Some of you when reading the last chapter, may have thought that I was being a bit unsympathetic to Scott's recent loss of his mother who he said died in an accident a few months earlier.
In addition, I described Scott as being charismatic, and confident; the exact opposite characteristics a pedophile would target to lure, and some of you may have thought this unlikely since he was probably morning the loss of his mother.
I just want to set the record straight. Scott lied to me. His mother wasn't killed in a car accident. His mother wasn't killed in any kind of an accident what-so-ever.
In fact, his mother wasn't dead. Scott just lied to me. Scott lied to me about other things too.
I don't know why Scott told me his mother had recently died. I don't know where his mother was at the time.
All I can tell you is that Scott told me she was dead, and I never saw her at the house (not that I was there 24/7 or anything) or coming to visit, etc...
Scott never talked about his mother except to tell me that she died tragically, which wasn't even true.
I don't even think that at this point I had even met Scott's dad. He was never home.
I know that Scott's mom and dad got a divorce around this period of time, and that probably explains her absence.
Usually when a man and wife get a divorce, and this was especially true back then in 1974, that almost always full custody of the child went to the mother.
Why Scott's father ended up apparently with full custody of Scott at the time, I have no idea. Especially since he apparently worked a lot and wasn't home most of the time, and was unable or unwilling to provide child care for Scott that I am aware of.
There are circumstances where that could happen, like for example the mother didn't want full custody of the child, or refused custody of the child; and it could also happen under special circumstances but I am not going to speculate about this.
I don't know where his mom was at the time; maybe she wasn't even in the same state; maybe she moved away. Maybe she lived around the block. I don't know and I'm not going to speculate.
Just suffice it to say that Scott told me she was dead. I in turn told my parent's that Scott's mom was dead, and that story was never told to me to be untrue until many many years later.
I have attempted recently to contact Scott's mother, but she apparently refuses to talk to me as well.
I don't know why, but she won't, so that leaves me having to form what ever conclusions I form.
I wish I knew more about that, but, they won't talk to me. What can I say.
But, enough commentary, on with the story.
. . .
After the recreation center thing which was just after my tenth birthday and just after Tricky Dicky officially resigned himself from office, Scott suggested that I spend the night at his house.
I had never spent the night at a friend's house before. I had spent the night away from home a few times, and in each case I have very detailed memories of what happened.
I spent a couple of days in the hospital to have my tonsils removed when I was about seven, and have detailed memories of when I was there away from home.
I spent a few days in Los Angeles Children's Hospital when I was eight years old, undergoing surgery, and I also have very detailed memories of that time when I spent the nights away from home.
This was the first time that I actually spent the night at a friend's house and I was quite a bit older now even than the other two times I spent the night away from home, mentioned above.
The night, as best I can recollect, was a Saturday night, August 17th 1974, less than a week after my tenth birthday.
Like I said earlier, I don't even think I had, up to this point, ever even had met Scott's dad at all, like I said, he was never home.
As a matter of fact, up until this night, I don't even ever remember being inside Scott's house at all. We were always up there on the loft in his garage.
I suppose, spending hours in his garage, we would at some point have to go pee or something, and I assume, Scott would let me inside the house to do that-- but I actually don't remember ever being inside his house, until the night of the sleepover.
And ironically, I don't even remember being in his house that night, except for just the first few minutes.
Let me explain.
My dad drove me to Scott's house, and he parked the car on the street directly in front of their house.
My dad drove The Mercury; a dark green 1972 Mercury Montego. If you remember the commercials for the car, supposedly it had such a smooth ride you could play a record on the passenger seat while you drove it, even going over bumps and dips and speed-bumps without the needle on the record ever skipping a groove.
I always called it my mom's car, because she was the one who usually drove it. My dad, at that time, rode a motorcycle; a gold 175 Yamaha Enduro, back and forth to work, and he also drove a red Triumph TR-4.
