At lunch the next day we were discussing the performance competition at the Prom. No one had heard who was signed up. I hadn’t told anyone Adam and I were going to perform because it would have made our going to the Prom together seem less spur-of-the-moment. Kevin was just wondering how many people would be actually performing when I looked up to see Adam walking towards me.
He looked nervous. Which was unusual for him. He was not the nervous sort and didn’t lack self-confidence.
He came to our table and stood by me. Kevin saw him standing there, looking at me, and stopped talking.
Adam spoke into the sudden silence. “Excuse me a moment, guys,” he said to everyone. Then he looked at me. “Greg, I understand you’ve been talking about going to the Prom with another guy. Is that true?”
I tried to look very nervous. I fidgeted a bit, looked down, looked up at Tim, then said, hesitantly, “Uh, yeah, I guess I have.”
“Well, I need a date and you need a date. Will you go with me to the Prom?”
“Yeah!” “Right on!” That was Kevin and then Bobby, both greeting the question with enthusiasm. Becky and Susan were both grinning while looking at me expectantly. I guessed it was my turn to say something.
I looked up at Adam and tried to gulp as noticeably as possible. “Adam, I’d be honored to accompany you to the Prom.”
He looked at me, then the others at the table and said, “Whew, that was hard!” And grinned.
Everyone started talking at once. The general feeling was one of excitement. Everyone seem to be in high spirits over us going together and they were all curious over how other kids would react. Eventually, Adam said he had to get going, said he’d talk to me later and left.
Tim spoke up. “You’re really going to do it! I guess some people will go to any lengths to go to the Prom. I still think it would have been better to ask a girl, but at least you’re going.”
“He’s going, but what I want to know,” asked Bobby, “is if he’ll get a good night kiss?”
“I’ll show you a good night kiss when I get you in gym.” I replied, and everyone laughed.
- - - - - -
When I met Adam in the library, we exchanged high fives. We were both excited, and I had a huge smile on my face. We’d pulled it off, at least as far as our friends were concerned. They accepted us as two guys going to the Prom together and didn’t for a minute think we were gay. Who’d have thought that possible when the idea of going with a boy first crossed my mind only a short time ago?
Dale was sitting in his usual chair. I shot him a quick glance, and was startled to see him looking directly at me. The expression on his face wasn’t difficult to read in the very brief sight of him I had as I quickly scanned my eyes past him. If I had to describe it, the word ‘malignant’ might come close. Whatever it was, it unsettled me. I spoke to Adam.
“Dale’s looking at me with murder in his eyes. Makes me nervous. Maybe he saw me smiling when I came in. Is everything set up for our plan?”
“It should be. Steve’s going to let me know next period. Why? You want to do it tonight?”
“Seems like it might be a good idea. One, if he’s thinking about me right now which makes it easier; that’s to our advantage. Two, if we don’t move and he’s thinking about me and acts on what he’s thinking, I might be in trouble waiting until we’re better prepared to go ahead. He just saw us being happy, and that’s what seems to piss him off. I’d say, tonight’s the night, if everyone else is ready. I’d sure feel better about it.”
“Yeah, knowing what we’re going to do and just waiting is nerve wracking. I’m all for tonight.”
“OK, you handle getting it ready with your and Steve’s part and I’ll make sure Tim’s ready. I’ll call you before seven tonight if it’s on.
“OK. And Greg, good luck. I have to tell you, this scares me. A lot.”
“Yeah, but you’re looking forward to it also, aren’t you? I am, even though I am nervous.”
“I guess so. Anyway, see you tonight.”
- - - - - -
At 6 PM, I dialed Dale’s number. A woman with a rough voice answered.
“Is Dale there?”
“Yeah, hold on. Dale, phone, and hurry up, I’m expecting a call.”
The phone clattered down on a table, and a few minutes passed where I could hear background noises in the house. Someone had the news on, and a stereo was playing. I heard a young kid crying.
“Yeah?”
“Uh, Dale?” I asked, feigning as much nervousness and timidity as I could.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Uh, Dale, this is Greg Colson. You were looking at me in the library today. Look, Dale, I don’t want any more trouble from you. You already tore up some stuff in my locker. Then you shoved me into it. It hurt my cheek. I saw how you were looking at me today. I want you to leave me alone.”
“Oh, the sissy boy doesn’t like to play, huh? Well, fuck you, pussy. I’ll do whatever the fuck I feel like doing. Fuck you.”
“Dale, what did I ever do to you? Leave me alone. Please. I don’t want to get hurt.”
There was a moment of silence while Dale digested this. Then, he said, “You know, faggot, we should get together and talk about this. You don’t want to get hurt, and I have some things I want, too, and you’d do fine.”
