4 ERNIE THE VISIBLE-INVISIBLE MAN

I struggled trying to decide if I should include a chapter about my primary abuser.  Although this is a short chapter, the information it contains will give you a snapshot profile of a predator.  For this reason, I decided it is important to include a chapter about my primary abuser as I saw him, this led to some interesting discoveries.

Ernie was twenty-four years older than me and in his thirties when he started attacking me.  I have no doubt Ernie was molesting kids most of his life.  I have no evidence of his activities from his early years but it would be hard for me to believe he was not a predator very early on in his life.  His sex addictions and intensely distorted thinking must have developed at an early age.  He was an ex-marine who in hindsight, was anything but the portrait of a Marine.  He couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.  He had no honor or integrity.  In fact, Ernie was a disgrace to his uniform and is the antithesis of what a Marine is.  He was an aircraft engine mechanic during the Korean War.  He did not serve in the Korean theater of operations; he managed to avoid deployment somehow.  I do not know how he managed to stay stateside but he pulled some strings or something.  Anyway, he told me he kept seeing his friends go to Korea and being killed, and how it bothered him.  He decided the war was not for him.  I thought it was cool he was an aircraft mechanic.  I loved all things flying and airplanes.  As a kid, I could not build enough model airplanes and boats.

When Ernie first took an interest in me he was involved in buying “handy-man special” houses, fixing the properties up and either selling or renting them out.  At first, he appeared to be a very nice person in many respects, except the fact he was child predator.  At least, from a kid’s point of view, he was a pretty cool guy.  His wife, Bette, was a very nice person.  Fun, caring, did carpentry work, but not so good a cook.

Ernie was one of those people who always knew the exact right thing to say and always at the exact right moment.  He was a master of manipulation and charm, although the title Master may be too magnanimous.  After all, how smart does an adult have to be to manipulate a child?  If you were down, he knew how to cheer you up.  If you needed advice, he would readily give it.  If you needed support for an argument, he would always support my side no matter how wrong I was.  He was the type of person who could convince you of anything.  And it was not just kids; it was most people he met.  Most parents liked Ernie and Bette when they first met them.  It was commonplace to see other teenagers my age on a regular basis or new ones would come and go.  Outwardly, the guy seemed OK.  As I grew older, I started seeing beyond my naivety, and distress.  I started to see Ernie in a different light.  He had a temper that I had only seen from time to time and he could not be wrong for any reason.  He was brutal with Bette when he was mad and with me also.  He never hit her but he was a real ass the way he would put her down when they argued.  In short, he was a bully who had all the answers and that was that.  I started to realize he never had friends his own age.  He and Bette never went out unless it was just them or with me and they were never invited to any parties.  For a long time I felt I was trapped in a glass jar.  Ernie had other quirks also; he never took a shower because when he was a kid he almost drowned, so he would only sponge bath.  The fact is; he was gross.  He had other gross habits that I will not mention.

I realized he had no skills for any trades and he was always doing the “Mickey Mouse” carpentry and home remodeling that I have never seen as bad.  He was terrible at everything he did.  In his mind, he was the best.  I was mortified at some of the crap work he did.  He was always building additions without pulling building permits.  Because he didn’t know how, he never built anything to code.  He was absolutely horrible when it came to managing money, bills, or anything.  He was always getting people to borrow money for him, including me borrowing from my parents from time to time.  I didn’t see it then, but he was a total loser.  How could I?  All my developmental years were anything but normal, I was deprived of normal interpersonal, emotional and social skills development.   I was never given the opportunity to learn about people or relationships.  Ernie made sure of it, no dances, proms, dating or friends.

In one of the illegal additions we built, he wanted a fireplace.  And he was going to build it himself. 

He decided he wanted a" Heat-a-Later" in it.  “Heat-a-Latters"' were the new fad for fireplaces.  It allowed

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the heat to be recycled back into the house through special vents that are not part of a normal fireplace.  Ernie doing the work scared the hell out of me.  He didn't know what he was doing, and sure enough a few months after he built the fireplace it set the living room on fire.  The only damage was to the wall, ceiling, and fireplace, but the Fire Chief was pissed.  He immediately knew the unit was installed completely wrong, something I tried telling Ernie when he was installing it.  In fact every time he lit the damn thing I was worried it was going to start a fire.  The fire department looked up the records and discovered no permits had been pulled and of course that led to the Building Department discovering a great many things that were wrong.  Ernie hired a local lawyer (Ernie's financer and friend to all the local officials), all the problems went away for $3000.00, no consequences.  Ernie always seemed to get away with whatever he was doing, but not every time.

