The nice skinny weekend nurse popped in around midnight. She was a bit worried about me not getting much sleep, and after some discussion she called the doctor and was allowed to give me some morphine. She asked me if Iīd ever used drugs like heroin or codein, and I lied and said no, because I knew my papers said nothing of it, and then she gave me an injection and I slept all night, tucked myself up again after breakfast and didnīt wake up until lunchtime, feeling a lot better but a bit slow. I was up and about a couple of times during the day, still stiff and sore but determined to get going. I had another dreamer Saturday night. Weekend nurse bought my boyish tearful eyes right off and I went back to Nevernever Land.
Iīd forgotten all about the scare exhibition in the dining hall. Mr Donovan and mr Bell rounded me up at 11.30 Sunday morning, putting a _f_u_c_k_ing dressing gown and sandals on me, then took me across the yard. It had been snowing some and I was freezing my ass off because I had to go very slowly, sliding in those _f_u_c_k_ing sandals that were too big anyway. The hall was built oldfashioned like, with darkstained oak beams and vertically placed darkstained oak logs everywhere, pretending to hold the ceiling. I was deprived of the gown and placed with my belly against one of them, my hands already cuffed, and then the cuffs were attached to a hook higher up on the log. Iīm 5ī 7" and that hook wasnīt designed for midgets like me. I had to stand on my toes or hang. Mr Bell and mr Donovan stayed with me one half hour each, making sure noone tried to talk to me or get in any touch whatsoever. I managed to get a glimpse of what was going on around me and saw some people I knew at weekends everybody from Step Two and up came here for meals - nodding to me or raising their eyebrows, and I returned it all by blinking. I felt stupid hanging there. It was quite uncomfortable, too, and every time the door opened the icy winter air swept right in. When the hour had passed I was taken down and brought back. I still wonder whatīs the use. I wouldnīt have let something like that discourage me from breaking out, if that was the thing on my mind. You never figure this kind of _s_h_i_t_ will happen to you. Others screw up, you wonīt. When you do, youīre equally surprised each time and blame it all on bad luck. Thatīs why people like me donīt rule the world.
I coaxed nurse Skinny into deciding against me going back to work Monday morning. She didnīt give me any more of the morph, though. I had a couple of ordinary tranqulizers instead, slept rather uneasily and spent most of the Monday writing the five pages for mr Jackson. The things I figured I learned from my whipping experience was in short:
Iīm not as strong as I think I am, when I think I am.
Iīm stronger than I think I am. (And if this doesnīt make any sense to you, well, too bad. I know exactly what I mean. Think about it for a while, maybe it applies to you, too.)
Iīm still thinking like a criminal.
Anger and hate can tide you over if you lose your focus. They also make fear and agony go away. You have to be careful using them, though, because they _f_u_c_k_ you up in the end.
Crying occurs when youīve lost hope and succumbed to self pity. Allowing yourself to feel helpless wonīt do you any good, anytime.
You never get used to being punished but you can learn to handle it.
I thought Iīd got it together quite nicely. All the time I was writing I could hear mr Jacksonīs voice inside my head, commenting on most of it, and I rewrote the whole thing twice and hid the drafts under the mattress, having to figure out how to get rid of them later on.
Mr Jackson came by Tuesday morning at 10. Nurse has told me to get properly dressed and stay out of bed the day before and again told me I was OK, like she knew. Anyway, I walked around the cell a lot, feeling almost allright by now but restless as hell. Still a wee bit hard to kneel, though, but it didnīt matter because the dreamers had made my bowels work slowly and the effect stayed on. Anyway, he came and sat down at the table and asked for the paper. In return I got the pile of letters, even thicker by now. My next assignment was to write replies to all of them, and in the victim letters I was supposed to tell about the whipping and apologize a second time. Sucked big time. Mr Jackson said I didnīt have to write 13 letters to Jenni, though, one would do. Except for the details I was very happy about the whole thing and decided I did kind of like Russel Jackson once in a while.
Mr Jackson read my paper right there, black pen in hand. I was on the bunk with the letters, reading the ones from Angie babe all over again, thinking about what to write to her. Iīd start with Grandpa and Auntie, though. I guessed they worried a lot about what was happening to me, not having heard anything from me since January, this being mid-March, not being allowed to talk to me over the phone or anything. I wouldnīt tell them much, except that I was being disciplined for breaking out by doing hard labour and being isolated, and that I hoped theyīd visit me as soon as that part of my punishment was over with.
