The Story of a Child Abduction

THE BACK SEAT

Ruminating on 'gay' experiences from my youth in the previous posting about Spanish model River Viiperi, I was reminded of another incident from early childhood, one which could have had tragic consequences, except for a strange, providential twist of fate. As a boy of eight, I  was almost abducted off the streets of San Francisco, a fact I kept to myself for over fifty years. I never told my parents, and semi-repressed the memory for most of my adult life. It was never completely forgotten, simply placed in the nether regions of memory until the time I could face its full implications. It is as if the unconscious protects us from the full horror of certain incidents. I can now understand the 'concept' of repressed memory in cases of child abuse, however true it might be that the concept is abused. 

Claire Lilienthal Elementary School

During my early grammar school days, I attended the Jean Parker Elementary  School in Cow Hollow, the Marina District in San Francisco. The school long ago changed directorship and is now part of the very progressive Claire Lilienthal Elementary Schools in SF. My mother was a math and gym teacher at the time at Marina Junior High School on Chestnut Street, some seven blocks away. It was my custom when school let out to walk the seven blocks to my mother's school, where I would cheerfully walk into her classroom and wait for her to finish, so we could ride the bus back to our apartment on Pacific Avenue. At the time, San Francisco was busing students from poorer neighborhoods to more upscale schools, and Marina Junior High had a high percentage of black kids from Mission or Potrero Districts. My mother had great sympathy for these underprivileged kids, but had to work hard to gain their confidence and trust, let alone motivate them to learn. I was always fascinated by the social interactions in her classes, as I would wait in the back, where I would be greeted with sly winks and smiles from her students. However, that is another story from the one I wish to reflect on today.

Marina Middle School

One hot June day near the close of term, I was walking from school along busy Chestnut Street with its array of shops and restaurants.  I was wearing shorts and a white t shirt and sandals, and skipping along happily, contemplating the summer just around the corner, when my family would go on trips to Ray's Resort on the Russian River and Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. Thanks to my dear and loving aunts, Helen and Dorothy, who kept constantly gushing about my good looks and pinching my cheeks, I knew I was an appealing child. My father was extremely (and wisely) annoyed by all of this attention, but it gave me a bouncy confidence in myself and contributed to a chattery friendliness. I talked to everybody, talked and talked and talked, cheerily, with big smiles and giggles. My parents had warned me numerous times not to talk to strangers, but it was difficult to repress this innate friendliness. 

As I approached the corner of Chestnut Street and Fillmore, with my mother's school just across the wide boulevard, I noticed a scruffy man leaning against a long black limousine parked against the curb. As I came close, he stood up and came towards me and said, "Where're you going, kid?" Did he really say this, or am I creatively embellishing past memories. No, I can confidently say - after some 60 years - these were his exact words. And with that prompting, my innate talkativeness kicked into high gear. I immediately began babbling, "Oh, I'm going across the street to see my mother. She teaches at Marina High. She teaches math and gym. And one day I went in the girls showers to see her, and the girls were taking showers two by two in these stalls with curtains, and one time I saw their titties and they screamed and laughed." Did I actually say that? Yes, that is what bubbled out of me almost word for word some sixty years ago to a complete stranger on the streets of San Francisco - within minutes of safety just across the street.

So the man then said, "Well, would you like a ride across the street in my big car?" And he opened the door to the back seat. I remember being so impressed by the size and luxury of the vehicle, and intensely curious. Had I ever ridden in a car before? I know my family didn't have one until some years later. This was just too much of a fascinating opportunity to pass up. And so I said, with great friendliness and gratitude, "Oh, thank you," and climbed right in. I remember clearly thinking, "gee, it's only just across the street. How nice of him. Isn't that a lot of trouble for nothing." What trust and naivete.

Chestnut Street today at almost the exact location where I encountered the man with the limousine. 

Once inside the car, I immediately began bouncing on the big black leather back seat, bouncing up and down up and down. I saw the man come around the back of the car and I could see him looking around with his hand on the toothpick. That is the precise moment when I came to my senses, and realized this was probably not a good idea. I could see the man was scruffy looking, with several days growth of beard, he seemed nervous and his eyes were darting back and forth along Chestnut Street. But I realized I was 'trapped' at this point, much too timid to try to get out the car. And I was still bouncing, more from nerves now than from everything.

The man got into the car and sat down heavily with a sigh. I was bouncing in the back seat and just at that moment I cut a little fart. Pop! I was terribly embarrassed. The man looked around over his shoulder, sighed, and said rather gruffly. "I can't take you today, kid. I'm sorry." I was so shocked, and even a little hurt, despite the reservations of the previous moment. Had he been offended by my fart, had I talked too much, had I said something to offend him? When I sat there dumbfounded, he shouted at me, "Beat it, kid, I'm busy." Some sixty years later and I have no doubt this was the exact conversation. I scrambled out of the car immediately, confused, hurt and  embarrassed. I should have been relieved. Instead, I wondered what I had done wrong? At just that moment, the street light turned green at Fillmore and Chestnut and I skipped across, determined to run up to my mother and tell her all about it. I pushed open the big glass doors of the school and scampered up the stairs, full of excitement and nervous anxiety about this strange encounter moments before. But as I got closer to the second floor, I began slowing down until I was barely moving at all. I realized my mother would be furious with me for having not only talked to a stranger, but even gotten into his car! I would be punished for weeks. It was one of my worst faults, babbling to everybody I met about this and that with an irrepressible friendliness. And so I walked slowly down the corridor to her classroom, entered and sat down and waited for her class to end so we could take our bus ride home. I never said a word to her. Not then, not ever. And I never told a soul for over fifty years.

