I CRIED FOR A LITTLE BOY
WHO ONCE LIVED THERE ©

Chapter Thirty-Eight

A Man, But Only Physically

RAINBOW
     It was about the end of September when I had been released from the Federal Reform School for Boys in El Reno, Oklahoma.  I was now twenty-one years old feeling no different about life than what I had the first time I had been released from the Iowa Training School for Boys when I was fifteen.  My release was to end almost sixteen years of confinement in institutions.  When I had been taken from my mother when I was six years old, my childhood essentially ended, I was now an adult. (?)  I didn't realize it then but I had been thoroughly institutionalized.  Then I didn't even know there was such a condition or what the effects of it were.
     I had been given a bus ticket to Rock Island, Illinois where my mother now lived, who had recently remarried.  I remember thinking when they released me, "They are never going to lock me up in an institution again."  Not realizing that was the only type of environment I was capable of living in.
     I was not capable of functioning on my own, no more than I had been when I was ten or eleven years old.  But here I was, more of less dumped out on the streets without any sort of support.  All of a sudden I was to control my own life.  There had been no transition from one type of life to the other, except what I was to accomplish on my own.
     Within two or three days after my arrival in Rock Island, I got a job with a heating and air conditioning company and with my first pay check I moved from my mother's apartment to my own.
     At work everything seemed to be fine with me.  I enjoyed working with the other guys.  None of them knew where I was from or anything about me.  All that they knew was, I was an apprentice.
     After work though is when I was having problems.  I was not social with anyone.  I would eat my meals in a restaurant I lived above, I wouldn't speak to anyone but the waitress, then only to order my food.  Once I was finished eating I would then go up to my apartment not leaving until the next morning.
     My apartment consisted of one room, nothing more than a sleeping room.  I didn't have a radio or a TV and I didn't do any reading at that time.  All I would do was walk from the door to the window and back again.  I felt like climbing the walls.  That seems to be an over simplification for I was very tense and didn't know why or what to do about it.
     It had been so bad at times I couldn't lay down.  As soon as I would lay down, the thinking would start, the dreams, the visions of the past.  It was like it had been back at the juvenile home and every since.  The thinking, the dreams, the visions, always of the past, never of the future.
     It was always the same.  It was always about that little boy, a little boy who was all alone.  It was as though I was all he had and I couldn't turn away, I had to think of him.  Yes I even cried for that little boy who once lived there.  I cried a lot.
     This went on until nine or ten o'clock each night.  Weekends were worse for it went on all day until late at night.  I kept thinking in a very confused state of mind, thinking over and over again, "What am I going to do now?"  All of this I was later to learn was the effects of being institutionalized.  There was no longer any one there to tell me what to do and I had no control over any aspect of my own life.
     Each morning I would walk about three blocks to a place where I would wait for a ride to work.  I did this for three or four weeks, until one morning my ride was about ten minutes late.  I walked back to my apartment, packed what few clothes I had and started following the highway south to see where it went.
     Hitch-hiking, passing through St. Louis, Memphis and a few other large cities along the way,  sleeping under highway bridges at night, arriving in New Orleans three days after I had left Rock  Island.
     It was late November, early December when I had arrived in New Orleans.  It had been chilly  further north, especially the nights I had slept under the bridges.  But now it was early Sunday morning and the warmth of the sun felt good as I sat in Jackson Square in the Vieux Carre.  ( Vu Ca-ray French Quarter)

Larry Eugene along docks in New Orleans.
Larry Eugene, 21 years old, along the docks in New Orleans.

     It was early, maybe about eight o'clock in the morning and I was the only one in the square, except for a man walking towards me.  He was carrying a newspaper and he didn't seem to be paying me any attention.  Other than noticing him, I more or less had canceled him from my thoughts and was looking past him at the cathedral, somewhat to the north of me.
     I hadn't eaten for three days, not since I had left Rock Island.  I had taken very little money with me, not much more than enough to buy some peanuts and some "No-Doze" tablets to help keep me awake as I had traveled.  I had taken the whole box of "No-Doze" and I was now feeling the after effects of them.
