Lost Lad (4 page)

            The great car floated on bravely soaking up jolts from deep pot holes in the ill-repaired, cracked concrete pavement.  Almost every road was a straight line running exactly north-south or east-west, forming a grid of depressing metropolitan sameness within a fifteen mile radius of Downtown Detroit.

It was a cruel functional world which the foreign driver had suffered since he first disembarked from the old Queen Elizabeth in 1963, the day before John F Kennedy was assassinated.  The death of the President also signalled the death of Simeon's 'American Dream'.  Within days he was pining for his homeland, but in all these 40 years Simeon had never found the courage to make the big return.  In those far off days in the previous century, emigration was massively expensive, a one-way trip: it was forever.  Family, friends and the American people in general told him daily that he was very fortunate to be in 'The Land of the Free'. 

           
"What's ya beef, Mack?  Most young guys like you, back in ol' decayin' yorup; why, they'd give their right arm to be able to come to the United States!  Quit ya whingin'."
    

As time passed, connections were formed, friendships forged and new roots put down in terms of employment and eventually college.  Earnings were high and material living standards were good.  In 1969 he heard about the scandal of English teachers eking out a living on a net starting salary of twelve pounds a week.  Starting American teachers in south Michigan were paid nearly seven times that amount.  Home-sick he may have been, but the ex-patriot was able to accumulate capital, and at the same time, visit Britain every long summer vacation to see it at a level of comfort, and luxury, denied to Englishmen of average means. 

But he had not seen bluebells since the spring of 1963.  He had not seen the mellow mists of October in the Derbyshire Dales, or the romantic fog of November, or the glistening white brilliant frosts of January since being a teenager.  Every part of the British year, save for July to early September, had been denied to him for over a third of a century - and now he was entering the autumn of his years.  That special meeting of just a half hour before had changed everything.  He was going home.  He was going back to England - forever.

The car was safely garaged and the driver now indoors.  He could not settle.  He was churned up with an excitement which Simeon had not known for some time.  He reached for the 50,000 scale Ordnance Survey map of Derbyshire -

           
"Where shall I look?  How shall I look?  By car?  Cycle would be better.  Where to stay?  Hotel in Buxton?"

            He looked at the complex geography of sharp peaks, twisting dales and tangled ravines which could not have contrasted more with the monotonous, horizontal expanse beyond his window.  This was a pointless exercise without knowing what properties were available, but it mattered not.  At this moment he needed the nostalgia.  He needed to soak up Derbyshire.  Home.  Memories.  His eye drifted to the south east corner, looking for Heanor, a hill-top coal mining town which was just three miles off the map.

Heanor.  Many is the time on the annual vacations he would cycle to this begrimed and rather seedy little community which never failed to fascinate.  This was the place where he had known agony, eroticism and ultimately - ecstasy: the place where he had been hated, loved, used and abused.  He would dismount and walk his cycle over to the cruel Dickensian Mundy Street Boys School and look on, savouring an inexplicable kind of ghoulish compulsion.  It was rather like watching a horror film, but knowing you were perfectly safe, because now, Mr Hogg, the respected schoolmaster, was nearly half a century and an ocean away from that nightmarish regime. 

Simeon Hogg often looked into his old playground, a dismal hard flat area bereft of any comforting foliage.  He noted the very places where he had been taunted, shamed and brought low with pig grunts.  In the 'rough and tumble' of the Heanor code of ethics, a boy who would not fight was regarded with contempt and soon fell to the bottom of the pecking order.  Simeon was soft: Simeon was 'fair game'.   He looked at the high classroom window and re-played several excruciating incidents of public ridicule which were frequently engineered by a sadistic teacher.  Incidents such as the time when this master read out one of his compositions and encouraged uproarious laughter and shouting catcalls.  Inside that hard, unfeeling building, he had been phlegmed on and remembered feeling sick and broken in the struggle to clean off the disgusting thick mucus.  He remembered being made to smell a ruler which had been drawn over the anus of a bully.  The same bully, in front of other boys, forced him to acknowledge sexual slurs about his mother. 

Simeon's timid and gentle disposition was such that physical force was rarely needed to bring him to heel in that hell-hole.  Encouraged by the all-powerful classroom teacher, other boys found him a convenient target.  Sanctioned by that same authority which was supposed to protect him, other boys felt perfectly justified in giving the screw one turn after another - and then - perhaps - just another turn.  It was easy to find a tender spot, to touch just the right nerve ...  A favourite nerve was the Promised Land.  Young Simeon had a great passion for the USA.  One day he would go there.  One day he would be happy.

Friday, December 6th 1957 was a particularly bad day for Simeon and millions of Americans.  Headline news reported that the United States had made a failed attempt to launch its first artificial earth satellite.  Newsreel footage showed a Vanguard Rocket crumpling back to the ground amid an inferno of exploding flames at Cape Canaveral after achieving barely ten foot.  The tiny 14 kilogram sphere in the top cone was still pathetically sending out its radio 'bleeps' when the smoking stricken vessel lay prostrate.

The teacher made comment on this exciting news.  He reminded his class that only two months before, the Soviet Union had astonished the world.  For the first time ever, they put into orbit an artificial 'moon', six times heavier than the sad little American satellite.  He added further weight to the Russian cause by drawing attention to the ground-breaking event of November 3rd.  The Communists had launched a device thirty times heavier containing a doomed dog called Laika sent to test conditions for the first manned space flight.

