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The Case of the Cobra Killer Last winter, a notorious Internet ****
producer was brutally murdered. Police say he was the victim of an
industry turf war?killed by rival **** players who wanted to make a
?million-dollar? movie with his biggest star. But this crime sits at
the center of a much broader web of intrigue. An exclusive
investigation uncovers the story. By Michael Joseph Gross A few miles
up the highway from the Luzerne County courthouse in Wilkes-Barre,
Penn., a life-size statue of Christ commands a grassy hillside planted
with, and almost totally obscured by, hundreds of tiny American flags
on tiny wooden flagpoles. Public displays of piety and of patriotism
are common here. They give energy to a landscape marked with
collapsing smokestacks and other industrial ruins from the region?s
coal mining heyday. Since 1959, when the Susquehanna River flooded the
region?s richest anthracite mines, the local population and economy
have steadily declined. Yet coal money did endow some enduring
institutions in the Wyoming Valley, such as the Catholic liberal arts
college Misericordia in Dallas Township, a five-minute walk from the
tree-lined bower of Midland Drive, where a yellow diamond-shaped
traffic sign warns drivers to watch children. This is where, until his
throat was slashed one night last January, 44-year-old Bryan Kocis ran
an online business from his home called Cobra Video, dedicated to
?Capturing the Erotic Essence of Youth? by producing pornographic
movies of young men who looked as if they could be adolescents having
*** without condoms.
Cobra competed in the market niche of low-budget, Barely Legal?style
bareback films. For Kocis, the business was profitable: a Maserati,
Aston Martin, and BMW sat in his garage and driveway. In 2005 the
movies also made a modest yet scandalous name for him, and for his
leading star and sometime lover, Sean Lockhart, in the mainstream gay
**** industry. Lockhart, who met Kocis on the Internet and starred in
films such as Every Poolboy?s Dream and Schoolboy Crush, under the
name Brent Corrigan, informed the FBI that he had been underage when
four of his movies were produced. The movies were recalled, and the
producer and performer squared off in a nasty, public, litigious feud
that wore on until early this year.
On January 24, only a few days after their conflict was settled out of
court, Kocis?s house on Midland Drive was robbed and set aflame.
Inside, firemen found the owner dead: nearly decapitated, torso
stabbed 28 times. His remains were so charred that the county coroner
used dental records to identify the body.
Law enforcement officials from three states and at least three federal
agencies aggressively investigated the crimes, and in May police
arrested Harlow Cuadra, 26, a former Navy enlisted man, and Joseph
Kerekes, 33, a onetime youth pastor who was briefly in the Marines.
From their home in Virginia Beach, Va., the couple?who, like Lockhart
and Kocis, also met on the Internet?ran a gay escort service, which
they say employed active-duty servicemen from military bases in the
area, and they produced and starred in bareback **** on their military-
themed Web site, Boybatter.com.
Pennsylvania?s case against the accused casts Kocis as the victim of a
**** industry turf war. Cuadra and Kerekes, police contend, killed the
producer to liberate Lockhart from contractual obligations to Cobra.
The scenario, teeming with noirish detail, is as neatly plotted as a
potboiler. Police say the Virginians believed a *** video of Cuadra
with Lockhart, 21, would be a **** blockbuster that could yield that
archaic, almost quaint, clich? of fortune: a million dollars.
At first glance, this may look like just a lurid saga on the margins
of a far-flung subculture. But the tabloid headline of the tale may
conceal a larger truth. Kocis, Lockhart, Cuadra, and Kerekes all met
in a virtual world where they hoped to realize their most outrageous
sexual fantasies, where screen names and avatars enable endless
reconstruction of selves: a fluid, identity-less existence that many
millions of people have chosen as their primary mode for seeking ***
and love. In the midst of those searches, it is worth pausing to
consider: Is the world of the Cobra Killer merely a darker reflection
of our own?
I.
Bryan Kocis was many things to many people. A former Cobra Video
performer, now a 21-year-old student at Cornell University, calls him
?just a smart, nice guy. Not the sleazy, overbearing producer. There
was nothing stereotypical about him.?
Amy Withers, a 23-year-old bartender who was Bryan?s next-door
neighbor, says, ?He slept during the day and worked at night. I would
hear car doors at 3 in the morning. I would hear him having *** in the
Jacuzzi on his deck, right by my bedroom window. He always scared the
**** out of me: always wore aviator sunglasses and a baseball hat.
Everything that you would ever think of a creepy **** guy? That would
be him.?
Bryan?s next-door neighbor on the other side says that the Kocis family
?who remained close with Bryan throughout his career; who learned of
his death from the local newspaper; and who are refusing to speak to
reporters until the murder trial is finished?asked her not to talk
about him. She stands behind her screen door, wearing an apron printed
with dozens of overlapping images of the Stars and Stripes. She has
kind eyes, and she says thoughtfully, ?Bryan was complex.?
He was an Eagle Scout who grew up in Luzerne County, graduated from
the Rochester Institute of Technology, worked as a medical
photographer for a local eye doctor, and then made a few unsuccessful
business investments before incorporating Cobra Video in 2001. That
same year, a few months before declaring bankruptcy to settle debts of
more than $200,000, he was arrested on several criminal counts,
including six felony charges, for twice having *** with a 15-year-old
boy. The first time Bryan had *** with the youth, he also videotaped
it, according to police. Eventually all felony charges were dropped
when he was found guilty of the lesser offense of corruption of a
minor. Bryan served one year of probation, but the damage to his local
reputation was done.
He became increasingly reclusive, passing many nights chatting online
with prospective models. One evening, he received an instant message
from a 21-year-old in California who wanted to be in ****. Bryan
didn?t find him attractive, but the young man bragged about his hot
new boyfriend?17, going on 18, he teased?and, showing off, turned a
Webcam on the 5-foot-5, 100-pound prize, who was taking a nap. The
image of a pale, thin, dozing boy appeared on Bryan?s computer screen.
Bryan did not know that he?d been lied to: The boy was actually 16
years old.
The boy, groggy and disoriented, did not know why his boyfriend was
pulling back the sheet, or why the camera was on.
Bryan stared at the streaming video of the naked teen, who, aroused,
gazed into the Webcam?s lens.
Neither of them seemed to have taken real action, much less made a
momentous choice, but this was the moment when their fates, and the
fates of many others, began to change.
Soon the boy, Sean Lockhart, was chatting every day after school with
his new friend in Pennsylvania.
Bryan was funny and understanding. He gave good advice. His online
rapport with Sean was consistent and comforting, which were not words
that Sean could use to describe the behavior of most adults he knew.
Sean, who had never known his biological father, was raised primarily
by his stepfather in Seattle, after his mother left the family when he
was in third grade. He had recently reconciled with her and moved to
be with her in San Diego. The two of them were barely scraping by,
living in a flophouse where Sean didn?t feel safe.
Sean says he needed to make money, and his options, as he saw them,
were to ?***** myself, deal drugs, or do adult work. Adult work seemed
like the least compromising of the choices. That was how the initial
decisions were made.?
With his then-boyfriend, Sean scanned his driver?s license and birth
certificate into Photoshop, changed the dates to make it look like he
was 18, and sent electronic copies to Bryan.
Sean earned $3,500 for his first Cobra videos, Every Poolboy?s Dream
and Casting Couch 4, which were shot in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in
September 2004. ?When I first met Bryan, I was disappointed. I?d seen
only one picture of him. But after how much we talked, I?d developed
not a crush, but??Sean?s voice, an eager stream of poised, ingenuous-
sounding self-analysis, briefly stumbles. ?He?d become a stable force
for me.?
On his next shoot, for the movies Schoolboy Crush and Bareboned
Twinks, also in Florida, Sean says he chose a new name for himself. ?I
took Brent from Brent Everett, who was the costar, and I found
Corrigan in the phone book. It sounded Irish or Scottish, and I?m
Irish, and I liked that it kept things consistent.?
During that second shoot, Sean says, two other important things
happened. He and Bryan slept together for the first time, and Bryan
first voiced fears that Sean?s IDs were forged.
After Sean returned to San Diego, Bryan started sending him gifts and
money. Whether because he was smitten with the boy, afraid of legal
jeopardy, or both, Bryan invited him to spend the summer of 2005 in
Pennsylvania, ?to be an apprentice and help with the video shoots.?
Sean?s home life in San Diego had deteriorated, and he decided to move
out on his own. He found an apartment on Craigslist, but says he was
evicted when he resisted his landlord?s sexual advances.
A mutual friend introduced Sean to Grant Roy, a beefy, wedge-jawed 40-
year-old Texan who worked for his family?s trucking company. Grant
shared a house in the suburbs with his boyfriend at the time. Sean
rented their spare bedroom for $500 a month?the same amount that Bryan
was sending Sean to help with monthly living expenses.
Grant?s father, with whom he had been close, had just died, which
inclined him to sympathize with Sean?s all-but-orphaned existence.
The boy, Grant says tenderly, ?had nowhere else to go.?
II.
In a few months Grant and his boyfriend parted ways, and Grant?s
protective feeling for Sean turned romantic. From the start, Grant
also saw business potential in the relationship: ?I said ?Look, I
could shop you around to all these other studios and they?ll pay you a
nice chunk of money. But if you really want to do this right, I?ll
help you start a company, and you can do your own thing. That way,
when you?re old and gray, if we do it right, this thing?s still gonna
be paying.??
As their business plans grew serious, so did their romance. When Sean
went to Pennsylvania for the summer, the new couple agreed that ?we?d
be exclusive sexual partners,? Grant says, ?other than the work that
he was doing.?