     I really hadn't started thinking about where I was going to go from there.  I was warm and comfortable sitting there on the bench in the warm sunshine.  Maybe a little hungry but I was comfortable.  From what I could see of Jackson Square, I could see that it was interesting and I hadn't seen any of the Vieux Carre yet.
     I don't know what I had been thinking when I had heard a voice off to my right.  I turned in that direction and seen the man who I had noticed earlier, sitting on the other end of the bench I was sitting on, less than six feet from me.  He was facing me, his paper was now laying folded on his lap.  I could see or feel he had said something to me.  I gave him a questioning look, to show him that I hadn't understood him.
     He asked, "Do you live around here?"  Now he had turned more towards me and had his left arm on the back of the bench.
     "No Sir," I answered and went on to explain, "I just got here this morning."
     He asked me, "Do you have a place to stay?"
     I told him I didn't.  I hadn't even thought of where I was going to stay that night.  I didn't know anyone in New Orleans, let alone my way around.
     He told me I needed some sort of proof I had a place to live.  "The police come through the park from time to time, asking people for identification.  If they find you can't prove you have a place to live they'll arrest you for vagrancy."
     Even though I hadn't done anything that any one would want me for, I sure didn't want the police to pick me up.
     Before I could say anything he went on to say, "What you need to do is mail yourself a letter. That way you will have proof you live here."
     That sounded like a good idea to me but I could immediately see problems with that.  "That would take a couple of days, even if I had a place to mail it to."  I had pointed out to him.
     He told me, "You can use my address and hope you don't get picked up before that."  Then sort as a warning to me, "The police around here are not too nice when they pick you up."
     He was probably twenty years older than I was so I considered him an adult to me.  (I still didn't consider myself as an adult.)  When most adults spoke to me, I basically believed what they said was true.  I felt he was concerned about my well-being and wanted to be helpful to me.  I didn't want any problems from anyone, especially the police.
     He asked me, "Have you had anything to eat today?"
     I told him I hadn't eaten since three days before when I had left Illinois.  I don't remember if I told him I was also broke.  I don't think I did but I don't remember.
     "I live just a few blocks from here."  He told me, then asked, "How would you like to come over to my place for breakfast?"
     I was happy he had asked me, not only because I was hungry but also I was dying for some kind of companionship.  I needed a friend in the worst way.  Someone that could give me that inner calmness I seemed to need so badly.
     We walked out of the park using the north gate on the cathedral side.  As we walked past the cathedral, on towards Royal Street, he told me some of the history of the Vieux Carre.  He made me feel comfortable being with him, I must have hung onto about every word he said.  We had walked only a few blocks down Royal Street when we came to Dumaine.  We turned left and walked about a half block to a green front building.  At that time I didn't notice the address of the building but I later found out that it was 724 Dumaine.
     It was built like most of the buildings in the Vieux Carre.  Balconies on the front, a double door carriage way that led into an open patio in front of what had once been the slave quarters a century before.  The main building and the slave quarters were three stories high and all of it had been made into apartments.
     On the bottom floor of the main building, which had served as the master's home during the slave days, was now a grocery store.  On the second floor, above the carriage way,  was my new friend's apartment.  The room in the front of the building served as the bed room.  The next room back was the living room.  From there led a hallway to the kitchen, passing a full bathroom on the right along the way.  The kitchen looked out onto a balcony which overlooked the patio below.  From the balcony was a stairway to different levels of the building and the slave quarters.
     We went up to his apartment and as he fixed breakfast, he pointed out the window towards the slave quarters and told me some of the history of the building.
     He was some sort of a chef, in all of the time I knew him no matter what meal it was, he always made it a fancy affair.  Whenever the meal was finished he always cleaned the kitchen, the dishes and put everything way.  I felt his apartment was in very good taste, neat and above all clean.
     After breakfast was over with we walked about the Vieux Carre most of the rest of the day, taking time out in his apartment for lunch.  He told me it would be dark before the Vieux Carre came alive but then he would show me what "The Quarter" was all about.
