by Peter Razor
“I take it the jail has no bathing facilities,” he began. “Were they examined for illness? Anything can happen to youngsters in a week.” He leaned close to inspect my head bruise. “It’s fresh enough. I’d hate to guess how that happened!”
Dale pointed at my head, “Well, when the railroad men caught us, they—”
“I was not aware of any bruise,” the head jailer interrupted. “Not in the jail, were they hurt.”
“Then, it’s obvious you didn’t check them,” the social worker continued. “They look to be suffering from exposure, and those filthy clothes could aggravate sunburn and body sores. By their looks, you didn’t feed them.”
The head jailer coughed nervously with one finger on his jaw. “It was them that ran away,” he said. “The city says we’re to hold homeless juveniles … for their own good.”
“For their good, you say?” The social worker spoke softly, but his voice ran with contempt. “I certainly wouldn’t want you doing anything for my good.”
The social worker drove us to the train depot and introduced us to the conductor. “This man will see to you to the Cities. Mr. Doleman, perhaps you know him, will pick you up there. Good luck,” he said as he turned to go.
The conductor motioned at a seat near the front of the car.
“Both of you sit together and don’t move. Ask if you need the toilet,” he said. He was gentle enough but seemed pre-occupied.
When the couple in the seat ahead of us held their tickets up for the conductor to see, the woman asked, “Where are they going?”
The conductor leaned toward the couple and murmured from the side of his mouth, “They’re runaways going back to an orphanage.” The conductor moved on, and the couple whispered between themselves. They turned in their seat and faced us with genuine smiles, but their sympathy made me even more embarrassed.
“You boys look starved,” the woman said, handing us each a bread roll.
“Something to hold you over ’til you get wherever you’re going,” the man said. His voice faltered as though unsure of whether he should help us, but he handed us each fifty cents. The couple faced forward and did not turn around for the remainder of the trip.
Our return on the passenger car took half as many hours as it took days walking and riding in boxcars. We passed back over the trestle and through that little town where the older boys stopped us and by the vegetable garden. Was it all only a dream?
The train slowed, quietly stopping at a Twin Cities station.
“Don’t move, boys,” the conductor said, touching Dale’s shoulder. “Until we see Mr. Doleman.” After the last passenger was gone, he scanned the platform through the windows of our car.
“There he is,” Dale said. He leaned across the aisle and pointed to a man on the platform who watched as passengers stepped from the train.
“Mr. Doleman?” the conductor called from the door. Mr. Doleman straightened, put on a smile, and approached. The conductor joined him outside, then Mr. Doleman turned and leaned in.
“Come with me, boys,” he said. He spoke softly and showed no amazement. He led us to his car.
“Did you have a good trip?” Mr. Doleman asked as we drove south out of the Cities toward Owatonna. “Do you know how much gas it takes to chase after runaways? Tires are rationed for the State School, too, you know.” Mr. Doleman said nothing about our appearance, nor did he ask how we felt or why we ran away—he was just doing his job.
It felt odd as I entered the campus past cottages with boys and girls playing or walking about—this was my home, though not really that. Some time soon, I knew, I would leave and never return.
Mr. Doleman took us to C-16 and turned us over to Mrs. Steele. He warned us not to consider running away again, then left. Mrs. Steele scanned us from head to foot, frowning.
“You’ll certainly come to nothing when you’re grown. I can’t imagine idlers wanting to run away in the first place. And starving by the looks of it. Well, it’s to the shower first, and Miss Klein will have clean clothes for you.”
She ended with a sigh.
“Supper in an hour.”
Though I was eager to shower and don clean clothes, I was most excited by the prospect of my first hot food in eight days.
I lathered and washed the grime off. It took four shampoos combined with vigorous combing to smooth my matted hair—like digging burrs from a dog’s fur. Rinsing my hair for the last time, I smirked as footsteps approached.
“Now, Cole, wash behind your ears,” I said, nodding at the shower door.
