BUFFALO THEATRES

In the summer of 1994 I finally got curious enough about all the disused, abandoned, shuttered cinemas I kept passing by that I decided I would go to the downtown library and ask for the books that had been written about them. The librarians insisted that there were no such books. I was convinced that they were mistaken. They were right. I was wrong.

So I set about, first, looking through the telephone books. I chose 1914 as a random year and was surprised to see how many cinemas were listed. I began to jot everything down. I followed this by jotting down all the listings in the city directories. I followed that by photostatting the three volumes of theatre scrapbooks (except for the few articles that had fallen out when the glue had dried decades before, of course). Then I started raiding the vertical files, microfilms, and various antique periodicals on file. I went to the BECHS and started furiously transcribing (by hand!) everything listed in its index cards. That was one job I was never able to finish! Then came the antique shops, especially the weekly antique mall in Clarence. After all that, the project simply took on a life of its own. You must understand, please, that I had no idea at all what I was doing. There was no order, rhyme, or reason behind what I was gathering. I was just gathering everything I could get my hands on. I did not understand most of it. I still don’t understand much of it.

To encourage others to contact me with their superior knowledge, I ran off a copy of my skeletal notes and placed it at the Buffalo and Erie County Library’s Special Collections Room in downtown Buffalo. It was a great way to make friends! In no time at all I had people clustering around me and I enjoyed picking all their brains. It was heaven on earth. Through other connections I met Dr. Charles W. Stein, who invited me over for some unforgettable evenings at his condominium, where he regaled me with endless stories of the old days. I still haven’t written down most of what he told me. I must do so before my memories get completely stale. And Charlie introduced me to Dan Harter, another wealth of knowledge, who knew pretty much everything there was to know about theatre in the US — historically, culturally, artistically, technically, architecturally, financially, and in terms of business practice. I became a sponge, soaking in everything I could.

There was one incident — or actually nonincident — that only now, in retrospect, has come to take on a symbolic significance. One day as I was turning the Broadway/Ellicott corner to walk into the library, I saw a guy, half a block down, crossing Broadway. He was wearing military fatigues and was cocking a rifle, getting ready to aim. I had no idea who would be his random target. I was the closest pedestrian and thought I might be his prime choice, but like so many people he seemed not to be aware of my existence. Luckily I never heard a shot. I told the security guard at the library, but I don’t know that anything ever came of it, as the rifleman was probably long gone by the time I said anything.

Unsurprisingly, in addition to earning me friends, my research earned me enemies as well, and that was perfectly understandable. In a way, it was even reasonable. You see, once upon a time, back in 1990 give or take, I had a moonlighting job working for — well, I refuse to name names — and I’d be sued if I did — so let’s just call this entity “Employer A.” Employer A didn’t pay much, but I liked the job. Then one day I went to work and nearly every face was new to me. The place had been purchased and put under new management. Click here for a nice parody of the new management. I was very much out of place in this milieu, but the lower-level staff weren’t at all like that — and I worked with the lower-level staff, not management, who generally left me alone. So I thought okay, what the heck? I’d love to tell the whole story, which is really fascinating and historically important, but the Sword of Damocles that’s hanging over my head consists of threatened lawsuits; so I had better keep mum. Fiddlesticks! After working under Employer A’s new management for a while, I accidentally discovered that something funny was happening to some money, and I was in a position to prove it if I so wished. I did not make a fuss about it, but within two hours of my discovery the wildest stories started to be told about me, with the most lurid details, and these were told seemingly to almost EVERYBODY. I never heard a story directly. I just heard lots of insinuating innuendos directed towards me from staffers and board members who were suddenly angry with me, obviously over stories they had just heard but that they chose not to repeat to me. By my next shift the atmosphere was entirely toxic. Nonetheless, I loved this job and I believed in what we were doing. I wanted to make a go of it, and so I pressed on for, I think, about three more months, hoping that all this commotion would die down. What a fool I was. The hatred just increased exponentially day by day, and so I resigned my position. Within weeks of my resignation, I found I was mysteriously on new mailing lists: hardcore-porn mailing lists. Once I resigned, I assumed that the stories would cease. I was wrong. They continued — for years. Lots of years. And there was evidence suggesting that these stories were getting crazier and crazier with each telling. I lost friends.

On one unforgettable evening, more than two years later, I got something I had never had before: an exact date and time and place of another repeat of these stories. And I got the name of the person who told the stories — and, most importantly, I at long last got precise details of what he had said. I got this from an acquaintance who shouted at me over the phone to end our acquaintanceship over the matter. This shouting session was quite lengthy. I can’t remember now, but I think it was close to half an hour.

Looking back on it now, I wonder if there was an unspoken motive underlying her rage. You see, a few weeks earlier — or was it a few months earlier? — she had tried to snuggle with me. It was nothing sexual; she was just trying to be cozy. I was flattered, but hey, she was only 17. Uh-uh. No way. Maybe she felt rejected? Heck if I know. Whatever she felt, and whatever her motivations, and whatever else was on her mind, may or may not have had anything to do with her all-consuming rage that evening.

Okay. I might as well reveal the opening sentence of that unforgettable phone conversation. For nearly twenty years I have refused to repeat any part of this conversation because I knew it would function as a virus, taking on a life of its own. Nonetheless, I think that now it is time I repeated the conversation, come what may. It began with “You know, you wouldn’t have had any problems at [Employer A] if you weren’t molesting little children all the time!!!!!!!!!!” She shouted that assertion at the top of her lungs. Throughout her lengthy screaming session, she managed to tell me what she had heard the night before. Employer A had taken her and a mutual friend aside for a debriefing. Employer A told them that management had caught me molesting small children, on company premises, during work hours, while I was on the clock. Employer A claimed to have caught me doing this numerous times over the course of several years. Each time Employer A caught me in flagrante delicto, Employer A would issue a warning that this activity must cease. Each time I agreed, and yet at my next shift Employer A would catch me at it all over again. After SEVERAL YEARS of this recalcitrant activity, Employer A had finally decided that it would be best to let me go.

People believed that story? Yes, people believed that story. Lots of people believed that story. Even people who had worked alongside me throughout all those years and who saw for themselves that nothing of the sort had ever happened — even they believed it. Does the story even make prima facie sense? But people believed it, and they continue to believe it. To bolster her case, my once-friendly acquaintance defiantly repeated, at least ten times, what she confidently thought was the irrefutable “Why would they say it if it’s not true?” When she finally realized that her disgust was too great to allow her to continue the conversation, she slammed the phone down. Heavens to Betsy! In spite of her various personality problems, I had actually been somewhat fond of her. I knew she was a bit scatterbrained, but I wasn’t expecting such gullibility, and I certainly hadn’t expected the fury that resulted from such gullibility. Just goes to show you....

Now I was suddenly on even more hardcore mailing lists, and the mailing list of the American Nazi Party as well. A police car was stationed 24/7 in front of my apartment — for six months. One day I got brave and waved. The policeman was startled, started his engine, quickly drove away, and then a few moments later came around the block and parked again right in front of my apartment.

