By Vicky Dickson
“What was that last word?†he asked. “Arse,†I whispered. Since he’d invited me to the performance of My Fair Lady, I knew I had to be polite to him. But I’d also been told not to talk during the show, and definitely not to repeat such words. So when he asked again, I resorted to lying: “I didn’t hear it either.â€
I think I assumed that, being an old man, his hearing was just bad. But it did seem strange that “arse†was the only word in the show that he apparently didn’t hear.
It seemed stranger still when, some time later, he invited my friend and me to his bedroom. We’d been sent to his house to return copies of The New Yorker that my mother had borrowed, and after his housekeeper had let us in he’d yelled down the stairs to ask if we minded him not being “formally dressed.†I remember thinking that meant he didn’t have a tie on. Turns out, it meant he was naked, except for a skinny towel draped around his middle, and wanted us to come upstairs and help him with his “exercises.â€
I can’t say exactly what those “exercises†consisted of, because I cowered in a corner while they were going on. But I do remember that he stretched out on his bed and asked my friend to rub his leg. I remember how uncomfortable it made me to hear him telling her “higher, higher.†But I didn’t look in their direction, because I really didn’t want to know what was happening. And later, I didn’t tell my parents or anybody else about that afternoon at his house.
Given that I was a naïve 10-year-old at the time, perhaps my silence was understandable. It was a silence with consequences though: Five years later, my then-10-year-old sister had a similar encounter with that same neighbor, in which she was persuaded to rub his “leg.†The incident upset her so much that she did tell my parents.
As a parent of daughters myself now, what happened next continues to surprise me. My mother apparently asked my dad to confront the neighbor, and his response to her was, “I can’t do that. It might give him a heart attack.†His doctor, who was also our family doctor, reputedly also refused to confront the man. As far as I know, nobody went to the police or otherwise tried to prevent the man from abusing more children.
My neighbor was a highly regarded and well-loved professor at UNC, so maybe they all thought his word would carry more weight than that of a couple of young girls. Maybe they thought they were protecting our family from the huge embarrassment of a court case. It all happened decades ago, before anybody really talked about child molestation, so maybe they just didn’t know what to do. I really don’t know; there’s no one left to ask.
But what I do know is how easy it is to turn away, to say nothing. Years later, my dad told me another story, of the time his boss had begun to suspect a colleague of bringing young boys, after hours, to the dormitory attached to their office. His boss’ solution, according to my dad, was to change the locks on the dormitory doors without telling the colleague.
It’s possible that the details of that story are inaccurate, since my dad’s memory was starting to go at the time he told it. The way he told it, though, was striking, since his boss and he were both publicly acclaimed, highly skilled lawyers, and neither seemed to appreciate the moral issues at play. The point simply seemed to be to protect the reputation of the institution that employed them both – to get the children off the campus.
I’m bringing up these stories now because I think the Penn State student protestors, and all those who sympathize with their point of view, need to understand why their beloved football coach had to go. Paterno had the power, and the moral obligation, to insist on a full investigation of the 2002 shower incident involving his former colleague, but he chose not to invoke that power. He chose, like my parents – and like me – to look away. And because he looked away, the alleged molestations continued.
It’s vital that institutions like Penn State make it crystal clear to all their employees that ignoring a suspicious situation involving a child simply will not be tolerated. Otherwise, such institutions send the message that preserving reputations is more important than protecting children – and child molesters will take note.
Thank you for writing about this. I’m impressed and moved by your honesty and thoughtfulness. I’m a therapist with many years of experience working with children and adults who have been abused or knew about someone else being abused. I know that good people can shut their eyes and ears for many reasons, and are often horrified when they reflect back on their denial. The more we talk and educate and extend help the harder it is for our society to minimize or ignore the maltreatment of children.