Bad Memories

There is NO excuse for anyone stealing a child's innocence, for abusing or harming a child in anyway. Either shortly before she left or immediately after, my son's mother got involved with a guy just released from prison. He hung out at the gym she went to, sang the tune she wanted to hear, then turned out to be "your worst nightmare", not to put too fine a point on it. The Conditions of Parole he was released under specifically stated he was "not to be around children", but he quite casually violated that restriction within a week after release, when he came with her to pick our sons up for the weekend. He went to meet his parole office and to formally sign those conditions on Monday.

I did not know anything about his history, at the time, I just knew I DID NOT LIKE HIM, IMMEDIATELY. Some people just strike you that way, and I put it down to the natural feelings of betrayal and intrusion I was experiencing. I found all this out two years later, after he added murder to his repertoire, when her sister came to tell me, because she was angry that my ex had admitted this to her, but also claimed she couldn‘t “help“ herself. He showed up, fresh from jail, the next day (actually his second tour since this all-too-real soap opera started), with the ex, but I couldn't do anything, because I had no proof AND no idea how bad a piece of garbage he really was--denying visitation in CA can be grounds for losing your children, particularly so for single fathers--so I let my sons go with them. In all honesty, I didn’t know at the time exactly what his crimes had been, except for two rapes and the murder, which the authorities could not pin on him, because there were “no witnesses”--it had happened in prison, where nobody “sees“ anything--or I would never have let them go, rules or not.

Monday I was on the phone to my attorney, hired an investigator and by Friday had proof, more damning than I had expected. The investigator had first called on Tuesday to ask me “You’re not thing about hiring this guy, are you?“ I told him I wasn’t and asked him why. He said, “Because this guy is dirty.“ I told him I needed to have something to take to the OSC Hearing on Friday and he said he would go back and get me what I needed. The next day, though, he called to tell me that the information he had been looking at the day before had disappeared! I felt as is the floor was opening up to swallow me, blackness at the edge of my vision. I pled with him to find out what happened to it, after quizzing him to be sure that what he had been looking at was indeed the same guy. Unknown to us, California law had just changed, to restrict access on parolees, after two weeks following their release from prison, to requests from the police and Superior Court judges. My guy had been using a computer in a Municipal Court judge’s office, and, as such, could not access the records! He told me he would do what he could and I begged him to do something, anything, to help me protect my children from this animal. Late the next evening, Thursday, he called and asked when I had to be in court. I told him I had to be at the lawyer’s office at 12:30 p.m., then we would go across to the courthouse for the Order to Show Cause Hearing. He said he had spoken with a member of the Parole Board and they “didn’t want this guy anywhere near children--any children”. He said he was going to drive to the board member’s office to pick up a copy of the “Conditions of Parole” for me and he would meet me at the lawyer’s office. For the first time in a week, I felt a glimmer of relief from the fear that had a death grip on my heart. When I pulled up at the lawyer’s office, the investigator, a big bear of a guy, stepped out of his pickup--I almost cried at the sight.

The sad part is the mother of my sons refused to admit there was any danger to them, insisting I was "only trying to get (her) back"! AS if! She told the judge I was overreacting, and trying to cause her grief. She denied knowing anything about the guy’s previous history, although she had called his parole officer and had told her sister all the details. It's been almost 15 years and I am still angry about it. When I told the guy's parole officer about the violation, he mumbled some excuses about how many he had to supervise, how difficult it was and how he'd "have a talk" with the guy. During all this, the jerk tried to front me off, telling me, "If you were a man, you'd step out and we'd take care of this like a man"...I said, "What, Dave, if I whip your sorry a**, I don't have to worry about my kids? If you whip mine, it'll be OK for you to molest them?" He tried to give me THE LOOK, and said, "One of these days, you're gonna open your door and BAM! Lights out!" I looked at him and said, "You know what, Dave? I'm a VietNam Vet. Know what they say about VietNam Vets? They're ALL crazy. Don't ever come around my house or my kids without your Kevlar underwear on and your life insurance paid up, ‘cause they'll be hauling your sorry a** off in a body bag!" He jumped in his car and raced off; I kept serious protection close at hand for over 2 years.

