Buried Dreams (43 page)

“We were just talking about, you know, how I could maybe be your assistant clown.” There is blatant manipulation here: The boy would like to avoid the subject of the goddamn sandwich—which inexplicably seems to piss this cop off-—and turn the conversation back to a safe subject, like clowns.

“Yeah, sure . . . that’s what . . . I’m sorry.” Jack might be entirely sincere but for the strange smile on his face.

“It’s okay,” the boy says, relaxing a bit. “I really like clowns,” he adds with transparent cunning.

The man stares at his hands for a moment, then gives the boy a shrewd, appraising look. “You wanna be my assistant, huh?”

“I sure do, man, really, hey.” The boy is an artless manipulator, just a dumb stupid kid.

“You know anything about clowning?” Jack sounds like a man whose mind is made up.

“Just what I seen in the circus.”

“Well, shit,” the man says, bantering now, “how do I know you’re good enough?”

“I don’t know.” The boy’s voice suggests he senses a new joke behind the man’s easy tone. Perhaps they’re finally getting down to it. “Why don’t you give me a chance,” the boy says, all sex and saucy impertinence, “just try me out once.” He’s got a finger on this cop; he knows how to deal with the sudden rages now.

The man in chains turns his back, walks a few steps, and appears to pick something up off a waist-high platform: off the top of the bar, or off the dresser in the bedroom. “You say you want to work for me, you gotta show me how good you are.”

“You’ll see,” the boy says. It’s a whore’s promise.

“All right. I’m going to show you a trick. Show you how to do it.” The man proffers something he is holding in his right hand. “Take these,” he says, “and put them on.”

“Handcuffs?” the boy asks uncertainly.

“They’re trick cuffs. There’s a hidden button. I’ll show you how to get out of them.”

“Is this in the clown act?”

“Yeah. It’s not much of a trick. You do it for young kids. Put the cuffs on, put a white cloth over ‘em, take the cuffs off, and slip ‘em up your sleeve, then throw your hands up over your head. See, you made the cuffs disappear.”

“Yeah, but"—the kid isn’t too sure about putting on the cuffs—"how do I know I’ll get out of these things?”

“Look, idiot,” Jack says in his bantering tone, “it’s just a trick.”

“I know, but—”

“See, you either trust me, or you don’t. Either you want to work for me, or you can forget it.”

“I wanna work for you.”

“All right, then put the fucking cuffs on like I told you,” Jack says in a
macho,
mock-gruff, half-joking tone, “asshole.”

And the boy, who has been subjected to the threat of arrest, to generosity and job offers, to sudden rage and equally sudden apology—the boy who is from out of state and has no friends or relatives in Chicago—snaps a cuff loosely onto his left wrist.

At Menard Correctional Center, John Wayne Gacy stares intently at nothing at all. “No, no, no,” he says, still joking and almost at the point of laughter. “Asshole,” he says with a laugh, as if to say, “You’re a funny kid.”

“That’s no trick,” the man says in mock exasperation. “Why are you all alike? Why are you all so dumb and stupid? Put the fucking"—the man is laughing continuously now, this is fun stuff—"cuffs on behind your back. That’s it. Now keep ‘em loose. We just put the cloth over ‘em and then you come right out of ‘em. It’s a simple trick for kids, five- and six-year-olds.”

The man in chains is nodding and chuckling. Perhaps he envisions the boy before him: a boy who responds with his own nod, his own bright grin. “Turn around,” the man says. “Lemme see if you done it right.”

Jack looks down at the boy’s wrists. He puts his powerful hands over each cuff and stands there smiling for just a second. Then, with a grimace of effort, he squeezes the cuffs tightly closed with both his huge hands.

“Christ,” the boy howls, “Jesus, that hurts.”

“Shut up, asshole,” the man rasps. His voice has suddenly dropped into a deeper register, and the humor that was there just a moment before has been transformed into a kind of triumphant glee. The man is as merry and malignant as a magpie.

“It really hurts.” The boy sounds as if he is about to cry. “Where’s the button? How do I get these off?”

“That’s the trick,” the man says. “There is no button.” He might be explaining an exceedingly simple procedure to an idiot. “You need the key,” he explains patiently. There is just the barest hint of suppressed laughter in his voice. His tone suggests that this is such a good trick the boy should surrender to laughter; he should be as amused as the man at this absurd predicament. How stupid, how dumb and stupid, to let a stranger slip the cuffs on you without a fight. This kid really needs a father to teach him.

