Читать книгу Brutal School Ties - Sam Cowen - Страница 10

The Boy with the Marks on his Back

*James

Mariolette Bossert held a special place in her heart for *James. James was sweet and soft and he had been badly abused, not just by Collan, but by the matrics too. He was just one of the boys who contemplated suicide.

“He is so special, Sam,” said Mariolette. “I just want to protect him so much.”

And when I met him, I understood what she meant. He was quiet and thoughtful and very vulnerable. He sat with a small dog on his lap, and throughout the entire conversation, it kept looking up at him with concern. Dogs really are the only animals that can have your back without making a sound.

“He said to me that if his mom had been alive, she would never have let him go to Parktown and those things would never have happened,” Mariolette wept. Later, I wept too.

“In Grade 8,” said James, “I thought the hostel seemed okay then because the housemaster promoted it as a nice place, but it went downhill from there. You’d think the teachers would be caring, but I felt like they didn’t really care and ignored stuff that was done to you. Like, sometimes the teachers would just tell the matrics off, and sometimes they would just ignore stuff and let it happen and I don’t know how I feel about that.

“I couldn’t say anything to my father because if I did, he would have gone to the school and then everyone would have found out that it was me who had told, that I was a snitch. The masters back then would name and shame you. And the boys, they would make you feel ashamed for telling. If you told, you weren’t going to be part of them any more and they would leave you out of everything. It was hard to decide whether to make friends there by saying nothing, or say something and not have friends.

“Some of the matrics were okay – they were chilled out – but other matrics made you feel uncomfortable; they asked you questions like what kind of porn you watched. I’m not comfortable talking about what else they asked.

“They would try out stuff that would be painful and uncomfortable. Like, you know that machine they use in physiotherapy for your muscles? They would put it on our cheeks and turn it on. They put it on my cheeks and one boy’s privates. It hurt like hell. We couldn’t say anything back then, so we had to just keep silent the whole time.

“In Grade 8, I was planning on committing suicide at the beginning of the year. I was so shocked by how the hostel people lied to me about how it was, and I couldn’t take how they treated me in hostel any more, how my peers treated me and how all the other grades treated me.

“On your birthday, you had to stand on a chair in the dining hall and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to yourself. And you also got wedgies. So I didn’t let anyone know when my birthday was that year. Which made it kind of not special. The things that my old pot [matric mentor] did to me … He was mostly cool and stuff, until one time I failed in my report. He took a cricket bat and hit me 11 times with it on the butt. It hurt worse than a devil poking you with his fork. I was sore the whole night. It happened towards the beginning of the week, so by the weekend the bruises had faded. There were two old pots per Grade 8, and the other one hit me once because I didn’t do well that term. I didn’t do good at all because it was first time I’d ever written mid-year exams and you wouldn’t expect them to happen so early. But he could have just told me to stay on my game, instead of hitting me. I was scared about the next time I failed; I was really scared.

“I couldn’t take it any more so I decided I was going to kill myself. I didn’t know what else I was going to do. But I just realised this: if I committed suicide, what about the people I would leave behind, like my dad? He had no one else, he had no one else … My mother had died just before then and if I died he would have no one.

“I miss my mom a lot. It was ridiculous how people insulted her at the beginning of the year. Some people said, ‘She died because she was sick of you.’ I lost her when I was in Grade 5, but you can’t change the past. I was in a very dark place back then, losing a person who I had so much in common with. We played games together; she did care. My dad, we don’t have that much in common. It’s hard to think about her sometimes.

“I was an easy target back then. I was quiet. No one noticed I was there most of the time; when people did notice, they were very surprised because I was like a ghost. But there were times I was driven over the edge. Once when I was in Grade 8 I broke a broom over someone’s leg. I was shocked at myself. It was the constant bullying and insults. Every night before I went to bed, I would hear the insults. Yep.

