Boarding School (37 page)

The whole crowd around us then began to laugh, so we laughed too. After all, this wasn’t going to turn out to be another example of wanton debauchery. This was just going to be clean, silly fun. Or was it?

As the four of us younger guys huddled in closer around the kiddy pool and began to wonder how cold the water in it really was, I suddenly got an idea. “Hang on for a minute,” I announced to the bigger kids. “Let me give everyone some instructions first. I used to do this all the time back home and I’ve got a strategy for it.”

“Sure, no problem.” The leader’s speech was still sounding slurred.

As I brought my three friends closer to me so I could explain to them how I thought we should all proceed, I looked up suddenly toward the west and saw the neighbor kid Danny standing in his backyard looking at us and smiling. “Can I come over and try that too?” he called out to us from behind his chain-link fence.

The boy’s voice caught our leader’s attention right away. “Yeah, come on over, Danny,” he hollered back.

We all then waited for a few moments while the twelve-year-old disappeared from our view briefly so he could walk through the gate which opened into his front yard. In no time after that he appeared in the headmaster’ s back yard with his German shepherd at his side. “So when do I get to go?” he asked as he joined us around the wading pool. Once the dog saw where his master was going to be standing for a while, Bandit then walked around us all until he found a spot nearby that he liked, and then he sat. Danny was known by nearly everyone on the campus. He and Bandit were always over to play basketball or just hang out with many of us. In fact, since he knew that I was from the west, one day he had asked me a question about the Unicameral of Nebraska because he had studied in school that it was the only state in the country with a single legislative body.

“You can be the first one to stick your head in the water, Danny,” the head waiter offered.

“No wait!” Artist suddenly stopped the boy as he was beginning to bend over. “First you gotta drink some of this.” Artist then handed Danny his fifth of cherry vodka.

With a sheepish sort of a look on his face, Danny then smiled broadly. “Really?” It was immediately obvious to all of us that Danny wasn’t opposed to this idea.

“Yeah, go ahead!” Artist confirmed. And then he passed the bottle of liquor into the boy’s hands.

All of us then watched in silence as Danny first turned his head around to look behind him toward his house so he could make sure that no one from his family was watching him through their windows. An instant later, after he was convinced that the coast was clear, he turned his head back around to face us again, and then he placed his lips around the rim of the bottle and threw back his head to take in his first belt.

“Ugk!” Danny then quickly brought his head back down and began to choke and cough from the harshness of the drink he had just consumed. It was quite clear to all of us now that the boy had never before tried hard liquor. But as soon as he had managed to compose himself, Danny put himself through the ordeal three more times before Artist finally wrenched the bottle out of the boy’s hands.

“Jeeze, kid!” It was as if Danny was wanting to get as drunk as he could, now that he had been given the opportunity to do so. “Ok, now. Wait a few minutes until you begin to feel it, and then you can bob for an apple. Ok?” Artist half ordered and half asked.

“Ok!” Danny gasped as he tried to calm his breathing down.

“Hey, why don’t we move all of this into the gym?” the head waiter suggested as he stared at our young guest and smiled.

“Naw, this is fine right here,” the leader answered firmly. Then to change the subject quickly, he looked at me. “Let’s go, Clint. Let’s finish up your little meeting, now.”

“Ok,” I responded just as rapidly. I then returned my focus to the now four young boys who were standing in front of me. “Now look, guys. What you want to do is commit yourself to the apple. If you try to keep yourself from getting wet, you won’t get the apple and in the end you’ll still wind up getting wet anyway. So just pick the one you want and then shove your whole head straight in after it until you have it pinned against the bottom of the pool .Then you can sink your teeth into it and bring it out of the water. Ok? So who’s gonna be first?” I asked.

“I’ll go first,” Matt volunteered. His speech was slurred by now too.

And so we all watched as Matt got down into the grass on his knees, bent the upper half of his body over the water, selected his apple, and then submerged his entire head into the water in pursuit of his prize.

“Give me some more, will ya?” At this same moment, Danny yanked Artist’s bottle from his hands and began to slug it back again and again.

