The Last Victim (12 page)

Gathering up my courage, I wrote Gacy back, giving him the number of my personal phone line, whose only extension was in my
room. I told him the best time to reach me was on Sundays.

For a while after sending the letter, I worried what I’d say if my parents got wind of this. I could just imagine my brother
answering the phone in my room and yelling throughout the house: “Jason. Telephone. It’s for you. John Wayne Gacy, the serial
killer, is on the phone. He’s calling collect from Death Row.”

There was also the problem of paying for the calls. They’d be collect, since inmates can’t make regular calls. My parents,
especially my father, were very concerned about money—mostly because they’ve never had much. I knew there was no way they’d
let me accept a collect call from anyone, unless we were reimbursed.

Still, I decided to deal with those problems if and when they arose. As it turned out, my next few communications from Gacy
were in letter form. At one point in my previous correspondence, I’d asked him directly if he was attracted to me, hoping
to catch him off guard. Now he said that I was too inhibited for him as a partner, but he admitted that he fantasized “getting
it on” with me, especially if I was interested in having an “older teacher.”

As I would later learn, my tossing out that “attraction” question gave Gacy the green light to bring up the subject anytime
he liked. It was as if he’d never thought of me as a sexual object before this query came his way, but since it had . . .

Gacy, like most sociopaths, would never take responsibility for his actions, and could manipulate any situation to portray
himself as the victim. To him, I was the one who caused him to see me in a sexual way; he’d never considered such a thing
prior to my bringing it up.

In one of his subsequent letters, he took the opportunity to present me with a brief analysis of my own personality, as well
as the reasons why I was writing him in the first place.

You can’t tell another what to do as life is experiences. It depends how open you are. Your still learning so who is to say
how far to go, and if you could be unselfish and giving as well as receiving without hang ups. I think you want to. I also
think you wrote me because it was a male sexual case, and you thought you could learn from me. That’s fine, but your like
asking me to give you the green light of approval when I know you want to anyway. Hey go for it. If you were here around me
you would try it all, then decide. We all control ourself.

I had a number of reactions to this analysis. First, I was pleased that he thought me so transparent and that he’d apparently
been taken in completely by the role I was playing. Second, I was a bit unnerved to realize he was right about my wanting
his approval, although not in the way he imagined.

The fact is Gacy had become an important person in my life. If nothing else, he was a source of status among my friends. But
he was also, I’ll admit, a bit of an addiction. Like a Sunday golfer who practices his swing throughout the week, dreaming
of getting out there on the links, I found myself constantly daydreaming about how I’d parry Gacy’s latest prying question,
or elicit from him another nugget of insight.

By now I was feeling confident enough that I decided to test his connection to me. In my next letter to him, I acted furious
at his misinterpretation of my motives. I told him that all I wanted was friendship and that maybe I shouldn’t continue writing
him if he thought I had some ulterior motive. I told him that, although I
had
discussed sexual things with him occasionally in my letters, sex, and anything related to sex, was the last thing I was interested
in.

This response completely floored Gacy. Now he was confused about what I was really searching for in our relationship. For
the moment, I felt like I was the one in control. I figured he needed me more than I needed him, and that he’d have to invest
even more in the relationship.

“T
his is a collect call from inmate . . . ‘John Gacy’ from the Menard Correctional Center. To accept the call, say yes after
the tone.”

It was nine o’clock on a Sunday morning when the phone rang. I was sound asleep when I grabbed—or rather knocked—the receiver
off the hook, struggling to think clearly. Rather than a live person, I heard an unearthly recorded, mechanical voice speaking
without inflection.

“Huh?” I muttered into the receiver, realizing as I said it that I wasn’t selecting one of the offered choices.

I was now fully awake. In fact, I could never recall feeling more alive than at that moment. “Yes,” I said softly, and then
much louder: “Yes, operator, I accept. I mean, I’ll accept the call.” What an idiot I sounded like, but before I could berate
myself further, I heard a real voice, a human voice.

