October 16th 2014 - Ira Part 7

My relationship with Ira evolved as time passed in Russia.  From Minnesota the previous October when she was staying with us, through to Siberia, it grew.  She was nervous at first, away from home in another land, living in another family’s world.  There was an added stressed for her because I was a male exchange student-brother-person.  In Russia, after the first half of the stay, she finally explained to me how she was afraid I would have expectations to be intimate, become something more than friends.  She expressed further, her feelings, she was more comfortable to call me a brother and she hoped I would think of her as a sister.  It was truly heartfelt and sincere and mature and sweet.  I was so grateful for her words.  At an age when hormones are firing and emotions are exploding like bottle rockets.  I learned a lot from her vulnerability and her sincere words.  I believe that examples of vulnerability and making a connection are conversations that evolve us.  Each time a memorable experience takes up residence in our spirit, our potential improves.

In the final days I spent a lot of time with her family.  I got to know her father and mother more closely and especially her little brother Aleosha.  He and I spent a long time putting puzzles together.

Ira’s father took me to his parent’s house in the country.  It was some miles away that we drove in his car.  Yes, he had a car.  He ordered it and it shipped to him in parts that he assembled himself.  It boggles my mind to imagine someone assembling their own automobile.  He made it sound like that is what everyone does.  I found it very hard to believe, but of course I am in Siberia, about as far as I could get from home, the opposite side of the world, what do I know?

Ira’s Grandparents were way out in the country and lived on a very small plot of land.  They lived in a house that was like a small cottage no larger than a single room with the bed and the kitchen.

There were many of these dachas in a row, Ira’s Grandparents were just one in a long line of little plots with fences between them.  The small yard was their farm.  It resembled a community pea-patch, no larger than a basketball court.  They utilized every square inch of land to grow the food for the family.  Mostly bags of potatoes, carrots, radishes, squash and other things they would can or preserve for the year.

Ira’s father explained that there wasn’t space for his parents in town with the family.  This is where they had to live.  But this was their contribution - they worked the farm for the family.

I asked them whether it was a good thing their government was changing.  Ira’s dad explained that the government provided the needs to live - the bare necessities and the people found ways to supplement it.  It has been several months since the wall had come down and since then the people of Academgorodok noticed the subsidies were diminishing and it was harder and harder for the people to live.  He felt like change was good for the whole of Russia and the possibilities were exciting, but at this time the transition; the changes were not helping people like his parents.  He felt they were abandoned.

It was amazing to hear his perspective.  We in America wanted it so bad, the wall to come down, communism to end.  Mostly because we wanted the differences between our cultures to be removed.  We wanted the cold war to end, to not live in fear anymore.  We wanted our people in America to let go of this scary idea that we didn’t really understand.  But I don’t think any of us were prepared for the outcome, or the truth of how it really affected the millions of people in all of Russia, Siberia and the many small towns across Asia.  How ethnocentric to wish for something to change for the benefit of me but claiming it was for the people of Russia, without really knowing the truth, with little to no concern of the many people it would affect.  This feels familiar as I write it - how many times have we as a nation felt and wished things without a true understanding of the outcomes, the affect, the fallout.

Before we departed the dacha, Ira’s father and parent’s presented me with a gift.  It was a beautiful black bear Russian hat.  The kind that goes over the ears.  It was like wearing a space heater.  After hearing the story of squalor they live in, but never complained.  Never once did they seek pity, they were gracious and accepting and happy.  A true example of the ‘salt of the earth’.

October 15th 2014 - Ira Part 6

Siberia is cold and filled with snow a lot of the time.  It was hard for us to gauge whether our Twin Cities climate was the same or less extreme.  We were there in March and the ground was three feet deep in snow.  Plus, it’s Siberia, we assumed it snowed every day even in June.  We came to learn that Minneapolis is considered a sister city to Novosibirsk in size and climate.

The exchange program arranged for a cross-county marathon for all of the students Russian and American alike.  This was generally accepted with enthusiasm.  Most of us had downhill ski experience from living in Minnesota, and some with cross-country, yet for me that was a different animal.

