Lobster Boy

by Fred Rosen

  Year after year they all took it. Even when the kids were old enough to do something about it, they took it. To them, abuse was normal.

  Donna remembers one night in particular during the latter part of 1972. They were home in the trailer in Gibtown. “He was arguing, he was really drunk, real bad. And he was fighting, arguing with Mom.”

  While World War III raged in the living room, all the kids went to bed. They were in a separate part of the trailer. Lying in bed in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, they could hear their parents arguing and fighting.

  “Then I heard a big bang,” Donna says, “a very loud bang.”

  They got up and came running out of the bedroom, into the living-room light.

  “He had my mom in the middle of the living-room floor, and he was punching her in the sides, and the legs, and in the arms and face.”

  “Stop it, stop it,” Debbie screamed in tears.

  “Daddy, please, stop …” Donna sobbed.

  Teresa collapsed in Grady’s arms. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her breathing became shallow.

  Debbie raced across the room and put her thin arms around his neck, pulling him back. Trying to help, Donna took hold of his arm, too.

  Looking down at the limp rag of a woman in his arms, Grady’s rage subsided. He let her go and she collapsed to the floor in a heap.

  “I ought to finish you,” he snarled. “I ought to finish you off right here. I don’t need you. You’re nothing but a dirty bitch!”

  He turned and looked at Donna.

  “You’re too much like your mother,” he muttered coldly, staring at the petrified child. “Too much.”

  Taking in deep gulps of air with every breath, Grady put his claws down on the floor and scooted across the room to his armchair. He turned on the TV and finished drinking his Seagram’s 7 and Coke like nothing had happened.

  As the television’s light flickered across the room, the children knelt down around their mom and tried to wake her up. Struggling mightily, they half carried and half dragged her out. Eventually, Teresa regained consciousness.

  “Mom, I’ll call the cops,” Debbie said.

  “No, no,” Teresa answered anxiously. “Don’t worry about it. He’s just drunk.”

  The night her parents separated remains indelibly etched in Donna’s mind.

  “I don’t remember where it was, or the exact month, or the town, but we were on the road, and he was drinking all day. He drank all the time when he was working.”

  Many times, when the marks would come into the tent to see Grady on top of the platform, reciting his speech about how long the “lobster claw syndrome” had been in his family, his words would be slurred from all the booze he’d been drinking.

  “That night, after closing, he called Mom out in the show. They were arguing. She came back into the trailer, crying. And then he came back to the trailer, pulled the door open, let it slam real hard, and he took twenty dollars and he threw it at her.”

  “Take your fucking kids and get out of my face,” Grady screamed.

  “She did,” Donna continues. “She told all five of us to go get packed. She was scared and crying real hard. She packed a couple of suitcases herself and she took us with her across the street to a motel. There was no way she’d leave us alone with him when he was drinking.”

  After Teresa and the kids checked in, she called Midget Man to come to her rescue.

  Harry Glenn Newman, aka Midget Man, was actually a welder by trade. Unlike normal-sized welders, at a little over three feet, Glenn was lower down to the material he was working on and consequently inhaled some of the fine metal filings he shaved with his blow torch. Respiratory problems followed. Rather than keep risking his health, he joined the carnival.

  As Midget Man or The World’s Smallest Man, he toured the carnival circuit, eventually hooking up with Grady Stiles, who became one of his friends, and later, his employer. To see Lobster Boy and Midget Man together was indeed a strange sight for the casual bystander.

  Over the years of their friendship, Glenn came to know and admire Teresa Stiles. A truly compassionate person, he had a friendly shoulder she could lean on. Glenn was always there to help out.

  “When my mom called Glenn the night she was thrown out, Glenn quit work. He had a little camper. He came over to the motel and tried to calm Mom down. He says, ‘Don’t worry, if he throws you out, I’ll help you get straightened around.’”

  The entire family traveled to Ohio and moved in with Glenn’s mother.

