Chapter 17 - Alan: Life as an Adult Offender
Alan's adult life proceeds from one victim to another. To avoid being caught he moved a lot, never had a real career, never changed, "After high school I joined the military for a couple of years in the hopes I could alter my path away from pedophilia. That didn't happen. What did happen was that I met another pedophile and discovered that my horrifying acts were not just mine alone." page 121, para. 1. I thought reading this that if Alan was ever going to change his ways it would be after witnessing the dishonorable discharge of his military associate and the public disgrace that accompanied their horrendous sexual perversions. Contrarily this discovery only pushed Alan to be more careful and make sure he never got caught.
After his military obligations were over Alan moved to a large City, one of his first social contacts was through a church. Being a young single man he found he was invited into homes for dinner frequently. He saw his new path to victims and was determined to devise a way to make sure he wasn't caught. As in the past, he took his time because he found a lot of pleasure in the planning stage and he knew from the past he had to get the parents under his control first, then start with the boys. He selected families with sons in his victim range or close to it. At first, he would pretend that the child made him very uncomfortable and he would rather not be around the child. Then gradually he would warm up to the child, all along the parents feeling glad because Alan was warming up to family life and their child. Alan goes on to say, "The excitement of manipulating the boy right under his parents' noses was a new type of high for me. I frequently found myself doing things I had never considered before. On many occasions when visiting one of my victim's homes, I would get him aside for a few moments and tell him that he was to go to his room, remove his shirt, and take his pants down to his ankles. when he was ready, he was to call me, asking me to come see something. I would then move quickly to his room see the boy standing exactly as I had instructed, fondle him, slip him a dollar, and return to the adults. This resulted in a tremendous feeling of being in control.." page 123, para. 2. Alan's molestation of young boys in this community escalated beyond my belief. He would be at a party and molest a boy in the bathroom. He would convince the parents to let him be overnight with the boy because they were going out or because Alan had planned a special day that included overnight. Alan felt unstoppable.
Alan's thought process was so different from our own. How is a parent to guard against someone they cannot understand? Alan said, "I didn't see any of the offers of friendship that were extended to me by so many families and individuals as genuine acts of kindness, trust, and sharing. Instead I increasingly looked upon these people as using me. I mentally twisted invitations into demands - occasions when I was being asked to do something to once again keep them happy. As had always been my habit in life, I twisted reality - a distortion I then attempted to use as a mental justification for my being entitled to get what I wanted for a change. As always, I opted to see myself as the victim." page 124, para. 1. Alan went on like this for years, then eventually became the scout leader of the church where he was surrounded by young boys whenever he wanted. This situation of an abusive adult being put in a position of authority over a child, sadly happens in our society way too often. I was forced to look upon my older brother as a father figure and I forced my sons to do the same with my younger brother. Luckily there was no physical abuse, just the crippling abuse of a child's love and trust.
I think back to my life and my brothers and I find similarities with both of them. They were both always active in church groups. They were always "helping" other families with their problems. When confronted, they were always the victim which my mother believed and supported them completely. Many years after I admitted the truth to myself about my brothers, my mother told me a story about my younger brother. He was in the Navy in San Francisco and then suddenly he was out of the Navy and home. At the time, my brother told me he requested a discharge because of mental stress. He was a Chaplain's assistant and could no longer handle his job. I was suspicious, but did not have the strength to fight with him or my mother any longer, so I dropped it. After he was arrested, my mother confided in me that the real reason he was discharged from the Navy was because the MP's had caught him with a very young male prostitute and the Navy court had determined my brother was as undesirable and gave him his discharge papers. This discharge cost my mother $10,000.00 in attorney fees. She actually told me and was sincere saying, "Your brother had always been misunderstood. I am sure he is innocent of these charges."
This chapter goes on and on about Alan's abuse of children and how he turned it around in his mind that he was the victim, "By my early twenties, I saw a twisted type of balance in my life. We clearly lived jointly, in two different worlds. In their world, I was a monster, a thing. And in my world they , while not being monsters, were very much things. As a self-created victim, I chose to see "them" as always using me, therefore I felt no qualms about my using "them". In this mindset, I would have not more qualms about using your child that I would of using your car. My view was clear. In their world, they controlled me, and in my world, I controlled everything." I think back and remember all the times my brother offered to watch my sons when I had to go out of town on work, or when my mother would call and want us to spend the weekend with her. After my father's death at 62, she threatened to commit suicide on many occasions. For 2 years, I spent every weekend and sometimes during the week with her out of fear. All those times I thought I was doing the right thing being by my mothers side when she needed me. It makes me sick to think about the manipulation I was putting my sons through. Finally, my younger son came to me at eight and told me he was not comfortable with his uncle by himself. My older son said his uncle had always been weird with he and his friends, but he was not a physical threat. Children should not have to be confronted with making these types of decisions. I ask myself again, what is a parent to do? Not trust anyone? I think the only answer is to be honest with the child about his or her sexuality, be honest about abusive/sick people in the world and create a communication path the child is comfortable with telling their parents everything.
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