15
Family Secrets

In the summer of 1993, between my first and second year of graduate school, I interned at the AFL-CIO in Washington, DC. It was a respite from New York and, more importantly, seemed like the perfect place to start really making a difference in the world. By this point, I’d definitely “drunk the Kool-Aid,” wholeheartedly believing what my professors at Columbia University taught us: that social workers were the champions for those who were forgotten, pushed aside, and less fortunate.

I also believed working at the AFL-CIO would offer me valuable lessons about advocacy. In reality, a lot of the work I ended up doing that summer wasn’t very exciting. There were hours of boring research, hearings on Capitol Hill on myriad obscure issues, and the revision of a safety manual for the bakery, confectionery, and tobacco workers union. Not the most exhilarating stuff. But at least I got to work in Washington, DC, inside the beltway, which gave me the chance to indulge my growing fascination with politics. I had Democratic leanings and Bill Clinton had just been elected president, so seeing his administration’s triumphs and stumbles up close was incredibly interesting.

That summer I was also more reflective about how my family’s interests had influenced my choice to become a social worker. My father was always interested and engaged in politics, mainly because his arrest seemed politically and culturally motivated. I also realized the term arrested could mean many different things.

Most people who are arrested are petty criminals. Others are truly nefarious characters—murderers, child molesters, rapists—who commit violent unforgivable crimes. And then there are the businessmen who embezzle millions of dollars through elaborate Ponzi schemes that destroy many people’s life savings. When any of these people get arrested, we feel no sympathy.

But there are also the noble crusaders, who choose to be arrested for a great cause. Such criminals only break laws they believe to be unjust. Whenever I see Rosa Parks’s famous mug shot, it alters for me the concept of being “arrested.” I’ve imagined being arrested someday for something I feel so passionately about that I would even welcome the hard restraint of handcuffs if my arrest helped send a transformative message to the world.

As a young adult navigating my first real-life experiences, I had decided that my father was, in some ways, more of a crusader than a criminal, since he had committed no violent or white-collar crime. His crimes hadn’t hurt anyone, and the Deep Throat case had important first amendment implications. I also didn’t understand why distributing pornography broke the law in the 1970s, since people watched pornography all the time.

While on a research assignment for the AFL-CIO at the periodical room of the Library of Congress, I tried, for the first time, to do some research about the Deep Throat case. I wrapped myself tightly in a sweater to fight the chill in the overly air-conditioned room, and I set out to discover my family’s past.

“How would I find information about a specific court case?” I asked a friendly looking librarian behind the counter.

“You’re not in the right place for that,” she said, peering over her glasses. “You need to go to the law library.”

“Oh.”

Sensing my disappointment, she added, “But you could find news articles here about major court decisions. What case are you trying to research?”

“Deep Throat,” I said, and I looked over my shoulder to see if I’d been overheard.

“You mean Watergate?”

“No, I mean the pornographic movie.”

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Well, let’s see. What date was the case decision?”

“The date, um . . . I’m not sure. A final decision was maybe in the early ’80s?”

The librarian smiled at me sympathetically. Finally, she said, “You’ll need an exact date to search the periodicals.”

“Um . . . right.”

“But you could go to the stacks and look through newspapers during a particular year to see if you stumble onto something about the exact dates regarding the case.”

“That sounds like it might be tough.”

“It’s not ideal, since we have microfilm of major newspapers dating back to the turn of the century.”

I sighed. “Do you have the Philadelphia Inquirer?” I asked hopefully, thinking that something must have been written about the case in my family’s hometown paper.

“Yes, of course. Let me take you over there.”

I followed the librarian to the large metal cabinets with endless drawers that cataloged the microfilms of the Philadelphia Inquirer by month and by year.

“What year do you need?”

“I’ll start with 1975.”

“Here you go,” she said in a quick whisper, showing me the correct drawer. “And good luck.”

I grabbed a roll of film, threaded it into the reader machine, and began painstakingly looking at every single ad and miscellaneous article from 1975. I looked for any mention of my father or Deep Throat, but I found nothing. The sea of information was overwhelming and I gave up after a few hours. The stories Grandma Maria and my parents told me weren’t enough. I needed dates and details.

