Tom was, for a time, my best friend. We met in creative writing class while attending college and we instantly hit it off. He had a thick skin about my rather harsh criticisms of his work (most other classmates simply hated me), and an easy charm, and we had a lot of common interests. I helped Tom a lot with his writing, and he in turn was more generous to me than anyone I have ever known.
When I moved to Maine, the friendship naturally deteriorated to a degree, but we remained in touch, and I would visit Tom whenever I went down to see my folks. There was no awkwardness between us - it was always just like old times.
Then last fall, I started trying to call Tom to work out plans for a christmas visit. I could not reach him. I tried again and again and I filled his voicemail with messages. I worried about him but I didn't push it farther than that. Christmas came and went and I went on with my life, consumed with projects at work.
Two days ago I decided to figure out what the hell had happened to Tom. I started looking for his father's phone number on the internet and I ran across some articles that shocked me to my core, articles like this.
It turns out my friend Tom led a secret life. In the early 2000's he apparently had sex several times with a 13 year old girl. Nor was this an isolated incident; Tom also videotaped several young girls in his own bedroom in various states of undress. Tom was a 4th grade teacher and he set up a hidden camera in his classroom to record the girls changing for halloween and other events. He also subscribed to some of the most vile child pornography newgroups imaginable, and a wealth of images, some of girls as young as 4 years old, was found on his computer - the computer I built for him. All the sordid details of Tom's secret life are freely available on the Internet here.
After the child rape charges, Tom lost his job, and months later, the police searched his home and found all the pornography, along with marijuana and cocaine.
I knew Tom had been using cocaine, and when I visited him in 2007, I told him that it was apparent he had a problem with the drug. But cocaine may ultimately have saved Tom from a far worse fate.
Tom got out on bail, facing 10-20 years for the aforementioned crimes. I've never been to prison, but I am aware that child molestation is not exactly a status symbol in jail. Child molestors get their asses beat with regularity. I'm sure Tom realized this as well. So perhaps this is what prompted him to overdose on cocaine to the point where he had a stroke and went into a coma, early this year. He underwent brain surgery and he revived from the coma in march, but is now apparently unable to speak or follow a conversation. This act of self-immolation has at least earned Tom a get out of jail free card - he resides now in a convalescent home, under the care of his father.
I know I should despise Tom for the harm he caused to innocent children. It boggles my mind that he would seek sexual gratification in girls who had not reached puberty. And to make it even less comprehensible, this was a man who was very charming, who attracted women to him easily, and who had at least several "normal" romantic relationships with women, that I know of firsthand.
I can't despise him; he was too good a friend. Let the rest of the world, those who didn't know him as I do, hate him. I'm just filled with overhwhelming sadness that my friend, who built a great life for himself, threw it all away for the sake of depraved sexual desires. And then literally toasted his own brain with drugs as icing on the cake. It makes me weep to think about it.