The Last Victim_ A True-Life Journey Into the Mind of the Serial Killer - Jason Moss [31]
All he could say in response was, “You want me to go right now?” He seemed to be in shock.
“Yeah, get your stuff and let’s go. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise. If things get out of hand, I’ll jump in.”
Jarrod didn’t look convinced.
“I know you’re scared,” I continued. “But you have to get this over with. Otherwise, this guy and his friends will never leave you alone. It’s better that this asshole kicks your ass with me there than with all of his friends beating you with bats in the desert somewhere, leaving you for dead. We can end this whole thing today.”
Jarrod trusted me completely, so he agreed to come. “If you say so, but if he starts kicking my ass too bad, you better break it up.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jarrod. You’ll probably kick his ass!”
We went to the kid’s house together and I set things up. “Here’s the deal,” I explained to the gangbanger, who was surprised by my offer. “You fight my brother right now. A fair fight. I’m tired of hearing all this bullshit about what you’re doing to him at school. If you have a problem with Jarrod, then you can fight here like men, and I’ll stand and watch. I won’t do a thing, unless someone else steps in or you pull a knife or something. Then that’s the end of it. If you beat the crap out of him, then leave him alone; if he beats you up, he leaves you alone. It’s over.”
“That’s cool,” he said, getting all pumped up at the idea of getting into a fight.
“Hey, man,” I interrupted as he was pumping himself up, “I mean it. No matter what the hell happens, it ends here . . . today !”
“All right by me,” he declared. “Let’s get it on.”
We all walked down the street to this deserted area where they were building new homes. Jarrod fought a good fight, but the guy was from the barrio in Los Angeles. He was tougher and had a lot more experience. Jarrod lost, ended up with a nice black eye, but he refused to give up. After that, he got a reputation for being one of the toughest kids in the school.
That was just one of several times when I came to Jarrod’s defense, taking care of him when our parents were unavailable. Simply put, I tend to overreact whenever anyone tries to hurt my brother. Which is why I was more than a little concerned that Gacy was trying to bring him into this mess.
In the same letter that my brother’s name was mentioned, Gacy also pressed for more communication between us. He challenged me to be more frank and open.
I am a PMA type person. Positive Mental Attitude. I don’t have time for negative thinking. Death is negative so why fill your head with that. Lying is negative, so I have no time for that.
Hey, I say what I think to some. That’s great. To others, they think I am not tactful. But I am not a cream puff and I believe a true friend will not tell you what you want to hear to stroke you but let you know whats right from their point of view. So you won’t find me stroking you as you have your own hand for that once a day if not more.
Again, there were those references to masturbation. And also some tendentious comments, intended to paint a picture of an upstanding man “caught up in the system.” Gacy would always preach to me about school, my grades, and being good to my family. In his letters he mentioned everything from football scores to the new movies out on tape. Clearly, these observations on pop culture were intended to make me see him as a person, as no different than a friend down the street.
A few days later I would receive my first glimpse of what I’d learn to call the “artificial Gacy”:
. . . I did not kill or murder anyone. I owned the property so they want you to assume I did. They say I confessed, but have no confession when asked in court. I have had 3 hours of truth serum, showing that I had no knowledge of some 28 victims, and the five I knew about, it wasn’t about killing them. That’s not admissible in court. I was sold out by my own attorneys for book rights. Thats what I have been