These paddlings left blazing red handprints on my butt. In the name of privacy I could always close a door for brief periods and hide them from my family. There was no such hiding them from my teammates or the older high school and college-age guys who Garvey encouraged to come back and practice against us. We dressed communally and showered communally. In other words, not only did Garvey, as often as not, trumpet that such-and-such play or behavior earned one of us "raps", but we saw each other go into the music room (which doubled as the visitors' lockerroom) and we saw each other come back out teary-eyed. For days afterwards the recipient of the paddling was forced to publicly display, for all the rest of us, his scarlet welts in the shape of Garvey's hand.
My point is this: few close to Garvey's St. Johns basketball program could honestly claim that they had no knowledge of this abuse. More blatant sexual acts aside, perhaps these players, and others, didn't/don't think that this type of physical punishment is inappropriate or abusive. Maybe these are conclusions reached by boys and never re-evaluated by men. Nonetheless, these impressions are mistaken. Grossly mistaken. Not only is bare-ass paddling of boys, by an adult male (who has been entrusted with their care!) in this testicle/scrotum-holding manner abusive, by definition it is sexual abuse of a minor. Is this the "discipline" to which Garvey refers in The Erie Daily Times-News? This is not discipline. This is abuse. Those of you who are fathers, do you do this to your children? How about you moms? Would you knowingly let someone else do this to your child? This was not part of the implied contract agreed to by my parents when I went to play basketball for St. Johns. And since the behavior described by the Rosenthals, Bruce Kennedy, and others is even more heinous, so beyond "mere paddling", it is not surprising Garvey offers no real response to the allegations. There are no rebuttals, no denials, no words strong enough to erase the handprint of truth.
Some of you former players, and others, placed an ad in support of Garvey in the same above-mentioned newspaper in the days following October 10th, 2004. Given what I have already said, how could you? While in another situation I might applaud your loyalty, your categorical denial of even the paddlings described above renders your entire statement suspect. These occurrences were, and are, common knowledge among us. As for you women and non-players who put your names to this document, how can you possibly claim to be witness to, or have firsthand knowledge of, the events or non-events to which you claim to be privy or have witnessed/not witnessed? Simply put, most of you weren't there. I can only assume your names are there to pad the list. And you ex-players, I saw some of you go to get paddled and I saw the welts. I saw yours, and you saw mine. Others of you, I suspect, were victims of something far more serious. In hindsight, the signs were there. I recognize them as similar to mine. Your support renders your testimonials more than suspect. For all concerned, this ad begs the question of your motivation, past and present.
If you've ever been hit in this, or a similar, manner you know that for days your skin radiates a heat, a burning, a discomfort made worse by sitting or bathing. You don't just forget about it and go about your business. In a sick kind of teenage manner of coping, in the public space that we shared, we pointed and laughed at each other. In private, I was physically and emotionally hurt, humiliated, intimidated, and afraid. My false bravado, and I guess yours, was self-preservation in a peer-pressure-packed environment ruled by a domineering, sadistic, manipulative pedophile who used us against each other. And is using us against each other now. Communal humiliation. Communal shame. Communal silence. Perhaps that was the point of inflicting a public pain that we could not soon forget, not only on our backsides but in our hearts and minds as well.
Those of you who signed the ad: who the hell was Garvey to do this to me, to us? By what right? And why do you still protect this man who did this to us, would do this to our children, and maybe already has, or is? Please ask yourself that question. If you are quiet because you are not ready, or are afraid of the scrutiny speaking out might attract, I guess that I can understand that. Afterall, it took me years to come out in this forum and talk about Garvey molesting me. But even if our current silence is due to self-preservation, it really only serves Garvey's purposes, and we pay the price. We protect this precious secret of ours, never telling anyone, and Garvey goes on relatively unscathed. Doesn't it make you angry?