People I genuinely cared about would now no longer speak with me, and so by this time I was in a deep depression. A lawyer I knew — let’s call him “Lawyer A” — entirely on his own tack, without my asking, offered to file a slander suit, free of charge. This slander suit would be based specifically on the most recent known telling, since it was only for that particular incident that we had usable details. All he asked for was a standard 30% cut if we won. Fine. I agreed. Months went by. Silence. I called several times but only reached his answering machine, on which I left increasingly desperate messages reminding him that time was running out. As the statute-of-limitations deadline was fast approaching, he suddenly called to demand money that I couldn’t afford. I rounded it up, quite painfully — from a relative who couldn’t afford it either. Lawyer A then did nothing until 11:00pm the night before deadline, when he phoned to shout at me for having waited so long. He kept me up all the way through morning, putting papers together, and then had me drive to the County Clerk’s office to file. Employer A’s attorney quickly responded with the predictable motion to dismiss, arguing, paradoxically, that my slander suit constituted libel against his client. Lawyer A then telephoned two witnesses who had previously been heavily involved with Employer A. They had been extremely hostile towards me during my tenure there, and so I had no desire to have anything further to do with them. I was certain that, if contacted, they would simply engage in piling on the calumnies. Lawyer A phoned them against my advice and without first telling me. These two witnesses CONFIRMED EVERYTHING I HAD SAID — and added many more details, with specifics! They were more than happy to testify on my behalf, as they realized I had been grossly abused and defamed! Lawyer A then immediately telephoned me and the first word out of his mouth was “Bingo!” He told me what had just happened, and he apologized to me. He said he had been entirely wrong about me. He had assumed that I was just telling a pack of lies in order to get some money out of other people, and now he was surprised and humbled to discover that I had been telling the truth. Now why on earth would he think that I had been lying if I’m not even the one who asked to go to court? He’s the one who volunteered to take this to court for me! Besides, if he thought I was lying, then why on earth had he taken my case? Does he make it a practice to represent only liars and con artists? Maybe? I don’t know.

The witnesses invited me to visit with them, and for the first time ever we actually got along. They told me the full stories that had been circulating about me, which were beyond anything I could have imagined. How could anyone have believed them? There was so much, and in so many directions, that it should have made anyone wonder about the veracity of the story-tellers. Yes, it is true that a 10-year-old had once struck up a brief conversation with me on the premises, and that he then visited me twice, both times during work hours. We were never alone together for more than a few seconds, as there was a constant stream of coworkers coming through nonstop. As described in that dramatic telephone conversation above, that story was soon greatly enhanced. The two witnesses explained to me that the stories concerned innumerable children. This, I learned, was par for the course, as one of the new managers had made identical accusations against an innocent school teacher, costing him his livelihood. This manager and his parents had also had a long career of making false accusations of grand theft against others, resulting in their resignations. All the tales about me related to blatant homosexual exploits, and some of tales were physically impossible. To my surprise I no longer remember these stories, except for one: There was a story of all-night-long homosexual orgies in an oversized bed in the plush attic, with lights shining out the windows in the wee hours of the morning and with blaring rock music that could be heard from down the street. People believed that? The attic was unfinished, the only paths were narrow wobbly wooden planks and if you missed your step you’d crash through the plasterwork, the only light consisted of one or two bare 60W incandescent bulbs that gave off hardly even a glow, there were no windows for lights to shine out of.... And yet people who had been in that attic and worked in it and were intimately familiar with it believed that story. It’s simply amazing what people believe. And anyway, the loudest rock music that I can endure is Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony. If you take it beyond that level I walk away. [Full disclosure: Not quite true. I thoroughly enjoy a rock band called Renaissance as well as the rock accompaniments to O Lucky Man!, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Shock Treatment. But none of that is wild-party stuff, to say the least.] The two witnesses then gave me a few details about this particular manager and his parents and siblings, and about what the parents had been doing before and during WWII, and how they had quickly reinvented themselves upon news of Germany’s defeat. Incidentally, over the next few years, two other people, unknown to each other, told me essentially the same story, with different details that did not conflict, but reinforced one another. I’m tempted to relate these stories but that would be too risky. These two witnesses wished to reassure me that, contrary to anything I may have picked up through the grapevine, they had no prejudice against those who were homosexual, and that they thus bore me no ill-will. I had not heard any such stories through the grapevine, but I did break down and admit something I generally don’t talk about because it’s nobody’s business: I’m not homosexual. They were genuinely taken aback to learn that, for it contradicted everything they had heard about me.

As I would learn years later, these multitudinous stories about me did not fade away. They were kept up, and quite robustly. For all I know, they might still be in general circulation, perhaps with even wilder details. But nobody’s going to tell me one way or the other. I almost never hear the stories told about me, and on the rare occasions when I do, I’m always the last person to hear them. But there is a conclusion that is inescapable. This manager and his family were in the habit of making false accusations of theft against others, while it was they themselves who were guilty, though never prosecuted as far as I know. There were political entanglements and complications that made prosecutions impossible. They were in the habit of making accusations of homosexuality against others, while they vehemently rebuked anyone who pointed out that the managers themselves were obvious limp-wristed lisping sissies. They denied such observations angrily and haughtily. As for the other accusation they were in the habit of making, well, I just don’t have enough solid evidence to make a case one way or the other. I saw some things that would suggest some things, but I saw nothing definitive.

Lawyer A then waited again until the very last day to put together a response to the motion to dismiss, which he told me to file at the courthouse itself rather than the County Clerk’s office. That didn’t sound right at all, and I said so, but Lawyer A insisted that I file my papers only with the courthouse, and not with the County Clerk. I was suspicious. I ran off a second copy of the papers. Because it took most of the day to prepare the paperwork, I arrived at the court shortly before closing time. The secretaries were terribly confused as to why I was giving them papers. My suspicions were right! I drove to the County Clerk’s office and arrived there just moments before closing. I filed another copy there, and the staff were perfectly prepared for these things. Lawyer A had deliberately given me incorrect information to prevent me from filing properly! Shortly after I filed the papers with the County Clerk, Lawyer A backed out of the case, leaving me high and dry. Ever since that time I have had a really horrible reputation, and I’ll probably never be able to live it down.

That’s why my new research earned me enemies. The executives of two nonprofit theatres in Western New York heard some crazy stories from Employer A, who could (and maybe did???) now truthfully add the story of a failed slander suit. So those executives of those two nonprofit theatres harshly rebuffed my offers to volunteer my services for them. They did not want to see me, meet me, hear from me, or even listen to free advice. And the crazy accusations one of them made against me — sheesh! — claiming that I was conspiring with a demolition crew to rob their equipment and sell it to Warner Bros! Huh? Where did that story come from? What substances do these members of the Affluent Society inhale when they’re locked inside their private Executive Boardrooms? (And people say that I’m delusional? Okay. Whatever.) They were convinced that I was a saboteur; so they decided to attack me before I could attack them. Paranoia is the name of the game, I guess. It was their loss, not mine, because I could have and would have saved them an enormous amount of expense and trouble, and would have ensured that their restorations were more accurate. You see, I knew things they didn’t, especially about the original architecture and décor. They still don’t know these things and probably never will. Oh well....

