My Past

     When I had my chakra's aligned, the woman said that something had happened in my childhood that had hurt me. She said that this memory would come up loud this week. I've never thought of my childhood as anything extraordinary, and when she said this nothing in particular came to mind. 
     "I was bullied in school lots...?" I suggested. 
      "I know, but you always just ignored it. That's not what this is." 
     I honestly didn't know what she was referring to. My brother and I fought lots, and violently; sibling rivalry. My mom was divorced twice, and the first time I was quite young, the second time I was a teenager and it was much more real. But I didn't think that was what she was talking about. 
     I stewed over it for the day and wondered if it was the incident with the baby sitter. I am fully aware that it's the whole chicken before the egg. Maybe I've been thinking about it a lot because she said I would be, or maybe I've been thinking about it a lot because she was right. 

     As a young child I had two working parents, and so we had a babysitter two houses down where we would go every day after pre-school or kindergarten. She had a teenage boy who would babysit us from time to time in the evenings when my parents went out. I don't know how old I was, but I know I had to reach above my head for the door knob. I remember one night where the babysitter and my brother went into the bathroom and locked the door. I didn't know what they were doing and hated being left out. I yelled and banged on the door until finally he opened it. His pants were open and his erect cock was out. He instructed us to lick it. I remember sliding my tongue up and down his shaft. I remember when the pre-come dribbled out, I asked, "What's that?"
     "It doesn't matter. Just lick it."
     I did. I didn't know anything was wrong. It was a fun game and I was glad I got to be included. 

      I remember it like it was yesterday. 

      I said in one of my earlier posts that I've never been sexually molested, and I didn't view it as a lie. Because I wasn't hurt by this incident, I didn't feel victimized, and because I wasn't victimized, why worry about it? I also want to make clear that this wasn't a repressed memory that has surfaced as a result. It's just something in my past that just happened. 

     Further to the memory, I remember later I was sitting around the kitchen table at their house, the babysitter, the father (a narc) and I. And I was cherping away about something, as kids do, and I said, "Remember when you were babysitting us and you made us lick your dink?"
     "That didn't happen." He said flatly. 
     I was confused as to why he would deny it. It was a game! But I was smart enough to know that the mood in the room had changed. His dad looked at me, he looked at him, then back at me. I could feel the tension, and me being me, wanted to push it as far as I could.
     "What do you mean? It did happen! It was in the bathroom, and you made me and Cam lick you!"
      "It didn't happen!" He said and left the room. 
      I remember his dad staring at me, and me feeling like I've done something wrong. 

     Fast forward twenty years. Dad and I are driving down some residential street, and there they are, Mr. and Mrs. Cop. Dad, being the friendliest guy of life, pulls over and we have the standard, "Hey we used to know each other, what are you doing with your life now?" chat. I was nice and polite, but the rage was starting to boil within. As we pulled away, and dad rolled up the window I turned to him and said, 
      "What the fuck happened when we were children?" 
      "What do you mean?"
      "You know what I mean! With Marc! In the bathroom!" I knew he knew about it. He had to. I have never done well with secrets. I was so angry and emotional, five years later, I don't remember much of the conversation. I remember I yelled a lot. I remember how cornered Dad felt. Dad doesn't do well in conversations when he's cornered. He kind of just taps out. 
      "You were young, we thought you made it up." Was pretty much his defense.

       So here we are. Present day. It's never been talked about since. I've been afraid to talk to Mom about it because I think it would hurt her too much. So I've been stewing over it for a week. I feel angry. Mostly at the parents. They all knew. Nothing was done. He was still our babysitter. I don't know what I want to do. It's been 25 years. He would be close to 40 now, or older. It occurred to me I could press charges. Out of curiosity, I phoned the police, my heart in my throat, and asked them if it wasn't too late. I asked if there was a statute of limitations. There wasn't. I said there is no proof. 
      "Even with current sexual assault and rape cases there is often no proof. It often gets washed away." 
      She suggested I come in and talk to some police officers. After I hung up with her, I had a couple of sobbing gulps then tried to laugh, wondering where these emotions were coming from. I wasn't hurt. I am not a victim. 
      The thing is, if we pressed charges, it would end his life as he knows it. It would be over. What if he's married? What if he's worked his whole life to get the career he has. 
     "I don't want to make him a sex offender," I told Max.
     "He made himself a sex offender."
     What if he was just a horney teenager though? Part of me thinks that there is no age where your lack of judgement would tell you that thats ok. Yes, kids play around. They do inappropriate things at ALL ages. But when it's peer to peer, it's a different story. This was not. And the fact that the parents did NOTHING, that's what makes me the angriest. They were supposed to protect us. Parts of me wants to press charges just to fuck them. This DID happen. It was wrong. And the way you dealt with it was WRONG.  
      Going to the police would involve Cam. I don't know if Cam even remembers. He's a super laid back guy too. I can see him not understanding why I'm digging all this shit up. 
      Also, as I said, Marc's dad is a cop. I'm worried that if I go after his son, he may start digging around in my life. He has cop buddies, call the cop buddies here, find my escort license, and cat's out of the bag. 