In time, the real-estate laws changed to prevent sellers from hiding known defects in a property from a buyer.  The last property he sold, I told him of the new laws, I was seventeen, I believe.  He would not listen and firmly stated I had no idea what I was talking about.  He was good at making me feel like an ass.  A few months after the sale of this property, Ernie received a summons for court.  The buyer was suing for 20 thousand dollars.  I think that was about half the selling price.  He was sued under the new laws for willfully deceiving a buyer.  Ernie lost and made some ‘out of court’ settlement.

Ernie had no organizational skills; all he had going for him was he was just a smooth talker.  His cars were always full of trash.  It was everywhere.  His houses always smelled like cat-crap or cat urine; it was gross.  His animals were always fed but beyond that they were horribly neglected, except Bette's cats.  If he treated his pets like this today, he would be prosecuted.  For the most part, if an animal needed to be taken care of, I did it.  He had some dogs that were not off the outdoor leash in years, or had not been to a veterinarian or had any grooming in years.  Yet, he acted as if he loved these animals to death.  When one died, he would get another one.  With the exception of the cats that Bette was good at taking care of, I felt sorry for any of his animals.  And of course none of his pets were trained.

He was a heavy football gambler and had a number of bookies.  His attitude was always one of a "tough guy'' but he was anything but.  By any standard, then or today, Ernie was a total loser and a wimp and you have no idea how this makes me feel today.  If I had to be abused then why not by someone who had at least something going for him.  Ernie and Bette moved around a lot.  They would buy a house and move in and renovate it.  In reality, as the people came to know him, they became suspicious and they would move.  It took me until I was seventeen to figure this out.  His moving around is one of the reasons he got away with so much abuse.  He went to church every Sunday and I was usually with him.  He was a great con-man in retrospect.  Or does it really take a great con-man to lure a child into a sticky web?

I remember how Ernie had no confidence but was never able to admit it or talk about it.  When I was learning to ski, I wanted to take lessons, but Ernie knew better.  He decided he was going to teach me.  He was not only a terrible skier he was a worst teacher, always telling you how to do every detail.  He overwhelmed me constantly by never shutting up, always being critical, and never letting me just do something on my own.  He always had to be in control.  It became clear I was on my own again, so I taught myself to ski.  I learned to hate skiing with Ernie.  Aside from his ski weekends that were really sex weekends, he made skiing miserable.  He constantly second guessed himself.  It didn’t matter how good the conditions were, he was always pointing out how dangerous a slope could be.  He would work himself up to a point where his lack of confidence wore off on me.  Ultimately, I would start second-guessing myself and lose confidence.  He drove me crazy.  We could not just go to the top and ski down; he was always in drama mode.

It was the same when I started taking flying lessons at eighteen.  Flying my own plane was all I dreamed about as a kid and teenager.  As soon as I started flying, Ernie started in with his bullshit.  Every damn lesson turned into another worrisome nightmare for me.  For starters, Ernie figured if I had a one-hour lesson, then in one hour in ten minutes I should be calling to let him know I landed and was still alive.  The negative attitude never ended with this guy.  A day did not go by when Ernie was not scouring the newspapers and TV newscast, looking for stories about planes that crashed and people dying.  He never

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stopped talking about them and he constantly wore on my nerves.  So after about ten lessons, I could not take it anymore and just quit the lessons, never to return.  After I quit, he never stopped reminding me of how I made the right choice.  He was an ass.

It was no different with golf.  I was learning because I became interested when I was a caddy.  Well this ass again thought he knew best.  He did the same thing to me as he did with skiing and flying.  I could not just take a swing without his total intrusions into every detail.  Hold the club this way or that, your feet are not right, your grip is not right and so on and so forth.  I got to the point again, where it was not worth it.  And his temper was so bad that when he made more than a couple of bad shots, he would have a temper tantrum and break a club against a tree, or threw it in the water; it was scary.  And his golf bag was not immune from taking a swim from time to time.  I learned to hate doing anything with this guy.

