Boarding School (8 page)

Years later, I gave the bracelet to my daughter when she was still a little girl, because it was something of mine which she admired. My wife one day threw out the baby bottle because she couldn’t imagine why a grown man would have such a thing sitting on his closet shelf, and the picture I had mounted. It is with me still today and has become one of the items from my youth which I truly treasure.

On the following Monday, a few days later, classes resumed as normal. Throughout the day I felt as if I was on top of my game. I remember receiving an “A” on my English composition that day, and at lunch I actually enjoyed what we had been given to eat. In the afternoon during soccer practice, I felt as if I was finally getting the hang of things. I had figured out the way to adjust my foot and angle my body so I could loft the ball accurately whenever I wanted. I don’t know if my successes on this day had anything to do with the great lift in my spirits I was still feeling after my date with Ellen, but regardless of what the reason was, I had a tremendous day.

At dinner that night, Matt and I found ourselves assigned to a different table. Frank was now sitting with us and the rest there were upperclassmen whom, as of yet, I really didn’t know all that well. The teacher who was supposed to sit at the head of our table lived off campus with his young family, and therefore was AWOL during most of our meals. This particular meal was just such an occasion, so the head proctor took charge of us instead.

Once the blessing had been said and we had all taken our seats, a couple of things happened which struck me at the time as being sort of strange. For starters, instead of one of us at the table being assigned to be our waiter, and then that boy being saddled with the task of bringing out a tray filled with serving platters and bowls filled with food, and instead of having our dinner portioned onto plates by the head of our table and then passed around family style to the rest of us as usual, the head waiter appeared instead with a tray loaded down with plates which had already been prepared for us in the kitchen. He then made a special effort to give everyone at our table the precise plate which he believed each person was supposed to have.

The whole business struck me as odd and at one point I asked one of the bigger kids sitting next to me why our table was doing things so differently. The guy responded simply that because the head proctor was in charge of our table, we were sometimes accorded special treatment. Honestly, I thought his answer sounded goofy. But I couldn’t come up with abetter one, so I accepted my plate and began to eat my dinner once everyone else at the table had been served.

Another thing that I remember about that meal was that instead of being served the usual fried or boiled potatoes, on this night we were given mashed potatoes. Normally, our cook never wanted to go to this much trouble for us. I loved mashed potatoes, especially when they were served with fried chicken as they were on this night, and I found them a real treat. But Matt told me afterwards that he had thought that his had tasted a little funny.

During study hall that night, I noticed that Matt couldn’t keep himself from yawning. For some reason he seemed overly tired all evening and by the time the bell had gone off for lights out, he was already in his bed and nearly asleep. Within, perhaps, two minutes after I had turned out our lights and gotten under my own covers, I could hear Matt breathing deeply. It amazed me to see how quickly that kid could fall asleep.

In bed, I remember being keyed up over my day, plus I was still reliving my date with Ellen. So it took me some time that night to fall asleep. In a while, though, I did manage to drift off. Another day was finished, and another week had begun, and I was beginning to believe that things for me at the Academy were going to work out all right after all.

I didn’t hear them enter our room a few hours later. I don’t know if they first spent some time going through our things or if they just watched us sleep for a while. But the next thing I knew, I was feeling impressed to wake myself and open my eyes. When I did, I saw two tall figures standing over me in the moonlight with Halloween masks covering their faces. I must have been startled to see them because immediately one of them placed his hand over my mouth to silence me. Then, I saw him raise his index finger to his mouth hole.

“Shshsh!” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s all right, we’re just upperclassmen,” the first one whispered to me.

I then calmed down and the guy removed his hand from my mouth. “What’s going on?” I asked nervously. “How did you get in here?” These guys were full grown and it made no sense to me to have them there in our room.

“It’s all right,” the second one then whispered as well. “We used a pass key. Sit up for a minute and we’ll explain it to ya.”

I did as they asked. Once I was upright, things didn’t seem so overwhelming to me. “All right. I’m up,” I acknowledged. “Now what?”

The first one then continued. “We’ve come to get you for a little… initiation we give to a few special first-year guys every year. It’s like.. .a special honor.”

“Oh?” I replied. “Well can’t you honor me later? Like after breakfast or something when I’m awake?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what to make of all of this.

The second one then answered me. “No, the tradition is to do this now. At this time of the night.”

“What about Matt?” I asked. I then looked over at my roommate and saw that he hadn’t noticed any of what was going on next to him. He was just lying there with his eyes closed—sawing logs.

“No, this has all been arranged just for you. Come on, stand up. A bunch of us are waiting.”

“A bunch?” I was surprised to hear that I was such an object of interest for so many. I don’t know why, but this was apparently enough to persuade me to get out of bed and go along with these guys. Perhaps I’ m just more prone to powers of persuasion when I’m only half awake.

When my bare feet first hit that cold linoleum floor, I began to look around the room for something to put on.

“No!” the first one stopped me as I reached for a pair of pants. “That T-shirt you’re wearing, and your briefs are all ya’ll need. Just put on your sandals and let’s go.”

“Really?” I asked. “You want me to go someplace in just my underpants?” As strange as this sounded, it really didn’t raise that many red flags in my mind. After all, this was an all-boys school and there were no women around anywhere at this hour of the night.

“Naw, you don’t need nothin’ else. At this time of night most of us are in what we normally wear to bed anyway.” The first one made it all sound so friendly. As if the three of us were headed for some big pajama party and staying in my underwear would help me to fit in better. Then I noticed that both of these guys were wearing blue jeans. “Yeah, but you two guys have pants on,” I observed.

“That’s because I normally sleep in the nude,” the first one replied.

“Yeah, and so do I,” the second one now joined in again. “Hey, we’re runnin’ out of time. Come on, let’s get going.”