My hobby kept me away from home during library hours and kept me alone in my apartment(s) during nonlibrary hours. Many of these years I didn’t live in Buffalo. That’s because after the fire and after the shootout in my driveway, I decided there were better places to reside. So I moved a stone’s throw away, to the City of Tonawanda, which I really liked at first. It was charming. The architecture was lovely. Niawanda Park and the Niagara River were almost in my front yard. The neighbors were friendly. Or so I thought. My neighbors soon grew suspicious because I was away so much and because when I was home I kept to myself. That couldn’t be normal. They were certain of that. Single, male, keeps to himself, wrong color, funny name. They weren’t comfortable with my presence in their midst. But it was okay. I lived there for years without incident. Then came 9/11. I remember 9/11. I was paralyzed that day. Literally paralyzed. I had somehow pulled a muscle in my back and couldn’t move. I couldn’t even reach the phone to call for help. The pain was excruciating. Finally, around two o’clock in the afternoon, I was able to struggle out of bed. It took me forever to cross the small living room to get to my phone and computer. I decided to send an email message to Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian to let them know that I would not be able to attend their screening of Little Caesar that night. When I turned on the computer, the first thing I saw was a message from Bruce Jackson saying that tonight’s showing of Little Caesar was canceled because of today’s unspeakable events, and that he knew we were all trying to learn about the safety of our relatives and friends. Huh? I checked the day’s news online and saw just a few images, and read just a paragraph or two. That was all my nerves could handle. I felt shell-shocked. This was beyond horror. No words could form.

The very next day two friends from far, far away, unknown to each other, telephoned me, imploring me to leave and get as far away from New York State as possible, because they were certain that some maniac would murder me in retaliation for the events of the day before. (You’re wondering about something entirely irrelevant and you’re letting your imaginations run wild. So I’ll tell you, even though I don’t want to. Both were approximately my age. One was female. One was male. Both were religiously unaffiliated white US citizens — born and raised — with easily pronounceable Western European names living in States further west. Does that matter?) I thought these two friends were being awfully silly and foolish. But I was wrong, and they were right. They were giving me the best advice I’ve ever gotten. Little did I realize.... Something should have begun to dawn on me when I saw that previously friendly neighbors were now scowling at me. But hey, I thought, it could be anything; next time we chat everything will be fine again. That’s how stupid I was.

It was in June or July 2002, at which time I had been spending more than seven years of my life on this all-consuming new hobby, that Chuck LaChiusa asked if I would begin to serialize some of what I had learned for the Buffalo Architecture and History web site. Gladly!

I did not recognize the latest incarnation of the pattern, because it had only just begun a little over a year before I submitted my first instalment, and so I did not understand that by now everything had already gone wrong. There were some problems here and there, sure, and I simply concluded that I was just going through one of those rough-sledding bits of life that we all need to get past. Soon enough, though, the problems became insurmountable, and so my first instalment proved to be my final instalment. I just recently learned that there is a term that describes what I had gone through at Employer A and what I would continue to endure over the next dozen years until I finally left Western New York: mobbing. Here are some books on the topic. I haven’t read all of them yet. But I like what I’ve read so far. I feel vindicated — at least a little bit. (Please do not assume that these books or authors endorse my tirade. Please. They’d probably be horrified by this tirade. You’ll see why.)

Of course, I should mention the job. We’ve all had bad jobs, and this one was sure pretty bad. In 1987 I thought it was the dream job, despite the poverty wages. Its mission was something I believed in to the core of my being. Within weeks I began to see the truth. Within a year I was hoping for escape, but there were no other jobs on offer in Buffalo, at least, none for which I qualified. Then beginning sometime in mid-2001 it should have been eligible for the world’s top prize in lunacy. I was literally terrified of my bosses who had gone off the deep end. No, I don’t simply mean that they were being abusive or temperamental. Oh no. It went WAY beyond that. Nobody noticed that I was right there, and that I saw and heard everything. But I was right there, one room over, and I saw and heard everything.

Let me back up a little. There was a pattern at this job. The chairman paid no attention whatsoever to lower-level staff. Oh, yeah, he would occasionally say Hi to them when passing in the hall, or he would occasionally unleash his considerable temper at them, but they were not in his thoughts. As favors, he would offer adult children of colleagues various positions, and would simply order his hatchet men to fire some current low-level staffers to clear the way. (A few months later, if a low-level person who had been fired dropped by to say Hi to old friends, the chairman would not even recognize that person.) Oh yes, I can remember one particularly moving incident. The chairman gave a brand-new low-level staffer an assignment, and she performed it exactly to specification. She turned it in quickly, but by then the chairman had decided that what he had asked for was not what he wanted after all. He called me into his office to demand an explanation for why she had been so stupid as to turn in what he didn’t want. I tried to explain that she had given him precisely what he had asked for, but he talked right over me and in disbelief he angrily muttered “Stupid bitch!” He issued an instruction to one of his hatchet men to dismiss her the next morning. The chairman NEVER paid overtime (and we worked a lot of overtime — I sometimes did 100 hours a week). In about 1995 he learned that business owners were not legally required to pay managers overtime, and so at the regular Monday-morning meeting he explained that to us and announced, “From now on, you’re all managers.” He hired a highly qualified gentleman to take charge as overall operations manager, with a promise of total autonomy. That total autonomy immediately proved itself to be micromanaging and the complete sabotage of all his work. He endured months of mistreatment. There was a computer problem he had arranged to solve, but the IT personnel (who were among the chairman’s sex partners) prevented him from carrying out his task, and, of course, the blame for not carrying out the task was placed squarely on his shoulders. He finally yelled at the chairman, in the presence of some others. Right after the meeting the chairman requested that those who had witnessed the yelling write down what they had heard. The chairman submitted these witness reports to the board of directors, who then, concluding that this highly qualified gentleman was a “hothead,” dismissed him. That was one example. Here’s another example: The chairman somehow managed to hire a highly respected professional away from a prominent employer. This professional was exactly that: professional. His work was not only perfect and meticulous, but admirably creative as well. It was beyond reproach. He asked if his wife and daughter could get positions, and the chairman agreed. The chairman then started sabotaging and undermining the professional’s work. How predictable. He requested that all the low-level staffers on the floor submit written complaints about the professional’s wife. And they did. I held them all in my hands, I read them all, and I so much wanted to photocopy them, but I would have been caught. Each complaint was nearly identical, even to the wording, and so it was obvious that the chairman had told them precisely what to write. A few minutes after I got these handwritten papers, the chairman walked into my office and asked for them. I handed them over. The chairman then informed the board of directors that he had received complaints from all the floor staff about the professional’s wife, and the board decided that she should be dismissed. She was. The professional and his daughter resigned. I liked all these people. The highly qualified gentleman disliked me because of my poor attitude, but I liked him. After he was canned I contacted him and we had a dinner meeting at a restaurant, where at last we saw eye to eye, and he finally understood where my poor attitude originated and why. He was by then in full sympathy. The professional and his family I also quite liked, and we stayed in contact for a while after they were all gone. There were other similar instances as well. Many others. But to provide any more examples would risk identifying the place. Besides, it’s difficult to write about people without identifying them beyond “highly qualified gentleman” and “highly respected professional” and so forth. So let’s just move on to a different episode, the one that I witnessed first-hand, unnoticed, one room over.

