Whenever I was returned from running away, I would always have to stay in isolation for two weeks, usually alone. Sometimes, if there were more boys than there were isolation cells we would be doubled up. Something I never liked for them to do for the boys were always older than I was.
It was hard to keep track of time there in isolation. So when in the afternoon I heard steps in the hallway, I always wondered, if it was the fourteenth day. I would listen to the steps until they went away, or passed by my door. Always hoping, the steps would not stop at my door. I always knew when the afternoon of the fourteenth day came for that was the only time the door was unlocked for anything but meals.
On the fourteenth day though, shortly after the noon meal, I would hear the steps as they approached my door, then hesitate, then there would be the jangle of keys as the proper key was inserted into the lock. I knew then, it was the afternoon of the fourteenth day.
When I had first heard the steps they had been coming down the stairway. I had been sitting nude on the concrete floor, in the far corner of my dark and barren cell. As far from the door as I could be. I listened to the steps, the hard heals hitting the floor as they approached my door. Then as I feared, I heard the steps stop, then the all too familiar sound of the key being inserted into the lock, the dead-bolt sliding in it's mechanism.
Terror was mounting within me for I knew what was on the other side of the door. How many times had I been through this before? Ten, eleven, twelve times? By now I had lost count. But it had always been the same. By the time the door had opened and the hall light had flooded the room, I was very frightened. There were tears already streaming down my cheeks. My cell light came on and the man walked into the room. I knew it would be him, it always was. It was always the same. In his right hand he carried a board, the same one he always brought.
The board was a little over two feet long, about four inches wide. One end, a handle had been carved, the other was drilled with several holes. Holes not much larger than dimes. Holes big enough for the air to pass through as the board swished through the air to land on some poor unfortunate boy. Someone had spent many hours on the board. For it had been carved, engraved, sanded and given many coats of varnish. The engraving was lengthwise in two parts. In an arch was engraved. "THE BOARD OF CONTROL." Under that, in a reverse arch, "IT CONTROLS EVERYONE." I had seen the board many times. I wasn't admiring the artwork that someone had spent so much time on.
Yes, I had seen the board many times for it hung on the wall in my cottage for all of us boys to see. Whenever my eyes should fall upon that sickening thing, even when it wasn't about to be used upon me, it would send ripples of fear through me. But now, I knew it was for me. I was sick with fear as I slowly stood and then backed into the corner which was behind me.
My thirteenth birthday was but two months behind me. I didn't know if I would be making my next birthday, I had a feeling my life was about to end.
I could tell he was very angry by the way he had walked into the room. By the way he held the board. By the tone of his voice as he said, "Get over here and grab your ankles." Pointing with the board to an area of the floor in front of him. He had walked into the room and was now standing about five feet from the door, some eight feet from me. To an area of the room that would give him plenty of room to swing his paddle.
Yes, I could tell he was very angry. A lot more than ever before. Again, almost yelling at me, "I told you to get over here and grab those ankles. I'll break you of this running away."
The door was standing wide open but the thought of making for it never entered my mind as I slowly approached him. By now, I was openly crying, begging and pleading with him not to hurt me. "Please Sir, don't hit me. I promise I'll never run away again." I cried as I begged, "Please Sir, please don't hurt me."
I heard him yelling for me to bend over in front of him but I held back as much as I could. I kept begging him not to hit me. He was very angry at me and I couldn't understand why, all I had done was run away.
I was in front of him now, all but upon my knees begging him not to hurt me, with my hands half raised, outwards towards him, as though to ward off any blow that may come.
I had been locked in the dark cell for two weeks. There had been no bed, no covers to keep my naked body warm on the chilly nights. There had been nothing to do but sit on the floor with my back against the wall, to think about this moment that always came. Many times I would sit there naked, with my knees under my chin, my arms wrapped around my bare legs and think about my mom and dad, my brother and sister. I was all alone now for they were all gone. I had made up songs about them and I had cried.
I was in front of the man now and facing him. Still pleading with him, tears streaming down my face, when the first blow landed. It came in under my left arm, slightly above my waist line.
"I told you to grab those ankles." He yelled at me again.