“The rest of Grade 8 was okay. But it was also when the You Know Who guy came in here. I don’t want to say his name. He was okay at first; he was a cool guy, but later he became more and more aggressive around us. He said it was fun and stuff, but I could see it was very aggressive, the things he was doing. He started with twisting arms, pinching and wrestling. He put me on the floor and twisted my arm and he would grab some boys by their nuts and say, ‘Whistle.’ I don’t know how that was okay. But he mainly went for the waterpolo boys because he knew them. Some of the boys he was worse with. And the boys would put on a happy face, just because, but I could see it was an act.

“He came for me on rare occasions. Once we were in the swimming pool, playing water rugby, and he bit me on my hand and his teeth sank into my hand and you could see my muscles and the white tendon. It hurt because of the chlorine. He didn’t apologise. This was when I was in Grade 9.

“He would just put on a face of innocence every time after that. He would come in at night, because no one would see him. He would close the door, because no one would see him in the room at all – the curtains were closed because it was night. There were no cameras yet. And that was … urgh. He didn’t come to me that often, but he did come to me sometimes. I felt uncomfortable around the room when he started doing sexual stuff to other boys, hearing him do all those sexual things to them.

“When we got told he got arrested I was like, ‘Wow! They finally did it.’ I was surprised when I got asked to make a statement. I was down at Mrs Bossert’s house at the time and I had to tell, which was nerve-wracking because I had to remember every bit of truth about it and I didn’t want to think about it at all. Mrs Bossert took me to the Teddy Bear Clinic and that helped. It was a bit scary; they wanted a blood sample from me and I hate injections. They looked for injection marks under my testicles to see if I had been drugged or anything, because I don’t remember how I got these scars on my back. My dad remembers that I had them in Grade 8, but I have no memory of how I got them at all. And apparently it’s actual scar tissue, not stretch marks or anything, like something hit me there. And I don’t remember it, not a bit.

“I was nervous to go to court. I was really nervous. We had to make a few statements after he was arrested because of all the processes and stuff, but by the time we finally went to court, it was a nerve-wracking experience. I didn’t have to go into the courtroom itself; we had a separate room, but it was still nerve-wracking because they were still asking you questions and because you knew this could very well determine a person’s future for the rest of their life. They asked a lot of questions. A lot.

“After he went to prison, I thought it was over. I thought it wouldn’t be mentioned again. I think the only guys who knew I made a statement were the other guys involved. When I heard about the sentence I felt like that seemed way too short at the time, because he’d been doing that for a year and a half technically.

“I decided to stay at Parktown Boys’ for matric because there was no point going to another school in matric. I couldn’t really move and make new friends, and I had made some friends – not hostel boys, but the day boys – and it was very nice there sometimes, being there and being with them. I couldn’t really leave and make new friends … I couldn’t do that.

“I want to go to culinary school just because I like cooking. I love it. It’s a way to do my own thing, with no one judging me. I like art a lot and I could use that in cooking. I’m very sure I want to do that. I had another option to become a vet, but I’m allergic to dogs.

“Cooking makes me happy, away from everyone’s complaints and judgement, and in my own space. I think it could be better with my dad; give it time. I think it could.”

*Michael is tall. Very tall. He was as quiet as his son. On the day I met him, he made me coffee and we sat in his townhouse. James was housesitting another unit at the time, so Michael and I spoke alone, watched with disdain and suspicion by a large dark fluffy cat, roughly the size of two normal cats.

“Is it friendly?” I asked cautiously.

“On its own terms,” Michael said ruefully.

Michael ran his own small business from home and, since his wife died, it had just been him and James rattling around inside, two lonely men in a lonely house, all three needing a woman’s touch.

“It was James who chose Parktown Boys’,” says Michael. “His mother, my wife, died when he was 11 and in her last days in hospital, he told her he wanted to go to boarding school, because he wanted to be like dad. Like me. I was once a boarder at a school nearby and I could see the Parktown fields and hear all the sports and the band playing – I had told James about that.