Unless, self-preservation aside, there is another silence, and this is the possibility that truly disgusts me. I obliquely referred to this above, and that is the silence of those of you who have benefited from Garvey's influence and position in Erie and at Mercyhurst. At what price are you quiet? If you put your name to that ad, as I suspect some of you did, knowing in your heart that the accusations are true, even in part, but because of some favor, job, contract, or appointment, are unwilling to brand him as the abuser and pedophile that he is, shame on you. Garvey owns a part of you. It is you who still wear his handprint. But it's not on your backside. It is on your soul. And that is your real price.
predafile@hotmail.com
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
"Rap" sessions
Garvey opened the door ahead of me, ushered me into the room, flipped the light switch, and with his hand on the doorknob, gently pushed the door closed. There was a finality to the click of the door latch as the mechanism caught. A click that broke the hum of the fluorescent lights and brought me back from the clutter of thoughts streaming through my head. Back to my future. Back to the fear and desperation of my immediate future. He told me to take down my pants. All I could think of at times like this was escape. But there was no escape. In the past I had tried pleading, bargaining, crying, or even physically trying to delay him by inching away. None of that worked. He simply crossed his arms over his chest, rocking back on his heels while pushing his hips forward, leaning his torso back as he did so. Balancing there, he waited for me. He told me that he would wait as long as it took and that it was better to get it over with. He said that by postponing the inevitable I was only adding to my own anguish. In the end, I unfastened my belt, lowered my pants down around my ankles, and naked from the waist down, submitted. I had learned. Tight-lipped and rigid with a quiet loathing and determination that I had learned from his hand, I accepted my beating.
When I bent forward and placed my hands on my knees, Garvey came closer. He approached and stood on my left side. When he got close enough, he reached out with his left hand and cupped, and then closed, his hand around my testicles. This, he told me, was to keep me from getting a hernia, or otherwise injuring myself in that area, during my paddling. My testicles secured, Garvey ceremoniously drew back his right hand, held it for a moment at its peak, and with a full swing of his arm, brought his open, bare hand hard against my bare buttocks. The first time I was ever "rapped" the resulting "smack" had been unlike anything I had ever heard before. I had never been hit like this and certainly had never heard the loud clap that resulted from such a strong flesh on flesh blow. The pain came swiftly next. I had learned not to yelp, but it was all I could do not to. He was, afterall, a fully-grown man and at the time of this particular incident, I was still a pre-pubescent boy. I could not stop the tears from welling up behind my eyes and they spilled out and rolled down my cheeks.
When Garvey's hand made contact with my ass, he didn't immediately remove it. Instead, he held it in place, and not breaking contact with my skin, proceeded to vibrate his palm and fingers back and forth as if reinforcing and rubbing in the pain for a few more seconds. This done, he counted it out loud. "That's one." Then he dramatically drew back his right arm and hit me again. "That's two." Again. "That's three." I started to reach for my pants and tried to stand up. "No, Jack, we're not done. Your teacher said you're headed for a "4" in conduct for this little stunt. You know what a "4" means. Now bend over." I dropped my pants back to the floor and assumed the position. And again Garvey wound up and swung his arm at me, clapping me on the ass with one last ferocious smack. It seemed to be the hardest hit yet and I lurched forward from the sheer force of his swing. "That's four. And let that be a lesson to you. You want to be a clown, Mr. Hughes? You go ahead and grow up to be a clown. But not around me."
As I have said before, when a young boy barely in grade school I was flattered by Garvey's attention. This is ludicrous but the first time I was paddled, despite how much it hurt, I was vaguely proud of having joined the fraternity of St. Johns basketball players. Garvey's players. In later years, teamed with my more blatant sexual abuse, I recognized Garvey's policy of doling out "raps" for what it really is: trolling for, and cultivating, submissive and seemingly willing young boys for his own sexual pleasure.
