What I Wish I Had Said

(I suspect no one will read this post.  But I'll know it's here.)

Over the years I have from time to time idly wondered whether I should shutter this blog for good.  I haven't written in so long, and while I loved blogging and this community, it truly feels like its time is past.  Then I get an email out of the blue from another woman who was affected by this man - a woman who found me via this blog - and I know I can't close it down.  We are a sisterhood, and leaving space for us to find one another is the least I can do.  

I received one such email in January and it was a gut-punch.  It took me several days to understand why it was hitting me so hard, but I got there eventually.  The one piece of this experience that is unresolved for me is my guilt at having not reported Gerald Klever when I could have - and wanted to.  Each email I receive forces me to face how many other women were victimized over the years because I said nothing.

So in January I mourned again, and accepted again that I have not been able to forgive myself.  I bitched a little at the Universe for bringing this up for me - again.  And I carried on.

And this week I learned what the Universe was up to.  The January email was a reminder to pay attention.  To be present and conscious and ready.  Because this week, while at a play in Philadelphia, I gradually became aware that the man sitting opposite me in the theater was Gerald Klever.

(I had seen him in court in 2008, of course.  But not face to face.  And not unexpectedly.  And prior to that, not since roughly 1983.)

If I hadn't been looking at his mug shot a month ago, I might have missed it.  As it was, I was only 90% sure that it was him.  It felt like such an invasion, that he would be in the same space as me and not be aware, and I had to know for sure.  So I followed him out into the lobby.

- Excuse me.  I think we know each other.  Are you Gerry Klever?

 -Yes.

 -I'm Ruth Fischer.  (No sign of recognition.)  From Swarthmore.

And his face fell.  And he said --

- I'm sorry.

And I turned and walked away.

And what I wish I had said is, your apology is not accepted.  Your apology will never be accepted.  I'm standing on my two damn feet and I will never accept your apology for what you did to me, for what you did to my classmates, to your family, to countless, countless other girls.  For what you did to the women who email me, decades later, to share their stories -- women I have never met and will never meet who are still processing their pain -- for all of them, on their behalf, I do not accept your apology.

In the names of all of the women, men, girls and boys of #metoo: your apology is not accepted.

Of Pedophiles and Collective Responsibility

My reaction to the Penn State mess is complicated. On the one hand, I absolutely hold Curley, Schultz, Paterno and any other witnesses (whether first hand or by rumor) responsible for not adequately sounding the alarm when Sandusky's activities became known. How dare they value the sanctity of their football program and college community over the safety of those children? They deserve to be thrown out on their asses and blackballed from ever working with children (or young adults) again.

Where my reaction gets complicated is that it was fairly widely known in my town, growing up, that Gerald Klever was "inappropriate" with young teenaged girls. To my knowledge, nobody walked in on him raping anyone, but the cohort of girls several years older than me all knew that you turned down babysitting jobs at the Klevers'.

I've written before about the guilt I carry from not having reported his abuse to anyone other than my mother (and my guilt for letting her talk me in to not taking it any further, "for [my] own sake"), but shit, I was fourteen. I was a kid.

There were adults who knew what was going on. Why am I easier on them than on the Penn State crowd? Don't get me wrong, I am angry that no one in my town did anything, but I don't, in my heart, hold them to the same level of responsibility that I do the coaches and president of Penn State. Even though their silence almost certainly allowed Klever to abuse many, many other children before he was finally arrested.

The disparity in my reactions feels somehow dishonest to me, and I can't quite figure it out.

Not Objective

Granted I can't be objective about this issue, but our local news last night had me steaming and yelling at the TV. Yesterday the archdiocese of Philadelphia suspended 21 priests, pending outcomes of investigations of inappropriate sexual contact with minors. The news coverage was focused on how shocked the parishioners were -- stand-up interviews with nuns and congregants expressing how dismayed they were that their priest was being treated so badly, and that anyone who knew him would know that he would never do anything wrong or less-than-holy.

Which, okay, they're entitled to their reactions and one should guard against a rush to judgment. BUT! The news coverage didn't even ALLUDE to the fact that there are REASONS these 21 priests were suspended. No discussion of the history of abuse by priests, the ongoing collusion of church higher-ups to adhere to a code of silence, and NO mention of the potential/alleged victims. Twenty-one priests potentially abusing kids? We're talking hundreds of victims, conservatively*. To omit that from the newscast is unspeakably irresponsible. Motherfuckers.