There was a guy at the office I had gotten along with quite well. He was always jovial and friendly and pleasant, and we frequently had lunches together. Let us call him the then-friend. Others in the office warned me about this guy, but what they said was vague, irrelevant, and picayune. No one told me a single story of anything he had done that was even remotely questionable. The staffers just didn’t like his attitude, and I didn’t understand why, since he was always so nice. One day the then-friend received word from a competitor that his application had been accepted. The then-friend was going to use this as a bargaining chip, telling the chairman that he had just been offered a job at a better salary, and could the chairman match it? Instead one of the managers beat him to the punch, entered the chairman’s office and said, conspiratorially, “You know....” The manager informed the chairman that his trusted employee had had the nerve to apply to a rival firm, and that the rival firm had accepted him. The chairman immediately picked up his phone and paged the then-friend to his office, at shouting level, and there was venom in his words. The then-friend responded to the call, the chairman slammed the door shut behind him, and screamed at him — and I’m not exaggerating when I say screamed — screamed at him for over an hour, promising to ruin him and destroy him, promising that he would never be able to get a job again. The chairman then chased the then-friend off of the property. Everyone on staff was glad to see the guy gone, and they warned me even more that the guy was no good and that the chairman had done the right thing. Of course, no one else on staff had witnessed what I had just witnessed. The chairman then called in his top managerial staff to his office to brainstorm the stories that would work best. They planned how to fake evidence and how to plant evidence on the then-friend and how to convince a low-level staffer to pretend that she had discovered a vile misdeed. They planned how and when they would file a police report and sue. CHAIRMAN: “What can he do to us when he finds out that we know what we’re saying about him isn’t true?” MANAGER (shouting at the top of his lungs): “There’s NOTHING he can do. He’s a PUBLIC FIGURE!!!!! We can say anything about him we want!!!!!” That was a Friday. On Saturday morning I wanted to step in to check email, because I didn’t have the Internet at home at that time, but the chairman had posted a handwritten note on the entrance door saying that no one must enter the building for any reason. I entered anyway. The then-friend’s files had been ransacked. At the Monday-morning staff meeting the chairman told a batch of lies about what had transpired at the end of the previous week, and the low-level staffer, on cue, interrupted the proceedings to tell everyone what she had just discovered. The chairman acted shocked. What a put-on. Everyone in the office who wasn’t in on the planning session accepted the stories as true, saying that it all sounded perfectly in character. The execs filed a police report and got the company lawyers to file criminal charges. So when staffers renewed their warnings to me that the guy was no good, how could I possibly take them seriously? Now, in retrospect, I see that I should have taken them very seriously indeed....

While everybody else was overjoyed, I was upset. I was working for criminal monsters, and I wanted nothing more to do with them. By working there I was effectively complicit, and that’s not something I ever wanted to be. I felt completely defiled. I was so upset that my immune system shut down and within a few days I thought I was dying. I could no longer go to work. The situation quickly got complicated — more complicated than a Congreve play. But there’s no point in telling that story here, partly because I find it too embarrassing but mostly because I need to keep mum about details. But I’ll tell this much. The then-friend took the job with the rival firm, and his new bosses told him that they were more than familiar with the chairman’s rampages and tantrums and criminal activities. They welcomed him to his new home.

Slowly my health began to return — thanks only to physicians and surgeons. I was back at work before I fully recovered. (I have yet to recover fully, as the immune problems occasionally make their presence known even still. This drains what little savings I ever manage to put together.) The suit against the then-friend immediately went to court. That surprised me. I didn’t think things could move that quickly, but they did, and within just maybe four weeks the case was settled, in the then-friend’s favor, thanks partly to my behind-the-scenes assistance. The day the then-friend won his case, he sent an email to all and sundry, written in the third-person, triumphantly boasting about how he had outwitted the crooked chairman. He made it look as though that email had come from me. He did that by writing it as though from an insider friend who had surreptitiously helped, by using a one-time Yahoo email address called “italianfilmfan1” or something like that. From the time I saw Bicycle Thieves at age 14 I had been quite wild and vocal about the better Italian films. And for a display name he chose “Tinto Brass,” who all my friends knew was my favorite filmmaker.

I knew I was in trouble. Lots of trouble. I needed to talk with someone. I phoned a disgruntled ex-employee who had moved out of state to get away from the chairman’s obnoxious insanities. We had kept in touch and had kept up our amusing conversations over the years. She heard me out that evening, and she could not suppress her shock. I heard her gasp in horror at the tale I told. Yes, she was deeply shocked — at me, for having been so brazen as to side with my employer’s enemy. She was outraged and horrified by my behavior, found it disgusting, revolting, immoral, unforgiveable. As soon as I heard her gasp of horror, I knew I had made a really bad mistake. That’s when I realized I was definitively the world’s worst judge of character. (It was at that moment, when I discovered I was the world’s worst judge of character, that a thought first crossed my mind: Had I ever been stupid enough to do something dumb like get married, I would certainly have chosen the most evil person on earth. Once I drew that conclusion, so much of the world’s incomprehensible misery suddenly had an explanation. I felt sorrier for my grandfather than I had ever felt before.) When I awoke the next morning I received a phone call from another disgruntled ex-employee who confronted me about this peculiar email blast. He too had left the chairman’s employ sometime earlier, telling me privately that he could no longer tolerate his tyrannical ways and needed to find a friendlier work environment. We too had kept in touch and visited with some regularity and had plentiful amusing conversations through the years. I assured him that the email had not come from me at all, and that it was not entirely accurate either. He quickly told me that the chairman had already been informed, and that I had better watch myself. I drove to work that morning knowing two things without being told: first, that the rival firm had dismissed the then-friend for being a loose cannon, and second, that my goose was cooked.

When I arrived at work there was an executive meeting in a room where meetings were generally never held, and I knew it was about me. While that was going on I went to the chairman’s computer to help him with a task he had assigned me the day before, and I decided to do something I had never done on my own before: I looked at his email messages, trying to gauge how many of his supporters and friends had warned him of looming troubles and perhaps even forwarded him the pseudonymous message. His inbox was filled to overflowing with messages from the supposedly disgruntled ex-employee who had phoned me that morning, and who was on the chummiest terms with him, regularly meeting with him at a pub to discuss things over beer. When this guy phoned me that morning to say, passive voice, that the chairman had been informed, he didn’t bother to tell me “by whom” for the simple reason that he was the “by whom.” He told the chairman of everything he knew — well, everything except that I was not the author of that email message. He felt no need to relay that piece of information. (For what it’s worth, this is the chum who some years earlier insisted that my problems with Employer A must surely have been of my own making.) I quickly completed the assigned task and went back to my desk. I looked at my personal email and saw a message from the then-friend. The subject line was “How r u?” I deleted it without opening it.

The chairman walked into my office, gently asking me, “Who’s Tinto Brass?” He called me in for a lengthy private meeting. He told me that he knew everything and that the executives demanded my immediate dismissal. He showed me the emails he had just received from the other of my two “friends.” My two “friends” hadn’t left his employ at all. They were still on payroll, off the books, and used their status as supposedly disgruntled ex-employees to ferret out internal and external dissent. The chairman burst into tears and repeatedly (like about 30 times) begged me not to become a whistle blower. “Please don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me! You’re not going to do anything to hurt me, are you? Please don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me!” Before I give the impression that the chairman was acting childishly while I simply looked on in disbelief, I should say that my behavior was no better. To protect myself I too was being emotionally manipulative and dishonest. I take no pride in my behavior that day — or the day after, or the several weeks after. So he kept me on staff only to prevent bad publicity. Our working relationship had long been strained but this poisoned it forever. We now despised one another, but we both had to pretend otherwise. Within a few more weeks my health was back to normal, and I put on a happy face as best I could. It was simply time to find something else as soon as possible. But what else? In Buffalo? There are no jobs in Buffalo.

