The latest: What we’re up to...and why.
Subway mapping (MTA & DNA)
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You won’t read this entry on the subway, but you may well have read the Daily News article by Michael O’Keeffe while moving through a tunnel beneath New York City.
Your ride this morning, was in a roughly 60x10 stainless steel box, which at rush hour may hold as many as two-hundred and fifty human beings. Many of you read a story of a man who had experienced sexual abuse, and if you made it all the way through, may have thought: “Not me”.
I wish that for you.
I have had people tell me that they “didn’t know anyone that had happened to”. The statistics will say that approximately 63 people in your rush hour subway car had a very different reaction, from direct personal experience alone.
Some percentages, for perspective:
The percentage of boys who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences before age 16 in America is comparable to the percentage of Americans who have blue eyes. The percentage of girls who have experienced these abuses is comparable to the percentage of Americans who have a college degree.
Have you met anyone with blue eyes? Have you met anyone with a college degree? Tens of millions Americans have lived with, have lived through childhood sexual abuse. Not all of them lived long enough to earn the label of ‘survivor’. None of us, whether we have dodged this all-too-common bullet or not, have the luxury of hearing these stories as stories about ‘Them’. They are always stories about ‘Us’.
We sit or stand in our subway cars, and we create the illusion of separation from those who are surrounding us, as if this were the last line of defense against something that threatened our own way of life. We look at the stockbroker in the suit we could never afford, the woman in the shoes we wouldn’t be caught dead in. We hear a loud expletive-laced argument between teenagers, or the hypnotic, murmured davening of Hasidim. We smell the push cart gyro someone is shoveling in, in between stops, or we breathe in the over-perfumed (or under-groomed) aroma of the person shoe-horned in next to us and think “Not me…”
This is New York City. Often we experience all of these things in a single moment of near sensory-overload. But our senses do not overload. We leave that to John Rocker on the 7. We are New Yorkers. We can handle it. We are made for it. We are made of it.
And speaking of ingredients…
The mapping of the human genome tells us that 98.77% of DNA base pairs of humans and chimpanzees are the same. The person scrolling down this page on their iPad & Ronald Reagan’s late co-star Bonzo. 98.77% the same. The Human Genome Project has also told us that, genetically, we are 60% the same as a delicious, potassium-packed banana. Yet somehow, we will look across the subway car, and see a human being that we so quickly define and dismiss as ‘Other’. The homeless man, the CEO, the migrant worker, the child in the stroller that just rolled across the tops of your feet, the owner of the elbow lodged in your ribs. Name a nationality, name a religion, name a shade, name an age, name an occupation…and try to find a way that is of any substance that goes beyond the surface to distinguish Us from Them.
Can. Not. Be. Done.
We all want to be happy, but struggle to find what the truly means. We all want to avoid suffering, and often mistakenly or ignorantly bring worse upon ourselves. We throw monkey wrenches into our own gears. We slip on the banana peels of ourselves. Ten-thousand joys and ten-thousand sorrows…the Eight Worldly Winds: praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute…find us all in mildly varying measures.
Like it or not, embrace it or reject it, scientifically and spiritually speaking:
We are made of the same stuff.
No ‘Not me’…no ’Me’…there is only ever Us.
I’m reminded of a line from Fight Club “We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep.” When it comes to male survivors of sexual abuse…we are you, and we are everywhere. We are your fathers and your sons. We are your uncles and your cousins. We are your husbands and your boyfriends. We are your co-workers, your teammates, your friends.
We don’t get to be ‘different’…We’ve got too much company.
Brooklyn filmmaker Chris Gavagan, Queens Assemblywoman Margaret Markey support Child Victims Act
/Coached into Silence director Chris Gavagan featured in this New York Daily News article, covering his support for statute of limitation reform. ————————————————————————————————————
A Brooklyn filmmaker who is making a documentary about sexual abuse in youth sports says the statute of limitations that limits prosecution of sexual abuse encourages offenders to prey on children.