White hot stabs of pain shot up my side. "Please Sir, please, I'll grab my ankles!" I screamed in pain. The board came again, this time across my back, still above my waist line. Each time I tried to go for my ankles the paddle would come in, fast and hard. Each time the paddle landed I screamed, "Please Sir, please don't hit me again, I'll do like you told me!" Feeling now I was being severely punished because I had not obeyed his angry command to bend over and grab my ankles. By now, having ran away was lost on my mind. In my mind he was beating me because he was angry at me for not doing as he had told me. The board came at me again and again. The board seemed to land everywhere. Sometimes across my bare legs, sometimes my buttocks, at times higher up. I tried to protect myself with my hands but the board always seemed to get by. I screamed and begged him to stop for I couldn't take the pain.
I had fallen several times and each time I would have to get up. Getting up, I would try to grab my ankles but I couldn't and the beating went on. The last time I had fallen I had turned from him and as I fell the board had hit me in the face. Then everything went dark. Maybe I was brought down by the board or maybe I had fainted from the pain I don't know but I had passed out. After that, I don't know what happened, maybe he had hit me again, I don't know. I don't know how long I had laid there either. It could have been minutes or it could have only been seconds. I never saw the man leave the room. I knew though he could come back at any time and start all over. That was a fact of life there in the Toledo, Iowa, State Juvenile Home.
There was no one I could turn to for protection. There was no one I could talk with. If there had been they wouldn't have believed me. I had complained before, back at the orphanage, before I had been sent to the juvenile home. It had only gotten worse when they had found out I had complained.
When I came to I was covered with welts and bruises. I was laying on the floor. My clothes were laying near by. They were laying there as though someone had tossed them into the room.
Painfully, I pulled on my shorts. I took the strings to them, crossed them in the front then around my waist and back out to the front to be tied. Even my hands hurt for they had deflected several of the blows. Picking up my khaki pants (part of my uniform) I pulled them on, then my T-shirt and then my shoes and socks. Putting on my shoes and socks was the worse. My hands hurt so much it was hard for me to tie my shoe laces.
Once I was dressed I walked through the open door of my cell, into the hallway and up the stairs. The isolation cells were in the basement of the infirmary so when I went upstairs I went to the office of the infirmary where I knew they would be waiting to let me out to return to my cottage.
The front door was silently unlocked and I was allowed to go outside to go back to my cottage, where I knew I would be on restrictions for many days to come. Mostly dry-scrubbing the hardwood floors from the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed in the evening, breaking only for meals.
My mind was in a daze as I heard the door lock behind me. The pain from the beating was over- whelming. It made it difficult to move quickly or even to think clearly. Every muscle and bone in my body ached.
I walked down the steps to the sidewalk that ran past the infirmary. If I followed the sidewalk to the south it would take me to my cottage. In the other direction, to the north, the sidewalk ran to the street that passed the juvenile home. On the other side of the street was the southern edge of the residential section of the small town of Toledo, Iowa. At the sidewalk I slowly turned north. There were no thoughts in my mind as I started walking towards the street. I wasn't angry and thinking about running away. If anything, I was in some sort of shock. It was as though I couldn't believe what had happened to me only minutes before. If someone with a gun had told me to stop I couldn't. That was how bad I was feeling. I would have died there. I couldn't keep on living this way. The hate, the anger, the pain, and I guess more than anything the loneliness. Yes, I guess more than anything the loneliness. There was no one there who loved me nor did I feel even cared about me.
The "Man" was also my cottage father. I don't know what he thought or said when I didn't show up at my cottage. He had just given me the worst beating of my life, "To break you of running away." I think he came close to killing me. Still, even though I was in a great deal of pain, I turned north and slowly walked off of the grounds of the institution.
I couldn't run, I had to walk. Anyone seeing me would have known I was from the institution for I was dressed in the khaki pants and white T-shirt all of the boys at the home wore. Still, no one tried to stop me as I walked north, through several blocks of the residential section and to the highway that ran north out of town. Following the highway I walked all night, until I came to the small town of Traer, Iowa, a little over fifteen miles north of the juvenile home.
When I had ran away from the juvenile home, I didn't have a destination in mind or even a direction. Whenever I had ran away before I had always gone south. This time though, because I had left from the north side of the institution, I went north.