Sean?s memories of that summer are mostly unhappy ones. Though he and
Bryan sometimes socialized with visiting Cobra models, Sean felt
isolated: ?Bryan didn?t want me to have any friends. I was there
basically to have *** with him.? He considered his relationship with
Bryan to be essentially transactional. It was ?trading the company of
a younger man for the money and experiences that an older man can
give. Lavish restaurants, fine wines, horseback riding lessons, nice
clothes.?
?Looking back,? says Sean, ?it all seems silly and superficial, of
course.?
Bryan, though, probably had higher hopes for their relationship. He
tried to talk the boy into going to college down the street at
Misericordia. One weekend that summer, Bryan also made a rare attempt
to integrate his family life and his gay life. Robert Wagner, a close
friend of Bryan?s who appeared in Cobra videos under the name Aaron
Phelps, says that Bryan rented a limousine to take Sean and his family
to New York together for the Fourth of July. After they all checked
into the Plaza Hotel, Bryan went to see the fireworks with his family,
and Sean went to a party, where, according to Robert, he hooked up
with another man. Bryan spent the night alone in his hotel suite,
wondering where Sean had gone.
The next month, things got worse.
Grant decided to ?start playing with a little bit of publicity? for
the next step in Sean?s career. From their separate bases in
California and Pennsylvania, Grant and Sean participated in a fan
forum on a **** portal site called Juicygoo.com, where they discussed
Sean?s plans to start producing his own videos?even though Sean had
just renewed his contract with Cobra.
Bryan was enraged. Sean says they fought so bitterly that his ?best
friend? at the time?a boy he chatted with online, whom he never met in
person, and whose screen name he says he does not remember?advised him
to flee. In the Volkswagen Jetta that he?d received from Bryan when he
signed the contract, Sean drove across the country to Grant?s house in
San Diego.
Safely in California, Sean called Bryan on August 16, 2005 and
informed him that he?d been a minor when he made his first videos.
Their relationship imploded.
Sean reported his claim to the FBI, and soon his Cobra Video releases
were recalled. Bryan applied to the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office
to trademark the name Brent Corrigan. He filed a federal breach of
contract suit against Sean. And he wrote Sean long, impassioned e-
mails, arias of wounded emotion (?it still amazes me to see how people
who are supposed to be close to me can be so heartless and selfish
enough to take advantage of me the way they do?
I really wanted the best for you?), menacing clich? (?Such a tangled
Web we Weave / When we practice to Deceive??), and an ultimatum.
Bryan offered Sean a choice: Be reconciled or be cast forever out of
his good graces. ?No second chances here,? Bryan warned. ?Your only
decision, to be the Prince,
or the Pauper.?
Soon the feud was tooth for tooth. Juicygoo.com became a battleground
between Bryan, writing under the screen name ?King Cobra,? and Grant,
who called his alter ego ?Cobra Killer.?
The mainstream gay **** industry took note, and the best-known studio,
Falcon, gave Sean the lead in a big-budget movie called The Velvet
Mafia. In a bizarre coincidence, the movie?about a **** industry turf
war over an insolent twink named Fox Ryder?had been written before the
Cobra scandal broke. ?We had to have Brent Corrigan as the star
because he was this character in real life,? says director Chris
Steele.
Before the film?s release, Falcon executives decided not to credit
Sean as Brent Corrigan because Cobra?s lawyer threatened to sue the
studio. Every time Sean tried to work as Brent Corrigan, Bryan?s
lawyers quashed the effort?and Sean?s lawyers sent him another bill.
Sean began a fund-raising drive called ?Brent Aid,? during which he
auctioned off a few of his belongings online. Someone bought his
underwear for $1,000.
Last fall, when Grant and Sean saw that legal negotiations with Cobra
would lead to settlement, the couple started looking for new models so
they could prepare for Sean to film new *** scenes.
The best way to recruit men into ****, Grant says, is to browse gay
cruising sites such as Manhunt.net, Adam4Adam.com, and DudesNude.com?
where it has become the norm for men to post naked pictures of
themselves and, increasingly, pictures of themselves having ***. To
find the youngest men, he also canvasses MySpace, which offers an
argosy of exhibitionist sexuality encompassing various orientations.
?I go to the place where guys are exposing themselves for the whole
world to see,? Grant explains. ?If they?re willing to do that much
online, maybe they?re open to doing ****. It?s not going far to make
that next step.? Grant?s other casting resources include escort sites
such as Men4RentNow.com, where he first came across Harlow Cuadra?s
profile.
Grant?s eyes go big when he recollects the thrill of seeing Harlow?s
pictures and watching his *** videos on Boybatter.com for the first
time. ?Wow,? he remembers thinking. ?This is what we?re looking for..?
III.
?I met Joe on Yahoo in a chat room,? Harlow Cuadra says. ?I think it
was a straight chat room. Probably talking about skateboarding. Joe
spams the room, ?Looking for a hookup,? and I?m like, ?Yeah!??
When they met seven years ago at a mall in Virginia Beach, Joe Kerekes
said that he was in the Marines. At the time, Harlow was in the Navy
and in the closet, and he was spooked by the idea of dating another
military man. He cut the meeting short and told Joe he would call him
the next week, after returning from a wedding where he was to be the
best man.
One week later, to Joe?s surprise, Harlow called. ?He said that when I
told him I was going away for a week, he thought I was lying,? Harlow
laughs. ?I said, ?One thing to know about me: I can?t really lie very
well. It gets me in trouble.??
They hooked up. ?We went to his parents? house and had *** for, like,
four hours, and then we went to Wendy?s at 2 a.m. He said he was an
escort, and I was kind of put off by that, so I backed off, and we
just became friends.
?We kept hanging out, and finally Joe was like, ?Will you go on just
one call for me?? And it was an ex-NFL guy, and I walk in, and he?s
like, ?I just wanna play with your feet.? And I?m like, ?This is
weird.?
?So I would do that like three or four times a week, and I was making
a lot of money for letting this guy play with my feet.
?Then Joe and I started going out, and then eventually??Harlow?s voice
drops low, each word an ember of contentment, remembering the day that
love walked in??Joe said, ?Harlow, I wanna be jealous of you.??
Joe grew up in a Christian family in Virginia Beach. He graduated near
the top of his high school class and for a time worked as a youth
pastor at Bethel Temple, a conservative Assemblies of *** megachurch
in Hampton, Va. Joe?s gifts as a minister, especially his preaching,
were so prized by the church that Bethel paid for him to go to a
Christian college.
Joe had trouble controlling his temper, though, and after a few
conspicuous flare-ups, he was asked to leave the church. He went to
Marine boot camp and, his parents say, was discharged after a few
weeks, following an angry confrontation with a drill instructor.
(Government military records for both Joe and Harlow were unavailable
at press time.)
Then Joe started working as a gay escort, hired others to work for
him, and built a business so popular that Internet searches for the
word Norfolk returned his Web site, NorfolkMaleEscorts.com, as a top
hit. The Norfolk city attorney reportedly called Joe?s lawyer to
complain.
As an escort Joe was known as Mark. In Boy Batter videos he called
himself Trent. With Harlow he was plain Joe; and after work was done,
Joe says, he and Harlow ?didn?t have much time for friends,? but they
spent a lot of time with Joe?s family.
His father, Fred, a Navy veteran who worked for the Norfolk water
treatment plant, and his mother, Rosalie, who worked for many years in
a grade school cafeteria, say that Joe never explicitly told them he
is gay, but they gradually came to understand that Joe and Harlow were
a couple. Harlow, who grew up in Florida and South Carolina, was
estranged from his family when he met Joe. Fred and Rosalie, sitting
at their kitchen table, say they accepted Harlow as if he were their
own son.
(Since his arrest, Harlow has been back in touch with his mother,
brother, and sister. All three have MySpace profiles that proclaim
Harlow?s innocence and solicit donations for his legal defense.)
Fred and Rosalie say that as Christians they believe in hating the sin
but loving the sinner. Although they disapproved of the men?s
relationship, they were intimately involved in Joe and Harlow?s lives
on an everyday basis. Rosalie cleaned their house, cooked for them,
and ran their errands. For construction projects like the high fence
around Joe and Harlow?s backyard, Fred lent a hand.
Fred says, ?I found the architect for them for their in-call room,?
pronouncing the final phrase, from the lexicon of prostitution, with
jarring fluency. Fred is tan, hirsute, tall, and strong, with a long
white beard like a biblical patriarch?s that falls almost to his
waist. He wears a purple baseball cap thickly embroidered with the
word Jesus in rainbow-colored letters.
The in-call room, Fred says, ?had a hot tub, leather sofa, mahogany
lockers for their clients, and a huge mosaic tiled shower with jets
coming from every different direction.?
Rosalie, a gentle, steady woman, says, ?It was a super-duper shower.
You could put 10 people in there.?
?They knew how to do things to please their customers. They had a big,
fancy massage table,? Fred says.
?That?s what I thought they did mostly, was massages,? Rosalie says.
?And physical therapy.?
Rosalie says she did not know the details of her son?s professional
life until after he was taken into custody in May after she and Fred
celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary.
Fred says that he had his suspicions. He never voiced his hunch, but
he cites it as the reason that he maintained a somewhat greater
distance than Rosalie did.
?I wanted them to be a part of our lives,? Fred says, ?but I didn?t
want to be a part of their lives.?
?We started raunchy,? Joe says, ?but ended up being high-class.? In
their years together, Joe and Harlow rose from renting a $300-per-
month room in the worst part of Norfolk to purchasing a house worth
about $500,000 in a new development on a cul-de-sac.
