It’s Not How I Remember It - 1. Chapter 1

It’s winter, and I’m in a reflective mood. My mother died three years ago at an advanced age, and I’m still coming to grips with our relationship. I promise this isn’t a story about a gay boy with mommy issues.

I’m the keeper of the family photos. My sister’s children and grandchildren aren’t interested in the family history, and after my sister and I depart this world, no one will view these photos again.

I’m looking at pictures from the early years, the first thirteen years of my life, from when I was born in San Mateo, California, to when the family moved to Westchester County, New York.

One picture always draws my attention. (The image accompanying this story is the photo of the boy—me.) Who is that cute, sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy?

This boy, displaying the hint of a smirk, appears confident, as if saying to the camera, ‘Look at me. I’m hot!.’ I never remember thinking that. I liked my appearance but never let anyone else know I felt that way. Maybe I didn’t believe it myself.

This is a photo of me when I was twelve or thirteen years old, after the dark years

This is another picture of me with classmates displaying our science projects for the camera on the steps of the junior high section of the elementary school at about the same time. Looking at it with my adult eyes, I was surprised to observe only one other boy I considered as attractive as me in the picture. His name was John, and he was ‘that boy’ who goosed other boys in the cloakroom. We called it goosing, but he was crotch grabbing. It was a short phase for John, but memorable. He seemed to make a point of grabbing my crotch repeatedly. I acted like it bothered me. I don’t know why I didn’t have a crush on him. We spent some time together, and I remember him being friendly. Sometimes, there isn’t a spark.

Greg is in the picture, too. The cute blonde-haired boy was my first school crush, though he never knew it. This is the only image I have of him.

By this time, I was blooming. I was healthy and coming into my own, at least physically and to a far lesser extent socially. At least I was getting a little better at making friends.

There are earlier pictures, too. For the first two years of my life, I lived on Grant Street, also in San Mateo.

For whatever reason, after a healthy first year and a half of life, I became sickly for the next seven years. My memories of this period are garbled. I call it the dark period.

Here, I am riding a hobby horse at about one year old, and another of me is painting a watercolor on an easel. I remember Jack, a boy doll I must have received as a present around this time. I still have Jack. He is in excellent condition and sits on my bookshelf today. It was always challenging to keep his shoes on, and they’re missing today. I had the impression that my father was uncomfortable with this doll.

I clearly remember these events and others from this period.

Mom told me years ago that I was very talkative during this early period, and my contemporaneous baby book notations support this. Then things went dark. I stopped talking altogether, and then, as my baby book notes, ‘He very slowly added words to his vocabulary.’ Even then, I’m told I was challenging to understand.

According to my baby book, the darkness began when I was about 18 months old. I remember being sick a lot and things becoming hazy, almost like coming in and out of consciousness.

Why did things go dark? It didn’t go dark for my older sister or younger brother. They both grew up possessing above-average intelligence and normal or superior social skills.

Was it the high fevers I experienced during the early dark years? I remember having a temperature of 106 degrees and my mother placing ice-cold washcloths on my head and chest. Perhaps I burned up too many brain cells. Maybe it was the vaccines. Looking at the vaccination records in my baby book, I received six vaccinations in the six months leading up to the darkness. I also received penicillin shots and other antibiotics of the day for my illnesses during that period. I hated going to the doctor, years into the future, because in my mind it always involved pain. Even polio vaccines and boosters starting a couple of years later were injections for me. I remember being jealous of my younger brother when he was only required to receive oral polio vaccines.

Perhaps I was mildly autistic. As far as I know, the clinicians never diagnosed me as autistic, but I took a lot of extra aptitude-type tests when I was four or five. It would be typical of my mother to resist a diagnosis like that. She was always concerned about the stigma and “what people would think of her child-rearing skills.”

Leslie, my sister, and her friend Kathy dressed me up as Gracie early in the darkness after the family moved to Aragon Boulevard. Gracie was a female identity created by the older girls. I was probably two and a half or three years old. They weren’t being mean. I think they were having great fun, and I enjoyed the dress-up, too.

Upon discovery by my parents, my sister got in trouble, and the Gracie dress disappeared.

I think my father gave me my first lesson about birds and bees. Strangely, I don’t remember any talks about sex with my dad, though I’m told we had them. They were probably too traumatic for me and my father, and, besides, I was still in the dark years.

I enjoyed the dress-up sessions, whether because of my innate interest in the feminine or the attention I received from Leslie and Kathy. To this day, I have no interest in drag.

This is a picture of Wayne and I sitting on the fence separating our backyards. We have our arms over each other's shoulders, and we’re smiling. It’s an adorable shot. We were the same age, and he lived in the house behind us. A six-foot fence separated our backyards. We were four or five when we first got to know each other. With many of the same interests, we became fast friends. He was my best boyhood friend, and we even became blood brothers, imitating a ritual we probably watched together in an old TV western.