I left the library that afternoon grateful to be in the warm sun, and I walked to the Capitol South metro stop to head back to the AFL-CIO’s downtown offices. As I walked past the Capitol Building, I thought about finding out more about my family, and I fantasized about finding a cause of my own that would be worth getting arrested for.

*

That summer, I lived with my Uncle Gabe and his family in the DC suburb of Potomac, Maryland. After my family had moved to Florida, I had only seen them about once a year and living with them gave us a chance to reconnect.

“I’m so glad we’re getting you back!” Aunt Rose had gushed. Although she and my mother didn’t get along (as evident from the infamous food fight), Aunt Rose still treated me like a daughter. She was much the way I remembered her—friendly, open, and opinionated—but I found out that summer that she also had an adventurous side and was taking both motorcycle riding and flying lessons.

I also got to know my Uncle Gabe better. As a child, I remember him having a stern presence—he was the cool and distant executive focused entirely on climbing the corporate ladder. But now I saw that he could also be kind and generous when he expressed a genuine, almost warm concern for my well-being and professional development. In conversations, he had made it a point that if there was anything he could do to help me find an internship, he would do so. I was, after all, his only blood-related niece.

Yet despite seeing glimmers of his softer side, Uncle Gabe could still be intimidating. In his years in DC, he had carved out a high-power career in the telecommunications industry, and he had held senior management jobs at General Electric, GTE, and US Sprint’s Eastern Group. His impressive education—which included master’s degrees in both business and electrical engineering—granted him a commanding authority in media interviews, thus inspiring stockholder confidence. His light green eyes, olive skin, and tall, trim frame were complimented by custom-made suits, pressed white shirts worn with cufflinks, and tightly knotted ties.

I was one of the few people able to see Uncle Gabe’s flaws despite all of his accomplishments. Like most successful businessman, he had difficulty connecting with his family. I also struggled to find something in common with him. Uncle Gabe was a Republican, and an avowed Reaganite. He also believed in the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality and that trickledown economics had been a sound economic philosophy. I, on the other hand, was a liberal-minded idealist who believed that Reagan had failed miserably, especially in protecting the most vulnerable citizens of our country. I believed that Reagan’s effort to deinstitutionalize people from psychiatric hospitals without properly funding community-based services, as well as his demonization of the welfare mom and turning a blind eye to the AIDS epidemic, had made him one of our worst presidents.

In addition to our political differences, Uncle Gabe could have a controlling and prickly temperament. He was uncomfortable with me inviting friends over. He needed everything in the house in a particular order and if you went against his specific requests or instructions, he got mad. This demeanor was something I wasn’t used to because my father was just the opposite—always warm and laid back.

Uncle Coke had once said to me, “Your uncle’s got ice water running through his veins.”

*

As I developed my clinical skills in school, I learned that many of my clients kept secrets—secrets about sexual abuse, domestic violence, drug use, or other personal failures. And I learned that what people kept secret was often more important than what they shared.

My family was no different. That summer I came to understand that my father’s career, as well as his legal difficulties surrounding Deep Throat, was something that my aunt and uncle didn’t talk about, not even with their own children.

While I was living with them, my cousin Christopher—who was three years younger than me—was also living at home while preparing for his junior year at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Christopher and I had grown apart over the years, and I imagined his most vivid memories of me were of my collusions with his brother, Stephen, to torture him as a child. He and I came to realize that we had many preconceived notions about each other. He thought of me as an empty-headed sorority girl, who was nice enough (maybe too nice), and who had graduated from unimpressive party school. I thought he was stubborn and that he had a general disdain for all people, not just me.

And there were more differences:

I was a Democrat. He was a Republican.

I embraced Greek life in college. He detested it.

I was a college football fan. He thought college football defined second-rate universities and was a lesser version of the NFL.

These differences were minor, but together, they made it seem like we had nothing in common. But I learned there was so much about him that I did like. He was a stocky guy with a gruff and unpolished exterior, who wore combat boots and reminded me so much of our Uncle Coke. He was tenacious, loved rap music, smoked too many cigarettes (although he was trying to quit), and never minced words. He drove his parents crazy because he spoke his mind and defended himself, and I loved that about him.

