Justice: 19. The Weirdness, & The Special Needs
As far as the money goes… I had a safe in my room, in his house. The cleansing money went in there. Fratelo really took care of the money. I would pay the bills: the house bills, rent, electricity, water. Every month I’d go get cash out of the safe or tell Fratelo how much I needed and go to H.E.B. and get money orders for the rent and stuff. So, as far as I knew, other than food supplements, and maybe bodywork… I thought he was paying for everything. I know people were hit up for supplement money and money for the food, and then yard money with the garden service… and then things like dance class, or class class. But I payed all the house bills out of the cleansing money. And he seemed very generous with.. like his sister, he would give $500/month. Or I think if Quentin needed to go to rehab, I think he shelled out money for that – but I don’t know for sure. He would sometimes tell people to pay for things like that for service. Back in the old days, he used to give me money when I left after the weekend. I picked up videos and food from Shandarra’s on my way so I think it was to cover that. It was like $80 each week. I’d give most of it to Pépé Leputois. So he’d go in his bedroom and in his little sock he’d have tons of money. And then he’d give me a kiss and put the cash in my hand and I’d be on my way. Weird. But that was 1987 to 1990. Oh! Another thing that shocked me was Martina ripping off all that money… like $20K out of Fratelo’s room. And she let everyone crucify Tzwetta for it. She had really sticky fingers because of her drug problem. But the money situation was always a mess.
And that story about money being buried in Angelo’s back yard? That was true. Malario buried $80K under the hot tub and then it supposedly got destroyed. No one saw the ruined money though. He supposedly took it to a bank and they confiscated it. But Malario is also the one that got my social security number and forged my signature to run up $70K in debt against my credit. Without my knowledge or permission. So maybe the “ruined” money was just one more scam.
[Tower: Someone expressed to me that it was like you were raped every day for 10 years. Any comment on that?]
The sex thing was going on for more like 5 to 6 years. I remember we watched videos that I’d bring every weekend. When I was picking them out, I would always try to find ones that didn’t have any good-looking guys in them. Or ones that didn’t have a lot of sex so he wouldn’t get more “in the mood.” I’d also be hoping he’d be having one of his herpes episodes. He wouldn’t be sexually active then. But there were times that it was very physically painful for me. Most of the time it was me doing service. It was never an attraction to him or me coming on to him… never! It was service that I was uncomfortable with at best and at its worst, it did feel like rape.
But how long… I know it was still going on in
Yeah, I saw his porn. But only because I cleaned his room. He was addicted to it I think. When I was cleaning out his closet in
He might have been watching the porn in cleansings. By that point, the cleansings were so “by the book” with him… some people he’d have in there for 5 minutes… or want me to tell them not to even come but they should still pay. But one day, Domínguez came out of cleansing and said that it sounded like Angelo was jerking off during his cleansing. Of course, I deflected it and said I doubted it and all… but I knew what he was doing. Either he was jerking off or he was watching porn and didn’t have the sound all the way down. Remember he was so stern about keeping your eyes closed? I think he watched porn during the routine cleansings.. the ones that bored him (his words). So anyway, I went in and gave him a heads-up that someone had thought he was watching porn in here and he better watch it. But evidently it didn’t concern him because he tried to start diddling Domínguez after that. I was really shocked when I heard that.
Cleansing for me… I used to get really raw in cleansing. To me, we were trying to get to the root of something and get the poison out and then healing would come because of that. But I used to zone out during his hypnotic suggestions. And I got to the point where I felt I could give myself cleansing as well as doing it with him. But I did like being able to say things when I had cleansing with him… when I’m “under.” Because he’d have to listen to my take on things and see where I was at with it. I had some good ones. In hindsight, do I think it’s as helpful as Angelo thinks it is? I don’t know. I think it can be useless if you think it’s going to do something in and of itself. It can be an unhealthy way to keep regurgitating or trying to feel things so strongly… when it might be better to not feel them so strongly and just let them dissipate. But with me, I only had cleansing for a couple of years. Maybe even only a year. Every week. And then “as needed” along the way. But he usually saw 5 people a day, six days a week and then he’d see 2 to 3 people on Sunday.