"Permission to speak, sir?"
"What, TJ?"
"Do I have to write to Johnny Miller, sir? I mean, he just put a couple of words on a card."
"But he sent you one. Yes, TJ, youīre writing to him, too. Wonīt be too hard on you, the two of you being metal freaks."
"Metalheads, sir", I said, smiling tentatively, prepared to apologize right off for insolence. But he just smiled back and went on reading, and I did, too.
"By the way, TJ, I want the drafts aswell. Youīve forgotten that already?"
Two months ago, Iīd have said there were no drafts, and then he would have found them anyway and punished me for lying. Now, I just put my hand under the mattress and got them out, handing them to him. Iīd still done wrong in a way, but only like 50%. I hoped heīd notice. I sure hoped heīd think of it as an improvement.
When mr Jackson was done reading he spent nearly half an hour writing, turning the pages all the time, then he just left my paper on the table and went off along with the drafts, not commenting on me hiding them. I stuck to the letters but was well aware of it lying there, and finally I had to check it out. There were some comments, like when I wrote I still thought like a criminal he put Because you still are one. Ready to do something about it? and on the thing about being strong he wrote A clever but practically useless insight. There was more, but I had to read the last page. I had to know if I was to be punished again. I thought Iīd rather kill myself than get another round.
The last page read: "Good work, TJ. Whatīs missing completely is your attitude towards being punished. You donīt mention any motivation for submitting to being this heavily whipped, and not a word about any insights concerning the cause. You may say you have no choice but to submit, and thatīs true. Still, leaving the cause out is similar to avoiding responsibility, which is your earmark. Responsibility bounces off you and onto the men holding the whip or mr Davenport for deciding. You end up regarding yourself as a victim instead of a perpetrator, which is fatal. This is criminal thinking. Punishing you for this would reinforce rather than change your approach. Instead youīre given two new assignments:
1. Imagine you were feeling guilty about what youīve done and write a beautiful and very detailed fairytale about it. Use your experiences with your latest victims. At least 5 pages. Ready on Tuesday.
2. Write a corporal punishment defense speech, stressing the positive effects. 3 pages minimum. Ready on Tuesday.
No honesty required this time."
I stared at the paper, at first feeling _f_u_c_k_ing annoyed with him, making fun of me by giving me those stupid assignments. Then I gave it some serious thinking and decided heīd struck home again. I had left out the reason why because I didnīt approve of being whipped (please tell me who does, Russell old chum) and I wasnīt feeling guilty, having returned all stuff and apologized, too. Being whipped was just something I had to undergo because I couldnīt dodge it and my main goal was getting through it as well as possible, not to learn anything from it. Then I felt a rush of panic, realizing I had another appointment with the _f_u_c_k_ing thing in April. I couldnīt expect mr Jackson to support me again. Maybe if I really strained myself, Iīd come up with a good reason for submitting to the torture once more, maybe that would help me to actually make it out as logical and righteous. I really doubted it, though.
I remembered when I was about ten and was caught stealing money out of a classmateīs jacket. My teacher first started scolding me and I pretended I was listening, but I wasnīt, and she quickly noticed. Then she was silent for a while before telling me to take off my shoes. I had on a pair of Nikes, I hadnīt nicked them, my aunt bought them for me as a birthday present and I really loved those shoes. First I refused, and she said that if I didnīt, sheīd call my gramps and Iīd also have to go to the headmaster and maybe get a caning (she lied to me but I didnīt know at the time), and then I took them off and gave them to her. She told me sheīd keep them. Her son needed a pair of new shoes, and sheīd give them to him because I didnīt deserve having them. I was very angry at first and tried to threaten her, saying Iīd tell my gramps and go to the papers and all, and she just laughed at me and said she didnīt care. Then I started crying from the unfairness, and she explained to me that this was how others felt when I stole their possessions. It shook me up for some time and I temporarily stopped stealing, at least at school. She did keep the shoes for a month, then I had them back and some time afterwards I forgot about the whole thing and went back to my old habits.
