Boarding School (13 page)

For his part, Frank seemed unaware of my stare. He just continued to sit there and eat his cereal while he allowed his eyes to roam around the room and look at everyone else but me. In a while I decided that the others at my table were obliviously unaware of the significance of what Frank had said. And fortunately, this included Matt.

After that, nobody seemed interested any longer in how I was doing. Matt went on to tell Frank, and anyone else at the table who would listen, about how soundly he had slept during the night, and how this compared to his usual sleeping habits. As this went on, I found I was free, then, to resume my quiet observations of the other students around the room. I figured if I could recognize a voice, I could begin to put this puzzle together. Unfortunately, though, because by this time I had only lived at the Academy for a few weeks, and because I had spent most of my time so far with the twenty or so other boys who were underclassmen—thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds like me—I just didn’t know most of the older kids well enough yet to be able to notice anything familiar about any of them.

In the end, breakfast did give me the time I needed to arrive at a few conclusions. For example, although at this point in my life I was still learning about sex—the night before had increased my knowledge exponentially—I did know enough by now to realize that once a person has experienced it, he’s likely to want to have it again, and again. Even I felt conflicted. As angry as I was over what those upperclassmen had done to me, I confess that I was also thinking about when I might be able to receive my next blow job. The idea in my head that morning for achieving this goal involved hitchhiking to Boston on the weekend, getting together again with Ellen, and then somehow talking her into the idea. But my own emerging needs for sex aside, it seemed pretty certain to me that, unless I made up my mind to take some sort of action now to head them off, my assailants would be back again soon to enslave me once more.

I also realized that if they could grab me in the middle of the night, they could grab anyone. Perhaps even Matt. By now I had developed protective feelings toward my roommate. He was a sweet kid, and I couldn’t imagine Matt ever being able to go through what I had just endured. An experience like mine would destroy him emotionally and he would never be the same kind, innocent boy he was right now if these monsters were ever able to get their hands on him. As I thought about these things, I came to believe that it was my responsibility now to act. And so I resolved to do whatever I could—short of putting myself in greater peril—to stop those upperclassmen assholes, and to put an end to their late-night escapades.

The only person at the Academy I trusted implicitly besides Matt was Mr. Stuart. Although he had made a less than remarkable impression on me at first, over time I had gotten to know the man better. These days he seemed attentive and very accommodating to my needs. In fact, I now thought of him as just the kind of grown-up a kid could go to when he needed to talk, which I had already done on a couple of occasions. After all, at this period in my life, he was the closest thing I had to a father figure. So when breakfast was over, I told Matt I had to go take care of something, and then I left the dining room and began to walk down the long center hallway of Ulster Hall. When I came to the third door past the lobby, I turned to my right and walked in.

“Excuse me, Mr. Stuart?”

My headmaster was already in his chair and staring down at some work on his desk. He usually had his breakfast by himself over in his house instead of joining the student body in the dining hall. At lunchtime his habit was to take his meal with all of us, but unlike my dad, by dinner he was usually gone again because by then he had sunk too far into his bottle to be of any use to any of us. He looked up at me and smiled when he heard my voice.

“Well, good morning, Clint. Come on in. How can I help you?” Mr. Stuart then stood up and gestured for me to take a seat in front of his desk.

I hesitated for a moment in the doorway. “Ah… I have something pretty important I need to talk to you about. Is it ok if I close your door?” For the next half hour until classes were started, the hallway was going to be filled with teachers and other students and I didn’t want anyone passing by to accidentally hear what I was about to say, or even to see me in here.

For a moment, Mr. Stuart seemed surprised at my request, but then he quickly gave me my answer. “Sure, go ahead,” he said warmly. “Close it and then come sit down.”

“Yes, sir.” I then closed his office door and walked in and sat down in one of the office chairs in front of his desk. Once I was seated, Mr. Stuart then sat down again behind his desk. “So, what’s on your mind this morning, Clint?” he asked as he took a sip of his coffee.

