I noticed it was getting chilly in the park so getting to my feet I took another long drink of water, then after surveying my surroundings once again I headed back towards my hide-out.
It was in the middle of July but I was still too lightly dressed for the cool nights. A little too light for the chill that was being carried on the light breeze from out of the north.
I found some cardboard laying near the front of the shed and dragged it over to the entrance of my hide-out. Tearing it in two I placed one piece on the ground where I had been laying, the other piece I pulled in after me to cover up with. Even under the cardboard, I was still chilly but I knew it was the best I could do. I knew I would have to find something better if I stayed here another night.
I was tired even though I had slept all day but the chill made it difficult for me to sleep. So I was thankful when the sun finally came up the next morning. I knew it's rays would soon warm the shed and I would be able to sleep again. By the time I had heard the first kids in the park the sun had warmed the shed well. I was laying stretched out on my stomach with my head pillowed on my arm. I fell asleep hearing the kids laughing and playing.
I had slept fairly well and it was about mid-afternoon when I awoke again. I needed to go to the bathroom but there were still some kids in the park near the swings. All I could do was to slip into another section of the shed and go behind some lumber that was stored there. After returning to my hide-out, I laid so I could watch the kids in the park. There were two girls and a boy. The boy looked about my age, the girls maybe a little older. I was thirsty but with the kids there, I felt it would be better if I waited. I had been turned in by a kid once when I had ran away from the orphanage. So it was natural I didn't trust adults or kids.
As I laid there my thoughts drifted back to the time I was like them, before I had to go back to the orphanage. Then the time after I returned to the orphanage. How my life had changed so much.
I was nine years old when I had been returned to the orphanage. After I realized my dad wasn't coming for me I couldn't adjust as I had before. When you are younger you can adjust to losses fairly easily but as you grow older it becomes a lot harder.
I did feel bad about how soon I had forgotten my real dad and mom after I had lost them. Then how quickly I had forgotten my little brother after we had been separated at the orphanage. My adopted home on the farm had been good to me. It had also taught me what it was like to have a family and I did miss that. Maybe that is why I was to later have all of the problems I had.
After I returned to the orphanage, memories of my real mom, dad, sister and brother did resurface. I spent a lot of time while I was in isolation at the juvenile home thinking of them. I had tearfully asked several times at the orphanage and the juvenile home if they would tell me where my brother was but I was always given the same answer. "He has been adopted and you will never be allowed to know where he is."
My problems didn't start as soon as I returned to the orphanage but about five months later. I don't really know what caused me to run the first time. Maybe it had been I had given up all hope of my dad ever coming for me. Maybe it was my new cottage mother in the cottage I was moved to about a week before I started running. My new cottage was for twelve year old boys, I had barely turned ten. I don't know why I had been passed by the ten and eleven year old boys cottage. Maybe it had been found, a man there at the orphanage had been fondling me. Maybe because of that they thought I should be with older boys. Yes it had been shortly after my tenth birthday I had met that man.
When I had turned ten in May I guess I was about like any other boy there in the orphanage only I knew what adoption was and I was waiting for my dad to come and get me. By the end of May though I had all but given up any hope he would ever come.
School had let out for the summer and it must have been near the end of May the first of June when I was sent from my job at the greenhouse to get a haircut. We got haircuts about once a month. The barber shop was just off of the walkway that passed under the hallway that joined the kitchen and the dining room. When I arrived at the barber shop, I had to sit and wait my turn while the barber finished with the boy who was already in the chair.
After my hair had been cut, I started back to the greenhouse. As I came out of the walk-way to the barber shop, I seen what looked like ice laying at the bottom of the steps that came down from the kitchen. I thought it was ice but it didn't melt like ice, so I stopped to investigate it.
I was squatting on the ground near the ice when a man came down the steps from the kitchen. He was dressed in a white shirt and pants. He was wearing a black belt and I believe he was wearing black shoes. I also remember him being obese. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was playing with the ice. Thinking I was in trouble for I was on the girls' side of the institution, so was the greenhouse but I didn't think he knew I worked there and I was on my way back to work.
He stopped by me and told me I was playing with "hot ice" and if I wasn't careful it would burn me. As he stood there we talked some more. He asked me how old I was and I told him I was nine years old but I would be ten on my birthday. He had asked me when my birthday was and I told him it would be on May the Thirteenth. He told me that had been a few days ago.
At the orphanage birthdays were not celebrated and we had no way of keeping track of the dates, only days of the week, so it was easy to go right past a birthday and never realize it.
