In The Closet: What Happens When The Boogeyman Turns Out To Be Real?

I am trying to write this post so that you all can feel the impact of knowing that there really is a monster chasing me.  How can I get through to all of you that what I've experienced in my life was forced upon me.  It wasn't natural, it wasn't the way life is for most.  What my life was, was a series of events carefully orchestrated by the monster that lived inside of my gay closet.  Usually the "closet" is the safest place for a kid that is growing up into his own understanding of his sexuality.  What happens when that same kid finds out that his gay closet was occupied by the Boogeyman, and she was real?

There are a lot of difficulties in trying to explain what it was like growing up with someone trying to hurt you.  I'm not talking about your typical bully either.  I'm talking about a campaign of violence that Lori started long before I even knew who she was.

I knew that my father was incapable of molesting a student.  I knew it wasn't true because I am his son and because I was there when this "molestation" was suppose to have happened.  It didn't.  So I've always known that my father was not guilty.  When the San Bernardino Superior Court tried him and he was acquitted, it was a relief.  Two and a half years of my childhood dealt with the accusations that were put in the newspaper for everyone to read.  It wasn't a good thing.

Lori believes that since I am gay, that means my father is too.  That isn't the truth.  I'm the only gay person in my family that I've ever heard of.  It has nothing to do with my father.  I was never molested.  I was never sexually active in school.  I was a kid whose father was accused of something horrible and was acquitted.  The last thing I was going to do was hold myself out there as gay.  The other thing was that, as most gay kids will tell you, I didn't really know that was the case.  It was safer to be in the closet while some loud mouthed girl tried to find people to beat me up on a daily basis.

I first saw the actions of "the monster" when I would come home from school, during the pre trial era, to find that someone had placed (no stamp on the envelope) articles from the local paper, in our mailbox with the most hateful things you could imagine.  I would take them out, read them and throw them away before anyone in my family could see them.  They were horrible, but I wanted to protect my mom and dad.  I wish I had saved them.  I would like to remind you all that we lived across the street from Lori's aunt, at that time.

Once my father was acquitted, we built a new home and moved out of that neighborhood.  I've heard that it made Lori very angry that we no longer lived near her family.  

I don't know how to get across to all of you that I was in fear for my life, even then. Once Lori began showing everyone at school her displeasure in my father's acquittal, I knew that she was dangerous.  I spent all of my high school avoiding any and all contact with her.  The hate she showed to me was REAL.  It was unforgettable as a kid.  I always wanted to leave.  I never wanted to see her face again.  All I can remember is that she was so violent in her aggression towards me for something I didn't understand.  She says she knew I was gay so she called me out, but I didn't even really know all that.  I should know, I'm him.

Gay, gay, gay...like it was something other kids should beat me up for.  Now, looking back, I think she was saying more about her sociopathic problems than I ever imagined.  People told me she was dangerous and nuts, but I just didn't want any more controversy for my own family that had already been drug through the small town mud.

Clearly now, I understand that for a predator, I must have looked like easy prey.

Being gay wasn't something that I planned on hiding.  It was something I had to grow into.  Having faced the boogeyman once in court (Lori wasn't there but her lies were), I thought my life would be different once I left any area that she was near.  That assumption was wrong.  Lori would send people to find me at college and even wrote me hate letters there too.  One was about running me over with a car.  Oh she pretended to be someone else, but the hate language was vintage Lori.  I showed it to my roommate who thought it was weird too.

Then "the monster" got ahold of me.  I went to Palm Springs and she found out where I was, broke in, infected me with HIV and the nightmare grew.  All of a sudden, I was in my closet with the nightmare...she wanted to share my space.  Whatever went on in my life, she would make public to any and everyone that would listen.  She knew I had HIV because she gave it to me.  She knew I was gay because she told everyone and knew what I was thinking.  All of a sudden, even the closet, wasn't safe.  I was literally living with the monster in my closet. 

