American Orphan

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  When I drive anywhere, I am amazed all over again.

  The fact that Denise has just sat here with me, right here in this car . . . the seats, the handle above the glove box that she clutched, the air in the car . . . all of it scented with the fragrance of her skin, hair and clothing. The car interior is filled with her aura, strong, poignant, primordial. To pick up any of her energy still lingering in the car, I run my palm over the seat fabric, touch the door handle, anything she has had contact with, trying to absorb the slightest vestige of her presence.

  She has left behind a spirit-print I cannot touch. It is imbued with a wild confluence of emotion and intellect that breaks down the common comfort and creates vulnerable ways of looking at the world . . . conviction that is unwavering. The waterfall gush is her determinism, her compassion is the mist that blooms from that waterfall. Her heart is the place where bears come to drink and snatch salmon. Her spirit-print is that upstream birthing place I find myself in. On the drive home, it grows in me, and again, the butterfly shatters the paperweight, flutters against the windshield. I roll my window down and free it.

  God is kind in fashioning my life on what she inspires in me, what wells up in me says that from my suffering and joy may come a sort of grace that allows me to live in a manner I yearn for but have not touched yet. My mind keeps circling around the hopeful idea that if I can make enough to get my brother into rehab, everything will be okay, life will be great. I’m filled with a newfound hope of getting things back on track. I find myself looping back toward the cycle of a celebratory life. I want my brother to be part of it. I’ve been spat into existence by a questionable accident in which all assembled angles were wrong. I was brought into the world to live with the mark of shame and corruption; it permeates every gesture and step.

  Denise cupped the embers of my just-born self, blew them hot, revealing in the glowing embers my bill of rights to live as a human being with dignity. Now as I drive, there is no road, no night, no stars, no cold, no trees or fields— nothing. For an instant, just myself, a swirling orb of illuminated molecules merging with the universe and feeling something wonderful is going to happen to me.

  It’s late November. On my drives I note people are preparing for Christmas. Decorated trees flash in living rooms, fairy lights in shrubs, colored lights in windows, snowmen in yards and Santa Clauses flying with reindeer on rooftops. My Christmas will come when I leave Green Mill, return home with enough money to get things off the ground.

  When I get back that evening, Lila says she signed for a letter for me.

  “What kind of letter?”

  “Some legal form,” she says.

  I immediately go into a paranoid state. Anything legal— courts, letters, authority—sends me off a cliff. Every time my life got screwed up, it followed one of these.

  I stare at the letter with my name on it waiting for me on the table. I pick it up, throw it in the kitchen trash can.

  “Your sister forwarded it. She thought it was important. The least you can do is open it.”

  I refuse.

  Lila fishes it out of the trash, opens it, reads it. She looks at me and says, “It’s nothing. . . . They just want some information on the time you were in the orphanage.”

  “How did they know I was in the orphanage?”

  “They keep records, Orlando, especially with someone like you who was the ward of the state for so long.”

  “That’s my point: I don’t want anything to do with them or that letter.”

  I retreat to my office, sit down, start reading Leaves of Grass. After a couple of hours, Lila comes in, offers me a glass of white wine. She asks if I want to go outside, sit and talk. So, I take a break with her.

  “How long were you in the orphanage?”

  “Long enough. Maybe seven years, maybe longer.”

  “You never talked about it in your letters.”

  “No need to.”

  “What happened?”

  “Why should something have happened?”

  “You told me how you react to legal stuff, how you hate priests, did they do something?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You know, I was raped by a lot of these boys growing up. They took it all from me. I got real wild after that. Where you’d get your wildness?”

  “Said I don’t want to talk about it. I’m afraid to look at that letter. I don’t care what it’s asking . . . and besides, it ain’t asking about my orphanage. It’s got an official legal stamp from the State of New Mexico. If they’re looking for me, I’m not turning myself in. I didn’t do anything.”

  “No, it’s not that. They just want to know if anything happened at the orphanage.”

  “Lots of stuff happened.”

  “I mean about the priest doing stuff to you.”

  As night comes on deep and late, I somehow find the courage to share with Lila some of what occurred at the orphanage. It takes three or four hours to tell her about all the horrible things. She gets angry, so angry in fact, she finishes the wine and slugs down half a bottle of gin and hurls the bottle against the red brick front wall of the house—she wants to kill them. She says she wants to respond to the letter, that the priest and nuns had no right doing those things to me.