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I was going to include within the posting a spiritual comment to this effect, that I was 'saved' in the last moment only by the grace of Providence, since I don't believe this was purely accidental. I have no doubt that if the man had succeeded in driving me off in his car, I would have been gone forever, vanished without a trace. But what about all of the other victims of abuse and abductions who were not so lucky? What about them? Was the mercy of a loving Universe not watching over them? Very difficult questions to face and answer. I only know that I feel so blessed and protected by a gracious, loving Providence that in its own mysterious way carries all victims in its loving, wounded heart, the Heart of Divine Compassion. 

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ALMOST ABDUCTED

Ruminating over the sex abuse scandal in the Church today, I was reminded of a disturbing incident from my own childhood, which I didn't fully appreciate at the time, but which has taken on increasing significance with the passing years. My mother, Mary Jane Cameron, was a math and PE teacher at Marina Junior High School in San Francisco, at the corner of Chestnut and Fillmore Streets. and most of her students were blacks and Hispanics who had been bused in from the poor districts and projects of the city to this exclusive Marina neighborhood school for the very rich, a situation I never fully understood.  I can remember walking down the hallway to my mother's classroom and hearing her shouting authoritatively at her students, something I never heard her do at home,  and once I even witnessed her slap a boy in the face, which was truly shocking. It was a tough school and a very tough job and my mother hated it, because it required her to be so strict in order to be kind. The year would have been 1953, I was nine years old and attended the distinguished Madison Grammar School, which has since been changed to the Claire Lilienthal Elementary School.

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These pictures bring back such memories of those years and I can still see myself being carried kicking and screaming down the hallway in the enormous arms of the gigantic Mrs. Mary O'Leary, our first grade teacher, because I was having a wild tantrum (the drama queen in the making). Mrs. O'Leary, because of her large bulk, always wore smocks that concealed the bumpy  outlines of her body. In the fourth grade, I was allowed to walk on my own the seven blocks from the Madison School on the corner of Divisadero and North Point Street to Chestnut and Fillmore streets, where I would skip up the stairs of Marina Junior High and enter my mother's classroom to wait for her school day to be over and the bus ride to our apartment in Pacific Heights, overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

 

On one bright, warm, sunny spring day, I was skipping down Chestnut street and had almost come to the corner of Fillmore, when a strange man stopped me and said, "Where are you going, sonny?" At that age, I was a very chatty, friendly child and would talk to anyone anytime anywhere, though I had been warned, and very severely at that, not to talk to strangers. Because the incident registered in my young mind at the time I have little difficulty remembering what I said to him. "Oh, I'm going across the street to meet my mother, she's a math teacher at Marina Junior High, and she also teaches PE and one time I went into the girls' locker rooms and I saw them in the showers together and once I saw a girl's titties." Babble, babble. The man laughed and then said, "Would you like a ride across the street?" and opened the door of a very large black limousine parked by the curb. I was delighted by the suggestion, and said cheerfully, "Oh, thank you very much," and jumped inside and began immediately bouncing up and down on the wide back seat. I had never been in such a large car before and this felt like such an exciting adventure. It never occurred to me until much later to notice that the car was facing in the wrong direction! The man walked around behind the car and came to the driver's door. He stopped and seemed nervous somehow, as I clearly remember it, because I got a good look at him at that moment. Very close cropped hair, almost balding, on a round head with a series of bumps in the back, stubble on the chin, not very tall, and chewing a tooth pick. After some moments of hesitation, in which he seemed to be looking at something behind the car, he opened the driver's door, leaned in and said, "Sorry, kid, I can't take you today." I was so disappointed that I just sat there with my mouth in a round little 'O.' Had I done something to offend him, I wondered, had I farted when I was bouncing up and down on the seat? Before I could figure the situation out, the man barked at me, "Beat it, kid, I'm busy." I scrambled out of the car, somewhat frightened, confused, and offended. What was that all about, I wondered, and I ran across Fillmore Street, into the swinging front doors of Marina Junior High School and up the stairs to my mother's classroom, determined to tell her all about it. However, by the time I got up onto her floor I had one of those 'uh oh' moments. My mother had always admonished me very severely for being so friendly to people on the streets and warned me time and again about the dangers of taking candy from strangers, getting into their cars, talking to them in parks. She had always advised me to "walk away" very quickly and if anyone attempted to 'interfere 'with me in any way, I was to shout out, "Police" at the top of my lungs. And so for prudence' sake, I decided to keep this little incident to myself. It would only be many years later that I would fully appreciate what a close call I had had that day, and had it not been for a fortuitous circumstance (someone staring at the man from behind the car?), I might never have seen my mother again.

My mother wasn't the only one to so admonish me. I remember an incident with my next door neighbors, Mary and Anne Murray, who had been accosted by a flasher in the park. I was in their living room when the girls told this story to their mother, and she asked very severely, "What did you do?" Anne, the oldest, said, "Oh, we just stood there and giggled." Mrs. Murray grabbed her daughter by the arm and shook her and shook her, yelling, "Don't you realize how dangerous that could have been. Don't you ever do that again. You run, you scream, you yell for the police, do you understand me? Do you understand me?" Repeated for emphasis and shouted at all three of us children. Both girls were almost in tears and I was stunned by the vehemence of the outburst, but it impressed on all of us children the fact that there were evil men out there in the world preying on young children, desiring to do nasty things to them, and we must always run and always yell for the police.

That was 1953, and the present day apologists for the sex abuse scandal in the church are trying to tell us that those were different times and people didn't appreciate the seriousness of sexual abuse and bishops wouldn't have felt the urgency to report incidents of abuse committed by priests to the civil authorities. To which my aunt Gini (mother of 13) would simply reply, "Bullshit."

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