2. Please also state your age(s) and your grade(s) in school (if applicable) at the time the abuse or other wrongful conduct took place.
I was 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 photocopy of orphanage records, showing my date of arrival and the date my aunt took me and my brother to her home. See also a picture of my brother and a nun, and a class photo type picture of me in those years.
e. What happened (describe what happened):
Attached is a photo from my first communion classes at the orphanage. I was 6 and they graduated me to altar boy status and choir boy. Trained to believe the priest was God’s earthly representative, I trusted him and my innocent trust unwittingly invited the most ghastly nightmare period of my life; when I was assigned duties in the Chapel, (buffing tiles, feather dusting saints, cleaning pews,) filling cruets with wine, folding Fr. Gallagher’s priestly garments—what I assumed a privilege, turned out to be a ploy to make me easily available to increasing sexual abuse. I worked in the Catholic Chapel and here is where I was first offered wine by Fr. Gallagher. After he got me intoxicated, he led me into his sacristy and sat my on his lap and pulled my pants down. He masturbated me, inserted his fingers in my anus, sucked on me, the whole time masturbating himself. And then he penetrated me. I was lost, traumatized, in shock, stunned into paralysis and could do nothing but tremble and shriek inside my head at what was happening to me. Is this what God wanted of me? Is this the way it was done, is this how we socialized, how we learned to be good altar boys, how we worship the priest, is this God’s plan? Will I be okay with Him now, will He bring my parents back, will He care for my brother and I, will this make my mother come back? The whole time I was being touched and molested and finally raped, Fr. Gallagher promised me my mother would return, assured me this is what God wanted, explained how I was lucky to be chosen, said I was doing good in God’s eyes, that I would be rewarded with a home and family if I continued to let him do the nasty things he was doing. He made me drink more alcohol, ordered me to obey him and commanded I please him by allowing him to kiss my penis, suck on it, run his tongue into my anus to lubricate it, he said, so it wouldn’t hurt, (it makes me puke now thinking of it), and then finally after what seemed an hour or two but clearly wasn’t, he would come, grunting like a pig and shake all over and then ask me to get dressed and instruct me to never tell anyone, telling me that it was a mortal sin to do so, it has to remain between us and God. God hears and sees all things, so our secret must be ours alone, and if I said anything, I’d be severely punished and my soul condemned to hell forever. It was part of being an altar boy. After I got dressed he would fill my pockets with lemon drop hard candy, gave me a special scapular and a rosary. He said I could never repeat what we did, not even in confession with him. Over the weeks and months and years I would witness what seemed like an army of boys go in and come out, some crying, others dazed and in shock by Fr. Gallagher’s sexual perversion, his obscene appetite to lick our genitals, lick our anuses, suck on us and finally rape us. I even saw two boys with blood on the butt side of their pants. I’m also aware that a number of them committed suicide along the way, and that almost all of them became addicts and alcoholics who eventually succumbed to horrible deaths from drugs.
What Father Gallagher and the visiting religious order predators did to us (they wore black and white gowns, sometimes gray, and looked Godly in their robes and hefty rosaries dangling from their waists and sandals), many of the boys copied and were doing to each other at night when the nuns in the dorms turned the lights off, many of the boys scooted under the bunks and had sexual intercourse, fellatio and sometimes committed rape on younger kids who couldn’t defend themselves. Strange to see a Calendar of the dorm room from the first year I was there, attached. Over time, I soon found myself aroused by other boy’s naked bodies in the shower room, found myself imagining having sex with other boys. Just as Fr. Gallagher did to me, I fantasized doing to them. Many boys did. I grew out of that sort of imagery, upon escaping this place and this Church by age 14.
Unconsciously or not, one is forced to adopt coping mechanisms to survive the rape sessions, and I soon learned to fight, to hate myself by doing harmful things to myself— becoming a risk-taker, taking chances diving off the pump house where many boys cracked their skulls, smoking dry elm leaves wrapped in comic book paper, volunteering to be the one to leap from the swing even if I risked breaking my bones, running off at midday to Wells supermarket on the corner of Indian School Road and Rio Grande Boulevard and stealing candy; breaking into the shoe-room, burglarizing the bakery and stealing the money from the nun from her day’s earnings selling bread, fighting other boys, dry-humping other boys by the slides, hating myself and cutting my arms with glass, refusing directions, running away dozens of times, increasingly until, at 13, I was roaming the city and breaking into stores, disobeying the nuns and my aunt, talking back, etc., etc., etc. Such was my childhood and youth.
