Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [83]
At the end of the evening, the boys were taken upstairs to the dormitory sleeping quarters, and the newcomers were assigned their beds. Each wall of the room was lined with small individual beds, laid in close formation. In the center of the room stood a guard’s booth, protected with bulletproof glass and prison bars. Periodically throughout the night a supervisor would come in and make the rounds of the beds, or sit inside the booth, watching the sleeping kids. Inside the booth was a phone. All the supervisor had to do was lift the phone and he was in immediate touch with the state police station down the road.
At 9 P.M. the boys hung up their uniforms and slipped into dressing gowns. “Stay in your beds,” Blue told the new boys. “If you need to use the bathroom, wait and ask a supervisor when he comes around. And no talking once the lights go out.”
A few minutes later, Gary was lying there in the dark. He was probably already thinking how he could get out of this place. After a few moments, he noticed a curious sound—a noise like something being rubbed vigorously, accompanied by a chorus of rapid breathing and a few odd giggles. Next thing he knew, something hot and viscous hit him across his face. Then another warm, wet stream landed on him, running into his eyes and his nostrils. It was the semen of the boys in the beds that flanked his own.
This was Gary’s introduction to MacLaren’s “cum fights.” Several nights a week, as soon as the lights went out, the boys would pull down their blankets and pull out their penises. They would stroke themselves as fast as they could, trying to pump up to an immediate ejaculation— something like the ultimate boy’s race. Whoever came first had an advantage: He would catch his shooting semen on his hand and fling it in a nearby opponent’s face, sometimes effectively disarming the other boy’s rhythm of masturbation. But the worst targets were newcomers. It was part of their initiation. On a boy’s first night, he would likely find his face drenched with semen. If he tried to cover up, a few boys might hold him until the others could finish masturbating, and then wipe their semen all over the boy’s face. Sometimes as many as fifteen or twenty boys would douse a rookie. The supervisors were never in the room when the cum fights took place. Maybe they never knew about the activity. In any event, the practice was never acknowledged in MacLaren’s records.
A LITTLE AFTER 1 A.M., Gary was awakened by a movement in the dark. He looked up and saw Mr. Blue, walking down the aisle between the beds. He was carrying a small stool with him, like the kind you place alongside a cow when you milk it. He paused alongside Gary’s bed, and Gary shut his eyes, feigning deep sleep. Blue moved away, down the row to another boy’s bed. In the room’s dim light, Gary could see Blue sit down on his stool and whisper something to the boy. Gary rolled back over and shut his eyes again.
According to somebody who had been at MacLaren’s at the same time as Gary, Blue’s nighttime visits were not uncommon. “My first night there,” this person told me, “Mr. Blue came up with his stool and sat down by my bed. He reached out and grabbed me by the thigh, and squeezed me, and then in a very quiet voice said: ‘How are you doing?’ I took his hand and moved it away. Blue got mad. He grabbed me again, this time harder, and said: ‘I’ll squeeze your leg if I feel like it.’ I said: “No, you won’t. I have a family. They