We gathered along a hiking trail on the edge of town.  The teachers had arranged a school bus in case any of the students couldn’t or wouldn’t participate.  As much as the Russian students were generally gracious, sweet, understanding, curious and generous; there was a characteristic of competitiveness especially related to athleticism.  Frankly, the Russians were talking shit and ready to put 10Km behind them leaving us to muddle through the snow and ice in their wake.

My Stolichnaya friend from Park High School was bragging about how awesome he was at downhill skiing and how he rocked the downhill team.  He saw the opportunity to show off by taking a snowdrift by the trailhead.  He made sure we were all watching when he pushed off for this mogul he was going to jump.  He hit the snowdrift going so fast his feet went up above his head and his back came down on the trail.  His Russian exchange family had given him a thermos for the long ski run and he had stored it in his back pocket of his Spyder jacket.  It was comical but I felt bad, he was so excited to show off his ability in the eyes of these competitive Russians, but when he got up and we saw how the thermos had exploded into his back staining his jacket with hot tea, all I could do was go over to him and pat him on the back and say, “nice try man.”

I was intimidated.  I carried an extra 25-30 pounds weight being a rather chubby 11^th grader, definitely not in shape or prepared for this type of adventure.  I took it slow, sneaking several cigarette breaks with my friend Matt.

I remember this adventure so clearly.  Most likely because it was traumatic but exhilarating at the same time.  The forest was deep and dark with a fresh unblemished snowfall.  The only sign of people were the parallel lines left by the skiers ahead of us that we followed exactly like horses on a trail ride.

About one-third of the way through the marathon several of the Park High kids got pretty excited about U2.  They were carving notes in the snow for those of us behind.  Back home in the Twin Cities at that exact time U2 was playing in Minneapolis.  In honor of our friends and family back home, we sang U2 songs as we traversed the distance which seemed like a very long way - because it was.

At the halfway point we stopped at an old wooden church in the middle of nowhere.  We came to a rise with a beautiful view of the surrounding land with this temple made out of wood.  We all went inside and took a break from the cold and long distance trek.  As we entered it was like truly going back in time.  100 years or maybe 200 years there was an eerie serenity to it.  I felt in awe but also like a trespasser.  The antique wooden castle was built in 1700 and had survived probably one of the harshest environments.

As I look at this picture I think back to that day and I try and inhabit the Pete at 17 in my 40 year old bones.  I feel gratitude for the opportunity to have stood in my rickety wooden skis staring up at a relic.  This mecca for locals to visit that many around the world will never experience.  I wished I’d stayed a little longer, smelled the thick pine forest and sun soaked snow as it weaved a pattern on the ground like the wind does to a desert- randomness made perfect with a brush stroke of symmetry and gravity and solid ground.

We were young and innocent and lacked layers of responsibility and experience.  Truly a perfect time to fill the vacancy that defines our youth; to broaden the depths of each of us in ways we will have difficulty sharing with those that didn’t come.  Ray Bradbury would invoke many more metaphors that I lack as I write this.  I can only say that my spirit leveled up that moment and it took 23 years to acknowledge the gravity of how I felt on that day.

We continued on the marathon sweat mixed with chill and exhaustion.  My friend Matt got a really bad set of ski’s, frustrating him with frequent breaks to reseat his boots.  I stayed with him for awhile but also at times I continued along on my own, my competitive nature pushing me to finish in some reasonable time.

We reached the finish together Matt and I and he proceeded to a tree and he removed his ski’s and swung as hard as he could breaking the ski’s in half splintering them.  I laughed at his frustration and the silliness of the day.  Part of me felt bad since the ski’s were probably a month’s wage for one of the Russian Families.  Yet, they were bad skis.

They shuffled us into a cabin about the size of an old warming house.  A wood burning stove, sweaty sox, old leather and smoke gave the room an inviting smell.  I reveled in my own satisfaction for completing the marathon an experience I would never have voluntarily signed up for.

