Halloween used to be a time of great fun for me. From when I was very little until about the age of 11 I went house to house in costume, first with my father and then with my friends, to shout "trick or treat" and to gather grocery bags full of candy and other goodies. By age 12 this seemed all too juvenile and so my friends and I began to play tricks without knocking on doors -- turning over garbage cans, soaping windows, and letting air out of automobile tires. Each year four of us met together the day of Halloween to make plans for such pranks that coming evening.
In my 15th year we devised the most spectacular plan of all. We decided to pour gasoline on top of the water in the lake-like city reservoir and light it with a match. The ensuing blaze would surprise everyone who saw it and bring the fire truck (our small town had only one) and six firemen in full force. It would be an event we could brag about to our grandchildren.
Tom Parker, a tall, rather thin 16-year-old, provided the gasoline. Jim Peters, an athletic 15-year-old like myself, brought the matches, and Joe Roberts, the shortest among us and a 14-year-old, and myself just came to participate in the event. The night was quite dark so that it was easy to sneak up to the side of the reservoir without being seen. What we had not anticipated was the fact that the blaze we created would make everything light up like daytime so many people would see us and recognize us as we tried to run away from the scene.
The two town policemen had all four of us standing before the judge the next day, and the judge lectured us at length about the dangers of such a prank before he sentenced us to ten days confinement in the Ohio State Boy's Correctional Institution. We were taken there immediately after the sentencing, with hardly time to say goodby to our families.
Although the institution looked somewhat like a big mansion from the outside, the iron door that was locked after us as we entered made it clear this was no ordinary residence. The four of us were taken immediately into a shower room were we were given soap and told to take showers. Metal baskets were provided into which we could put our clothing, each labeled with our names printed on white hospital tape. After we finished our showers, we were handed towels with which to dry ourselves. The baskets containing our clothing had disappeared. I asked about this and was told we would be provided with uniforms when we arrived at the room we would be occupying during our stay at the correctional institution.
At this point the three supervisors who had brought us to the shower room told Tom, the 16-year-old, to go with them, leaving the rest of us standing there in the nude (there were no seats). We stood for what seemed an interminably long time discussing what ten days in this place might be like and what we should have done to avoid being caught. We also told jokes, bragged about past exploits, and did everything we could think of to keep our minds off the question that really made us all somewhat nervous -- what was happening to Tom and what might become of us.
Finally the three supervisors returned and told me to go with them, leaving Jim and Joe to sweat it out some more in the shower room. They took me into an adjacent room where they told me to put both hands on top of my head and keep them in place there. Then I was told to follow one of the supervisors out of the door and into the main hall. The other two followed behind me.
The main hall was as large as a high-school gymnasium. All around its sides were rooms to house the youthful delinquents, and the doors to all these rooms were open so that the more than sixty youth were standing in groups against the walls of the main hall looking at me and the three attendants as we walked past them. I never before had particularly minded other boys seeing me in my birthday suit, at least I didn't when I took a shower after football practice or changed into my bathing trunks. But this time it was different. I couldn't use my hands to hide any parts of myself from full view and the fact that I knew my body was the center of attention made me quite self-conscious and caused me great embarrassment. I could almost feel my face turning red as we walked past the others.
The route that the guards chose was one that made a complete circle around the room so that I would pass near to every one of the residents. And the guide in front was moving much too slowly for my taste. Suddenly some of the inmates began to make comments about me loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear the remarks. The first of these was, "Look, I think he's becoming embarrassed." This brought forth much laughter and hooting. The three supervisors did nothing to try to stop any of the youth from such verbal abuse, and I later found out that such treatment was accorded to all newcomers at the correctional institution. I don't remember all of the tormenting jibes the inmates directed at me, but some were: "Boy is this kid ugly;" "He's no kid, he's a baby;" "I wonder where he lost his diaper;" "Look at that. He hardly has any prick at all;" "I'll bet he doesn't even know what to use his prick for anyway;" "He probably plays with it all the time. Look at the way he walks, like a faggot;" "Bet he cries like a baby whenever he gets spanked;" "Probably never has been spanked properly;" "He's likely a _c_o_c_k_ sucker who keeps his finger up his ass most of the time."
Each comment made me feel a little more vulnerable and humiliated, but I carefully controlled myself from responding and just maintained my pace behind the supervisor, although it was getting harder and harder to keep my mouth shut. I tried as best I could not to listen to the remarks and to be thick skinned about the whole matter. But I think my blushing and general nervousness because these abusive comments were of such a personal nature must have been obvious to all. I prayed silently that we might soon get to our destination so that I could lower my arms and the boys might stop taunting me.
