The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal Read Free Book Online

between New Haven and Hartford. It had no particular significance for Gerhartsreiter, except for the fact that one of the three people he knew in America lived there. He called the number of Peter Roccapriore, the student he had met on the train, explaining to his mother the invitation he had so kindly received from her son that summer. “I’m here at the bus station, can you please come and get me?” he asked. Peter was apparently away that day. But his mother rushed right over. If her son had met a nice young man who had shown him some kindness in Germany, how could she not return the favor? She gave him a room in her home and she and her family welcomed the slightly built blond teenager. Peter took him over to Platt High School in Meriden, and helped him get enrolled in the senior class. The outgoing immigrant had already graduated from high school in Germany, but he didn’t tell anyone that.
    Christian stayed with the Roccapriore family for only a few weeks—according to the documents I read, they were under the impression that he was going to return to Germany immediately thereafter. But a few weeks was enough time for Gerhartsreiter to lay the groundwork for his American odyssey.
    “Exchange student seeking room and board,” read a tiny classified ad in the local newspaper of Berlin, Connecticut. This was misleading, because the young German was only visiting on a tourist visa. But no matter. The ad caught the eye of Gwen Savio, a librarian at Berlin High School. She and her family had hosted foreign exchange students in the past—most recently a French boy named Dominique—and had enjoyed pleasant and meaningful experiences. She called the number listed in the ad, and soon Christian Gerhartsreiter had his thumb in the air once again, trying to hitch a ride from Meriden to Berlin. No one stopped, however, so he walked the four or five miles to his new home, a town of fifteen thousand with an appropriately Germanic name.
    He got there late in the afternoon, lugging his meager possessions and looking like a mess after his trek. Edward Savio, the oldest of the family’s four children, who was then fifteen and is now a screenwriter in California, remembered Gerhartsreiter’s arrival well. He appeared to be trying very hard to resemble his idea of what an American teenager would look like, Edward said, with white-framed sunglasses, formfitting jeans, and a tight button-down shirt. His long hair was “windblown and spiky.” But what struck Edward Savio most was the young man’s curiosity. His head moved from side to side, he seemed to want to take everything in. And of course the family was curious about him: who he was, where he had come from, and how he had landed in Berlin, Connecticut, of all places.
    “My name’s Christian Gerhartsreiter,” he said with a light German accent, again the epitome of the friendly, outgoing, accommodating immigrant, eager to please and happy to have a home in the strange new country. The Savios didn’t have a spare room, but he said he would be happy to sleep on a couch in the living room.
    Gerhartsreiter became the fifth child living in the house. Edward had twin brothers, age ten, and a sister, eight, whom everyone called Snooks. Their father, Jim, was a computer engineer. “On my birth certificate, under my father’s occupation, it says ‘Computer Operator,’ which back then was like saying he worked on the space shuttle,” said Savio. The house was full of early computers and video games, which must have delighted Gerhartsreiter, enamored as he was of all things technological.
    Upon moving in with the Savio family, Gerhartsreiter transferred his records from Platt High School to Berlin High, one of the best public schools in Connecticut in terms of academics. He said he was a senior, and since his school records were in German, nobody seems to have bothered to verify that claim.
    As for his background, according to Edward Savio, “He said his father was an