eleven when the Old Man finally took him fishing. Fishing was one of the important things in life to the Old Man.
He liked fishing so much, it was a sort of affectionate joke around the house on Marmora. Ma even wrote a joke poem about it. It went something like this:
F is for the fish he always catches,
A is for the angling that he does,
T is for the tales he tells about them,
H is for how he hopes for big ones,
E is for . . . some shit, John forgot,
R is for the rowing out to get there,
Put them all together they spell father,
And something something ratta tat tat.
No, wait, E is for his eyes with fishlight shining. Eyes with fishlight shining. John Stanley kept his rods and reels, his tackle box, in the basement under lock and key. Like somebody might want to steal them.
Two weeks a year, on his vacation, the Old Man could go up to Wisconsin to fish. And in 1953, they went fishing together, man and boy. In the Catholic church that John attended, they had a sacrament called confirmation where you became a “soldier of Christ.” It was like officially becoming a man, and you were confirmed at about the age of eleven or twelve. In the Gacy family, being confirmed, becoming a man, meant that the Old Man asked you to go fishing with him.
The women went on their own separate vacation: they took the train down to Springfield to visit John’s aunt and uncle. The menfolk went fishing.
Except that there was a lot of rain that year, heavy midwestern squalls rolling across the lake; rivers and streams dark with runoff making the water muddy; the rain like something out of the Bible, the water pounding down in sheets, driving the fish deep, where they lay indifferent to bait or spoon. The fish waiting out a two-week spate of bad weather that just happened to coincide with the Old Man’s yearly vacation.
“So,” John recalled, “he drank. And the more he drank, the more he figured the rain was my fault. And then, when it was nice, we still didn’t catch fish, and that was my fault. What the hell, an eleven-year-old kid, he doesn’t have the same attention span. If I started to fidget, I was making waves, scaring the fish. And you couldn’t talk. You just had to sit there. And everything was your fault.”
The next year, when John was twelve, the Old Man went fishing alone. John went to Springfield with his mother and sisters. He wasn’t man enough to fish. He would never be man enough to fish with his father.
“Consequently,” John recalled, “one thing I always hated, I always hated fishing.”
Looking back, John could see that Ma’s encouragement, her uncritical acceptance—her mother’s love for an only son—was often expressed in clichés. A young boy doesn’t know these sayings are supposed to be corny. He’s never heard them before, and they settle in his mind and inspire him. “No matter how hard it seems,” Ma said, “you just gotta keep working at it.”
For Ma, things were always darkest just before the dawn. She knew that God worked in mysterious ways but that he helps those who help themselves. Love conquers all. Winners never quit, quitters never win.
While the Old Man was harsh and smart and violent, Ma was fair and accepting but maybe just a little too trusting. Naïve. She thought everybody was basically good; the Old Man figured people would fuck you any way they could. You had to stay one step ahead of them, you had to outsmart them. Trust was weakness.
After the panties incident, there seemed to be no pleasingthe Old Man. Go out to the quarry witha wagon, bring back over nine hundred pounds of limestone, make a walkway to the house on Marmora, and the Old Man said it wasn’t straight. The Old Man, who spent an hour with a tape measure before he’d hang a picture. “I was never good enough for him,” John recalled. “Never accepted.”
“You tried,” Ma said, “that’s the important thing.”
He was eight when John learned from Ma that he moved his bowels when he
He liked fishing so much, it was a sort of affectionate joke around the house on Marmora. Ma even wrote a joke poem about it. It went something like this:
F is for the fish he always catches,
A is for the angling that he does,
T is for the tales he tells about them,
H is for how he hopes for big ones,
E is for . . . some shit, John forgot,
R is for the rowing out to get there,
Put them all together they spell father,
And something something ratta tat tat.
No, wait, E is for his eyes with fishlight shining. Eyes with fishlight shining. John Stanley kept his rods and reels, his tackle box, in the basement under lock and key. Like somebody might want to steal them.
Two weeks a year, on his vacation, the Old Man could go up to Wisconsin to fish. And in 1953, they went fishing together, man and boy. In the Catholic church that John attended, they had a sacrament called confirmation where you became a “soldier of Christ.” It was like officially becoming a man, and you were confirmed at about the age of eleven or twelve. In the Gacy family, being confirmed, becoming a man, meant that the Old Man asked you to go fishing with him.
The women went on their own separate vacation: they took the train down to Springfield to visit John’s aunt and uncle. The menfolk went fishing.
Except that there was a lot of rain that year, heavy midwestern squalls rolling across the lake; rivers and streams dark with runoff making the water muddy; the rain like something out of the Bible, the water pounding down in sheets, driving the fish deep, where they lay indifferent to bait or spoon. The fish waiting out a two-week spate of bad weather that just happened to coincide with the Old Man’s yearly vacation.
“So,” John recalled, “he drank. And the more he drank, the more he figured the rain was my fault. And then, when it was nice, we still didn’t catch fish, and that was my fault. What the hell, an eleven-year-old kid, he doesn’t have the same attention span. If I started to fidget, I was making waves, scaring the fish. And you couldn’t talk. You just had to sit there. And everything was your fault.”
The next year, when John was twelve, the Old Man went fishing alone. John went to Springfield with his mother and sisters. He wasn’t man enough to fish. He would never be man enough to fish with his father.
“Consequently,” John recalled, “one thing I always hated, I always hated fishing.”
Looking back, John could see that Ma’s encouragement, her uncritical acceptance—her mother’s love for an only son—was often expressed in clichés. A young boy doesn’t know these sayings are supposed to be corny. He’s never heard them before, and they settle in his mind and inspire him. “No matter how hard it seems,” Ma said, “you just gotta keep working at it.”
For Ma, things were always darkest just before the dawn. She knew that God worked in mysterious ways but that he helps those who help themselves. Love conquers all. Winners never quit, quitters never win.
While the Old Man was harsh and smart and violent, Ma was fair and accepting but maybe just a little too trusting. Naïve. She thought everybody was basically good; the Old Man figured people would fuck you any way they could. You had to stay one step ahead of them, you had to outsmart them. Trust was weakness.
After the panties incident, there seemed to be no pleasingthe Old Man. Go out to the quarry witha wagon, bring back over nine hundred pounds of limestone, make a walkway to the house on Marmora, and the Old Man said it wasn’t straight. The Old Man, who spent an hour with a tape measure before he’d hang a picture. “I was never good enough for him,” John recalled. “Never accepted.”
“You tried,” Ma said, “that’s the important thing.”
He was eight when John learned from Ma that he moved his bowels when he
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