High School Prep Seminary
High School Prep Seminary (Jim)
I’d lie in the lower bunk bed every night in a room with 16 other Freshman boys, fighting myself with all my strength, to not slip out of bed, once the lights were out, and into the top bunk with the boy there. I had promised my parents, if they would not tell Mickey’s parents about us, that I’d never feel these feelings again. And I’d promised myself I’d hold to it, but I couldn’t stop these feelings, night after night after night. This was to be my escape here, from my shame, the loss of my mothers love, from my fathers hatred of me, from Mickey and myself, from what had felt like love - but the torment followed me.
The shame was something I never wanted Mickey to feel. I knew what it was like. I had been molested for quite some time, though I only remember the first and last times, by an older boy, Mark, before Mickey and I found each other. When we were caught by Mark’s Mom she told the neighborhood and blamed me. Over-all my feeling was one of relief though, whatever the cost. Sparing Mickey meant I never saw him again, though.
During the time with the older boy, Mark, I grew to absolutely hate my father, and made it my purpose in life to punish him. I would be whatever he was not. One night he came up stairs and said ‘There’s not room in this house for the two of us - your mother cries all night every night - one of us must leave.’ I said, ‘Good - glad you’re going.’ But in the end it was me who had lost their family.
The deepest reason I left though was the look I saw in my mother’s eyes, the horror, when she walked in on Mickey and I that day. My Mom was the only person I thought I had who loved me and now I saw that love gone.
I chose a prep seminary boarding school for other reasons too, none of which were religious. What a great adventure to be living with a hundred boys my age, in the woods. I saw pictures of huge tug-a-wars where the winners pulled the losers through vast pools of mud. I also saw it as a way to redeem myself, make myself in the eyes of others, into something good again.
I was so homesick. My Mom, had all my brothers and sisters write each week. I think it only intensified the knowing that I wasn’t wanted there.
As I looked at a group of Sophomores, I knew they were homosexuals, and yet, I puzzled, they weren’t tormented, it seemed. I envied them for that but knew my lot. There were temptations everywhere that year though. There was a boy in gym class that had developed way ahead of the rest of us, that would lay naked on the bench each day while we changed. I remember a group of us hiked out to a river once and skinny dipped by the bridge all afternoon.
Eventually though, I did master my feelings that year, so much so that I wouldn’t even see their nudity. I grew to like it there, at Carthage, but it closed, so the next year I went to St. Henry’s.
At St. Henry’s I fell head over heals in love with Chris Matera. Chris is the boy I dialogued with during my first Memoirs assignment. I loved him but never realized it because feelings, by then, were so completely buried that nothing surfaced consciously. Mickey and Chris were the start of a pattern for me, where I could not be loved, until I shattered it around forty with Ty.
I’d lie in the lower bunk bed every night in a room with 16 other Freshman boys, fighting myself with all my strength, to not slip out of bed, once the lights were out, and into the top bunk with the boy there. I had promised my parents, if they would not tell Mickey’s parents about us, that I’d never feel these feelings again. And I’d promised myself I’d hold to it, but I couldn’t stop these feelings, night after night after night. This was to be my escape here, from my shame, the loss of my mothers love, from my fathers hatred of me, from Mickey and myself, from what had felt like love - but the torment followed me.
The shame was something I never wanted Mickey to feel. I knew what it was like. I had been molested for quite some time, though I only remember the first and last times, by an older boy, Mark, before Mickey and I found each other. When we were caught by Mark’s Mom she told the neighborhood and blamed me. Over-all my feeling was one of relief though, whatever the cost. Sparing Mickey meant I never saw him again, though.
During the time with the older boy, Mark, I grew to absolutely hate my father, and made it my purpose in life to punish him. I would be whatever he was not. One night he came up stairs and said ‘There’s not room in this house for the two of us - your mother cries all night every night - one of us must leave.’ I said, ‘Good - glad you’re going.’ But in the end it was me who had lost their family.
The deepest reason I left though was the look I saw in my mother’s eyes, the horror, when she walked in on Mickey and I that day. My Mom was the only person I thought I had who loved me and now I saw that love gone.
I chose a prep seminary boarding school for other reasons too, none of which were religious. What a great adventure to be living with a hundred boys my age, in the woods. I saw pictures of huge tug-a-wars where the winners pulled the losers through vast pools of mud. I also saw it as a way to redeem myself, make myself in the eyes of others, into something good again.
I was so homesick. My Mom, had all my brothers and sisters write each week. I think it only intensified the knowing that I wasn’t wanted there.
As I looked at a group of Sophomores, I knew they were homosexuals, and yet, I puzzled, they weren’t tormented, it seemed. I envied them for that but knew my lot. There were temptations everywhere that year though. There was a boy in gym class that had developed way ahead of the rest of us, that would lay naked on the bench each day while we changed. I remember a group of us hiked out to a river once and skinny dipped by the bridge all afternoon.
Eventually though, I did master my feelings that year, so much so that I wouldn’t even see their nudity. I grew to like it there, at Carthage, but it closed, so the next year I went to St. Henry’s.
At St. Henry’s I fell head over heals in love with Chris Matera. Chris is the boy I dialogued with during my first Memoirs assignment. I loved him but never realized it because feelings, by then, were so completely buried that nothing surfaced consciously. Mickey and Chris were the start of a pattern for me, where I could not be loved, until I shattered it around forty with Ty.
posted by LifeWriter at 9:23 AM
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