Childhood naivety is a curse
All names changed for…some reason.
A slew of strange and depressing things have occurred in the past couple weeks, but this is by far the most unsettling, nauseating, traumatizing, and FUCKED UP thing.
My mother’s best friend for her entire life was Jenny, until Jenny died about 8 years ago from heart failure related to diabetes. Jenny had a brother, Jake, that used to watch JJ and I whenever mom was at work. Most of the time, he babysat us at his and Jenny’s parent’s house (who were usually also working). Their parents are wonderful people who have been a huge part of my life since I first came to New York. We went swimming, played games, watched movies, and listened to music while we waited for my mom’s shift to get done. He was about 20 at the time, very attractive and smart. The nicest person you could hope to encounter. And after he finished college a couple years ago, he began serving the Peace Corps for two years in the Ukraine, teaching teenagers how to speak English.
His two year stint ended two weeks ago. Upon returning to the United States, he was arrested. Security at the airport was checking the computers and laptops of anyone going through (I’m not really sure why, though…is this a new safety measure?). Security found a massive amount of child pornography on his laptop, some of which they suspect may have been made by him.
Jenny’s mother, Abby, called my mother to tell her what happened, completely in tears. His parents are absolutely devastated. Mom asked me today if when I was being babysat by him, did he ever do anything strange? I said, No…do you mean drugs, because I never saw him do any drugs? Mom said, No, did he ever touch you?
I got pretty quickly what might be going on, and I told her that he held me a lot when we were swimming, he’d hug me, and I would sit on his lap when we’d watch movies. My first instinct was to defend him, because I really loved that guy. He was a GOOD GUY. I told her that those were all things that everybody in the family did to me at some point and it was completely innocent. I hug everybody all the time now!
Mom seemed to be very upset by what I told her, though. She told me about the arrest, and seriously…my heart dropped into my stomach. I actually had to stop the car and pull over.
In my mind, it seems utterly impossible. I couldn’t grasp it. He was so nice! He was in the goddamn Peace Corps! He babysat me for THREE YEARS! They must have done something wrong, it was NOT him, was it really his laptop? There’s been a fucking mistake!
No mistake, Mom said.
Jesus fucking Christ. What is wrong with people?
That man in Austria who imprisoned his daughter and raped her for 25 years, fathering her 7 CHILDREN. That douchebag who beat the fuck out of his girlfriend and people don’t care that he isn’t showing ANY REMORSE. Men who get off looking at pictures of naked children?
It’s absolutely mind-blowing how someone can be completely different than they appear. I loved the fuck out of Chris Brown before the Rihanna incident. I listened to his music all the damn time. I was hoping that he’d understand what he did was despicable and he’d try to amend his ways. But days later, jet-skiing and flexing your muscles? After you almost killed a woman? Seriously?
This is nauseating to me. Lord knows that I have my share of kinks and fetishes, but none of them involve hurting someone, taking advantage of someone, abusing someone who can‘t defend themselves. How can something like that be sexually stimulating? The idea of something so innocent and naive taken advantage of seriously makes me want to kill people. There’s no debate here. It’s just NOT RIGHT. It’s WRONG.
All those fun days in the summer that I spent with him, all of those happy, warm memories, are completely tainted. Now that I look back at it, my skin crawls. I would always be in his arms, on his lap, sitting between his legs. I feel violated.
I fucking HATE him. I hope he’ll be in prison for the rest of his life. Thank GOD that Jenny isn’t alive to see this. She spent her entire life keeping children safe from abusers and predators like him, and if she knew that her own brother was guilty of this…she would have died of a broken heart.
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