stretcher.
But it was a physical problem, not his fault.
The Old Man continued to drink, and the tumor Ma said was there throbbed inside his skull, pressed into his brain, pushed him to violence. “I thought one time he was going to kill me,” John remembered years later. “He was swinging on my mother and I yelled something at him. He told me to mind my own business or he’d take care of me, too. I hollered right back and he came for me, swung on me right there. But he was drunk and he hit the refrigerator. He turned and came at me again. I pinned his arms to his sides and pressed him up against the wall. I couldn’t hit him. I just couldn’t hit him. But if I let him go, he’d swing on me again. So we struggled like that. And I must have held him with his arms pinned for ten minutes.”
Father and son stood face to face in a sort of rough embrace. John said, “I can still picture that: my dad’s face looking right at me. The glare in his eyes. Through his eyes I thought he was going to kill me. And I was crying and upset. . . you know, thinking, he can’t kill you, he loves you. It was such a mixed-up feeling. . . .”
John remembers the Old Man’s breath coming ragged in his throat, recalls smelling the alcohol there. He was looking into those spinning eyes and seeing a rage like murder, seeing the Old Man’s special knowledge burning like fire. John was sobbing, pressing his father’s back into the wall, hugging him in a confusion of love and murder.
Something else. John felt it in his groin. Just a faint stirring down there.
----
----
CHAPTER 4
----
----
FIVE FEET EIGHT AND already bloating up toward two hundred pounds. An eighteen-year-old should be hard, muscular. He shouldn’t have a body like a sack of flour. And just look in the mirror: a face like Mr. Potato Head, that toy for kids, a bunch of goddamn plastic mouths and eyes and shit that you could stick into a lumpy old spud and make it just as fucking ugly and funny-looking as John Wayne Gacy, Jr., himself.
No wonder he didn’t care that much for dating; no wonder he didn’t “have much of a sex drive.”
Instead, he worked. John was a worker as long as he could remember. He had a paper route, some lawn-mowing jobs; then, at fourteen, he nailed down his first real job: delivering groceries for the local IGA store. He also helped Ma around the house, moving furniture, painting rooms.
And there was the stuff he did free, volunteer stuff, like yardwork for an elderly neighbor. Once, when John was twelve, a big storm knocked down some power lines over a neighbor’s garage. John took it on himself to warn the womanwho lived there that stepping in a puddle out behind the house could kill her. “I didn’t know that,” this neighbor said years later. “I might have gone out there to look. He might have saved my life. And John stood by the garage all day, waving traffic away, making sure no one got hurt.”
When John transferred from the public grammar school—where he was skipping classes and failing—to the vocational school, he got so far out ahead of his class in science that the teacher said he didn’t need to attend that class; he could work in the office. John ran errands for the teachers—"call me a teacher’s pet, I enjoyed it, I got along with all the administrators"—and worked as an assistant to the truant officer. It was a big switch from being a truant to becoming a truant officer. “I wasn’t any snitch,” John said. “I just had to call parents and see if kids were really sick at home.”
In high school, John was a Civil Defense captain. A boyhood friend remembers, “He pretty much organized the whole thing. Like for fire drills, where each fire marshal had to stand to make sure everyone got out.” Civil Defense captains got a portable flashing blue light they could put on the dashboard of their cars to use on official business.
Years later, Ray Kasper, who eventually married John’s elder sister, JoAnne,
But it was a physical problem, not his fault.
The Old Man continued to drink, and the tumor Ma said was there throbbed inside his skull, pressed into his brain, pushed him to violence. “I thought one time he was going to kill me,” John remembered years later. “He was swinging on my mother and I yelled something at him. He told me to mind my own business or he’d take care of me, too. I hollered right back and he came for me, swung on me right there. But he was drunk and he hit the refrigerator. He turned and came at me again. I pinned his arms to his sides and pressed him up against the wall. I couldn’t hit him. I just couldn’t hit him. But if I let him go, he’d swing on me again. So we struggled like that. And I must have held him with his arms pinned for ten minutes.”
Father and son stood face to face in a sort of rough embrace. John said, “I can still picture that: my dad’s face looking right at me. The glare in his eyes. Through his eyes I thought he was going to kill me. And I was crying and upset. . . you know, thinking, he can’t kill you, he loves you. It was such a mixed-up feeling. . . .”
John remembers the Old Man’s breath coming ragged in his throat, recalls smelling the alcohol there. He was looking into those spinning eyes and seeing a rage like murder, seeing the Old Man’s special knowledge burning like fire. John was sobbing, pressing his father’s back into the wall, hugging him in a confusion of love and murder.
Something else. John felt it in his groin. Just a faint stirring down there.
----
----
CHAPTER 4
----
----
FIVE FEET EIGHT AND already bloating up toward two hundred pounds. An eighteen-year-old should be hard, muscular. He shouldn’t have a body like a sack of flour. And just look in the mirror: a face like Mr. Potato Head, that toy for kids, a bunch of goddamn plastic mouths and eyes and shit that you could stick into a lumpy old spud and make it just as fucking ugly and funny-looking as John Wayne Gacy, Jr., himself.
No wonder he didn’t care that much for dating; no wonder he didn’t “have much of a sex drive.”
Instead, he worked. John was a worker as long as he could remember. He had a paper route, some lawn-mowing jobs; then, at fourteen, he nailed down his first real job: delivering groceries for the local IGA store. He also helped Ma around the house, moving furniture, painting rooms.
And there was the stuff he did free, volunteer stuff, like yardwork for an elderly neighbor. Once, when John was twelve, a big storm knocked down some power lines over a neighbor’s garage. John took it on himself to warn the womanwho lived there that stepping in a puddle out behind the house could kill her. “I didn’t know that,” this neighbor said years later. “I might have gone out there to look. He might have saved my life. And John stood by the garage all day, waving traffic away, making sure no one got hurt.”
When John transferred from the public grammar school—where he was skipping classes and failing—to the vocational school, he got so far out ahead of his class in science that the teacher said he didn’t need to attend that class; he could work in the office. John ran errands for the teachers—"call me a teacher’s pet, I enjoyed it, I got along with all the administrators"—and worked as an assistant to the truant officer. It was a big switch from being a truant to becoming a truant officer. “I wasn’t any snitch,” John said. “I just had to call parents and see if kids were really sick at home.”
In high school, John was a Civil Defense captain. A boyhood friend remembers, “He pretty much organized the whole thing. Like for fire drills, where each fire marshal had to stand to make sure everyone got out.” Civil Defense captains got a portable flashing blue light they could put on the dashboard of their cars to use on official business.
Years later, Ray Kasper, who eventually married John’s elder sister, JoAnne,
Similar Books