I applied at Kenmore Cab. The initial overhead was more than I could afford, the income was less than I could afford, the cabs were sickeningly smelly, and some of the staff were downright spooky. Enterprise Rent-a-Car tossed out my application. I tried for a job delivering pizza, but the announced position didn’t exist. There was one pizza-delivery position that actually did exist, and the pay was good! But it was a front run by the Mafia. No thanks. (A friend had worked there briefly as a delivery boy, and he said that in the kitchen there were no secrets. Shop talk was the only talk, and there was nothing but shop talk. Unfortunately, he heard only snippets, as he dashed into the kitchen to pick up orders and then dashed out right out again. But he did learn that the Statler Hotel downtown was being used for the FBI witness-protection program, and that the operators of the pizza joint together with their colleagues had the Statler under 24/7 surveillance. Gli uomini d’onore.... Oh my oh my, the things I’ve learned through the years....) I applied as an apprentice roofer. The pay was $7/hour gross, which is about $9,400/year take-home. Slum rents began at $350/month = $4,200/year, and add to that utilities, including heating bills, which in the winter could be as high as $400/month (November through April = 6 × $400 = $2,400). Then add food. Even the cheapest, deadliest food would come to over $5/day = $1,825/year. What’s left? $9,400 - $4,200 - $2,400 - $1,825 = $975. And since Buffalo’s public-transport system was the world’s worst, a car was a necessity — maintenance, gas, insurance.... How could anyone live on $7/hour? Impossible. I tried the temp agencies and got only one bite. They had a position open for janitor. Okay, I could be a janitor. I had done janitorial work before. I’m not proud. But the pay was, again, $7/hour gross. I called the numbers in the classifieds, but found only scam after scam after scam after scam. Not a single one was actually a job. Each was a sales pitch for investing in a so-called “business.” I was trapped. I needed to spend some time in a larger city in a different state and search for employment there, but I had no money to do such traveling. It was a trap. I couldn’t find a way out.

After the email episode the then-friend didn’t understand why I wasn’t talking with him, and he was terribly hurt that I was no longer returning his calls or answering his emails. Finally I broke down and told him why I was unhappy with him and entirely distrusted him. He deeply regretted his earlier misstep, and explained, convincingly, that he had not realized until afterwards that his pseudonymous email looked as though it had come from me. He had been under tremendous pressure and just wasn’t thinking things through. He realized it was a terrible mistake, and he apologized profusely. Okay. We were sort of on speaking terms again.

Then came the FBI episode. That was in early 2002. I had made a wire transfer to a movie-memorabilia shop in Italy, and so the FBI told my bank to freeze my account. This was part of the “War on Terror,” my banker gently explained to me. I’m not making this up. The bank agreed to unfreeze my account, but just a few days later a hacker depleted my account. If they can’t get you one way, they get you another.

Next was the repeating episode of stolen mail (mostly utility bills), which my neighbors would read to my landlord over the telephone. My landlord found this endlessly fascinating and was always eager to hear more. That apparently went on for months. How did I learn about this? Simple. The landlord called me and told me! Most recently the neighbors had opened my gas bill, called him and read it to him, telling him that my last payment was delinquent. The landlord wanted to know why I wasn’t paying my bills lately. Well of course I wasn’t paying the bills, because the neighbors had been swiping them!!!!

Then came the two break-ins. The first one, in August of 2002, was uneventful, and I didn’t detect anything missing or destroyed. But I was certain that someone had broken in because there was a strong odor of perfume in all the rooms. So some woman had been snooping around and had left only minutes before I arrived. My guess is that there was a lookout with a cell phone a mile or so down the road. Or perhaps she had just observed me closely enough to know the earliest time I would arrive home on a weekday evening. The second break-in occurred a few days later, and it resulted in a theft that I found entirely puzzling. As soon as I got home after work, I noticed that there was a gap on my shelf. As recently as that morning, I had a VHS set of Kevin Brownlow’s six-part Cinema Europe series. It was a wonderful educational tool that I had watched twice and which I treasured. But when I got home that evening there was an empty spot on my shelf where those tapes had been. Only those tapes were missing. Nothing else. Why? Why would anyone steal them? This was Redneck Tonawanda. Nobody in Tonawanda would have any interest in such videos. It made no sense, and I was scratching my head for two or three weeks.

But then it all suddenly made sense when the police took me to headquarters for an interrogation on Tuesday morning, 3 September 2002. That’s when I learned what a small group of neighbors, doubtlessly goaded on by Employer A, were saying about me. This was a disheartening re-run of what Employer A had put me through a decade or so earlier. I’ll never know how many neighbors were making a fuss. My guess is only two or three, but I’ll never know for sure. Once I learned what the neighbors had been reporting to the police, the theft finally made sense. The neighbors had been reporting that I was a drug addict, a drug dealer, a practitioner of S&M, an antisocial deviant, promiscuously homosexual, and a sexual predator, and they said that they were worried for the safety of their children. Yes, this was an almost exact Xerox copy of the claims Employer A had put into circulation about ten years earlier (though I admit I don’t know where the drug accusations came from; as far as I know Employer A had not made such claims during its initial mobbing campaign). That’s why I’m convinced that Employer A was orchestrating this new round of accusations. If this had been a fresh report from folks unaware of what Employer A had so widely publicized, the accusations would have been a bit different, probably completely different; they would not have lined up so perfectly. Not a single one of those claims was true in any way, but the police, in their astonishing (partly feigned?) stupidity, accepted all the claims at face value. So now I could think back on it. I had recorded the Cinema Europe series off of TV, and so it was on a series of BASF VHS tapes with labels that read simply “Cinema Europe Parts 1 & 2,” “Cinema Europe Parts 3 & 4,” and “Cinema Europe Parts 5 & 6,” without descriptions of any sort. I had learned enough from casual conversations that the average US citizen for some reason thinks that all European movies are “dirty,” probably having gotten that idea from what their parents and their parents’ friends had hinted about some actress named “Bridget Bardoh.” To a redneck who was barely literate, the title Cinema Europe would sound like some sort of perverse porno, and so someone stole the tapes hoping to get some kicks. So that’s why there was suddenly a hole in my collection! Hey creep, I know you’re looking at this page and asking your family members to help you struggle through it. Here’s a simple sentence that you’ll be able to understand without any help: GIVE ME BACK MY TAPES!