The handprints from these paddlings showed blazing red on my backside for days afterwards. I would hide them from my parents and family until they went away. The psychological handprint these beatings, and my subsequent sexual abuse at Garvey's hands, left on me are still there. They may never go away. PREDAFILE is an attempt to heal those wounds. I offer this forum to those of you, who like me, were hit by Garvey, were paddled by Garvey, or were taken to bed and sexually molested by Garvey. Begin the healing. Talk about your experiences. Anonymously if necessary. Take back that part of your past that you have denied and kept secret because of shame or embarrassment. Take back that part of your past, that part of you, that you could never share. Not even with those closest to you. Especially not with those closest to you. That's wrong. Garvey stole something from us. PREDAFILE is a safe haven. A place for us to test the waters as we get in touch with how we feel about the things Garvey did to us, and talk about them, for maybe the first time. A place for us to put our past back together. A chance to put our experiences in their proper perspective and maybe one day let those who love us most love us for who we really are, and help us heal. I offer you my experiences. Maybe, in them, you'll see a part of yourself, and reclaim it.
predafile@hotmail.com
When I bent forward and placed my hands on my knees, Garvey came closer. He approached and stood on my left side. When he got close enough, he reached out with his left hand and cupped, and then closed, his hand around my testicles. This, he told me, was to keep me from getting a hernia, or otherwise injuring myself in that area, during my paddling. My testicles secured, Garvey ceremoniously drew back his right hand, held it for a moment at its peak, and with a full swing of his arm, brought his open, bare hand hard against my bare buttocks. The first time I was ever "rapped" the resulting "smack" had been unlike anything I had ever heard before. I had never been hit like this and certainly had never heard the loud clap that resulted from such a strong flesh on flesh blow. The pain came swiftly next. I had learned not to yelp, but it was all I could do not to. He was, afterall, a fully-grown man and at the time of this particular incident, I was still a pre-pubescent boy. I could not stop the tears from welling up behind my eyes and they spilled out and rolled down my cheeks.
When Garvey's hand made contact with my ass, he didn't immediately remove it. Instead, he held it in place, and not breaking contact with my skin, proceeded to vibrate his palm and fingers back and forth as if reinforcing and rubbing in the pain for a few more seconds. This done, he counted it out loud. "That's one." Then he dramatically drew back his right arm and hit me again. "That's two." Again. "That's three." I started to reach for my pants and tried to stand up. "No, Jack, we're not done. Your teacher said you're headed for a "4" in conduct for this little stunt. You know what a "4" means. Now bend over." I dropped my pants back to the floor and assumed the position. And again Garvey wound up and swung his arm at me, clapping me on the ass with one last ferocious smack. It seemed to be the hardest hit yet and I lurched forward from the sheer force of his swing. "That's four. And let that be a lesson to you. You want to be a clown, Mr. Hughes? You go ahead and grow up to be a clown. But not around me."
As I have said before, when a young boy barely in grade school I was flattered by Garvey's attention. This is ludicrous but the first time I was paddled, despite how much it hurt, I was vaguely proud of having joined the fraternity of St. Johns basketball players. Garvey's players. In later years, teamed with my more blatant sexual abuse, I recognized Garvey's policy of doling out "raps" for what it really is: trolling for, and cultivating, submissive and seemingly willing young boys for his own sexual pleasure.
The handprints from these paddlings showed blazing red on my backside for days afterwards. I would hide them from my parents and family until they went away. The psychological handprint these beatings, and my subsequent sexual abuse at Garvey's hands, left on me are still there. They may never go away. PREDAFILE is an attempt to heal those wounds. I offer this forum to those of you, who like me, were hit by Garvey, were paddled by Garvey, or were taken to bed and sexually molested by Garvey. Begin the healing. Talk about your experiences. Anonymously if necessary. Take back that part of your past that you have denied and kept secret because of shame or embarrassment. Take back that part of your past, that part of you, that you could never share. Not even with those closest to you. Especially not with those closest to you. That's wrong. Garvey stole something from us. PREDAFILE is a safe haven. A place for us to test the waters as we get in touch with how we feel about the things Garvey did to us, and talk about them, for maybe the first time. A place for us to put our past back together. A chance to put our experiences in their proper perspective and maybe one day let those who love us most love us for who we really are, and help us heal. I offer you my experiences. Maybe, in them, you'll see a part of yourself, and reclaim it.
predafile@hotmail.com
Saturday, June 18, 2005
"Rapped" attention
Long before I ever played on one of Garvey's teams, I knew who he was. At St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic grade school which I attended, he was revered as the coach of the varsity basketball team and a respected member of the parish community. Ditto at Cathedral Preparatory High School for boys where Garvey coached freshman basketball. And also at Mercyhurst College where he taught History and eventually became the college's president. He devised election strategies and advised local Erie politicians such as mayor Lou Tullio and county executive Robbie Robison, and later, mayor Joyce Savacchio and county councilman Gary Bukowski. All of them benefited from Garvey's expertise. (I apologize for any misspellings.) His power and influence were well known. As was his success. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" and I believe it led Garvey to think he could abuse us with impunity.