They rewarded our journey with sandwiches which were welcome since we were famished.  I took a huge bite and it was chewy and creamy.  I opened the bread to reveal what looked like thick raw bacon and huge squares of butter or maybe it was cheese, it was difficult to tell.  The voice in my head screamed to not eat it, the tape worms, the trichinosis, the pragmatic instruction from my parents in my head.  But I was so hungry and it tasted so good I couldn’t resist.  I looked up at my friend Cynthia, who to this day, I remember making eye contact, she and I thinking the same thing about the sandwich.  We both giggled without sharing words.  The Russians were so proud of those sandwiches, making our reward the most special to them.  I think under the circumstances my parents would have agreed, tape worms and trichinosis might have been justified in that moment.  A refusal would not have been acceptable.  Just like Indiana Jones and Willie Scott in the small village in India blowing flies off of their stag beetle and rice, “eat, eat.”

I have not matched the flavor of whatever that was in the sandwich, a secret recipe left to the Siberians.  Although, I have never made myself a raw bacon sandwich either.  I guess I will never know.

October 14th 2014 - Where's the Music At?

This is a confessional of my own stupidity.  A story that proves I have guardian angels (or several) watching over my spirit.  There’s a real good chance, after these events, my guardian angel put in for a transfer.

It was summer 1998 set in the heart or maybe pancreas of Minneapolis.  I’d been following this band called Happy Apple for a couple of years.  Hadn’t missed a single performance, handed out CD’s, and was generally inspired by what they were creating.  They were a 3-piece group lead by a Juliard-drop out drummer (the rumor was because they didn’t let him wear shorts), a fretless electronic bassist, and a sax player.  The sounds they were making were tremendous, but it was their stage presence as performers that won me over.  On this particular night they were going to open before the movie-in-the-park.

Minneapolis, as in any city, had its pockets of shady territories.  Today Steven’s Square Park is a rather gentrified area but back in 98’ it was borderline.  I went early to get a good seat around 6pm for the show to start at 7pm; I’d never really been to the park before, keeping my distance for reasons of staying out of trouble.

As I approached the park which was a long city block surrounded by historic brownstone apartment buildings I looked for signs for music and movies in the park, or at a minimum the band setting up for the show.  But there was nothing - no amps being unloaded, projection screens, or people milling about.  I figured I had the wrong place so I drove around looking for the music.

  After fifteen minutes of driving in circles, investigating houses and apartments clearly not finding an alternate for the venue I decided to ask a guy on the corner.  I pulled up and rolled down my window.

  “Hey, you know where the music’s at?”

  “What?” He shouted over the street traffic.

  I repeated, “you know where the music’s at?” He walked over to the passenger window and reached in, unlocked the door and popped in.  It all happened so quickly I didn’t have a chance to protest.  I wasn’t prepared for personal directions.

  “Um, you know where the band is playing?”

  “I’ll take you, drive,” he commanded.  I was not in the turning lane so I had to go straight through the intersection to a dead-end street.

  “No No, man.  Don’t go into this street,” he looked back over his shoulder and out the window checking if anyone was watching, or the wrath of some terrible demon.  I didn’t ask, I just immediately turned the car around.  At this point I knew I was in serious trouble, I didn’t know the streets, and this guy was shady, and in my car.  I did what he told me though and headed back toward the Steven’s Square Park.  As we approached the park I saw a sign that read ‘Music and Movie in the park beginning at 8pm’ (where the hell was that sign 20 minutes ago?).  I was right all along just had the incorrect time.  Now it was a matter of getting rid of this guy without getting murdered.

  He told me to pull up to the park near the basketball courts.  There were several guys playing a rather intense game of shirts and skins.  My tour guide waved through my window and made eye contact with one of the ballers.  The game was stopped and two of the skins came over and popped into my cherry red Ford Explorer.  This would be about the time that anyone reading this would wonder how naive and ignorant I was, but in the moment, everything happened very quickly and I was really trying to keep my cool.

  “What’s up?” The baller sitting directly behind me asked.

  “Okay man what you want?” My tour guide and personal drug delivery guy asked.

  “Oh boy guys, I think there’s a serious misunderstanding,” you have to imagine me stating this with a full William H. Macy accent from Fargo.

  “What?  I thought you wanted a hook-up?”