The claims these neighbors had made were vague, and while “drug dealer” was certainly a prosecutable offense, I wasn’t too sure that “homosexual” was, promiscuous or otherwise. But the neighbors had made one claim that was specific — only one — and it was true!!!!! At a block party I invited the neighbor kids to play with my mice. A few of the parents were terrified of mice and forbade their children to get near them, but most of the parents were okay with it. Unfortunately, not a single one of the parents was interested in playing with the mice, which was too bad. I guess it all has something to do with conditioning — we’re taught to be frightened of these gentlest of all animals. After watching the children be so enchanted with the mice for a little while, I thought this was too adorable not to be captured for posterity. I went back to my apartment, brought out my 35mm camera, and shot several rolls of film. That did not create a frenzy at the time — but then a few weeks later 9/11 happened, and the neighbors got spooked. What happened and when, I don’t know, but within a year they reported me to the police. The police, to say nothing of these few worried neighbors, thought that my behavior was heinous. Captain David Frank Bentley, Officer T. Hankinson, and a third, a detective whose name and rank I no longer remember (he was tall, slender, in his 60s, and supremely grumpy), surrounded me in the captain’s office.

Of course, worried parents should have every reason to report a suspicious character to the authorities. Since I prefer to be alone most of the time, I have never wished to be a parent, and thus I have never been a parent, but nonetheless I can still identify. If I were a parent I would be overly protective and I would be deeply suspicious of everybody. In an ideal world the authorities would listen carefully to any suspicions and would perform a serious and careful investigation, which, with accusations such as those directed towards me, would not be at all difficult to do, especially when the suspect agrees to allow the authorities to inspect his apartment. Besides, as all the neighbors knew, except for the mice at the block party, the only interactions I had with any children was waving Hi as I would walk down the street. Nothing more. Ever. This was common knowledge. I waved Hi to everyone I met in my neighborhood. It was the polite thing to do. The neighbors had all accepted this for many years. I never made friends with any neighbors. I had a fair number of friends in Buffalo and Sanborn and Angola and Williamsville and elsewhere. They were friends because we shared interests (silent movies, theatre, history, and so forth) and saw eye to eye. I never met folks with such interests in my neighborhood, but I was always polite. I never visited any neighbors — except for one sixties-ish couple because I liked to hear the husband, who was a professional photographer, talk about antique photographic methods, which was a topic of some interest. Other than that one couple, I never set foot in any of the neighbors’ houses and the neighbors never set foot in my apartment. But I would always say Hi when I passed them on the sidewalk. Always. With 9/11, though, that was no longer so easy, as the neighbors all avoided me and reacted to my waves of Hi with scowls. Nonetheless, I thought that I was safe, and I thought that the police would take their obligations seriously. A longtime friend of mine had worked alongside law-enforcement officers for his entire adult life and he told me countless stories of their professionalism. His insights I found most assuring. I was certain that the police would follow the evidence. It was that morning that I learned that everything I believed was wrong.

These police officers had an interest in brow-beating, not investigating. So they gave me hours of grief over the mouse episode, but clearly they were having a problem: What statute had I violated? What ordinance? Is there a law, anywhere in the US, at any level, that prohibits people from inviting neighbor kids to play with their pet mice and snapping photos of that activity in full view of their approving parents at a block party? Maybe there is such a law. If I find out that there is, I’ll post it in full on my web site. Despite that problem they were so clearly having, they continued to make threats, and let me assure you, those threats were most effective. Now I know why people confess to the police. Now I know why every confession made to the police is a load of balderdash. When you’re put under that pressure, and when you receive nonstop threats, and when you see that you’re outnumbered, surrounded by officers who are unquestionably violent maniacs who could and would kill you easily and without remorse, you confess. To whatever they want. It’s either that — or get beaten to death. That’s your choice. That’s your only choice. It was especially difficult for me to respond to their endless grillings about my sex life. They couldn’t understand, and certainly didn’t believe, that I didn’t have a sex life. But I didn’t. I never made a vow of celibacy, but opportunities were few and far between, to say the very least. Besides, I like being alone. And that is something that bullying pushy sex addicts who make at least one more score at the bar each night simply can’t comprehend. They can’t comprehend that all the rest of us aren’t like them.

The captain asked if he, the detective, and the officer could examine my apartment. After their lengthy and emphatic unpleasantness, I was not happy about allowing them in, but I decided it would be for the best, and initially I was confident that after a little while they’d see that there was nothing illicit, and that they would then apologize for having disturbed me. How wrong I was! The detective noticed that I had leftover prescription pain medication from when I had pulled my back muscle a year before. What’s more, I still had one or two left-over antibiotics from when my immune system had shut down a year and a half previously. Why was I keeping these? he wondered. He concluded that I must therefore be a drug pusher.

There was a picture window in my living room. I liked it because I could see a little bend in the Niagara River from it. It was soothing. That was about the first thing that the captain noticed, and he asserted that with such a convenience at my disposal, he was certain I must be regularly using it to expose myself. That’s when I really began to understand that he was merely accusing me of his own predilections. This was the Employer A strategy all over again.

The detective said it was time to study all my photographs. My negs were in order. My positives were just scattered about, but most of them were tossed higgledy-piggledy into a file drawer. The detective went through them. Hundreds upon hundreds of photos of Hawaii, Australia, wildlife, animal sanctuaries, pollywogs, frogs, salamanders, newts, old buildings, theatres, architectural details, Germany, scholarly conventions. Amongst all this were literally only about six rolls of children playing with mice. The detective loudly called out to the captain and the officer, “Yeah, this guy’s got a problem!” They came round to see for themselves, and all three unanimously agreed that these photos were the work of a leering criminal mind. They put my entire photo collection aside to take to headquarters.

The detective started looking through the rest of the apartment, including the basement which all the tenants shared in common. He demanded to know why I had all that S&M/bondage paraphernalia in the basement. What? If there was anything like that down there it sure wasn’t mine. (I checked later and found that there was nothing of the sort anywhere on the premises.) He also accused me of being a Nazi sympathizer, which he said was evidenced by the collection of “Nazi porn” on my computer. What in heaven’s name is Nazi porn? To this day I don’t know what that is. (I thought for a moment he may have been looking at my essay on Salon Kitty, but then it occurred to me that my essay was nowhere on my home computer.) Since I hadn’t a clue as to what he was talking about, I asked him to show me what he meant. “I don’t have to show you anything!” he snarled. A ha! He found that on my computer there were hardcore sites among the “favorites”! Sexual predators look at porn, he insisted. (Yes, I have looked at porn. I’d be surprised to find too many people who haven’t. Heck, I’m on friendly terms with some producers, directors, and performers in the porn business — I was then and I still am now. But no, I am not a sexual predator. And those “favorites” were not mine. I hadn’t noticed them before, as I had purchased the computer used a little over a year previously and paid no attention.) The detective would open the sites from the “favorites” and pull up photographs of women who were clearly in their 20s. He would study them for a while, slowly, one by one, and would then begrudgingly admit, “She seems to be of age.”

While the detective continued to search my computer, the captain decided to be suspicious as to why I would have a letter from the Freethinkers of Northern Colorado. “Are you some sort of atheist? Don’t you believe in God?” He said that people without belief in God would not be able to tell the difference between right and wrong, which was further indication that there was something wrong with me. Good grief! He also didn’t understand why I had the local newspaper, The Tonawanda News. You see, each issue of The Tonawanda News includes a small photograph with a caption showing a school child who had just won a spelling bee or a baking contest or whatever. “They have pictures of KIDS!!! And you KEPT them!!!” But they didn’t confiscate those. The police captain wondered about my VHS of Cinema Paradiso, but after pondering it for a while he put it back on the shelf. Not strong enough. He needed something better. Oh! Look at this! The captain saw a most promising title on the spine of a book: The Boys from Syracuse. Hmmmmm. What might that be? Oops. Just a book on the Shubert Brothers of Broadway fame. Nope, can’t use that. I was worried that he’d steal my Tinto Brass collection, which was on prominent display. He glanced at it but against all my expectations he showed no interest in it!

