The Masturbater

The Masturbator
Morris Park
Philadelphia, PA
Spring 1966

We are playing in the park as we often do on the weekends.  Rosalie, Kathy and I are in the creek, trying to push each other in the water when we hear a voice call out to us.  We stop what we are doing and look around.

“Over here”, he calls and we look in his direction.

It is a man in the tunnel, standing completely naked and he is masturbating.  “Come here and take a look”, he calls out in a very friendly tone.

We are horrified and spontaneity run off as fast as we can.  We scatter.  I run across a busy street but don’t even think to look as I am too afraid and I just want to get away.  After a few minutes and enough distance to feel safe, I look for the others.  They too are wondering around and looking for me.

“Did you see that?”

“Was he completely naked?”

“Where did he come from?’

“Was he playing with himself?”

“Do you think he is going to come after us?”

“Did you ever see him before?”

“Do you think he knows us?”

“How long was he standing there?”

“Where did he go?”

“What should we do?’

We rapidly throw one question after another at each other and none of us have answers.  We are shaken and don’t know what to do.  As 11 year olds, this has never happened to us. 

Just then, we see a park ranger on a horse so we call to him.  He gets off the horse and wants to know what’s wrong.  We tell him and he takes this information calmly.  He takes out a pad of paper and says, “Let’s see, how tall was he?”  We don’t know so he asks, “About my height?”  “Yes” we answer in unison.  “How much do you think he weighed?”   We have no idea so again the ranger offers, “Do you think he weighed about what I weigh?”  We agreed on that too.  The ranger tells us he had just come from the opposite direction but didn’t see anyone but he would search the area.

Then he tells us to go home which we do.  Once home, I don’t mention it to my mother.  I am afraid to even talk about it.

But two weeks later, my mother approaches me and asks what happened in the park.  Kathy had told her mother and her mother told my mother and now my mother wants to hear it from me.  I am afraid but I tell her.  She tells me that I am to tell her if things like this even happen to me again and I assure her I will.  Our discussion ends.  But for several hours, I sit in my room, filled with fear. I am afraid she will tell my father when he comes home from work and together they will be angry with me for doing something to provoke this despicable human being who violated and chipped away at my innocence and plunged me into a new world of defensiveness and second guessing.