       Cam called me today. We talk about once a month. We were shootin the shit, talking about his work, and family, and he starts ranting about something mom did. 
      "Speaking of our parents dropping the ball..." I segwayed, "Do you remember that babysitter we had."
      "Yes," He said with complete certainty as to what I was talking about. The funny thing about Cam, is he started doing drugs young, and he did a lot. He's almost 11 years sober now, and he's not even 30. Most of his childhood is a blur, and I completely didn't expect him to remember. But he remembers just as well as I do.
      "How do you feel about it?"
      "I feel nothing"
      "Yeah, me too." And so began the conversation. We've had seriously heavy conversations in the past and they went a lot along the lines of, 'That thing that happened that time, I'm sorry.' 'I'm sorry too.' Conversation over. This we talked about openly and candidly. 
       Cam remembers things that I don't. Apparently we told our parents, in the car, outside of their work, and they lost their shit. I have no memory of this. And nothing happened. Cam and I are both completely baffled as to why nothing happened. We talked about that for a while, and I told him the story about the kitchen table, and he has a matching one where he told Marc's mother about it, and she looked straight at Cam,
      "That didn't happen."
      "As a little four year old, I was so confused. It did happen, why would she say it didn't." Cam tells me. 
       I tell him that we are still able to press charges.
      "Lets do it!" He says with out skipping a beat. 
       We talk about the potential repercussions it would have on his life, and Cam doesn't care. I ask him about his drug use. It's something we've never talked about in detail. 
      "They say, there's often one incident that happens in childhood that can set you down a path. Is that a cliche?" I ask him, "Do you think that's what happened to you? Do you have an incident?" 
      "No, I don't know, but I was a fucked up kid. Do you remember? Do you remember how I was suspended off the bus for showing kids my penis?"
      "No, I remember you were always in trouble, but I don't remember that!"
      "I would run around on the playground, and kids would shout here comes the pervert! I didn't even know it was wrong."
     "Do you think that that was the cause though? It was something that happened just the one time, how could it affect us like that?" 
      "You ever listen to Dr. Drew?" He asks me, "It's a stupid show, but I was listening to it a while back, and there was this guy who was telling this story about how he was confused, and Dr. Drew asks him if he's been sexually abused. Dr. Drew can just pick them out. It's not victimization, it's psychology." 
     "I'm just worried that if we start messing around in his life, they'll start digging in mine. I know you know a little about my life, but theres a lot of shit I don't want our parents to know about."
     "Listen. I don't know what you've going on, but ever think it might be because of this?"
      No. I never did. I seriously never did. Cam wanted some time to think about this, about what he wanted to do. He said he will call me back on Sunday. 

~~~~~~
I wrote the above on November 4th. It is now November 14. A lot has happened. 
~~~~~~

      After hung up with my brother I phoned the non-emergency police line and left a message with their sexual assault department. I didn't expect to hear back from them until Monday. I spent some time with Mom on Saturday and we were in the car. There was a story on the radio about a child being sexually abused, and the subsequent cover up. We started talking about it.  She asked if I've ever been sexually abused. I said yes. She asked if it was bad. How could she not know? 
     "I don't know, define bad, Mom."
     She didn't know what to say. 
     "I wasn't hurt." I clarified for her. 
     I didn't expand. I felt like I should wait until Cam was involved before I discussed it with her. I was angry though. How could she ask me that. And why wasn't she asking more question now? I felt like it was going to come up like word vomit. She had already changed the subject to something similar, and I didn't want to hear it. 
      "Mom, Cam and I were talking and we're thinking of pressing charges against Marc Johnson."
     She knew what I was talking about now. My mom isn't in the greatest place right now, emotionally. She's under a lot of stress in pretty much every aspect of her life, and I felt really bad about bringing this up. In addition to that, I also felt I should have waited until Cam and I had the opportunity to talk to Mom together. I regret saying anything now, but at the time, I felt like the door was open. If I didn't walk through then, I wouldn't later. There never is a good time to talk about this shit. 
     Although it is a total lie, I wanted to stress to Mom that I wasn't angry with her for how she dealt with things. At this point it's done, and there's no sense making her feel worse about everything. I told her about the different options Cam and I discussed, and where we're both at with things. I also just really wanted answers as to what happened. 
     She didn't remember the story Cam told about us telling them in the car. She does know that we told her, but does not remember specifically how or when. She said that we never specified exactly what happened. She said that we told her that he made us touch his private parts. 
     "Either the same day, or the next day I sat Marc and his dad down at the kitchen table and confronted him," She told me. She believed us. She said that one kid may lie, but not both. "But he denied it. He denied it to the bitter end, and Dave said, 'If my kid says he didn't do it, he didn't do it.' And I told Marc, 'Your dad may believe you now, but a seed has been planted. You will never get away with this again.'" 
       I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. How could she have left it at that. I don't know. I just don't know. She did say that he never did babysit us again.
     "Yeah, but we were left unsupervised with him after that. I don't understand."
     "Susan did look after you, but I saw that as different. I thought you'd be safe with her." Apparently Mom saw her as some sort of domestic Goddess. 
      "And where was Dad in all this?" 
      "We were just divorced. I think he expected that I just handled it."