After being best friends for a couple of years, we decided to show each other our ‘private parts.’ I’m pretty sure I was more interested in doing it than he was. We didn’t touch each other, probably because we didn't know what to do and feared crossing that line in our friendship.

I was interested in doing more, but he told me a couple of times he liked girls.

That was probably the reason he was more interested in my butt, and I was more interested in his dick. He also had two older brothers and no sisters, so he probably saw plenty of boy parts.

We didn’t ‘show’ all the time, but occasionally.

I had a similar experience with the boy who lived across the street. Mark was my earliest friend. I have many pictures of Mark at birthday parties and at Christmas sitting around the tree. He was a little younger than me. Our parents were friends, and we spent a lot of time together when we were little. He was a skinny little boy—not unattractive, but not super cute.

One day he took me to his clubhouse, which was just a narrow strip of land between his house and the neighbors fence. It was private. He opened his pants and nervously showed me his little boy boner.

Although older, I was uncomfortable with his display and made a joke about his dick, claiming it looked like “a stick with a meatball stuck on it.” It's funny how I remember my cruel quip spoken from a place of uncertainty. I think my joke hurt him. I know he wanted to see my dick, but I never showed it to him. I don’t know why.

Although I never admitted it, I was intrigued by his display and thought about it often. I was too young to be repressed, but I was figuring out what I liked.

Over the next few years, Mark and I drifted apart. We went to different schools, and made other friends. He may have also been jealous of my friendship with Wayne

By the time we moved away from California, Mark became closer friends with my little brother.

Donny lived next door and was three years older than Wayne and I. He was probably ten or eleven at the time. Donny asked us to show him our dicks

That’s what we always called our privates back then - never cock or member or penis or wang or dong - just dick. Little kids might call it a winky or pee-pee, but never after the age of six.

We showed him ours, but he refused to show us his. Finally, on the threat of telling his mom, he pulled it out. We both remarked on how big it was. Looking back, I’m pretty sure he had an erection, and that might have been the reason he was shy about showing. Donny never suggested a repeat.

Wayne’s dad’s name was Bryce. Bryce was 6‘6“ tall, but he seemed taller to me. All three of his sons, including Wayne, grew tall during growth spurts in pubescence. The oldest son, whom I hardly knew, grew up to be 6‘10” and was a basketball star at Aragon High School.

The other thing about Bryce was his war injury. He lost an eye in World War II and wore a patch over the socket. He was scary-looking, and I was afraid of him even before the incident based on his appearance alone. Wayne was a normal-acting kid, so I suspect his dad wasn’t a tyrant; he just looked scary.

Wayne and I had a few favorite places for our explorations. One of the places was his family’s small tool shed. One summer afternoon, his family was having a barbecue in their backyard. They had a concrete slab that stretched the length of the house and about fifteen feet into the yard. On the right as I saw it from my house was the tool shed.

As I often did on summer afternoons, I hung out with Wayne and his older brother in their backyard. His brother went inside and I suggested that Wayne and I visit the tool shed for some showing. As I remember it, he was initially hesitant but eventually agreed.

While we were in the shed, his dad opened the shed door to get charcoal for the barbecue.

He grabbed Wayne and angrily yanked him out of the shed. I rushed out behind them. As I dashed to the fence separating our yards, I could hear Wayne’s dad shouting, in his deep, booming voice, “Get out of here and never come back!”

I ran for my life, stepped on the toe-hold, and launched myself over the fence and into my yard. I landed on my knees on the other side. I didn’t care. I was never so frightened or ashamed in my life.

I never spoke to Wayne again. Once, a few years later, a tall, gangly kid on the cusp of adolescence appeared on top of the fence at our old fence crossing spot. I looked at him, and he looked at me. We stayed that way for a few minutes. He didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything. We just stared at each other with questioning expressions on our faces. He lowered himself back to his side of the fence, and I never saw him again. All I have of Wayne is a few old photographs of us enjoying being boys.

I remember when the darkness lifted. It was near the beginning of fourth grade. My class had finished our outdoor lunch period or some activity in the auditorium. We were returning to class, walking single file down the outside corridor of the elementary school wing. There was no external trigger, but suddenly things were clearer. I noticed it. There weren’t any flashes or cosmic voices from above, but something had changed. From that point on, I was more interested in school and although still shy, interest in my classmates.

I often wonder why or how I returned from that dark, murky place. Perhaps my brain suddenly completed rewiring itself around fever-damaged brain cells, or there were improvements all along, and I just noticed them while walking down that corridor.

I was so far behind in every way. I didn’t have the foundation for my class work (particularly math), nor the connections with classmates that most of them developed during the three years we spent together. But I was making progress. It took two years before my classmates realized I was no longer one of the slow, quiet kids. In truth, I was still kind of quiet.