* For context around this guesstimate: Gerald Klever was a minister near my hometown for approximately 5 years. When the news of his abuses came to light, over a dozen additional women came forward to provide evidence that they, too, had been abused by him as children. That's close to twenty women -- that we know about -- for one predator in a VERY limited timeframe. You do the math; I can't. It makes me want to vomit.

Updates

UPDATE #1:

My Dad is about the same. Well, sort of. He's not worse overall, and he was a bit better for a few weeks, and now he's a bit worse again. He feels just well enough to be crabby that he's not feeling better, and to realize how much vitality he's lost with this last bout. Ironically, it was probably easier on him when he was sleeping 20 hours a day. He's not gaining back any of the lost weight, but his fluid levels are under better control than they were. So, mixed bag.

UPDATE #2:

My kidney function seems to have stablized at 24%, for now. Fall blood work showed no change since May 2010, which is an unprecedented run. My doc thinks I may have another year or two before needing a transplant at this rate. So, mixed bag, again -- no need for imminent surgery, but another 1-2 years before I can start to feel better.

UPDATE #3:

I decided to give ballet another try tomorrow. Pray for me and my crampy feet.

UPDATE #4:

We have raised $9,868 for PKD research this year. Holy crap!!! If we reach $10,000 by 12/31, I get a different plaque than the one they give you for not quite reaching $10,000. (Just saying!)

UPDATE #5:

It turns out that I'm a big old hypocrite. After all my bleeding-heart waffling over the recent job applicant who turned out to be a registered sex offender, I found myself in knee-jerk reactionary mode a few weeks ago when a close relative of my neighborhood pedophile reached out to me, olive branch extended. I have nothing but sympathy for (most of) his family, I hasten to add, but no patience whatsoever with anything that smells like a defense of this man's character or a tale of redemption for his past sins. Fuck 'im.

Crime and Punishment

Hints of a major scandal rocked our little burg last spring when three employees were suspended from our local bank under suspicion of embezzling. If you read Philly papers, you saw the news explode this week, as indictments were finally handed down.

The short version is that the head teller at our local bank - located across from the police office! - started stealing money from the bank's ATM machine several years ago, falsifying records to cover her tracks. Eventually two other tellers joined in the scheme with her, and the theft expanded to include shorting cash deposits made by local merchants and stealing coins collected from the town parking meters.

The three women are being collectively charged with stealing over $100,000 from the bank, and the true number is surely many orders of magnitude higher.

Reading our local paper last night and trying to explain to my aghast sons what had happened, something struck me. Of the local merchants who were interviewed, all reported having had problems with these particular tellers for several years now, of having their cash deposits come up short when counted by one of these particular tellers, and of being met with hostile and belligerent attitudes when they questioned the tellers' counts. It was so pervasive, in fact, that one unnamed merchant told a local reporter that he had years ago instructed his staff to "watch out" for these particular tellers and avoid making deposits at their windows.

Which reminds me an awful lot of what I discovered in the aftermath of Gerald Klever's arrest: everyone in town knew. Everyone in town fucking knew. They knew that he had a taste for young girls, and they knew of his predatory behavior. The older teen girls knew that you never accepted a babysitting request from the Klevers. The moms of the older girls knew that play dates should be at their own houses, not at the Klevers. It was just not discussed, and no one did a damned thing about it.

Why in the hell didn't the bank manager (who allowed the ATM theft to occur by dint of her not adhering to corporate procedures regarding double-signature verifications of cash balances) take seriously the multiple complaints from local merchants - who were shorted on virtually every cash deposit that they made? Why didn't she investigate? Why didn't any of the merchants file a police report? Or, hell, why didn't the merchants simply talk to their peers and discover years ago just how big a problem was sitting under their noses?

Why did Klever's wife permit these atrocities to go on under her own roof, and do nothing about it (let alone do anything to protect her own children)?

Why didn't the adults of my town call that miserable son-of-a-bitch to account for his actions decades ago, sparing god knows how many other children his vile attentions?

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Please remember that the next time you're tempted to "not make a big deal" out of something.


***

(The three former tellers will be tried and are likely to do time at a state facility, where "lifers" are imprisoned. Their lives, as they know them, are over. They are very likely to receive much harsher sentences than Klever did. What a world we live in.)