After an hour of searching, the detective confiscated one more item for my criminal file. It was a 3.5" disc. I had labeled it “Buster Keaton behind the Scenes.” That title sounded suspicious to him and so he took it back to headquarters for examination. The disc was mostly empty, containing a grand total of three items — each was a photograph I had copied from an eBay listing a year or so before:

Pretty strong stuff, huh? But that wasn’t all. The captain confiscated something even more salacious: a beginner’s book of Italian grammar that I had just purchased from a shop in Toronto. You see, it had a photograph of some Italian school children on the cover. Bingo! That was it! Six rolls of film of the neighbor kids playing with my mice. And now a grammar book with a photo of schoolchildren on the cover. Too much! This was abnormal! Deviant! As the detective boomed out, “Everywhere you turn in this apartment, it’s kids, kids, kids, kids, and more kids!” They had a case. This was going to result in serious jail time. With those items they were going to build a case against me and lock me away. They confiscated my computer, too, surely because they wanted to plant evidence on it. They confiscated all my photographs, and, finally, the captain hit the jackpot and confiscated one last item: my correspondence with Lawyer A regarding my suit against Employer A, who I am convinced instigated all this commotion to begin with. And that binder of correspondence, I’m sure, is what the police wanted most of all — especially since they were on good terms with Employer A. The captain’s grin went from ear to ear and he could not contain his excitement. “Isn’t it interesting that you’ve been accused of this before?” he shouted out with great glee. Once he found that binder, he called off the search. They now had what they had been looking for. So I’m sure that everything else was just a pretext to get that binder. Stupidly, that obvious conclusion didn’t occur to me until much, much later. (I should be more truthful. That obvious conclusion didn’t occur to me until I wrote this paragraph. Sometimes I’m just not all that bright.)

Back to headquarters. Much more haranguing. I thought they were going to kill me. By now you’re wondering why I didn’t simply demand to see a lawyer. First of all, the police would not allow me to make a phone call. Secondly, I had had my fill of lawyers. Remember Lawyer A, mentioned above? Well, there had also been Lawyer B, who did precisely the same bait-and-switch for a friend of mine, leaving him high and dry and costing him a case in which he was entirely in the right. There was also Lawyer C who, in his office, in my mother’s presence, grabbed my sister in a choke hold and put a gun to her head. (That had recently happened in Fort Worth, Texas, if that helps explain anything.) There were other incidents as well. Suffice it to say I wasn’t happy about lawyers.

The detective asserted that I must be a deviant because ALL my photographs were of children. No, I corrected him, of the many hundreds of photographs I have shot, mostly of landscapes, frog ponds, architecture, only several rolls were—. He cut me off by bellowing out, “YOU HAVE AN UNHEALTHY OBSESSION WITH KIDS!!!!” Since I seldom had visitors, the police concluded that I was a dangerous antisocial misfit. When they asked if I ever had visitors, and I said yes, of course I did, they concluded that those visitors were colluding with me in criminal conspiracies. The captain proffered: “So when you get together with your friends you talk about atheism, right?” “No,” I said, “we talk about architecture, local history, silent movies.” He gave up on that tack and switched it to “You talk about pedophilia. Give me the names of the people you talk about pedophilia with.” The topic had never once come up. He refused to believe me, and repeated his question, more and more loudly, probably 50 times. When I gave the same answer 50 times, the detective was ready to explode, and screamed in exasperation, “He keeps on playing mind games!” The captain asked where I worked. I told him. He had never heard of the place and asked what we did there. I told him. He said that sounded to him like a group that agitated for pedophilia. The captain demanded to know, in full elaborate detail, all about masturbation and my fantasies and everything sexual I had ever done or thought throughout my life. He started describing little children to me in graphically sexual terms, rhapsodizing about how desirable their body parts are, and that was talk that nearly made me throw up. I was certain by now that he was talking about his own psychological problems, not mine. He wanted to know about my every homosexual tryst. I had never had any, I said, nor had I wanted to. To my surprise he granted that I was probably telling the truth about that, but that was not enough. Now he wanted to know the name of each and every child I had ever molested, the dates, the circumstances, the names of the parents, the specifics of each violation, the contact information. It was impossible for me to provide nonexistent information, and that made him erupt in fury. Seeing that such a line of inquiry was going nowhere, he and the detective demanded to know why I didn’t have a girlfriend. The detective shouted at me: “Why don’t you? It’s easy enough to do!!!” How on earth was I supposed to answer that? Well, did I at least pay for hookers? No, I said, I have never done that, which is true. (I’ve met and had friendly conversations with a number of sex workers through the years, but I’ve never made use of their services. I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable doing that.) They asked why I did not have any Playboy magazines lying around. (Actually, I did have a few, the ones that had articles related to Tinto Brass; but I had those filed away in note binders and folders.) I told them that I dislike Playboy, which is true. That settled the matter for them, they said, for no normal red-blooded single male would fail to litter his abode with Playboys, and so, they said, that proved I was a dangerous sexual predator, QED. They then performed what they thought was an incisive psychoanalysis: They reasoned that since I didn’t have a girlfriend, didn’t pay for hookers, and didn’t look at Playboy, that proved that I was disappointed in women, which explained why I was compelled to unleash my uncontrollable desires upon innocent children. I was having a hard time registering all this. (No wonder the captain had avoided my Tinto Brass collection. Had he brought in that evidence he would have disproved all his assertions.)

The captain told me that I now had a choice. If I confessed, they would let me go home. If I didn’t confess, they would then be obliged to perform a “full investigation,” “full assault,” and “full attack.” He also assured me, with a most menacing tone of voice, “Once we lock you up, we will find evidence against you — we will.” I was able to translate that into English. That meant that all three were going to pummel me, crack my skull open, toss me into a cell, and plant evidence on me. I gave in. They had me say to their tape recorder that they had treated me wonderfully and courteously, and then they had me say other things too. Everything I said into their tape recorder was a lie. Now that they had incriminating evidence that would stand up in court, THEY LET ME GO!!!!!!! By putting me through all this, and then letting me go, they had created a bizarre situation, and that was the point. They knew that nobody would ever believe me, because police do not let suspects go after getting a confession. And so, to this day, almost nobody has ever believed me. A few lawyers believe me. (There are a few good lawyers, I have since discovered. Very few.) A few others involved in the legal profession believe me. Nobody else believes me. The story sounds dumber than bad fiction. To top it off, the police captain assured me that he would be back the following Monday to arrest me. This was so mindboggling antirealistic that it made my head hurt. What policeman would ever tell a suspect, “I’ll be by next Monday to place you under arrest”? Purest insanity. But deliberate insanity. The police knew, correctly, that if I were ever to tell this story, everyone would think I was delusional. And they were right. That’s exactly what happened.

