Foreword

Ted Roth’s mind cyclones, recalling the events leading up to the assassination. Exhaling slowly, gutturally through gritted teeth, he shifts onto his back in a vain attempt at easing his pain. His quick, shallow breath relieved somewhat, he glances down at the inadequate, bloody dressing covering the disgorging red hole in his abdomen where the bullet had torn into his flesh. As the wound to his liver is ebbing his life, Ted Roth wonders which vital organ is the epicenter of the undulating heat, white-hot until moments ago, that’s radiating his body. Although the pain is intense and unrelenting, he desperately wants to document the sad truths that affected his life, and that of so many others, but precious little time remains.

His extended hand not obeying its commands, he finally grasps the handheld tape recorder from the nightstand, pulls it to him, and slumps back into the comfort of his deathbed. Estimating that he has about two hours of recording time, he examines the gadget momentarily, presses the RECORD button, clears his throat, and begins.

Chapter One

My name is Ted Roth. I used a knife to kill my first victim. His name was Charlie. He was eleven years old; I was ten.

When I was three, my parents moved from an apartment in Leonia, New Jersey, into a two story house on Stasia Street in Teaneck, a few miles away. My mother didn’t work because my father had a good job with a big tool manufacturer in Brooklyn, New York.

I guess by today’s standards, we would have been considered middle-class, although at the time, I must admit, I was clueless regarding our station in the social pecking order. Only in their twenties, Mom and Dad were youngsters compared to the old fogies that lived around us. My father was tall, very tall, over six, six. He was of English ancestry and looked a little like the actor in the old Sherlock Holmes movies, Basil Rathbone. My dad was rather thin with a generous amount of dark brown hair, a long face, and hazel eyes. They were kind eyes. His nose wasn’t large but it was definitely there and proportionate to his facial features and straight mouth. I don’t know if he was considered good-looking, but my mother thought so. He taught me how to play baseball, but other than that, he wasn’t around much. I guess his job came first.

My mom was a very pretty woman of pure Irish descent. She was of average height with an oval face, dark black hair, beautiful green eyes, a perfect nose, and full lips. Mom was a little plump by today’s standards, but apparently perfect for her time. I loved my mom. She was kind and understanding, although a little Elizabethan.

They treated me okay, that is to say that they didn’t treat me badly. The neighborhood though, well, it seemed that no one was friendly. I now suspect the people that lived around us resented our youthful intrusion into their domain and the potential disruption it presented to their solitude. As it turned out, they would have every reason to feel that way.

Anyway, I was the only kid around, and it was a full five years before the demographics of the area began to migrate. So often in my life, I’ve reflected about the lonely hours spent sitting on the curb in front of our home hoping that someone my age would come along.

As hard as it is to believe, it wasn’t until I was eight that another kid moved into the neighborhood. His name was Charlie, Charlie Garner, and even though he was a year older, we became best friends. Charlie and I did everything together. For the first time in my short life, I had someone to play with, someone to talk to, someone I could confide in, someone who thought like I did, someone that liked me. I had a reason to get up in the morning. We were buddies, blood brothers, pals.

In retrospect, I loved Charlie. I looked up to him, and he to me. We did everything together. For the next two years, it was just Charlie and me. We both attended St. Anns Catholic grammar school, and even though Charlie was a grade ahead of me, we were inseparable. We became Altar boys and served Mass together at least five days a week. I guess we were pretty religious. Father Andre often remarked that if he didn’t know better, he’d have thought we were joined at the hip. Actually, I didn’t know what that meant until I was older, but I understood what he was saying.

Charlie and I didn’t look anything alike. I was of average height for my age, kind of husky, with closely cropped, dark black hair, blue eyes, and freckles plastered all over my nose and cheeks. My aunts thought I was cute and somehow couldn’t stop pinching my cheeks every time I saw them. I hated that. Charlie was of medium build, and about four inches taller than me. He had light brown hair that was always shaped like his mother had put a bowl over his head and shaved everything below the rim, which she did, once a month. My best friend had hazel eyes and crooked teeth. Back then, I had no concept of handsome or ugly, he was just Charlie.

In mid-June, the Hendersons, from Cleveland, Ohio, moved into the Moore’s house, four doors away. Mr. Moore, a widower, had died two months earlier. Mom said he had a disease. I realized when I got older, it was cancer that killed him. In 1955, cancer was a dreaded malady for which there was no cure. At least today, there’s some hope, back then, it wasn’t a prognosis, it was a death sentence.

The Hendersons had an eleven year old son, named Johnny. Charlie and I walked over to the Henderson’s house about a week after they arrived and introduced ourselves. Johnny was skinny and pretty tall for his age, about two inches taller than Charlie. He had short, jet-black, curly hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. I think someone told me later that he was Armenian. Johnny seemed to be a pretty nice guy. His father was at work that afternoon, but his mother was at home. She was very nice and gave us milk and homemade chocolate chip cookies. All in all, it was a pretty good start, but that would soon end.