“Ok,” Artist relented. “If you want ta get roaring drunk, it makes no difference to me.”

“Uk!” Matt gasped when he brought his head up out of the water with an apple in his teeth.

“Way to go, Ramsey,” the head waiter called out.

After that, Carlos and Juan and a few of the upperclassmen took their turns bobbing for the apples. It was funny to see but between the joking and the insults and the all-around good time, each one that went after an apple followed my instructions and dunked their entire head under the water. And as this lighthearted fun went on for something like fifteen minutes, Danny continued to take large gulps of Artist’s cherry vodka. After Juan had gotten his apple and had raised his head up out of the water to display himself to the rest of us with his bangs lying down flat in his face and his apple firmly caught between his teeth, Danny let us know that he was finally feeling drunk. One by one, heads continued to go into the water and one by one apples continued to come out. And then, when everyone else had gone who had wanted to try, it was Danny’s turn to bob for an apple.

“Ok Danny,” I said. “It’s your turn next.” I was actually becoming worried bout the kid. After all, he was likely going to have to be going home pretty soon be with his family again. I didn’t think that his parents would react well to their son becoming drunk at the hands of some Academy kids.

“Give me back my bottle, you lush,” Artist said as he ripped his bottle of vodka away from Danny’s hands.

“Huh?” Danny now seemed a little disoriented. “Oh yeah. Ok.” Then, not realizing that his feet were up against the side of the wading pool, Danny tried to take a step forward and nearly wound up falling full out into the pool. Fortunately, the boy’s swan dive was stopped in mid-flight by Artist and one other upperclassman who managed to grab him just in time and keep him from going for a late-night swim.

“Wo! Thanks, guys!” Danny offered once he had regained his footing. The boy then sank to his knees and prepared to throw his head into the water.

“Go whenever you’re ready, kid,” the leader gave his permission.

Danny then stopped his preparations for a moment and looked up at the leader. “Ok, thanks.” The boy then looked back at the water below him again, and then he plunged his head under the surface as he chased after one of the last remaining apples.

A moment of silence then followed as we all stared down at the boy’s head while it continued to stay submerged before our eyes. And then Danny’s head shot up out of the water and he sat back on his legs with an apple in his mouth. Great volumes of water then poured from his hair and drained over his face as we all watched and waited for him to say something. With a hand which was just as wet as his head, the boy then removed the apple he had snatched from the pool and spoke to us again. “Man, Clint! Your stragedy worked great!”

Everyone then laughed again. If it hadn’t been obvious before, it certainly was now. The Academy’s twelve-year-old neighbor was drunk.

“That’s great, Danny,” I replied.

“Danny!” Suddenly we all froze from the sound of an adult voice calling for his son. Danny’s dad was now standing in his back yard and looking at us all. Instantly Bandit stood up in anticipation of their departure.

“Oh, oh!” Danny whispered. “I guess I gotta go home.” Instead of turning around to look at his parent, the kid held his back to the west. “Yeah, Dad!” His piercing high-pitched voice suddenly shattered the upperclassmen’s mood.

“It’s time to come in now,” the father ordered. “It’s getting late and you’ve got school in the morning.”

“Start eating the apple and then eat a candy bar when you get home,” Artist advised quietly. “That way they’ll never smell the booze on your breath.”

“Really?” Danny was eager now for advice on how he could stay out of trouble with his parents.

“Yeah, well, when you get home, just go to bed right away so they won’t catch you doing anything dumb.” The head waiter now joined in with his bit of wisdom.

“Yeah?” Danny replied. “That’s a good idea, too.” Then Danny got an idea of his own. Quickly he turned his dripping head around and looked at his dad. “There’s only one more of us to bob for an apple. Can I stay here and watch for another minute? I’ll come in right after that, I promise.”

Danny’s dad thought for a moment, and then he gave his son his answer. “All right, but only a few more minutes, and then I want you inside. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. Thanks, Dad.” Danny then turned his head to face us again and this time he was facing me. “You haven’t gone yet, Clint,” he observed.