When things went well and we played well, Garvey roared his approval and beamed as he looked over his creation. But I also saw Garvey prod, name-call, scream, smack, and otherwise humiliate his players to improve their performance. My performance. His players, me included, quietly accepted this treatment. It was an honor to play for St. John's. An honor to play for Garvey. He was a winner. His methods went unquestioned. But I also watched some of those older players walk slowly, reluctantly, with heads down and shoulders slumped, as they headed off to the music room. They went off to what I initially considered a harsh motivational technique and later, when it happened to me, recognized as the beginnings of abuse and acquiescence, dominance and submission. They were going to the music room to be paddled, "rapped".
As has already been reported by others in The Erie Daily Times-News, the paddling could be for any number of reasons. One way to earn "raps" was to receive a less than acceptable assessment of your classroom behavior. In those days "conduct" was rated on a scale Of "1" to "4", with "4" being the worst possible grade. A mark of "3" or "4" on your report card earned you a like number of raps. Poor grades in academic studies could also earn you raps. And not surprisingly, poor performance on the court could earn you raps that were intended to spur you on to better play. Garvey recognized the motivational power of a very basic human instinct: fear. When he sensed that we, whether singularly or collectively, were afraid of the older high school or college-aged alumni that he encouraged to come scrimmage against us, or even at halftime of a game against another team he thought intimidated us, he told us that if we thought they were something to be scared of, he'd give us something to truly fear: him. At times that meant running laps around the gym for seemingly endless periods. Other times that meant banging your head off of a locker or a smack to the head. Often it meant a trip to the music room and raps. "Raps or laps" was a common refrain. At some point I was paddled for all of the above reasons.
Once in a while one of us would do something, in or out of school, that required Garvey's attention and, as he perceived it, discipline. In one instance, a then eighth grade player, thinking he was unobserved, pinched and twisted the nipple of the breast of one of his female classmates while pleading with her to "gimme some" (if lockerroom scuttlebutt is to be believed re: the quote). His punishment when this was brought to Garvey's attention: raps. In my case I had stupidly penned something silly, perhaps distasteful but by no means profane, that was deemed inappropriate for junior high consumption. One of my teachers had confiscated the material and punished me by keeping me after school. As I had feared, when I failed to show up for practice, my teammates had told Garvey of my predicament and he appeared at the door to my classroom. After a brief discussion in the hallway, the teacher and Garvey reappeared together and I was released into Garvey's custody. I wonder what my teacher would have done had she known what my punishment would be.
Practice was going to start late. And although that was often the case because Garvey was notorious for making us wait outside the school for him to arrive, this time it was my fault. When there were no other teachers or students within sight, he cuffed me open-handed upside the back of my head. "Aw, for Christ's sake. This is dumb, Jack. Really stupid." He led me down the hall to the music room. When we arrived he was further angered by the fact that the door was locked and he hadn't brought his keys. I followed behind him as he led me to the huge custodian storage room at the elbow of the basement. The room was dusty and smelled of the cleaning supplies and floor buffers that were kept there. The air was close and I found it hard to breathe. "Take your pants down, Jack, and bend over."
Next: "Rap" sessions
predafile@hotmail.com
When things went well and we played well, Garvey roared his approval and beamed as he looked over his creation. But I also saw Garvey prod, name-call, scream, smack, and otherwise humiliate his players to improve their performance. My performance. His players, me included, quietly accepted this treatment. It was an honor to play for St. John's. An honor to play for Garvey. He was a winner. His methods went unquestioned. But I also watched some of those older players walk slowly, reluctantly, with heads down and shoulders slumped, as they headed off to the music room. They went off to what I initially considered a harsh motivational technique and later, when it happened to me, recognized as the beginnings of abuse and acquiescence, dominance and submission. They were going to the music room to be paddled, "rapped".