But the boy is not amused at his own stupidity, and this is not such a hot joke to him. “C’mon, man, please,” he says pathetically, “take ‘em off. They hurt.”

“I told you,” the man says calmly, “to shut the fuck up.”

And then, at Menard State Prison, the man in chains moves with a startling suddenness. He lifts his right arm as high as the waist chain will allow, then delivers a fast, hard, open-handed slap to the empty air. He stares down at the floor, shaking his head in mock sorrow, but there is laughter in his eyes. This is one of those jokes where the punch lines keep on coming, one after the other. It just goes on and on, this peculiar joke.

“Look, kid,” the man says, “you want to get out of those cuffs?”

“Yeah, please.” Total capitulation.

“Then,” the man says—he is the soul of reason now—“gimme a blow job.”

“I ain’t into that,” the man says in the boy’s whining voice, “I ain’t good at that. . . .”

“You do it right, maybe I’ll take the cuffs off.”

At Menard, John Wayne Gacy fumbles with the catch of his pants, then lets them drop around his ankles. On the outside he wore sheer briefs, almost panties, in various colors. Now he is wearing prison-issue shorts, and under them is the hint of an erection. He glances down at himself.

This, he seems to be saying, is the proof. Here, between my legs, is the truth. I am Jack; I am the one who lives in John’s mind. I am out now and I make no apologies, I have no regrets, I feel no remorse. All those things goody-goody John consistently denied—all the atrocities, the very worst of them—really happened. I am Jack, and Jack did it all. See my proud proof. Yes, I played the cop; yes, I hurt the boys; yes, I forced them to perform sex acts; and then, yes, I hurt them again and again and again. The proof that this, finally, is the way it all happened, the hard evidence of my sincerity is here. See, here!

But he does not pull the shorts down over his fleshy hips. Some things must remain hidden. Perhaps the entire performance is nothing more than an exciting fantasy; perhaps there is something else here that remains hidden. You will not see my cock, and you will not see my soul.

The man in chains squats, as if straddling the fallen boy. “You bite my dick and I’ll cut your fucking balls off,” he says, and this makes him smile again: it is another hollow joke, hauled up out of darkness like some eyeless and primitive thing found in a fisherman’s net. Breath burns harshly in his throat: another evidence of Jack’s vehement passion. He is on his widely spread knees now, in a straddling posture, the pants bunched around the chains on his ankles. He does not touch himself. His hands are held out low in front of him as if he is holding the boy’s head, and he grunts with passion or effort, breathing hard, hyperventilating, rushing toward certain culmination.

And then, out of the same mouth, the kneeling man makes another sound. It is a wet, slurping sound, strangely avid, intermingled with soft whimpers.

Jack gasps, then throws his head back and moans, as if in ecstasy, or pain. He grunts once—the wind driven from his body as if by a punch—then again and again and again. Breaking into this sound is another, one that doesn’t belong
at all to Jack’s frenzy or passion. It is a sound of helpless gagging followed by a wet, choking cough. The man sighs—an affectionate accolade from the sated lover—then falls over onto his side and lies motionless for several long moments.

Finally, a boy’s pleading voice: “Okay, okay, you said I could go now.”

“I lied,” Jack says mildly.

CHAPTER 25

“
PLEASE, TAKE THE CUFFS
off,” the boy begs. “Please let me go.”

“I’ll tell you when it’s time to go,” Jack says calmly, then shouts, “you fucking asshole!”

The man in chains struggles up off the floor, pulls up his pants, fastens them, then walks to his chair, a thoroughly exhausted fellow. He sits perfectly still, his eyes closed, the manacled hands folded in his lap. Minutes pass and the man appears to be asleep, but then his shoulders begin to shake subtly. A series of wet, spluttering sobs bubble up out of the silence. It might be the sound of a boy softly crying, but the man’s face is dry.

The eyes suddenly snap open and Jack looks out at the world inside his head. It is Jack who seldom blinks, who carries his eyelids high so that the whites show all around the iris. It is Jack whose eyes focus to some distant point beyond the walls. An actor playing Rasputin, or Charles Manson, would stare out at his audience in precisely the same manner. These are a madman’s eyes; this is the theatrical maniac’s glare.

But Jack walks normally now, though it is two steps to
the spot where he lay a few minutes before. He bends, strikes at an empty spot a foot above the empty floor several times, then jumps back as if struck or kicked in return.