Chris Gavagan, whose still-in-production “Coached into Silence” includes an interview with a coach he says abused him when he was a teenager, spoke at a press conference in Albany on Tuesday to promote the Child Victims Act. The bill, sponsored by Queens Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, would extend the civil and criminal limitations for sexual abuse and give previous victims a window to bring civil suits against sexual offenders.
“The reality is that these predators will feed for a lifetime on our children,” Gavagan said. “And the short statute of limitations in our state guarantees 30, 40, 50 more years of children - our children, your children - as prey. A generation of children that could so easily have been spared.
“I have been forced to watch as my own abuser, a coach with direct and easy access to a hundred children a year for decades, found his next victim, and his next victim,” Gavagan added.
Coached into Silence director Chris Gavagan featured in the NY Daily News
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But sports do provide predators with several advantages, says Chris Gavagan, a Brooklyn filmmaker who is working on a documentary called “Coached into Silence,” about the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of his roller hockey coach.
“Kids look at coaches to teach them how to do the things their sports heroes do,” Gavagan says. “Sports are all about hero worship and kids will do whatever their coaches tell them. They are craving role models and there is more of an imbalance of power in sports than in other relationships.”
But filmmaker Gavagan points out that background checks will only flag men or women who have already been arrested for sexual abuse or other crimes.
My kind of crazy.
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In our earliest research we began looking for local cases that could be possible fits for Coached into Silence. It didn’t take us long to be drawn in to the allegations against New York basketball coaching legend Bob Oliva, of Christ the King Regional High School.
The man featured in this article, Oliva’s former player and eventually his assistant coach, Ray Paprocky found himself in what—to an outsider—seemed like the most difficult position imaginable. His mentor accused and his friend among those doing the accusing. As a scandal swirled, at the eye of this storm, stood Ray.
As we followed each development, it brought us back time and time again to the work of Michael O’Keeffe in the Daily News. Difficult as it often is to keep the blood at 98.6 degrees while scrolling through them, I have made an effort to study as many of the reader comments as I can when the subject matter is allegations of sexual abuse. It is by no means a scientific survey of public opinion, but it is an excellent way to acquaint oneself with the talking (nay, shouting) points on both sides. Generally, the bulk of the comments fall into two broad categories: those who bust out the pitchforks and torches to lynch/castrate the alleged perpetrator, and those who attack the victims who brought the allegations. More often than not, this latter group cyber-shouts something about ‘thoze liers R jus tryin 2 get CA$H’. Just as often, a litany of outrageously homophobic vitriol spews forth, attacking the “manhood” of children; now grown. What I found was enough anonymous hatred and violence voiced on both sides to fill an entire Potter’s Field worth of graves.
As I forced myself to wade through the caps lock cacophony of comments and contretemps, a compelling drama developed. One user continued to chime in; a voice of reason. He said that he had knowledge of the case and he believed the charges. As defenders of Oliva continued to post accusations of gold-digging, lying “victims” (their quotes) who “wanted it” (my quotes), the voice-of-reason-poster himself grew more adamant. He knew. He believed. More doubt and more hate followed from the peanut gallery.
As what passes for discourse on the internet escalated, our knowing, believing voice of reason upped the ante and took an extraordinary step: he announced himself as Ray Paprocky—the very subject of the article—and posted his phone number, challenging anyone who didn’t believe to talk to him directly for clarification. It had to be a joke. It had to be an impostor. If it was really him…he was crazy…but he was precisely my kind of crazy.
What did it cost to give it a shot? I mean, I’m paying to have a thousand text messages a month,right? So…
I sent the following text:
“Ray, I saw your post on the Daily News site. I’m directing a documentary about the sexual abuse of boys by coaches. It would be priceless to talk to you on the topic. Sorry for the informality, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Chris Gavagan, dir. Coached into Silence”
Two hours later, the digital peal of a bell alerted me that a text message had arrived.