“What’s up, buddy?”

Silence from me. I was utterly speechless, unable to form a single word. I just sat up in bed, mute, gripping the phone in
a tight clinch, trying to organize my thoughts and remind myself to stay in role. I kept telling myself to stay calm, that
I could do this, that I could be a good actor when I wanted to be. There was, however, another voice in my head simultaneously
saying, “Jason, this is John Wayne Gacy, one of the most successful killers in the country. His full attention is now directed
toward
you.
”

“I know this is probably awkward for you,” Gacy tried to reassure me. “Just relax. I’m watching TV right now, just hanging
out in my cell. What about you?”

I felt so nervous, I still couldn’t respond immediately. “Uh, sorry. I was out late last night. I just woke up.”

“Out late banging your girlfriend?” Gacy asked with a snicker.

Another long pause while I tried to gather my thoughts and figure out where this was going. “Yeah,” I played along. Then I
tried to change the subject. “I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you.” I hoped I sounded appropriately passive and helpless
like my chosen character. The fact is, at that point I did feel pretty helpless.

Gacy immediately began talking about the letter I’d just sent him in which I’d sounded hurt and angry. “Don’t worry about
the letter,” he said, his voice conciliatory. “You’re taking it way too seriously. I didn’t mean that you were trying to use
me or anything. It’s just that so many people write because of that reason.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not one of those people,” I told him, trying to sound firm in my own way.

“I didn’t say that you were. I apologize for how it sounded in the letter. You just don’t understand how many people want
something from me. I really didn’t mean that you’re like that. Don’t worry, bud, okay?”

All the while Gacy was apologizing to me, I couldn’t keep from grinning. He really did believe I was who I pretended to be.
He was doing everything he could to ingratiate himself, to make amends. I wiped the pleased smile off my face to remain consistent
with my character. I remembered that I was supposed to be feeling indignant.

“John, what you wrote in your letter was complete bull-shit! None of that was true, you know!”

Saying this to Gacy was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. No matter how many times I told myself that he
was only on the phone, thousands of miles away, I still thought that if I went too far with my act, he’d somehow find a way
to get me, just like those monsters in the movies.

I held my breath as I waited to see how he’d respond. It seemed like hours before he said anything. I could almost feel him
thinking on the other end of the line, making his own calculations.

“You can be a feisty little shit, can’t you?” he replied in a tone of voice that was starting to irritate me. “What’s the
matter, Jason? Didn’t you get enough sex last night?” He started laughing at his feeble attempt to change the subject.

“John, I’m being serious. I really think we’re going to have problems if you think I’m some freak writing you because I need
sexual advice.”

What I found most disconcerting about this conversation was that it was like we were lovers who’d had an argument and were
trying to make up. I was stuck in the role of the victim and was pretending to act hurt, while he was playing a part of his
own, pretending he was sorry for his insensitivity. As exciting as all this was, I also couldn’t help but feel disgusted that
I was acting like such a wimp.

From the literature I’d read, I knew Gacy was running true to form. It was his habit, I knew, with those who would eventually
become his victims, to settle disputes by offering a gift or a pay raise, accompanied by an earnest expression of remorse
and a promise he’d never do it again. Of course, within hours or days he’d break his word—sometimes in the most vile and lethal
way possible.

“Jason, how’bout if I send you one of my paintings? I’ve got this one called
Pennywise the Clown.
It’s from Stephen King’s book
It.
It looks really nice. It’s one of the most requested pieces that I paint. One just like it sold in a New York art gallery
for $10,000.”

“Yeah, that would be great,” I answered him much more calmly than I felt. Actually, I was screaming inside my head. I couldn’t
believe it! I knew Gacy had taken up painting in prison, doing mostly ghoulish portraits of clowns and other subjects. While
they weren’t great works of art, he did have a certain demented flair, and his signature at the bottom made them valuable.

