The Last Closet_The Dark Side of Avalon

by Moira Greyland

  Gregg’s repudiation of my father made perfect sense to me. I know it might seem weird that Gregg would keep returning, but my father didn’t beat Gregg like his mother did. Ongoing sexual abuse must have seemed more bearable than beatings with electrical cords. Once Gregg was an adult, that comparison became irrelevant. Gregg got rid of both Tweedledum and Tweedledee, both the batterer and the rapist.

  On November 27, 1991, my father pleaded innocent to all charges.

  On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1991, my father was transferred to the hospital wing of the Santa Rita Jail in Oakland for a hearing on his Alameda County probation violation. It never took place, though. My father was too ill to participate, and the hearing was rescheduled for July 14, 1992.

  He had been sick for a long time. Our family masseuse, Dr. Jane Robinson (now James Robinson) had asked my father repeatedly to seek emergency medical help for an obvious huge growth in his abdomen. My father had absolutely refused, which made members of my family suspect that he was committing a form of suicide. After all, a fast-growing mass was not likely to be anything other than cancer. Once my father had been arrested, he was given no choice about his medical care.

  On March 17, 1992, at Highland Hospital in Oakland, my father had a grapefruit-sized malignant tumor removed from his abdomen. The seven-hour surgery also took half his colon, and several feet of his small intestines. He had metastases all over his internal organs, and the diagnosis was Stage 4 liver cancer, terminal and inoperable.

  My brother was interviewed by a coin magazine on March 23. He told them about my father’s cancer and that the family would be meeting with the doctors to decide on the next step, whether chemotherapy, radiation, or nothing. My father wrote to Numismatic News on March 25, 1992, confirming the cancer and stating he first noticed the lump in December.

  My father was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life after his surgery. He continued to work on several writing projects until his death, including a revision of his Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins.

  On July 14, 1992, while being held in a prison infirmary in Dublin, CA, my father was sentenced to three years in prison for his probation violation in Alameda County. Then he was returned to the Los Angeles County Jail for a pre-trial hearing at the Santa Monica Superior Court on August 3, 1992, where he changed his plea to No Contest. On December 15, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for the eight felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under the age of 14.

  His book Greek Love had come up during one of the hearings, and he had reportedly tried hard to convince the judge that what he had done to his victims was right and that the laws should reflect that. The judge did not agree, and sentenced my father to a total of thirteen years in San Quentin. The judge noted his total lack of remorse and concern for the victims, and determined that he was too dangerous to even be allowed into a hospice to die. Even though he was terminally ill, wheelchair bound and almost blind from cataracts, the judge believed, correctly, that he would reoffend from his hospital bed.

  My father was in the Los Angeles County Jail when he was sentenced. He was then scheduled to be transferred to San Quentin, and was placed in the custody of the California Department of Corrections.

  When the American Numismatic Association found out about my father’s crimes, the Board of Governors expelled him from membership in the association. My father had been regarded as one of the most famous researchers and authors in the field of numismatics for more than 40 years. He wrote over twenty books, and hundreds of numismatic articles.

  Before he died, he wrote two poems about his cancer. I will leave it up to you to judge their literary merit. Their relationship to his life and his crimes is clear: he thinks he has nothing to regret.

  Cancer

  In silent stealth unseen invaders spread

  unplanning through each niche and convolution

  digging in to eat and multiply

  uncaring that they kill the hosts that feed them,

  until no death rays nor pollutant poisons

  can stop these armies, and their reign of terror.

  Usurping the gift of immortality,

  they only perish when their host world dies.

  Paradox

  Dear God,

  I’m not afraid of you—

  only of those who claim to speak for you.

  I’m not afraid of death—

  only of those who act out “Don’t die, suffer!”

  I’m not afraid of hell—

  only of its too-earthly imitations.

  When a book that claims to show your words

  says that wisdom begins by fearing you,

  why do I not fear you?

  Because, dear God, you know in full already

  what I am inside—

  unlike those who claim to act for you.

  —Walter Breen

  My father died on April 27, 1993 in the prison hospital at Chino Penitentiary. He did not survive long enough to be transferred to San Quentin.

  Chapter 35: Climbing out of Hell (1989–1993)

  “You mocked me once, never do it again! I died that day!”

  —Buttercup, The Princess Bride

  After my police report in July of 1989, Jonnie and I vanished without a trace. I could no longer be anywhere near my father. He obviously, loudly, despised me. I was receiving death threats from his friends. As far as I knew, Greyhaven had circled the wagons, insisting my father was innocent, and my brother Patrick was furious with me. Patrick seemed to think that my father had been arrested without evidence or witnesses, on my word alone. Nobody was the slightest bit concerned about Kenny except his mother. People were even asking if there was a way to discredit him to save my father.

  Lisa was less than no help. My friend Elizabeth, who was staying with my mother at the time, told me that Lisa was going around claiming that I was hysterical, lying, crazy, and that I had “made the whole thing up for attention.” Here is what Lisa said in her deposition:

  MR. DOLAN: About the fourth line down you write—the third line down. ‘I thought she was being hysterical—after all, God knows she has plenty of reasons to be angry with Walter.’ What did you mean by ‘, God knows she has plenty of reasons to be angry with Walter’?