Sentenced

It's over.

Former Delaware County pastor sentenced for 1980 sexual assaults

By Mari A. Schaefer

Inquirer Staff Writer

Christine Kuhn would not give up. From the time she was 13, she told friends, church leaders, neighbors and therapists how her minister had sexually assaulted her.

"Like a dog with a bone, I was not going to let go," Kuhn said. She always hoped someone would listen and take action.

It took more than 30 years.

Yesterday, Gerald L. Klever, 76, of Tucson, Ariz., was sentenced in Delaware County Court to 10 years' probation, one year of house arrest, 1,000 hours of community service, and restitution of $25,000. In May, he had pleaded no contest to rape and guilty to sexual assault involving Kuhn and another woman, both now in their 40s.

The crimes happened in 1980, when he was an assistant pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Delaware County.

Kuhn, of Media, might never have had her day in court if not for a twist in the law, allowing Klever to be prosecuted for acts committed between 1980 and 1983, when he moved out of state.

The abuse began when Klever asked Kuhn, then 13, to lunch, she said. He bought her a Burger King meal, took her to his church office, and made her perform oral sex.

"I was humiliated, embarrassed and very uncomfortable," Kuhn said. Klever, she recalled, threatened to falsely tell her mother that she was using drugs to keep her from going to her parents.

When she did tell others, she was dissuaded from taking it further.

"FIDO - forget it and drive on," Kuhn recalled one church member telling her.

In 1988, a retiring pastor told Kuhn that she was not the only person to complain about Klever. Two years ago, Kuhn approached the Rev. Byron Leasure, a new interim pastor at the church.

He then sent letters to congregants asking any with complaints against Klever to step forward. At least a dozen women responded, but only four agreed to talk to police. Of the 15 charges brought against him, Klever pleaded to two counts.

Klever, who walks with a cane, has significant health issues, including early-onset Parkinson's disease, heart disease, vascular disease and prostate cancer. His health was one of the factors taken into consideration during the plea negotiations, according to the District Attorney's Office.

On Sunday during a chance encounter, Pat Circolo, a former babysitter who alleges that Klever took off his clothes in front of her more than 30 years ago, said she saw the former pastor walking briskly in Center City on his way to church.

Yesterday, attorneys for Kuhn and Circolo met with Judge James F. Nilon Jr. to discuss Klever's health before the sentence was imposed.

Klever's attorney, Theodore Simon, said his client was admitted to Jefferson University Hospital the previous week for an "emergency" problem with his heart.

Nilon made a point of telling Klever, who as a condition of probation must undergo polygraph tests, that he could be asked questions about his health.

"If you fail polygraph or violate probation, you go back before the court," Nilon said.

Kuhn, who is a recovering alcoholic, said she felt as if her story has finally been heard and she has to believe Klever is "remorseful" for what he has done to her and others.

She said she planned to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting last night and tell her story.

"I'm going to tell them there are miracles out there," she said. "Don't quit before the miracles happen."

Aftermath

Thank you all for the comments and the calls and the emails. It was a little scary to put that out there quite so boldly; thanks for making me not regret it.

I have to write about the courage of the two primary victims in the case. Listening to their statements in court on Friday has humbled me, and I must rush to add a qualifier to this narrative: what I experienced was nowhere near as severe or damaging as what these incredible women endured. That they could get up on the stand, face their abuser in the courtroom, and speak about the emotional aftermath of the abuse with such bald honesty was inspiring. And, questions of degree aside, we are now part of a sisterhood, for better or for worse.

Almost everyone I've spoken with or heard from has been flabbergasted that there was no jail time -- that the negotiated sentence seems very light. It's my understanding that the primary victims in the legal proceeding were more concerned about an assured guilty plea/verdict and acceptance of responsibility, than about a highly punitive sentence. They both (the victims) had to testify at length at a preliminary hearing earlier this spring, and it was a horrible, wrenching experience -- a plea agreement spared them from having to testify again (what they read on Friday were victim impact statements, and there was no questioning). And given that Klever is a 76 year old man in very poor health (cardiovascular disease, brain aneurysm, history of TIAs, prostate cancer and early-onset Parkinson's), jail time seemed to me to be somehow irrelevant, and possibly cruel.