After some more awkward conversation, I tried to end the call, but he was determined to keep me on the line as long as he
could. “Hey, John,” I finally told him, “my mom’s calling me. I really have to go now.”

The truth of the matter was that I’d coped with about as much of him as I could stand. I needed some time to regain my composure,
to catch my breath.

“All right, then, I’ve got a lot of shit to do, too.”
Oh yeah?
I wondered what he could possibly be talking about. He
was
locked up in a prison cell all day, wasn’t he?

He threw out one more line, just to keep me talking. “Did you ever see that interview where I was on
Hard Copy
?”

I admitted I had. It was about the paintings he’d done of Adolf Hitler. I wondered why he was bringing that up now. He knew
I was Jewish. Still, I couldn’t deal with any more mind games. I needed time to digest what had already happened.

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” I screamed off into space, as if I was answering my mother. “John, I really have to go now. My
mom is going to kill me if I don’t get downstairs.”

“Yeah. All right. I gotta go, too. Just keep them letters coming. I’ll talk to you again real soon.”
Click.

I was shaking. I’d held it together. I actually managed to talk to John Wayne Gacy, pretending to be his friend. Maybe I was
going to get away with this after all.

While I was mulling over whom I could possibly share this experience with without their thinking me a freak, the phone rang
again. I calmly picked it up to discover it was another collect call request. My heart stopped. Why was he calling again?
What did he want? I could only imagine the worst.

“How are ya?” he came on, like we hadn’t just gone through this ten minutes ago. My heart was pounding. With a barely disguised
sense of dread, I said, “Fine. What’s up, John?”

“I was just calling you back because I didn’t think you’d believe it was me who called. I wanted to let you know it was really
me.”

Again, I was speechless. I had no idea what he was up to or how to respond. I felt a big headache coming on.

He continued on, pretending the lengthy silence wasn’t really as awkward as it felt. “Well, I guess I’ll let you go now. Remember
to keep the letters coming.”

There was another pause. Then: “Are you going to tell your family I called?”

“Well, maybe,” I said, stalling for time. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I figured it was best if he thought I wasn’t
that close to my parents.

“Well, send them my regards. Talk to ya soon, buddy.” As I hung up the phone, I realized the implications of what had just
occurred. Gacy was obviously interested in a very intimate, intense relationship. Furthermore, he was impatient to move as
quickly as possible. Of course, that made perfect sense when you considered he was sentenced to die in just a few months;
he didn’t have a lot of time to waste.

Bursting with too much excitement to keep it bottled up, I ran downstairs to find Jarrod and my mother eating breakfast.

“Hey, guess what? Guess who I was just talking to?” They could tell something was up.

“Gacy,” I blurted out. “He actually called. Can you guys fuckin’ believe it!”

“Watch your mouth,” my mother reminded.

“No way!” my brother gasped. “Are you serious?” His fork, which had been en route to his mouth, now clattered to the table.

It was obvious my mother didn’t think I was serious. “Sure he called,” she said sarcastically. Then, as if I didn’t know the
rudimentary facts of life, she added, “They can’t make calls from prison.”

“Yes they can,” I answered. “They can only use the phone on certain days, but they can call anyone they want.”

“Jason, you’re definitely sick,” my mother responded. “I can’t believe you had this guy call our house. This is definitely
getting out of hand.”

“I never really thought he’d do it,” I said, defending myself with a half-truth. “God, this makes everything I’m doing so
real. I can’t believe I actually talked to this guy on the phone.”

“This is too weird,” my brother said. Anticipating a blowup between my mother and me, he left the room.

“Who do you think is going to pay this phone bill?” my mother said, closing in for the kill. “
We
sure the hell aren’t. You better get yourself a job.” In a huff, she began cleaning up the dishes from the night before.

“Mom,” I said with more than a little exasperation, “why are you so concerned about stuff like that? Don’t you realize who
I was just on the phone with? John Wayne Gacy. The serial killer!”