?They were eating out every night,? Fred says. ?They would have $500,
$600 meals. Joe had a $6,000 chinchilla coat he bought in Vegas. It
was leather inside?it was reversible. He wore a 3.5-karat diamond stud
in his ear. Harlow?s was 2.5 carats. They always wore Rolexes. They
had five, six Rolexes. They went in and out of four [Dodge] Vipers,?
Fred says, ?the poisonous snake that bites you and you die. The last
one, that got seized by the cops, was yellow.?
They also invested in their bodies, working out almost every day at 5
a.m. at a private gym called Big House. The owner, a straight man
named Lance Treadway, says, ?They lifted heavy weights, but their form
was terrible.?
Fred describes his son as ?very, what?s the word, very chiseled. The
whole V shape. And he went to Phoenix to have liposuction done so that
he would have the?what do you call it?the washboard abs. He went to
Phoenix, where all the movie stars go to have it done, and it cost
$6,000. He stayed in very good shape for his clients.?
When Fred says ?chiseled,? his palms cup an imaginary pair of pecs in
front of his own chest. When he says ?V shape,? he traces the shape on
the sides of his own body. When he says ?washboard abs,? his hand
bumps down an imaginary set of them on his own stomach.
When he speaks of his son?s body, as when he speaks of his son?s big
spending, Fred?s voice is fraught. On the one hand, he is proud of Joe
for living an American dream. On the other, he says, ?They would get
so much credit?loan for this car, loan for that car?I knew they were
out of control.?
By the time Harlow and Joe met Sean and Grant, the Virginians were
almost $1 million in debt.
Communication between the couples began when Grant saw Harlow?s
profile online last fall. After some correspondence and phone
conversations, the four agreed to have dinner in Las Vegas during
January?s Adult Video News convention, the largest annual ****
industry gathering, where Sean and Grant were also meeting Bryan to
finalize their settlement.
During dinner at the Bellagio on January 11, which Grant describes as
?the most expensive meal I ever had in my life,? Grant says Joe
speculated that a video of Harlow and Sean could make a million
dollars. Grant says he explained that they were hamstrung for the
moment by legal problems with Bryan, and ?that?s when Harlow brings up
the question, ?What if Bryan goes to Europe?? ?
Sean, uncomprehending, responded, ?He?ll come back.?
?Harlow said??Grant assumes a coolly insinuating voice??What if he
goes to Canada?? and I grabbed Sean and said, ?No, you guys.? Then Joe
says, ?Harlow has this client that?s in this sort of business who will
do anything for him.? I said, ?If Bryan dies, no matter who does it,
this thing has been so ugly, we?re the first ones they?ll come to.
Don?t even say anything like that.??
Though Grant says Joe and Harlow?s remarks struck him as odd, he
didn?t think they were serious. ?That was, like, three or four minutes
out of a three- or four-hour meal, where we?d all been drinking so
much that we were just gone,? he explains.
The Virginians apparently left Las Vegas the next morning. (Pending
trial, Harlow and Joe would not answer most questions directly
pertaining to the case.) Then Grant and Sean met with Bryan and his
lawyers to finish most of their negotiations and returned to San Diego
for the crossing of the t?s the following week.
On the morning of Tuesday, January 16, Joe and Harlow called Sean,
angry that Sean had not posted an announcement of their plans on his
blog. Grant was furious at their impatience. ?I?m in the middle of the
settlement, and I had gone to great lengths to explain our situation,
and they?re all ****** off because we don?t have a blog post on? Who
the **** do they think they are? I called them and said, ?We?ve got a
lot to do. You?re calling Sean and harassing him.? Joe starts getting
angry with me, saying wild things, threatening me that if we don?t
?put up a post,? the deal is off. I said, ?If you don?t understand us,
leave us the **** alone.? And I told Sean, ?Screw those guys. Don?t
talk to them anymore.? That was it.?
Joe and Harlow seem to have returned from Las Vegas with new
confidence in Harlow?s pornographic possibilities. On January 14,
NorfolkMaleEscorts.com sent an e-mail blast announcing Harlow?s
impending collaboration with ?**** Twink mega star ?Brent Corrigan.??
More ambitiously, Harlow even applied to be a model for Falcon Studios
on January 18, citing Brent Corrigan as a reference. Then, on January
22, Harlow created the screen name dmbottompa on Yahoo.com, an account
he used almost exclusively for correspondence with Bryan Kocis.
?DM? stood for Danny Moilin, an alter ego whose address was listed as
King of Prussia, Pa. As Danny, Harlow completed a model application
form on the Cobra Video Web site, and he e-mailed Bryan to say that he
?would like to meet you and talk about filming and stuff. don?t have
much experience with this at all. may need to be taught first.?
Police say that Harlow used a Visa card to buy a knife similar to the
weapon found at the murder scene, and also a gun, in Virginia Beach on
January 23; he rented a car; and, using Joe?s driver?s license as
identification, they checked into the Fox Ridge Inn, across the valley
from Dallas Township. E-mails show that Harlow, as Danny, had arranged
to meet Bryan at his house on January 24.
That night, Bryan Kocis was killed. His house was ransacked for
documents relating to the business of Cobra Video, two computer towers
that were the nerve center of the company, two video cameras, and his
monogrammed Rolex watch. By the time a Dallas Township squad of
volunteer firemen arrived at 8:34 p.m., flames had consumed most of
the interior of the house.
In falling snow, newspaper and TV reporters and a straggling mass of
neighbors assembled on the street. Fire blew out Bryan?s picture
window, and cold air from outside rushed into the home that he had
long kept hidden. Later, a friend of the deceased went inside and
noticed something strange. The 65-inch plasma television screen that
had been Bryan?s Christmas present to himself. Melted by the fire,
drooped and curled, like a wilted petal plucked from an immense,
mechanical, imaginary flower.
IV.
A battery of law enforcement officials representing three states (and,
mysteriously, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, and the Naval
Criminal Investigation Unit, none of which has clear jurisdiction over
any publicly known aspect of this case) coordinated a far-reaching
investigation of the murder, culminating in the electronic
interception of two conversations between Joe, Harlow, Grant, and Sean
on April 27 and 28.
Grant and Sean cooperated with police and wore a wire during two
meetings with the Virginians when they came to San Diego, ostensibly
to finalize plans for Harlow and Sean?s video. Excerpts from the
conversations appear in Pennsylvania?s affidavit of probable cause for
Joe and Harlow?s arrest. The first day, when Grant asked if Bryan
?felt any pain,? Harlow answered, ?Don?t worry, he went quick.? The
next day Harlow said, ?Seeing that ****** going down, actually it?s
sick, but it made me feel better inside. It almost felt like I got
revenge, and I know that sounds ******-up.?
As damning as these lines appear, it?s impossible to know precisely
how to read them. Strikingly, Harlow?s quoted remarks in the affidavit
sound more like the statements of a man who witnessed a murder than
those of a man who committed one. (Joe, it seems, was mostly
interjecting details as Harlow described meeting Bryan.) Harlow?s
story, as related by this document, is confusing (and perhaps
intentionally presented that way by police; at the time of arrest, it
is common to withhold evidence that will be introduced at trial), but
other details raise the possibility that a third man might have been
present when Bryan was killed. Harlow ?stated that he and another ?did
some recon work?? before his meeting with Bryan. And after he arrived
at Bryan?s house and they drank some wine together, Harlow said that
his ? ?dude? ?came around?, and ?it was crazy.??
Language, however, may be the least reliable form of evidence in this
case. Joe and Harlow?s stories have changed utterly since the saga
began. Upon first being identified as a suspect, Harlow told the
Scranton Times-Tribune that he had never met Bryan and was ? ?freaked
out? that his image was linked to a murder investigation.? At about
the same time, Joe?s escort persona, ?Mark,? told a reporter from the
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader that Harlow was working in Virginia the
night that Bryan was killed.
Most recently, Joe told the same newspaper that, actually, they did
come to Pennsylvania?so that Harlow could try to win Bryan over to
their plan to work with Sean. But when Harlow arrived at Bryan?s house
?the door was partially open. He looked inside and saw an overturned
table and smelled smoke. He said he saw someone on a couch or chair,
and heard a noise upstairs, like someone was about to come down,? Joe
said. At the time of the interview, Joe did not have legal
representation. His new attorney, Joseph Nocito, says, ?There will be
no more interviews.?
There has been no official mention of forensic evidence in the case.
(Crime lab processing takes longer in life than on CSI.) The strongest
pieces of physical evidence suggesting the suspects may have been at
the crime scene are two video cameras, the same models that were
stolen from Bryan?s house. The cameras, whose serial numbers had been
obliterated, were seized in a police raid of Joe and Harlow?s house on
February 10. Shortly after the murder, Harlow posted a query on an
Internet message board asking how to operate one of the cameras.
In Virginia, Joe and Harlow were arrested as fugitives from justice on
May 15, the same day criminal charges against them were filed in
Pennsylvania. Virginia also put their assets into forfeiture and began
investigating whether to charge them with conspiracy to violate the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act [RICO], money
laundering, and conspiracy to receive money from the earnings of a
prostitute.
The seizure was unusual: In RICO cases, assets are typically put into
forfeiture after a criminal hearing, not before. Joe?s lawyer in
Virginia, Jim Brice, believes the holdup was ?being used to deny them
the opportunity to secure proper representation? on criminal charges
in Pennsylvania, where they have been held since their extradition in
July.
Because Joe and Harlow?s credit was overextended, it is unlikely that,
even if they had access to their assets, they would be of much use. So
their friends and family are trying to raise money for their defense.