“Get together? You mean, meet some place? I don’t know. Maybe that wouldn’t be so good. Or, maybe we could meet in the library at school and talk if we had to.”
“No, I think we should meet right now. I’ll meet you at the school, in the back. It’ll just be us two.”
“Dale, I don’t know. I don’t want to do that.”
“You’ll do that, or I’ll beat the crap out of you. You got that, pussy boy?”
“Dale, what’d I ever do to you? I can’t meet you all alone behind the school! I’m scared. You could do anything you wanted to me.” I was almost whimpering now. Most of it was acting. But I did feel some real fear. Even though this was going much better than I’d hoped. I needed to get him to meet me, and out of the blue he’d suggested it himself. I didn’t have to talk him into it, or set it up the way I’d planned.
“Look, fag, you meet me or you’ll wish you had. Nothing will happen if you show up. But I’d better not show up and find you’re not there. You be there. Tonight.”
“Well, if you say nothing will happen. I can sneak out. I can’t be there before eight. Eight o’clock behind the school. I’ll be at the baseball backstop. But you got to promise. We just talk. Nothing else.”
“Sure, sure. Eight o’clock. I’ll be there. Make sure you are.” The menace in his voice came through the phone line clearly.
He hung up. I sighed. This whole plan was based on getting him to agree to come to the baseball field. And I’d done that. The fact it was mostly his own idea just made it easier. So, tonight really was going to be it. I had to get in touch with everyone else.
- - - - - -
It was dark. There were patchy clouds in the sky and the quarter moon was just beginning to make an appearance. A cool breeze, very gentle but persistent, riffled the leaves in the nearby trees. I was standing on the infield side of the backstop, leaning against it, all alone. I felt fear, but also exhilaration and anticipation. Lots of nervous energy. I just hoped everything went as planned. My part so far had been easier than expected and successful. Everyone else had to come through now, too.
It was five after eight. I was looking around, seeing nothing, and then a dark figure appeared trudging toward me. Dale. He was looking down at the ground, but when he was about 25 yards away he looked up and saw me. There was a faint light coming from the street lights about 100 yards away. It and the moon that was just now above the horizon allowed me to make out a grin on his face when he noticed me. It looked more like a sneer than a grin, a triumphal sneer. His trudge became a swagger.
What was important was I’d guessed right: he was walking toward me on the other side of the backstop from where I was standing.
He kept walking and came up to me, stopping where the backstop screen separated us. I’d needed him to be where he’d have to walk all the way around the backstop to come up to me. I’d thought he’d probably take the shortest route to get to me when he first saw me, and he had.
“Hey, fag, nice of you to show up.”
“I’m not a fag. Don’t call me that. And I don’t want any trouble from you.” Sounding nervous and scared.
“OK, and you won’t get any. As long as you do what I want.”
“What do you want? I never give you any problems. Why don’t you just leave me alone? Remember, you promised me we’d just talk tonight. Nothing’s going to happen. So, what do you want?”
“Yeah, I promised, but I changed my mind. Something is going to happen. You’re going to come around the fence. Right over here. Then, you’re going to get down on your knees in front of me and blow me. You get your ass around the screen here and get on your knees. You do this, right now and whenever I ask you to and you don’t get pounded. You don’t do this, you’re dead. First, I’m going to kick the shit out of you tonight. Then, when you’re not even thinking about it, you’re going down the stairs at school when you won’t even know it’s happening, and you’ll be dead. Now, get over here.” He glared at me, and rubbed his crotch.
I looked at him for a second, just stared, wondering why some kid would turn out this way. What made someone a bully, someone who enjoyed taking advantage of weaker kids? Someone who liked to hurt them when he could get away with it. But I only thought for a second. I had things to do now. I had to make him mad. I didn’t want him either thinking or. I had him just where I wanted him and I didn’t want to lose him.
“Dale,” I said, and my voice was different now. I wasn’t whining. I wasn’t sounding nervous and scared. I was sounding confident and even scornful without of trace of my intimidation remaining. “I wouldn’t blow you if my life depended on it, and with you it sure doesn’t because you couldn’t catch me if your life depended on it. You’re fat and stupid and you probably don’t even have a big enough dick to suck. It’s been going around that you pick on people to compensate for having the littlest dick in school, a fifth grader’s dick. Go ahead, whip it out and show me your baby dick, you fucking shithead.”