He had asked me if I wanted to go to his apartment. I liked him and I thought maybe he wanted to give me something for my birthday or something like that. So I guess I had been sort of excited when I said, "Sure, I would like to go."
Maybe it was because he was an adult and was being friendly towards me. Something I needed and craved so badly. At that time there was no father figure in my life, except for my adopted father and he seemed to have abandoned me.
The man's apartment was on the first floor of a nearby building. Once we were in his apartment he closed the door then turning to me, he told me to take my clothes off.
I was dressed in my usual clothes we wore during the summer months. White T-shirt, blue shorts and since I was working my shoes and socks. We didn't wear underwear. I didn't feel threatened, I undressed all of the time in front of adults and kids when I took a bath, changed clothes, when we went to bed, or even when we went swimming in the pool for we didn't have swimming suits. So when he told me to take all of my clothes off, I don't know what I was thinking but I know I didn't feel threatened.
Taking my shoes and socks off I let them drop to the floor, my T-shirt soon followed. Then slipping out of my shorts I let them fall to the floor. I was completely nude when he put his arm around me and led me to the couch. He made comments about how strong I was and how big I was for a ten year old boy. He made me feel good for it had seemed like a long time since anyone had put their arm around me and held me close.
As he talk he was rubbing my legs and stomach then started playing with me by placing his hand between my legs. I didn't feel uncomfortable about it. He was an adult and he was paying attention to me. He seemed to like me. In a way he was giving me something I needed, a feeling of someone caring about me.
He laid me down on the couch and he performed oral sex on me. He asked me if I liked what he was doing and I told him I did. Not so much as to what he was doing to me physically but he was making me feel I was something special to him and he cared about me. I felt he was my friend.
I don't remember how long we were there in his apartment, maybe it was fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe a half hour but whatever time it had been he never hurt me, not in all of the time we were there.
There may have been other times over the course of the next week, it seems there was. About a week after it had started I was taken out of Cottage #4 and transferred to Cottage #8. I was also told I could no longer work in the green house.
From that time on I never saw my friend again. I don't know what happened to him, maybe someone found out what he was doing to me or some other child. I know I never told anyone about what had happen in those few days between him and me. I never felt what he was doing was wrong.
Whatever the reason was, I started running away shortly after entering my new cottage. Each time I would run away, I would go a little further and stay a little longer. Each time I was caught and was brought back, the whippings had gotten a little harder. Yet at every opportunity I would run away again. At first not knowing where I was going.
By the time I went to my new cottage I had never had a whipping nor had I ever been so much as slapped. I couldn't even remember a harsh word being spoken to me. I knew what whippings were for I had seen other boys getting them.
The first time I had been in the orphanage I had been well behaved. I don't think I behaved because I thought I would get a whipping or anything if I didn't. The only time I had even thought I was close to a whipping, had been when I had been adopted out. I had lied to my adopted father about doing my farm chores. He had gotten mad but he never whipped me. I know I never lied to him again. Even now, lying isn't one of my faults.
All of the boy's cottages were even numbered, starting with Cottage #2 and going to Cottage #18. On the girls side of the institution, their cottages were odd numbered.
I had been in Cottage #4. Cottage #6 was between Cottage #4 & 8. Cottage #6 was for ten and eleven year old boys. Cottage #8 was for twelve year old boys. Cottage #8 was to be my new cottage.
I was sad when it came time to say good-by to my cottage mother and all of my friends. It was like I would never see them again. Even though my new cottage wasn't much more than a hundred feet away, it was like going into another world. In a way, it sort of was. Our world was our cottage, nothing else existed. We played together, we did everything together. We never did anything with boys in other cottages. When we had marched to the dining hall, church, school, or when we went out to play or anything else, we did it in a group. Maybe at times the group would only be two or three boys but they were always from my cottage.
With a bundle of clothes in my arms, I walked to my new cottage. As I stepped upon the rear porch of my new cottage, my new cottage mother Ms. Gruber was there waiting for me. She got up from the chair she had been sitting in, then going to the door she held it open for me. That was about the last nice thing she had done for me.
Rear of Cottage # 8 Cottage #8 was built like my old cottage. All of the rooms were laid out the same. Inside of the back door was a hallway that led into the washroom, where there were sinks and mirrors for us boys to clean up and comb our hair. Through that room was the front hallway, the stairs that went up to the dormitory and Ms. Gruber's apartment. Under the stairs was a small room where our clothes were kept. That is where Ms. Gruber took me.
She had said, in sort of a stern fashion, "This is your cubbyhole. This is where you are to keep all of your clothes, neatly folded."