  ELISABETH WATERS Walter always preferred boys to girls. He always favored Patrick over Moira. He favored Moira’s boyfriends over Moira. I think she resented that he didn’t love her because she was a girl.

  MR. DOLAN: Okay. So prior to Kenny Smith being molested, did you have any understanding that Walter favored Moira’s boyfriends over Moira?

  ELISABETH WATERS Moira—Walter favored any boy over Moira. Walter didn’t like girls.

  MR. DOLAN: You indicate in the next paragraph, ‘Sure, Walter was acting weird, but Walter always acts weird.’ What did you mean by, "Walter was acting weird—‘Sure, Walter was acting weird’?

  ELISABETH WATERS Walter generally acted paranoid, nervous, twitchy, suspicious, and he was acting that way.

  MR. DOLAN: Anything else?

  ELISABETH WATERS No, I think that about covers it.

  MR. DOLAN: Did you think that any of Walter’s interactions with children were geared in the sense that you have used the word ‘weird’ here before—strike that. Did you think any of Walter interactions with young boys were ‘weird’?

  ELISABETH WATERS No.

  MR. DOLAN: You indicate here, ‘And I certainly didn’t think Walter was stupid enough to molest a child—especially in front of Moira.’ What did you mean by that?

  ELISABETH WATERS Well–

  MR. BURESH: Other than what it says. You want her to paraphrase it?

  MR. DOLAN: Sure, what was she thinking when she wrote that?

  MR. BURESH: If you recall.

  ELISABETH WATERS: Well, aside from the idea that I certainly didn’t think Walter was that immoral, on top of that, I didn’t think he was that stupid. I mean, he must have known that Moira was going to object.

&n
bsp; I suppose it never occurred to Lisa that Walter believed everything he was doing was good and right, or that I had walked in on Walter unannounced. After all, I had made this same complaint before and for the same reasons!

  After Jonnie and I left, we stopped in Santa Cruz to stay with two friends, Tarik and Carolyn. While we were there, I broke down. I had a flashback of my Mother beating me up and I did not understand what was happening to me. I found myself pleading with them, saying “Please don’t hit me!” I was fully conscious while this was happening and I was horrified at my own behavior, even though I didn’t think at the time that I could stop it. I knew I was behaving irrationally and that they were not the ones I was afraid of. I was embarrassed and thought I was losing my mind, but I got over it within a few minutes.

  Months later, my mother told me she had tried to beat me to death twice and she had “locked herself in a closet” to stop herself from killing me. I had no memory of either episode outside of flashbacks, my hands over my head, and my voice saying “don’t hit me Mommy!” I was appalled both by what Mother told me, and why: Mother wanted me to sympathize with her over what an evil child I had been, and how terrible her life had been while she was caring for me.

  The next day, Jonnie and I left Tarik and Carolyn’s house. We drove to Los Angeles to stay with other friends, and then we got to house-sit for friends of theirs. While house-sitting in Los Angeles, I got pneumonia. I had never been so sick in my life. I was coughing up blood and pieces of skin from my throat. It is possible my immune system was compromised from the shock. I also started to have flashbacks around the clock, which had never happened to me before I left home. Most of them were about Mother molesting me, which I had been aware of as an older child. The flashbacks added more details, as though turning a brief memory of a few seconds into a few minutes.

  Apparently, distance from my family had opened the floodgates. Being in the shower was out of the question because any sensation on my chest made me hysterical and, once or twice, catatonic.

  There were times when I could not stand to feel the air on my skin because it would provoke flashbacks. I felt so filthy and so soiled because of what had happened to me. I irrationally thought that anyone would be able to tell by looking at me that I had been defiled.

  The worst flashbacks, though, were the ones about my father. I needed to think of him as safe Santa Claus not creepy Santa Claus, and this was no longer possible. The things I remembered were yucky and intrusive, but my flashbacks included a lot of things I had forgotten. Violence, whispered threats like “don’t talk or I’ll kill you!”

  My symptoms were so bad that I got a therapist. I literally could not speak when I tried to tell her what my father had done. I couldn’t even write down what he did. I could draw pictures, and they were not much help either, amounting to scary Santa with his private parts scratched out.

  I stopped being able to drive because I couldn’t stop crying. I could not talk. I could not sit alone at home.

  I could still write, though. I wrote these poems across the street from my boyfriend’s work, sitting in a fast food place. These are poems I wrote right before I went into the hospital:

  1. The Song Of Screams

  Ghosts

  This torn

  piece of paper

  looks like I

  feel

  the part that’s

  left is quite

  ordinary

  the right is

  gone.

