It never ceases to amaze me how easily people learn to tolerate the
intolerable. People seem to accept living conditions and actions
on the part of others that are antithetical to any concept of
civilized order. The most alarming trend is for seemingly intelligent,
seemingly conscious people to stand by and allow perpetrators to abuse
others and DO NOTHING TO STOP IT. A case in point involves pedophilia
in the very neighborhood in which I live.
There was a woman named Jane, a Grandmother, who lived five doors down
from me with her two granddaughters. They were 3 and 11 years old,
respectively. The Grandmother was a severe alcoholic who didn’t work.
When I moved into my home, this person came over to me, ostensibly to
introduce herself. She proceded to paint a sob story about how her
back had been injured, how the person(s) responsible wouldn’t take
care of her medical bills, ... Not knowing better at the time, I
asked her if she had sued.
“Yeah, I tried, but the lawyer screwed around ‘till it was too late
to do anything” she replied.
I could accept this because I had sued people before in personal injury
cases and had also gotten the same runaround; so thus her story sounded
plausible. I asked if she had applied for state aid - she should easily
qualify since she was essentially a single parent with no income.
She ‘hemmed and hawed’ around about why she couldn’t get any aid from
state or federal agencies. I thought it was weird but paid it no
further attention - until much later.
In the mean time, a guy named Don moved in across from me. He was
single, in his late fourties or fifties, had money and was fairly
good looking. He and Jan were soon friends. He, Jane and several
of the other neighbors gradually became aquainted and socialized(drank)
regularly. As time passed, an ugly truth slowly started to emerge:
The granddaughters started showing bruises, Jane would cuss at them
and beat them, they would go for days without a bath or proper food
while their grandmother staggered around drunk. The granddaughters
would often be seen going into the houses of single men - basically
strangers - alone, and remaining there for several hours. The girls
asked one guy if they could use his shower because theirs didn’t work.
As time went on, the 11 year-old would take weekend trips alone with
Don. I would see her carrying a suitcase and getting into the car
with him. My wife noticed this happening regularly and wondered what
was going on. We suspected things but we had little to go on - that
is until the manager of our apartment complex told my wife that Jane
had showed her kiddie porn pictures of her own granddaughters with Don.
Jane made references to using this as blackmail against Don if he
stopped supporting her.
“What did you say to Jane about this?” my wife asked the manager in
horror.
“Oh, not much of anything” she replied.
“Well, what DO YOU THINK about this?” my wife asked.
“Well, it’s not good. Jane’s just mixed up, just got alot of problems”
she replied.
And then she changed the subject, apparently uncomfortable for having
brought it up to us. She made idle chit-chat, telling some totally
irrelevent gossip about some of the other neighbors, then left. Once
alone, my wife and I discussed it and agreed that something needed to
be done. The following day, we called social services. Social services
assurred us that they’d check it out. A couple of weeks later, they
did. Jane and the kids hid out at Don’s upon hearing that a social
worker was comming through and asking where they lived. On our tip,
they checked out Don’s place. Jane and Don assurred the social worker that nothing improper was going on and that the kids were ok. The
social worker asked the kids IN FRONT OF Jane and Don if they had
been abused in any way (the way NOT to get a straight answer - fearful
kids will generally protect a perpetrating parent). Basically, the
social worker said “OK” and left - without checking out Jane’s
apartment where several neighbors told us they’d seen piles of dog
feces in several places on the floor. Without any molestation,
beatings or their grandmother’s alcoholism, that apartment constituted
unsafe and abusive conditions for those kids and were ample grounds for
their placement in foster care. We called the social worker to follow
up; she replied that she could do nothing. Meanwhile Don was paying
her rent and basically supporting the kids.
And so things continued in this vein for months. One day, Jane
dissappeared. Later we would find out that she had gone to jail for
48 hours for an offence related to her drinking. The following day,
Don and another neighbor who had spent much time alone with the younger
granddaughter essentially spent the day ransacking Jane’s apartment
and hauling several dozen huge trash bags away in his motorhome. What
was in those bags we still don’t know, but when Jane got home several
days later, she was enraged at what had happened. Shortly thereafter,
she and Don grew somewhat more distant. He spent lots more time away
than before. Jane started falling late on her rent. Apparently someone
else finally got suspicious of the situation because the police and social services showed up again two or so times Jane, feeling the heat
and unable to pay her rent, fled. Last we’ve heard she and her
grandkids were rumored to be hiding out in a fleabag trailer park
across town. Also rumored is that the kids have not been in school for
a year.
My wife and I recently were speaking with an Englishman who lives
nearby and also socialized (drank) with Jan and her handful of other
neighborhood cronies. The subject of the kiddie porn pictures came up
in the discussion.
"Jen is a nice lass. She has alawt of prawblems, and won't listen when
you try to 'elp. I just wish she could get her law-eef togethah so that
she could give those girls a good home" the Englishman commented.
My wife and I were dumbfounded: Here was a man who admitted knowing
about the pornography and 'other stuff going on' but was still
contending that Jane was 'a nice lass'. Another neighbor later
confided that he knew knew of the activities at Jane's apartment but
continued to allow his 7 year-old son to play at her house.
UNBELIEVABLE. How could any of these people CONDONE pedophilia and KNOWINGLY ALLOW IT TO CONTINUE IN THEIR ENVIORNMENT?????????? I don't
think that these other people were pedophiles, themselves. I realize
that they tended to socialize with Jane, but there IS a difference
between hanging out with someone by default because they're there and
condoning perpetration upon innocent children. Surely, booze alone
couldn't erode someone's standards THAT MUCH!!?? Reflecting back on
what I heard from a friend who was in group therapy, a possible
explanation comes to mind.