However, on that night he took me to Scott's house in the Montego. We pulled up in front of his house just a little after eight o'clock.
I think this was actually the first time I ever saw Scott's dad. When my dad knocked on the door, Scott answered, and then went to go get his dad from his bedroom because I am certain that at this point neither my mother or my father had ever met Scott's dad or had even talked to him.
My dad wanted to meet Scott's dad, and Scott's dad came to the door and they talked for several minutes while Scott and I sat in the living room which was the first time I ever even remember being inside of his house.
This was thirty five years ago, but I think, Scott's dad was a rather large fellow. I am not saying he was fat-- but he was big. he was a big guy, broad shoulders, he seemed strong.
I think he was balding, and so its hard to remember what color hair he had but I think he had a goatee that was like brown in color.
After my dad and Scott's dad were done introducing themselves to each other, my dad headed back to the car and Scott's dad went back inside his room.
I remember wondering at the time if Scott's dad drank. Because my Aunt used to drink; she was an alcoholic, and I remember that when I would go visit her and she was drinking, she pretty much just stayed in her room.
This kind of reminded me of that. Scott's dad just being in his room, coming out to talk to my dad and then returning back to his room.
My parents only spent time in their bedroom when they were sleeping. During the evening time they watched TV and stuff in the living room.
I'm not saying that Scott's dad drank it's just that I suspected it at the time.
Scott stood by the front door just inside the house peeking through the slightly opened door. Why, I wasn't sure, but I found out.
I was standing right behind him wondering what he was doing. I found out. He was watching my dad get in his car and drive away because as soon as my dad drove away Scott closed the door and turned around to look at me.
"You're dad's gone," he said.
"So?" I asked.
"So, what do you want to do?" Scott asked me.
"I don't know, what do you want to do?" I responded.
"Come on," Scott said opening the front door, "follow me."
"Why, where are we going? What do you want to do?" I asked.
"You'll find out, just follow me," he said and then he was out the door.
I followed Scott outside. I followed him across the street where Scott climbed the fence to get inside the school campus.
I climbed up the fence and over after him but was still questioning him what it is he wanted to do.
"You'll find out. Come over here," Scott said to me.
Scott had stepped into a little alcove to the boy's room on that side of the campus.
I entered into the alcove with him.
"OK, now what?" I asked.
"Take off all your clothes," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"Take off all your clothes," he said to me again.
"Why?" I asked.
"Just do it." he said.
I thought he was just kidding, but I watched in astonishment as he removed his shirt and started taking off his pants.
"You're just kidding right?" I asked again.
Scott took off his pants and stood up and looked at me and said, "What do you think?"
I stripped down to my underwear, because I was also watching Scott, and that is what he did.
When I got down to just my white briefs and white socks, I looked at Scott and asked kind of sheepishly, "Underwear and socks too?"
I watched Scott pull of his underwear so he was just standing there naked except for his socks. Then he said to me, "You can keep your socks on."
I put my fingers in the elastic of my underwear prepared to pull them down, but I really didn't want to do this. This was weird and besides I was pretty damn modest at this age.
I looked at Scott standing there looking impatient, which is kind of hard to do when your naked, but he did a good job of it and I said, "I don't want to do this. Why are you doing this?"
"We're gona streak," he said.
I just stood there and stared at him afraid to pull my under shorts down. "But I don't want to streak," I said.
"Just do it!" he said.
"But what if I don't," I asked.
"Then you can go home," he said.
I frowned, but reluctantly pulled my underwear down, so that I was naked too.
Scott said, "We're just going to run to the boys' room on the other side of the lunch area, turn around and come right back, OK? Just relax," he said.
I nodded. I just wanted to get this over with. I had no idea why Scott wanted to do this.
"Ready?" Scott said.
I nodded, reluctantly.
Scott darted out of the alcove and took off in a run in the direction towards the bath room's on the North side of the campus. I followed right behind him. Both of us leaving our clothes in two separate piles in the little alcove.