“Give me a call tomorrow. I’m not sure how much I can help. I am not a victim of a predator. I’m simply a friend of one.”
We spoke the next day, and he had enough insights and stories not just for Coached into Silence, but for his own mini-series. He invited us the the arraignment, and a few days later we made our way from Brooklyn to Boston, and the Suffolk County Courthouse at Pemberton Square.
Upon introducing myself, the man we only recognized from the photograph that you see above greeted us as friends. He spoke with reporters, engagingly and with a no-nonsense charm that all the gravity of the moment, which obviously weighed on him, couldn’t dim. He’s one of those men that you find yourself walking away from saying simply—to no one in particular—“what a great guy.” Above it all, what you take away from a moment or an hour spent with him is his matter-of-fact integrity.
Ray Paprocky thinks there is nothing special about what he did. He may believe that anyone would have done the same in his position, even as he draws the ire of so many who did not. When the issue is the sexual abuse of children, all too often the default position for one’s head is buried deep in the sand. Ray saw his choice as no choice at all. It was just the right thing when faced with the most reprehensible of wrongs. No alternative, no big deal.
To those who have summoned the courage to bring the accusations, in the face of an institution intent on silencing them, Ray’s stance was The Biggest Deal. He believed. Nothing is more important to one who has finally, somehow, forced the seemingly unspeakable words from their mouth. He believed and he took the steps to get a child molesting coach—no matter what his reputation or win/loss record was—away from other boys.
There’s a word for someone who does such a thing, and it’s the word that Ray Paprocky is least likely to apply to himself. That word is hero.
Ray is one of mine and if he ever reads this, his reaction will more than likely be to tell me who the real heroes are. There is always room for more names on that roster. ‘Anonymous’ may be the most common name of all.
I can only imagine the strength of those who have spent their lives on the front lines battling against this pandemic. The process of making Coached into Silence requires so much looking-at-the-worst. Heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story in the hundreds daily. A thousand a week for months on end. And when you think you’ve seen it all, a dozen of the latest horrors arrive in your inbox. The shadows are unbelievably dark, yet not a day passes that I am not inspired, encouraged, emboldened and reenergized by seeing the best. The light provided by so many others. The courage of those who do what is right. The strength of those who have survived. The determination of those who lend their voice to others who cannot speak for themselves.
Tania, Ron, Steve, Megan, Paul, Mark, Jim, Sheldon, JP, Tony, Robert, Marci, Chris, Don, Angela, Lynn, Rick, Gabe, Kathy, Theo, Kevin, Aaron, John, Phyllis, Heath, Beth Ann, Durell, Lyn, Joe, Patricia, Wayne, Rhett, Sherri, Rommell, Darlene, Taylor, Catherine, Casper, Ken, Reilly, Jeffrey, Tyler, Alison, Patrick, Mackenzie, Scott, Renu, Felicia, Tim, Glenn, Flavia, Arny, Sam, David, Lee, Erik, Ginny, Laveranues, Loretta, Bob, Brooke, Andrew, Melissa, Sean, Arlene, Christine, Samuel, Darlena, Lisa, Keith, Julian, Nikki, Stephen, Jill, Carla, Allan, Gabriel, Lauren, Vivian, Richard, Tracie, Edward, Kip, Jennifer, Caitlin, Marty, Billy, Constance, Christopher, Ophelia, Antwone, Leslie, Stacy, Nissa, Donnie, Ruth, Byron, Karin, Michael, Margaret, Caesaro, Douglas, Kamala, Michelle, Todd, Dana, Erin, Matt, Jackie…and yes, Ray.
I could go on for the rest of my days…and I will, in no small part because of you. Thank you all for who you are, and what you do.
* a parting note to all who would try to divide and conquer on the basis of gender:
Look at those names, and find another tactic. —CG