Christopher and I were slowly able to bridge gaps and we came to appreciate one another’s unique outlook on life. We would debate and contemplate life on our commutes each morning into the city and while playing pool in his parents’ basement. I discovered that, despite our differences, Christopher was a smart and interesting guy, and not at all what you would expect from the son of a corporate executive.

One night, when Uncle Gabe and Aunt Rose were away for the weekend, Christopher and I settled on the back porch to drink and talk. It was a warm, cloudless summer evening, and the light from the kitchen window illuminated the deck and reached out into the seemingly endless and dark backyard.

“Remember how we played hide and seek in Grandma’s backyard,” I said, “and Stephen and I would never go look for you?”

“Fun times,” Christopher said sarcastically, then shot me a crinkled frown. “You guys were hilarious.”

“I really missed you guys when we moved away,” I said matter-of-factly. “But because of the Deep Throat trials and Dad’s adult theater business, there just wasn’t much of a choice . . .”

Christopher interrupted me, choking on his Jack and Coke. “Huh?” he said, gathering himself. He stared at me intensely. “Say that again?”

“Say what again?”

“The part about Deep Throat and the adult theaters.”

I frowned. “You know, my Dad’s pornography business.”

Christopher stared at me, wide-eyed.

“Wait a minute,” I said, sitting up straight in my chair. “You don’t know about my dad’s arrest for distributing Deep Throat?”

“No.”

“Or that he owns adult video stores in Florida?”

“No!”

There was a long pause.

“Wow,” I finally said, unable to come up with anything more profound. “I just can’t believe you didn’t know. I assumed you did.”

Christopher was shaking his head, and looking angrily down at his drink.

“What?” I asked.

“My parents lied to me!”

“Oh, come on. They didn’t lie. I’m sure they just didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Stop trying to sugarcoat this, Kristin. They withheld vital information about my family. About you. That’s the same as lying.”

“Withheld vital information . . .” I repeated in a gruff lawyerly tone, trying to get him to lighten up.

“Stop that,” Christopher said. “I remember asking my parents what Uncle Anthony did for a living. They told me he owned real estate.”

“Not exactly a lie,” I pointed out. “That was actually a line I used sometimes.”

Christopher was still fuming.

“Well, so, now you know,” I said hesitantly. “What do you think about it?”

He glanced at me. “It’s pretty interesting,” he said with a shrug. “I’d like to know more about it.”

“I’ll tell you what I know, but some things I’m not totally clear on. I tried to do some research at the Library of Congress but didn’t get very far,” I said. The story I was trying to tell came out disjointed and incomplete and we realized that there were many, many questions to be answered. Thankfully, Christopher seemed to have no misgivings about my father’s profession—perhaps he thought my father could score him some discounted porn.

“Maybe your parents thought that if they told you, you’d end up working in the pornography business?” I giggled. The alcohol was going to my head.

“Why not?” Christopher joked. “It’s not a bad job, right?”

“You could be a lawyer for the porn industry?”

“People gotta have their porn!”

That night Christopher and I made a promise to each other: one day, we would go to Florida to visit my father’s stores. We both wanted to know more about this family secret. I had never been invited to visit my father’s stores, even though I had fleeting thoughts about seeing them. There was an unspoken understanding that there was this dividing line between me and my father’s business. But now that Christopher wanted to learn more, it was an extra incentive to make the trip.

As I lay in bed that night, I felt a bit woozy and sad. My aunt and uncle must have been so embarrassed by what my father did for a living that they had opted to not share the details with their own son. I knew they were conservative, and I tried to imagine how hard it must have been for them to see their last name broadcast on the news in association with a pornographic movie and a major federal case. They had welcomed me into their home with open arms—especially Aunt Rose—but I wondered if maybe they just felt sorry for me.

Years later, Aunt Rose would confess, “I can’t believe you turned out normal!” And I realized that any pity they might have felt for me was actually motivated by a deep concern for my well-being. After all, the Deep Throat trials, my mother’s suicide attempt, and our move to Florida had been a very chaotic time in all of our lives.