“Fine.” I said nothing more on the subject after that. I decided that it really didn’t make any difference to me at this time of night how I was dressed—or not dressed. And besides, it was normal at the Academy to see boys running around in the dorm hallways wearing nothing but their underpants, especially in the mornings before breakfast and at night before lights out. In fact it was even commonplace for guys to walk into the rooms of other students and sit down for a chat while their friends were dressing. I had figured that this general lack of personal modesty at Ulster had been brought about by the large community shower rooms that the other dorms had. With no partitions or curtains set up between the shower heads, there was little reason for a kid to hide himself after he had showered a bunch of times with practically everyone else in the school. So in silence, I walked over to our closet and slid my feet into my flip-flops. “All right, now what?” I asked once I had them on.

The first one then pulled a pair of eye shades out from his pocket. “Now we have to blindfold ya.”

This idea didn’t thrill me. “How come?” I asked.

The second one was ready with an answer for me. “This group is sort of like a secret society. We want you to become one of us, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. So if you decide not to join us, we don’t want you to know who any of us are. Otherwise our society wouldn’t be secret anymore. Ya see?”

The explanation seemed to make sense. After all, they
were
wearing masks. “I guess.” So I gestured for them to go ahead and put the things on me. The first one placed the elastic string around the back of my head, and then he pulled the shades down over my eyes until the plastic was resting on my nose. I then could feel both sets of their hands pulling my hair out all around from under the string and then smoothing it down straight again. I guess they did this to make sure the eye shades fit snugly around my head.

“Good!” the second one said when they had finished with my hair.

“Ok, let’s go.” Next I could hear the first one walk over to the door and open it. He then stepped back over to where I was standing and grabbed my arm. “We’ll guide you to where the others are waiting.”

“Ok,” I acknowledged. I then could feel the first one pulling on my arm, so I began to walk along with him. Once we had walked out into the hallway, I could hear the second one close my door and then catch up with us. “Hey, hold up. We forgot something.”

“Oh right!” the first one answered. And then we stopped walking. “Here, put your hands out in front of you,” he then let go of my arm.

Without thinking, I did as he asked. “Why?” I then could feel my wrists being tied together with some rope.

“Because we’re supposed to tie your hands together,” he replied.

“It’s all right,” the second one then spoke up before I could offer any sort of a protest. “I don’t know why they feel it’s necessary. It’s not like there’s anyplace you can run away to. But it’s part of the tradition, so we have to do it.”

I said nothing more. In another moment my hands were tied together in front of me and the three of us were out the door, up the stairs, and on our way across the upper campus in the middle of the night.

They guided me across the basketball court in front of my dorm and then over to the circle in front of Ulster Hall. Once we had passed the flag pole, we then turned left and began to walk along the main drive toward the front gate to the school. It was still early enough in the fall for the temperature that night to be comfortable. At least I don’t remember feeling cold.

As my journey progressed, I suppose my mind was working mostly on the task of trying to figure out just what all of this could possibly be about, and where in the world these guys were taking me. So when we turned off the drive just before we reached the gate, and began to follow the cement path which led to the gym, I breathed a small sigh of relief. I had been starting to worry that these guys were going to be taking me off campus somewhere. If that had happened, I figured it would be anyone’s guess where I might end up. But now that it seemed clear that we were remaining on campus, I knew, at least, that I would be safe.

When we pulled open one of the doors on the front of the building and walked into the gym, it sounded to me at first as if the place was closed down. But in a few moments, as I became accustomed to the sound of our footsteps crossing that vast wooden floor, I began to notice other sounds. People were talking. I realized then that apparently some guys had gathered in one of the back rooms of the place. So I knew finally, that I was about to learn what this secrecy was all about.

“Well, here they are,” I heard a voice say as we entered the coach’s locker room through a door off a little side hallway in the rear of the gym. I was then escorted over to what I judged to be the center of the room where the two guys who had brought me then let my arms go so the three of us could stand side by side as if we were about to take part in a ceremony of some kind.

“Welcome, Clint!” An enthusiastic voice by the wall in front of me sounded pleased that I had come. Apparently except for the two guys standing on either side of me, everyone else in the room was lined up along this same wall. I remembered that this room measured about twenty feet square—a little large for a locker room in a building this small—and there was a door from here which led into a private bathroom with a single stall shower. I also knew that these two rooms were about as far away from everyone else on the campus as one could get. There were no windows, and outside the only things nearby were trees—and lots of them. In these rooms and at this time of night, we were truly isolated from the rest of the world.

“Hi,” I answered back. The eye shades didn’t fit me just right, so I could make out that the lights had been turned on in this room. Then the voice against the wall spoke again.

“You can call me ‘leader,’ Clint. The rest of us here have appropriate names also that you’ll learn in time.” The leader was making himself sound cordial. “It’s so nice of you to join us here tonight. Do you know why you’re here?”

“They said something about an initiation,” I answered. As soon as I had spoken, I thought I could hear suppressed snickering going on around the room.

“Yes, well… an initiation is a good way to put it.” The leader’s cordial tone now seemed to be giving way to one of condescension.

I suddenly sensed that this situation I was now in wasn’t as friendly as I had been led to believe. “But I was also told that if I didn’t want to join, I didn’t have to.” I figured I’d better get the qualifier stated right up front.

Outright laughter then broke out around the room. I had apparently said something that had struck everyone there as funny. I now had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me I had made a huge mistake in agreeing to come here tonight. I began to think about what it would take for me to get out of this place in a hurry if I had to.

“Yeah, well… I’m sorry, Clint, but they lied to you about that. You have no choices here. All you need to know is that we’ve chosen you to be part of our little group and that’s the end of it. From now on, you’re gonna have to do what we say whenever we say it. Ya got that?”