his mother as his “date” had less to do with her than with me. It was just another example of my being the Dirty Little Secret.
Was that true? Or just another example of my being self-centered, thinking everything Tony did was a referendum on “us”?
Did it even matter? Supposedly, I’d come to terms that Tony needed time to accept being with a man. So, why was I comparing him to Kristen LaNue earlier and why was I questioning his motives now? I expected him to love me openly and unconditionally, but did he get that from me?
As Tony continued to explain-defend? — his decision, I tried to be encouraging. I said every supportive, self- sacrificing thing I could think of, never letting on I was hurt.
“You and your mom enjoy your five-hundred-dollar dinners,” I told him at one point. “Having spent half her life raising a pain in the ass like you, god knows she deserves it.”
When it doubt, keep it light. Or a little dirty. “But when you come home,” I said, leeringly, “you’re mine. And you and I will celebrate your accomplishment in bed. Deal?”
Tony beamed, looking relieved and grateful. He had to have known I’d expect to be his date. My letting him off the hook so easily probably came as a surprise. A welcome one, at that.
It was a gift I was willing to give him. At least, tonight I was. But tomorrow, or next week, or next year, I was going to need him to start giving back.
If there was one thing I’d learned working the sex trade, it was that love, in any form, comes at a cost. The guys who paid me a couple of hundred dollars to feel cared for got off cheaply. Real love was paid in sacrifice, compromise, and the willingness-no, the desire-to put someone else’s happiness above your own.
No matter how hard it was or how far it took you out of your comfort zone.
Would Tony be willing to pay that price?
Would I be willing to wait?
14
The next day I was in Andrew’s office reviewing the week’s schedule when my mother burst in waving a piece of paper.
Holy deja vu, Batman.
“Did you see this?” she shouted.
Andrew looked pained. I could see he was trying to find a polite way to talk her off the ledge.
Happily, I didn’t have to be as diplomatic. While I hated to think of myself as the beneficiary of nepotism, there were certain informalities awarded to me by being the star’s son. One was being able to do things that would be completely inappropriate for any other staffer.
So, not wanting to play the “Guess What I’m Waving Frantically in Front of Your Face” game again, I just snatched the sheet from her hand.
It was a Xeroxed article from that morning’s New York Times. My mother actually brought three copies, which was uncharacteristically organized and thoughtful. I credited her assistant. I handed one to Andrew, another back to my mom, and sat down to read the third.
As the story had nothing to do with my mother, I wasn’t sure why she’d brought it in. It was a powerful article, though.
We typically think of easily visible child abuse as taking place in lower-class, less-educated communities. Wealthier parents in “better” neighborhoods are subtler in the ways they torture their children. Hence, the thriving psychoanalytic practices on the Upper West Side.
This feature, however, described the case of a couple, the Merrs, in one of the city’s most exclusive condominiums, who adopted a child through a private agency two years ago. The infant had never been taken to a doctor or, for that matter, been seen outside of the apartment. His existence was basically unknown until neighbors began complaining about what they thought was a cat screaming for hours on end. The closer ones also contacted the building’s management about an objectionable smell they thought was coming from the walls. “I thought a rat died in there,” said one.
The Merrs were what you’d call a “power couple.” He was the director of the Oncology Unit of one of the city’s largest hospitals. He was also an author and highly sought-after speaker on his specialty-the connection between stress and various forms of cancer. It was a popular topic, easily understood in layperson’s terms, and Merr dumbed it down further. I’d seen him once or twice and disliked his blame-the-victim approach. His message could have been hopeful and inspiring, but he came across as mean-spirited and blameful. It’s your fault you’re sick. His most consistent claim was that tumors were the result of unexpressed anger, which grew in your body in the form of tumors. More on that later.
Mrs. Merr was the co-anchor of a fluffy morning “news” program on a local station- Wake Up, New York! A second-probably trophy-wife, she was in her mid-thirties, a pretty if unremarkable bottle blonde with a sensible haircut and a perky voice perfect for tackling hard-hitting stories like “Finding the Best Manicurist in Your Neighborhood,” or “Online Dating: Web of Lies or a Connection to Love?” Ironically enough, the last segment of hers I remember watching (I swear, I was channel surfing at the time) was “Ten Fun Things to Do with Your Kids This Weekend.”
Left off that list was her and her husband’s favorite activity: Lock him in a cage and raise him like an animal. That’s the sight that greeted the police when they paid a surprise visit to the chipper talking head and her equally famous husband.
As far as anyone could tell, Adam had spent his entire life in a large dog enclosure. It was filthy, crusted with uneaten food and human waste. Although most two-year-olds are speaking in full sentences and can understand more, Adam didn’t have any usable language. Low muscle tone and a failure to reach physical milestones-he could barely crawl, let alone walk-indicated he hadn’t spent much-if any-time out of his crate.
Adam was also covered in a collage of bruises, burns, and scratches that told a story that went beyond neglect into full-blown, systemic abuse.
It was a tale of horror motivated by twisted impulses that would never be understandable by anyone normal. While evil doesn’t discriminate, it’s still somehow shocking to see this kind of insane abuse perpetuated by such seemingly mainstream, wealthy, successful, and, by conventional measures, intelligent and well-educated people. It spoke to a breathtakingly scary level of sadism.
I can understand a crime of passion-the slap or shot that accompanies a moment of unexpected rage. It’s not okay, but it can be human nature to strike out when hurt. But what to make of two people who’d gone to the trouble and expense of adopting a healthy white infant (not a cheap or easy thing to do) for the sole purpose of torturing him? This involved planning, a long process of ongoing deception, and a complete lack of morality or empathy. Was this Dr. Merr’s prescription for good health-take out your anger on an innocent child? Raise a kid like a rutabaga and you stay cancer-free?
After his adoption, Adam suffered two years of torment so pronounced as to be literally incomprehensible, both in motive and effect. Those are incredibly important years in a child’s development-what would become of this child, who’d learned nothing other than pain and how to endure it?
Besides the Merrs, Adam’s birth mother, and the agencies that carried out his adoption, there was no record or report to indicate anyone even knew he existed. It was as if he’d dropped off the earth and directly into hell.
I’d been thinking of Brent metaphorically as a Lost Boy, but Adam was the real thing.
After the article described Adam’s horrific living conditions (and I suspected the genteel nature of the New York Times, along with the discretion of law enforcement, combined to leave out some of the more graphic details), it explained the Merrs were in custody, held with various charges related to child abuse, endangerment, and neglect, but none that promised a penalty that seemed harsh enough to match the severity of their crimes.
Adam was alive. Unless they actually kill their kid, the law doesn’t have that much interest in going after bad parents-even the spectacularly bad ones. Oh, sure, Child Protective Services swooped in, and Adam will receive medical services and a new home. But losing custody of their son hardly seemed like sufficient punishment for the
