Boarding School (16 page)

“Hey, shut up!” the rooster said to his comrade. “Now we can’t use them anymore,” he said about the pills.

Once I was upright, I could see that both of these yo-yo’s were upperclassmen, after all who else could they have been, and I found myself dumbfounded by what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe how cavalier these guys had been with our health. “I can’t believe you guys would actually put sleeping pills in our food,” was all I could get out on the subject because I was equally angered over the fact that these guys were invading our privacy again. “We don’t want you in our room at all. So damn it, get out of here!” I shrieked. “We’re trying to sleep.” It galled me to think about the nerve these characters were showing by entering our bedroom at such a late hour of the night.

“Let’s go, little guys,” the one closest to me then said, ignoring my rant. The southern accent now was dropped, which presumably meant that in their minds, the time had come for everyone to be serious. “We’ve got big things going on tonight.”

I didn’t care about big things. I wanted to be left alone so I could go back to sleep. A quick glance at my alarm clock told me that we were having this exchange at ten minutes after two in the morning. So instead of cooperating, I began to yell even louder. I guess I was hoping at that moment that someone nearby would hear me and come to our rescue. “We’re not going anywhere with you guys. Not now, and not ever. So get the hell out of our room!”

I guess I was too blind with anger to see it coming, but as soon as I had said my last word, the rooster swung his right arm around and slapped me hard across my face.

“Auhauh!” The blow flattened me.

“Now listen up, both of you,” the rooster had become mad too. “You
are
coming with us one way or another. So my advice to you both is that you shut up and do as we tell ya. Now move it! Out of bed, both of you!” The rooster then stepped closer to Matt to roust him out of bed which, considering the small space they had to operate in between our two beds, caused the ghost to have to side step closer to me. “Come on! Right now, Matt!” the rooster crowed.

“Yeah, you too, Clint,” the ghost was now looking at me. “Get your ass out of bed now, or else.”

“I don’t think so.” By this time I had sat back up again and was feeling more defiant than ever from the hit I had just taken. “We’re not goin’ anywhere with you two slime bags.” I had had it.

The ghost then became angered as well by my refusal to comply and began to swing his right arm so he could slap me in the same way his partner had just done. But this time I was ready. Instantly I threw a block with my left arm and stopped him before he could reach my face. Then, before he had a chance to recover, I grabbed the bones on his wrist with the thumb and first two fingers of my right hand, and I twisted his wrist while I used my left hand to hit and then reverse his arm at the elbow. In the midst of it all, I switched hands so that when I had completed the move, I had turned him around one hundred and eighty degrees, and I was holding his arm behind his back with enough pressure to snap it in three places all at once.

“Auhauh!” The ghost cried out in pain.

I was determined to make my point with these assholes so I was keeping the tension on his wrist, elbow and shoulder pretty high. This was actually my favorite karate technique. I had practiced it plenty of times in the past, but what amazed me when I did it this time was that I was able to execute this move perfectly while still being seated on my bed.

“Auhauh… God!” The ghost continued to complain about my treatment.

It felt good to finally be able to hold my own against these bastards and inflict upon them a little of what they had been doing to Matt and me. “All right,” I began to announce in a loud and confident voice. “This is the way its gonna be. Either you two jokers get out of here right now, and then you and the rest of your band of perverts stay the hell away from us forever, or I’ll break all three joints in this guy’s arm right now.”

“All right, Clint!” Matt then smiled and sat up. He believed that I had finally turned the tables on our adversaries. And so did I.

The sudden feeling of power from being able to control our own lives once again was intoxicating. “So you decide,” I went on. “Which way is it gonna be?” I tried hard to make myself look and sound as if I meant business… because I did.

“Auhauh… Come on, kid. You’re killin’ me! Auhauh!”

I added still more pressure to my hold so I could further demonstrate my resolve. It was clear now that I had beaten them. This whole miserable business they had been putting Matt and me through was about to be over for good—or so I thought.

By the time I saw it coming, there was nothing I could do to stop it. Both of my hands were already occupied, and I couldn’t move around really or use my feet to defend myself because I was still sitting on my bed. The rooster hopped over to the other side of the ghost and then slugged me full out in my face.

