• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Looking back on it, I think I was also partly in denial. Already, just from having had limited contact with Gacy, my sleep had been disrupted, my schoolwork was suffering, and I was weighed down by secrets that left me feeling alone and isolated. By recruiting Jarrod, even in this limited role, I probably hoped to lessen the isolation.

I showed my brother just a few of Gacy’s letters, ones that were free of the most blatant sexual references, especially anything related to homosexuality. It’s amazing how many people assumed—then and later—that I must be gay to be able to play this role so authentically; I didn’t want Jarrod to think that, too.

Once my brother signed on, I worked out a plan whereby I’d write Gacy two sets of letters, one from me, the other from my brother. I’d compose Jarrod’s letters and then have him copy them in his own handwriting. Eventually, when the content of the letters flying back and forth became really weird, I told Jarrod to tell Gacy he was learning to type. That way, I could just do the letters myself on the computer and have Jarrod sign them without reading.

Of course, I never allowed Jarrod to read any of the letters sent directly to him. In fact, I wish that somebody else could have screened them so I wouldn’t have had to read them either. But I have to admit: for a while, deceiving Gacy was sort of fun.

15

Fictional Friends

One afternoon I was sitting in the bleachers at the university softball field, watching the last half of the women’s game with my friends. As usual, we were talking about which girls on the field were the “hottest” and bitching about our families.

“Man, I hate living at home,” said my friend Randy.

“Yeah, me too,” Josh added.

Randy continued, “I can’t even bring my girlfriend home or my parents will give me shit for having someone in the house.”

“Yeah,” Josh agreed, “my mom is always on my ass.”

Sitting there next to these guys I’d known for almost ten years, it occurred to me that they really knew less about me than Gacy did. There we were, watching girls running around in their skimpy outfits, and bullshitting with each other. Yet it felt like I had almost nothing in common with them.

I’d confided to Gacy not only some fabricated fantasies I thought he wanted to hear but also some very real feelings I had about life and the future. I’d shared with him my frustrations at home, my feelings of isolation, my hopes and aspirations. It felt weird to think that, in a strange way, he was actually becoming my friend.

At this point in our relationship, Gacy and I were relating to each other in a casual, relaxed manner. He was still feeling me out, testing what my limits were, and I was still trying to gauge how he viewed me, not knowing if he was as hesitant about me as I was about him.

I noticed one trend for certain: the more naive and confused I acted, the more confident and controlling Gacy became. It bolstered my opinion that he truly believed the character I was presenting was real.

In my letters to him, I’d taken great pains to present a family pattern that would seem very familiar to his own—I told him I had an overbearing mother and a very passive father. While this depiction was somewhat exaggerated, it was close enough to the truth to make me sound convincing.

Gacy frequently played psychologist, offering me his sage insights. In one letter, he observed:

So it sounds like your dad is the passive one so maybe thats why you like to be dominated by older women. You ever think of that? I don’t know the age of your parents but in the 40’s your mother will go through a change of life so maybe thats what is happening now. Just be kind to her. Your dad has the right idea of just being passive.

I fabricated a family situation in which I was suffering abuse at the hands of my parents, both emotionally and physically. Attempting to echo as strongly as possible Gacy’s own background, I blamed this on the weakness of my father. Likewise,