going to quote one of the shorter ones.
[title:how i lost my way]
[author:greywolfe]
[date:12 april 1997]
[preface]
'there's something wrong,' he said.
'of course there is.'
'you're still alive,' he said.
'i don't feel i deserve to be,
but is that the question,
and if so, if so,
who answers, who answers?'
band:pearl jam
song:alive - paraphrased and bastardised.
album:ten
[the story]
indeed, who answers?
on the one hand, i know that part of the answer comes from me, and the other
part comes from him, but he's not here. he left. he was pretty much forced
into leaving, but that was two years ago now. the twenty-third of april will
be the second year anniversary of my freedom from him.
it hurts to think about him sometimes. actually most times, if i'm honest
about it. i remember him mostly when i walk to and from university/technikon,
and when people ask me about him, as you did, and sometimes i think about him
at the most inopportune moments, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.
it used to be that i'd spend all my waking thoughts just thinking of him...
he wasn't a bear. indeed, the first man i fell in lust with was a whale; at
least, that's what he called himself. it became my pet name for him, he was
my beached whale. he was irish, pink and round. if i remember correctly he
wasn't even very hairy. i'd estimated his age to be about fifty-four, but
still am not sure about that. he was a very neat, dapper man, his silver hair
never out of place and his clothes always decent. i suppose i thought he was
beautiful, but to this day i'm not sure...something definately drew me to
him, but i'm not positive of what it was. maybe it was his father-image, the
way he appeared to say 'come to me and let me heal you.'
being a roman catholic priest, i suppose that was the largest part of the
attraction i felt for him. or maybe it was his sureness? 'the world belongs
just so; break the thread of continuity and face the consequences.'
god had a large part to play in that, i'd guess.
anyway. i met him when a mutual friend told me to go and visit him. at that
stage i was beginning to feel vaguely queasy about my homosexuality. i was
afraid of what god was thinking about the whole affair. i knew, even consigned
myself to the fact that i was homosexual, but i didn't know how to deal with
it in a spiritual context. so like many before me, i went seeking help and
found instead, soft, tender hands.
those same hands that held me in the night, that caressed all the fear out of
me, would later condemn me, by saying that i was to blame, by pointing fingers
at me and saying that there was something wrong with who i was, because i came
to lie with him. but he never told the other side of the story, the side that
mattered most. he never really told his side.
our mutual friend was also a roman catholic priest and he'd said that my
friend the beached whale was excellent at removing doubts about sexuality.
he was sure that the whale could help, so i stepped into his office and
listened while he talked and explained what was going on. the first two
meetings went fine.
after that, the touches became more lingering, the peck on the forhead became
a kiss, the hug became an embrace and the two of us were off on a mad voyage.
he was trying, very desperately, to catch up for his lost years and i was
trying to understand, trying to grasp where natural wrong and natural right
were; trying to find my way through the blackness. of course, he didn't
make it any easier. he'd say things like 'you're only doing what you think is
right,' or, 'it's ok. it's only my morning erection,' or 'come, lie next to
me.'
he wasn't answering the questions; he was giving orders. giving orders and
lying, because with the same hands that ran down my back and held me close,
he was giving communion and blessing wine and forgiving the impure
and blessing the sick and god knows what else he did with his hands...he was
certainly very good at using them. and his mouth...
at night it would tell me where to lie, what to do, and by day it would
contradict itself, saying that he was a priest and that priests weren't
supposed to have sex lives. [he ran a vocations group and was constantly
telling us what we could and could not do as priests.] he was having his cake
and eating it.
and slowly, slowly, i lost my way.
eventually, i didn't know where i was, or what was going on anymore and it was
decided for me, that i should rope in some help, so i did, only the help
wasn't very useful.
the help convened a meeting between him and me and he flung accusation after
accusation at me, telling me i was sick, telling me i was living in a fantasy
world. [those writer's hands that you like so much - he scorned those
for telling lies.]
he made me feel like a piece of dirt and when i felt utterly worthless, he
asked me why? so i explained, through tears, that i'd only come looking for
answers, not lust. i hadn't come to him for massages, or to stroke his penis,
or to lie with my hands around his ample waist. i'd come for fucking answers.
i was led out of the meeting room then, the twenty-third of april 1995...
and while the sun began to drift into the clouds, i sat on the stairs of his
parish and cried as people walked around me, trying to make their way from
mass and to the tail-end of their weekend without stepping on the little boy
in tears.
for about three months after the meeting i couldn't think at all. every time
a thought passed through my head it would be a picture of him, or his voice,
or some trace of him. my friends around me didn't know what to do, because
i was blank and self-absorbed. he was still inside of me and he wouldn't leave
me be.
finally one of my older friends, stephen*, led me to a psychologists office and
had me sit down and talk and talk and talk...
at first all that came out were yes and no answers, with the psychologist
being briefed by stephen beforehand. and then, as the weeks went by, i began
to tell more of it until i was talking non-stop, for an hour and a bit a week.
i remember, during august of that year, my first conscious thoughts, where i
was able to string more than a couple of rudimentary words together to form
something greater, being, 'i have to die.'
'i have to leave this world and go to hell, to live wherei belong.'
the funny thing about me and resolutions of this sort is that i don't have the
guts to do them, so my plans for committing suicide were shelved indefinately.
luckily, all thoughts of that nature were banished in the flurry that became
the dragonfire '95 convention, where i went to play magic:the gathering and
advanced dungeons and dragons at tournament level. of course i knew i couldn't
win, but i did discover something. i found that if i just let circumstances
take me, he didn't invade so much. most of that weekend was spent trying not
to be killed by various other magic:the gathering players and avoiding death
by tossing tnt at people in advanced dungeons and dragons.
after that i began to be able to work again, slowly completing the part of my
first year that i'd missed in my abscence of soul. i couldn't absolutely get
rid of him, but he wasn't always in the back of my mind, saying, 'you're
useless; give it up.'
and then, in one afternoon, all of that came undone.
i'd been pressured into going to a vocations workshop, where various orders
would be displaying their wares and their priests, so that the interested
could talk to them and think about getting to know them better. i arrived on
the first floor, made my way up the stairs and walked with my friend brendan*
to the end of the passage. there he stood, as neat and
as round as ever, leaning against a door-frame. his black cassock was
tight-fitting and his girth showed. so did his eyes. in that instant of
seeing each other, we both averted our eyes. he made his way into the room
and hastily began showing another set of people around the little room,
avoiding me all the while.
when i exited, i saw him standing on the first floor of the building, in what
passed for the courtyard, with a group of fellow priests. not wanting
to cause trouble, but knowing i needed to throw up - badly, i made my way down
to the toilets and just knelt there, dry heaving for about fifteen minutes.
then the tears came. shutting the door of the cubicle i sat there and cried
until nothing more would come out.
over december/january of 1995/1996 he has moved out of the parish where he'd
lived for nearly twenty years and shipped to america. god only knows where
he is now. i just hope they don't ever let him back. but i think of the
young men in his parish and i wonder.
[epilogue]
'because things are going to change, so fast,
all the white horses have gone to hell,
i'll tell you that i'll always want you here.
you say that things chage, my dear.'
band:tori amos
song:things change
album:little earthquakes.
indeed, things change, but do they change for the better?
* names have been changed to protect those involved
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