Voyeur Page #2

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It's not up to me. A person does

what he feels is right to do.

I sold my soul, if you wanna put it

that way. I don't care.

I wanted the story.

I would've done anything for it.

I felt I had to do it.

I had to go on the record.

I was there. I was participating.

I wasn't sitting in the press box

with a press card around my naked body.

For me, it wasn't a big thing,

'cause I had always had

this second sense of self.

I wanted the truth, and in this book,

being a nonfiction writer, a reporter,

I got the truth.

How do you get the truth?

You have to participate, to be there.

You can't listen to what people say.

It's what they do.

In 1980...

I flew out to see him.

I wanted to be sure

this guy wasn't lying to me.

As a guest of the voyeur,

I was gonna be a companion of the voyeur.

I went up one night and did watch.

He said, "I'll take you up."

Through the utility room,

you go up to the ladder

and you get to a landing.

You go back, and there's a locked door.

That's the door to the attic,

and only he had the key.

We went inside.

He then locked the door behind me.

You could see light coming up

from certain spots.

You're hearing televisions.

Voices.

He leaned over in one spot

where there was light...

and he pointed down,

and we looked upon a very good-looking

couple engaged in oral sex.

He made a kind of sign like that.

I leaned closer and closer,

watching intently.

And then I felt a man's hand on my neck.

It was the voyeur

who crawled around and pulled me up...

very quietly but firmly.

I looked at him.

And that damn tie of mine,

my red silk tie,

was only a couple of feet

from the head of the woman

giving a blow job to this guy on his bed.

Jesus!

He said, "You have to be careful

with that tie."

I would never write about him

unless I could use his name.

There's no point, as a nonfiction writer,

in writing about personal life

unless you use real names.

Otherwise, write fiction.

So, he wasn't buying this,

but he was continuing

to cooperate with me.

And this continued for more than 30 years.

Let me see what I can find here.

Letters. Look at this.

I have copies of every letter.

The problem in journalism,

it takes place in too short a period.

Reporters go and talk to somebody today,

and they never see them again.

Interview, in and out.

I don't do that. I like to keep in touch,

because there are chances,

maybe two or three decades later,

where you can go back

and see these people,

and you can find out

what happened after you left off.

I called up this guy and I said,

"I think you're about ready to do it."

He says, "I sold my motel in 1997."

The statute of limitations

probably allows me...

And most of those people

are dead anyway or...

"And I, at 78..."

I said, "I'm 80,

so if you're gonna do it, do it fast",

'cause neither of us will be

around much longer."

My story about the voyeur, Gerald Foos,

is gonna be excerpted in the New Yorker,

followed by a book publisher,

Grove Atlantic of New York,

is gonna publish a book.

Hi, there.

Susan Morrison, you're so famous,

except with the guys downstairs.

Those guys at the reception desk

never heard of the New Yorker.

His name is Foos, Gerald Foos. F-O-O-S.

He was never caught.

- You met him after Thy Neighbor's Wife?

- After I had finished it.

It was in the papers.

I had a lot of publicity.

He happened to read something

in the Denver Post.

He's still very willing and interested...

Yeah, I have him down.

I just cannot get...

I don't wanna do anything else

till I finish this, because...

I don't want him to die, number one.

- How old is he?

- 78.

Of course, I'm 81,

so I should worry about my...

One of us is gonna die soon,

so I wanna get this done first.

Here's what I'm worried about.

If I tell the reader

that I'm watching something...

I saw a little sex, but...

For me, I'm so jaded on that.

But if I say that I didn't see anything,

the reader is gonna lose interest.

- Oh, no. Don't worry.

- That's all.

In a way, I'm glad

that you didn't see anything so great,

because I think you run the risk

of it seeming almost too creepy.

That's another thing.

This guy is not creepy.

This is really what I have to explain.

This guy is a square guy.

If you didn't know he's a voyeur,

he could be working for Avis Rent-a-Car.

He could be selling insurance.

Anybody. He's everyman. Nobody.

That's all.

Gerald, tell me how it was

you first started as a voyeur.

I was on a farm with my mother

and father, east of Ault, Colorado.

And we lived

right straight across the street

from my mother's sister, Katheryn Eckhart.

She was younger,

and she was different in body type,

and she had freckles.

I never really knew what freckles were

in those days, but I wanted to find out.

She was, I gather,

a very attractive woman.

She was beautiful.

From my eyes, the most beautiful woman

I ever laid eyes on.

- Is that right?

- Yes, she was.

I think I had gone to bed

approximately nine o'clock in the evening.

And as I sat there on the bed,

suddenly I get this urge.

I went to the window

and I looked out across the street,

and it was like a compelling force.

I could see right straight

to my aunt Katheryn's bedroom window.

A mysterious force captivated

my entire body.

I think it was

because I was entering puberty.

And now, what beckoned to me

was the window.

God, that's good. The beckoning window.

I don't know... There's got

to be other words to describe that.

Beckoning window is perfect.

You don't even know you're a poet.

You'll come up with other words.

No, I don't have to. That's the best word.

Beckoning window, right?

Anita, what do you think?

Good word, right?

Mmm-hmm.

I finally got to the window.

- In those days, nobody pulled shades down.

- I didn't know that. That's true?

- There was a mirror.

- Mirror?

Now, I could look from here

into that mirror

and see everything she was doing

in her room.

She had beautiful red hair at that time.

Her pubic region was...

- Red.

- Very red, and she had big b*obs.

Oh, my God.

Which became the reason

that I have had a fixation on b*obs.

No question about it.

This is where you started masturbating.

This woman is the obsession

of your masturbatory dreams.

They're gonna say,

"It's amazing, the voyeur started out

like that? Is that what caused..."

Psychiatrists are gonna be

scratching their head...

You're gonna be famous

in all the medical journals.

They may wanna talk to me,

but I'll say, "Well..."

open your check book,

and we'll have a conversation.

"I don't talk to nobody

unless they pay me."

That's not a bad...

You're a very American fellow.

When you got mixed up with me,

you wrote me a long letter,

and at that time you wanted

to share this with me,

but you didn't want me to write about you,

at least by name.

That was the deal we had.

And a question is,

why did you even write me?

I think I was attempting

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