Dale smiled and nudged me, “Yeah.” We both had our backs to the door when it flew open.
“Soap your hair good. Get rid of the animals you picked up,” Miss Klein said. “And wash behind your ears.” She leaned in just short of shower spray. “By the looks of things you need steel wool.” I stepped out of the spray and lathered to hide behind soap suds.
“You’ve slimmed some in your travels, Peter,” Miss Klein said.
“Since when do we need help washing?” I said.
“I’m supposed to see if you have sores and that you wash properly,” Miss Klein murmured.
“Well, you seen, can we wash in privacy, now?” I said.
Miss Klein ignored us, “Your skin looks awful where it’s peeling, Dale. See me after you’re dry and I’ll give you something for it. Wouldn’t hurt to put balm on yours too, Peter. Don’t take too long in there. I don’t think you want to miss supper.”
We talked quietly while eating our supper of hash, vegetables, milk, bread and butter, and pudding. Though hash disgusted me in the past, I thought I would eat five servings, but was stuffed after two plus pudding.
Dale and I were not given much work; our punishment was mostly on paper, and I was soon able to do the same as others.
Although maturing years in only days, I had failed to free myself from an institution. But I learned important lessons: adults outside the State School were just as miserable, kind, or indifferent as State School employees. So I accepted my lot at the State School. Though I did not have to work for Mr. Beaty anymore, I no longer feared the possibility that I might—I’d give him his cold eye back and dare him to do anything.
During my remaining year at C-16, I cleaned the gym and pool at intervals, worked in the cow barn and cleaned the operating room after surgery. I was left alone during much of my work. Then, in early June, just after Saturday breakfast, Roy and I met Mrs. Cory waiting in the hall commons of C-16. Mrs. Cory held her arm out to me and motioned Roy on. Her face was soft, and her employee self seemed missing.
“Peter, could I speak with you?” she asked. “In the living room, please.”
“Now?” I asked.
“If you would,” Mrs. Cory said. I entered the living room. Mrs. Cory sat in a rocker and motioned to an empty chair.
“Sit,” she said.
I sat hunched forward, forearms on my lap, waiting.
“The office has agreed to let you stay overnight at my house,” she said. She paused with clasped hands. “If you want to.”
I sat up in my chair and looked nervously out the window. “I don’t understand,” I said.
“We’d go fishing,” she said, “for bullheads. Then we’d have a fish fry later at our home and you’d sleep in a bunk bed under my son.”
“I don’t know anything about fishing or staying in anyone’s house. Maybe your boy wouldn’t like it, or your husband. Wouldn’t I be in the way?” I worried there was more to this than she was saying, that I was being groomed for farm placement. Did the office ask her to see if I could be placed, or did she have a checklist from Doctor Yager? I looked at her hands then to her eyes. She seemed genuine, and I began to feel more at ease.
Mrs. Cory said, “My husband would show you how to fish.”
“If you’re sure I won’t be in the way,” I said.
“Of course not,” Mrs. Cory assured me. She smiled. “He’ll pick us up after dinner. Just wear what you have on.”
> The prospect of fishing and staying in a private home stunned me. If it really happened. Even as I sat in the back seat of the Corys’ car, it felt wonderful beginning my first car ride ever in recreation.
Richard, their ten-year-old son, played catch with me in the backyard, where Mrs. Cory brought a snack, my second between meals, of sandwiches and sweet juice. At supper, Mr. Cory said grace, which lasted less than ten seconds, and was felt much deeper than the thirty to sixty seconds of silence at the cottage. Everyone talked over supper, which was unheard of at C-3 and C-15 and hushed at C-16.
After supper, Mr. Cory opened a metal box with compartments and trays and sorted through a miscellany of brightly colored lures.
“First, we get the fishing tackle ready,” he said. Fishing gear was called tackle in movies, but I never questioned its terminology until holding some. Were we going to tackle the fish? I smiled to myself.