The Web site FreeHarlowCuadra.com sells products bearing his mug shot,
including a $39.99 wall clock (the big and little hands sprout from
Harlow?s nose) and a $49.99 ?maternity T-shirt.?
Evidence against the two is substantial, and yet it seems impossible
to organize that evidence into a plausible story. A murder as brutal
as this one is almost always a crime of passion, committed by a person
who knows the victim, but there?s no evidence of prior acquaintance
between Bryan and Joe or Harlow. The alleged ****-turf-war motive
makes no rational sense, especially because Sean and Bryan had just
resolved their conflict. Yet Bryan?s business must have had something
to do with his death: Why else would Cobra Video?s documents and
computer towers disappear? Or was there other information stored in
those machines, something that might help explain why federal agencies
are working on this case?
Winding on, the questions form a trail that starts to seem like it?s
all switchbacks. Why, if not to murder Bryan, did Joe and Harlow go to
Pennsylvania? If there was a third man, why don?t they reveal him?
What, if anything, is hiding under the layers of their shifting
stories? And what kind of murderer buys his weapon with a credit card?
V.
In California, Grant Roy says that he has learned a lesson. ?From now
on, if somebody ever mentions something??about killing someone??in
joking or whatever, I don?t care what the circumstances are, I?m
walking away.?
The saga of Bryan?s murder, he believes, ?says a lot about our country
and our culture. It used to be that I watched TV shows like CSI:
Miami, movies with conspiracy or murder plots. It was all fantasy to
me. Now I watch this stuff and I think, That?s based on something that
really happened. All these reality shows that are coming out now,
there?s a fine line between what is not real and what is real. A lot
of that plays into why this happened, why these idiots thought they
could do what they could do. There?s something instilled in our
culture? that, he says, is related to bigger questions such as ?Why do
we think we can go into Iraq and give this country democracy, when
they?ve been clashing ever since Great Britain carved it all up and
called it a country? Empires are built on delusions.?
He and Sean have a new Web site, BrentCorriganInc.com. The day it
launched, on one of Brent?s fan?s blogs, someone named Ernie posted a
flag he designed to represent ?Brent Corrigan?s ?Independence Day.??
Accompanying text explained that the flag ?incorporates the pride
flag? and a blue star like the one tattooed on Brent?s right buttock
?similar to the Texas flag (representing Grant).?
The blogger, who goes by the name Dewayneinsd, continued, ?I believe
the Flag itself stands as a banner of One Young man?s Independence
from Evil, Corrupt and Exploitive men! And while Brent?s battle is
waged for his rights, it is also for the benefit of all young gay men
who choose to ?Do ****?!?
Confidently, Sean explains why he and other young men make the choice
to have *** on-camera?the choice that permanently entwined his fate
with Bryan?s: ?There are three reasons why boys work in ****. The
first one is money. Trying to support yourself when practically the
only jobs you can get are in retail, it?s nearly impossible. The
second reason is status. The third reason is, some boys are not very
smart. My reason initially was the money. Now it?s about proving to
people that I?m one of a kind. When life gives you lemons, you make
lemonade.?
In Virginia Beach, most of Joe and Harlow?s neighbors say they didn?t
know the men. Their street looks like Wisteria Lane on Desperate
Housewives, with the patriotic ambience of screaming fighter jets
flying drills low in the sky.
At one house, a 17-year-old named Lauren stands among large sculptures
of eagles in flight that decorate her family?s living room and,
leaning forward for emphasis, seems to enjoy reciting this speech: ?I
never knew they were gay. I never knew they were ***** stars. I never
knew they were gay male escorts. I never knew they murdered their
rival **** producer. I never knew nothing.?
Lauren?s storytelling pleasure captures the spirit of many people?s
fantasies of the untrammeled id in gay men?s lives, a fantasy that Joe
and Harlow incarnate. The most astonishing thing about them, however,
is that the couple attained all-out hedonism while at the same time
maintaining the appearance of propriety required to sustain intimate
relationships with Joe?s family.
In this part of Virginia, it?s common for gay men to lead double
lives. Even the editor of Norfolk?s gay newspaper, Out & About, works
under a pseudonym: ?Call me ?Harry King,?? he says. ?I try to keep the
identities separate. I have to live with a lot of ?don?t ask don?t
tell? living here in Norfolk. We all do.?
It is rare for a gay man here to be out in a simple sense. Instead, he
exists in an open closet with a strict code of silence. Silence
protects him from the risk of being ostracized if he were truly known.
Silence also degrades him. To be accepted, he must grant that he is
unacceptable.
This self-annihilating mind-set is common among gay men here, but it
is not unique to them. Ego destruction is the first step in a
soldier?s training, and the open closet is practically a mirror image
of fundamentalism, in which no sinner can be saved without affirming
his own worthlessness.
When Fred Kerekes started to suspect his son was gay, he talked to Joe
about sin, hoping to make a point without having to spell it out. ?I
would tell Joe sometimes ?Guilty or innocent in this life is
immaterial. When you die, you will stand before the Father and be
judged.? When he dies, Joe will have to answer for whatever he?s
done.?
Fred?s faith asserts that life has two dimensions and two stories.
Each person has a physical life and a spiritual one. Life on earth
gives way at death to life in heaven or ****. And *** alone determines
the person?s fate, regardless of the outcome of the struggle in this
life between powers of good and evil.
Pastor Ron Johnston, who was Joe?s mentor at Bethel Temple, says that
Joe?s struggle between the powers was unusually strong. ?There?s a
dichotomy in Joseph,? he says. ?There?s two Josephs. I would see a
Joseph that on one side was extremely kind and good, and on the other
side he would lose it. I?ve seen this before with people that were
demon-possessed.?
Two years ago, long after Joe?s angry separation from the church,
Pastor Ron was amazed one day when Joe showed up at his office. ?He
started crying. He sat down. He said, ?Pastor, I?m in problems. I?m
doing things I never thought I would do.? He told me about the escort
service, about some of the things he was involved in. Harlow, and
their relationship. ?Joseph,? I said, ?you have the call of *** on
your life. It doesn?t matter how far you?ve gone or what you?ve done,
*** never takes back what he gives you. *** is always there, no matter
what happens or what happened, to forgive and help you. If there?s
anything I can do to help you, I?m here for that.??
But the next time he saw Joe?s face was on a television screen, on the
news the night of Joe?s arrest. ?It broke my heart inside,? he says,
?I thought, Oh, my word. That kind of anger, I?ve seen that kind of
anger in him. And I thought, This is unreal.?
The legion of characters that any one of us could be is always present
in the blooming confusion of our minds. To be an adult is to choose
among them and work to realize a vision of a good life. Yet in our
time, even the act of concentrating begins to seem old-fashioned.
Multitasking ceases to be jargon.
Flawless integrity is for saints?and, in theory, machines. Since the
Victorians drew a hard line between the public and private spheres, we
have all in some way led two lives; yet until recently, only a
clinical sociopath could pull off the feat in full.
Today it is possible, and for growing numbers of people it is
habitual, to simultaneously carry on three, four, five conversations
via instant messages. Everyone, it seems, chats online during
conference calls for work. From there, it is not such a far stretch to
imagine typing softly while talking on the phone with Mom and Dad, e-
mailing naked pictures snapped in a mirror, in hopes of setting up a
hot **** with a stranger for when the conversation?s done. Radical
dissociation can creep in without noticeable outward change; and,
thanks to our machines? integrity, our own leaches away.
Bryan Kocis, Sean Lockhart, Harlow Cuadra, and Joseph Kerekes
reinvented themselves online. Military patriotism or fundamentalist
faith helped accustom some of them to double lives. But these four
were caught up in a mode of reinvention disconnected from the one that
in literature and life has united American characters as disparate as
Abraham Lincoln, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Horatio Alger, Jay Gatsby, and
Tom Ripley.
Those men all left home to start anew. These men just logged on. They
created alternate identities in parallel worlds, as most of us do now,
imagining that we need not give up anything to do so, believing that
our games exact no unrecoverable cost. The difference between us and
the characters in the case of the Cobra killer is one of scale, not of
kind. Unreal realities, endless flickering between truth and fiction,
an addictive stream of possible connections among possible selves,
converging in the dead end of a life.
Inside the Virginia Beach County jail, a tasteful brick building that
would not disturb the aesthetic of Colonial Williamsburg, the visitor
room contains four rows of small Toshiba screens, each housed in a
brushed aluminum case the size of a microwave oven. Above each screen
is mounted a small video camera, allowing the visitor and inmate to
see one another in half-profile from slightly elevated angles.
When conversation feels especially intimate, either the visitor or the
inmate may choose to look directly into the camera in order to create
for the other an illusion of eye contact. Yet the equipment?s
configuration ensures that any normal feeling of conversational
intimacy will be one-sided. The person who creates the illusion of eye
contact always loses it himself. As a result, the only way for Harlow
to let me see his eyes is for him to play to the camera, requiring him
to look away from me and therefore to perform. And vice versa.
I ask Harlow what it was like to work as an escort and a ****
performer, and be in love with Joe, all at the same time. He grins. He
says, ?It?s like I have a light switch.?
He thinks for a moment: ?I walk in, and I make a force field to my
heart that wraps around me. The way I describe it to new employees is,
?You walk in that room, you?re Scott. You walk out, and you?re Adam
again.? They all have two names. They all are two people. Even Joe.
He?s Mark on calls and Joe with me.
?I go in there, and I?m Harlow. But a different Harlow. What messes me
up is, I?m the same person always. I don?t have a light switch,? he
says.
