This contains a scene of gay coercion!
Jess didn’t notice the pain in his leg as he strolled into the School House and made his way slowly up the stairs to his dormitory. His mind was filled with the events of the day; the accident, losing the store job and meeting Mr. Mitchell.
He wondered what might come of working with this man. He’d heard that Brits often start out well- intentioned and well meaning, but tend to drop out before things were finished. Jess had taken more than his fair share of knocks and tumbles since he’d been at Bamptonville Community College. He’d not raise his hopes too high or too soon, and see how things developed. He liked Mr. Mitchell, it was fun being with him.
‘Start small’ he said to nobody. ‘If I can just get the $320 I need to cover my expenses here, that will be good enough.’
Jess was resigned to going back home to work on the farm at the end of the semester and didn’t want to go home with a bill he knew his folks couldn’t pay. He breathed a sigh of relief and held his full stomach as he climbed to the top landing and turned into his dormitory and mumbled.
‘And I won’t have to go to Felix Gleitner.’
After losing the job at McKendricks and while he was half listening to Melissa’s preachings he had racked his brains to find another way to settle that bill before school closed at the end of the fourth quarter in just 5 weeks time.
However hard he thought for a way out his mind came up with but one solution – Felix Gleitner. It made him feel physically sick just to think about it, but that now seemed to be his only way out.
He lay with his face slumped on the table at Harry’s and was psyching himself up to the inevitability that he’d have to go through with it. It added mental pain to his physical distress after the accident. He tried hard to shut out what Melissa was saying and then Mr. Mitchell had arrived and offered him an alternative.
Jess smiled ‘Maybe he was sent by God. Like he told Melissa?’
Jess felt comforted as he limped into the dormitory. He stopped just inside the door. Something was wrong. It was too quiet and too dark. Most of the overhead lights were out. This long dormitory housed 30 boys, partitioned in their own bed spaces with no doors by 6 feet high walls for privacy.
He glanced into the nearest ones. The occupants were all in bed and under the bed sheets. Their bed lights turned out as if they were asleep. It was never like that. There was always banter and laughter and joshing until after midnight. It was too early for them all to be turned in and asleep.
His space was near the far end. He saw all of the overhead lights were switched off at that end; only those at the entrance were switched on. With a lump in his throat and butterflies in his stomach he crept on into the increasing gloom towards his bedspace.
Something odd was happening here and he didn’t know what it was. Somehow he believed it was to do with him. He’d regularly suffered from bullying as he came from a poor, out of town family and was a ready-made target. It was mostly names and ostracism. Jess had got used to that.
He expected something to happen with each step he took, but nothing had happened by the time he had reached his bed space and he breathed out in relief. Jess hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath. He switched on the bunk light and began to undress.
He’d got down to his tank-top when they appeared. Three seniors walked into his space and blocked him in. Kyler, Leon and Billie-Joe just stood there leering at him.
Jess’s heart raced. He held his shirt in front of him and waited. Kyler spoke.
‘So tell me sodbuster. How’s your day been?’
Jess’s lips quivered as he replied
‘I don’t know what you mean. What do you want here? What do you want with me?’
Jess knew none of his roommates would help him. He was on his own and he was scared. Maybe the smell of fear escaped from him and Kyler and his thugs had picked it up.
Kyler sat on the bed. Leon stood beside him and tapped a short round wooden bar slowly into the palm of his hand- each move conveyed menace.
‘We been hearing our little sodbuster with no new clothes and no gadgets or money even to pay his School House dues didn’t get the job today that was going to make everything right for him. The same little sodbuster that shouldn’t be here in Bamptonville at all and should be digging turnips upstate where he belongs. Our very own in-house joke’
Kyler looked around at his mates and they laughed, as if on cue.
Jess didn’t know why Kyler spoke in the third person and said.
‘That’s right. He gave the job to Horowitz. What’s it to you?’
‘Now that’s not nice. Here we are out of the kindness of our hearts here to help the little sodbuster with his problems and he gets all-uppity. That’s not nice.’
Leon leaned forward.
‘P’raps they have different manners in sodbuster land. Maybe we have to teach him some of ours.’ He smashed the rod loudly into his hand for emphasis and Jess involuntarily winced. They laughed at his discomfort.
‘Maybe we might have to do that. This little sodbuster who don’t even have the price of his own Coke at Harry’s who thinks he’s so much better’n us. Can you b’lieve it. A sodbuster better’n us?’
The others laughed loudly, a false and heartless sound.
‘I don’t think I’m better,’ Jess asserted,’ I just don’t wanna do what you guys do for Felix.’