Then, as we came to the third corner of the room, one of the inmates reached out and patted me gently on my right rump. That was too much! I brought my hands down from my head, formed them into fists, and lunged toward the lad. But I had moved only a step forward when both my arms were grabbed by the two supervisors walking behind me.
"What did we tell you about holding your hands on your head?" one of them demanded.
"But he used his fingers to feel my ass," I said with desperation in my voice.
"You don't know how to take orders, do you?" the supervisor responded.
"But he touched me on my backside," I said.
"You're going to have it touched with a bit more force for disobeying orders," said the supervisor walking in front, as he turned around to see what was happening.
"But he patted..."
I couldn't get the whole sentence out before the other supervisor was saying to the nearby inmates, "This kid needs to be taught some discipline. Bring up the bench."
Several boys quickly brought forth an exercise bench and placed it near to where I was standing.
"Get over that bench," commanded the supervisor. Yet before I could comply, I was roughly pushed down onto it by the same boys who had provided the structure. From the shouting and obvious glee on the part of the other lads, it was clear that they were thoroughly enjoying my predicament, perhaps had been waiting for just this opportunity to see my bottom get blistered.
Four of the boys held me in position, two holding down each of my arms and two my legs, so that my bottom was high over the bench and I couldn't move at all. At this point one of the supervisors produced a thin and very flexible cane, much like a riding crop, with which he began to strike my upraised posterior. To say it was painful is an understatement. The searing blows were like nothing I had ever experienced before, and the strokes came with the regularity of someone beating a drum to keep a group of marchers in step. My first scream of pain brought a response of laughter and general hooting from the many other boys in the room. "Hit him harder," some of them cried out in glee.
I screamed, yelled, and pleaded with the supervisor to stop. But all I could hear in response was the laughter of the other boys and all I could see was part of the floor directly in front of my face. Although I soon was crying my heart out, no one seemed to take any pity on me. The cane just kept doing its nasty work, one stroke after another.
Finally I was released and, although I was sobbing and shaking all over, I was immediately told to stand again with my hands on my head. I wasn't even allowed to wipe away the tears from my face or the mucus that dripped from my nose. Then I was marched forward to the room I would be sleeping in for the rest of my time there. As the supervisors and myself proceeded past the remainder of the inmates, their remarks and laughter now became focussed on the nasty red lines that criss-crossed my two terribly sore ass cheeks.
The room I was assigned to had four beds in it, each with a pair of green pants and green shirt lying on it. Also lying on one of the beds, still unclothed, was Tom Parker. He was lying on his stomach and it was clear from the redness of his bottom that he had undergone just as severe a beating as I had. The supervisors directed me to one of the empty beds and told me I could put on the uniform there. Then they left.
I was still too sore to put on the uniform and I definitely didn't want to talk to anyone. Like Tom, I just lay on the bed on my stomach hoping the pain in my buttocks would eventually disappear.
After a short while I began to hear shouting and laughter from beyond the door. The inmates were giving the treatment to another victim, obviously one my two companions who had remained in the shower room. I had no idea as to who it might be until I heard the familiar voice of Jim Peters shouting, "Shut up you bastard." It was clearly the wrong thing for him to say because his ensuing yells, screams, pleadings and shrieks of laughter indicated that he was likely bent over the bench receiving the same kind of caning that Tom and I had gotten.
Needless to say by the time he got to our room he was a mass of tears. He, too, lay on his belly without trying to don the institutional uniform and without saying anythng to either of us. Joe Roberts endured the taunting and even the ass patting better than the rest of us. Finally, as he explained later, one of the lads against the wall reached out and began to tickle his arm pits. Joe, who had always been quite ticklish, couldn't keep his hands on his head any longer. Again the bench was brought forward and John's ass was tenderized as if it was a piece of raw meat.
Eventually the four of us regained our composure and put on the uniforms. Then we exchanged information about the treatment we had received. We were not beaten again during the ten days we were at the detention center and the other lads there acted toward us as if nothing had happened that day we entered. I saw two more beatings before our ten days ended, both applied to new entrants. And I must admit that I, too, then joined in the fun of tormenting the new comers. But on the following Halloween I decided to stay home and no longer participate in any kind of Halloween pranks.