     As we walked about the Vieux Carre, he told me more about it's history.  Like the days pirates frequented "The Quarter."  How Napoleon I had once been there.  He seemed to be some sort of a history buff about the history of New Orleans.
     He told me he was an insurance investigator for a large insurance company there in New Orleans.  If I wanted, he said he would take me out into the Bayou country when he had to investigate some insurance claims.  I didn't know what the Bayou country was but it had sounded interesting.  He did take me out a few days later.  I had to stay in the car as he talked to people about their claim against his company.  I always got the impression he was constantly polite and fair in all of his dealings with people.  He carried a gun under his armpit but I doubt anyone ever knew it was there.  I only knew he had it because he would take it off and put it away each evening when he came home from work.
     It was on one of these trips out in the Bayou country I got my first taste of Chicory.  It is something like a thick coffee.  We had stopped at a small restaurant just off of the road.  We went in and sat down at a small table.  A waitress came over to our table and he ordered for us, as he always did whenever we were out together.  I didn't know what he had ordered because he had ordered in what he called Bayou French, a language which was used in that part of the country.
    When the waitress returned she was carrying two small teacups on little saucers.  When she sat them on the table in front of me, I could see they were filled with a brown liquid, like coffee. As he put some cream and sugar in mine, he told me what it was.  He told me to drink it slowly to get the most enjoyment out of it.  I did like he said.  That was the first time I had drank chicory and I liked the taste of it.  It is strange, that was the last time I enjoyed Chicory, today I can't stand the taste of it.
     But back to the Vieux Carre and the first day I was there.
     As we had walked about "The Quarter" I was very happy being with him.  He made me feel he was really interested in me and cared about me.  Yes, I had a very good feeling being with him.  On that day he was the only important thing in my life.  I had forgotten all about the past, who I was and where I had come from.
     Soon the day darkened into evening and the lights along Bourbon Street began to come on. The neon lights out-shined any street lights that may have been there.
     Once the night life started we stayed on Bourbon Street near Dumaine.  My friend.  (It is strange but I have never been able to remember his name or anyone else' name during that period of time.)  My friend seemed to have a lot of friends, every bar we went into he seemed to know most of the people there.
     He would always introduce me as a Norwegian boy who had jumped ship and couldn't speak  English.  My hearing had been so poor inside of a bar I couldn't understand much that was being said anyway so it was easy to pretend I couldn't understand English. 
     He also lied about my age, telling people I was seventeen, telling them that was why I could only have "Cokes."  I had already told him I didn't drink.
     Everyone seemed to accept what he had told them as being true, anyway they hadn't said anything directly to me.  One man had said something and my friend had leaned over to me, cupping his hand near my left ear, he told me what the man had said.  I really didn't understand, it had been something about the man wanting to take me home with him.  Everyone had laughed, so I did, as though I understood.
     It was Sunday night but the night life seemed to go on all night.  Everyone seemed to be so happy, I know I was happy and was having a good time.  The music had been strange, anyway I had never heard anything like it before and I liked it.
     It had been in the early morning hours when we had returned to his apartment.  During our walk that day he had offered to let me stay with him, "Until you can get a place of your own."
     I hadn't done any drinking that night, mainly because I didn't like the taste of alcohol.  I had only drank "Cokes" throughout the evening.  So when we had prepared for bed I was tired for I had been up since before dawn but stone sober.
     There was one double bed in the bed room.  He had pulled the covers down and we prepared to get ready for bed.  As we got undressed I could see he was of average build, he was about my height probably was about twenty to thirty pounds heavier than I was.  I weighed about a hundred thirty pounds then.  He was a good twenty years older than I was and had thinning hair.
     I had stripped down to my briefs and T-shirt and was getting into bed when he said, "I always sleep in the nude and it makes me feel better when whoever sleeps with me also sleeps that way."
     A red flag should have gone up right then.  I should have noticed something earlier in the evening as we walked around and he introduced me to his friends.  The only excuse I can find, if I need an excuse, is I was unbelievably naive.  I had no idea (Even after all that had previously happened to me.) there were such people as "Gays," Homosexuals," "Bisexuals" or anything else there may be.  But now, today, I realize all of his friends had been homosexuals and lesbians.