Dale looked at me in shock. I’d changed from a scared little boy to someone who was insulting him and wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. I didn’t want him to think, I wanted him to react, so I kept on. “I see you’re not whipping it out, so I guess I’m right. I heard from someone who saw you in the locker room that you could pose for the ‘before’ picture for male enhancement surgery. You’re a loser Dale. Probably can only get it up with your mother. Did she teach you about blow jobs? Huh? You know, kids must be stupid to be afraid of a guy with a kindergarten dick.” And with that, I hawked up a mouthful of saliva and spat at him, right through the screen, hitting him right in the face.
He turned red. “You mother fucker. You’re dead,” he screamed. And with that, he took off running toward the edge of the backstop.
I started running in the other direction, towards the dugouts and past them towards the outfield fence. He came around the backstop and was after me, about 20 yards behind. He was a lot taller than I was and had a longer stride, so was gaining on me. As he ran past the dugout, however, everything changed.
Out of the dugout came Steve and Tim. They blindsided Dale, hitting him hard, Steve with all his weight across the shoulders, Tim with a perfect football tackle at the knees. Dale went down hard on the shaved infield, scraping his face in the rough dirt.
As soon as he hit the ground, I stopped and hurried back to them. He was slightly stunned from hitting the ground so hard. Tim was squeezing his knees together for all he was worth. Steve was lying across his back and shoulders, pinning him to the ground and pounding on his back, raining heavy blows with one hand and grunting as each struck it’s target, his other hand tightly grasping Dale’s hair and forcing his face into the dirt. As I was coming up, Adam also ran out of the dugout and began kicking him hard in the ribs and side. I joined in and began kicking his other side, in the ribs and stomach, getting all the force into my kicks that I could.
Dale struggled at first, but as all our blows took their toll and he was unable to get any leverage to stand up, with Tim holding fast to his knees and Steve keeping his weight on Dale’s shoulders and not letting go of his hair, he very quickly stopped trying to get away and started yelling, “Stop, stop, cut it out! Help! Shit!”
“You stop struggling, we stop pounding and kicking,” said Steve. I gave another hard kick at the same time.
“OK, OK. You fuckers.”
I gave him a last hard kick for that. He grunted. Steve told him to put his hands behind his back. He did so, and Adam quickly pulled one of the heavy duty cable ties we’d bought at a hardware store out of his pocket and began to secure it around Dale’s wrists.
As soon as Dale felt the plastic on his wrists, he made a lunge and yanked his hands away, but Tim had never released his hold and Steve was still on his back so he couldn’t accomplish anything. Dale was quickly rewarded for his effort by getting another solid blow in the kidneys from Steve’s elbow and another sharp kick in the side from me.
“Hands behind your back, fuckwad. Or not. We can beat on you all night if you’d like. Fine with us either way. You’ll be pissing blood for a week. Once we’ve beaten you unconscious, then we’ll tie you up.” That was Adam. There was something in his voice I’d never heard before, a raw quality.
Dale moved his hands behind his back and Adam locked them in place with the cable tie.
Once his hands were secured, Tim took his arms from around Dale’s legs and stood up. He grabbed one of Dale’s arms, Steve grabbed the other, and they duck-walked him over to the backstop. Steve pulled him upright and slammed his back up against the screen. Adam ran around to the other side of the backstop and, using two other cable ties, secured his arms just under his shoulders to the wire fencing, one cable tie for each arm. Dale now was forced to remain standing. If he tried to slide down, the cable ties around his upper arms bit into him. He had to stand. Then Adam removed the tie holding his wrists together and moved his arms away from his body as far as the ties holding his upper arms would permit. He then bound Dale’s wrists against the backstop fence.
“Ready?” Steve asked Adam.
“Ready,” Adam replied, and he ran back to the dugout, quickly to return with three pairs of scissors. He handed one pair to Tim, one to Steve and one to me. We moved in and began cutting at Dale’s clothes.
“Hey, what the fuck!” he yelled. We ignored him and kept cutting. Dale started to move, probably intending to make cutting more difficult, but Steve slapped him across the face and said, “Listen, dipshit, you move around and we’re going to accidentally cut things we didn’t intend to cut. I’d hold very still if I were you.”
About at that time I was cutting his jeans up the inner left seam. I let the point of the scissors touch the inside of his thigh. He immediately yelled, but also stopped fidgeting.
We worked in silence, and in only a couple minutes, we’d cut every bit of Dale’s clothing off him. I had the honor of cutting his briefs up the side and watching them slide to the ground at his feet. He stood before us, tied to the backstop, naked. I took the time to look, and was surprised to see he really did have a very juvenile looking dick. It was embarrassingly small.
I seized the opportunity. “Hey, look guys. He really does have a baby dick.” And I laughed.
“OK,” said Steve. “Who wants to go first?”