  Things were quiet then. Glenn would come around every day. Frequently, he played with Cathy. One day, he brought her a puppy as a present. For the first time in their lives, the Stiles family, minus Grady, lived a normal life. There was no fighting. Teresa was more relaxed.

  “When we got up for breakfast every morning, it was quiet. Glenn would come over for dinner, and it was nice. He would joke around. We were able to go shopping,” Donna recalled.

  With Glenn footing some of the bills, the Stiles family was able to make a go of it. Then, one day, four months into the honeymoon, “Mom took us someplace to this courthouse. I think it was in Pennsylvania. I remember the day because Cathy had just lost her first front tooth that day.

  “We were sitting in a room, and Dad and Mom was in another room. I don’t know what happened. We went downstairs to a cafeteria, and then she took us off to the side and said we had to go with him, had to go with my dad. Cathy was crying, and I ran to Glenn’s pickup and locked myself in it. I think it was Mom that eventually talked me out of there.”

  Without Teresa’s knowledge, Grady had filed for divorce. Since Teresa never knew about the proceedings and didn’t participate in any of them, the court awarded Grady an uncontested divorce and custody of the kids.

  “We left the courthouse, but I don’t know where he was living at the time. But we ended up in Florida, back on Trenton Street in Tampa. He still had the house.”

  Not for long, though. They were only there long enough for Grady to sell the house and all the furniture in it. “He gave all of Mom’s whatnots, lamps and all of her stuff to his sister. He would not let her come back to the house to get her clothes, which included a fur coat and some evening dresses. He gave away all of her clothes. Jewelry, and everything else, he gave to Barbara.”

  By that time, Grady was living with Barbara Browning Lucille. With his divorce final, they married.

  “Barbara had a sunken face and stringy, light brown hair. She was very, very skinny. She wanted to put herself in my mom’s place. She wanted to be our mother. She tried to force herself onto us.”

  Donna hated her. But the idea wasn’t to be a nurturer, the way Teresa was. It was “a role [she was playing] to try to get closer to my dad, and to try to get us away from my mom. I think she had a drinking problem like my dad did, because they would go out drinking together a lot,” unlike Teresa, who so hated drinking she would only do it if Grady forced her.

  Barbara had one child from a previous marriage, a daughter named Susan. Along with Susan, who everyone called Susie, the reconstituted Stiles family consisted of Grady, Cathy, Donna, and Barbara. Debra, who was older, went out on her own.

  Being the oldest, Donna was forced to adopt adult-sized responsibility. Though she wasn’t close to her stepsister Susie growing up, she helped raise her.

  “My dad had me take care of [all] the kids,” Donna continued. Sometimes, the responsibility overwhelmed her and she cut school. When Grady found out, he beat her with his belt. “I’m gonna send you to juvenile,” he threatened, as the belt bit into her skin.

  Grady beat his new wife, too, but unlike Teresa, whom he preferred to beat around the body so the bruises did not show, he wasn’t as careful with Barbara; when she appeared in public, it was not uncommon to see her face bruised, her eyes blackened, her lips puffy.

  Donna still had her own survival to consider.

  By 1974, Grady had relocated the family again, this time back to his hometown of Pittsb
urgh. He was hoping to organize a sideshow with him as the star attraction. They settled in his old stomping grounds on the city’s North Side, in a tenement, which had a fine view of other tenements. Then, in 1976, Barbara became pregnant.

  “My dad knocked Barbara down and continued to punch her in the stomach when she was pregnant with [Little] Grady,” Donna recalls.

  Grady Stiles III was born on July 26, 1976. He had the family trait of lobster claws and truncated legs.

  Teresa continued to live with Harry Glenn Newman. He was a good husband and made a living from a tire business he had established.

  On June 8, 1974, Teresa gave birth to Harry Glenn Newman, Jr. He would become known as Glennie to the family.

  The joy of having her sixth child, a healthy baby boy, should have lasted, but Teresa’s heart ached. She missed her kids terribly. “He [Grady] wouldn’t allow me to have contact with the kids,” she remembers.

