Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [114]
“Why?”
The man made a tent of his fingers, his semi-Bri t accent making him sound like a teacher. “If the picture was taken by his mentor, then it wouldn’t be circulated commercially, you understand?”
“His mentor?”
“A mentor, yes. One who teaches you, guides you through life. Helps you with problems … that sort of thing.”
I looked at him, picturing a little dot of cancer inside his chest, keeping my hands still. I raised my own eyebrows as a question.
“Men who love boys are very special,” the man answered, his voice reverent. “As are the boys who love them. It is a most unique and perfect relationship. And very little understood by society.”
“Could you explain?” I said, my voice flat.
“When a boy has a sexual preference for men, he is at grave risk. The world will not understand him. Many doors will be closed to him. It is the task of a dedicated mentor to bring the tiny bud to full flower. To help nourish the growth of the boy into manhood.”
“By taking pictures of the kid having sex?”
“Do not be so quick to judge, my friend. A true mentor would not take such a photograph for commercial purposes, as I said before. Such pictures preserve a unique and beautiful moment. Children grow up,” he said, his voice laced with regret for the inevitable, “they lose their youth. Would not a loving parent take pictures of his child, to look upon in later years?”
I didn’t answer him—I didn’t know what loving parents did. The State raised me. And the State takes a lot of pictures—they’re called mug shots.
“It is capturing a moment in time,” the man said. “A way of keeping perfection with you always, even when the person is gone.”
“You mean people … people like you … just want to keep the pictures? Not sell them or anything.”
“People like me …” the man mused. “Do you know anything about ‘people like me’?”
“No,” I said. The deal was I couldn’t hurt him—nobody said I had to tell him the truth.
“I am a pedophile,” the man said. The same way an immigrant would one day say he was a citizen—pride and wonder at being so privileged blending in his voice. “My sexual orientation is toward children … toward young boys, specifically.”
I watched him, waiting for the rest.
“I am not a ‘child molester,’ I am not a pervert. What I do is technically against your laws … as those laws now stand. But my relationship with my boys is pure and sweet. I love boys who love me. Is anything wrong with that?”
I had no answer for him, so I lit another cigarette.
“Perhaps you think it’s simple,” he said, his thin mouth twisted in contempt for my lack of understanding. “I love boys—therefore, you assume I am a homosexual, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” I assured him. The truth, that time. Homosexuals were grown men who had sex with other grown men. Some of them were stand-up guys, some of them were scumbags. Like the rest of us. This freak wasn’t like the rest of us.
He watched my face, looking for a clue. “You believe my orientation to be so unusual? Let me say this to you: some of the highest-placed men in this city share it. Indeed, were it not for my knowledge of such things—of powerful men with powerful drive-forces in their lives—I would not have the protection of you people,” he said, nodding his head in the Mole’s direction.
The Mole looked straight at him, expressionless.
“Any boy I love … any boy who returns that love … benefits in ways you cannot begin to understand. He grows to youth and then to manhood under my wing, if you will. He is educated, both intellectually and spiritually. Prepared for the world at large. To such a boy, I am a life-changing force, do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said. Thinking I finally knew what to call Mr. Cormil after all these years. A “mentor.”
“And I would … I have taken pictures of my boys. It gives us both pleasure in later years to look at this icon to our love, as it once was. A boy is a boy for such a short time,” he said, sadness in his voice.
“And you wouldn’t sell these pictures?”
“Certainly not! I have no need of money, but that is not the point. It would cheapen the love. Almost immeasurably