For a moment I don?t notice the contradiction, because Harlow looks
into the camera, and it feels as if he looks into my eyes.
producer was brutally murdered. Police say he was the victim of an
industry turf war?killed by rival **** players who wanted to make a
?million-dollar? movie with his biggest star. But this crime sits at
the center of a much broader web of intrigue. An exclusive
investigation uncovers the story. By Michael Joseph Gross A few miles
up the highway from the Luzerne County courthouse in Wilkes-Barre,
Penn., a life-size statue of Christ commands a grassy hillside planted
with, and almost totally obscured by, hundreds of tiny American flags
on tiny wooden flagpoles. Public displays of piety and of patriotism
are common here. They give energy to a landscape marked with
collapsing smokestacks and other industrial ruins from the region?s
coal mining heyday. Since 1959, when the Susquehanna River flooded the
region?s richest anthracite mines, the local population and economy
have steadily declined. Yet coal money did endow some enduring
institutions in the Wyoming Valley, such as the Catholic liberal arts
college Misericordia in Dallas Township, a five-minute walk from the
tree-lined bower of Midland Drive, where a yellow diamond-shaped
traffic sign warns drivers to watch children. This is where, until his
throat was slashed one night last January, 44-year-old Bryan Kocis ran
an online business from his home called Cobra Video, dedicated to
?Capturing the Erotic Essence of Youth? by producing pornographic
movies of young men who looked as if they could be adolescents having
*** without condoms.
Cobra competed in the market niche of low-budget, Barely Legal?style
bareback films. For Kocis, the business was profitable: a Maserati,
Aston Martin, and BMW sat in his garage and driveway. In 2005 the
movies also made a modest yet scandalous name for him, and for his
leading star and sometime lover, Sean Lockhart, in the mainstream gay
**** industry. Lockhart, who met Kocis on the Internet and starred in
films such as Every Poolboy?s Dream and Schoolboy Crush, under the
name Brent Corrigan, informed the FBI that he had been underage when
four of his movies were produced. The movies were recalled, and the
producer and performer squared off in a nasty, public, litigious feud
that wore on until early this year.
On January 24, only a few days after their conflict was settled out of
court, Kocis?s house on Midland Drive was robbed and set aflame.
Inside, firemen found the owner dead: nearly decapitated, torso
stabbed 28 times. His remains were so charred that the county coroner
used dental records to identify the body.
Law enforcement officials from three states and at least three federal
agencies aggressively investigated the crimes, and in May police
arrested Harlow Cuadra, 26, a former Navy enlisted man, and Joseph
Kerekes, 33, a onetime youth pastor who was briefly in the Marines.
From their home in Virginia Beach, Va., the couple?who, like Lockhart
and Kocis, also met on the Internet?ran a gay escort service, which
they say employed active-duty servicemen from military bases in the
area, and they produced and starred in bareback **** on their military-
themed Web site, Boybatter.com.
Pennsylvania?s case against the accused casts Kocis as the victim of a
**** industry turf war. Cuadra and Kerekes, police contend, killed the
producer to liberate Lockhart from contractual obligations to Cobra.
The scenario, teeming with noirish detail, is as neatly plotted as a
potboiler. Police say the Virginians believed a *** video of Cuadra
with Lockhart, 21, would be a **** blockbuster that could yield that
archaic, almost quaint, clich? of fortune: a million dollars.
At first glance, this may look like just a lurid saga on the margins
of a far-flung subculture. But the tabloid headline of the tale may
conceal a larger truth. Kocis, Lockhart, Cuadra, and Kerekes all met
in a virtual world where they hoped to realize their most outrageous
sexual fantasies, where screen names and avatars enable endless
reconstruction of selves: a fluid, identity-less existence that many
millions of people have chosen as their primary mode for seeking ***
and love. In the midst of those searches, it is worth pausing to
consider: Is the world of the Cobra Killer merely a darker reflection
of our own?
I.
Bryan Kocis was many things to many people. A former Cobra Video
performer, now a 21-year-old student at Cornell University, calls him
?just a smart, nice guy. Not the sleazy, overbearing producer. There
was nothing stereotypical about him.?
Amy Withers, a 23-year-old bartender who was Bryan?s next-door
neighbor, says, ?He slept during the day and worked at night. I would
hear car doors at 3 in the morning. I would hear him having *** in the
Jacuzzi on his deck, right by my bedroom window. He always scared the
**** out of me: always wore aviator sunglasses and a baseball hat.
Everything that you would ever think of a creepy **** guy? That would
be him.?
Bryan?s next-door neighbor on the other side says that the Kocis family
?who remained close with Bryan throughout his career; who learned of
his death from the local newspaper; and who are refusing to speak to
reporters until the murder trial is finished?asked her not to talk
about him. She stands behind her screen door, wearing an apron printed
with dozens of overlapping images of the Stars and Stripes. She has
kind eyes, and she says thoughtfully, ?Bryan was complex.?
He was an Eagle Scout who grew up in Luzerne County, graduated from
the Rochester Institute of Technology, worked as a medical
photographer for a local eye doctor, and then made a few unsuccessful
business investments before incorporating Cobra Video in 2001. That
same year, a few months before declaring bankruptcy to settle debts of
more than $200,000, he was arrested on several criminal counts,
including six felony charges, for twice having *** with a 15-year-old
boy. The first time Bryan had *** with the youth, he also videotaped
it, according to police. Eventually all felony charges were dropped
when he was found guilty of the lesser offense of corruption of a
minor. Bryan served one year of probation, but the damage to his local
reputation was done.
He became increasingly reclusive, passing many nights chatting online
with prospective models. One evening, he received an instant message
from a 21-year-old in California who wanted to be in ****. Bryan
didn?t find him attractive, but the young man bragged about his hot
new boyfriend?17, going on 18, he teased?and, showing off, turned a
Webcam on the 5-foot-5, 100-pound prize, who was taking a nap. The
image of a pale, thin, dozing boy appeared on Bryan?s computer screen.
Bryan did not know that he?d been lied to: The boy was actually 16
years old.
The boy, groggy and disoriented, did not know why his boyfriend was
pulling back the sheet, or why the camera was on.
Bryan stared at the streaming video of the naked teen, who, aroused,
gazed into the Webcam?s lens.
Neither of them seemed to have taken real action, much less made a
momentous choice, but this was the moment when their fates, and the
fates of many others, began to change.
Soon the boy, Sean Lockhart, was chatting every day after school with
his new friend in Pennsylvania.
Bryan was funny and understanding. He gave good advice. His online
rapport with Sean was consistent and comforting, which were not words
that Sean could use to describe the behavior of most adults he knew.
Sean, who had never known his biological father, was raised primarily
by his stepfather in Seattle, after his mother left the family when he
was in third grade. He had recently reconciled with her and moved to
be with her in San Diego. The two of them were barely scraping by,
living in a flophouse where Sean didn?t feel safe.
Sean says he needed to make money, and his options, as he saw them,
were to ?***** myself, deal drugs, or do adult work. Adult work seemed
like the least compromising of the choices. That was how the initial
decisions were made.?
With his then-boyfriend, Sean scanned his driver?s license and birth
certificate into Photoshop, changed the dates to make it look like he
was 18, and sent electronic copies to Bryan.
Sean earned $3,500 for his first Cobra videos, Every Poolboy?s Dream
and Casting Couch 4, which were shot in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in
September 2004. ?When I first met Bryan, I was disappointed. I?d seen
only one picture of him. But after how much we talked, I?d developed
not a crush, but??Sean?s voice, an eager stream of poised, ingenuous-
sounding self-analysis, briefly stumbles. ?He?d become a stable force
for me.?
On his next shoot, for the movies Schoolboy Crush and Bareboned
Twinks, also in Florida, Sean says he chose a new name for himself. ?I
took Brent from Brent Everett, who was the costar, and I found
Corrigan in the phone book. It sounded Irish or Scottish, and I?m
Irish, and I liked that it kept things consistent.?
During that second shoot, Sean says, two other important things
happened. He and Bryan slept together for the first time, and Bryan
first voiced fears that Sean?s IDs were forged.
After Sean returned to San Diego, Bryan started sending him gifts and
money. Whether because he was smitten with the boy, afraid of legal
jeopardy, or both, Bryan invited him to spend the summer of 2005 in
Pennsylvania, ?to be an apprentice and help with the video shoots.?
Sean?s home life in San Diego had deteriorated, and he decided to move
out on his own. He found an apartment on Craigslist, but says he was
evicted when he resisted his landlord?s sexual advances.
A mutual friend introduced Sean to Grant Roy, a beefy, wedge-jawed 40-
year-old Texan who worked for his family?s trucking company. Grant
shared a house in the suburbs with his boyfriend at the time. Sean
rented their spare bedroom for $500 a month?the same amount that Bryan
was sending Sean to help with monthly living expenses.
Grant?s father, with whom he had been close, had just died, which
inclined him to sympathize with Sean?s all-but-orphaned existence.
The boy, Grant says tenderly, ?had nowhere else to go.?
II.
In a few months Grant and his boyfriend parted ways, and Grant?s
protective feeling for Sean turned romantic. From the start, Grant
also saw business potential in the relationship: ?I said ?Look, I
could shop you around to all these other studios and they?ll pay you a
nice chunk of money. But if you really want to do this right, I?ll
help you start a company, and you can do your own thing. That way,
when you?re old and gray, if we do it right, this thing?s still gonna
be paying.??
As their business plans grew serious, so did their romance. When Sean
went to Pennsylvania for the summer, the new couple agreed that ?we?d
be exclusive sexual partners,? Grant says, ?other than the work that
he was doing.?