Horseback riding and fishing were no different, except I was a natural with horse, and I loved it.  I found ways to take lessons without Ernie knowing about it.  The truth is I did not understand him at all.  He was a Jekyll and Hyde.  I hated having to see friends secretly and do things behind anyone’s back.  I was never comfortable with doing anything sneaky but he didn’t leave me much choice.  I think if Ernie were put under study he would be diagnosed as a sociopath or psychopath.  He was definitely sick.  I didn't have a clue why I could not break free of him.  I hope through recovery, I will discover the truth. 

Writing this chapter proved an interesting exercise in and of itself.  After drafting this chapter, I read it and it was missing something.  As I continued to reread the draft, it was apparent since I being was forensic in my story telling.  I was stating observations, facts, and opinions.  I was equally concerned I found so few words to write about Ernie.  Writing about my experiences could fill another two books.  And yet, I could only find a few pages to write about "Ernie the man".  How could someone who affected so much of my life be difficult to find an abundance of words to write?  After thinking for a few days this, like so many other moments, became another learning experience.  I wondered, Where was the anger?  I was so good at painting this ass as a good person that my denial deprived me of feeling anger for him.  Where was the truth and how do I get in touch with it?  I began to realize how powerful my self-protective behavior was.  I should be able to write volumes about this guy, I thought.  Why were so few words coming to me?  I would figure it out in time. 

(Self-awareness.  If I had to pick one thing a person can do for themselves to effect real change in your life, it would be to learn to be constantly self-aware of your feelings and thoughts.  This one skill, I believe, is the gatekeeper to the door for recovery.  Mastering this skill is pretty easy but it just takes commitment to do so.  As with all skills learned through recovery this one becomes somewhat automatic in time.)

In this moment of enlightenment, I learned I was disconnected from any emotions about Ernie.  Understanding this made me feel like I had just stepped on a land-mine, one of the types that don’t explode until you lift your foot off of it.  And my foot was still on it, knowing if I lifted my foot, the mine would explode.  It was an "awe crap" moment.  But it was an important moment.  Being aware, I effectively shut off all emotions about Ernie.  And it was a clear indication of the ultimate justification for the "lie" and perhaps the nexus for my denial.  I had shut off the emotions!  No wonder it was easy to portray him as a nice guy. 

In time I realized I could not find many words to write about him because he was an unremarkable person.  People like Ernie rarely have much to write about as a person, but volumes could be written on what they did.  I am one of those volumes I guess, so I am saying a lot about Ernie, at least what he did.

Realizing how shut off I was concerned me deeply.  It was obvious I had to find a way to connect to how I really felt, after all, this is why I decided on a course of recovery.  I asked myself how I could not be feeling a very strong reactions or feelings about Ernie.  It didn’t make a whole lot of sense.  I knew I was very good at not being truthful with myself about the abuse or the wounds.  But not to feel anything about Ernie was bizarre.  I stopped writing about Ernie the man for a while.  I needed to sort through my uncertainty, feelings and newly discovered awareness.

I took the time to think through and digest all of this.  I thought of Ernie from a different perspective, emotionally this time.  I set aside the forensics style of thinking and “fact stating” about him and

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focused on how I felt about him.  To do so I brought myself back several times to the days of abuse and relived, so to speak, a particular memory or act of abuse.  I focused on how I was feeling during these memories.  I was not surprised to see I was not feeling much of anything.  But slowly, I began to feel my true feelings.  I was triggering the same feelings I was having during the episodes of abuse.  It was difficult to trigger these feelings because I was so good at suppressing them, particularly as an adult while living behind a mask of "everything is ok".  I guess I couldn’t allow myself to feel the truth.  But now I not only wanted to feel the truth, I needed to.

As I progressed, each time I was able to trigger my feelings for a particular memory, I would ask myself; what am I really feeling (meaning what I was feeling at the time of the abuse).  Each time I would allow myself to feel the feelings and just think about them.  And ever so slowly I was getting in touch with distant wounds.  It was ok, I was ready.

As I recalled the torment and disgusting acts, I started feeling real hate and anger both Ernie and me.  It was clear, at the time of each memory, I was feeling real hate, but I had buried it.  I hated everything about what was happening to me.  I could see and feel I hated them for what they had done, in particular Ernie.  My truthful feelings made their way into my consciousness and heart.  My mind and heart connections were beginning to heal.  But not before I felt like my heart had been torn out.  It was a grueling emotional time in my recovery.