The thrust of this lesson was to show that the Americans were well behind in the space race and the other boys took full advantage as they loudly leered, jeered, hooted and mock machine-gunned one miserable little boy in their midst, who, although suffering internal agonies, was still trying to put on a brave face.  This conduct was tolerated by the schoolmaster and the ordeal ran its full course.  A popular record sung by Perry Como ran -

           
"Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day."
  A revised version was sung at Simeon in the playground -

           
"Catch a falling satellite and put it in a matchbox, send it to the USA."
    

Having brought their victim to a very low point of esteem and easy malleability, it was now possible for one particular boy (with the reputation of being a
'dotty sod'
) to put his slave to good use in this all boys school, this culture of cruelty which was also a culture of homoeroticism.  With groping commonplace and 'ticker-on-balls' a favourite game in the school-yard, it was only a matter of time before Simeon, now broken in spirit, pliable and obedient to his masters, was ordered into the boys lavatory.

            Simeon never forgot the appalling stench of that filthy place whose depressing Victorian brick walls were decorated with stinking lines drawn by crayons of excreta.  As far as possible, to avoid a visit, he ignored the call of nature and, as a result, suffered constipation for the rest of his life.  Looking back over the years (with an honest smile) he admitted that these coerced erotic activities became more and more agreeable, albeit in such a malodorous venue. 

           
"Didn't need to be threatened the next day!"
laughed Simeon to a friend years later. 
"Make no mistake, in front of the others he was often very nasty to me ... but, well, in the dark and silence of that reeking WC, I suppose he was as near to a friend as I was ever likely to get."

           
"You couldn't have been very old.  What was it like?"

           
"What was it like ... it was a form of ... sensual sanctuary.  It was exciting.  I was very excited!  So was he.  Nothing elaborate, quite simple, two lads satisfying mutual curiosity.  Gentle examination with little touches, strokes, caresses, pats and pets."
  Simeon stared out into the infinite distance. 
"Could have been yesterday.  It's odd, but ... I can still recall his body scent ... I can smell it now ... "

           
"Cute?"

           
"Oh yes!  Boy was he ever cute!  Not much room, we were very close in there.  Turned up nose, sweet little nose.  Light sandy hair. Freckles ...  Yes, very close, face to face - but it never got more friendly than that.  The action was down below, down in the hairless, milky white, nether regions."

           
"Did ya cum?"

           
"At the age of eleven!  Younger perhaps.  No, not for a long time, but ... well, it did happen - eventually - to me.  We were both quite shocked - and him none too pleased.  Got a bit messy then."
          

Simeon never spoke to anybody about that other boy, the bigger dark boy who, in the end, nearly pushed him over the edge.  The Big Boy was not so bad at first - a simple command was easily complied with -

           
"Aye, coom 'ere."

           
"What?"

           
"There's a pencil in me pocket.  Put ya 'and in."

Rather more one-sided than his usual partner, this was a different task but just as interesting.  Raggy britches [breeches], often handed down from older brothers, seldom had sound pockets.  But at Mundy Street Boys School power had nothing to do with smart dress.  Power was established by force of personality and, more important, force of the bravery and skill of bare knuckle fist fights in the play-ground.  This high ranking pupil was a particular favourite of the schoolmaster and, just as long as his disciple was receiving pleasure, Simeon was useful and relatively safe.  It happened at Big Boy's bidding - in the toilets, in the playground, even in the classroom - often in the classroom.  In the few minutes duration, it had a beginning, a middle and a wet sticky conclusion when the worker was usually thanked with -
"Get lost."
 

            The beginning looked innocent - just two boys sitting side by side apparently absorbed with work, writing in an exercise book.  The middle would see the larger boy's penmanship get slower, become less accurate, less steady.  Having achieved so little in his short miserable life, Simeon noted these subtle changes to his desk-mate and became intrigued with the practical, pleasing results of his own delicate handiwork.  Subtle changes to Big Boy's breathing were noted: unsteady, slightly deeper and more intense.  Occasionally the servant would steal a glance at the face of his close master who was attempting to maintain an air of detached industriousness - but, affected by ever mounting ecstasy, was gradually failing.  Just for these precious moments, Simeon, working skilfully with his soft, sensitive, naughty little hand - it was
he
who now had the power: the power to speed up or slow down: the power to fumble, fondle and seek out those special little places, special little favourite places - the nooks and crannies of bliss.  Eventually the subject had ceased all pretence to write.  His eyes were half closed, legs slowly widening, lifting, plus small changes in posture to improve ease of accessibility.  At this familiar point Simeon would look upon that face: a face handsome rather than cute: a face darkened by sporting hours under the 1957 sunshine: a face in seventh heaven but too ashamed to look upon the face of his adept and conscientious servicer: a face more and more transported with sexual euphoria ...

            The end was near.  The end had to be near.  That deft little hand, wet and gooey with excited dribble, was too clever, too cunning in technique.  Simeon was accustomed to the signs, the opening mouth and a low, slow, barely audible moan ...  Sometimes a gruff
'finish it'
was uttered in a shaking whispered voice.  Sometimes it was an urgent breathy order.  Sometimes that weak adolescent croak was almost pleading.  Sometimes it could not be articulated. 

The climax subsided and so did the protection.  A thin shabby little boy wiped his hand on a drab post-war pullover, slunk away back to his usual desk, hoping, once again, not to be noticed by any opportunistic tormentors.  But, for a few boys at Mundy Street, the fun went on and on - as on that terrible grey cold morning when Simeon, possibly for the first time ever - combed his hair.