The White House Boys: An American Tragedy (2 page)
The unmarked graves, 2008.
Photo by R. Kiser
I
’ve published a free e-mail newsletter called
Heartwarmers.com
for over ten years, sharing original short stories with people all over the world.
It’s a little like prospecting for gold—I never know what is going to turn up in my e-mail inbox. While most submissions never get published, I read every one and love to discover new talent. I’ve taken pride in being able to help launch a few literary careers.
On June 21, 1999, I had the pleasure and privilege of introducing a new writer to our online community: Roger Kiser.
I have absolutely no idea how Roger stumbled upon Heartwarmers or what inspired him to send in a story. But as soon as I read it, I knew things would be different and lives would be touched— mine, our readers’, and most of all, Roger’s.
It didn’t take long for Roger to find his voice and become one of our most beloved authors. Every time we published one of his stories, people from around the world would respond with appreciative e-mails. Now, no one would accuse Roger of being a sophisticated writer, or as Roger would say himself, “I don’t write fancy-like.” If anything, it’s his writing simplicity that gives him a unique ability to take his readers with him—to another time and place—that instantly brands him as a special talent.
While Roger’s writing style is one thing, the content of his stories puts him in an entirely different class. His memories of a gut-wrenching childhood, growing up in a cruel orphanage in northern Florida, was enough to cause his fellow orphans to journey down paths of self-destruction. And considering the tortures and atrocities that were thrust upon them, who could blame them?
But Roger emerged from the ashes in a different way. Yes, he had his share of run-ins with the law and a slew of failed relationships along the way. But despite the real-life experiences you will read in this shocking book—somehow, someway, there was a flame of justice and passion that was never extinguished from Roger’s heart. That’s what makes his life and writings so special.
You’ve heard of overcoming hardships and obstacles. You’ve heard of the strength of the human spirit over adversity. You’ve heard of people facing insurmountable odds and walking away victorious. However, nothing you have seen or heard will ever compare with what you are about to read. Hollywood couldn’t make this up.
When you finish this book and your mind has had a chance to absorb the events that took place, you will ask yourself the same questions that thousand of my readers have continued to ask throughout the years: “How could Roger have survived? And what’s inside him that allows him to still see the good in the world?”
You see, this book isn’t about despair. It isn’t about what evil people did to innocent children in what is considered a civilized country. It’s not even about the White House, which has been closed forever and today stands silently as a tomb to the horrors committed within its walls.
This book is about hope.
In this day and age, when we are cynical and skeptical, eager to latch on to anything that can rescue us from depressing news, Roger’s testimony provides all of us a lifeboat of strength and determination.
Roger reveals himself—scars and all—and in the process enables us to believe that it really is possible to see through the clouds, our everyday heartaches, and the dark forces that want to drag us down.
He isn’t a reality TV show survivor. He’s a real-life survivor! You will be astonished when you find out what Roger went through. And yet today, Roger is a living testament to the adage that good conquers evil.
He says, “From birth to age sixteen, I had been abandoned, sexually molested, beaten, cursed, and discarded as an unnecessary item. I had been taught and made to feel that I was nothing more than a worthless piece of shit. For the next fifty years, it was very difficult for me to find anything decent to think, or say, about humankind. . . . It was only through my grandchildren that I came to realize what the term ‘love’ meant and what a wonderful feeling it was to share such a marvelous thing with my fellowman. Even to this day, I am amazed that it took nothing more than several small, innocent children to save me.”
While Roger’s grandchildren may have saved him, I say, “Roger, you have saved us!” And for that, thousands of people around the world will be forever grateful for his inspiration.
I am proud to call him my friend.
—Lee Simonson
I
would like to begin by acknowledging the first two people in my life ever to show me any form of love: George Victor and Rozzie Eloise Usher. They took me into their home on numerous occasions. Without learning from their example, I would never have developed a sense of direction and would most likely be dead today or locked away somewhere in a deep, dark prison cell. Though their love was freely given, I did not appreciate or even realize the importance of what they had given me until I was almost forty years old. That is when I first began to realize that they had actually saved me. Let there be no doubt that the good qualities I possess as a person are the direct result of their love and kindness.
I also owe much to my wife, Judy. She herself was abused as a child and undertook a great responsibility when she took on a very dysfunctional Roger Dean Kiser fifteen years ago. We’ve grown together over the years and are on a journey toward healing. From birth to age sixteen, I had been abandoned, sexually molested, beaten, cursed, and discarded. I had been taught that I was nothing more than a worthless piece of shit. For the next fifty years, I had difficulty finding anything positive about humankind as a whole. But as time went by, with Judy’s help, I began to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, and she stood by me through thick and thin. I am certain that who I am now as a husband, father, and grandfather is the direct result of her strength, love, and devotion. I owe her more than I could ever repay.
I also have to give much credit to my children, Roger, James, Kevin, and Twila, for forgiving me for the many mistakes I made as a father. Though I never abused my children, I was not a loving man. I had yet to learn such feelings. I was kind and did the best I could with what little knowledge I had been given by my “caretakers.”
