The White House Boys: An American Tragedy (12 page)
The dining hall, 2008.
Photo by R. Kiser
The White House stands about 200 yards away from the dining hall. Coming and going from our meals, we were reminded of the severe beatings we endured—or would someday get if we purposely or mistakenly broke one of the rules.
I
t was time for me to go, to leave the Florida Industrial School for Boys, and, surprisingly, I was in no hurry to leave. Other than the orphanage, this was the only home I had known. And, as bad as this was, it had become my home. The orphanage, for now, was thankfully a distant memory, and I couldn’t imagine going back there. But if not there, where?
I had made friends, and everybody knew me as one of the fastest runners who ever came to the reform school. I was one of the best in football, capture the flag, and swimming. It’s true that I had to put up with Dr. Curry, Mr. Hatton, and Mr. Tidwell. But here I had Mr. Sealander, the closest thing I’d ever had to a father. And some friends, the closest thing I had ever had to brothers.
Slowly, I walked along, passing cottage after cottage. I stopped, turned around, and looked back toward the laundry where I had worked in the dry cleaning area.
Were they going to send me back to the orphanage? Was Mother Winters going to be glad I was back. I hated Mother Winters. I never wanted to see her again. I didn’t want to do those things she made me do to her ever again.
As I entered the door of my cottage, I ran as fast as I could over to Mr. Sealander’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” he said.
I opened the door, walked in, and stood before him, waiting for him to look up at me.
“Can I stay here with you, Mr. Sealander? Do I have to go back to the orphanage?” I asked.
“Roger, that’s not up to me. That is all decided by the court, son,” he said.
“Why are they making me go back? The judge said I had to stay here for a long time. That is what he said. I heard him,” I told Mr. Sealander, starting to cry.
“Come here and sit down,” he said pointing to the chair next to his desk.
“Roger, you’re a good boy. You are smart, and you take orders very well. You followed the rules and now they feel you are ready to return to the outside world,” he told me.
“But I don’t got nowhere to go,” I said.
He thumped his pencil on his desk.
“Look here at me,” he said, pushing my chin up with his fingers. “I am counting on you. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Sealander. That I’ll be a good boy and that I’ll do what’s right all the time?”
“That’s right,” he said with a big smile.
“But I won’t have nobody to look out after me like you do, Mr. Sealander. Please can’t I stay here longer? Please?” I begged.
He just sat staring at me. I had never seen that kind of look on his face before. He looked sort of puzzled and sad.
“Didn’t I win the football game for us, Mr. Sealander? Didn’t I capture the flag for our team? What we gonna do when I’m gone?” I asked.
Mr. Sealander got up from his seat and walked into his bedroom. “You go outside and sit on the steps, until I call for you,” he said.
I got up from my seat and waited outside.
I won’t never get no more boiled peanuts and no more movies on Saturday nights
, I thought, kicking at the sand.
For about thirty minutes, I shuffled around, waiting for Mr. Sealander to join me.
“Roger Dean,” he called to me out the window.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Sealander,” I said raising my arm into the air.
“I talked with Dr. Curry. He assures me that they have a place for you to go when you get back to Jacksonville.”
He didn’t say any more. I could not sleep all night long for fear of what the future might bring. Early the next morning, I shook Mr. Sealander’s hand. It took everything I could not to cry. I said goodbye to the boys in my cottage, then I was placed in a car and driven back to the juvenile hall in Jacksonville.
This was the first time I was released from the Florida Industrial School for Boys. I would be back there in short order for another stay. As strange as it sounds, the truth is, I was glad to be returning, despite the impossible rules and the mental and physical abuse. I didn’t know any better, and I had no where better to go—thanks to the State of Florida.
O
nce again, I was being driven out of the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna, heading back to Jacksonville, Florida. Good behavior and good grades had earned me an early release. I sat motionless in the backseat of the unmarked police car, staring down at the worn tan carpet or at the small tear in the back of the driver’s seat. Once in a while, I would shift my eyes carefully upward to look at the fat wrinkled necks of the two officers who were transporting me.