“Ow, goddamn it, motherfucker!” he shouts. “Shit. I’ll show you. I’ll teach you, you stupid son-of-a-bitch.”

He lurches about, as if looking for something hidden low. He bends to the floor; his gestures are those of a man pulling something out from under a bed or a chair. His movements are confusing now, but he appears to be dealing intently with some simple mechanism.

“See this, kid?” His arm is held away from his waist as if offering some object for inspection. “Now, this has a lock on it,” he says, a good father teaching his dumb and stupid son. “You’ll never get out of this,” he says, then bends to the floor, huffing in effort, as if engaged in a brief struggle.

“Now,” the teacher says, “there’s just a couple more tricks I want to show you. I’m going to taste you now, kid. “ He kneels and fiddles with something—a button? a zipper?—then makes a lifting, pulling gesture.

“Well, shit,” he says in mock surprise, “I can’t get your pants down over this board, now, can I? Whatta you think, kid? Think I should take it off you?” There is no reply. “But see, if I take the board off, you’ll just kick again, won’t you?”

The boy’s weak voice, “I won’t, I swear. . . .”

“You must think I’m dumb and stupid.”

“Please take it off.”

“Naw. We do it my way.”

The man in chains reaches out for something near at hand. He mimes picking up a light object, then holds it out, as if letting the imaginary boy inspect it. Jack extends the first two fingers of his right hand and closes them until they meet his thumb. It is a slow, pinching motion, a strangely suggestive and threatening gesture.

“We’ll use this,” he says, opening and closing his thumb and first two fingers. His hand moves slowly, slowly, as if traveling down the boy’s prone and helpless body. He grabs something in his left hand, jerks it in an upward direction, then moves the right hand close to the clutching left, still opening and closing his fingers slowly, suggestively.

And a boy’s voice screams out, “Oh, my God, no, NONONONO—”

“Awwww,” the man says in mock sympathy, “you didn’t think I was going to snip it off, did you?” He opens his left
hand and moves the right lower. “We’re just going to have to cut these pants right off, aren’t we,” he says with the professional patience of a nurse or a teacher, someone used to irrational outbursts. “We have to cut them off because you kick, now, don’t you?” The man continues to move, as if back up the boy’s legs, as if cutting and ripping away at the pants with a pair of scissors. “A last cut here,” the man says, quite delighted with his work, “and then one here, and we’ll just get rid of these.” The man lifts, pulls, tosses something behind him. He stares down at the empty floor as if at some illicit treasure suddenly his.

“This your best underwear, kid?” the man asks.

“Yes,” the boy says, pathetically eager to please, “they’re my best pair.”

The man’s grin erupts into a broad, sarcastic smile; the boy’s attitude makes him laugh. It is a contemptuous laugh, borne out of real pleasure. “Then we’ll have to be real careful with them, won’t we?” He begins a careful cutting gesture just above the empty floor. Then he shifts position, cuts again, tosses something out of reach to the rear—the scissors, probably—then lifts and pulls as if removing the boy’s carefully slit underwear. Shifting again, the man neatly folds the thin cotton briefs. It is a curiously affectionate gesture, almost reverent, very much like a young father folding his new son’s clean diapers.

“Now,” he says, “we’ll just see how you taste.”

Jack kneels, as if at prayer, then bends from the waist and purses his lips like a thirsty man about to drink from a cool, clear pool. Suddenly he straightens up, then rocks back into a more comfortable sitting position on his heels. “Awwww,” he says in theatrical disappointment, “c’mon, get it hard.”

“I can’t, mister, please. I’m scared.” A boy’s voice, weak and quavering.

“I said, ‘Get it hard.’ ”

“I’m too scared, honest.”

“Well,” Jack says, tolerant of these little setbacks and ever ready with alternative plans, “I’m hard.” The man in chains lurches to his feet, bends from the knees, gathers something into his arms and slowly, as if dealing with an unwieldy and inert weight, straightens his back and his knees. He might be a laborer lifting a sack of potatoes onto a flatbed truck.

The man shifts the weight to some waist-high object.
Perhaps he sees the boy—naked from the waist down now—bent limply over the back of a chair. Jack’s powerful hands are waist high and he extends them in a quick, brutal, spreading gesture, a ripping, tearing motion. He does not drop his pants. Moving forward, his right hand before him as if holding an erect penis, the man wiggles his hips slightly—a stripper’s studied obscenity—then begins thrusting so viciously the chains rattle about his waist.