The cubbyholes were like the ones in my old cottage. Each boy had his own cubbyhole to keep his clothes in. There was a name on the shelf of each one. My name was already on mine.
Seeing I had put my things away properly, she had instructed me to follow her. We had gone back into the washroom then left into the day room. The day room was where all of us boys would sit quietly whenever we were in the cottage. Through the day room, she led me through a set of double sliding doors, into her sitting room. The double doors always remained wide open so she could watch us boys whenever we were in the day room.
She stopped in front of her overstuffed chair. I was standing to her right and slightly behind her. I watched as she reached forward and picked up the razor strap from the arm of her chair. A tinge of fear shot through me. I knew what the razor strap was and what it was used for. I was shaking inside as she turned towards me. I had never felt the sting of a whipping but I could well imagine what it must have been like. Thinking I was in for my first whipping, she had held the strap in front of my face, almost touching my nose and she said in a stern fashion, "As long as you are in my cottage, you will address me as Mam. You will always say, Yes Mam or No Mam whenever I speak to you."
I don't think there was any question in her mind I was scared, I am sure it was written all over my face.
She had gone on, "I will only tell you once and only once. I won't repeat myself. If you disobey me, I am going to use this on you." A chill had gone through me. I was visibly shaken as she shook the strap even closer to my face.
"You know the rules. You have been here long enough. No fighting anywhere. No loud noises in the cottage." Yes I knew the rules but there always seemed to be new ones. I had been lucky so far, I hadn't broken any. Well I hadn't gotten into any trouble for breaking any rules yet.
She had laid out a lot of other rules too. Like I was always to be on time. I was never to be caught playing in my school clothes. Oh yes, stay out of the front room. I guess that was were Ms. Gruber and I first crossed swords, only I didn't have a sword.
Shortly after I had returned to the orphanage my mother had come and visited me. She had given me a photograph of herself. In the photograph she had a flower in her hair. I thought she was very pretty and I loved to sit, look at the photograph and think about her. In my old cottage I had been allowed to keep the photograph with me but in my new cottage, I had to keep it on the top of the piano in the front room.
I had come into the cottage and I hadn't seen Ms. Gruber around. I knew I wasn't suppose to go in the front room but I didn't think it would hurt if I went in and looked at my mother's picture for a minute or two. I was a little scared as I went into the front room but I had thought, "I won't stay very long. Only long enough to get a quick look at my mom."
I guess my quick look lasted a little too long. When Ms. Gruber found me, I was sitting there on the piano bench, with tears in my eyes, looking down at my mother's photo. I hadn't seen Ms. Gruber when she entered the room, for my back had been towards the door she had come through. The first I knew she was there was when she had grabbed me by my hair.
"I told you, you were never to come into this room." Her voice had been very angry as she pulled on my hair, my mother's photograph falling to the floor.
She pulled me into her sitting room, to her chair where the razor strap laid. She let loose of my hair and stepped back. "Drop those pants young man and lay across the chair."
It had been warm that day and our uniform for the day had been blue shorts and a white T-shirt. I wasn't wearing any underwear, shoes or socks. So when I laid across the arm of the chair there was nothing between the strap and me.
I had known as soon as she had dragged me into her sitting room what was going to happen. I guess, I should have known as soon as she had caught me sitting there in the front room. I would have explained to her what I had been doing in the front room, if she had only given me a chance. I am sure she would have understood.
As it was, I didn't have a chance to. I didn't have a chance to say anything until just before the strap hit me. There were tears running down my cheeks as I started to say, "Please Mam, I won't go into the front room again." It was interrupted though by my scream as the strap hit.
I tried again, "Please Mam, I'll be good," I pleaded. That was all I could get out before the strap landed again.
"I know you will be good, for I am going to give you something you will remember for a long time." The strap came in again and again. I had tried to turn my back more away from her but the strap came down on my side. No matter how I turned, the strap followed me.
I don't know how many times the strap came down on my naked body but it had seemed the whipping would never end. When it was over, she was exhausted. I know I was, as I sat quietly on a chair in the day room for the rest of the day.
I had been afraid of Ms. Gruber the first day I had met her. A week hadn't gone by and I had gotten my first whipping from her. Now to say I was afraid of her would seem to simplify how I felt about her. It was more like, I was terrified of her. One look from her was all it would take for a shudder of fear to ripple through my body. Until I had met her, I was never afraid of any adult. She always seemed to be so angry at me. There didn't seem to be any way I could satisfy her or stay out of her way.