I certainly didn't infect myself with HIV.  That we all know.  I didn't have sex.  I didn't use drugs.  In fact, how I was infected was a tragic mystery.  It hurt my mom and dad, but you can't imagine what that was like for me.  Most HIV patients can point to something, I couldn't.  It almost killed me.  Lori, whom I would never talk to about something like this, appeared to know about it instantly and told people about it.  Once again, here she was, yanking me out of the closet with a secret that she was just dying to tell everyone.  The ONLY way she could have known this was if she was the person that put this microchip inside of me when she infected me.  It is the ONLY way.  Boy oh boy did she want me to be her target to practice on.

Even the "little bird" that told her I was HIV positive, didn't exist.   There wasn't one.  You see in 1987, people with HIV, like Ryan White were being persecuted for the disease.  Magic Johnson, quit his career over it.  

Lori began with high school reunions and targeting people around me.

She'd call all kinds of people and tell them to "make sure I went to the reunions".  I didn't particularly care to that, but Lori knew it.  She'd call anyone she could find to contact me...the calls were frequent.  I know now that it was simply because she wanted to be the person that told everyone I was gay.  By the time of my ten year reunion, I was fine with that.  It was everywhere.  Same thing with my twenty year reunion.  You see Lori thinks she can peer pressure me into a situation where I have to be confronted and ambushed by her sick lies.  She, of course, told everyone that I didn't tell people I had HIV and that I was infecting others...but isn't that a double standard?  On the one hand she "knows Kevin has HIV" because she heard about it and on the other hand she says that I don't tell anyone.  So which was correct?

You see, I never had a choice about my sex life.  It had to be safe.  I didn't tell everyone because in 1987 there was discrimination.  I decided that I would tell only people that I would have sex with when I knew that it wouldn't hurt them.  There weren't any.  I needed to know that someone loved me for me.  I can tell you now that there is nobody out there that has ever been infected by me.  I didn't engage in that kind of risky behavior.   So Lori then waited until I had significant relationships for her to spread more lies.

One relationship with a female and one with a male.  Neither did I ever have unsafe sex with, but Lori wanted more.  She wanted to be "the person" that ruined those relationships by calling or writing them and acting like I had done something to her.  Can you imagine the bravado of knowing that you are the person that infected me then you have the power to run around and tell people that I love that I was infecting others?  That's bullshit.  I am nothing like Lori.  I have written in diaries about what I would feel like if I ever thought that was the case.  I couldn't live with myself knowing I'd ever infected anyone.

As time and science would progress, the HIV infection process yielded important information and clues about who infected me.  I had learned to accept that I was infected, but when I found out that it was a female that infected me, I was shocked.  I've never had sex or used drugs with any female.  

So, in 1987, out of left field, I, having never had sex or used drugs, was HIV positive by a female.  I couldn't imagine anyone would do something like that.

Basically, I live in a cage where I can't do any better for myself than Lori's jealousy will allow.  Apparently she got infected with this virus and decided that it was important for her to seek revenge on the gay community that she blames for it's existence.  That's what I think that Jonathan was trying to tell me with her listening.

I am not one of these victims of hers that is willing to let this go on without saying something about it.  The epidemic in Palm Springs was perpetuated because of a person that wanted to infect people. Apparently a female that knows way too much about people that she has never met.  She made a huge mistake by introducing herself to the last man I will ever love, Christopher.  He knows that Lori is the person that has done this to me and he knows the consequences of being my boyfriend.  He's been punished because he loves me and I dedicated my life to stopping this for him and his family.  I know what Lori does to a person.  She'll say, "If you want me to stop bothering you, stop seeing Kevin."  She's also told him to hit me, hurt me, beat me up and so forth.

This was all just the ending to that high school fantasy that she had where she targeted me as a predator, but now she could use this system to try to harm me physically.  Check my past.  Bullets, beatings, broken skulls and all kinds of arrests because some "mystery woman" calls the police and lies.  I'm nothing like Lori.  I'm peaceful and mostly quiet.  I know better than to threaten people or lie to the police.

She's in Sedona too.

So is her brother.

Every time I try to stop her, some kind of illegal act happens and she benefits from it.

So, what would you do if the Boogeyman turned out to be real?

All I know is this.  I want to never see Lori again.  I want her to stay out of my life.  I want her to stop contacting my friends.  I want her to leave Christopher alone and I want her to know that she is the person that has instigated all of this attention for herself.  I never want to be near her ever again.