Madison, Wisconsin — "I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction," wrote Clarence Darrow in his 1932 memoir.
Darrow might have been thinking of
Tony Leon of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin — my late father who died this month, a child abuser, and a malignant narcissist until the day he left this world.
Tony Leon was not a good man. I won't be attending the Dec 21 service in Fondy. Don't believe what you read in his obit.
I think any human being deserves a send-off, but when you self-consciously abuse children, you're shit and the world should know you're shit.
Tony Leon was shit.
My earliest memory, one I won't forget, is the idiot lining us all up in the dining room at our West 13th Street home, when the four kids ranged in age from about seven to about three-years-old.
"You better hope your Mother doesn't die, or you're in trouble" he railed, continuing on and on, but not making a whole lot of sense.
It was a lot to unpack for a five-year-old: Why is this idiot yelling at us? Why he would suggest Mom might die, and what is he trying to accomplish with this hostile screaming?
It never got much better from Tony Leon.
Three sneak attack-ambushes against me between 10 and eight-years-old at our later Howard Ave home: Two in the upstairs hall-way, one when I was walking in the living room past the player piano.
The last attack happened in front of my Mother. And then the physical attacks stopped, either because of her intercession and objection or because I was beginning to grow.
But it was not the hitting, slapping and choking that was the big problem for me, (I was pretty tough for a little kid): It was the malice, and my knowledge that there was a hostile person who could and wanted to cause me harm on a near-constant basis.
It fucked me up. I developed a slight stutter as a young teenager and a mild generalized anxiety disorder that never really went away.
One of Tony Leon's favorite psychological ambushes after he became afraid of one-on-one physical encounters was a bait-and-switch psychological tactic the U.S. military used to use.
It was used in Basic Training to weed out those who might not be temperamentally suited for combat. The tactic was not intended for use against children by anyone.
Here's what it is: Take the innocence and credulity of a child and speak as though you are fraternal, agreeable and sympathetic. Then, without pause, launch into harsh, abusive and maligning words to cause distress, then smile and laugh. That's who Tony Leon was.
There was a lot more abuse, passive aggression and constant put-downs, but those are some of the highlights.
My Mother and I talked often. She said, he was worse towards me because I physically looked like him, and I objected so frequently. She confessed late in her life, she regretted not listening to her Georgia family and leaving Tony Leon.
I told her she was a victim, she did the best she could and had nothing to apologize for. I assured her that her life and kindness would live on through me. My Mother was actually famous in Fondy for being nice.
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Deep-down, Tony Leon both loathed himself and thought the world needed to bow to his every whim and passing caprice.
I came to understand that Tony Leon was a malignant narcissist with authoritarian and obsessive features. But it was worse: Tony Leon was an undiagnosed psychopath.
You see, I read voraciously for the pure joy of it, and escape from the lunatic. I found out the psychopathic personality traits fit this prick to a T.
We had a seal-point Siamese cat named Lady. Lady would get in heat once a while, and Tony Leon would go on-and-on that if Lady had kittens, he would drown them in the Fond du Lac River about a half-mile away.
But it is the way he described the scenario and the joy he took in detailing what he would do that I found chilling, cruel and infuriating. I told the bastard he was a coward.
To get a flavor of this feature of Tony Leon's pathology, the drunken idiot's story at a dinner instructs as well.
Tony Leon was reveling in his telling of tieing ropes onto cats and throwing the cats over a bridge into a river in Aurora, Illinois with his friends.
I told him, again, he was a "fucking coward." A younger brother, Jimmy, picked up Lady and moved the cat away from Tony Leon, but I think this was clowning intended to dissipate the narrative of hurting small animals.
But who does this shit to children? Who revels in hurting small animals? Who invests so much time and effort in deliberately causing harm onto children? Only shit does this, and I am proud that I told him so.
Tony Leon is gone and good riddance. He has been buying off family members for months now to keep the truth silent.
There is a lesson in the passing of this contemptible coward.
The truth is one person can help the world a lot more than what another can do to destroy and harm. You can believe it.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend
