319 Winesap Lane - 8. Chapter 8 - Erik's First Day at Warnton High School

Erik’s POV

Geoff was nice enough to walk me to school and make sure I got checked in, but after he left and I had to go into the school I felt really alone. After all, I was the new kid and would be subject to all sorts of hazing until I figured out who I could count on as friends and who would be enemies. My first class was pre-algebra, something I’d taken before and could expect to receive a good grade, but the teacher, a Ms. Piggott, simply assumed I didn’t know shit and for the entire hour didn’t ask me one question no matter how much I waved my hand. Unfortunately, I didn’t know I had attracted the attention of a bully named Randall.

Second period was Elementary French taught by Mr. Franklin. He ignored me just as much as Ms. Piggott had. As I was a few weeks late in attendance, I knew I had a lot of work ahead to catch up, but Mr. Franklin simply assumed I’d do whatever I needed to do that. I hoped Geoff was going to be able to give me some assistance.

Third period was Band. I don’t know why they assigned me to it when I told them I had no intention of being in Band, so I went into the band room and waited for Mr. Alexander to tell me what to do. I was simply standing there in front of the tiers when he walked up beside me and put his hand on my ass. I stood there frozen in fear as he rubbed his hand up into the crack of my ass. I spun around and punched him in the solar plexus. He dropped to his knees and fell onto his face. The class cheered.

Unfortunately, the assistant band leader, a Ms. Thompson, came over and grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me away from Mr. Alexander. She kept pulling me until we got to a practice cubby where she pushed me inside and shut the door. I watched her dial her phone and knew the shit was about to hit the fan.

After a few minutes the school resource officer, in reality a deputy sheriff, opened the door and said, “Come out and turn around.”

I did as he said and he put the cuffs on me. What was I to do? He had me dead to rights; I hit a teacher, even if he had actually sexually assaulted me. But, I assumed that wouldn’t come out. I figured Ms. Thompson would stick up for Mr. Alexander even if he liked to put his hands on his male students.

The deputy walked me down to the office and put me in a chair. I sat there not knowing what was going to happen, but assuming nothing good was going to come of this. After all, I had hit a teacher. A student can’t commit a much bigger offense unless I had actually killed the bastard. Of course, I could’ve killed Mr. Alexander if I had hit him in the throat, but he wasn’t threatening me with death so I didn’t have any reason to give him a death blow. I wondered if the sheriff would take that into consideration.

After about a half hour another deputy walked into the office and looked at me. He went up to the desk and spoke to the secretary and then came back to me. He sat down next to me and said, “You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and may be used against you in a court of law; you have the right to have an attorney present before and during questioning; and, further, you have the right, if you cannot afford the services of an attorney, to have one appointed, at public expense and without cost to you, to represent you before and during questioning. Do you understand what I said?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, on your feet, we’re going for a ride.”

I got up and he took me out to his car where he put me in the back seat. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but suspected Geoff was going to be really pissed. Also, I suspected Patty’s dad was, also, going to be pissed. But, I had to defend myself from the assault by that teacher. That certainly must count for something.

The deputy drove out of Warnton and down the highway toward Lyons. Obviously, I was going to jail. I thought I’d be lucky to ever go to Warnton High School again unless I could prove that Mr. Alexander had actually touched my ass in a sexual manner. I wondered how many other students had been assaulted by him and hadn’t said anything out of fear nobody would believe them.

As the car drove down the highway I watched the apple trees, which were in harvest, on my side of the car. After a while the orchards thinned out and eventually ended, but I kept looking out the window not interested in where we were going. I wasn’t certain what exactly was going to occur, but I suspected that I’d be thrown in a jail cell and eventually put in a room where some sort of detective would try to threaten me with many years in jail. Well, fuck ’em I thought.

I don’t know how long it was, but eventually we came into Lyons. The deputy drove through town and crossed the Erie Canal. He turned soon after and passed the Mickey D’s where I’d been dropped by Phyllis and Mr. Arnold. He continued along that road until he turned off the road at a sign that said “Wayne County Sheriff”. I knew my days of freedom were just about over.

He parked, got out of the car, came around to my door, opened it, and practically pulled me out. He roughly held my arm as we walked into the door and up to a counter. There was a woman sitting on the other side and she asked, “Is this the boy from Warnton High School?”

“Yep,” the deputy said.

“You know the routine, empty his pockets and get his shoe laces.”

“Yeah, I know the routine. Don’t move kid or I’ll lay you out on the floor.”

“Is that everything? Okay, put him in Room 5.”

“Sure thing.”

He half pulled me down a hall and opened a door. I was tired of him being so physical with me, but what could I do about it. I was pulled around a little table and he pulled a chair out and said, “Sit.”

I did as I was told and was glad when he walked out of the room. It was then that I realized I needed to piss. It wasn’t urgent yet, but it would be if I didn’t get to a toilet soon. Luckily, two deputies soon came into the room. One sat in the chair across from me and the other stood to my left.

“Erik Benedict Robertson?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“I suspect I do.”

“You were read your rights; do you want an attorney?”

“I think I’d have better luck if I had one.”

“Would you like us to call someone?”

“Well, you could call my foster dad or my Social Services rep.”

“You’re a foster child?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck!” the other deputy exclaimed.

“Do you need anything?” the first deputy asked.

“A toilet would help.”

“Bobby, put him in Cell 7 until I can figure out what we’re going to do with him.”

“What’s to figure. He hit a teacher. From what I heard, he laid him out on the floor with some sort of karate move.”

“Jujutsu,” I said.

“Whatever; you still hit a teacher.”

“He put his hand on my ass and not a casual pat either. He groped me. He sexually assaulted me. I had to defend myself so I hit him in a place that would temporarily disable him, but not do him great physical harm.”

“Oh, fuck, this case just went straight to hell in a royal blue leatherette handbasket.”

They took me out of the room, put me in a holding cell, and took the cuffs off. I immediately used the toilet before surveying my surroundings. It wasn’t much of a cell. There was the steel toilet on the wall facing the barred door, a steel bench along one wall where I could sit or lay down if I was so inclined, and a blank wall opposite. The light fixture in the ceiling was protected by a wire screen. I sat on the bench and tried to contemplate my situation.

After I don’t know how long a woman deputy came to the cell door and asked, “Hungry? It’s not much, but you might like it.”

“Thanks,” I said as I stood up and approached the door. She slipped the tray through the space in the bars for that purpose, smiled in a way that was slightly unnerving, like she knew something that I was either not going to like or the opposite. That’s the thing about adults; sometimes they can look so mysterious when all they’re working on is trying to determine whether it’s a regular fart or something more sinister.

I went back to the bench and sat down. I perused the tray and saw that there was a ham and cheese on brown bread sandwich in a plastic, triangularly shaped wrapping; one of those cardboard cup sized milk containers, except mine contained orange juice; a Hershey chocolate bar; and a paper napkin in a cellophane wrapper. I opened the sandwich package and took out one half of the sandwich. It was cold and dry as if it had been in a refrigerator for a long time. I looked at the package and saw that the “best by” date was two days ago.

I don’t know why, but it was at that moment that I began to weep.

* * * *

I don’t know how long they kept me in that cell until finally a deputy came to the door and said, “Get up, you’re leaving.”

I looked at the half-eaten lunch, stood up, and went to the door. He opened it and said, “No funny business, just walk beside me, and this’ll be over soon.”

When we reached the lobby I saw Geoff, Bill Daniels, and another man standing over by some chairs. The deputy escorted me to the counter where I was given a brown envelope that held my belongings. She had me sign for it and said I was free to go.

I went over to the adults waiting for me and said, “Geoff, Mr. Daniels, I’m sorry for hitting that teacher.”

“You did what you had to do,” Geoff said.

“But I hit him.”

“Erik, somethings have occurred today that changed the significance of your actions,” Mr. Daniels said.

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Alexander left the school, tried to burn down his house, and has disappeared,” Geoff said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Erik, I’m Arthur Hillyard, your attorney of record, all you need to know from this moment forward is that you struck Mr. Alexander in self-defense and he is currently being sought on charges of sexual misconduct with juveniles under his charge,” the other man said.