As I’ve grown older, the horrific memories grow stronger and more invasive, and I often am reminded of that nightmare period when I run into other orphanage kids—all of them, it seems, druggies, meth-heads, tweakers, cokeheads, drunks, in prison, ex-cons. It’s a sad situation and we know, among ourselves, why we’ve become the worthless trash of society many of us have become—we were treated by the pedophiles as trash, we were exploited as children, our innocence ripped from us, our bodies abused by these evil-doers, with secret designs so diabolical we can never forgive them, we live with the horror every second, and know what they did to us is a terrible, terrible crime. No needle in the arm, no amount of heroin or Oxy or cocaine or weed or whiskey can numb the pain that endures and darkens our every day, our sleep and our waking. We hear the voices of those pedophiles, we’re haunted by Father Gallagher’s soft voice telling us to pull our pants down and we see his ugly face over and over for decades, and we relive the horror without exit nor mercy. I’ve used every drug trying to erase the nightmare, every narcotic trying to numb the pain. I’ve wrecked every relationship I’ve had. I have tried to commit suicide countless times, I’ve destroyed marriages, abandoned myself to years of addiction and alcoholism, been to prison, jails, gladiator schools, juvenile detention centers, foster homes—all to no avail. All these attempts at forgetting the excruciating torture I had to submit to by the priests and nuns, which has only magnified the penance over time. I don’t sleep. I’ve never held a job for more than a few months. I’ve used drugs all my life. I’m anti-social and somehow after all these years, I’ve never been able to forgive myself.
I still think it was my fault, so much so in the past in fact, that I felt I was so evil I needed to go to prison, be removed from society, and in my teens in D-homes or foster care, or in my early teens doing hard time in Denver, to feed my addiction and self-worthlessness, I sold drugs and was subsequently sentenced to a super-max YA prison where after a few years in, I learned to read and write.
f. Did you tell anyone about the sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct and, if so, who did you tell and when (this would include parents; relatives; friends; the Archdiocese; attorneys; counselors; and law enforcement authorities)?
Maybe in bar drinking whiskey or hanging out in a motel room doing cocaine, maybe in the backyard drinking beer late into the night, I hinted at it but never elaborated to whichever friend I was with, as it was too painful, and to offer details might lead to an outburst of uncontrollable violence, some criminal act, which was always imminent and often happened when the subject came up with an alumni—we did crazy things trying to forget what we knew, but spent a lifetime attempting to conceal and act like we didn’t know it happened.
g. Identify any church or religious organization you have belonged to or have been affiliated with.
Escaping the Catholic orphanage was the equivalent of escaping the Catholic religion, and surviving my childhood and my youth drove me forward. I no longer believe in a
nything that my senses cannot ascertain. None. I can never bring myself to step into a church again, never allow myself to get close, or in any proximity, time or distance, to a priest or any person or place, secular or otherwise, remotely connected to any religion—in fact, when we moved in with our aunt, the first thing we did and got punished severely for, was to carry all the plaster saints out of my aunt’s house when she died, took all the pictures and crosses off the walls, and threw them all down a well. I could never place myself in jeopardy emotionally by affiliating in any manner with any religious organization. That option was nuclearized to ash remains, forever, by the criminal violation of half a dozen priests—monsters—who sexually abused me as a child.
h. State whether there were any witnesses to the abuse. If there were any witnesses, please list their name(s) and any contact information you have.
There were many. Kids who saw what was happening by accident, others who shared with close confidants, some were told after each incident, some knew by word of mouth. I personally saw a dozen or so exiting Father Gallagher’s living quarters, some weeping, sometimes even bloody around the crotch area, as stated, but almost all of them too ashamed and terrified to look me in the eye. Witnesses? Yes, but so wounded and damaged as to become mute and deaf for fear of eternal damnation in hell, and if not that, then by the warning of the rapists, who vowed if we ever told anyone, that we would die, we would feel the wrath of God and be visited by Satan himself. A little boy hearing this will take the crime he witnessed and was victim of, to the grave, as many have. We were so scared to say anything, we would have preferred our tongues be cut out, acid thrown in our eyes, for to tempt a priest’s vengeance was perhaps the greatest curse of all. Kids saw me taken by the nuns and escorted out of classrooms, they saw me pulled by the ears until my lobes bled, they saw Sister Anna Louise slap me until I passed out, they saw me come out of Father Gallagher’s living quarters crying, they heard me screaming at the nuns, they stopped me from beating other boys on the playground. In one form or another, they were witnesses to the crime of sexual abuse by witnessing my steadily violent and disintegrating behavior. The abuse was prevalent, that sometimes they’d attack me in the dorm, sometimes on the 3rd floor, on the 2nd, in a different dorm, in one of the offices, in the auditorium, etc. That entire place was marked with a toxic haze of criminal residue. Keep in mind, we are talking about a child of 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and lest we forget, there were many like me. Witnesses? Many of us don’t cry anymore.
PART 4: IMPACT OF COMPLAINT
(Attach additional separate sheets if necessary)
(If you are uncertain how to respond to this Part 4, you may leave this Part 4 blank, but you will be required to complete this Part 4 within thirty (30) days after a written request is made for the information requested in this Part 4)
1. What injuries (including physical, mental and/or emotional) have occurred to you because of the act or acts of sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct that resulted in the claim (for example, the effect on your education, employment, personal relationships, health, and any physical injuries)?