     Earlier that evening he had even warned me to stay away from a girl because her girl friend would get mad at me.  I didn't understand why then.
     There were no outward signs the guy I was with was homosexual, even from what I know today.  I guess that is why it had been somewhat of a shock to me when later I had found out why he wanted me to stay with him.
     Yes, no red flag had gone up when he told me he wanted me to sleep nude.  So he liked to sleep nude, I supposed a lot of people liked to sleep that way, I knew I liked to sleep nude from time to time.
     So I took my briefs and T-shirt off and climbed into bed with him.  Laying on my left side I put my back to him.  He had rolled against me and put his arm around my waist.  In a flash, I knew what he had in mind for me by where he had placed his cupped hand between my legs.
     At first I had laid there, not moving or responding in any way.  I didn't know what to do.  I tried to think but I couldn't.  I was alone and I needed his friendship.  Maybe that is why I had submitted to him for he hadn't forced me.  I could have gotten up, dressed and left.  But where could I go?  He liked me and what he was going to do to me probably wouldn't hurt me.  It was better to be with him than have the police pick me up and put me in jail for a vagrant, where something even worse could happen to me.
     It hadn't been like it had been in Yuma, Arizona when I had been forcibly raped when I was sixteen.  It had been more like it had been in Charleston, South Carolina a couple of years before.
     Yes, I could have left but I didn't.  He did as he wanted to do to me and I had responded as he had wanted me to.
     I stayed with him for six weeks, each night doing as he requested.  He didn't seem to want me to find a job or an apartment of my own.  Quite to the contrary, he wanted me to stay with him.  Even to the point he made a veiled threat to me.  It had been about a week or two after I had started staying with him, he had introduced me to a friend of his.  The man was probably in his sixties and from his appearance seemed fairly well to do.
      After we had left his friend he told me how the man had once had a young boy about my age staying with him.  How the man had bought the boy many expensive gifts.  A new car, clothes, jewelry and so forth.  How the boy then had left the man, taking everything with him.  My friend told me that it had almost destroyed his friend and he wasn't going to let that happen to him.  He carried a gun, he said for protection when he investigated insurance claims but it somewhat worried me should I decide to leave.
     For the first four weeks every night had been pretty much of a repeat of the night before.  Sometimes it would only last for about an hour, sometimes it went on for three or four hours.  Each time I would cooperate with him as much as I could to please him so he would be happy with me and be my friend and not want me to leave.
     Even though what was going on every night I was happy there, happier than I had been in my entire life.  We were always going places and doing things in the evenings and on the weekends.  If he drove anywhere we would always go in his car which was a new pink Ford convertible.
     One Sunday we went to a park and he rented two paddle wheel boats and we paddled around a small lake there in the park for two or three hours.  Tiring of this he rented two bicycles and we road around the park most of the rest of the afternoon.
     At that time I felt we sort of belonged to each other.  He was all for me, everything we did revolved around me.  It was as though I was the center of his life and when we were together he showered me with his attention, even when we were with other people.
     I think we had a lot of fun together, the zoo, the park and the river excursions, to name just a few things we did together.  He had even managed to take me aboard an active U.S. Navy submarine.  It seemed as though we were always walking somewhere, to a museum or old cemetery.  Everywhere we went he would explain what we saw.
     It had been about four weeks after I had arrived in New Orleans a friend of the guy I was staying with, arrived.  He was a merchant seaman.  He had been out on a ship for about six months and he would be in New Orleans for about a month.  He had his own apartment but the three of us spent most of our time together.  I can only remember a couple of times the merchant seaman being around me when my friend wasn't there.
     One time (my friend probably would of had a fit if he had known) the merchant seaman had taken me down to his union hall to sign me up as a merchant seaman.  I don't know, it may have been some sort of an apprenticeship or something like that but when I found out it would be over a year before I could get on a ship I sort of lost interest.