  She goes inside. I sit in the dark, staring up at the stars. I cry. I’m feeling ill, almost as if I’m breathing noxious fumes. Maybe I’m picking up spiritual static. I wonder if my brother is dead. My sister? I feel my skin crawl remembering the things I told Lila.

  Then, staring out into the pitch-black darkness of the woods, I hear a voice as close to me as if the person was bent over next to my ear: “Time, Orlando, time.”

  I turn, I look around, stand up, surveying with squinted eyes every inch of field and forest darkness for some person. I’m ready to fuck him up. I hear a noise coming from my office, turn, see Griselda gazing at me from the window. Her protective eyes are golden and fierce. Her paws are huge cushions on the windowsill, the golden orbs of her eyes on fire with primal instincts, carrying the source of and proof of God’s existence.

  I smile at her, think the worst: They found an old charge against me, have a warrant for my arrest. Someone died. I didn’t complete my full time at DYA.

  Lila comes out, “Why don’t you come inside now?”

  “I don’t want to yet.”

  She turns on the porch light, comes back out, hands me a bunch of papers. “Do you recognize these?”

  “I told you, I don’t want anything to do with that. Makes me scared . . . I get terrified and don’t know why.”

  “You have every right to be traumatized. Every right. Bastards.”

  I study the papers, see that they’re a bunch of old newspaper clippings from my orphanage days. Nuns. Boys. Dorms. Building.

  “I recognize them, but what are they doing here? What’s this letter? Is my sister acting weird again? Is she on one of her zany treks linking unrelated events together? Coming up with a theory we’re all walking dead, or aliens are everywhere . . . or. . .”

  “No, Orlando, it’s about what they did to you.”

  “They didn’t do anything. I mean, they didn’t do anything I can talk about. Just stop this, okay? Stop this. I’m losing my shit here. . . . Please,” I beg.

  I break down again. Every fortification, every brick in the wall, every formidable, impenetrable obstacle suddenly gives way and collapses.

  I spend the next hour answering her questions, catching my breath in shock, other times in sporadic fits of rage and uncontrollable crying. Sometimes I gasp. I put my clenched fist to my teeth, bite down so I don’t scream. I pause, I breathe. I lay my palms flat on my chest to get my breath, to feel me to make sure I am still here. I throw the chair beside the door across the lawn. I squeeze my fingers against my face until I make blood appear from my pores. Lila tries to grab me; I throw her to the ground. I almost black out from pain, then I lean over, puke my guts out, gag, let everything pour out of my body. I feel like
killing myself. At that moment, if I had a gun, I would blow my brains out and with it the memories flashing through my mind that minute.

  I take off. I walk all night. When I return, it’s almost dawn. I see the light on in Lila’s office. I can see her working away in there.

  When I go in and pour myself a cup of coffee, she says, “You don’t have to worry about the letter. I answered it for you.”

  “They’re not looking for me, are they?”

  “Not in the way you think. It’s a lawsuit against the priest. . . but don’t worry, I took care of it. It had nothing to do with anything you did. It had to do with them committing a crime against you and other kids.”

  She asks if I want to read what she wrote. I decline. I want to nothing to do with it.

  That night, when I was out walking, Lila filled in their questions based on what I told her:

  UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT

  FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO

  In re:

  ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

  OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF

  SANTA FE, a New Mexico

  corporation sole

  Chapter 11

  Case No. 18-13027-t11

  CORRECTED SEXUAL ABUSE PROOF OF CLAIM

  This form has been corrected solely with respect to the address for hand delivery.

  IMPORTANT:

  THIS FORM MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN

  FEB. 17 , 1979 AT 5:00 P.M. (PREVAILING MOUNTAIN TIME)

  Carefully read Notice and Instructions that are included with this CONFIDENTIAL PROOF OF CLAIM and complete all applicable questions. Send together with one copy to: Clerk of the United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Mexico at the following address: Office of the Clerk of Court-ATTN SEALED DOCUMENTS, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Mexico, Pete V. Domenici U.S. Courthouse, 333 Lomas Blvd. NW, Suite 360 Albuquerque, NM 87102. If you prefer to hand deliver the completed Confidential Proof of Claim form to the Clerk, the physical address for hand delivery is Clerk of the United States Bankruptcy Court, District of New Mexico, 333 Lomas Blvd. NW, Suite 360 Albuquerque, NM.

  If you mail or deliver the Confidential Proof of Claim form it must be received by the Clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. (prevailing Mountain Time) on Feb. 17, 1979.