I had to return to court four times with my ex, because she would not abide by the orders. At one point, she told a judge (we saw a different one each time) she was “no longer seeing” the guy; a month later, she married him in jail. I found out, by accident, when she was late showing up for her alternate weekend visitation. I called her apartment and guess who answered! Whe she did arrive, I asked, “Why is D*** at your apartment?” She said, “None of your business!” I had just a few minutes before learned she was planning on taking them out of state on a “camping trip” that I knew nothing about, so I was in no mood for that answer. By this time, I had sole physical and legal custody of the children, and was more secure about denying visitation. I told her she could explain it to the judge, that on Monday I’d be back in Court, seeking another restraining order. The sad fact is you cannot keep the bad guy from access to your children, you can only restrict a parents rights to visitation! I did not like the fact that my sons would not be able to see their mother, but I was fed up to here with the lies and half-truths I was getting from her.

When we had our day in court, she shoed up, dressed to the nines, doing her best to flirt with the judge without appearing to do so, and generally disregarding any potential danger to our sons. She told the judge the same old story about how this was another pathetic attempt on my part to get her back, as is I would have touched her with a 20 foot pole (double the usual standard!). He asked me what my objection to her seeing the children was based on, and I tried to explain the nearly four years of deception and dissembling she had displayed with not sign of remorse or recognition of the potential for lasting harm to our children this jerk represented. I was trying to cover a lot of ground, to a judge with the attention span of a gerbil, who had been leering at all the women who had been in his courtroom that afternoon, smirking and acting like a 65 year old teenager with rampant hormones. He cut me off several times, telling me these things were in the past, and that he didn’t see their relevance, but I kept coming back on point, referring to a bulging notebook full of souvenirs of the many visits I had had to the judicial system regarding my children’s safety. The third or fourth time he cut me off, I told him, “Your honor, if you will just refer to the Family Court Service (FCS) report, you will see…” He cut me off again, with “It is Family Court Services job to make recommendations, it is mine to make rulings!” My heart sank, I didn’t know what to do, except I knew I’d be seeing another judge, this time for the cold-blooded murder of the jerk who was the cause of all this, and why didn’t I just start with this pompous ass, I mean he wasn’t even a real judge, he was a Commissioner, a temporary judge, if you will, and what did he know?

I think some of this must have shown in my face, because he stared at me for several minutes. My ex was standing off to her side, smirking at me, thinking she’s pulled the wool over another stupid guy’s eyes, when the judge announced that he would be right back after he conferred with FCS! With that he strode out of the room and was gone for almost 20 minutes. When he returned, he stalked straight to the bench, looking at neither me nor my ex wife, sat down and then looked at both of us, then directly at her. He sai, “Young lady, what concerns me is that you don’t seem to be hearing what everyone is telling you.” My ears must be deceiving me! I listened intently as he continued, her jaw dropping, “This person you’ve got yourelf involved with is garbage! If you ever let him come around your children and you don’t pick them up and start running down the street, screaming at the top of your lungs for the nearest policeman, I will put you in jail for child endangerment! Do you understand me? He is not to be within 2 city blocks of you at any time, for any reason, ever.” He glared at her, and I was shouting “Yes”, inside, to myself, that finally someone was saying what I had wanted said all along. She slunk out of the courtroom after whispering, “Yes, your honor.”

Two years later she showed up to pick up the boys for a weekend visit and told me she was pregnant, and that she was moving away from the animal. It turned out she didn’t trust him as much as she said she did. After the child was born, she moved several times, trying to stay away from him. He was violated once because he went to a town where she was living without registering with the police there, a requirement for sex offenders. One night, she called and said she was moving away, please don’t ell any one, to get away from him. He called me several times, trying to get me to tell him where she was, once saying, “You know, Bruce, we have a lot in common.” I said, “D***, we have NOTHING in common, except you’re supposed to be a male human being, but I wouldn’t believe it without a doctor’s sayso.” He whined about how he wanted to see his son, and eventually quit calling. His mother kept it up, for almost two years, even once telling me she wanted to leave her house to my sons if I would just tell her where her grandson was. I said, no, thank you, no. He’s in jail no on the three-strikes law, for 25 to life, a sad burden for her son to carry, particularly since he is using the courts to force her to bring the child to visit him in prison.

This experience colored my life indelibly for nearly 10 years, and my children hardly saw their mother during that time. I felt as if I was in one of those nightmares where you’re trying to run away, but it’s like you’re running through knee-deep molasses, unable to do more than just stay out of reach. I looked at potential romantic partners suspiciously, in a hold-at-arms-length manner, which did nothing for my social calendar, I can tell you! Now, fifteen years later I’m still angry about it, less than I was at the time, sure, but it’s something that doesn’t go away easily, if at all.