  “No.  Sorry, I was looking for the music.  You know, the band in the park?”  As I stated it out loud, I could get why he thought I was looking for drugs.  My tour guide sighed and dropped his head.

  “So, you want it or not?”  Baller asked.

  “No thanks,” I replied.

  “Shit,” his partner stated, the one sitting behind my tour guide.  I realized I was wasting these guys’ time.  Maybe I could make it up to them.  I had a jug of Carlo Rossi stashed under the passenger seat.  I reached down and said, “you guys want some wine?” As I pulled it out and lifted it as high as my review mirror, I turned and noticed a police car had pulled up to my blind spot.

  “Whoa, 5.0 man put the wine down,” the second baller exclaimed.  I stashed the booze back down below the seat.  We just sat there silent, no one spoke, and none of us moved.  The moment lasted for an eternity, I just watched through the passenger side mirror.  The police didn’t move or get out.  I assumed he was running my plates trying to determine why a white, young, Saint Pauler was doing in the hood with a truck full of locals in a bright red cherry Ford Explorer.  And whatever the police were wondering, I was wondering the same exact thing.

  There was a good chance that a fuse was about to be lit and shit was about to explode.  We continued to sit in silence.  I assumed we all four were praying, although my prayers might have sounded a little bit different than the other three, but nonetheless for a moment in time - we all wanted the same thing.

  After another minute or two the police car pulled away.  Once it was a half block down the street the two ballers jumped out of the car without saying a word and bailed.

  “Drive man, let’s go,” my tour guide stated.  I drove a couple of blocks when he chimed in again, “take me to Franklin.”  I drove him the eight blocks to Franklin.  He asked me en route whether I wanted to drive him around later making several stops.  I respectfully declined the invitation.  After he departed, I drove a couple of blocks and pulled over and just stopped and closed my eyes to thank my lucky stars, and all of my angels.  There were about five ways that could have gone differently and I still wasn’t sure how none of them didn’t happen.  As I stated previously, several guardian angels facilitated some kind of spiritual corporate takeover.

  I parked about two blocks from the park, grabbed my jug of wine, and entered the park.  As I soberly came through the grassy path I passed a man who whispered, “I bet you feel better huh?”  With a big goofy smile on his face.

  I nodded, “you bet man!”  Of course he assumed I got my fix, my hook-up, but in reality I got a heavy dose of good luck.

October 13th 2014 - Ira Part 5

The timing of our arrival worked perfectly for Ira’s and the other Russian student’s spring break.  For the next two weeks we filled each day with field trips.  We travelled to Novosibirsk the big city.  Novosibirsk is like a small Chicago but circa 1950.  In a way it was like watching old black and white television shows from the fifties and sixties especially the jeans and jackets - like the Russian version of Leave It To Beaver.  

The roads were atrocious, pot holes that a 4-year old could fit into and this caused borderline maniacal driving.  All of the cars were Mercedes Benz.  How is it that these Siberian people were driving such a prestigious car?

Academgorodok or Academy City is a science mecca.  Stalin brought the greatest minds together to promote research and development.  It was also no accident that the location was remote- in the middle of the country.  A nuclear war would wreak havoc on the Eastern and Western borders of Russia leaving the central aspect rather unscathed - the missiles just couldn’t reach from the US or even Europe.  This was several decades ago, I’m sure today there isn’t a remote village anywhere on the planet that modern technology couldn’t bullseye.

As a result, our field trips were like visiting the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.  These were not museums but rather active labs of modern invention.  We toured the collision beam reactor which encompassed the city from underground; the chemistry institute which was across the street from the physics institute; air and space development was adjacent to civil and mechanical engineering buildings.  Many of the student’s parents worked at these buildings.  The relative scientific brain trust of the country was housed in this city.

Ira’s father was an inventor who worked at the chemistry institute.  He was developing a synthetic grease for lubricating conventional motors.  Ira’s Mom was an administrative assistant for a financial wall street group affiliated with the government.  Their combined income was about 3500 rubles or $35 American per month.