It had been near three o'clock when I had left the juvenile home. As I had walked along the highway I had walked in plain sight. It had been too painful for me to walk across the fields, climbing fences. The going had been slow, it had taken me all of the rest of that day and all night to go the fifteen miles or so to Traer. As I entered the town the sky in the east was getting light.
As I followed the highway into town, off to my right I seen the town park. I was very tired for the walk and the pain had sapped all of my energy but I could see there was no place in the park for me to safely hide and get some rest during the day.
I continued walking. Ahead of me were some railroad tracks. On the other side of the tracks I could see was the downtown area. As I approached the tracks, I could see off to my right, along the south side of the tracks was a long shed. From the highway I could see the south side of the shed was completely open and it was used to store railroad ties and some old lumber in.
I walked over to the shed. In the middle section I seen the railroad ties were not stacked against the back wall. That there was enough space there for me to lay down but anyone walking in, if they walked in far enough, would easily see me as I slept there. So taking some old lumber I closed off the top and both ends of the space behind the ties.
By now it was getting light but still there was no signs of anyone about, as I glanced first to the east, then to the west and to the park south of me. I crawled into my hide-out and laying down on the dirt floor, I quickly fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was stiff and the pain made it difficult to move. I slid the boards from the west end of my hide-out and looked out. I could only see to the south, towards the park. I could see by the sun it was late afternoon and it wouldn't be long before the sun went down. There were still kids playing about the park though.
I was thirsty. I was also hungry but I didn't know where I would be able to get food at. While I had been in isolation for the last two weeks I was only given a quarter of a loaf of bread and a bowl of milk at each meal time.
I could see a drinking fountain in the park but because of all of the kids in the park I was afraid to venture out. I knew I would have to wait until after dark then under the cover of darkness I could satisfy my thirst.
I pulled the boards back in place and waited. Thinking about what had happened the day before, not knowing where I was. Fearful someone would come into the shed and find me and take me back to the juvenile home. Back to the isolation cells and eventually another beating. Yes, I was hurting badly but more than anything my life seemed so hopeless. I wanted to die but I didn't know how.
When it was dark I walked towards the fountain I had seen earlier. By now the fountain was hard to make out in the gloom. As I walked, I stayed in the deepest shadows fearful someone would see me. My biggest fear, was that someone would catch me and take me back to the juvenile home I had escaped from. Yes, foremost in my mind was, if I got caught I would be taken back to the isolation cells. Back to get another terrible beating. I knew that I couldn't live through another beating, not like that one. I didn't see why the next one would be any easier. Maybe worse but not easier.
Arriving at the fountain I looked around. Satisfying myself that no one saw me I took a long drink of water. Then squatting by the fountain, I surveyed my surroundings.
There wasn't much traffic on the highway that ran along the west side of the park. The houses, the ones I could see, all had lights on in them. In some of them they were probably having supper. Some of them probably had kids with a mom and dad.
It was lonely there, looking off towards the houses. Remembering what life had been like when I had been adopted. But that was before my adopted mother had died and I had been returned to the orphanage. That had happen when I was nine, not much more than three years before. So much had happen since then. So much had happen since I was four years old when my real dad had died. Then later when I was six years old I had lost Mom and after passing through three foster homes I had been sent to the Iowa Solders' Orphans' Home in Davenport, Iowa when I was seven years old.
They had said, Mom couldn't take proper care of my brother and me. They had said we had bad table manners and we would benefit from long term institutional care. They had always said those things. "It would be most beneficial to him." "In his best interest." Whenever they had been wrong, it was always I who had to pay the price.
I had memories of my real dad. The walks we went on. Sitting on his knee as he sung a song to me. I remember Mom nursing me through the whopping cough, among a multitude of other things. But there had been other kids there in the orphanage, who were like me and I had been able to adjust to the losses of my mom and dad. Eventually to the loss of my little brother when there at the orphanage they had separated us.
I had been in the orphanage for a year when I had been called to the front office to meet my new parents. I had instantly liked them. Eventually, I was to come to love them as my real parents. Forgetting about my real mom and dad. Forgetting about my brother, the orphanage, and I was an orphan.
