"He jests at scars who never felt a wound"-Romeo
There were four of us Sophomores caught. Johnson, Cohen, my roommate Strickland and myself. Smoking was a punishable offense -- ten of the House Master's best whacks with the dorm paddle. Smoking in the dorm was doubly punishable -- twice as many strokes of the paddle and, optionally, the last ten delivered on ones bare butt. Whether the "optional" provision was exercised depended largely on which House Master delivered the whacks. Some House Masters could be depended upon to require a boy to drop his trousers and underpants for a paddling at any opportunity. Others were known to exercise this option only in severe cases, such as repeat occurrences of the same offense.
It's not that one's school trousers and underpants offered any significant protection from the sting of the paddle. They did not. Many students at Buckley Academy could attest to this. But having to bare one's bare butt and assume the standard paddling position exposed one terribly and contributed a significant amount of humiliation and embarrassment to a paddling. And this possibility was therefore what the four of us had to look forward to.
Johnson and Cohen were scheduled for their paddling at seven o'clock, immediately after returning from dinner. Christopher (Kit) Strickland and I were to receive our twenty whacks at seven-thirty. The reason for the pairing was that our dorm's House Master's room became a bit crowded with for students and House Masters needed -- and wanted -- plenty of room to operate when delivering a paddling. Therefore, two at a time was normal procedure. This policy also added an extra bit of nervous waiting for any student not scheduled for the first pairing.
We had been caught by a senior -- McKnight, by name -- on Wednesday. The details of how he caught us are unimportant. I'll only say that McKnight was one of several upperclassmen who seemed to always be on the prowl for errant Sophomores. It was a combination of him being lucky and we being a bit careless. The report had been written up and turned in that evening and the times of the paddlings published on the dorm bulletin board the next afternoon. All "official" paddlings -- that is, paddlings delivered by a House Master as opposed to those "unofficial ones given on the spot by upperclassmen -- were scheduled for a Friday evening. Justice at Buckley Academy was swift. Friday evenings were chosen since it was felt that a paddling on any other weekday night might adversely interfere with a student's ability to concentrate on his studies for the remainder of the evening -- a valid consideration in most cases.
This gave the four of us two days to consider our impending ordeal. And consider we did. In the six weeks we had been at Buckley, only Cohen had received an official paddling -- and only six smacks with his trousers up, at that. They were delivered by Mr. Smyth, not a particularly tough House Master and paddler. All of us had received a light paddling in class for falling asleep, but nearly all Sophomores got such a paddling in the first couple of weeks. Class paddlings were not considered severe as indeed they weren't. So, for Christopher Strickland, Carl Johnson and myself, this would be our first House Master paddling. We, of course, asked Barry Cohen what his paddling had been like and he reported that it was not bad, not bad at all. But we all knew that he had received a light dose.
And not many of our other classmates had had the honor of an official House Master paddling yet, although most of us knew what a paddling from an upperclassman was like. Christopher -- Kit for short -- had, frankly, been lucky in this regard. He had thus far escaped with only a few upperclass paddlings. He was therefore somewhat indifferent to his upcoming appointment with the House Master's paddle.
"How bad can it be," he said to me on Thursday night after we knew the exact time of our appointment in the House Master's room. "Faculty members don't go around torturing students, after all." He spoke with a confidence I didn't have. After all, my brother who had graduated from Buckley only two years before I entered, had confided in me that House Master paddlings -- again depending on the particular House Master -- could be pretty bad. I had told Kit this. He had shrugged this information off, saying something like, "Well, everyone one has a different threshold of pain." I had resented his blase attitude and told him so. "We'll see," he said. I decided that Kit was either putting up a brave front or that he really didn't feel his upcoming paddling would be much to worry about. I suspected the latter.
"Yes," I said, "we *will* see and before too long."
"I'm tellin' you, Jason," he said, "this isn't 19th century England. You've been reading too much Dickens. It's mostly psychological. It's all in you head, the waiting and all. Trust me."
Friday morning, the four of us anxiously checked the bulletin board to see who was assigned House Master for the weekend and following week. Our collective hearts sank when saw the name Purvis. Purvis, we had overheard upperclassmen say, was perhaps the worst of the dozen or so faculty members that shared the House Master duty on a rotating basis. I think even Kit was disheartened to see Purvis's name on the roster.
Two upperclassmen -- a Junior and a Senior -- standing beside us at the bulletin board looked at us with smiles. "Ouch! You really stepped in it," said one. "How lucky can you be," remarked the other.
"They're just trying to "psych" us out," Kit said after the upperclassmen were out of earshot. "The worse you think it will be, the worse it *will* be."
Friday night came slowly, as I found my thoughts wandering to the impending paddling throughout the day. After dinner, Kit and I sat in our room waiting, looking at our watches it seemed every few minutes. Our room was on the third floor. The House Master had a room on the first floor. At seven o'clock, I imagined Cohen and Johnson knocking on the House Mater's door and entering. I even listened closely to see if I could hear the sound of the paddle but the house was fairly quiet.
At seven-twenty-five I looked at Kit. "We'd better go down there," I said.
"Okay," he said casually. "I hope you've got clean underwear on." He chuckled as we left the room and headed downstairs. His attitude was really beginning to piss me off. "Let's get this over with," he said.
Two minutes later we reached the hallway outside the House Master's door. We both stood against the hall wall as we had been told to do. It was seven-twenty-eight.
"Are they still in there," Kit whispered.
I don't know," I said. "I don't hear anything." Just then we heard a muffled voice from the room.
"Yes, sir!" I sounded like Johnson. Then another voice.
"Yes, sir!" Cohen's voice. Ten seconds later both Johnson and Cohen came out, closing the door behind them. They saw Kit and me and stopped.
"We're supposed to tell you to knock at seven-thirty," Cohen said. As I looked at his face I could see his red eyes and there was a small thread of snot hanging from his nostril. He'd been crying! Bad news. Cohen didn't seem to me the kind who would be reduced to tears easily. Johnson was already several steps down the hall, headed toward the stairway with his back to us. He seemed in a hurry.
"How was it," Kit said to Cohen. Cohen was in no mood to talk.
"We're not supposed to talk to you guys. You'll see," was all he said as he hurried off as well.
"Oh, thanks a lot," Kit said to Cohen's retreating back. I looked at my watch and without saying anything pointed to it. I turned and knocked on the door. Three hard knocks.
"I will my ten-speed bike to my little brother." Kit whispered just as I put my hand on the door knob. If I had had time I would have told him to go _f_u_c_k_ himself.
"'He jests at scars who never felt a wound.'" I said, quoting Shakespeare's Romeo.
"Huh?" Kit was not a Shakespeare type guy.