Angels and Demons: The best lie I ever told

I think Stephen King would probably agree with me when I say that the very best horror stories are the ones that are based on a true story.

Despite my childhood proclivity for lying, the story you are about to read is, unfortunately, true.

It happened on a very hot day in the summer of 1976, almost 50 years ago. I was 12 years old, and I told a whopper of a lie that ended up on the front page of the daily newspaper.

Let’s pause here for a moment. Please allow me to explain why I am publicly sharing this story for the first time.

Two guys having a hissy fit

Ed Pierce, now the managing editor of the weekly Windham Eagle, got upset with me about something I posted on Facebook regarding Biddeford City Manager James Bennett a few days ago.

Pierce publicly questioned my “journalistic ethics” in posting the story about Bennett. I replied that I am no longer a “professional journalist,” despite the fact that I occasionally write puff pieces for Saco Bay News as a freelancer. My days of covering Biddeford City Hall are behind me.

To make a long story a bit shorter, Ed Pierce and I began trading barbs on social media. We were each very snarky with our slings and arrows.

Fun stuff — two, white middle-aged newspaper guys who both live in Biddeford – going at it like a couple of high school girls arguing about who gets to be prom queen.

Pierce got especially pissed when I brought up an unfortunate incident that happened in 2018 while he was the editor of the now closed Journal Tribune in Biddeford.

Maine media critic Al Diamon — who writes a column in several publications throughout Maine – had a field day with Pierce, who was duped into writing a news story about something that never happened.  [Read Diamon’s blistering column here.]

Pierce was getting angrier by the second until he somehow found an equally damming story about me.

Here’s the difference: While I was going after Pierce for a silly mistake he made as a newspaper editor, he decided to come back at me with an embarrassing story from my childhood, when I was 12 years old.

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

As I said, it was a hot day in July 1976. I was getting ready to head out on my paper route. Ironically, I delivered the Journal Tribune in my neighborhood in Saco, near the armory on Franklin Street.

I got into an argument with my younger sister. Our fracas woke our father from a mid-day nap. He was enraged. He came flying out of the house and almost literally beat the shit out of me.

I was both angry and hurt, I took off running and stayed away for a few hours. I made it as far as the Five Points Shopping Center in Biddeford before getting hungry and tired.

I started to walk home, but I was still angry. Only a few hundred yards away from my home, I threw away my wristwatch and my belt near Don’s Variety, a small corner store that was located at the corner of Maple and Bradley streets in Saco.

Don’t ask me why I threw away my watch and belt. It’s been almost 50 years. Who knows what I was thinking?

My parents had called the Saco Police Department and reported me missing. It was now evening as I began my way back up Franklin Street to return home. A patrol officer spotted me only a few yards away from my home.

My face and shirt were covered with dried blood. My parents came running over to the now parked police cruiser. The officer asked me what happened. I glanced at my parents and then back at the officer.

I then did something I would regret for many years to come. I lied.

I told the officer that I was attacked by a big, fat bald man wearing a red tee-shirt and blue jeans.

You can probably guess what happened next.

The city of Saco basically went into lockdown. The story swept across the city like a wildfire. A child molester was on the loose in Saco.

At the officer’s advice, my parents brought me to the Webber Hospital in Biddeford. The ER doctor was concerned about damage to my right eye. I was transferred by ambulance and admitted for overnight observation at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

My lie had worked, but not for long.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

The next day, the Journal Tribune ran a front-page story about the attack. I was the victim, so they used my name, despite the fact that I was 12.

Then my lie began to unravel.

A friend of my parents told police that she had seen me at Five Points and was concerned because I had blood on my face and clothes.

Now the Biddeford Police Department got involved. Detective Gagne questioned me. I offered up a new story. I said that I was beaten by a group of teenagers near Mayfield Park.

Gagne wasn’t buying what I was selling. My tissue of lies disintegrated.

Finally, after being threatened with juvenile detention, I told the “truth.” I said I “fell down” in my backyard.

Of course, I was once again lying but everybody bought it. Hook, line and sinker. The police, my parents and even the local newspaper.

The very next day, the Journal Tribune ran a front-page story above the fold: “Youth Admits Lie.”

They had to do the story to quell panicked and concerned citizens. They were just doing their job. But again, my name was included in the story. I went from victim to outcast in less than 48 hours.

The owner of Don’s Variety was understandably pissed. He kicked me out of the store a few days later.

The first few weeks of seventh-grade sort of sucked.

All in all, I had told three lies. The first about a fat, bald man. The second, about a gang of kids on May Street, but it was the last one that everyone seemed to believe for nearly five decades. I fell down. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

That last lie held up right until Ed Pierce decided to use that story as leverage in order to publicly embarrass and hurt me.

Near the end of our Facebook exchange, Mr. Pierce made a not-so-subtle reference to wristwatches that could be found at the long-since closed Don’s Variety.

When confronted by me and some others, he quickly deleted his comments.

What Ed Pierce probably doesn’t know is that he actually did me a huge favor. I’ve been carrying that shame around for almost 50 years. It was a relief to finally let go. To finally tell the truth; to finally reconcile something that should have never happened.

The angels wanna wear my red shoes

My father passed away a little more than four years ago. They say you should never speak ill of the dead, and that’s probably good advice.

Did my father act like a monster? Yup. Did he physically and emotionally abuse me and my younger sister? Yup. For many years, he routinely referred to me as “queer boy.” My sister struggled with her weight, beginning around age 9. He routinely referred to her as “baby elephant.”

It would be easy and quite convenient to simply label my father as a monster, but to do so would be telling a much bigger lie.

Yes, he was abusive . . . to me, my sister and my mother, but here’s the hard part: He was also a loving and generous father. He sometimes worked three jobs so that my sister and I would want for nothing.

My father worked his ass off to make us middle-class. Clarinet lessons and Boy Scouts for me. Ballet and tap lessons for my sister. Every Christmas was magical. In many ways, we were spoiled kids.

We went on vacations every summer, and Dad helped us with our homework. That was him. Singing and playing guitar in the church choir while my sister and I were altar servers at Most Holy Trinity. He was a talented musician, well-known for his charm and sense of humor.

My father’s professional career was spent teaching students who were in those days mostly ignored.

He was a teacher at the Cerebral Palsy Center in Portland. He had to help some of his students use the bathroom. He patiently helped them eat their lunch. Day in and day out, he was gentle and kind to those kids. But it took a toll.

It seemed like one of his students died almost every month. It gutted him. He cared so much about them. He was a walking, talking, breathing contradiction of terms.

Dad always had a soft spot for the outcasts and the troubled kids. He was a friend, a dedicated mentor with tons of patience.

Two years after I “fell down,” my mother finally filed for divorce. That was not pretty.

My father was a demon, and he was an angel, and that’s about as fair as I can be.

Life is complicated.

I have forgiven my old man; something that became a lot easier to do once I was confronted with how hard it is to be a father.

This is a sad story, but it is true. If you think I’m exaggerating, you can check the police records or the Journal Tribune archives on microfiche at the McArthur Library in Biddeford.

The next time you a hear a child say that he or she got hurt by “falling down,” please remember that they are likely feeding you a load of baloney.

Thank you, Ed Pierce. It feels good to finally have the truth out there. Now how about some fresh sushi and French Fries?

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