“Auhauh!” The blow laid me out completely, and as I lost control of my body, my hold on the other guy’s arm was released.

“Clint!” Matt called out in a panic when he saw me get put down. “Clint!” He wanted to jump over to help me, but at that moment, the just-freed ghost had moved into his way.

With the ghost now turned loose, the rooster reached down and grabbed me by the front of my T-shirt and then lifted my limp body up off of the bed. With rage in his eyes, he then readied his fist to finish me off. I just hung there in the air, unable to move and waiting for his inevitable blow to end it all for me.

“Hey, hold on, man!” The ghost suddenly came to my rescue. “If you wipe him out now, he’s not gonna be any good to us all night. And that’ll mess up everything. You understand what I’m talkin’ about?”

“Yeah, all right,” apparently the rooster understood. Reluctantly then, the bigger kid who had just bested me released his grip on my T-shirt so my lifeless body could drop back to my mattress with a thud. “Fine!” He glared down at me as I lay again on my bed. “I’ll let you off the hook this time,” he hissed, “but if you ever pull any of that shit on any of us again, I’ll end it for you permanently. And just so you understand what I’m saying to you… the next time I have to put you down, I’ll cripple you for life. And don’t think I won’t do it, either.”

When the ghost had finally cleared out of the way, Matt jumped out of his bed and came to my aid. “Clint, are you ok?” Matt sat down on my bed next to me, as I lay there barely able now to move.

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna live.” My jaw ached and my mind felt sort of foggy.

“Can you sit up?” Matt then wedged one of his hands under my back and took hold of my right arm with his other hand. Slowly then, he helped me to sit up again.

As the rooster watched Matt render me assistance, he became irritated at the amount of time we were using up. “Come on, we don’t have all night. Get up and let’s get going. Feet on the floor, now!”

“Just hold on a minute!” Matt snapped back. “Ya really hit him hard.” I still didn’t want to leave the comfort of my bed, but it didn’t seem as if we were being given any alternative. So, a moment later I was on my feet and able to travel.

“Ok, you guys now get on your sandals, and then go stand by the door and wait,” the rooster ordered.

Without any idea by this time of what we could do otherwise, Matt and I slid our feet into our flip-flops and then stepped over to the door. As we waited for whatever outrageous acts awaited us next, I realized suddenly that the rooster was the leader. The acoustics in our room and through his mask made him sound different, but now I was sure about who he was—whoever he was. I mean, Matt and I still couldn’t figure out who any of these guys really were except we were reasonably certain, at least, that they were all students at the Academy.

“Ok, open the door and let’s get going,” the leader commanded.

Without any argument this time, I reached out and turned the knob on our door and then I pulled it open. When Matt and I then stepped out into the hallway, we were surprised to be greeted by six other upperclassmen who were also wearing all types of Halloween masks to conceal their faces from us. Apparently these guys had been waiting there the whole time while their two compatriots had been in our room.

“Halloween’s not for another six weeks, guys.” I felt I had to say something to announce our arrival into their custody.

“That’s very funny,” the leader replied without humor. “Now let’s get going. Go to the left and then out the door at the end of the hall and up the stairs outside.”

That week a hurricane had slammed into North Carolina, or someplace, and the resulting storm had worked its way up the east coast and into New England. For two days we had steady sheets of rain which drenched us every time we had to go between the main building and our dorm. Matt and I had tried to cut down on the number of times we needed to go between the two buildings, but we were still getting ourselves very wet at least six times a day, plus our soccer practices which actually had been a lot of fun under these conditions. When the two upperclassmen had entered our room that night, it had still been raining. But by the time the ten of us had swung open the large wooden door at the end of our hall so we could all go outside, the rain had finally ended.

For the second time that week, and this time with the two of us going together, Matt and I found ourselves being led in the middle of the night across the upper campus with only underpants, T-shirts and flip flops on our bodies. The ground everywhere was soaked and I found that I had to pay close attention to how I was stepping so I could keep my feet from sliding out of my wet flip-flops.