My friend was right. And although I knew he was stalling so he could go into his house by himself in a few minutes—after his dad had already gone in ahead of him—and thereby avoid getting close to his parent, I also realized that time had run out for me. Unfortunately, I had been continuing to take sips from my fifth during this entire time outside, and now I felt as if I was about to pass out. Nevertheless, I rallied and got down on my knees, anyway.

“Go, Clint! “Juan yelled.

“Yeah, let’s see how the expert does it,” Danny chided. He was starting to become obnoxious as a drunk.

And so, as I plunged my face into the cold liquid before me, I found that because of the high level of alcohol that was now in my blood stream, I had to plant my hands out in front of me in the pool as well to prevent my entire body from falling into the water. Then, once my head, hands and arms up to my elbows were submerged, I discovered that bobbing for apples while drunk was a scary endeavor. Looking back on it, I would never recommend it to anyone. Because as my severe inebriation kept me flirting with unconsciousness, I kept having to raise my head abruptly above the surface and then endure brief sessions of coughing and choking while water drained from all sections of my hair and face to fall noisily back down into the pool below me. I had always been comfortable in the water and although it was never something I would do under normal circumstances, on this night I seemed every so often to forget myself and allow a tiny amount of water to seep through into my lungs.

“Come on, Clint! Don’t let that apple beat ya!” Artist called out during one of my choking sessions.

On one or two occasions I honestly thought I might drown. But finally, I was to get a firm grip on the apple with my teeth and I raised my head in

‘urnph- Then in less than heroic fashion, I gasped as I tried to breathe through the water that was pouring over my face from my bangs which were now flattened against my forehead.

A cheer then rose from the crowd. It seemed as if I had succeeded in providing them all with a decent amount of entertainment.

“Well, I gotta go,” Danny said once I was on my feet again.

“Ok, see ya, Danny,” I replied.

“Yeah see ya, Clint,” he answered back. “See ya guys.” And then Danny looked at his companion. “Come on, Bandit!”

In the moonlight, I could still see water beaded up on the boy’s face, and as a few drops fell from his hair, he turned and began to walk back toward his house.
There he goes,
I thought to myself.
He’s been saved from this bunch by his family.
It gave me the shivers to think of what these bigger kids might have done to Danny on this night if they had been able to get him into the headmaster’s house. A move, by the way, which I was certain was going to be attempted next. But the boy had been plucked from their clutches just in time by his family. Without him even knowing how close he had come to going down a road he could never return from, the kid had been rescued. Much in the way I longed for my own family to rescue me.

“Ok, everyone back into the house,” the leader called out. He now sounded drunker than ever.

And so I turned my drenched upper body and head and began to walk back into Mr. Stuart’s house with the rest of my gang. And as I took one last quick look in time to see Danny and his dog disappear around some trees, I thought about how lucky he was to be going back inside his house to spend the rest of his evening with his family, and I ached for the chance to get my own family life back again. Right there in front of me, just beyond my grasp, was Danny and his normal family life. Suddenly a normal life didn’t seem as distant to me as it had for the past few months. Yes, it was right there!
Oh why,
I thought,
couldn’t we have checked this place out first?

“Come on, Adams. Let’s go!” The head waiter noticed that I was lagging behind.

“I’m coming,” I groaned. And as I entered the house again, I resigned myself to having to continue to live the way I was now living—a drug addict and a sex object.

“Danny’s a dead man as soon as his dad smells his breath,” Artist offered once we were all back inside with the door closed.

“And you told him to eat a candy bar,” the head waiter responded critically.

Once we were all back in the living room again, the bigger kids ordered us to keep drinking. The cold water and the cool night air had sobered everyone up a little and the remaining activities, it seemed, were going to require we younger ones especially to be much more out of control than we were at the moment.

“Let’s have all the little guys sit down on the floor together,” the leader ordered. “And arrange yourselves so that you’re integrated. You know, one U.S. kid, then one Venezuelan kid. Then another U.S. kid and another Venezuelan kid.”

And so, Carlos and Matt and Juan and I all sat down together on the carpet in the center of the headmaster’s living room.