The Last Victim_ A True-Life Journey Into the Mind of the Serial Killer - Jason Moss [42]
Because part of me knew that he was trying very hard to manipulate me, I felt less guilty manipulating him. I suppose I shouldn’t have felt guilty at all. One could make the argument that Gacy, as someone who’d brutally killed thirty-three men and boys, wasn’t entitled to honesty or fair play. But such virtues were sufficiently ingrained in me that it was sometimes difficult to keep up the deception.
In the end, a part of me realized that if I didn’t deceive him, the relationship would yield nothing positive. Direct questioning was not the route to go with Gacy.
I knew, for example, that if I asked him, “How did you feel and react to your father beating you?” I’d get nowhere. That’s the usual approach taken by psychologists who interview serial killers, and it yields little useful information because there’s no way you can trust the answers given. Gacy had probably been asked that question a hundred times, and if I asked it for the 101st time, I’d get the response he gave everyone else.
I figured it would be more productive to concoct a personal situation that he could offer his opinion on. So during one phone conversation, I batted away yet another question about my sex life and adjusted my actor’s hat.
“John, I don’t want to talk about that stuff right now. I’m really fuckin’ pissed off.” My voice cracked, adding the proper authenticity. “I told you my father was giving me some shit again. I just want to die,” I said, seemingly on the verge of tears.
“Jason, you need to calm down. Now, why do you want to die?”
“My dad beat my ass again last night. He fuckin’ threw me against the wall and my head smacked into this nail. I hate that asshole. I really hate that fucker.”
“Jason, you don’t hate anyone,” Gacy replied in his most soothing voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a “TV dad”—The Brady Bunch’s Mike Brady? The Cosby Show’s Dr. Huxtable?—on the other end of the line.
“Fuck that, John,” I replied, starting to feel pretty bold at this point. I waited, hoping he’d catch the drift of where I was heading.
“Jason, just relax,” he finally responded. “The same thing happened to me. My father would smack the hell out of me for no reason at all. They love you, but sometimes they get angry. Once my dad hit me so hard over the head with a broomstick that I opened my eyes and found myself being held by my mother. I forgave him, just like you’ll forgive your dad.”
“But, John, it’s worse for me. I’m not sure I even want to live anymore. I have nobody. I can’t trust anyone. I can’t talk to anyone. It’s just . . . you know . . .”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gacy jumped in. “I know what you’re going through. My old man never even told me he loved me. Sure, there were times I wanted to kill myself, but if you die, then they are the ones who’ll win.”
His voice was now getting very serious and low. “I learned to turn all my anger inwards. Jason, you’ll soon learn how to not let people like that get to you. There are other ways to handle those situations.”
I was shocked at the direction this conversation was taking. If I wasn’t mistaken, Gacy was actually telling me about how he’d learned to strike out at others for all the abuse he’d suffered as a child.
He continued, “I’m here for you, Jason. I’m your friend. Your only friend. The only friend you need. Right now you need your parents because you have nowhere else to live. Keep hustlin’ and the money will be rollin’ in and you can move out. Maybe I could help out in the future, too.”
I couldn’t believe it. He was getting really emotional about all this. It almost seemed as if I’d opened a back door to his psyche, gained access to emotions he hadn’t expressed in a long time, if ever.
He went on to confide that he’d thought many times about killing himself,