The Corys packed a lunch and we left for Clinton Falls. I stared at the passing countryside, restraining an inner excitement while listening to the talk of a real family—about relatives, weddings, and auctions.
The sun touched the horizon as we parked on the east side of the river below the falls. As if on cue when the sun dipped behind the hills, a cloud of bats emerged from an old mill building across the river. It was an eerie sight viewed for the first time against the lingering glow of sunset. Smells, the roaring falls, and water washing against the shore; the river seemed alive.
Mr. Cory talked as he handed me a pole, “I’ll help with the first worm; you can do the rest yourself. Bullheads are best fished after dark.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. We talked loud to be heard over the noise of the falls.
“Their feeding time,” Mr. Cory replied. “Maybe it’s safer when animals and bigger fish can’t see them.”
“Maybe,” I said, “like human animals too?”
“Yep,” Mr. Cory said, smiling. “Only we don’t need to see them.”
I imitated the way Mr. Cory threw his line and positioned the bobber.
“See that?” Mr. Cory pointed to his jiggling bobber.
“Yes,” I replied. “That’s the fish, not the current. Right?”
“Yes sir,” Mr. Cory said, just as the bobber disappeared. He jerked his pole and a wriggling fish sailed onto the bank.
“Holy cow!” I exclaimed, “Is that a bullhead?”
“Sure is,” Mr. Cory said. “Now it’s your turn.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever catch a fish,” I said.
Just then, Mr. Cory touched my arm. “Maybe quicker than you think. Careful now, you might have one.” He pointed to my bobber. “Not yet.” While I stared at my bobber, it suddenly disappeared.
“Now!” Mr. Cory said. I jerked the rod, a fish flew over my head nearly hitting Mrs. Cory who was worming her hook behind me.
I caught six fish by myself and we all caught a pailful. Long after dark we climbed into the car for the return trip. Exhausted by the excitement, I slept on the short trip into town.
The Corys taught me how to clean the fish, roll them in flour and fry them. My first late-night fish fry found me yawning and totally relaxed. I have no memory of climbing into bed, only of waking up before Richard. I lay in the bottom bunk wondering if the Corys who seemed to enjoy having me, were also helping Dr. Yager.
11
It wasn’t until years later, when I was an adult and researching the records of the State School, that I realized that my experiences were not unique. The articles I read of farm indenture in the early years of the school were little different from its last years when I was there. Though most boys worked hard for little or no wages, a much smaller percentage of indentured boys were verbally abused or beaten by their guardian farmers. I found among some of the earliest archives, this report from 1898 of a social worker’s conversation with a seventeen-year-old boy, who was first indentured at fifteen, and had apparently run away:
Social worker: Why did you leave?
Boy: I worked two long seasons for only one suit of clothes and ten cents one Fourth of July. I can do better on my own.
This boy was almost fifty years older than me. He may have been dead by the time I entered my indenture, repeating his unspoken sorrow, and finally running at the very same age.
…
In November, the Schaulses’ third baby, Yvette, was born. It only seemed to heighten the tension between John and Emma. They became more irritable every day, shouting before and during meals, knotting my stomach. Breakfasts were eaten in icy silence, and I did not relax until I was on the school bus. When I returned home from school one afternoon, the weather was unusually warm. Uneasiness gripped me as I stepped from the bus, waved goodbye to Gene, and headed into the Schaulses’ driveway: John’s car was gone. Again.
On my way to change clothes, I heard sounds of Emma caring for little Yvette and knew John had gone alone to town. Early chores finished, I was in the house by six o’clock for supper. Emma often delayed my supper, hoping for John’s return. With nothing to eat since school lunch, I was glad when Emma set a plate for me.
“I eat when John comes home,” Emma said.
“Did he say when he was coming?” I asked between bites.
“Never mind, you get to chores,” Emma said curtly. “If you not here, John would be home, not running to bars!”
