When they see Garvey’s car round the corner from Ash Street onto 27th I imagine that I can hear them: "Here he comes. Heeere hee cooomes." They are all standing in front of the 27th Street doors to St. Johns. Huddled outside, waiting for basketball practice. Waiting for Garvey. When he arrives, late as usual, I am with him, sitting in the passenger seat of his gold Ford Torino. Through the car window I look at the faces of my teammates and the alums that have come to play against us. As we get out of the car, their eyes are on me. I feel every thought, question, side-long glance, and innuendo, racing through their minds and fired out of their eyes. Every comment muttered under their breath. They have no idea how petty and insignificant their jealousies and machinations are. Or the price I pay for my proximity to the king.
As is customary, as we walk up to the front steps, the the sea parts, and Garvey pulls out his keys. He makes a jocular comment or two directed at one or another of those assembled, and as he does so, unlocks the doors to the school and lets us all inside. Garvey makes no attempt to explain my accompanying him to practice this day, or any other day. There is no sign of the intimacy of the activities of just an hour or so ago. He leaves me to my own devices to fend off their stares. I keep my head down and try to avoid eye contact. The scrutiny I feel at this moment is blistering. Noone says anything to me and I don't say anything to any of them. What would I say to them? "I just had treatment. And you know how I always seem to play my best right after treatment. Nothing like a little hip-unlocking, knee-massaging, sinus-draining, strength-building, flexibility-enhancing bedroom session of treatment to bring out the best in my game." Garvey said I played better after treatment. I assumed that I did.
Once or twice I made the mistake of answering a barbed question from one of my teammates by telling him that Garvey was working on my knees or draining my sinuses. When this got around to the rest of the team, older players, or other hangers-on (one in particular), the comments started. The verbal arrows that I was "Garvey’s pet". I was aware of the glances, the nods, the looks; heard the murmurs and the taunts. This one particularly annoying ass would bait me: "You stink anyhow, even if you are Garvey’s pet. So-and-so’s better than you anyway." Kid stuff, but I was a kid. Nevermind that this jerk would never be good enough to play. It still hurt. Wrapped in my secret, I was defenseless. I was literally Garvey's "pet".
Should I tell them Garvey was a family friend? That he came to dinner at our house? That he attended family celebrations like birthdays and graduations? That he gave me a Timex watch with a gold-rimmed face and a black leather band? That for my First Holy Communion he gave me $50.00, far more money than I ever could have imagined? Should I tell them about the clothes? Going to Isaac Baker’s mens’ store? The books and shopping at the The Erie Bookstore? (I remember the titles to this day.) How about the milkshakes and pretzels at Fred’s on 27th and Parade Streets? The roast beef sandwiches at Arby’s? Burgers at McDonald’s? The time he let me sit on his lap and steer his car while he worked the pedals? Or when he was giving me a ride home and we stopped to pick up his "date"? (This was a Mercyhurst woman who it seems, in hindsight, was merely a useful Garvey feint at normalcy, knowingly or not, enabling Garvey to disguise his pedophile activities. And this same woman penned a letter, defending Garvey, to the editor of The Erie Daily Times-News days after the accusations hit the paper.)
Of course I shouldn’t say anything. Or more accurately, couldn't say anything. Not and survive in that environment. And Garvey knew I couldn’t. He had the skills of a practiced hunter and a predator. I was neither the first nor the last, but I didn’t know it at the time. I thought this was just "treatment". But Garvey knew. He knew the value of stalking his prey, luring it in, and isolating it from the herd. Well, he certainly had ingratiated himself into my world, successfully lured me in, and isolated me from my friends and family. While I seemingly reaped the benefits, I certainly was paying the price. As I have said before, I was easy prey.
A serial pedophile’s mastery is in negotiating, manipulating, your silence. Your compliance. Garvey cannot continue to abuse without the help of his victims. He needs and operates under the shroud of silence of his victims. Silenced by Garvey's authority, our own confusion, and the taunts of peer pressure when we are young. And now that we are older, silenced with an added measure of humiliation and embarrassment that we were somehow duped, complicit in our own abuse because we were too trusting and naïve to know better. I have said this before: Garvey has shamed us to silence and shamed us into keeping his dastardly secret. Our continued silence only serves his interests and puts others at risk. Pedophiles are predators. They hunt, feast, and move on. Move on to whom? Some other intimidated young boy. Here he comes.
predafile@hotmail.com