  No reason

  only half-

  thoughts half-heard

  unnoticed and

  blowing away

  but bound to the

  spine though tattered

  If you look at it

  quickly enough it

  almost looks whole

  It might fool you

  it’s fooled me before

  but only until I wanted

  to write on the part no longer there

  empty and shredded, illusory

  substance—use from uselessness

  agony shrieks hollowly from

  what is left of my soul

  I too can be crumpled up and thrown away

  Dying, I feel I might just disappear

  wordless

  © 1989 Moira Breen

  2. Demons

  I had a flashback this morning, an image of what was,

  the screams I couldn’t scream then

  Dying in my throat, my body rigid, defiled

  Heartbroken with betrayal, guilt and grief.

  Can I ever go back knowing what they did to me so very long ago?

  My mind is a broken record of pain and shame

  Humiliation of incest, early defilement

  Someone else’s unwanted sweat

  The filth in the soul that can never be cleansed

  Except by blood—may I be spared.

  My choice is triage—live a lie or leave my parents forever.

  An unintentional tragic heroine

  Spills her coffee as she leaves her body

  Not for the last time.

  I eat, drink, work and sleep in a bubble of numb oblivion

  Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease,

  my hand shakes and my breathing intensifies

  as I struggle to write instead of to scream.

  © 1989 Moira Breen

  3. Carnage

  Again I sing my cheerful song

  What can I control today

  I’ll sort the books, I’ll file the files

  Pretend that nothing’s wrong

  But then my bubble bursts

  My illusion of contented control disappears

  And I dissolve in tears

  Confusion and helpless rage

  But still I sort, still I file

  Cheeks wet and makeup streaming

  My friends wondering why I act so oddly

  Strangely knowing better than I do that it’s time for me to rest

  Once in awhile I do

  I tell myself “it’s done, I’m better, I won’t be there again”

  I know I’m stable now, I haven’t wanted to die

  For at least a week—or was it yesterday?

  And then a nightmare comes, a lonely scream.

  If I wait to face the demon in my dreams, I face it alone.

  My mother’s in my bed again, I throw her off repulsed

  And scream until my voice is gone and run and then

  Awake with my beloved—that is you, thank God!

  I feel your face for whiskers—can I be sure it’s really you

  And not that sickening monster who spawned me?

  But where is my cheerful song now?

  When do I get to control my life again?

  When can I get back to life rather than being

  the prisoner of my own racking sobs

  When can I run away again?

  © 1989 Moira Breen

  I had applied to Long Beach State, and was awarded a double scholarship in harp and voice. The man who auditioned me for the opera program, Michael Carson, was very pleased with my talent and was intent on making sure I did well. He let me into the program two weeks after classes had begun. I still had pneumonia, but I could still sing. It was an enormous relief to be accepted back into school: perhaps my life was over but I could still do what I was supposed to do.

  When we left, we had been forced to leave my concert harp behind since it would not fit in my car. My mother’s accountant told me Lisa did not ever intend to return it to me but was going to learn to play it. Then Lisa tried to give it to Kristoph’s wife Margaret, who refused to accept it. I asked Margaret to please detune it and lock it in its case so that it would become too much trouble for Lisa to deal with.

  I had never been so angry in my entire life. I had gone through an insane ordeal and I had lost my home, my father, and my family. Now I was losing my harp too, and it was more than I could take. I remembered this passage from Gurrelieder, where King Waldemar screamed at
God. It seemed to me that Lisa was also taking my only lamb, robbing me of the only thing I had left that meant anything to me:

  Herrgott, weißt du, was du tatest, als klein Tove mir verstarb?

  Triebst mich aus der letzten Freistatt, die ich meinem Glück erwarb!

  Herr, du solltest wohl erröten: Bettlers einz’ges Lamm zu töten!

  Herrgott, ich bin auch ein Herrscher, und es ist mein Herrscherglauben:

  Meinem Untertanen darf ich nie die letzte Leuchte rauben.

  Falsche Wege schlägst du ein: Das heißt wohl Tyrann, nicht Herrscher sein!

  Lord God, do you know what you did when you killed my little Tove?

  You drove me from the last place where I was happy.

  Lord, you should blush! You killed a beggar’s only lamb!

  Lord, I am also a ruler, and this is what I know of ruling:

  I never steal the last light from my subjects.

  You are going down the wrong path: you are a tyrant, not a ruler!

  —Waldemar, Gurrelieder, Arnold Schoenberg

  Both Jonnie and I were working at Major Video, later Blockbuster Video. I could still work, but when nobody was in the store I would curl up in a fetal position behind the desk. This was extremely embarrassing to me, even though nobody ever saw me do it. At this point, my therapist told me that if I would not let her put me in the hospital, she would commit me.

  I talked to my boss, and told him I needed to be in the hospital and why. He told me to go and get the help I needed, and that he would gladly hire me back as soon as I was ready to come back.

  Lisa’s story about me making up my father’s crimes had fallen to pieces after I left. Mary Mason saw Lisa at a convention, and told her what my father had done to her son. She expressed relief that I had saved Kenny from any more abuse. In November of 1989, Mary Mason filed suit against my mother and Lisa for criminal negligence, because they had told her that my father was safe while obviously knowing he was not.