I suppose most individuals being released from a reform school or even a prison would be somewhat excited about being free. Now, at long last, a chance to go back home and be with friends and loved ones. The long dream of having a delicious, juicy cheeseburger, hot steamy french fries, and an ice-cold Coca-Cola would soon be at hand. But more than anything else would be the thought that waiting somewhere in the world were the loving arms of someone who would say the words, “Oh, how I’ve missed you. Oh, how I love you.”
But there was going to be none of these wonderful things for me. I tightened my lips, as my mind raced around in a never-ending circle of confusion.
Am I headed back to the orphanage or the juvenile hall?
was the only thought in my mind.
I was afraid to move my head right or left, as I saw the trees flicker from the corners of my eyes. I had no mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts, or cousins waiting for me. I knew what those words meant, but they had no personal meaning to me. Therefore, I was not sad at all, just scared and lonely.
“I guess your mom and dad will be glad to see you,” said the officer.
I jumped when he spoke, but I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
“Did you hear me, boy?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
He laughed, and then hit the steering wheel with his hand.
“What were you in for boy? Did you kill somebody?” “No, sir. I would never kill anybody.”
“Well, you weren’t in there for being a priest,” he said, and laughed again.
“No, sir. I was there for climbing a tree, riding a girl’s bicycle, and for going to the bathroom without asking permission.”
Both of the officers broke out in laughter.
“You got one good sense of humor, kid. I can say that.”
Little did they know that that was exactly what my crimes had been. It’s true the juvenile court judge said it was because I was “an incorrigible child” and that I “would not follow direction.” But that’s all that I had ever done that was wrong.
I knew nothing about the outside world, and I knew nothing about life, at least about life outside an institution. My years at the Children’s Home Society in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as my time at the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna, had taught me nothing. I didn’t have any skills, except for how to press uniforms. I didn’t even know where money came from or how you get it.
How does one become a policeman or a fireman? Do you just go to the station and ask them to make you a policeman?
I had no idea how that process worked.
These are just a few of the thousands of things I didn’t know. No one ever took the time to teach us anything about the real world. They just fed us, clothed us, housed us, and educated us in the basic subjects.
Once we arrived in Jacksonville, I was turned over to the juvenile authorities and locked in a small cell, with diamond-shaped wire on the door and windows. For hours, I stood at the window looking at the side of the red-brick building in the alleyway. Hour after hour I stood counting the bricks on the building. First, counting bricks from the right, then from the left, as far as the wire would allow me to see. Then I would count the bricks from up and down, again for as far as the diamond wire would allow me to press my face against the cold steel.
“What am I going to do with you, boy?” the judge asked when I was finally brought before him.
“Send me to the electric chair,” I replied.
“Do you want to go to the electric chair?” he asked, leaning forward in his large black chair.
“No, sir.”
“Then why did you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
I knew exactly why I said that. I just didn’t care about anything anymore, not even about myself or what might happen to me. Somehow, going to the electric chair seemed like my only choice.
Things get hazy for me at this point. I went from this home to that home, but I eventually ended up living on the streets of Jacksonville for almost a year.
When I was finally “captured,” I was already in my mid-teens, and by juvenile court order, I was enrolled in the United States Army. A year and a half later, I was dishonorably discharged.
I returned to the streets of Jacksonville where I survived for another year or two. At about age nineteen, I was sent to prison for “contributing to the delinquency of minors,” for which I received a full pardon a few years ago.
I walked out of prison in 1969. It was the first time in my life I was totally free of the system. From that day forward, and for the next fifty years, other than a few traffic violations, I never again violated or broke the law.
For forty years following, my life had very little meaning. I traveled the United States in search of meaning. I worked hundreds of menial jobs. I was married six times and divorced five times. I never drank or used drugs, but I remained almost totally friendless and was told by many that I was a very kind person but that I was the most unaffectionate person they had ever met.
Finally at age fifty-one, I stopped being afraid. With only a sixth-grade education, I became a writer, an author, and a child advocate.
It is not only sad what I missed from the world, but it is also sad what they missed from me. I had so much to give to a world that had totally forgotten me as a child. I’m giving it now, for the child I was.
A note is born,
It’s crystal clear.