  In May 1975, Grady had a friend drive him to the mobile home in Smock, Pennsylvania, where Teresa and Glenn now resided. Teresa happened to be watching from the window inside.

  She saw a car pull to the curb. Grady jumped out. Walking on his hands, he ran toward the door.

  “You fuckin’ whore,” he shouted. “You bitch, you good for nothin’ cunt! Open the fucking door!”

  Grady pulled the screen door wide open, breaking his watch in the process. He continued to shout obscenities and pound on the door. Finally, seeing it was doing him no good, he left.

  Teresa went down to the Highway Patrol and put a warrant out on him, but the authorities never caught him and the warrant was never served.

  By 1976, Grady still had custody, and Christmas was approaching.

  Against Glenn’s best advice, Teresa called Grady anyway.

  “Grady, I was wondering if I could see the children so I can take them home with me to Vermont to see my mother for Christmas.”

  “That would be okay,” said Grady.

  “Okay, so I’ll come by your place—”

  “No, why don’t we meet at Harry’s Bar? You remember where that is, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Okay, so we’ll meet at Harry’s, have a couple of drinks, and then go back to my house to pick up the kids.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Glenn warned, after Teresa hung up. “You never know what Grady might do.”

  “Look, Glenn, I miss those kids. I really want to be with them.”

  Midget Man knew better than to argue with his wife when she had her mind set on something, especially seeing the kids. He knew how much they meant to her. Still, he felt uneasy about the trip. But they went anyway, along with baby Glennie.

  They met at Harry’s, where Grady tossed back double shots of Seagram’s and 7-UP on the rocks.

  “The girls are at my apartment,” Grady said, slugging the drinks down. “You gotta go in to take them.”

  Glenn didn’t want to. He smelled something wrong, and told her that. But Teresa was heartsick. She needed her babies.

  After he finished his fifth double shot, Grady took them all to his apartment. The kids were nowhere to be found.

  “Go fix yourself a cup of coffee,” Grady said casually.

  Teresa didn’t know what was happening. She decided to play along. When she came out of the kitchen, Grady leaned back on the couch. Deftly, he reached underneath the cushions and pulled out a revolver. He pointed it at his guests, who stood paralyzed in fear.

  “Ever see a gun like this?” he asked menacingly.

  “Yes, I’ve seen a few,” Teresa replied.

  Grady put his free claw in his mouth and whistled.

  The back door opened. They heard a lumbering sound getting closer and closer. He plodded into the living room, all six hundred pounds of him.

  His name was Paul Fishbaugh, a carnival “Fat Man” whom Grady employed. To Teresa and Glenn, he was distinguished not so much by his impressive bulk but by the even more impressive shotgun cradled in his fleshy arms.

  Fishbaugh sat down on a chair by the kitchen door. It was surprising the chair would support his weight.

  “Cover them, Paul,” Grady said.

  Fishbaugh pointed the shotgun at Teresa, Midget Man, and their baby boy. It is doubtful that Midget Man could have taken The Fat Man under any circumstances. Still, Lobster Boy was taking no chances.

  “Come over here to the couch, Teresa,” said Grady.

  Teresa did as she was told.

  He hit her with the claw that was hard as a board.

  The baby screamed.

  “For God’s sake, Grady, let them leave! I’ll stay,” Teresa shouted.

  Grady ignored her pleas and continued to beat her. Teresa’s mind drifted. It seemed like forever.

  When he finally finished, Grady told Teresa, “Don’t bother me anymore or next time, I’m going to kill you, Glenn, and your son.”

  Then he let them go.

  Seven

  On April 29, 1978, Donna turned fifteen. Escape from Grady was paramount in her mind. But what kind of escape could a fifteen-year-old hope for?

  Her hope for freedom resided with Jack E. Layne, Jr. A strapping eighteen-year-old, six feet three inches, and a solid 210 pounds, he had black hair and a handsome face.

  They were introduced by Donna’s cousin, who had previously gone out with him. Jack and Donna, who was then attending Allegheny Junior High School, hit it off almost immediately.