     At first I didn't know the merchant seaman was homosexual.  I didn't know that anyone was.  I figured what my friend and I were doing together was a secret and no one else that we knew was doing that sort of thing or knew we were.  So I had been very careful of what I had said or how I had acted when the merchant seaman was around.
     It had been two or three nights after the merchant seaman had arrived that he stayed all night with us.  Normally we didn't sit around the apartment in the evenings.  This evening though we were sitting and watching TV.  They were drinking some kind of whiskey mixed with "Coke."
     The couch we were sitting on made out into a bed.  Sometime  in the evening, maybe around ten o'clock, we all got up and they made it out into a bed.  That was my first indication the seaman would be staying with us all night.  We all sat back down on the couch, which was now a bed, with our legs stretched out towards the TV.  I was sitting in the middle.
     A few minutes after we had sat down my friend commented on how warm he was and stripped down to his underwear.  The seaman had gotten up and followed suit, saying that it was a little warm.  I figured that it was because they had been drinking.
     As my friend was stripping he had told me to get up and strip also.  I had stood up in the middle of the bed and done like he had told me and sat back down again between them.  All I had on were my briefs, they were wearing briefs and T-shirts.  As we sat there they had continued drinking.
     About five minutes after we all had sat back down my friend started playing around with me.  He would act like he was trying to get his hand up the leg of my briefs and at times down the front of them.  I pretended to fight him off for I still didn't know about his friend the merchant seaman.
     I was soon straightened out though for the merchant seaman soon joined in the "fun and games."  It had been the merchant seaman who had said, "Let's pull his briefs off and see what he really looks like."
     They both grabbed me and pulled my briefs down.  I acted as though I was fighting them to keep my briefs on.  I wasn't mad, I probably was even laughing.  There wasn't much I could do about what was happening, even if I had wanted to, not after the way I had been acting the last few weeks.  As they had gotten my briefs down, to a point they could see me well, the merchent seaman had said, "Oh God, I think I am going to lose my mind."
     I hadn't been too excited about two of them after me, though I did like being the center of attention.  I think that was mainly what my intentions were, being the center of attention.  For that I had to pay the price for they both had quickly removed their briefs and they both had a couple of turns at me that night.
     A couple of weeks later my friend invited three of his friends over for the night to have a party.  It was some party, there were party makings and liquor everywhere.
     The party had started off pretty tame, just the guys sitting around talking and drinking.  There was some music playing on the stereo outfit.  Someone had noticed I wasn't drinking and the merchant seaman told him I didn't drink.  He had taken me out one night, when my friend had been out of town, to the Pat O'Brian Club.  We had to have a drink in our hand to watch the floor show and he had tried to get me to drink and I had refused to.  I had never tasted alcohol in my life, I had smelled it and I didn't like it.  I had wound up just holding a bottle of beer in my hand.
     Someone suggested I try Vodka, saying I wouldn't taste the alcohol and fixed me a glass.  I took one small sip of it and told him I didn't like it.  They had been pretty insistent that I drink for my friend told me he could fix it so I wouldn't taste the alcohol.  He had gone into the kitchen and returned with a quart of chocolate milk and mixed the milk and Vodka about half and half.  I took a sip of it and all I could taste was the chocolate milk so I started drinking it as I would chocolate milk.
     One of the guys had said when they seen the way I was drinking the Vodka mixture, "Whoa.  You had better just sip that or you're going to get real sick."
     Before the hour was up I must have drank two or three glasses of Vodka and someone had said I should remove all of my clothes and dance around nude.  If I remember right, by then I was having a "Ball," I was happy, laughing and just enjoying myself.  Maybe it had been what I was drinking or maybe it had been because I was the center of all of the attention or both but I felt good dancing around the room in front of them nude.  They had even stripped all of their clothes off and were taking turns closely dancing with me.
     My glass was never empty, when it got low someone would be there to fill it back up.  This had been the first time in my life I had drank and I was enjoying it.  It was to be the last time I was ever to enjoy drinking.  From that time on, I have never been able to drink, even a small amount, without getting sick and passing out.