Ira was ambitious and dedicated.  She studied every waking minute, even during her spring break.  She also played basketball.  Sports are highly acclaimed in Russia.  She tried out and made the girls team, like varsity but it wasn’t affiliated with the school.  Russia prizes their athletes to the degree that they pay their best to compete.  When Ira made the team she was awarded an income of 1000 rubles per month.  Her basketball constituted almost a quarter of the familie’s monthly income.  It was fun to watch her practice, her red cheeks and prideful chin prominent when she stole a ball or made a lay up.  It was interesting to see first hand a government sponsored team of girls having fun and getting paid to do it.

The evenings of the first two weeks began in a musical chairs exchange of visits from house-to-house.  This was a great way to further our familiarity which each other; sisters and brothers, Americans and Russians, in a pile like high school students would want to do playing cards, flirting, dancing and music - comparing cultures and seeking differences and relishing in the similarities.

I came to learn Ira was not the most social with the students in the group.  She was acquainted with her Russian comrades but there were others she called her best friends.  And then on about the fourth night she asked me if I wanted to meet other people not in the student exchange group - of course I did.

This began our nightly tour de force of her “other” friends.  This group was where the fun began.  Louder music, intense card games with piles of rubles at stake and homemade vodka.  We partied!  Boys were into Ira, they courted her with grace and chivalrous romance.  I could see why she wanted to spend her time with these people versus the other students in the program.  Where the kids in the program were high school age, the boys and girls we were hanging out with were men and women.  I was invited into Ira’s counter-culture; away from her family and the school, she let her guard down.  She talked and talked and as she got drunker she giggled and teased.  She was cute and bossy and the boys loved it.  Several nights in a row I needed to be carried back to Ira’s apartment.  They were like brother’s and sisters watching out for me.  It was safe to explore and experiment with youth unhinged.

On one evening a friend of Ira’s gave me a special pin.  The Russian people were want to give, to exchange, to share but always giving things and not asking for much in return.  Aleosha was his name and he gave me his Grandfather’s pin that he was awarded in World War II.  I tried to not accept it.  It was an amazing pin - larger than a silver dollar with the hammer and sickle and it was solid metal - it was like a purple heart in America.  I asked about the sentimental value and he just smiled and laughed and said, “my grandfather is dead, he won’t miss it.”

He did ask me in exchange to write to him.  I regret that I never did.  I still have the pin on my desk next to my lamp.  I pick it up often and think of those many nights together.  How much fun we all had, sharing stories, exchanging culture from thousands of miles away.  In a way, it was like we all knew each other from lifetimes before and this was just a reunion of spirits.

I am sorry Aleosha, for never writing.

October 12th 2014 -The Heroes Journey - We All Have A Journey, A Story To Tell

I came across Joseph Campbell when I was about fifteen.  My Mom was reading this book with Luke Skywalker on the front so of course I was intrigued.  I asked her what it was about, and she gave it to me straight.  “Pete, this book is about our journey.  The trials and tests that help us explain our culture and myths.”  At the time, I was like “uhhh, what?”

In college Joseph Campbell showed up all over the place.  In Jungian Psychology he was quoted regarding the collective unconscious, and then in Social Psychology he was again quoted for his work studying indigenous people and their oral tradition of storytelling and myth.  I finally asked my Mom if I could borrow the original copy she was reading almost ten years before.  It came full circle for me in 2007 when I was studying writing at the University of Washington.  Pam Binder the instructor modeled the class around Joesph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.

His book, “The Hero With A Thousand Faces,” is a comprehensive exploration into the human condition and how we as human beings are more similar than different.  The Writing Workshop’s aren’t trying to create a synthetic formula for writing a successful best seller, but JC surely had his hand in some deep research into the stories that have survived centuries.  Joseph Campbell investigated cultures and genesis myths of natives all around the world and distilled similarities amongst all of them and basically came up with a roadmap for the bards and storytellers going back several thousands of years.

Disney movies such as Finding Nemo, Alladin, and Frozen (just to name a few) follow this same road map.  I challenge anyone who is reading this to watch these movies, or any movie for that matter and see how the map fits the story.  The most classic example is Star Wars, Luke Skywalker’s story is commonly used to track the Hero’s Journey.  Here is my distillation and summation of the journey from Joesph Campbell’s book, A Hero With A Thousand Faces.