The lifestyle we were living sort of mandated narking on each other. It was total spy-ville. For the greater good. With everything. He wanted to know everything about everybody. At certain points, it was too much and he’d only want the juicy details… it wasn’t like that exactly… but everyone could tell what he wanted to hear. And they loved to be the ones to supply him with the information. Then, he’d use that information to manipulate you when he ran into you next. It could be direct or indirect. Anything to make you think he knew everything. However he needed to play it to get the response he was looking for.
What wasn’t a special need with Angelo? Socks, jock straps, sponges for his jocks, eyelashes, makeup, hair dye… everything was a special need. His pants, his clothes had to be made special and washed special. His food had to be prepared special and it got the point where it was like Howard Hughes. It was ridiculous. And new people would come in and say that not enough was being done… and they’d incorporate more… a new dishsoap or a new type of plate that he would need. Things would have to be cobalt blue or he can only drink out of this type of glass, and then no, it should be plastic. The water should be like this, no it should be like that. He needed his socks to be pre-stretched so they wouldn’t hurt his ankles when we put them on him. He had his own issues, but other people added to it. People would “help him” think up new things to worry about. He didn’t even know something existed for him to worry about, but they would tell him and he’d latch onto it. That’s why it’s dangerous for him to be around “yes” people. Because his illness just progresses.
I know I sound irate, but it did drive me crazy because I was one of the ones that had to deal with it. Angelo always had trouble sleeping. We normally had to put books on his bed during the day to weight it down. He was a freak about his bed. Same with his chair. I couldn’t change the cover on his chair because it would disrupt the pillows or change some micro thing. He is legitimately serious about it. He works himself into a frenzy about it. Really Angelo was never comfortable with any sort of change. That’s why everything he owned was so ratty. He could only wear one pair of tennis shoes and one pair of socks. He was afraid to break in the new stuff because it would throw his body out. We couldn’t change his bedding or air it out. And he used one particular pillow with a particular pillow case. He had bad night sweats a lot so it was always filthy. The same shoes, the same chair, the same blanket on the chair, the same car seat (when we bought him a new car, we had to take the seat out of the old one and weld it into the new one) He was a freak. Anyway, one night he thought his shoulder was slightly elevated. Drustanus and maybe Denomio were around (I think he was grooming Denomio to be a boy at one point too) and they told him, “Yeah, I do see your shoulder is up a little bit.” And that was it. He freaked out. So I hopped out of bed – and I still had a knee brace on from my surgery – but someone said that they had this great mattress so I went to pick it up. There I am, in the middle of the night, hauling this bed around because they thought we could really fix this thing TONIGHT. Years later they would realize there’s never a fixing it. There’s always going to be something about the bed. Surprise, surprise, the fantastic bed ended up being not that fantastic. Same problems.
All of these special needs to accommodate his supposed physical limitations. He didn’t actually have those limitations, it was all in his head. When he wanted to f.ck, he could move. Or when he wanted to dance he could move. But he believed it. And manifested some things. I remember once there was this bump on his foot… and when he gets obsessed with a body thing… five, ten times a day he is wanting an adjustment on it. To the point where you’re actually hurting his body. You know you’re hurting it. So we finally go to a chiropractor and they say it’s a bone. “That nodule is a bone on your foot. It’s supposed to be there.” He’s thinking it’s something that’s out and he’s having us try to push it back in. Shit like that. Or once, we went to a chiropractor… this guy that always used to help him. And he wanted another appointment the same day… so we get there and he’s ranting and raving like a lunatic so when he gets out of the car, he hits his head on a cement beam. Hard. I thought he was going to pass out. I think it was the universe saying, “Stop it.” Whatever was hurting on his body, that had to hurt 10 times more. But he didn’t even break his stride. He was so obsessed with getting his hip adjusted. “Fix this hip. You’ve got to fix it. Pop it. You can pop it.” He’s irrational and really sick when it comes to his body. Actually, I guess he’s just a wounded human with a lot of problems. Problems that seem to be escalating. And he’s surrounding himself in the worst situation to do anything about it.