Iīd never felt guilty of anything Iīd done because I believed I had the right to take or do whatever I needed or wanted. When I got caught I felt scared or ashamed of _f_u_c_k_ing up or angry or sorry for myself, but never guilty. Others werenīt like me. They had it all, or if they hadnīt, they could get it, not having to steal. And because they could, they owed me, who couldnīt, and that made it allright to steal from them. Them getting sad or angry didnīt bother me, because they were different from me, their sadness and anger being something else than my sadness and anger, like less important, and theyīd get new things to compensate their losses just by snapping their fingers. Deep inside thatīs what I still thought, no matter how I tried to change it because it had to be wrong, because I was told it was wrong. In my head, life was like a video game, me being the hero and the others just means to get off the level and onto the next, and I had to use cunning stunts to outsmart them. I recalled meeting my victims and decided they were different, too, all of them. Johnny Miller could have been an exception but his stupidity picking up a stranger and having his wallet lying right in front of me counted him out. Angela Featherston also was different, not just for being a girl and beautiful. I started thinking about who werenīt different and came up with Chris and Jake and a couple of other mates, and the guys back on Step Two, except for Robbie and the stupid _f_u_c_k_er Hammond, and some of the guys at reform school. I thought of them as real people, which in a logical sense made the others unreal. Unreal people had no rights in the world of real people. They didnīt matter.
Then I thought: maybe the unreals think exactly the same about me.
My head was spinning by then. I figured I was getting at something very important, but I couldnīt puzzle it together in the end. I decided to leave the new assignments alone for a while and concentrate on the letters.
Writing the letter to Grandpa made me very low, I didnīt understand why because it was an ordinary letter, not emotional in any way because heīs not a very emotional man (Iīve never seen him laughing for real, or crying until Grandma died), at least not the outer him and I donīt think Iīve ever met the inner him. At first I figured I was feeling sorry for myself and tried to shape up. Then I realized I actually felt sad and decided that was OK and just let go for a while. I thought about Grandma and him trying to take care of me and me running wild, and them always being there, not turning their backs like Mum did, and I remembered lots of things theyīd done for me. When I was in custody the very first time, and I donīt mean for a couple of hours or overnight, this was right before I was sent to reform school and they kept me locked up so I wouldnīt run off, Grandma came to visit me on her own, without Grandpa. Ian, a social worker, came along, too. She brought me sweets and comics and a handknitted sweater that was way too big, and she tried to talk sense to me. I remembered being _f_u_c_k_ing ashamed of it all and instead of admitting it, I told her to leave me alone. I was 13 and on top of the world. That is, the outer me was. The inner me was a puny 3 yo wanting to bawl and throw himself on the floor from fright every time the door was locked upon him. Grandma didnīt say anything, she just looked at me very sadly. Ian got mad and told me off for sure, saying one day youīll regret this, Thomas, and then itīll be too late. I just sneered at him then, thinking he didnīt know _s_h_i_t_ about anything. Well, this was it, and it was too late, she was gone and I never even got a chance to say goodbye to her or say thanks for putting up with me that far.
Then I sort of heard mr Jackson inside my head, saying Tough _s_h_i_t_, TJ, but that train has left for ever. Focus on those still living. It was spooky. I knew heīd never said that, ever. Still it made sense and I decided to rewrite the letter my way, and I did.
In the end, I felt good writing those letters. It was like meeting all of them, Grandpa, Auntie, Jenni and Angie, and I could be me for a while, not just another severely punished Crowmill apprentice with a bad reputation. I could joke and speak more freely and, in the letter to Angie, flirt some. I _f_u_c_k_ing well knew mr Jackson would read all of it and maybe decide not to send them, but thatīd be his decision and heīd be the hangman, and _f_u_c_k_ him from here to eternity if he did. While I was in full swing I wrote to Johnny Miller, too, even asking him if heīd heard any rumours about the new Metallica album release and if he hadnīt, could he please check the Net for info? I almost felt high and when mr Bell brought me the supper tray I smiled when I thanked him and he very sternly asked me if Iīd ODīd on the painkillers. Got that sorted out right away, though, because I had none left since Friday and nurse arrived while mr Bell was still there and confirmed it.