I then proceeded to tell my headmaster everything about what these unknown upperclassmen had done to me the night before. I laid it all out for him. I gave him every disgusting and painful detail. He listened quietly as I got it all off of my chest. At one point, I found myself nearly in tears again, but I choked them back because I didn’t want there to be any interruption in what I was telling him. It was almost as if I was having to live through it all again, but once I was done I sat back and waited for his reaction.

“That’s an amazing story,” he observed.

“Yes, sir,” I had been hoping for a bigger display of emotion than this.

“Are you ok?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“Yes, sir. I’m a little sore in a few places, but I guess I’m all right.” I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one at the Academy who considered the actions of these upperclassmen to be outrageous.

“Have you discussed this with anyone else?” he went on.

“No, sir.”

“Not even your roommate?” he queried further.

“No, sir.”

My headmaster then sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. “I guess it was pretty hard for you to come here and tell me all of this wasn’t it?”

“Well yes, sir, it was.”

“And they really forced you to do all those things with them, eh?”

“Yes, sir. Everything I said.”

“I guess your skin must have been pretty pruney after you got out of that shower, then?”

This struck me as a rather frivolous question for him to be asking me. But out of respect, I gave him my answer, anyway. “I don’t know… I suppose it was, sir.”

Then I had a question of my own. “Mr. Stuart, what about calling the police? Isn’t what they did to me last night against the law?” I thought for an instant longer. “I mean, isn’t it a whole bunch of crimes?”

My headmaster seemed ready with his response. “No, I’m not convinced we want to get the police involved just yet. You have to understand, cases like this are almost impossible to prove in a court of law.”

“What do you mean?” At first I found this response a little tough to believe.

“Well, did anyone who wasn’t part of the group last night actually see you get forced into performing oral sex on these boys?”

“No, sir. Not as far as I know. Remember, I was blindfolded the whole time.”

“Right. Well, did your roommate witness you being taken from your room? And were you forced to go with them, or did you go willingly?” The man seemed to know a lot about legal matters.

“No, sir. Matt was asleep the whole time and, I’m sorry to say, I went willingly with them to the gym. It’s true they never told me really why they wanted me, but I had no idea it was going to turn out the way it did.”

“Well there you see,” Mr. Stuart concluded. “The police would simply surmise that since there were no witnesses to say otherwise, you had sex with those four boys last night because you wanted to.”

“But that’s not true!” This answer really upset me. That wasn’t at all the way it had happened.

“I know… I know. I have no doubt that what you’re telling me is true. And because I believe you, I’m willing to do something about all of this. You know, I can inflict penalties on these boys without having to go prove my case first in a court of law. And I want you to think also about the publicity something like this can bring if the police became involved.”

“Publicity?” I hadn’t thought about this.

“Oh yes,” Mr. Stuart continued. “If the police become involved, the whole incident will become public knowledge and then everyone will know about what you did last night.”

“Oh.” I didn’t like the sound of this.

“No, I can keep everything quiet so you’re protected and so nobody else has to find out about how you came to be involved sexually with these four boys last night.”

Shit!
I thought to myself.
Now he’s making it sound like everyone ‘II think I’m a homosexual.
My headmaster was truly giving me a lot to consider that I hadn’t thought of so far.

“So you did the right thing by coming to see me first, Clint.”

Suddenly I felt better about my immediate prospects for the future. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Mr. Stuart then stood up and walked around to the front of his desk. “All right. I’ll begin looking into this immediately. We certainly can’t have older students here at the Academy using younger ones as sex objects now can we?”

“No, sir.” I then stood up because it seemed to me that he was wanting our meeting to be ending now.

“You just leave things to me now and don’t worry.” Mr. Stuart then put his hand on my shoulder and began to guide me toward his door. “I’ll begin an investigation right away to find out who these students are so we can put a stop to this. But, you need to understand that it’s probably going to take me a little time to get to the bottom of all of this. Perhaps even a few weeks…”

“A few weeks?” I interrupted. I wanted action now.