What did I really feel about Ernie the man?  I hated him.  I hated him for what he did and how he made me feel.  I hated him because he made me want to hate.  I hated him for deceiving me with love and kindness.  I hated him for destroying my friendships and my relationship with my family and I hated him for causing me to be lost emotionally most of my life.  He was an evil, manipulative son-of-bitch who should have been shot.

I was connecting to my feelings for sure.  I was feeling real anger and hate.  And I hated feeling this way but I knew it was necessary.  In the day, I always spoke positively of Ernie, but underneath I hated him.  I didn’t want to believe he really didn’t care about me.  I realized, I not only hated all he was but I did not like him.  He was a bully, unkempt, unsophisticated and a total loser.  There were no genuine feelings; I was simply a thing to be used.  I hated the son-of-bitch.  What the hell did he do to me, to have such a hold on me that I couldn’t escape or see the truth?  Why did I need love from this guy?  Is this perhaps, a glimpse of a deeper issue with love?  He had absolute control over me.  What did he do?  Simply put, he was a bully, and he knew how to brain-wash and manipulate a kid.  I guess it shouldn't surprise me an adult could control a kid.  Just look at what a Hitler or any dictator did.  They controlled the minds and the wills of nations.

The more I learn about denial the more it amazes me.  All these years and I am just now rediscovering my true feelings of hate and anger.  I hate hating, I have learned that much.  I never believed I could have feelings of hate for anyone.  This is one of the reasons I suppressed all my anger.  I had to prove myself a good person, Ernie made me feel I was not worth much of anything.  He was wrong.  Why did it take so long for me to figure it out?

"Ernie the Man," who was he?  He was the lowest of the lowest of human beings.  He was a sick and evil heartless "son-of-bitch", who destroyed so many lives.  He took my childhood, marriage, and dignity.  He was a controlling, lying, filthy child molester, and nothing more.  He is evil and "he" could be the one right next to you.  Animals like him are invisible demons, known to everyone, and seen only by their victims.  The silent suffering children whose hearts never stop crying out for help and comfort.  Hearts longing to feel safe and protected, and most are left to wither on the vine.  Ernie was a very pathetic person but in the end I would beat him.

When I started recovery, I remember being worried about feeling hate or anger.  I didn’t believe it was possible for me to hate anyone.  I was worried about discovering real hate inside of me because I thought at the time it would mean I was wrong about myself and it would be part of my own self-deception about my abilities to forgive.  I was wrong on all accounts.  Do I hate Ernie and the others?  No.  Did I hate them?  I sure did.  However, I knew getting in touch with these emotions was the only way I was going to truly heal and be successful with recovery.  I had to face my real feelings, no matter how deep they were buried.  If they

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are buried they can’t be released and if they can’t be released there can be no recovery.  I boldly declared early on in the awareness stage of my recovery, the abusers will take no more and I will give them no more.  And I would give my demons no quarter.  To keep these feelings suppressed would be allowing my abusers to have control over me.  Not a chance.  I was disappointed with myself for feeling hate, but only for a short time.  In the end I was a little disappointed in myself for not allowing myself to release the feelings many years ago.  So in the spirit of my recovery I used the hate to heal.  By this I mean I managed the hate in such a way it did not have control of me, I had control of it.  In doing so I allowed myself to dig up the hate, feel it, understand it for what it was and let it go.  The logic was I could use the hate to heal.  This was a strange 180 degree turn.  It was ok to hate them for what they did.  If I didn’t, I couldn’t heal.  So I am ok with discovering I had real hate buried inside.  No, I don’t hate Ernie.  In fact, I feel nothing for him.  I have little doubt he has paid or is paying for his crimes.  I don’t need to be a part of it and do I don’t need a pound of flesh.  The more I let go of these feeling the further I am from my abusers.  And that is just fine with me.

So Ernie was a person who destroyed me in virtually every way possible.  But I am the better man and I always was.  Following is an online message I left on various recovery web sites.  It pretty much sums things up for me and how I feel.

“For all you abusers out there we are so much better than you could ever hope to be.  While the fires of hell consume your soul, I will watch in sadness for all that is lost and for all that could have been had you got the help you need.  For the pain you have caused and lives you have cost.  And yes I will feel sad for you too.  God didn't make evil souls and you chose the path that we victims didn't.  You may have been abused or not.  You may be evil or not.  But it is certain you will live your life in emotional torment and your life is worth nothing unless you get the help you need.  I have beaten you.