As has already been reported by others in The Erie Daily Times-News, the paddling could be for any number of reasons. One way to earn "raps" was to receive a less than acceptable assessment of your classroom behavior. In those days "conduct" was rated on a scale Of "1" to "4", with "4" being the worst possible grade. A mark of "3" or "4" on your report card earned you a like number of raps. Poor grades in academic studies could also earn you raps. And not surprisingly, poor performance on the court could earn you raps that were intended to spur you on to better play. Garvey recognized the motivational power of a very basic human instinct: fear. When he sensed that we, whether singularly or collectively, were afraid of the older high school or college-aged alumni that he encouraged to come scrimmage against us, or even at halftime of a game against another team he thought intimidated us, he told us that if we thought they were something to be scared of, he'd give us something to truly fear: him. At times that meant running laps around the gym for seemingly endless periods. Other times that meant banging your head off of a locker or a smack to the head. Often it meant a trip to the music room and raps. "Raps or laps" was a common refrain. At some point I was paddled for all of the above reasons.
Once in a while one of us would do something, in or out of school, that required Garvey's attention and, as he perceived it, discipline. In one instance, a then eighth grade player, thinking he was unobserved, pinched and twisted the nipple of the breast of one of his female classmates while pleading with her to "gimme some" (if lockerroom scuttlebutt is to be believed re: the quote). His punishment when this was brought to Garvey's attention: raps. In my case I had stupidly penned something silly, perhaps distasteful but by no means profane, that was deemed inappropriate for junior high consumption. One of my teachers had confiscated the material and punished me by keeping me after school. As I had feared, when I failed to show up for practice, my teammates had told Garvey of my predicament and he appeared at the door to my classroom. After a brief discussion in the hallway, the teacher and Garvey reappeared together and I was released into Garvey's custody. I wonder what my teacher would have done had she known what my punishment would be.
Practice was going to start late. And although that was often the case because Garvey was notorious for making us wait outside the school for him to arrive, this time it was my fault. When there were no other teachers or students within sight, he cuffed me open-handed upside the back of my head. "Aw, for Christ's sake. This is dumb, Jack. Really stupid." He led me down the hall to the music room. When we arrived he was further angered by the fact that the door was locked and he hadn't brought his keys. I followed behind him as he led me to the huge custodian storage room at the elbow of the basement. The room was dusty and smelled of the cleaning supplies and floor buffers that were kept there. The air was close and I found it hard to breathe. "Take your pants down, Jack, and bend over."
Next: "Rap" sessions
predafile@hotmail.com
Sunday, June 05, 2005
"For Christ's sake, use your head"
Oddly, the quality, and sometimes quantity, of my playing time at practice was directly related to the frequency of my having "treatment". After recent treatment sessions Garvey seemed much more encouraging, ready with praise, and supportive. If I hadn't seen him in a while, his criticisms, name-calling, and belittling could be withering. In hindsight, I now wonder if I was placed in situations in which I would be more likely to succeed or fail based on the degree to which I acquiesced off the court.
Regardless, as the time since my last treatment lengthened, my game, my confidence, and my self-esteem were suffering. He repeatedly told me I was not strong enough and a step too slow. He would never allude to the treatment in public but the implications were clear: to achieve my goal I needed what only he could do for me, and to do otherwise was sheer stupidity. One of Garvey's tools of manipulation was to appeal to your intelligence, or if you didn't do as he wanted, lack thereof. On many occasions he said to me, "Jack, for such a smart kid, you make a lot of stupid decisions. Use your head. For Christ's sake, use your head." Evidently, in his mind, or more importantly in my own, I needed to link, irrefutably, avoidance of therapy with being a damn fool. I knew I wasn't stupid and I knew I was no fool, but I was too young to understand Garvey's ability to manipulate the situation and his ability to manipulate me to not only choose to submit to the treatment but to have to come to him and ask for it. And ask for it I did.