I had been very happy living there on the farm, a mile or so north of Leeds and Sioux City, Iowa. I had loved my new parents and they had showed me they also loved me. I was given a new name. My new parents, Ross and Pearl Potter, even allowed me to choose my new name on the first day I had arrived on the farm. They had told me I would now be known as, "Jessie Ross." At the time I had chosen my new name I hadn't known my dad's name was also Ross. The farm life had been great to me. My school, the farm and my new parents were to become some of the fondest memories of my young life.
Eleven months later, after my adopted mother had died, my dad had said when they had come to take me back to the orphanage, "Tell them when you get back to the orphanage, as soon as I get married again I will come for you."
After I had gotten back to the orphanage, the days had turned to weeks, the weeks to months but my dad never came for me. I had told everyone, "I won't be here long. My daddy is coming for me." But my daddy never came.
As I sat there by the fountain the yesteryears seemed to pass before my eyes. So much for such a small boy. So much had happen, in so few years.
At first when I had gotten into the car to return to the orphanage, I had thought it would only be for a day or two. I guess in my mind, at that age, weeks and months didn't exist.
It had been in the morning of the Sixth of January when we had started our journey back across Iowa to the orphanage in Davenport, some three hundred and fifty miles away. It had snowed the night before and it was cold. On the way back, we had driven within a couple hundred feet of the house my real dad had built in Ames, Iowa, only a year before he had died. I was four then, that had been almost five years before, and I had pointed it out to Mrs. Todd, the State Agent, as we passed it, but she had said I was too young to remember that. The going had been slow, so on the way back to the orphanage we had stopped overnight at the juvenile home in Toledo, Iowa. (The one I had just escaped from.)
The next morning after we had eaten breakfast, we had continued our journey onto the orphanage. But because of the snow and ice on the highway, we were still traveling slow. Maybe that is what gave me the idea to try and run away the first time. Running away had been more of an impulse than a plan. I didn't comprehend how far home really was. To me, it was only a day away. I would be there by nightfall. Wouldn't Dad be surprised?
Mrs. Todd was driving the car, I was sitting next to her and the front door of the car. Her husband was sitting in the back with another boy who was also being returned to the orphanage.
Unlike most cars, the front door of the car was hinged at the back, instead of the leading edge of the door towards the front of the car. This caused the door to open opposite of what is normal.
I had sat there for almost an hour, thinking and waiting for my chance to jump from the moving car. Finally Mrs. Todd slowed down for an exceptionally icy area of the highway. I had quickly reached over and grabbed the handle to the front door. I had pushed down on the handle. No sooner had the door unlatched the wind had caught the door and violently pulled it open. Still hanging onto the handle of the door, the force had also pulled me from the car. My feet were still inside of the car as I was dragged along, my head bouncing on the pavement inches in front of the rear wheel. Before the car could be brought to a halt, my feet had broken free and I had rolled into the snow along side of the highway. Dazed, I had gotten up from the snow and walked to the car, which by now had been stopped several feet up the highway. I got back into the car and closed the door. All thoughts of running away completely out of my mind.
Mrs. Todd was shaken and somewhat angry at what I had done. "What do you think you were doing?" She had angrily asked me once I had closed the door.
"I felt a draft Mam." Was my meek reply. I couldn't think of anything else to say. "I was trying to close the door tighter and the wind jerked it open."
By now Mrs. Todd had drove the car back onto the highway and was back at the speed she had been driving. It had not been until then, I had noticed something trickling down my forehead. At first I thought it was water or maybe sweat. I had put my hand to my head to wipe it away and when I had brought my hand back down I could see it was blood. By now it was dripping down my cheek and onto my coat. Mrs. Todd had noticed it too. She had handed me a handkerchief to hold to my head as we drove to Belle Plaine, a small town not more than a couple of miles down the road.
The doctor had used several metal sutures to close the wound. Then after sprinkling some white powder on the wound he had wrapped a bandage around my head.
The rest of the trip had been pretty uneventful. The events of the past hour had exhausted me and I had fallen asleep on the back seat of the car.
YOU ARE AT THE PRESENT IN MY EARTHLINK SITE.