     Mom said she would support whatever decision I made, but she really stressed forgiveness. She stressed it to the point where I felt like she was saying I should just forgive and move on. Maybe that's just my perception. 
     There is truth behind the fact that, no matter what happens to him, I will still be me with the problems that I had before. I agree with that. However, I do believe there should be consequences for his actions. 

     Sunday came, and I spoke with Cam. Because of Cam's affiliation with AA, he has a great network of people who can help him, and he was put in contact with an individual who received a settlement from the First Nations Residential Schools lawsuit. He echoed the same thing Mom said, in that fucking up Marc's life will not make mine better. 
     "Perhaps you should just write him a discrete letter," Cam suggested.
     "A discrete letter? What happened to 'Lets do it!'?" 
     "Well, that's a little extreme, don't you think? I just don't think it will help anything." 
     Is this the same guy I talked to two days prior? "Cam, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know it's not going to be discrete! He was allowed to hide before. I don't want him to be able to hide any more. That's the whole point of doing anything. A discrete letter?! Saying what? 'You hurt me?' That would only give him more power. So you're not doing anything now?" 
     "No, this is your thing. It doesn't bother me." 
     Must have been one hell of a conversation he had with that guy. I kind of felt like we were boating down the rapids together and he just jumped ship. 

     When I talked to Dad, it was like talking to him for the first time about it. He didn't remember running into his parents as in the car not so long ago. He was aghast though. He couldn't believe that he brushed it off. 
     "You should have hit me over the head!"
     "Dad, I was yelling at you! Then you just ended the conversation." I exclaimed. Dad and I are best friends. We don't pull any punches. 
      He remembers that the incident happened, but remembers nothing more of it. He can't believe that he did nothing about it. He's as baffled as I am. To say he feels awful is a gross understatement. He told me he was sorry. He was almost crying. I told him that I was angry about it, but I'm not holding a grudge. I just don't understand how all of the parents could let us down like that. Through talking to him, I realised one of the most important outcomes of this for me will be that his parents admit that they knew it happened.

      By Tuesday, I hadn't heard back from the police, so I decided to call them again. I spoke to the dispatch lady, and she told me that she would be the person I should talk to. She told me that when I was ready, I was to call her back and she would send squad car to my house to take my statement. 
    "What?" This wasn't how I thought it would happen at all. I thought I would go down, and sit in an office and give a statement there. I don't know why I was really uncomfortable with this, "You mean the police would come to my house? I'm not sure if I want to press charges though." 
     "That's ok, they'll just take your statement. If you'd rather, you can do it at a friends house, or somewhere you feel safe."
     "No, I just thought I'd be coming to you."
     "Well, you can make an appointment to come down, and then we'll have a Police Officer meet you there."
     "No, that's just silly." I was struggling to deal with this new idea. The whole thing sat really uneasily with me. Ok, I just need to wrap my brain around this new idea. 
     You may be wondering why I chose to call the police if I hadn't decided whether or not to press charges. A few years ago, I was in a situation where I believed something very bad was going to happen. I knew I was in over my head, and I needed help. I phoned the crisis help line, and they questioned why I was even in that situation. I questioned their training. I needed to know what to do now, I didn't need to be judged. Not knowing what else to do I phoned the non-emergency number, and the man on the phone told me what to do and how to handle the situation. It helped. 
     I called the police this time because this is what they do. They know more about this situation than I do. They will be able to help me or give me guidance. However, I didn't want them parking their car outside my apartment. I didn't want them sitting on my couches. I didn't want to bring this into my home. So I did nothing. I've been looking after Grandma over the weekend, so everything has been on pause.

      Today, I called a sexual assault hotline, and I have an appointment with them in a couple weeks to discuss my options. That is what I want. I want to know what roads I can take, and what consequences they will have. I also have an appointment for therapy in three months through them. I'm happy about that. I can wait three months. 

    I've had a life time plus two weeks to think about it. I don't think I want to press charges. As I said, what I want most is for his parents to admit that they knew. I don't want them to deny it any more, and I want him to live with the shame of that. But there's the nagging thought of what if we weren't the only ones? What if it wasn't a stupid horney teenage boy thing? What if he actually is a sexual predator? My gut says he isn't. But I don't know. How would you know? 

      I found him on facebook. He lives here now. I couldn't fucking believe it when I saw that. I'm an impulsive person, and my impulse was to add him. To talk to him, to say, 'Hey, remember me? Remember me, you fucking asshole' Would he? I didn't do it. This isn't a game. This isn't something to fuck around with for the sake of drama. He looks like he's just a dude though. Hasn't really done any thing with his life. He went to Greece. No apparent wife or kids. I expected more.