Mr. Stuart wasn’t put off by my protest and continued to speak. “Now I said don’t worry. My methods in matters of this type always work. And once I’ve started looking into this, they’ll know what I’m doing and they’ll probably lie low in the meantime in hopes that I won’t find out who they are. But in the end I will. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if they’ll bother you any further now, but until we know who these boys are for sure, I think it might be best if you don’t say anything to anyone about all of this. And I think this should include your roommate.” Mr. Stuart then opened his office door for me to leave through. “Ok?”

“Yes, sir. That won’t be a problem. I’m finding it all pretty embarrassing anyway.”

“Well, I’m sure you are. So you just leave everything to me. All right?”

“All right, sir. I will. Thank you.”

Mr. Stuart then smiled. “You’re welcome, Clint.” And then he changed the subject, sort of. “Say, I noticed you haven’t been to the baba since you’ve gotten here. With your hair all wet last night, it should have been down in your eyes, eh?”

I smiled. I appreciated his attempt to put me at ease by making conversation. “Well it wasn’t in my way last night because of the eye shades, but normally when it’s wet these days it hangs down over my eyes, pretty much.”

“Kind of like a sheep dog, eh?”

“Yes, sir, I guess.”

“And are you planning to go to see the baba any time soon?”

“Well, not really. I like growing it out like everyone else is doing these days.”

“Yes, well, I think it looks just fine. So you let it grow for as long as you like. In fact, I ‘m thinking of ending our relationship with the baba altogether because nobody from here ever wants to go to him anymore.”

I smiled again. “Yes, sir.” Then it was time for both of us to get on to other things.

“Well, you go now and run along to class and I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve learned anything.”

“Yes, sir.” And then I left my headmaster’s office and started back for my dorm so I could pick up the books I was going to need for my classes that morning. As I walked through the lobby and out the front doors into the dewy New England morning, I reflected on the conversation I had just concluded and decided that even though I had not gotten the huge emotional reaction I had expected from the man, I was still pleased that I had gone to Mr. Stuart with all of this. I felt relieved now that I had done the right thing and reassured that I would no longer have to worry about being molested again.

* * *

For the rest of that day and the one that followed, I tried to take Mr. Stuart’s advice by throwing myself back into my studies. Classes and meals went off as normal, as did our soccer practices. I didn’t sleep well the first night, though. I kept worrying, I guess, that I was going to have another visit and subsequent trip to the gym shower. So by dinner time the next day, I was beginning to feel pretty tired.

“For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.” One of the teachers offered the blessing in the headmaster’s absence.

“AMEN!” The collective response from all of us rose up in the room. And then the sound of sixty wooden chairs being scraped at the same instant along the wooden floor of the dining hall, plus the rush of nearly that many voices talking all at once, filled the room like an explosion. After that, we were in our seats and ready to eat. I was hoping for a good meal, and praying that the cook had succeeded this time in making us one that would taste good. The head proctor was again sitting at the head of our table and as we waited for our food, he turned and spoke to the kid who was sitting in the chair to his right—the waiter’s chair.

“Just stay where you are because the head waiter’s bringing out our plates to us again tonight.”

A moment later the head waiter emerged from the kitchen holding onto a tray which was filled with plates which had already been prepared for us.

“Twice in one week?” I remarked.

“Don’t knock it,” the head proctor had heard my comment. “It saves me a lot of work servin’ you guys.”

“Well that’s fine,” I replied. “Just so long as it’s good.” And it was good. Once again Thomas had made mashed potatoes for us, this time with Yankee pot roast, and I dug into my dinner just as soon as everyone else at the table had been served.

Since most of the guys assigned to my table were older kids, Matt, Frank and I tended to say very little during meals. But on this occasion, once we had all begun to eat, the head proctor tried to engage us in conversation. “So how is soccer coming along for you little guys?”