“When it came to choosing a high school for him, I sat in the queue at Fourways High and it rained. Other parents were taking shifts in the queue, but I was all on my own so I just sat there. He just got in; I think they were taking 247, he was number 235. Then I applied to Parktown and if you go in as a boarder it shoots you up the queue, so he was accepted there as well. So I told him it was up to him and he chose Parktown. I think he blames me now, but it was a good school. It still is a good school.

“We went to the Open Day, when you could go into the house and look around. It was very nice. We met the Head of House, who seemed nice at the time, but he turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. From what James has told me, that man should be in jail. We went into the section at the top, which was the Foundation House – it’s a heritage home. I wondered why they’d put children in there because I thought, a heritage house? They’re going to wreck it. And I think they did, there were holes in the walls and the ceiling.

“James asked if he could come home after the first weekend in the hostel. The boys aren’t allowed to go home that weekend, but I went to visit to get his washing. I thought he missed TV and PlayStation and I said, ‘No, you have to stay here.’

“But he kept asking. Every Sunday when it came time to take him back he would have a tantrum and say, ‘I don’t want to go back, I don’t like it there,’ and I’d say, ‘You don’t like it there because there’s no PlayStation and DStv. Get in the car!’ Sometimes I would have to drag him, kicking and screaming to the car, and when I dropped him off he would be bawling his eyes out. And this went on for a year. His marks dropped drastically – and obviously my screaming and shouting didn’t help. He failed first term, and in the second term he failed again and I said, ‘Obviously, you’re not studying because I know you have two hours of prep every day – what are you doing?’ Meanwhile, they weren’t studying because they were doing push-ups and going through torture. He scraped through Grade 8.

“In Grade 9 I took him to a psychologist and she said she thought he was depressed and needed a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist saw him for two minutes and diagnosed him with classic ADHD and prescribed Concerta. I said he doesn’t have that – James can watch a National Geographic programme on polar bears and six months later repeat the whole programme verbatim. He can definitely focus. He doesn’t have ADHD. She was sure it was ADHD. When the court case came, Mariolette Bossert called the psychiatrist to tell her, and then she called me and asked me why I didn’t tell her he was depressed. Surely that was her job to see? So he shouldn’t have been on Concerta and I think it stunted his growth.

“I did notice that when he was in primary school, James would spend every opportunity in the pool and then in Grade 8, all of a sudden he stopped wanting to be in the pool here at home. He said the Parktown pool was heated and he didn’t want to swim in a cold pool. And then halfway through the year, one day he came out the shower and I saw these marks across his back … Scars. And to this day, he won’t swim in public or take his shirt off in public. He says he doesn’t know where he got them, but since then I’ve heard that some of the boys in Grade 8 were held down and beaten with metal poles. But he doesn’t remember anything.

“He also told a friend of mine that he doesn’t swim because he had a bad experience in a swimming pool and then I found out Collan Rex grabbed him in the pool. And even though Rex is now in jail, James still doesn’t go in the pool. So, no more swimming.

“When all this came out, Mrs Bossert took him and some of the other boys to the Teddy Bear Clinic and the psychiatrist there put him on suicide watch. He’s been on suicide watch and antidepressants ever since. He can’t come off them, even now. He sees a psychologist every week and a psychiatrist every three months. It costs a fortune, which for now the school is paying, but I don’t know for how much longer.

“Collan Rex was arrested on 3 November, just before exams, which I think destroyed all [the boys’] marks for that year. I found out when Mariolette called, and told me Rex had been arrested and that other issues had come up. Before then, I didn’t know anything. I’d ask James on the drive home at the end of the week, ‘How was your week?’ He’d say, ‘Fine.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘Stuff.’ ‘What did you do in Maths this week?’ ‘Can’t remember.’ That would be our journey home and then the headphones would go in.

“It’s been rough. I don’t sleep. Not knowing, I think, is the worst thing. You can only imagine. When the Teddy Bear Clinic sent him for an HIV test, then you start thinking, okay, what did go on? Because there’s only one reason they would send him for an HIV test. One day I’ll find out. Maybe in a book.