During one of my more recent trips to Garvey's residence he had told me that besides my lack of strength I also had a genetic trait, which he had noticed in other members of my family, that made me a step or two slower than I should be. He said that my protruding buttocks was symptomatic of a problem that caused my hips to lock up. "Jack, do you know the difference between 'quickness' and 'speed'? You're not terribly fast but you're OK once you get going. What we need to work on are those hips and your quickness, that first step." Oddly enough, he said my body and my problem were common in Blacks. (I wasn't mentally agile enough at the time to ask why, if that was the case, the African-americans that I was playing on the playground and those I watched on TV didn't seem slow or hip-locked at all.) He said that the exercise we performed, when I got on top of him and I rotated my hips, would "unlock" this problem. Yet another compelling reason for more "treatment".
As bizarre as this had all become, in my mind, I still blindly trusted him. I think my first real doubts about what we were doing up in his bedroom came when during one of our sessions, while I was naked on top of him dutifully rotating my hips, he told me to stick my tongue in his mouth and move it back and forth, and around in a circle. He said it would help raise my body temperature faster, facilitating the draining of my sinuses. He pulled the topsheet and blanket more completely up over the top of us as if to reinforce the need for heat. I was reluctant but I did as he said. The sour smell of coffee was on his breath and it tasted worse. His abrasive stubble grated against the skin around my mouth. I had no idea what I was doing. I mechanically moved my tongue back and forth inside his mouth and my drool began to pool where our mouths met and roll down his face. At one point he reached for the sleeve of his t-shirt and wiped his mouth clean. All the while I was still gyrating my hips.
I lost myself in the rhythmic nature of my movements and tried not to think about what was transpiring. I didn't want to think about what he was doing. The answers were not in my experience vocabulary. I was so young I hadn't even really thought about sex. It held no interest for me. Everything I knew was from one-liners the older guys bandied about the lockerroom, and that presented more questions and confusion than information. In lockerrooms everyone pretends to know more than they actually do. The lockerroom is about false bravado not the dissemination of any remotely accurate information. I waited for Garvey to say enough was enough, and eventually, he did. As usual he rolled me on to my left side and moved on to my sinuses. As had become the rule, this was followed by more upper body wrestling, which now included him wrapping his legs around mine and locking his legs at his ankles to make my escape more difficult. And this was followed by the flexibility exercises which entailed Garvey yanking and tugging as he pulled my hands behind my back and pushed against my shoulders attempting to touch my fingertips to the base of my skull.
For the first time Garvey asked me if I would like to shower before I dressed. From that day forward, he would invariably ask and I would always decline. Even though I had yet to sort out much of what was going on or how I felt about it, I knew all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. I dressed, we got into his car, he drove to my neighborhood and dropped me off in front of my house.
I needed to think. The problem was I didn't know the questions let alone the answers. I did know something wasn't right. I was miserable. Life was miserable. I hated it and I hated myself. Although I couldn't put it into words yet, my heart, my soul, something inside me felt terribly wrong. Deeply scared. Deeply troubled. Deeply wrong. Something about Garvey was wrong. "Use your head, Jack. For Christ's sake, use your head."
predafile@hotmail.com
Regardless, as the time since my last treatment lengthened, my game, my confidence, and my self-esteem were suffering. He repeatedly told me I was not strong enough and a step too slow. He would never allude to the treatment in public but the implications were clear: to achieve my goal I needed what only he could do for me, and to do otherwise was sheer stupidity. One of Garvey's tools of manipulation was to appeal to your intelligence, or if you didn't do as he wanted, lack thereof. On many occasions he said to me, "Jack, for such a smart kid, you make a lot of stupid decisions. Use your head. For Christ's sake, use your head." Evidently, in his mind, or more importantly in my own, I needed to link, irrefutably, avoidance of therapy with being a damn fool. I knew I wasn't stupid and I knew I was no fool, but I was too young to understand Garvey's ability to manipulate the situation and his ability to manipulate me to not only choose to submit to the treatment but to have to come to him and ask for it. And ask for it I did.