I was nine and a half years old when I attended a two-week session at Camp Salesian in Middletown, California. A few other kids from my school were attending the camp that summer, but I wasn’t particularly friendly with any of them.

My parent took several snapshots of the camp when they dropped me off. There’s a photo of my dormitory, which was probably a repurposed WWII barracks, the swimming pool, and a picture of us boys facing the American flag, probably reciting the pledge of allegiance. I look like a nervous little boy in these pictures.

I was a lonely, out-of-place kid at camp. Although the dark period was over, I was still working on catching up and gaining confidence.

I ate poorly, got sick, and ended up in the camp infirmary. That’s where it happened

I was in a bed lined up oddly in the middle of the room. I probably had stomach issues, but I don’t remember all the details about who sent me to the infirmary for treatment, how I arrived, or how I left after treatment.

I was escorted to the showers to bathe, although I’m unsure whether that was before or after my night in the infirmary.

I remember quite clearly waking up to a flashlight shining in my face sometime at night. It was a man, either one of the religious brothers or priests. I’m pretty sure I know now who it was. Several accusations of molestation were alleged, and at least one settlement was reached.

It was quiet, with no one around except other sleeping patients. Maybe I was alone. I don’t think he said anything. He inspected me below my waste with the aid of his light.

I thought receiving treatment in the dark and by this man strange. The camp nurse was a woman. He flipped me over onto my stomach, and I remember distinctly the pain of anal penetration. I don’t think it lasted very long, but I was only nine and confused about what was happening to me. And then it was over. I may have fallen asleep or passed out while it was happening.

There was no grooming and no attempt at a repeat molestation. I doubt the catholic brother (later priest) knew my name or cared who I was. I was just an easy opportunity for this man of God to rape a child non-consensually.

I don’t remember telling anyone about it at the time. This is the first time I’m relating the incident to anyone.

On my last day of camp, I met someone. I remember him as a lean, blonde, sunny-faced boy with a bright, beautiful smile. I noticed him on the first day of camp and thought, ‘How great it would be to have a friend like him.’ I was too shy to approach him.

He walked up to me as I waited for my parents in front of the camp administration office and said, “Hi.”

We hit it off right away. I learned this boy was probably as lonely and needed a friend as much as me. We only hung out for an hour until my parents showed up to take me home. I wonder if he spent time in the infirmary. I’m sure the brother would have loved to shine his flashlight on this kind, beautiful boy. I hope not. Why hadn’t we been friends that summer? Maybe I would have avoided the infirmary and the molestation.

I don’t know how it affected me going forward in my life, I don’t remember thinking about it a lot. Years later, when I learned of other boys molested at the camp, my heart raced, and I grew faint as the revelations from that night overwhelmed me.

The following summer, I opted out of returning to Camp Salesian. The previous year, I had a case of poison oak and used that as an excuse, but I’m not sure that was my real reason.

Instead, I joined the family on vacation to my mother‘s hometown in south-central Illinois. Sadly, I don’t have many photos of this vacation and the ones I have don’t capture what I was experiencing.

It was the funnest summer of my life. The kids in this small town were open and friendly, not having entered into adolescent cynicism yet. There were numerous outings with friends and family, including the Illinois State Fair, an outdoor stage show in Forest Park in St. Louis, and many local picnics and excursions. There were sleepovers, not to mention pool parties with all kinds of games, including somewhat innocent swimsuit pantsings, showers together, and what appeared to be genuine affection between us. The contrast from the summer before was an enormous boost for me and my confidence. It seemed everyone was my friend, and I wanted it to last forever.

Greg was my first classmate's crush. He was a cute little blonde boy who was serious but never mean. One week, my mom had a PTA committee meeting at our house, and I learned Greg’s mom was attending. I looked forward to spending the afternoon one-on-one with Greg. I was excited and nervous for an entire week. Greg didn’t accompany his mother, and my mom didn’t understand why I suddenly became despondent.

I wish I’d been brave enough to talk to him. We shared a classroom for six years and were in Cub Scouts together. Sometimes, we sat next to each other in class or during lunch periods. I’m sure we must have said something to each other, but I don’t remember it.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do with him, but in my dreams I was sure we’d be naked for some of it. By this time, I sort of knew what I wanted, but I was still naive. Like in many of my early flirtations, something might have come of it if I was brave enough to take a chance; probably not romance, but friendship. I later found that the boys I was attracted to were often more receptive than I thought. I was always shy around other boys, particularly if I found them attractive.

On top of that, my experience with Wayne and his dad discouraged me from trying to get to know other boys better.

The summer after sixth grade the family moved to New York. Things were different in almost every way on the east coast.