Sean?s memories of that summer are mostly unhappy ones. Though he and
Bryan sometimes socialized with visiting Cobra models, Sean felt
isolated: ?Bryan didn?t want me to have any friends. I was there
basically to have *** with him.? He considered his relationship with
Bryan to be essentially transactional. It was ?trading the company of
a younger man for the money and experiences that an older man can
give. Lavish restaurants, fine wines, horseback riding lessons, nice
clothes.?
?Looking back,? says Sean, ?it all seems silly and superficial, of
course.?
Bryan, though, probably had higher hopes for their relationship. He
tried to talk the boy into going to college down the street at
Misericordia. One weekend that summer, Bryan also made a rare attempt
to integrate his family life and his gay life. Robert Wagner, a close
friend of Bryan?s who appeared in Cobra videos under the name Aaron
Phelps, says that Bryan rented a limousine to take Sean and his family
to New York together for the Fourth of July. After they all checked
into the Plaza Hotel, Bryan went to see the fireworks with his family,
and Sean went to a party, where, according to Robert, he hooked up
with another man. Bryan spent the night alone in his hotel suite,
wondering where Sean had gone.
The next month, things got worse.
Grant decided to ?start playing with a little bit of publicity? for
the next step in Sean?s career. From their separate bases in
California and Pennsylvania, Grant and Sean participated in a fan
forum on a **** portal site called Juicygoo.com, where they discussed
Sean?s plans to start producing his own videos?even though Sean had
just renewed his contract with Cobra.
Bryan was enraged. Sean says they fought so bitterly that his ?best
friend? at the time?a boy he chatted with online, whom he never met in
person, and whose screen name he says he does not remember?advised him
to flee. In the Volkswagen Jetta that he?d received from Bryan when he
signed the contract, Sean drove across the country to Grant?s house in
San Diego.
Safely in California, Sean called Bryan on August 16, 2005 and
informed him that he?d been a minor when he made his first videos.
Their relationship imploded.
Sean reported his claim to the FBI, and soon his Cobra Video releases
were recalled. Bryan applied to the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office
to trademark the name Brent Corrigan. He filed a federal breach of
contract suit against Sean. And he wrote Sean long, impassioned e-
mails, arias of wounded emotion (?it still amazes me to see how people
who are supposed to be close to me can be so heartless and selfish
enough to take advantage of me the way they do?
I really wanted the best for you?), menacing clich? (?Such a tangled
Web we Weave / When we practice to Deceive??), and an ultimatum.
Bryan offered Sean a choice: Be reconciled or be cast forever out of
his good graces. ?No second chances here,? Bryan warned. ?Your only
decision, to be the Prince,
or the Pauper.?
Soon the feud was tooth for tooth. Juicygoo.com became a battleground
between Bryan, writing under the screen name ?King Cobra,? and Grant,
who called his alter ego ?Cobra Killer.?
The mainstream gay **** industry took note, and the best-known studio,
Falcon, gave Sean the lead in a big-budget movie called The Velvet
Mafia. In a bizarre coincidence, the movie?about a **** industry turf
war over an insolent twink named Fox Ryder?had been written before the
Cobra scandal broke. ?We had to have Brent Corrigan as the star
because he was this character in real life,? says director Chris
Steele.
Before the film?s release, Falcon executives decided not to credit
Sean as Brent Corrigan because Cobra?s lawyer threatened to sue the
studio. Every time Sean tried to work as Brent Corrigan, Bryan?s
lawyers quashed the effort?and Sean?s lawyers sent him another bill.
Sean began a fund-raising drive called ?Brent Aid,? during which he
auctioned off a few of his belongings online. Someone bought his
underwear for $1,000.
Last fall, when Grant and Sean saw that legal negotiations with Cobra
would lead to settlement, the couple started looking for new models so
they could prepare for Sean to film new *** scenes.
The best way to recruit men into ****, Grant says, is to browse gay
cruising sites such as Manhunt.net, Adam4Adam.com, and DudesNude.com?
where it has become the norm for men to post naked pictures of
themselves and, increasingly, pictures of themselves having ***. To
find the youngest men, he also canvasses MySpace, which offers an
argosy of exhibitionist sexuality encompassing various orientations.
?I go to the place where guys are exposing themselves for the whole
world to see,? Grant explains. ?If they?re willing to do that much
online, maybe they?re open to doing ****. It?s not going far to make
that next step.? Grant?s other casting resources include escort sites
such as Men4RentNow.com, where he first came across Harlow Cuadra?s
profile.
Grant?s eyes go big when he recollects the thrill of seeing Harlow?s
pictures and watching his *** videos on Boybatter.com for the first
time. ?Wow,? he remembers thinking. ?This is what we?re looking for..?
III.
?I met Joe on Yahoo in a chat room,? Harlow Cuadra says. ?I think it
was a straight chat room. Probably talking about skateboarding. Joe
spams the room, ?Looking for a hookup,? and I?m like, ?Yeah!??
When they met seven years ago at a mall in Virginia Beach, Joe Kerekes
said that he was in the Marines. At the time, Harlow was in the Navy
and in the closet, and he was spooked by the idea of dating another
military man. He cut the meeting short and told Joe he would call him
the next week, after returning from a wedding where he was to be the
best man.
One week later, to Joe?s surprise, Harlow called. ?He said that when I
told him I was going away for a week, he thought I was lying,? Harlow
laughs. ?I said, ?One thing to know about me: I can?t really lie very
well. It gets me in trouble.??
They hooked up. ?We went to his parents? house and had *** for, like,
four hours, and then we went to Wendy?s at 2 a.m. He said he was an
escort, and I was kind of put off by that, so I backed off, and we
just became friends.
?We kept hanging out, and finally Joe was like, ?Will you go on just
one call for me?? And it was an ex-NFL guy, and I walk in, and he?s
like, ?I just wanna play with your feet.? And I?m like, ?This is
weird.?
?So I would do that like three or four times a week, and I was making
a lot of money for letting this guy play with my feet.
?Then Joe and I started going out, and then eventually??Harlow?s voice
drops low, each word an ember of contentment, remembering the day that
love walked in??Joe said, ?Harlow, I wanna be jealous of you.??
Joe grew up in a Christian family in Virginia Beach. He graduated near
the top of his high school class and for a time worked as a youth
pastor at Bethel Temple, a conservative Assemblies of *** megachurch
in Hampton, Va. Joe?s gifts as a minister, especially his preaching,
were so prized by the church that Bethel paid for him to go to a
Christian college.
Joe had trouble controlling his temper, though, and after a few
conspicuous flare-ups, he was asked to leave the church. He went to
Marine boot camp and, his parents say, was discharged after a few
weeks, following an angry confrontation with a drill instructor.
(Government military records for both Joe and Harlow were unavailable
at press time.)
Then Joe started working as a gay escort, hired others to work for
him, and built a business so popular that Internet searches for the
word Norfolk returned his Web site, NorfolkMaleEscorts.com, as a top
hit. The Norfolk city attorney reportedly called Joe?s lawyer to
complain.
As an escort Joe was known as Mark. In Boy Batter videos he called
himself Trent. With Harlow he was plain Joe; and after work was done,
Joe says, he and Harlow ?didn?t have much time for friends,? but they
spent a lot of time with Joe?s family.
His father, Fred, a Navy veteran who worked for the Norfolk water
treatment plant, and his mother, Rosalie, who worked for many years in
a grade school cafeteria, say that Joe never explicitly told them he
is gay, but they gradually came to understand that Joe and Harlow were
a couple. Harlow, who grew up in Florida and South Carolina, was
estranged from his family when he met Joe. Fred and Rosalie, sitting
at their kitchen table, say they accepted Harlow as if he were their
own son.
(Since his arrest, Harlow has been back in touch with his mother,
brother, and sister. All three have MySpace profiles that proclaim
Harlow?s innocence and solicit donations for his legal defense.)
Fred and Rosalie say that as Christians they believe in hating the sin
but loving the sinner. Although they disapproved of the men?s
relationship, they were intimately involved in Joe and Harlow?s lives
on an everyday basis. Rosalie cleaned their house, cooked for them,
and ran their errands. For construction projects like the high fence
around Joe and Harlow?s backyard, Fred lent a hand.
Fred says, ?I found the architect for them for their in-call room,?
pronouncing the final phrase, from the lexicon of prostitution, with
jarring fluency. Fred is tan, hirsute, tall, and strong, with a long
white beard like a biblical patriarch?s that falls almost to his
waist. He wears a purple baseball cap thickly embroidered with the
word Jesus in rainbow-colored letters.
The in-call room, Fred says, ?had a hot tub, leather sofa, mahogany
lockers for their clients, and a huge mosaic tiled shower with jets
coming from every different direction.?
Rosalie, a gentle, steady woman, says, ?It was a super-duper shower.
You could put 10 people in there.?
?They knew how to do things to please their customers. They had a big,
fancy massage table,? Fred says.
?That?s what I thought they did mostly, was massages,? Rosalie says.
?And physical therapy.?
Rosalie says she did not know the details of her son?s professional
life until after he was taken into custody in May after she and Fred
celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary.
Fred says that he had his suspicions. He never voiced his hunch, but
he cites it as the reason that he maintained a somewhat greater
distance than Rosalie did.
?I wanted them to be a part of our lives,? Fred says, ?but I didn?t
want to be a part of their lives.?
?We started raunchy,? Joe says, ?but ended up being high-class.? In
their years together, Joe and Harlow rose from renting a $300-per-
month room in the worst part of Norfolk to purchasing a house worth
about $500,000 in a new development on a cul-de-sac.