“You have to take it one day at a time. And if I hear something, I process it. A friend of mine was driving James back to school on a Sunday and James pointed to the Foundation House and said that when he was in Grade 8, he had climbed onto that roof, that he was going to jump off and commit suicide. He had obviously never told me, but he opened up to her. I think it was his way of opening up, knowing I was close enough to hear from someone else, not directly – his way of telling me things slowly through someone else.

“When I went to Mariolette I asked, ‘Why? If this was happening in Grade 8, and he already wanted to commit suicide because of all the stuff happening at the school, why didn’t the school contact me?’ So I’m thinking, like, right then and there, we could have sorted out the problems but instead it was ‘Man up!’ and he was punished. That was Grade 8 and then it got worse and worse and worse.

“James is very naïve. He believes everyone is good; I’m the opposite – I believe you have to prove you’re good. So when the bullying started, he got the worst of it, not only from his old pot, but also from other Grade 8s. He got the brunt of everything; he became a target because it took the attention off the other boys in his grade if they were all bullying him together.

“There were a lot of bruises. When I asked about them, he would say, ‘Oh, I can’t remember,’ or ‘Oh, I bumped myself,’ or ‘Oh, I fell off the bed.’ It was never, ‘Oh, the matric boys beat me.’ He did, however, tell me about his old pot hitting him with a cricket bat.

“James has told me nothing else about what happened to him. I hear bits and pieces here and there, mostly from Mariolette, because she was there when he filled out the police report and also the form, where I know he hasn’t told everything.

“Court started in August of his Grade 11 year, and we would drive out often to the court, which was on the other side of the world. It was out past Alberton, the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court in Katlehong. When we were at the court, he was on camera; he was underage, so he didn’t have to face Rex – not like Ben – but while I was standing outside, I could hear him screaming because the defence would ask him a question and then the judge asked him a question in a different way and he would say, ‘Stop wasting my time – I already answered that!’ It was terrible.

“I wasn’t allowed in the court – it was a closed court – so I sat there the whole day waiting for him to be called in, round the back, hidden away from the press. Which was a bit weird, because when it came time for lunch break, you all went to the same canteen and Rex was sitting two tables away. I was like, really? What’s the point? It doesn’t make sense.

“When I saw Collan at lunch, it went through my mind that I knew his excuse for doing what he did was that it happened to him, and I was thinking if everyone did things to others that happened to them, if I did things to others that happened to me, I’d also be in jail.

“I just don’t know when it’s going to stop. You can’t use that excuse. You should know it’s wrong. I did feel sorry for him. He was 22 and now he’s thrown away his whole life. He had everything going for him; he was waterpolo coach, hostel master, rugby coach. So I thought, what a waste of a life.

“I asked James if he wanted to leave Parktown at the beginning of Grade 11. I said, ‘Do you want to leave? Because if you do, tell me now and I will go home and start looking for a new school for you.’ But he said no, that he wanted to stay. I think that was because of Mariolette Bossert; she became his pseudo-mother because he hasn’t had a mother for years. He felt safe there, especially after Rex left.

“I don’t really look for support – I prefer to keep to myself … well, me and the cat. I just get on with things, keep myself busy … well, try to. I think I should have done more. I didn’t know how, but you can always do more. James seems to be getting better; his appointments seem to help. We don’t get on; he’s built up a barrier. I think he blames me for sending him there even though it was his choice. I wish I knew more, I wish I could tell you more. I asked James about it over and over, but he wouldn’t tell me what happened. He said, ‘Stop asking questions, because you’re not going to like the answers.’ So everything I know I got from other parents and Mariolette. But not from James.”

At the time of writing, Parktown Boys’ had, with no explanation, stopped payment of James’s medication and psychologist bills, and Michael’s email queries to the school have remained unanswered. James is still on suicide watch.