It was only through my grandchildren—who I acknowledge now—Chelsey, Madison, Jane, Stephen, Kevin Jr., Cory, Jesse, Bryan Jr., and Amanda, that I came to realize what the word “love” really means and what a wonderful feeling it is to share such a marvelous thing with my family and my fellow man. Even to this day, I am amazed that it took nothing more than several small, innocent children to save me by teaching me, their Papa, to love.
I have had the opportunity to work with several publishers around the world, but never have I dealt with a group of people in publishing who are as kind, considerate, and honest as the folks at Health Communications, Inc. I am absolutely amazed by how the people in this company stick together like family, coming from many different directions to accomplish one goal, even when it appears to be impossible. Yet, in the end, the game is won and another trophy is placed on the mantel. A heartfelt thanks goes out to Peter Vegso, Tom Sand, Craig Jarvie, Carol Rosenberg, Allison Janse, Pat Holdsworth, Kim Weiss, Kelly Maragni, Sean Geary, Lori Golden, Larissa Hise Henoch, Mike Briggs, Lawna Oldfield, Andrea Brower, Dawn Grove, Jose Garcia, Terry York, Patricia McConnell, Christine Zambrano, Jaron Hunter, Veronica Blake, Candace Johnson, Tonya Woodworth, and all the other team players for their hours of hard work to make this book possible.
Then, there are those I met along the way, those who lived under bridges and overpasses who took the time to feed a young boy who was on the run yet again, a boy who had no one to love him and no safe place to retreat. These were strangers who had barely enough to feed themselves, yet they shared with me. It is that kindness I remember—a kindness that I pay forward to this day with others less fortunate than me. It was not the food or the coffee or the dirty blanket they shared with me, but the simple act of sharing that meant the world to me. Without knowing it, they each gave me a pebble that would someday help me build the mountain of life I yet had to climb.
There is no way that I could complete this acknowledgment without mentioning Gene and Lynn Usher, Peggy Hendrix, Garland Williams, Lloyd Nevis, Sharen Jackson, Bryan and Penny Muckenfuss, Ann Conklin, and my very good friend Terry Persse.
Thank you, everyone.
M
y name is Roger Dean Kiser. This is my story, but I write it to honor of all of the White House Boys and the abuses we suffered at the hands of our tormentors, our “caretakers.”
At the age of five, I was sent to an orphanage in Lakeland, Florida, and I became a ward of the state. “The State of Florida is now your mother and father,” the judge had said, shaking his head at the tall, thin female caseworker standing beside me.
How did I become a ward of the state? Well, six months earlier, my mother had abandoned my half-sister Linda, a two-week-old baby boy, and me at our home in California. She had run off with some man, I guess for “a better life.”
We were alone for four days. When the police finally arrived, they found me sitting in the living room, holding a dead baby in my arms, trying to feed it cornflakes in order to bring it back to life. They tracked down my mother’s most recent husband— Linda’s father and my stepfather—and he took Linda and me to Lakeland, Florida, and handed us over to his parents.
But I wasn’t their grandchild, and they never let me forget it. Barely a day went by that I wasn’t mistreated in some manner. On more than one occasion, my “grandma” would say, within earshot, “We need to put this stupid little bastard in the center for retarded children.”
The teachers from the school across the way took pity on me and were constantly threatening to call the police on my grandparents. Then, one day, they carried out that threat.
I had crossed the street on my own to play on the merry-go-round in the schoolyard when grandma came running toward me with a leather strap. She was shouting at me and cracking that strap like a whip.
One of the teachers ran toward her and cried, “Jesus Christ, you are going to kill that boy!”
I was so scared that I messed on myself. My grandma shooed the teacher away, grabbed me by the ear, and dragged me to the back of the house. When they saw that I had messed on myself, my grandfather rubbed the crap in my face to shame me for what I had done. Bawling and howling, I was taken out on the pickle porch and hosed down. When the police finally arrived, they found me standing in the backyard, buck naked, my arms stretched upward holding my pants to the sun so they would dry.
And that’s when I became a ward of the state. I began at one orphanage, then was transferred to another, the Children’s Home Society, in Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where I became Matron Mother Winters’s “boy.” This insane, demented woman used me for her private sexual amusement. I think it’s needless to say, but beatings were handed out regularly at that orphanage for the slightest offense. If not beaten, then we got locked in a dark, scary closet when we misbehaved.
It’s no wonder that I escaped from that place whenever I could. I would live on the streets for days at a time, but sometimes only for a few hours, until they found me again. I did other “bad” things too, like going to the bathroom or getting a drink of water without asking permission, climbing trees, riding a bicycle, and sometimes I even acted like a child. Once, I admit, I stole a candy bar.
After breaking too many of the rules, I was sent to the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna, along with one of the other boys from the orphanage.
The thought of going to a reform school was very scary, but I couldn’t imagine anything worse than the orphanage. Those painful experiences at the orphanage and on the streets could fill a half dozen books on their own. But that’s for another time.
As I relate to you the story of my years at the Florida Industrial School for Boys, the particular incidences are still very clear in my mind like nightmares that won’t go away, even after fifty years. Even so, the dates and times are not as clear as they could be. I don’t even know exactly how old I was when I was there. Even the state didn’t know how old I was, having assigned me the wrong birth date, which I discovered years later when I finally tracked down my birth certificate.