     All of the guys at the party were in their forties and fifties, all quite a bit older than I was.  To me they were all adults, something I never considered myself to be.  Then I had been very naive but today I know the party had been set up so all of them could get at me.  Because I was young, so naive and I was the center of all of their attention and probably because I was a little drunk too, I went along with all of the fondling and fooling around they did with me.  I was the life of the party.  I didn't realize the stimulating effect I was having on them, only the effect that they were having on me.  To me, I felt I was on top of the world and I never wanted the party to end.
     Not going into a lot of detail, two of them had grabbed me and carried me into the bed room where they threw me face down on the bed.  Then while three of them held me down, some times on my stomach, sometimes on my back, the forth one sodomized me.  When one was done, the next one would take his turn.  I had been in no shape to resist them so I don't know why they had even bothered to force me other than to heighten their excitement.  At first I think I had tried to resist them for they had been very rough in their approach and it had been quite painful.
     I don't know when I had passed out, which I am sure I did, but it had been during the period of time when they were all having their second turn with me.  When I had awakened the next morning, I was not only sick from all of the drinking I had done but I had also been physically hurt from what they had done to me.
     When I had awakened that morning my friend had already gone to work and I was laying in bed alone.  As I laid there the full realization of what had happen flowed through me.  I realized what had started out as a lot of fun had not ended that way.   I guess the feeling I had when I woke up that morning, was the feeling of being betrayed by my friend.  The glitter of our friendship was gone and I couldn't bring it back.  I no longer felt I was something special to him.
     I don't know but maybe I felt guilt and shame about what had happened to me those six weeks in New Orleans, I know I didn't want anyone to ever know what I had been involved in.  I don't suppose what happened to me in New Orleans could be considered rape, at least not the times I was so cooperative but to me I have always considered it so.  Maybe just so I could survive with myself through the following years.
     Before I had gone to New Orleans and while I was there I had been very emotionally disturbed.  Emotionally, I doubt if I was more than ten or eleven years old.  If what had happened, had happened to a ten year old boy it couldn't have destroyed him any worse.
     A couple of weeks after I had arrived in New Orleans I had written my mother and told her where I was.  I couldn't tell her the truth as to what I was doing so I had told her I was working on a tug boat.
     A few days later my brother had written me (he was now staying with my mother) telling me that he had bought a car.  When I had received his letter it had sort of made me homesick but I had quickly put it away without answering it.  But now after being in New Orleans for six weeks I was emotionally and physically hurting and I wanted to go home.
     Even though I had been physically hurt and it had been difficult for me to walk, I couldn't go and see a doctor even if I had the money to pay him for he would have known what I had been involved in.  So all I could do for the next couple of days was to lay around the apartment healing, thankfully my friend (?) left me alone those days.
     As soon as I felt I could travel I had gotten up after the guy I was living with had left for work and got dressed in the clothes I had worn to New Orleans.
     I had taken all of the clothes which my friend had bought me and laid them neatly over the bed.  The jewelry, the watch, rings etc. which he had also bought me, I left on the kitchen table with the key to the apartment where it would be easy for him to see when he came home.  I had planned on leaving a note but then decided against it.  At the kitchen door I had hesitated before pulling it closed behind me.  I knew once I closed the door and it locked it would be too late to turn back.  I had only stood there for a moment then slowly closed the door, sadly thinking, "I will never be coming back here again."
     I had walked three or four miles to the highway that led west, then north away from New Orleans and started hitch-hiking back to Rock Island, Illinois not knowing anywhere else to go.
     Not catching a ride right away, I stood there worrying that I would see the guy I had been living with coming down the road towards me.  Any pink looking car I seen would make me run to a nearby building where I would go inside and wait until it had passed.
     Eventually a car stopped and gave me a ride all of the way to Jackson, Mississippi.  From there it had taken three days and several more rides to get me back home.  I called it home for lack of any other name.  For I really didn't have a home.

RAINBOW
Wine Colored Roses
MIDI By the courtesy of the MIDI Picking Harry Todd The best on the NET.

 Chapter Thirty-Nine