  In early September of that same year, Donna ran away from home. She met Jack in a public park, which was about four blocks from the apartment she shared with her family. Jack took her to his sister Jenny Layne’s house, in the Brighten Heights section of Pittsburgh. A few days later, Donna called Grady.

  “Where the fuck are you?”

  “Dad, listen—”

  “No, you listen,” he screamed into the receiver. “You get right back here now, or else!”

  Donna said no.

  “All right, all right,” Grady acquiesced. “I’ll let you go with your mom. You come home, I’ll call your mom, and you can go with your mom.”

  “You’re lying.” Donna spit the words out. “You won’t even let us talk to her and you expect me to believe you’d let me go and live with her?”

  “Listen, you fucking—”

  And Donna hung up the phone. Three or four days later, she called again.

  “I got detectives looking for you,” Grady said menacingly. “They’ll find you and when I find that boy that’s with you, I’m going to kill him and—”

  Donna hung up.

  Pit Loan was a pawnshop on the North Side. Philip Archer was behind the counter on September 11 when he saw a strange sight: a legless man in a wheelchair with lobster claws for hands. He wheeled himself up to the counter.

  “I want to buy a gun,” he said.

  Archer filled out the state-mandated “Application for Purchase of Firearms,” and noted the following information:

  APPLICATION FOR PURCHASE OF A FIREARM

  Name: Grady F. Stiles, Jr.

  Date of application: 9-11-78

  Date and place of Naturalization: 7-18-37

  Male, 41 years of age, white, 4 feet 3 inches, 185 pounds, black hair, blue eyes.

  Make: H&R

  Model: 732.32 caliber

  Length of Barrel: 2.5 inches

  In a scratchy script, Grady signed the document. As the seller, Archer countersigned.

  Another few days passed. Donna made another phone call.

  “The cops are looking for you this time,” Grady said evenly. “With my detectives. I’m gonna send you to juvenile,” he added.

  This time, Donna was scared. Something about this threat made her sit up and take notice.

  She hung up. She needed to do something before the door burst in and they came to get her and sent her back.

  She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Dad.”

  “Yeah, Donna.”

  “Dad, listen. Jack and I want to get marrie
d. I—I’m pregnant.”

  Nothing could have been further from the truth. Donna was playing on Grady’s paranoia. In fact, not only wasn’t she pregnant, she was still a virgin. The most they’d ever done was neck a little bit.

  Grady got very quiet on the phone. He didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, he said, “Since you’ve already been with him, I’ll sign the papers.”

  Being that she was underage, she needed her father, as her legal guardian, to sign the papers allowing her to get married.

  Before returning home, she went with Jack to inform his father Jack, Sr., what they were going to do.

  It was not surprising that he was at home; Jack, Sr., lived on disability. His mother, Geraldine, had died years before.

  After that chore was finished, it was back to the house to face Grady.

  “I went home,” Donna recalls. “Dad and I, we talked for two days about what was happening, really.”

  September 28 was set as the wedding date. During the week, Grady made one last effort to dissuade her. When Donna remained true to her dream of escape, Grady relented and told her that he would keep his promise and let them get married.

  As promised, Grady signed a form agreeing to the marriage.

  Letter in hand, Donna and Jack went to the county clerk’s office where, on September 20, they applied for a marriage license.

  September 27, 1978, dawned with a chill in the air, but by midmorning, the temperature was climbing into the sixties and the sun came out.

  Donna walked through the sunshine, and got to Jack’s house at approximately 11 A.M. Together, they went to Dr. Rob Slotkin’s office, where blood was drawn from both of them, as required by the state for couples marrying. Then they walked over to the barber’s school on East Ohio Street, where Jack got a haircut. Jack then walked Donna to her father’s house where she was to clean the house, getting ready for the planned wedding reception. When they got there, Grady was already gone.

  A few blocks away at Harry’s Bar, Grady was perched on a barroom stool, doing what Harry loved: being one of his best customers.