Neither Matt nor I felt at ease about our circumstances, and we both looked at each other with alarm when the upperclassmen escorted us right through the front gate and out onto the winding asphalt road which led eventually down to the highway.

“Where’re you taking us?” Matt asked. The fear in his voice was obvious to all of us.

“Don’t worry, we’re not goin’ far,” the leader replied.

Two or three minutes later, long after we had crossed over the state line into Connecticut, we stepped off of the road to the right and entered a small clearing which was surrounded by tall straight lodgepole pine trees. At the same time, I remember hearing the sound of bullfrogs croaking incessantly off in the distance somewhere, which meant that there must have been a pond or a back water from the lake close by. As we began to traverse this field so we could get ourselves well away from the view of the empty road, I noticed that the ground we were now walking on felt sort of rubbery from all of the decaying pine needles which carpeted the area.

“Ok, here’s the spot,” the leader announced finally as we arrived at a low-lying section of the field.

We all came to a halt, then, next to two long puddles of water which lay at right angles to one another. The upperclassmen then positioned me at the base of the first puddle, and Matt at the base of the second. When they had us where they wanted us, with our backs turned toward the water, they stepped away from us for a moment. Matt and I could see that we had been placed at about six feet apart from each other. During this moment of relative peace, we both wondered what it was that these guys were planning to do to us. Whatever it was, it was obvious, at least, that they wanted us to be able to see each other while they were doing it.

As I turned my head and watched our eight upperclassmen divide themselves so that one group of four could stand with me and the rest of them could encircle Matt, I knew by this time that nothing these older kids ever did was random.

Every aspect of the encounter we had each already suffered through with these guys had been planned out to the smallest detail. And as I became aware of footsteps in the puddle behind me, I wished for there to be some way that my roommate and I could escape from this bunch.

“Hey!” I called out. From behind, one of the upperclassmen from my group of four had wrapped his arms around my neck to put me in a headlock.

“Auh! What’re you doing!” Matt’s high voice yelled as he became immobilized in the same way.

“Shut up both of you!” the leader yelled. “Al I right, hold him tight and lift him up,” the leader said to the guy who was holding onto me.

“Yeah, do the same with him,” the guy who was now standing in front of Matt then gave the same order to his comrade.

A moment later, the fronts of our bodies were completely exposed and vulnerable to the upperclassmen in front of us. Since the guys holding onto us were taller than Matt and I were, we each now found ourselves, once again only able to stand on the balls of our feet. What happened to us next, I guess, was expected. The last time these guys had us under their control, they had broken us in. Tonight, it seemed, the time had come for us to be broken down.

“Ohoof! Ohoof!” Without warning the leader then delivered two strong punches to my stomach. Since I couldn’t move or even stand fully on my own, it was impossible for me to protect myself or recover at all from his blows.

“Ohoof! Ohoof!”

When I heard those sounds, I quickly turned my head to the left and saw that the guy in front of Matt had just slugged him twice in the stomach as well. The look of pain I then saw on my friend’s face conveyed the enormous state of misery he was now in.

“Ohoof! Auhauh!” Another blow to my stomach and then the leader hit me with a right cross to my face. Since he was a black belt, he knew how to make his punches count.

“Ohoof! Auhauh!”

Then I heard Matt get the same treatment. After that, things just got worse for us.

Most of the time we took body punches. Only occasionally, when they really wanted to score a debilitating blow against us, did they slug us in our faces. After all, they didn’t want it to look too obvious that we had been beaten up.

They pummeled us this way for what seemed like an eternity, but they weren’t interested in knocking us out—although after the first minute had passed, it would have been easy for them to have done so. Instead, they beat us until we were just this side of being knocked unconscious, and then they would let up on us for a few minutes so we could have a chance to regain some of our strength. Once we had recovered, somewhat, the hitting would resume until we would again be nearly ready to black out. Each time they let us recover, we would only be able to gain back a fraction of the strength we had built back the time before, until eventually they had beaten us down to the point where it seemed as if we would never have our strength back again. And then, finally, they stopped.