Joseph Campbell

  At the onset of any story, the hero isn’t a hero yet.  He or she is a plain person in an identifiable ordinary world.  The world could be Tatooine or it could be the land of mermaids under the sea, or a clerk at a post office.  The ordinary world makes a shift that requires the hero to choose a path.  The hero doesn’t want to but life forces their actions.  This call to adventure is also introduced often by a herald who usually provides a gift or something to aide them on their adventure.

The hero refuses the call to adventure but circumstances outside their control force him or her to partake whether they like it or not.  The hero then crosses a threshold.  The character’s arc has now begun to be woven, changed, they’ve walked off of a cliff in which barring gravity boots there is no turning back.

At this point the hero is swallowed by the transformation already begun.  Joseph Campbell calls this stage the Belly of The Whale, in which they are torn into a chaotic stream of external conflicts.  This is the arena of tests - the road of trials also known as the ordeal.

The road of trials is the meat of the story, in which the character meets several allies, enemies as well as begins to change into the hero they are becoming.  He must prove he is worth to make a new skin for himself.  The gist of these ordeals are necessary for the hero to change, learn from his mistakes as he prepares for the inner most cave, the culmination of his internal conflicts as they begin to meet the external conflicts.  This all builds to the ultimate boon and the reward for defeating the dragon.  Once he is successful at the ultimate test it is fleeting for the hero for he is a long way from home, a home no longer holding the comfort of the hearth because the hero has changed and what was comforting and safe no longer interests him.  But the story isn’t over - he must return home and face the remaining demons of his past.  The road back, like Odysseus is as daunting as the initial crossing.  The hero refuses to return.  Why not stay in the cave where can relish in the treasure and the pride of his success?  The road back includes challenges very similar to his earlier feats culminating in the crossing back over the threshold through which he originally departed.

The final stage is his resurrection.  The face-to-face confrontation with the previous reflection of himself and the inevitable vanquishing of his previous skin now shed like a snake.

Joseph Campbell references the Bible, The Koran, the Tibetan teachings of the Buddha, the Dead Sea Scrolls; all major religions and oral traditions from all over the world.  The phases of the journey - the birth, death, rebirth, they are all part of our language and myths we all come to turn to in our own journeys of understanding why we are here.

There is something special about this deconstruction of the hero and his journey.  It isn’t manufactured.  It is the natural instincts of all story tellers but are based in the truths of all adventurers alike.

Here’s my bottom line and the reason I am writing this.  Every single person has a story to tell.  Judgement aside, no prejudice nor files that preclude a person from being truly heard - if you and everyone you know sat down to write your story or 100 of your stories, or songs or poems - I guarantee it would be awesome, interesting and carry a theme that we’d all want to read from beginning to end.  We get stuck in our fear, distraction, procrastination from our true life’s callings - our dharma.  But if we had the chance to dictate our journey, it would be filled with gold!

Joesph Campbell’s “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” is a canvas to help the individual as well as our culture speak our truth.  I can’t wait to read your story, so what are you waiting for.

October 11th 2014 - The Phone Call

I needed a day to prepare myself.  I practiced calling and role playing.  It didn’t go very well.  I just couldn’t shake the doubts that my voice was too deep, a dead give-away, completely transparent.  I returned to the file.  Read the emails over and over again.  I resigned to try and put myself completely in the mind of Kyle.  What does a fifteen year old boy, confused, young- maybe immature, certainly sexually immature, athletic, maybe imaginative, creative think about?

I invented Kyle.  I closed my eyes and created an image of my bedroom.  Eggshell carpet terminated at a door with the name ‘Kyle’s Room’.  Drawings of moons and spaceships splashed across the sign.  The room has a medium window looking down on the street and the driveway where I can see my Mom carrying bags of groceries inside from the back of a silver minivan.  My bed has a patchwork quilt with little squares of varying shapes and the ends are beginning to fray from years of use.  A bedside lamp in the shape of an elephant with stars and planets printed on the lampshade.  Island of Blue Dolphins rests next to the bed with a bookmark sticking out about halfway through.  My closet is partially closed with my favorite grey hoodie dangling from a hangar, puzzles and a beach ball peeking through from the floor.  A miniature desk rests next to the bed, grammar and algebra texts sit neatly stacked and a spiral notebook lie next to them.  I  put myself on the bed and closed my eyes and then I said my name three times Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.