During one of my more recent trips to Garvey's residence he had told me that besides my lack of strength I also had a genetic trait, which he had noticed in other members of my family, that made me a step or two slower than I should be. He said that my protruding buttocks was symptomatic of a problem that caused my hips to lock up. "Jack, do you know the difference between 'quickness' and 'speed'? You're not terribly fast but you're OK once you get going. What we need to work on are those hips and your quickness, that first step." Oddly enough, he said my body and my problem were common in Blacks. (I wasn't mentally agile enough at the time to ask why, if that was the case, the African-americans that I was playing on the playground and those I watched on TV didn't seem slow or hip-locked at all.) He said that the exercise we performed, when I got on top of him and I rotated my hips, would "unlock" this problem. Yet another compelling reason for more "treatment".
As bizarre as this had all become, in my mind, I still blindly trusted him. I think my first real doubts about what we were doing up in his bedroom came when during one of our sessions, while I was naked on top of him dutifully rotating my hips, he told me to stick my tongue in his mouth and move it back and forth, and around in a circle. He said it would help raise my body temperature faster, facilitating the draining of my sinuses. He pulled the topsheet and blanket more completely up over the top of us as if to reinforce the need for heat. I was reluctant but I did as he said. The sour smell of coffee was on his breath and it tasted worse. His abrasive stubble grated against the skin around my mouth. I had no idea what I was doing. I mechanically moved my tongue back and forth inside his mouth and my drool began to pool where our mouths met and roll down his face. At one point he reached for the sleeve of his t-shirt and wiped his mouth clean. All the while I was still gyrating my hips.
I lost myself in the rhythmic nature of my movements and tried not to think about what was transpiring. I didn't want to think about what he was doing. The answers were not in my experience vocabulary. I was so young I hadn't even really thought about sex. It held no interest for me. Everything I knew was from one-liners the older guys bandied about the lockerroom, and that presented more questions and confusion than information. In lockerrooms everyone pretends to know more than they actually do. The lockerroom is about false bravado not the dissemination of any remotely accurate information. I waited for Garvey to say enough was enough, and eventually, he did. As usual he rolled me on to my left side and moved on to my sinuses. As had become the rule, this was followed by more upper body wrestling, which now included him wrapping his legs around mine and locking his legs at his ankles to make my escape more difficult. And this was followed by the flexibility exercises which entailed Garvey yanking and tugging as he pulled my hands behind my back and pushed against my shoulders attempting to touch my fingertips to the base of my skull.
For the first time Garvey asked me if I would like to shower before I dressed. From that day forward, he would invariably ask and I would always decline. Even though I had yet to sort out much of what was going on or how I felt about it, I knew all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. I dressed, we got into his car, he drove to my neighborhood and dropped me off in front of my house.
I needed to think. The problem was I didn't know the questions let alone the answers. I did know something wasn't right. I was miserable. Life was miserable. I hated it and I hated myself. Although I couldn't put it into words yet, my heart, my soul, something inside me felt terribly wrong. Deeply scared. Deeply troubled. Deeply wrong. Something about Garvey was wrong. "Use your head, Jack. For Christ's sake, use your head."
predafile@hotmail.com
Thursday, June 02, 2005
"Carpe diem"
Naive as I was, I knew that I did not like the new twist that my relationship with Garvey had undergone. He began regularly directing me to the "music room" after practice. He would stand behind me and pin my arms to my sides or hold me by my wrists, sometimes pulling my arms behind my back. I was to fight against him to gain my escape. Fight I did. As before, in his bed, I pulled, twisted, grunted, and struggled. Sometimes he would tell me that if I couldn't break away, I would be "rapped". I struggled harder. Other times, inexplicably, I would free myself after a relatively short session. I had yet to approach puberty and I was no match for a fully grown man, even one with arthritis like Garvey. I never understood why sometimes he made it so hard and other times it was much easier. I still don't. Invariably, in the course of this wrestling, my towel would fall from around my waist. He would tell me to leave it where it lay and I would continue my session naked.