At least, that's how I felt going into the courtroom. Seeing Klever in person after all these years did not disrupt my nervous system as much as I expected, but it was disorienting. I was seated toward the back (the room was packed) and as he scanned the crowd, his eyes did cross mine once or twice without any hesitation or recognition. (I am alternately relieved and infuriated by this fact.)

The legal proceedings were, initially, very dry and uneventful. There were endless readings of the charges and pleas, with line-by-line attention to whether Klever understood the implications of what he was agreeing to. There was a bit of housekeeping as the two lawyers jousted over minutia in the paperwork. And there was more than one recess, during which the on-camera reporter from Channel 3 trolled blatantly (and rudely) for victims to interview.

Most of the people packing the courtroom were from Klever's old church, and many of them clearly had been members for decades (lots of white hair in the room). At one point during the victims' statements, the deputy D.A. asked that anyone in the room who had been abused or otherwise affected by Klever's actions to stand, and half the room stood up, which was staggering.

After the victims made their impact statements, his attorney indicated that Klever had a statement to make. To my disappointment, he was not required to allocute to his crimes, but merely read a brief and wholly inadequate apology. There was a complete disassociation between the (very banal) words he was speaking and his affect -- it reminded me of nothing so much as the way a little boy acts when he's apologizing to a parent for doing something wrong, but not understanding that it was wrong (or why it was wrong). Very creepy, and very disappointing. I think we all hoped that Klever's guilty pleas would signal a true understanding of his crimes, and a full repentance of them. This is clearly not the case.

I don't believe that Klever has any understanding that what he did was wrong, and I don't believe he is capable of empathy with anyone, let alone his victims. In this light, I begin to wish that he would rot in jail for the rest of his life...

Many of you have been asking how I'm doing/dealing with it, and the truth is, I think I'm doing okay. I may have been a little extra-high-maintenance this weekend (hush up), but otherwise, not bad. My sleep has been disjointed and strained for the last week, and I'm sure the old psyche is working things out in the wee hours. But the case is over (except for the formal sentencing on July 29), and we are leaving for a long weekend in Chicago on Thursday. The potatoes and strawberries have been planted, the bills have been paid, and I hauled 3 bags of crap gently used clothing to Goodwill today. This is how I heal: through getting my hands dirty, through chasing dust bunnies out of closets, through crossing items off lists.

I think I can finally cross Gerald Klever off my list.

Court Today

Guilty, one count of involuntary deviate sex.

No contest, one count of rape.

One year house arrest, ten years probation.

$24,818 in restitution to be paid to one of the primary victims for counselling fees, both past and future.

To be listed on the Megan's Law registry as a sex offender.

It's not justice, exactly, but it helps.

February 3, 2007

I've been carrying this newspaper clipping around in my purse for over a year.



I still remember the shock I felt on that Saturday morning last February when my mother, so tentatively, asked me whether I'd seen the paper and slid it across the table to me. I remember the horror I felt upon reading the article and learning that not only was I not the only one, but that the others who had come forward suffered much worse abuse at our former neighbor's hands than I did. I remember the irrational guilt I felt at not having known, and at having done nothing at the time to prevent it. I remember sitting in my mother's kitchen and spilling tears in a way I haven't done since I was a child.

I remember the urgency with which I sought out the lead detective in the case, and my insistence at meeting with him as soon as possible. I remember sitting in the Springfield Police's interrogation room with this kind, dedicated detective -- who had taken seriously the claims of, at first, a single woman reporting crimes that had taken place over 20 years ago -- and trembling uncontrollably as I told him my story. And I remember his nods of recognition, his resolute validation of a story that he had already heard in various forms from over a dozen women.

*****

After 15 months of pre-trial hearings and motions, rescheduled court dates, and general delays of one kind and another, this matter will finally be before the courts a week from today. The deputy district attorney prosecuting the case phoned me last week to inform me of the date, and also to let me know that the defendant's attorney has asked for a "non-trial resolution" to the matter -- in other words, a plea agreement.

I will be there, not as a participant in the case, but as a witness to Gerald Klever's admission of guilt and accountability. I will look him in the eye as he leaves the courtroom, hoping that he recognize and remember me, and that he take responsibility for the harm he has done. I will look his wife in the eye, if she is there, and insist that she own up to her years of silent complicity with her husband.

But mostly I will be there to stand with the other women, members of his former church, who were brave enough to come forward in spring 2006.