  YOU MAY WISH TO CONSULT AN ATTORNEY REGARDING THIS MATTER.

  AND YOU MAY ALSO OBTAIN INFORMATION FROM THE OFFICIAL COMMITTEE OF UNSECURED CREDITORS BY CALLING TOLL FREE AT 888-570-6217.

  FAILURE TO COMPLETE AND RETURN THIS FORM MAY RESULT IN YOUR INABILITY TO VOTE ON A PLAN OF REORGANIZATION AND RECEIVE A DISTRIBUTION FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SANTA FE, COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SANTA FE (THE “ARCHDIOCESE”).

  UNLESS YOU INDICATE OTHERWISE IN PART 1 BELOW, YOUR IDENTITY WILL BE KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL, UNDER SEAL, AND OUTSIDE THE PUBLIC RECORD OF THE BANKRUPTCY COURT. HOWEVER, THIS PROOF OF CLAIM AND THE INFORMATION IN THIS PROOF OF CLAIM WILL BE PROVIDED PURSUANT TO COURT-APPROVED CONFIDENTIALITY GUIDELINES TO THE ARCHDIOCESE, THE OFFICIAL COMMITTEE OF UNSECURED CREDITORS AND TO SUCH OTHER PERSONS AS THE BANKRUPTCY COURT DETERMINES NEED THE INFORMATION IN ORDER TO EVALUATE THE CLAIM.

  THIS PROOF OF CLAIM IS FOR SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANTS ONLY.

  For the purposes of this Proof of Claim, a Sexual Abuse Claim is defined as any Claim (as defined in section 101(5) of the Bankruptcy Code) against the Archdiocese resulting or arising in whole or in part, directly or indirectly from any actual or alleged sexual conduct or misconduct, sexual abuse or molestation, indecent assault and/or battery, rape, pedophilia, ephebophilia, or sexually-related physical, psychological, or emotional harm, or contacts, or interactions of a sexual nature between a child and an adult, or a nonconsenting adult and another adult, sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual psychological or emotional abuse, humiliation, or intimidation, or any other sexual misconduct, and seeking monetary damages or any other relief, under any theory of liability, including vicarious liability, any negligence-based theory, contribution, indemnity, or any other theory based on any acts or failures to act by the Archdiocese or any other person or entity for whose acts or failures to act the Archdiocese is or was allegedly responsible.

  For Purposes of this Proof of Claim, a Sexual Abuse Claimant is defined as the person asserting a Sexual Abuse Claim against the Archdiocese, or if a minor, then his parent or legal guardian.

  TO BE VALID, THIS PROOF OF CLAIM MUST BE SIGNED BY YOU OR YOUR ATTORNEY. IF THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANT IS DECEASED OR INCAPACITATED, THE FORM MAY BE SIGNED BY THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANT’S REPRESENTATIVE, EXECUTOR OF THE ESTATE OR THE ATTORNEY FOR THE ESTATE. IF THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANT IS A MINOR, THE FORM MAY BE SIGNED BY THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANT’S PARENT OR LEGAL GUARDIAN, OR THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANT’S ATTORNEY.

  Penalty for presenting fraudulent claim: Fine of up to $500,000 or imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both. 18 U.S.C. §§ 152 and 3571.

  PART 1: CONFIDENTIALITY

  THIS SEXUAL ABUSE PROOF OF CLAIM (ALONG WITH ANY ACCOMPANYING EXHIBITS AND ATTACHMENTS) WILL BE MAINTAINED AS CONFIDENTIAL PURSUANT TO COURT-APPROVED GUIDELINES UNLESS YOU EXPRESSLY REQUEST THAT IT BE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE BY CHECKING THE BOX AND SIGNING BELOW. ONLY THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMANT MAY WAIVE CONFIDENTIALITY IN THIS PART 1.

  PART 2: IDENTIFYING INFORMATION

  A. Sexual Abuse Claimant

  B. Sexual Abuse Claimant’s Attorney (if any):

  PART 3: NATURE OF COMPLAINT

  (Attach additional separate sheets if necessary)

  NOTE: IF YOU HAVE PREVIOUSLY FILED A LAWSUIT AGAINST THE ARCHDIOCESE IN STATE OR FEDERAL COURT, YOU MAY ATTACH THE COMPLAINT. IF YOU DID NOT FILE A LAWSUIT, OR IF THE COMPLAINT DOES NOT CONTAIN ALL OF THE INFORMATION REQUESTED BELOW, YOU MUST PROVIDE THE INFORMATION BELOW.

  a. Who committed the acts of sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct?

