The White House Boys: An American Tragedy by Kiser Roger Dean

Author:Kiser, Roger Dean [Kiser, Roger Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9780757397585
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The road leading to the laundry, located near the smoke stack, 2008.

Photo by R. Kiser

Perhaps I would have been better off keeping my original assignment at the hospital. At least there, they intended to repair the damage, not cause it.

The Movie I Will Never Forget

One Saturday evening, the boys from Cleveland cottage lined up to march over to one of the other cottages to watch a movie. (Saturday mornings were for beatings, but Saturday nights were generally for movie watching. The bad and the good all in one day.)

The large white movie screen was attached to the side of the building and a projector was lined up with it atop the small grassy hill where we sat. Not far from us were five or six large steel garbage cans with steam rolling out of them.

“What’s burning in those cans?” I asked one of the boys in front of me.

“It’s peanuts,” he told me.

“Why would they put peanuts in a garbage can?”

“To cook ’em,” he replied.

It sounded strange to me, but right before the movie began, we lined up to receive a scoop of the peanuts on a piece of newspaper for a snack during the show. As the movie was just beginning, the boy next to me accidentally spilled his peanuts into the grass. Unable to clean them off, he left them there to be thrown away after the movie.

Feeling sorry for him, I offered to share my small pile of peanuts with him. As the movie played, I sat with the newspaper lying across my lap. He would reach over and pick up a peanut or two, eat them, and reach for more.

Suddenly, the two of us were being snatched up by the shirt collars.

“What the damn hell are you two queers doing over here?” snarled Mr. Hatton.

“I’m just sharing my peanuts with him,” I told him.

“I’ve been watching you two, and I am trying to figure out who is playing with whose balls over here.”

“We ain’t doing nothing wrong, Mr. Hatton, sir,” I said, my voice shaking.

“You two get your little asses up and stand to the side.”

The boy and I got up from our spots and walked to the edge of the building.

“Do you think we’re going down?” whispered the boy.

We stood at the edge of the building for almost an hour until the movie ended. We were told to return to our cottages and that we were to report to Mr. Hatton’s office the following Saturday morning, a week later. Since it was Saturday night, the scheduled beatings had already concluded for the previous week’s violations.

For the next six days, I could not eat or drink anything without throwing up. Almost every night I lay in my bed, covering my face with the scratchy, wool army blanket so the other boys in the cottage would not see me crying.

When Saturday arrived, I walked to Mr. Hatton’s office and stood in line with the other boys who were scheduled to be beaten. As we marched toward the White House, I counted the boys lined up in front of me.

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