I open my eyes - I am ready.

The next day Senior Special Agent Kohout led me to an interrogation room.  It is classic; a single table with a single chair.  The walls are mustard yellow that resemble an aged cigarette stain rather than a coat of paint.  A phone rests on the table circa 1970’s, thick transparent buttons, with blinking lights.

“Okay, when you are ready you need to pick up the phone and press this button,” she points to the lower right corner of the phone.  “It will ring me and I will begin the recording and then you will announce the date, time, and state your name.  When you finish dial the number and make the call.”

“Got it,” my nerves sponged through my hands.

“Remember, we need a meeting place, a time and a date and a commitment from you that you will be taking off your clothes.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“All right, you got this kid,” she stepped out of the room and closed the door.  I was alone.  I focused on the ceiling tiles cracking with age.  Definitely an intimidating place, tight quarters - claustrophobic.  There was a single window on the door with a diagonal wire pattern.  The window was the size of a person’s face - enough to see but not enough for someone to escape.

I thought the nerves could help the call, Kyle would have to be nervous too.  But I didn’t want to make a mistake, or sound like a 22 year old.  I closed my eyes and went to my bedroom, or I should say Kyle’s bedroom.  I felt the texture of my quilt and flipped on the light of my elephant lamp.  I held a portable cordless phone and laid it down in my bed next to me.

I opened my eyes and picked up the receiver and pressed the button.  Joel’s voice came to life on the other end, “ready?”

“Yep.”

“All right, we’re recording.”

“This is Pete Ophoven, Intern for the State BCA.  The time is 3:24pm on August 25^th 1997.”  I looked down at the number on the paper and my hand began to shake and my vision blurred.  I dialed the number and took a deep breath.

A low voice answered, “Hullo.”

“Hi, is this Fred?”  I said in a high pitched Doctor Seuss sort of voice, nothing silly.

“Is this Kyle?”

“Yeah, hi.  I can’t believe I’m calling you.”

“Me either,” he replied.

There was a long pause, way longer than my comfort.  I filled the silence, “um…I was thinking about what you said, about pictures?”

“Yeah, well I can make it happen.  Where’s your mom?  Are you alone?”

“She’s at the store.”

“Home alone huh?  Must feel good to have the place to yourself?”

“Sometimes, that’s when I feel curious, you know?”  I’d hoped Fred would fill in the blanks, the emails were already loaded with stories of whacking off and boners and locker rooms.

“Yeah, I know, me too,” another pause, I just breathed heavy hoping he would do all the talking.  “How you going to get away from your mom, for the photo shoot?”

“I will skip swim practice.  Can you pick me up outside the pool?”

“Sure what time?”

“4 o’clock on Wednesday, that way my Mom will think I’m in the pool.”

“That sounds good,” he was getting louder over the receiver.  I wanted to get off the phone, run away but I hadn’t gotten to the naked part.

“I’m a little nervous,” I continued, “haven’t done anything like this before.”

“Don’t worry, everyone is nervous at first.”

“You think someone will really pay for photos of me naked?”

“Oh sure, I’m sure, if we get the right shot.”

There was a long silent pause and I knew this was my chance to bail out of this conversation.  “My mom just pulled up in the driveway, I’ve got to go.”  I was hustling to hang up.

“Wait, what about Wednesday?”

“See you then.” I hung up the phone fast and sat back in the my chair.  I was sweating and felt nauseous.  I stared at the phone and blinking lights.  

Joel opened the door smiling, “You did it kid, we got it.  Not sure about the hustle off at the end there, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, I figured the kid got spooked.  You think it was too much?”

“Nah, guy’s whacking off right now as we speak, all jazzed up about Wednesday.”

“What happens now?”  I asked.

“We call the attorney, give her a copy of the tape and then pick him up for being a dirt ball.  Case closed.”