I lived on a dead end street that was always quiet and almost never had traffic other than from the few families that lived on the block. At the south end of the street was a large earthen berm, followed by a strip of woods about a hundred and fifty feet wide that buffered the houses on the street from the traffic noise on Route Four, a major east/west highway linking New Jersey’s suburban bedroom communities with New York City. The wooded area was about a half mile long and bordered the south side of the highway between Teaneck Road in the East and Queen Anne Road to the West.

Charlie and I played there all the time. We’d make bows and arrows from the many saplings, build forts, played hide-and-seek, cowboys and Indians. We would actually fashion our very own wars and battles. A narrow path ran through the dense brush all the way from Teaneck Road to Queen Anne. Along its entire length, we built several hidden blinds to secretly watch people that took short cuts to the many streets that terminated at the woods.

Like clockwork, my mother went food shopping at the A&P every Saturday morning and always brought me along to help with the grocery bags. Most kids would hate the chore, especially on a Saturday, but not me. I was very helpful and rarely needed to be told to pickup my clothes, clean my room, mow the grass, wash the car, or do any one of a number of assigned responsibilities. For my age, I was extremely neat and thoughtful, not only of my parents, but of everyone else. I never really looked at shopping on Saturdays as a job. In actuality, I looked forward to going since Mom would always let me get two candy bars – one for me, and, of course, one for Charlie.

It was early Saturday afternoon, on a torrid mid-August day in 1955, when we returned from shopping. After helping Mom put away the groceries, I kissed her on the cheek and ran out of the house, clutching two melting Chunky bars in my right hand. I headed to Charlie’s to share the treasure. When I got there, I eagerly rapped on the backdoor, but instead of Charlie answering, his mom opened the door. I must have looked stunned because she asked me if I was all right. I told her that I was, and asked for Charlie. She told me he’d left with Johnny about two hours earlier and wasn’t sure where they were.

I didn’t know what to say, what to think. I was shocked and hurt by Charlie’s betrayal, but then I thought, there has to be a good reason why Charlie didn’t wait for me, as he always did. Charlie’s Mother said she was sure they were in the neighborhood. When Charlie’s Mom closed the door, I just stood there with a blank look on my face and an empty feeling in my heart. I felt hollow, as if a part of me was missing. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I know what happened next. For the first time in my life, I tasted rage.

I frantically searched the neighborhood for perhaps a half an hour and then headed for the woods. I ran down the path to Teaneck Road, and not seeing them, I ran all the way to Queen Anne Road; no one. Where was he? I decided to check each one of our hideaways along the path that wound its way through the woods. I was positive Charlie would never show Johnny our secret places, but I decided to look anyway. The first two were empty, but when I walked up to the third, there were Charlie and Johnny. Charlie and I had dug a sort of foxhole a couple of months earlier so it would be easier to conceal ourselves from people using the path. The hole was relatively shallow, about ten feet in diameter, and two and a half feet at the deepest point in the center. From there, it tapered up to ground level around the entire circumference. A mound of dirt, from the original excavation, was piled evenly about a foot above the upper rim. There were bushes and trees surrounding the outside perimeter, and unless you knew where the crater was, it would be very difficult to find.

In our secret place, Charlie was lying on his back. Exactly opposite, and foot to foot, was Johnny. Their pants were pulled down around their knees, and they were pulling on their penises quickly. Johnny’s penis was huge and purple. Charlie’s was large, but not nearly as big as Johnny’s. Without stopping, Charlie looked up at me and told me to join them. I had no idea what they were doing, but I knew it was something dirty and disgusting. I was dumfounded, unable to speak, unable to think. Johnny was smiling when suddenly he began to moan and white liquid began squirting from the end of his penis. I thought he was hurt and had broken something inside. I asked if he was all right and they both started laughing at me. I threw the Chunky bars at Charlie and ran home crying. I went straight to my room and lay on my bed until dinner. I’ve never been so hurt or cried so much in my life. I’ve never cried, not a tear, or a whimper, not even a sob.

I didn’t tell my mother or father what happened, I was too embarrassed. Embarrassed because I lost Charlie, and embarrassed about what they were doing in the woods. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized how extremely Puritan my parents were, especially in affairs of the body.

I didn’t see Charlie the rest of the day. He never stopped by. All I could think of was him and Johnny playing, having fun, laughing at me, making fun of me. I was all alone again, but the loneliness was replaced by a seething anger. It wasn’t so much for Johnny, but with Charlie for betraying me, for hurting me. I composed myself long enough to have dinner with my parents. Mom asked me during supper if I felt okay. I told her I was fine, and afterward, I even helped her clean up. Around seven PM, I went to my room.

It was during this time that I planned my revenge. My head was pounding, it hurt so much. I lay in bed holding my hands over my ears, pressing them very hard, trying to stop the pain. Charlie was no longer my friend. He would never hurt me again. I hated him.

It was very late by the time I fell asleep, but I knew what I had to do, knew what I would do.

***

“Strange,” Ted Roth mused, silently, after turning off the recorder. “Thinking back, there wasn’t ever a spark of thought as to whether or not it was something I should do.”

He turned the machine back on, repeating that very thought. Then he continued.