He began ending these sessions by taking hold of my wrists and stretching my arms behind my back in an attempt to touch my hand to the back of my head. Even at the age of eleven I was nowhere near flexible enough to perform this stretch but time after time we would go through this painful pulling on my arms and shoulders until months later I could finally do it with relative ease. I tell you this to point out that the "treatment" never stopped. It evolved. There was always something.
Perhaps the physical pain was a test, something to toughen me up. Bad as it was the toll these sessions were taking on my soul was much more serious. I hated the grueling contests. I tried to avoid them. I tried to avoid him. Avoid the situations that led to these sessions. I showered quickly and tried to get out of the school before he would come downstairs from the gym to the lockerroom. I left without showering. One day he caught me in the hall and I got a lecture and he forced me to take a shower with only the cold water turned on. He stood watch and would have held me under if I had tried to get out. He'd done it before.
Not long after, I think sensing my attempts to avoid him, he cornered me in the boys' basement bathroom where we showered. I was using one of the two urinals when he came up alongside of me to use the other. "Are you familiar with the saying 'carpe diem'," he asked me. "No, of course not," he answered his own question. "It's from the Latin. It means 'seize the day', 'seize the opportunity'. Mr. Hughes, Jack, you have an opportunity in front of you. I don't do what I'm doing for you for just anybody. You have worked hard for what you've gotten. It's not enough. Do you want to be mediocre? Is that what you want? To settle for mediocrity? We haven't worked on your strength or flexibility lately. You aren't fast enough or strong enough to compete with those other guys out there. Most of them are already going through puberty. Are you going to throw it all away? I don't offer my services lightly, Jack. Make up your mind. And remember, 'Carpe diem'." He'd started to walk away when he turned and said, "And how's your head? We haven't been working on your sinuses, either. Don't neglect them. That'd be a big mistake." He turned and left.
I considered my options. None of them good. I wanted that for which I had worked so hard, and always seemed to be just out of my grasp: to play and to play well. How had that ever come to this?
predafile@hotmail.com
He began ending these sessions by taking hold of my wrists and stretching my arms behind my back in an attempt to touch my hand to the back of my head. Even at the age of eleven I was nowhere near flexible enough to perform this stretch but time after time we would go through this painful pulling on my arms and shoulders until months later I could finally do it with relative ease. I tell you this to point out that the "treatment" never stopped. It evolved. There was always something.
Perhaps the physical pain was a test, something to toughen me up. Bad as it was the toll these sessions were taking on my soul was much more serious. I hated the grueling contests. I tried to avoid them. I tried to avoid him. Avoid the situations that led to these sessions. I showered quickly and tried to get out of the school before he would come downstairs from the gym to the lockerroom. I left without showering. One day he caught me in the hall and I got a lecture and he forced me to take a shower with only the cold water turned on. He stood watch and would have held me under if I had tried to get out. He'd done it before.
Not long after, I think sensing my attempts to avoid him, he cornered me in the boys' basement bathroom where we showered. I was using one of the two urinals when he came up alongside of me to use the other. "Are you familiar with the saying 'carpe diem'," he asked me. "No, of course not," he answered his own question. "It's from the Latin. It means 'seize the day', 'seize the opportunity'. Mr. Hughes, Jack, you have an opportunity in front of you. I don't do what I'm doing for you for just anybody. You have worked hard for what you've gotten. It's not enough. Do you want to be mediocre? Is that what you want? To settle for mediocrity? We haven't worked on your strength or flexibility lately. You aren't fast enough or strong enough to compete with those other guys out there. Most of them are already going through puberty. Are you going to throw it all away? I don't offer my services lightly, Jack. Make up your mind. And remember, 'Carpe diem'." He'd started to walk away when he turned and said, "And how's your head? We haven't been working on your sinuses, either. Don't neglect them. That'd be a big mistake." He turned and left.
I considered my options. None of them good. I wanted that for which I had worked so hard, and always seemed to be just out of my grasp: to play and to play well. How had that ever come to this?
predafile@hotmail.com
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