Scott got to the bathroom's on the North side, tagged the bathroom door and thank God, didn't stop to rest. We were both completely naked. I just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible so I could get my clothes back on.
By this time it was dark. It was still just dusk when my dad first drooped me off.
After Scott touched the door to the North side Boys' Room, he turned around and immediately started running back the way we had come.
I quickly tagged the bathroom door and then also changed directions so once again I was running directly behind Scott.
We quickly returned to the alcove where are clothes were, and Scott immediately started getting dressed again, and I didn't have to ask permission, I just wanted to get my clothes back on as fast as possible.
It wasn't because I was cold. It was a warm August evening in Southern California. It was because I was terrified that someone would see me naked.
I had put most of my clothes on. I started with my pants first, and then just after pulling my shirt back on over my head, Scott stuck his head out of the alcove and looked in the direction of his house.
Suddenly he pointed with his index finger in the direction of his house which was in direct line-of-site if you stepped right in front of the alcove.
"Oh my God!" Scott exclaimed, "Isn't that your dad's car?"
I was scared crapless. I stuck my head out of the alcove and looked towards Scott's house. And there parked in front of Scott's house was a car, where none had been when Scott and I started our trek across the street.
And at first I DID think it was my dad's car, and I exclaimed, "Oh crap! It IS my dad!"
Scott started laughing hysterically at this point and at first I didn't get the joke but finally I did.
I looked more closely at the car, and although it was a car that looked very similar to the Montego, I could see now that it wasn't my dad's car. It was a similar looking car, but it wasn't his car.
Scott must have known that. Scott must have known that this car looked very much like my dad's car, and that's why he made the joke because he was pretty sure when I looked I would think it WAS my dad's car.
I don't really remember after all these years how it was parked. If it was parked normally I would have been looking at the front of the car, and if it was parked backwards, I would have been looking at the back end of it.
At any rate, there were only two cars at that time, that I was aware of that were similar enough in style that I could have momentarily mistaken one of them for the Montego, especially at night when it would be hard to see what color it was.
I know, because after my parent's got the Montego, I had noticed time and time again these two other types of cars that looked very similar too the montego, especially from the front or the back.
One of them was the Mercury Cougar, and the other car that could have fooled me that way was the Ford Gran Torino.
The reason that I bring this up is because I have good reason to believe that whoever that car belonged to, belonged to someone Scott knew.
We finished tying our shoes, and we we're about to head back to the house.
We had only been gone I would estimate, less than ten minutes. It only took us about a minute or two to walk across the street, let's say two minutes, another minute for both of us to hop the fence, that makes three minutes, another three minutes for us to get undressed with my disinclination, that makes six minutes, less than a minute to do our "streak", so let's say seven minutes, and then we were both dressed again and headed back to the house in no more than another three minutes.
That makes ten minutes, tops, since we left the front door.
And that's the last thing I remembered.
I remembered nothing else that happened that night after that exact moment.
I had just finished tying my shoes and we were about to head back to Scott's house, and that is apparently when I had yet another black out.
I remembered nothing else that happened that night. I was unable to remember anything else that took place inside the house. nothing, nothing at all. I mean nothing.
It was as if Scott snuck up behind me while I was stooped over typing my shoes, and having distracted my attention to the car accross the street hit me over the head with a wrench or something.
I'm not saying that's what Scott did, but it almost seems that way.
The next day, I found myself laying in Scott's bed, but I don't think I had been sleeping. I just "came to", very similar to how I came to in the bath tub.
Over the years I have had several PTSD flashbacks as to some of the things that happened that night, but at the time; the next day I remembered nothing.
Nothing at all.
-- Edited by The Phantom on Tuesday 6th of July 2010 02:16:33 PM
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"Sometimes when you open your mind to the impossible, you discover the truth." Walter from Fringe.
