The Setup-January 16, 2005 He was sixty-two years old now and wondered, Why didn't I go to the mountains years ago? He hated the city, the interrracial mixing, and the loss of privacy. Sure, your neighbors ignored you most of the time unless something morbid could hold their attention for a moment. He couldn't believe this could be happening to him. Granted, maybe he hadn't been a perfect husband or father, but he had tried. He had made mistakes like anyone else but he felt he wasn't a bad man in the end. The papers rolled up in his hand made him angry. How could they believe him capable of those kinds of actions! He would never act that way with a child. What really angered him too was the fact that he didn't even have the right to confront his accusers and that the police had issued a restraining order against him and with an unidentified female Jane Doe; he didn't even know from whom he was supposed to stay away. He remebered the humiliation of being arrested when he went down to answer questions and his younger son just running off and leaving him there. Lawyers,attorneys, bloodsuckers all. He didn't want to lose his house and all his money, everything he worked his whole life for to fight allegations he had no idea how to disprove. It's a child's word against mine and I can't defend myself against the system when it only protects the child. He had no rights; not even the right to confront his accusers. The police and the media had him on alll the local channels. His case was everywhere. They had him guilty in the eyes of the public without even a trail. He loved kids but not in the way they were trying to say. He was father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He wanted to fight the allegations but all he could hear was remarks his own family had made, like " You can't prove yourself innocent of these charges; the courts alway listen to a child over an adult; you can't afford an attorney, you'll eave Mom with nothing, what are the neighbors thinking?; I'm going to lose my daycare business; How are we going to go anywhere in the community," even to the point of "What if the arrest me next?" coming from Sherry. He'd do anything to protect his family. Two of his children wanted him to get an attorney and told him to fight and he wanted to. He wanted clear his name but in the back of his mind were the rest of the family's remarks. He didn't want to lose everything he worked his whole life for in a court battle he wasn't sure he could even win. He wasn't going to prison for this, not something he didn't do and not for these kinds of charges. He knew what happened to men in prison who were convicted on these kinds of acts. His younger son made sure of that. There was a way out. It involved a gun. Turning the tape player off and on while he made an effort to record his last thoughts to family and friends, he recorded this message: "There has to be another way. I don't want to do this. I just don't know any other way." Papers being rustled around like he was turning pages could be heard throughout the rest of the recorded message and faint noises could be heard in the background of someone coughing.