?They were eating out every night,? Fred says. ?They would have $500,
$600 meals. Joe had a $6,000 chinchilla coat he bought in Vegas. It
was leather inside?it was reversible. He wore a 3.5-karat diamond stud
in his ear. Harlow?s was 2.5 carats. They always wore Rolexes. They
had five, six Rolexes. They went in and out of four [Dodge] Vipers,?
Fred says, ?the poisonous snake that bites you and you die. The last
one, that got seized by the cops, was yellow.?
They also invested in their bodies, working out almost every day at 5
a.m. at a private gym called Big House. The owner, a straight man
named Lance Treadway, says, ?They lifted heavy weights, but their form
was terrible.?
Fred describes his son as ?very, what?s the word, very chiseled. The
whole V shape. And he went to Phoenix to have liposuction done so that
he would have the?what do you call it?the washboard abs. He went to
Phoenix, where all the movie stars go to have it done, and it cost
$6,000. He stayed in very good shape for his clients.?
When Fred says ?chiseled,? his palms cup an imaginary pair of pecs in
front of his own chest. When he says ?V shape,? he traces the shape on
the sides of his own body. When he says ?washboard abs,? his hand
bumps down an imaginary set of them on his own stomach.
When he speaks of his son?s body, as when he speaks of his son?s big
spending, Fred?s voice is fraught. On the one hand, he is proud of Joe
for living an American dream. On the other, he says, ?They would get
so much credit?loan for this car, loan for that car?I knew they were
out of control.?
By the time Harlow and Joe met Sean and Grant, the Virginians were
almost $1 million in debt.
Communication between the couples began when Grant saw Harlow?s
profile online last fall. After some correspondence and phone
conversations, the four agreed to have dinner in Las Vegas during
January?s Adult Video News convention, the largest annual ****
industry gathering, where Sean and Grant were also meeting Bryan to
finalize their settlement.
During dinner at the Bellagio on January 11, which Grant describes as
?the most expensive meal I ever had in my life,? Grant says Joe
speculated that a video of Harlow and Sean could make a million
dollars. Grant says he explained that they were hamstrung for the
moment by legal problems with Bryan, and ?that?s when Harlow brings up
the question, ?What if Bryan goes to Europe?? ?
Sean, uncomprehending, responded, ?He?ll come back.?
?Harlow said??Grant assumes a coolly insinuating voice??What if he
goes to Canada?? and I grabbed Sean and said, ?No, you guys.? Then Joe
says, ?Harlow has this client that?s in this sort of business who will
do anything for him.? I said, ?If Bryan dies, no matter who does it,
this thing has been so ugly, we?re the first ones they?ll come to.
Don?t even say anything like that.??
Though Grant says Joe and Harlow?s remarks struck him as odd, he
didn?t think they were serious. ?That was, like, three or four minutes
out of a three- or four-hour meal, where we?d all been drinking so
much that we were just gone,? he explains.
The Virginians apparently left Las Vegas the next morning. (Pending
trial, Harlow and Joe would not answer most questions directly
pertaining to the case.) Then Grant and Sean met with Bryan and his
lawyers to finish most of their negotiations and returned to San Diego
for the crossing of the t?s the following week.
On the morning of Tuesday, January 16, Joe and Harlow called Sean,
angry that Sean had not posted an announcement of their plans on his
blog. Grant was furious at their impatience. ?I?m in the middle of the
settlement, and I had gone to great lengths to explain our situation,
and they?re all ****** off because we don?t have a blog post on? Who
the **** do they think they are? I called them and said, ?We?ve got a
lot to do. You?re calling Sean and harassing him.? Joe starts getting
angry with me, saying wild things, threatening me that if we don?t
?put up a post,? the deal is off. I said, ?If you don?t understand us,
leave us the **** alone.? And I told Sean, ?Screw those guys. Don?t
talk to them anymore.? That was it.?
Joe and Harlow seem to have returned from Las Vegas with new
confidence in Harlow?s pornographic possibilities. On January 14,
NorfolkMaleEscorts.com sent an e-mail blast announcing Harlow?s
impending collaboration with ?**** Twink mega star ?Brent Corrigan.??
More ambitiously, Harlow even applied to be a model for Falcon Studios
on January 18, citing Brent Corrigan as a reference. Then, on January
22, Harlow created the screen name dmbottompa on Yahoo.com, an account
he used almost exclusively for correspondence with Bryan Kocis.
?DM? stood for Danny Moilin, an alter ego whose address was listed as
King of Prussia, Pa. As Danny, Harlow completed a model application
form on the Cobra Video Web site, and he e-mailed Bryan to say that he
?would like to meet you and talk about filming and stuff. don?t have
much experience with this at all. may need to be taught first.?
Police say that Harlow used a Visa card to buy a knife similar to the
weapon found at the murder scene, and also a gun, in Virginia Beach on
January 23; he rented a car; and, using Joe?s driver?s license as
identification, they checked into the Fox Ridge Inn, across the valley
from Dallas Township. E-mails show that Harlow, as Danny, had arranged
to meet Bryan at his house on January 24.
That night, Bryan Kocis was killed. His house was ransacked for
documents relating to the business of Cobra Video, two computer towers
that were the nerve center of the company, two video cameras, and his
monogrammed Rolex watch. By the time a Dallas Township squad of
volunteer firemen arrived at 8:34 p.m., flames had consumed most of
the interior of the house.
In falling snow, newspaper and TV reporters and a straggling mass of
neighbors assembled on the street. Fire blew out Bryan?s picture
window, and cold air from outside rushed into the home that he had
long kept hidden. Later, a friend of the deceased went inside and
noticed something strange. The 65-inch plasma television screen that
had been Bryan?s Christmas present to himself. Melted by the fire,
drooped and curled, like a wilted petal plucked from an immense,
mechanical, imaginary flower.
IV.
A battery of law enforcement officials representing three states (and,
mysteriously, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, and the Naval
Criminal Investigation Unit, none of which has clear jurisdiction over
any publicly known aspect of this case) coordinated a far-reaching
investigation of the murder, culminating in the electronic
interception of two conversations between Joe, Harlow, Grant, and Sean
on April 27 and 28.
Grant and Sean cooperated with police and wore a wire during two
meetings with the Virginians when they came to San Diego, ostensibly
to finalize plans for Harlow and Sean?s video. Excerpts from the
conversations appear in Pennsylvania?s affidavit of probable cause for
Joe and Harlow?s arrest. The first day, when Grant asked if Bryan
?felt any pain,? Harlow answered, ?Don?t worry, he went quick.? The
next day Harlow said, ?Seeing that ****** going down, actually it?s
sick, but it made me feel better inside. It almost felt like I got
revenge, and I know that sounds ******-up.?
As damning as these lines appear, it?s impossible to know precisely
how to read them. Strikingly, Harlow?s quoted remarks in the affidavit
sound more like the statements of a man who witnessed a murder than
those of a man who committed one. (Joe, it seems, was mostly
interjecting details as Harlow described meeting Bryan.) Harlow?s
story, as related by this document, is confusing (and perhaps
intentionally presented that way by police; at the time of arrest, it
is common to withhold evidence that will be introduced at trial), but
other details raise the possibility that a third man might have been
present when Bryan was killed. Harlow ?stated that he and another ?did
some recon work?? before his meeting with Bryan. And after he arrived
at Bryan?s house and they drank some wine together, Harlow said that
his ? ?dude? ?came around?, and ?it was crazy.??
Language, however, may be the least reliable form of evidence in this
case. Joe and Harlow?s stories have changed utterly since the saga
began. Upon first being identified as a suspect, Harlow told the
Scranton Times-Tribune that he had never met Bryan and was ? ?freaked
out? that his image was linked to a murder investigation.? At about
the same time, Joe?s escort persona, ?Mark,? told a reporter from the
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader that Harlow was working in Virginia the
night that Bryan was killed.
Most recently, Joe told the same newspaper that, actually, they did
come to Pennsylvania?so that Harlow could try to win Bryan over to
their plan to work with Sean. But when Harlow arrived at Bryan?s house
?the door was partially open. He looked inside and saw an overturned
table and smelled smoke. He said he saw someone on a couch or chair,
and heard a noise upstairs, like someone was about to come down,? Joe
said. At the time of the interview, Joe did not have legal
representation. His new attorney, Joseph Nocito, says, ?There will be
no more interviews.?
There has been no official mention of forensic evidence in the case.
(Crime lab processing takes longer in life than on CSI.) The strongest
pieces of physical evidence suggesting the suspects may have been at
the crime scene are two video cameras, the same models that were
stolen from Bryan?s house. The cameras, whose serial numbers had been
obliterated, were seized in a police raid of Joe and Harlow?s house on
February 10. Shortly after the murder, Harlow posted a query on an
Internet message board asking how to operate one of the cameras.
In Virginia, Joe and Harlow were arrested as fugitives from justice on
May 15, the same day criminal charges against them were filed in
Pennsylvania. Virginia also put their assets into forfeiture and began
investigating whether to charge them with conspiracy to violate the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act [RICO], money
laundering, and conspiracy to receive money from the earnings of a
prostitute.
The seizure was unusual: In RICO cases, assets are typically put into
forfeiture after a criminal hearing, not before. Joe?s lawyer in
Virginia, Jim Brice, believes the holdup was ?being used to deny them
the opportunity to secure proper representation? on criminal charges
in Pennsylvania, where they have been held since their extradition in
July.
Because Joe and Harlow?s credit was overextended, it is unlikely that,
even if they had access to their assets, they would be of much use. So
their friends and family are trying to raise money for their defense.