“I know,” I mumbled with a full mouth. After eating, holding my denim jacket, I stopped at the door and faced Emma, “I really want to go, you know.” But Emma had already turned her back to me.
On my way out to begin milking, I snapped on the yard light. It dimly lit the barn and silo creating eerie outlines about the buildings, dancing, meshing with older shadows in my mind. That fear deepened as I milked. Whenever a car passed, I stood to look out the barn window, hoping it wouldn’t slow, that it wasn’t John.
After several false alarms, I saw John’s car slow and turn into the yard. It stopped near the house. I watched through the window as John felt his way to the house. I stepped out of the barn and froze in the yard staring at the house. I knew Emma was going to sic him on me. She could divert his rage away from herself if John took out his anger on me. I almost felt sorry for Emma, but saw her as selfish and cowardly. Rather than standing up to John, or telling someone about his drinking and tirades, she would send him to the barn looking for me. The house door burst open, and those scorching eyes homed in on me.
I ran to hide behind the log pile, hoping he would tire and go to bed. I would have gladly finished chores alone. I reached the pile, stopped and looked around, relieved there was no sign of him. I sighed, relieved that John had not followed me.
Something moving atop the log pile caught the corner of my eye. I jumped with fear. There stood John, like the devil in silhouette, swinging a weapon.
“No!” I yelled.
It was the briefest image in slow motion: the dark shadow, my arm not quite shielding my face, and the outline of the weapon in the yard light. My head suddenly exploded in a shower of stars, and everything disappeared into blackness.
It seemed only seconds that I slept. I felt first a dull throb, then a blinding headache and creeping awareness. I tried to move, but nothing worked. This paralysis caused a deep sense of hopelessness; I was afraid I was dying. I stared at the barn, but the yard light was off and my eyes closed again.
I woke to a penetrating chill. I could only move my head now and looked down at myself: flat on my stomach, bent at the waist, as though reaching for my right foot. Everything was dark—the barn, the house. I heard the cows in the night corral. John had finished chores. I worried I would freeze to death while lying there fading in and out of consciousness. I thought back to the boy in Owatonna who died after a head injury. I tried to move, but—still paralyzed—I faded out again. In my nightmare, I was on the brink of a black, bottomless pit. Screaming and crawling toward a white brilliance above, I slid steadily downward.
Cold and shivering, I could now move my legs and arms. M
y left arm and ribs were painful to move, and my headache was indescribable. Between periods of rest, I slowly crawled on hands and knees to the road. I put my bruised head in the weeds, where I again slept until dawn tinged the east. The long night had ended.
As the sun touched the treetops in the Schaulses’ yard, I stood and moved farther down the road, then sat again. Neither Emma nor John searched for me that night or in the morning. They slept in their bed, leaving me asleep outside.
A car approached as day brightened, and I motioned at it without standing. A man leaned out the window as it slowed.
“Need a ride, boy?” the man asked.
“Hi, are you going into town?” I said, standing carefully to keep my head from exploding.
“Say, you don’t look good,” the man said.
“I’d like a ride to town. If you’re going that way, I mean.” I began to sit again. “Otherwise, I got to sit down or something.”
“Hop in,” the man said.
“Schauls, you say? Name sounds familiar,” the man said as we neared Caledonia. “Beat you last night, huh?”
“Everyone knows him in the bars,” I said. “Beats Emma too—his wife.” Though my thoughts became clearer, a freight train still thundered in my head.
The man stopped at a house. “He’ll point you in the right direction,” he said, nodding toward the house. “He’s my family doctor.” After knocking on the door, I waited until a man appeared in casual dress, then I stepped back, not sure what to say.
“Yes,” the man asked, seeming both surprised and curious. As he looked me over, he opened the door wider and motioned me in. “You could have gone to the hospital, and they could have called me.”
“That man dropped me off here. I can come back later,” I said.