First, please review the “what happened” section above, as much of my response there merges into the response to this question. What happened and its impact are not much different. So to my answers above, I continue:
Kept hostage in an environment where you are a play-toy for the sexually crazed, imprisoned with no escape, no access to help, you live and breathe under the duress of sexual predators permitting you to, you’re encumbered with a dreadful finality that you need them, that they design your days and control your life, that you are interred in an above-ground tomb and sentenced to walk and play and eat and sleep in predator-made hell forever, that the sequence of time and days are only broken by periodic calls to the bedrooms of predators who rape and consume you. Your life has nothing to do with an ordinary clock or routine time and academic studies or parks and happy holidays. No, your life is broken into rape scenes, and in these scenes you are allowed to be treated like a human being your predator hungers for, craves, desires, and they strip your soul from you, force you to do unimaginable horrors with them, and these scenes mark your growing up. My normal ‘school time’, is my ‘normal’, but not normal, because I left the place essentially illiterate. The actual rape, the act of it by a priest, becomes the epicenter of your existence and defines your life, imbues your fear, invades your diction, cauterizes your heart with a numbness so you live as a Nothing, and you are Nothing thereafter, for the rest of your Nothing life. With my peers, we found drugs worked better than the alcohol the priest gave you.
So what injuries? Being fucked by a priest merely fractures your soul and you bleed from your rectum, it’s the aftermath—the nightmares, the sweats, the fright, the terror that constantly accosts you and abides in every cell and nerve. I’ve tried suicide so many times, was addicted for years, spent time in YA. Like the San Andreas fault, the repeated rapes caused grave breakage in my soul and mind, caused me to destroy myself, to squander my time and finances on alcohol and drugs, created crevices and cracks and avalanches in my heart that poured out earthquakes of sorrow for what had happened to me that only drugs could remedy, partially, and violence. I went on violent sprees, against guards, inmates, bystanders, everyone anywhere, without concern for their welfare or who they were, all leading to me being institutionalized for so many years because I was incapable of living in society after what had happened to me. Because of those rapes, I was sequestered in a dark pit called isolation in a max prison and forgotten for three years, because I couldn’t live with human beings, because I couldn’t trust them. They had done something to me, demons wearing costumes and robes to trick me, came with folded hands reciting prayers and blessings, only to rape me and beat me and destroy me.
Finally, after much self-hatred, self-loathing and selfmutilation, I was able to find solace and reprieve in my poetry and surrender to the hopeful and compensatory passion of writing, which has become my mission in life. I want to be a voice. I got kicked out of middle school when my aunt took us in after the orphanage. I didn’t really know how to read and write much.
My current girlfriend has saved me from an early death. Writing is my only personal solace in this world; the damage done by the priests and their associates can never be healed or resolved. Ever. Especially since the brother I love with all my heart was raped at the orphanage by the same perverts and predators many times too, and the pain, in its searing burn, is so deep and incalculable, that even to this day he cannot talk about it.
Being raped murdered his soul and killed a part of me. Psychological reverberations ripple through all aspects of life, even in the prison system. Violence against other inmates in prison is, by extension, violence against other kids in the orphanage, all as perpetrated by the priests. But the government does not pretend to be the Spokesman for God. The Church does.
I don’t ever really talk about all this stuff, but it happened.
2. Have you sought counseling or other treatment for your injuries? If so, with whom and when?
No. I’ve had some counseling for substance abuse issues, but I have not sought counseling for childhood sexual abuse, nor discussed it with counselors in or out of prison. I am mulling over maybe some therapy, to look for connections between the abuse as a child by clergy and my current moment of talking about all this, really for the first time.
PART 5: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
1. Prior Claims: Have you filed any claims in any other bankruptcy case relating to the sexual abuse described in this claim.
□ Yes X No (If “Yes,” you are required to attach a copy of any completed claim form.)
If “Yes,” which case(s):
2. Settlements: Regardless of whether a complaint was ever filed against any party because of the sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct, have you settled any claim relating to the sexual abuse or other wrongful conduct described in this claim?
□ Yes X No (If “Yes,” p
lease describe, including parties to the settlement. You are required to attach a copy of any settlement agreement.)
3. Bankruptcy. Have you ever filed bankruptcy? □ Yes X No (If “Yes,” please provide the following information)
4. State whether you have previously commenced any lawsuit seeking damages for the identified sexual abuse. If yes, please state: NO
The dawn light has turned my office room walls and window a pale rose color. Griselda is at my feet, snoring.
I kind of understand now, after sharing with Lila my orphanage experience—the first person I ever talked to about why the whipping upset me so much, why I had to convince her to do it, why I wanted her to go through with all my fantasies.
I now know why I had to write those letters, include all the sex, why I couldn’t accept her as a friend or even a human being but a woman I created in my mind, in the imagination born and created in Father Gallagher’s living quarters. I had fantasized grotesque scenes with sex toys and sexual acts that later made me ashamed. I had even denied writing it. Admitting it was too much.
American Orphan Page 17