As soon as the police let me go I called some friends who then immediately called their daughter to represent me free of charge. I had not known until that moment that their daughter was a lawyer. Had they not asked her to do so, I would have been in prison for a minimum of 15 years for possession of that Italian-grammar book and for the photos of the neighbor children playing with my mice. My new lawyer right away told me I was an idiot. I did not take that as an insult. She told me that anyone with any sort of experience would know never to talk with a policeman about anything, under any circumstances. She also assured me that I was not alone in my idiocy, because hundreds of others go through precisely the treatment I had just been through — every day! This was standard operating procedure, and the victims were seldom criminals but were generally just easy naïve targets, who were not politically connected, that the police could have a good time playing with. The only difference between me and most others was that I was lucky. Most people in my position would have been in jail already and would have stayed there for decades. She also told me that many lawyers refused even to drive through the City of Tonawanda for fear of the police, who were considered the craziest in all Western New York. Lawyers would drive around Tonawanda when they needed to get somewhere. And, I have to admit, what she was saying made me feel really dumb. Naïve might be a better word. But, no, dumb. That’s what I felt. Dumb! (And the police, I later discovered, were not dumb at all. They were brilliant, in their limited way. In their very limited way.)

Now, I’ve never been outgoing. I prefer to be by myself with lots of peace and quiet. Some people interpret that as hiding myself inside a shell. Other people interpret that as unfriendliness. Still others interpret that as rudeness or arrogance. But that doesn’t follow. Not at all. I had always been a very friendly, open person, but after this treatment I discovered that, for the most part, I really no longer liked people. I no longer liked Buffalo. I no longer liked Tonawanda. I no longer liked any part of New York. I wanted to leave. Right away. And I deeply regretted not having heeded the wise advice of well-meaning friends.

When I returned to work the following day, Wednesday, the 4th of September, I saw that the chairman was worried sick. He called me into his office because he was convinced that what had happened to me was just a ruse; he was certain that he was the actual target. He started telling me, feverishly, that he would pay all my legal expenses. A few minutes later he came up to me in my office, one inch from my face, and started telling me, nervously and sotto voce, that it was okay, that I didn’t have to worry about losing my job over this, that his sympathies were precisely with those adult males whose sexual preferences were for underagers. Have you ever felt totally creeped out? I mean, so creeped out that you just wanted to throw up and run to another planet? Now what else was I going to learn about this horrible place that I had been working in for so many years? I haven’t got a clue as to what my expression looked like, but I do remember that my voice was cracking only because I didn’t know how to deal with this situation. Despite a cracking, wavering voice, I told him in no uncertain terms that he had it all wrong. It was like talking to a wall. But then, a few moments later, he seemed confused and slinked away. This was the guy who had a sterling moral reputation? I guess this was his attempt, after a year and a half of hatred, to re-establish some sort of mutual understanding, to establish some sort of emotional bond. Well, I completely bungled that opportunity. And am I ever so glad that I did! With that latest revelation, I was desperate to get away from that office and all the boards and managers and executives and staffers as quickly as humanly possible. I would feel suffocated and violated until I could realize that goal.

Just a little while later that morning I saw from my office window an expensive car pull up in the parking lot. Trust me when I say that it was not common for a car quite that expensive to pull into the parking lot at the place where I worked. A very short, very wide little guy slowly emerged from the driver’s seat. He appeared to be about sixty years old, though it’s hard to say, especially after all these years. He was wearing expensive dress clothes, including an ankle-length coat and a hat. He was the stereotypical undercover police investigator. How I wished I could snap a photo of him. Frustratingly, I had no access to a camera. He pretended to be a customer. He didn’t understand that we generally didn’t have customers; we had members, and his behavior and mannerisms and demeanor and looks were an absolute mismatch for our members. Before he even walked into the building, I knew that he was going to ask to purchase two items, and I knew which two. And that’s exactly what he did. He did not leave his name, which again was an absolute mismatch for our members, who all introduced themselves and wanted to chat. There was never an exception. He slowly waddled his way back to his car and drove off. I was certain that he and everyone else back at headquarters would be sorely disappointed in the two items he had just purchased. And they were, because nothing ever came of that follow-up investigation.

Shortly before closing time came a dénouement of sorts, for the chairman had just figured out that I was indeed the sole target of the police investigation, and that he had nothing to worry about regarding himself. How he figured that out, I don’t know. He was well-connected, certainly, and so I assumed he must have had privileged access to superior information. He called me into his office and asked how I planned to pay for my defense. That was his way of retracting his offer to pay all my legal expenses.

You know, the other folks in the office never understood why I was often so dramatic. They came to work in the morning, got paid much more than I did, went out to drink beer at 5, then drove home and zoned out watching TV. That was the life. So what was the big deal? Why was I always in a turmoil? They couldn’t understand. They thought I was crazy. And, you know, I think they were right.

The next day, Thursday, the 5th of September, I got a phone call from a kindly elderly lady. We knew each other already — through the chairman! And it was the chairman who had asked her to call me. She was only too happy to do so, because she had some things to get off her chest as well, and so she thought it was time to tell me something that she was sure I didn’t know. Actually, she told me lots of things I didn’t know, but I daren’t publish them because I have no documented proof. But here’s one thing she told me that helped put everything into perspective, and I’m free to repeat it because it’s in the public domain. She told me that just a block from my apartment was the police captain’s son. A ha!!!! Yes, I see! Of course! This was beginning to make sense indeed! And he’s the spittin’ image of his father, too, which eliminates all doubt about paternity. Here he is again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

At about that time I got curious about something. I went on to Google and started checking on how police managed to get false confessions. One of the first things I ran across was an advertisement for an “unofficial” police handbook entitled We Get Confessions. The ad praised the book as being the best methodology for, essentially, getting anyone to confess to anything, generally through nonviolent coercion. Hmmmm. I really wanted to read that. But to purchase it would get my name on a mailing list that I didn’t ever want to be on. And I sure didn’t want to give those guys any money. Judging from the online advertisement it seems to be a methodology for getting random dummies like me to “confess” while letting street-smart slickers and others with connections off the hook. The ad is further compelling evidence for why we must never say anything in the presence of any law-enforcement officer. Until recently, it was a good idea to use a few, basic, simple, magical phrases: “Are you detaining me?” The cop will ignore your question and pester you with his own questions. Keep repeating “Are you detaining me?” until the cop answers Yes or No. If the cop answers No, then your next question should be, “Am I free to go?” If the cop is detaining you, or if the cop says you are not free to go, your next question should be, “Do you have a specific and articulable reason for detaining me?” If not, “Am I free to go?” With recent events, though, those are no longer safe to use. The police will beat you to a bloody pulp and imprison you if you use those phrases. The one and only phrase that remains safe to say, and which you MUST say, is “I reserve my right to remain silent, and I would like to see my attorney.” (If you can endure the lengthy rock intro, you can eventually get to an important interview with Katya Komisaruk by clicking here. You’ll like Katya. She’s good people. You’ll learn a lot from her.) You see, once you open your mouth and say anything else at all, you’re doomed. The police will misquote everything you say, and then you are automatically guilty. You are on your way to prison. End of story. Well, end of story for most people, but strangely my particular story didn’t fit the usual pattern.