  I was sexually abused and repeatedly sexually assaulted by Fr. Edward Gallagher, and also by three unidentified priests who I believed worked at the Servants of the Paraclete Facilities in Jemez Springs or Albuquerque, or were “in transit” within the Paraclete Order, or were Benedictines, or were Franciscans. Regardless, these pedophile priests were serving as agents for, or were empowered and protected by, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, and whatever religious orders they came from. Fr. Gallagher was the main guy and primary predator at the Orphanage from when I got there until I left in May 1965. Paraclete priests or priests from religious orders were passing through, or visiting, or stayed for awhile, in rooms provided to them on the third floor. Some of the nuns from the Poor Sisters of St. Francis Seraph of the Perpetual Adoration were directly involved, escorting me to the chapel/rectory for abuse by Fr. Gallagher when he called for me to be brought to him, or to one of the sleeping quarters upstairs reserved for visiting priests, under the guise that I needed “guidance and counseling” (because at a certain age, I was constantly a runaway), whereupon they sexually abused me.

  b. What is the position, title or relationship to you (if known) of the abuser or individual who committed these acts?

  The orphanage in Albuquerque was called St. Anthony’s Orphanage, run and administered by Franciscan nuns under the direction, supervision, blessing and control of the Archdiocese, (who for many decades were co-administrators), and I was an orphan boy there when dropped off August 31, 1958, at the age of 6, and was officially there until May 28, 1965, leaving at the age of 13. See attached photocopies of orphanage records for both me and my brother Camilo, showing my date of arrival and the date my aunt took me and my brother to her home. My life during those years was completely under the control of Fr. Gallagher and these nuns, where I was repeatedly beat (with boards—often my entire backside was bruised and welted), and sexually abused. I was virtually powerless until I successfully ran away a few times, choosing to live on the streets at age 13 until finally the police and social services persuaded my aunt DeMacia to take me and my brother in.

  c. Where did the sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct tak
e place? Please be specific and complete all relevant information that you know, including the City and State, name of the School (if applicable) and/or the name of any other location.

  The Orphanage was at 1500 Indian School Road NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the abuse occurred in a number of places on the premises, including: in one of the offices of the 3-story administration building (pants down, over a desk, while he/they penetrated me); frequently in one of the dorms where I was assigned cleaning duties, (Gallagher would enter while I was dust mopping, scrubbing toilets, cleaning sinks, etc.); in the small living area between the rectory and the altar area (commonly called the sacristy); or in one of the sleeping quarters upstairs reserved for visiting priests in transit, who I believed were from the Servants of the Paraclete, or were Benedictines, or were Franciscans, as their uniforms were each slightly different.

  Attached are some photos from the Library of Congress including some sketches of the layout well before I got there, and a newspaper story from the Albuquerque Journal dated April 12, 1963, that has a few pictures.

  d. When did the sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct take place?

  1. If the sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct took place over a period of time (months or years), please state when it started, when it stopped and how many times it occurred.

  Fr. Gallagher began abusing me before and after I was trained as an altar boy, in 1959. He sexually abused me until my attempts at running away in 1965 were getting more and more successful as I got older, and he left at the end of 1965 anyway. I was raped and abused at least 30 times, conservatively speaking, by Fr. Gallagher. I was also “given” to visiting priests or brothers or superiors from the Servants of the Paraclete, the Benedictines, or the Franciscans, on occasion over the 1960s, who would also sexually abuse me. Nuns would come and get me, and take me to them at the temporary quarters on the 3rd floor, or sometimes in one of the empty classrooms on the 2nd floor, or in the auditorium behind the stage where they stated they were going to give me lessons in acting for the plays we often performed. Also, I was abused by visiting clergy in the band section of the auditorium, where they pretended to teach me to play a trumpet or drum and instead raped me, and when I was collecting the sheets on laundry day from the 3rd floor, they’d trap me in one of the upstairs dorms and rape me. (I recall two younger boys whose names I do not know or recall, accidentally walked in one time and caught them in the act). This happened many times, over a dozen, but I don’t know the exact number nor the names of visiting clergy. I can name some of the nuns, and there is a photo in the 1992 Calendar of the nuns that look like from my era, for sure. So the answer to the question of “how many times this occurred” is: over 30 by Gallagher, and over 12 by visiting priests.