Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [87]
And what exactly, I asked Duane, were spats’?
Duane grimaced. “Mr. Blue had a glassed-in office in the reception cottage. If you violated a rule, or just pissed Blue off, he’d call you into his office alone and he’d close the door. He would tell you to peel your shirt and drop your pants, so you’re naked. Then he’d tell you to reach over and grab your ankles. That’s when he would take this hard Ping-Pong paddle that had holes drilled in—to lessen the wind resistance— and he would pound your ass with it. You’d get ulcers on your buttocks from these spats. We called them headlights. I don’t know why we didn’t call them taillights. I guess because they were white and looked just like the headlights on a car. The minimum spats Blue would give you was twenty-five, and if you really pissed him off he’d give you fifty. I know your brother got this punishment several times, because I saw it happen.
“It was really weird, because with Mr. Blue there was no emotion. It was like a force moving against you. When he said he was giving you spats it was with a smile on his face. He’d say, in a monotone voice, ‘I’m really sorry I’ve got to do this, but I have to do it to you, Gary, because you asked for it,’ and then WHAM. I’ve never been beaten like that, never in my life. Believe me, it was a frightening experience.”
SPATS, THOUGH, WERE just the start. MacLaren’s had bigger punishments to offer, and Gary found them.
A few weeks after entering MacLaren’s, Gary was on a camping expedition with one of the counselors and several other boys, near Seaside, on the Oregon coast. It was something of a test: If the boys could work cooperatively in a setting like this, and proved responsible and trustworthy, they might be likelier to win an early parole. As the boys were heading back from a morning fishing trip, Gary and two others lagged at the rear of the group. Soon as they saw that the counselor was safely out of sight, the three boys ran hard the other way. They cut through the brush and made their way into Seaside, where they hitched a ride into Portland. That night, Gary and the others slept in an empty, trashed bungalow that stood behind our house on Johnson Creek, and the next morning, after my father had left for the day, Gary went inside to inform my mother about his escape. The school had already called and told her the police were looking for Gary, and she tried to talk him into returning to the school. But Gary refused. “I’ll go crazy in that place,” he said, and then he told her about some of what he had already witnessed and experienced at MacLaren’s. My mother gave Gary fifty dollars and a change of clothes. She told him to be careful and to write her from wherever he ended up. She did not call the police or MacLaren’s to let them know that her runaway son had come around. She decided right then she would never turn a son of hers over to the law, for any reason.
Gary and the others spent the rest of the day hiding out in movie theaters and sleeping in abandoned cars. The next morning, Gary hotwired a 1947 Chevrolet coupe that was parked on Division Street and drove over two hundred miles to Pendleton, Oregon, where the car threw a rod. The boys then stole a 1955 Chevy and were close to crossing the Oregon-Idaho border when a state policeman pulled them over. The arresting officer reported that the three escapees seemed excited by the chase and proud of their exploits, and that Gary in particular bragged about his knack for car stealing.
Back at MacLaren’s, the escape went over badly. “Every effort had been made to give [Gary] opportunities to improve,” wrote his counselor. “The boy has air of instability that does not inspire trust, is resistant to authority and resentful of his commitment. [He will] continue to be a security risk on open campus and would benefit by the program offered by L. E. Darling.”
L. E. Darling—also known as L.E.D.— was MacLaren’s equivalent of a maximum security unit. It was a large cottage located at the rear of the