‘But Felix wants you for next semester. He’ll settle your School House dues now for your promise to go to work for him next semester. It’s as easy as that.’
‘But I don’t want to do that stuff.’
‘But you ain’t got no choice.’ Spittle flew from Kyler’s mouth into Jess’s face as he shouted. ‘How else you gonna make out here. Price of melons being what they are.’
They laughed at this jibe at his family’s poverty and it stung Jess. His mind raced on. He could take the money. Nobody knew yet he wasn’t coming back next semester. He could agree, take the money, settle his debts and run out. The notion was attractive and the easy option for him to take. But his memory brought up a line of Shakespeare that had resonated with him onetime in class.
‘Shit, what’s Shakespeare doing here,’ he thought in near panic as the seniors closed in on him. His adrenalin flowed and the line came clearly to mind. ‘Unto thine own self be true!’ That’s what he had to do, he had to be like that, true to himself, no lies, no deceit, no running out. He faced his tormentors with added strength.
‘I have another option I’m working on- working for a trader.’
‘Oooh,’ they scorned, ‘the sodbuster’s got a trader in tow.’
They were close around him now. Kyler pulled the shirt out of his hands.
‘Well Felix thinks you’re a bit scared and need a bit of encouragement to get started. He’s asked us, your friends, to help you.’
Jess looked quickly from one to the other, and grabbed his shirt from the bed and held it in front of him.’
Kyler stuck his finger in Jess’s waistband and then pulled it free so the elastic smacked into Jess’s stomach as it recoiled.
‘Well Felix thinks we can do you a favour by letting you know what’s it like, so you have nothing to be scared about before you have to get under the lights in a studio or a cab with a trucker or a motel room or the back seat of a car with a salesman.’
Jess felt cold and panted.
‘I told you, I don’t want to do what you guys do. I don’t want to work for Felix.’
‘But you need his money,’ Kyler was salivating.
Jess tried to back off but came up against his wardrobe. He was trapped. He thought of shouting, but knew all of the others in the dormitory were awake and listening, and keeping quiet, so what’s the use.
‘What you gonna do?’
Kyler wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
‘We’re going to get you started little sodbuster.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jess’s eyes rolled in fear.
‘Well Leon here’s gonna put his dick in your mouth a bit and then I’m gonna put mine up your butt a bit. Just so you know what it’s like and there’s nothing to be scared of. Felix says to call it training. Now you can come quietly or we can do it the rough way and that hurts – a lot!’
He looked at the others who laughed and then back to Jess and asked. ‘What’s it gonna be?’
Jess imploded inside and he fought back tears. He could struggle, but without help would get nowhere, the end result would be the same except his leg would be more damaged. His brain urged ‘get it over and done with.’
‘Just one time? Jess asked.
Kyler reeled back in surprise and spoke to his mates.
‘See! The sodbuster really wants to do it after all. Yes just one time.’
‘OK, stand back.’
They stood back while Jess slowly took down his jeans. Leon and Kyler unzipped their jeans. Kyler turned to Billie-Joe and said ‘Get the jelly.’
Leon’s cry distracted them
‘Holy shit! Look at that leg!’
He pointed to Jess’s leg with a wavering finger
Jess had removed his jeans and in the dim glow of the bed light the angry extent of his injuries were revealed, there was now a touch of yellowing adding to the colour mix.
The seniors gaped in awe and backed away as if Jess was diseased.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ Kyler cried.
Jess ‘s adrenalin flowed freely, he saw they were not invincible. He became, calm and assured and got flippant. They obviously hadn’t heard about his accident.
‘I was learning bull fighting over at Noble’s ranch and one got me.’
‘You’re putting me on!’
Jess knew he had control and stepped towards them with a fierce determination on his face.
‘Maybe I am, but get this. I’ll not work for Felix Gleitner, this term or next term or any term. I don’t do those things he wants from me with anybody. I can’t stop you doing what you say you will to me tonight. But get this straight. If you do? I’ll get each one of you sometime when you’re not expecting it. I won’t kill yer, but you will end up in hospital for a long time; maybe crippled even. I promise. So go ahead. Do what you came to do and expect what happens after.’
‘You’re bluffing,’ Kyler said. Leon smashed the rod in his palm in front of Jess’s face. This time the boy didn’t flinch and as he moved slowly towards his tormentors they backed away from the leg and the threat and then were gone.
It was over. Jess lay on his bed shaking. The lights came on in the dormitory, Jess’s bed space filled with people and noise as they got out of bed.
‘You all right Jess?’ Now they were all concerned for him.
Jess lay there shaking and said.
‘I need to think. Leave me alone.’