“Do I get to go back to Warnton High School?”

“Not at this time, but I’ll be working on that,” Mr. Hillyard said. “If everything goes alright, you should be able to go back next week. Some school districts have difficulty seeing through the circumstances of a student striking a teacher and blindly expelling that student from their district under a so-called zero tolerance policy, sort of like if you had taken a gun to school. I’ll be in court trying to make them see there were extenuating circumstances in your case.”

“Um, what do I do?”

“Come with me and read a lot,” Geoff said.

“I wish we could go home.”

“The Campbells are more than welcoming and I’m sure Mrs. Campbell won’t mind having you around the house until you’re able to go back to school.”

All of us walked out of the Sheriff’s office and I got into Geoff’s car. He pulled out the parking lot and headed east toward Lyons. Soon he came to the Mickey D’s and turned in.

“Could we go somewhere else?” I asked. “I have bad memories of this place.”

“Sure, how about barbeque?” he asked.

“That’d be great.”

He turned around and headed east to the intersection of Highway 14 where he turned right. After I guess about a mile he turned in at a sign that said “Bone Appetit”. The building looked like an old three-story mansion, but when we went in we were quickly shown to a table. I looked over the menu and decided I wanted the pulled pork sandwich dinner combo with mac and cheese, coleslaw, and a piece of chocolate pie. Geoff selected the half chicken dinner combo with BBQ beans, coleslaw, and cheesecake. When the waitress came she tried to get me to order from the kids’ menu, but Geoff told her I was a growing boy and wouldn’t have any difficulty eating my meal.

After she left, I asked, “Mr. Hillyard said that Mr. Alexander is being investigated for sexual misconduct; what’s that all about?”

“The fire department was kind of lucky because one of Mr. Alexander’s neighbors saw him splashing gasoline on his house and called 9-1-1. I guess the fire trucks and police arrived only moments after Mr. Alexander drove away. They had very little difficulty putting out the fire and when the fire inspector and police went into the house they found incriminating evidence that Mr. Alexander had been involved with juvenile pornography and quite possibly more serious charges.”

“So, he really was what that guy at the music shop called him? What was that, a pederast?”

“Yes.”

“Figures, considering the way his grabbed my ass. It was almost like he was trying to shove his finger up my hole.”

“I’m sorry you had to experience that. You know I tried to get you out of band, but those people in the office kept insisting you’d enjoy being in the Tiger band.”

“Yeah, well, fuck ’em; I’m not going to be in band no matter what they say.”

“Okay, Erik, I’ll get you into a different class for that period. How’d your French class go?”

“Mr. Franklin is a jerk. He just assumed I’d been there for the past three weeks and kept asking me to say things I couldn’t say. After a while he stopped making me do that. After class he said he could tell I hadn’t been doing my homework. I stared at him and said, ‘This is my first day.’ And he said, ‘Well, you have a lot of catch-up to do; you’d better spend extra time on the CDs.’ I asked him what he meant and he just ignored me like I wasn’t there. What kind of school is that?”

“Okay, I’m going to order you a computerized language program that you can use on your laptop and I’ll help you out with your conversational usage.”

“Thanks. You know, Geoff, you really are the best.”

“Thank you and you are probably the best son I could hope for.”

We ate our meals in relative silence. After dessert, Geoff paid the bill, left a hefty tip on the table, and we went out in the diminishing light of evening. It had been quite a remarkable day and I was glad it would soon be over. I kind of wondered what was going to happen to me.

I guess I dozed a little on the way back to Warnton because I didn’t know Geoff had parked his car in the garage until he shut the engine off. I asked, “Are we home?”

“As close as we can get at this time,” Geoff said. “Are you okay?”

“No, I feel sort of sad about what happened today.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll get better. You’re young you have to expect to go over a few speed bumps in your life.”

“It would’ve gone okay if he just hadn’t touched me. I hope they find him and throw him in prison.”

“With luck they will, but I strongly suspect he had an escape plan in case things went sour for him.”

“Thanks for trying to cheer me up.”