That Bird Has My Wings by Jarvis Jay Masters

Author:Jarvis Jay Masters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Cruelty Exposed

WHEN WE REACHED THE dormitory, several beds and their lockers had been stripped and emptied clean. The folded mattresses meant that some boys were suddenly no longer at the academy.

Everyone else was sitting around quietly on their bunks. One by one they began making their way over to me. With smiles on their faces, they surrounded me, lying and cheering and telling me how they had always thought I would beat Leroy. Some brought over treats from inside their lockers—I had become their new champion. In a way, it felt pretty cool to see the bullies kissing up to me. I stared into the eyes of boys who, not long before, had called me names, teased me, and pretended to spit on me. Now they were all gathering around and giving me whatever they thought I wanted. Even Jesse, who I’d jumped on outside the circle, offered me packs of cigarettes. How could everyone be my tormentor and then, just like that, become my admirer? Somewhere inside I knew they could go back to disliking me in a flash.

I left the mop room with every intention of running away the following morning. But when morning arrived, the whole program had suddenly changed, and I thought differently. There was no wake-up call, no three-mile run, no lines. The change scattered us in a wandering maze. Without the compass of the clock or the shouting of the staff, we weren’t sure where we were supposed to be. Although nobody threw a trash can down the dormitory aisle at 4:00 A.M., our automatic timers had most of us lying awake, waiting for the lights to come on. When they didn’t, we got up on our own and roamed around in the dark dorm as if in a forest, lost unto ourselves. We didn’t even know if we needed permission to turn on the lights.

We were all up and dressed, hanging around talking to each other while the sun eased across the windows, and still no staff came into the dorm.

Nobody knew why several boys had left the day before. We suspected that during their interviews with the visiting authorities they’d said that they wanted to leave. My friend Troy was gone. That made sense. His whole face had been swollen that morning at breakfast. The authorities would have seen what I had seen in the chow hall. Leroy was gone too. The boys said he had wanted to leave. They watched from the window and saw him get into the backseat of one of the visitors’ cars.

Nobody really understood what the authorities were looking for. They asked each boy they interviewed different questions about particular incidents. Some boys were asked about Josh slashing his wrists, others about the snakes thrown into the dorm, others about the tree tying, and still others about the blanket parties. It never dawned on us that all these questions tied into one central question: were there cruelties, physical abuse, and torture taking place at the academy? We

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