I smiled at the prospect of it being over.

“You did good kid.”

October 10th 2014 - I'm On The Case

Senior Special Agent Joel Kohout handed me a manila file with the suspect’s name - ‘Fred Jones’.

“Here is the correspondence between the perv and our CI,” she said.

“What’s a CI?” I asked.

“Confidential Informant.”

I opened the file and started reading the first email.  It was a Hotmail account from a boy named Kyle to Fred Jones.

“Whose Kyle?” I asked.

“You’re Kyle,” she sat down and rolled her chair up close, “you see, our CI is a pedophile.  He goes out to chat rooms pretending to be a curious minor and when he finds a predator he turns him over to us.”

I kept reading the emails, they went back and forth.  Fred loved to take videos and he described how he sneaks into locker rooms with a duffel bag and a hidden camera to get nude pictures.  Kyle admits he thinks it is cool and is interested in Fred’s spy duffel bag.  Kyle goes on to explain how curious he is about sex and the feeling he get’s when he sees the other boys naked in the locker room at Swimming practice.

They continue to exchange emails about swim class, boners, and a photo shoot.  Finally, the emails come to a head when Fred asks Kyle to meet him and maybe he could take some pictures.  At this point the guy has crossed the line.  It’s one thing to talk abut dirty stuff, it’s another to have the intent to do dirty things with a minor.

“So what do you want me to do exactly?”  I asked.

“We want you to call him on the phone and get him setting up a date, we need it on tape.”

Fear suffused my body, adrenaline surged like a garden hose.

“Look, you can pretend to do a young voice better than anyone else here, it won’t matter if you don’t sound 15 the guy will be bouncing off the walls if you even call.”  This was her persuasive technique, it worked but I had my doubts.

“The CI wants to talk with before you make the call.  He thinks he should debrief you on what kind of perp we are dealing with.”

“Okay, he’ll call me then?”

“Yeah, or you can call him,” she turned back to her desk to grab her address book.  She wrote the number on the back of her business card and handed it to me.  The rabbit hole I’d fallen into was getting larger and there was no climbing out.  I was afraid, no question about it, but what could I do now?  This was a bad dude and if I could help get him arrested then I felt like I had to do it, plus I didn’t want to look like a coward.  I went back to the manila file and read the background check on Fred.  He was a 32 year old Junior High School Bus driver that lived at home with his mom.  He had no prior convictions.

“You should know, the CI is a pedophile, fully confessed.  He does this to keep himself out of trouble.  I’m sure the fantasy of pretending to be a little freshman somehow convinces his broken brain and this helps him, you know?”  Joel didn’t or couldn’t finish her sentence. 

Later that evening I called the informant.  He was expecting my call and was friendly on the phone.  He explained what he was doing and why he was doing it.  He became very serious about my role and wanted me to practice ahead of time.  

He continued and went into a diatribe about child molesters, “pedophiles lust after a very specific age and physical description.  Some like seven year olds, other like 12 year olds.  They work together, when one has one that is too young, he hands them off to someone else, when they get too old, they trade them back or to another.  Mind you they don’t like working with each other, but they see it as a means to an end.”

I was silent and disgusted.  I just listened to him describe these victims like they were cattle or objects at a thrift market.

He continued, “pedophiles don’t get cured.  This is a critical distinction for you to understand, they fantasize about it whether they are offending or not, they only choose not to act on the lust, that’s the difference.  For me, I find them and Agent Kohout pays me if they get caught.”

This felt like a game.  It felt dirty and too much like he enjoyed what he was doing.  I could hear his excitement over the phone.  This guy knew what was going on for sure, but I wondered if he knew how fucked up the whole situation was.

When I got back to the office I asked Joel what she thought about the CI.

“He’s a perv.  Takes one to catch one,” she replied, “did he give you the full speech?”

“I think so.”

“Yeah, guy does this so he doesn’t go back to jail.”

I just nodded as if I understood but I really couldn’t.  The victimization of kids was creepy and I thought rarer, but Joel and the Informant made it sound like it was common in every neighborhood in every town in America.  That was the straw for me, there was no turning back.