The Web site FreeHarlowCuadra.com sells products bearing his mug shot,
including a $39.99 wall clock (the big and little hands sprout from
Harlow?s nose) and a $49.99 ?maternity T-shirt.?
Evidence against the two is substantial, and yet it seems impossible
to organize that evidence into a plausible story. A murder as brutal
as this one is almost always a crime of passion, committed by a person
who knows the victim, but there?s no evidence of prior acquaintance
between Bryan and Joe or Harlow. The alleged ****-turf-war motive
makes no rational sense, especially because Sean and Bryan had just
resolved their conflict. Yet Bryan?s business must have had something
to do with his death: Why else would Cobra Video?s documents and
computer towers disappear? Or was there other information stored in
those machines, something that might help explain why federal agencies
are working on this case?
Winding on, the questions form a trail that starts to seem like it?s
all switchbacks. Why, if not to murder Bryan, did Joe and Harlow go to
Pennsylvania? If there was a third man, why don?t they reveal him?
What, if anything, is hiding under the layers of their shifting
stories? And what kind of murderer buys his weapon with a credit card?
V.
In California, Grant Roy says that he has learned a lesson. ?From now
on, if somebody ever mentions something??about killing someone??in
joking or whatever, I don?t care what the circumstances are, I?m
walking away.?
The saga of Bryan?s murder, he believes, ?says a lot about our country
and our culture. It used to be that I watched TV shows like CSI:
Miami, movies with conspiracy or murder plots. It was all fantasy to
me. Now I watch this stuff and I think, That?s based on something that
really happened. All these reality shows that are coming out now,
there?s a fine line between what is not real and what is real. A lot
of that plays into why this happened, why these idiots thought they
could do what they could do. There?s something instilled in our
culture? that, he says, is related to bigger questions such as ?Why do
we think we can go into Iraq and give this country democracy, when
they?ve been clashing ever since Great Britain carved it all up and
called it a country? Empires are built on delusions.?
He and Sean have a new Web site, BrentCorriganInc.com. The day it
launched, on one of Brent?s fan?s blogs, someone named Ernie posted a
flag he designed to represent ?Brent Corrigan?s ?Independence Day.??
Accompanying text explained that the flag ?incorporates the pride
flag? and a blue star like the one tattooed on Brent?s right buttock
?similar to the Texas flag (representing Grant).?
The blogger, who goes by the name Dewayneinsd, continued, ?I believe
the Flag itself stands as a banner of One Young man?s Independence
from Evil, Corrupt and Exploitive men! And while Brent?s battle is
waged for his rights, it is also for the benefit of all young gay men
who choose to ?Do ****?!?
Confidently, Sean explains why he and other young men make the choice
to have *** on-camera?the choice that permanently entwined his fate
with Bryan?s: ?There are three reasons why boys work in ****. The
first one is money. Trying to support yourself when practically the
only jobs you can get are in retail, it?s nearly impossible. The
second reason is status. The third reason is, some boys are not very
smart. My reason initially was the money. Now it?s about proving to
people that I?m one of a kind. When life gives you lemons, you make
lemonade.?
In Virginia Beach, most of Joe and Harlow?s neighbors say they didn?t
know the men. Their street looks like Wisteria Lane on Desperate
Housewives, with the patriotic ambience of screaming fighter jets
flying drills low in the sky.
At one house, a 17-year-old named Lauren stands among large sculptures
of eagles in flight that decorate her family?s living room and,
leaning forward for emphasis, seems to enjoy reciting this speech: ?I
never knew they were gay. I never knew they were ***** stars. I never
knew they were gay male escorts. I never knew they murdered their
rival **** producer. I never knew nothing.?
Lauren?s storytelling pleasure captures the spirit of many people?s
fantasies of the untrammeled id in gay men?s lives, a fantasy that Joe
and Harlow incarnate. The most astonishing thing about them, however,
is that the couple attained all-out hedonism while at the same time
maintaining the appearance of propriety required to sustain intimate
relationships with Joe?s family.
In this part of Virginia, it?s common for gay men to lead double
lives. Even the editor of Norfolk?s gay newspaper, Out & About, works
under a pseudonym: ?Call me ?Harry King,?? he says. ?I try to keep the
identities separate. I have to live with a lot of ?don?t ask don?t
tell? living here in Norfolk. We all do.?
It is rare for a gay man here to be out in a simple sense. Instead, he
exists in an open closet with a strict code of silence. Silence
protects him from the risk of being ostracized if he were truly known.
Silence also degrades him. To be accepted, he must grant that he is
unacceptable.
This self-annihilating mind-set is common among gay men here, but it
is not unique to them. Ego destruction is the first step in a
soldier?s training, and the open closet is practically a mirror image
of fundamentalism, in which no sinner can be saved without affirming
his own worthlessness.
When Fred Kerekes started to suspect his son was gay, he talked to Joe
about sin, hoping to make a point without having to spell it out. ?I
would tell Joe sometimes ?Guilty or innocent in this life is
immaterial. When you die, you will stand before the Father and be
judged.? When he dies, Joe will have to answer for whatever he?s
done.?
Fred?s faith asserts that life has two dimensions and two stories.
Each person has a physical life and a spiritual one. Life on earth
gives way at death to life in heaven or ****. And *** alone determines
the person?s fate, regardless of the outcome of the struggle in this
life between powers of good and evil.
Pastor Ron Johnston, who was Joe?s mentor at Bethel Temple, says that
Joe?s struggle between the powers was unusually strong. ?There?s a
dichotomy in Joseph,? he says. ?There?s two Josephs. I would see a
Joseph that on one side was extremely kind and good, and on the other
side he would lose it. I?ve seen this before with people that were
demon-possessed.?
Two years ago, long after Joe?s angry separation from the church,
Pastor Ron was amazed one day when Joe showed up at his office. ?He
started crying. He sat down. He said, ?Pastor, I?m in problems. I?m
doing things I never thought I would do.? He told me about the escort
service, about some of the things he was involved in. Harlow, and
their relationship. ?Joseph,? I said, ?you have the call of *** on
your life. It doesn?t matter how far you?ve gone or what you?ve done,
*** never takes back what he gives you. *** is always there, no matter
what happens or what happened, to forgive and help you. If there?s
anything I can do to help you, I?m here for that.??
But the next time he saw Joe?s face was on a television screen, on the
news the night of Joe?s arrest. ?It broke my heart inside,? he says,
?I thought, Oh, my word. That kind of anger, I?ve seen that kind of
anger in him. And I thought, This is unreal.?
The legion of characters that any one of us could be is always present
in the blooming confusion of our minds. To be an adult is to choose
among them and work to realize a vision of a good life. Yet in our
time, even the act of concentrating begins to seem old-fashioned.
Multitasking ceases to be jargon.
Flawless integrity is for saints?and, in theory, machines. Since the
Victorians drew a hard line between the public and private spheres, we
have all in some way led two lives; yet until recently, only a
clinical sociopath could pull off the feat in full.
Today it is possible, and for growing numbers of people it is
habitual, to simultaneously carry on three, four, five conversations
via instant messages. Everyone, it seems, chats online during
conference calls for work. From there, it is not such a far stretch to
imagine typing softly while talking on the phone with Mom and Dad, e-
mailing naked pictures snapped in a mirror, in hopes of setting up a
hot **** with a stranger for when the conversation?s done. Radical
dissociation can creep in without noticeable outward change; and,
thanks to our machines? integrity, our own leaches away.
Bryan Kocis, Sean Lockhart, Harlow Cuadra, and Joseph Kerekes
reinvented themselves online. Military patriotism or fundamentalist
faith helped accustom some of them to double lives. But these four
were caught up in a mode of reinvention disconnected from the one that
in literature and life has united American characters as disparate as
Abraham Lincoln, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Horatio Alger, Jay Gatsby, and
Tom Ripley.
Those men all left home to start anew. These men just logged on. They
created alternate identities in parallel worlds, as most of us do now,
imagining that we need not give up anything to do so, believing that
our games exact no unrecoverable cost. The difference between us and
the characters in the case of the Cobra killer is one of scale, not of
kind. Unreal realities, endless flickering between truth and fiction,
an addictive stream of possible connections among possible selves,
converging in the dead end of a life.
Inside the Virginia Beach County jail, a tasteful brick building that
would not disturb the aesthetic of Colonial Williamsburg, the visitor
room contains four rows of small Toshiba screens, each housed in a
brushed aluminum case the size of a microwave oven. Above each screen
is mounted a small video camera, allowing the visitor and inmate to
see one another in half-profile from slightly elevated angles.
When conversation feels especially intimate, either the visitor or the
inmate may choose to look directly into the camera in order to create
for the other an illusion of eye contact. Yet the equipment?s
configuration ensures that any normal feeling of conversational
intimacy will be one-sided. The person who creates the illusion of eye
contact always loses it himself. As a result, the only way for Harlow
to let me see his eyes is for him to play to the camera, requiring him
to look away from me and therefore to perform. And vice versa.
I ask Harlow what it was like to work as an escort and a ****
performer, and be in love with Joe, all at the same time. He grins. He
says, ?It?s like I have a light switch.?
He thinks for a moment: ?I walk in, and I make a force field to my
heart that wraps around me. The way I describe it to new employees is,
?You walk in that room, you?re Scott. You walk out, and you?re Adam
again.? They all have two names. They all are two people. Even Joe.
He?s Mark on calls and Joe with me.
?I go in there, and I?m Harlow. But a different Harlow. What messes me
up is, I?m the same person always. I don?t have a light switch,? he
says.
For a moment I don?t notice the contradiction, because Harlow looks
into the camera, and it feels as if he looks into my eyes.