“I do,” I said. I stepped up to Dale. “Dale, I don’t have the slightest idea why you’re such an asshole, but I’m going to tell you something. Your days of hurting kids littler than you has ended. It’s all over. Now we’ve got you, and you’re the one that’s going to be hurting. Starting right now.” And after saying that, I reached back and with an open hand slapped him across the face as hard as I could.
He let out a bellow. I used the back of my hand and slapped him on the other side of his face. “Dale, I don’t know why you picked on me; I must have looked easy, I don’t know, but that was a big mistake. I don’t think you believe me yet, so I have some more work to do.” With that, I slapped him twice more, very hard.
At the point, Adam came forward. “Hey, Dale, remember me? Adam? You almost drowned me in the pool last summer. Only the lifeguard seeing you stopped you. You would have held me under a lot longer otherwise. So, I wanted the chance to say thanks.” Adam then started in where I’d left off. He slapped him four times before stopping.
By this time, Dale had tears running down his face. Probably part of it was anger, but a lot of it was from pain. It really hurts to get slapped, and to get repeatedly slapped is demeaning, painful and awful.
We’d decided to play good cop, bad cop with Dale, and Tim had been chosen as the good cop. Steve now spoke up. “Hey, he’s about my size. Let me take a few whacks at him. Let him see what it feels like to have a guy his size work him over a bit.” That said, Steve slapped a sharp blow with weight behind it that rocked Dale’s head to the side. Then, with a clenched fist, he hit him hard in the ribs. Dale gasped.
“Hey, that felt good. I’m going to do that again!”
“Hey, hold up, Steve. I think he’s had enough. He’s got to be really hurting. Don’t you think we should stop?” That was Tim, sounding worried.
“Nah,” I said. “We’re just getting started. I think we should probably keep going till he’s unconscious and then keep going even more. If we stop and let him go, he’ll just come after us when he can. We talked about this. We can’t let him go. We’ve got to kill him.”
Tim sounded worried when he said, “No, no, I told you guys we shouldn’t kill him. I was against that; still am. We can’t kill him.”
“Then he’ll get us when he’s loose. We’ve got to. Remember, he likes hurting people. We don’t have any choice.” That was Adam. Sounding sincere and very matter of fact.
It was Steve’s turn to add his two cents. “Tim, if you can think of some way to protect us from him, OK, we won’t have to kill him. But I can’t think of anything. We all tried and came up empty. I still say kill him. We all agreed to this. Nothing’s changed. We can’t back out now. I’ll do it if you guys are chicken. I hate bullies. They’re scum. Look what he did to Riley. He could have killed him, and he didn’t give a shit. You guys can walk away. It’ll be just him and me. For only a short time. Then it’ll be only me walking away from a piece of shit hanging from the backstop.”
I’d been watching Dale while we were talking. He was still crying, but he was shivering now, too. He looked awful. His face was dark in the poor light, probably flushed from the slapping. But he was our age, naked, hearing our plan, and he had to be scared shitless. I couldn’t see his eyes. They would have told me something.
Tim thought a minute. “Steve, hold on. You don’t want to kill him, I know you don’t. And I can think of one thing we could do. If he’d confess to everything he’s done, all the kids he’s hurt, and someone could write it down and have him sign it, then he couldn’t get us. He does anything to any one of us then, we could turn the paper over to the school, the cops and, hey, I know. Give a copy of it to the fathers of the boys he’s hurt! He wouldn’t touch us if we had that, because he’d be in too much trouble if other people saw it.
“Aaaah, he’d never do that. And it’d take too long. I say we just slap him unconscious, then Steve does him. No one’ll ever know we did it. No one would miss the son of a bitch either. We can alibi for each other, we have nothing to worry about. No one knows we’re here. He’s got it coming to him, and we’d be no more suspects that twenty other kids. Hey guys, we already decided this. Why are we arguing now?” That was my contribution. After saying that, I stepped up and slapped him again, hard.
“Yeah,” said Steve. “I don’t think we should dick around with this. Besides, I sort of want to kill him. I have since he almost drowned Adam.”
We all started arguing then, Steve being firm, me backing him, and the other two wavering, sounding unsure. Steve and I won, as agreed, and after a few minutes, we had unanimity again.
At that point, when it was apparent we were all together again, Dale finally spoke. His voice was scared. He had obviously bought our act. “Hey, stop, I’ll do it. I’ll sign anything you want.” His voice had a pleading, scared tremble to it.
Tim walked up to him. “You’ll tell us all the names of the kids you hurt, everything you did to them? Because if you leave something out, and one of us has heard about something you’ve skipped, we’ll know you’re lying. We hear that, I’m not going to be able to stop Steve. I won’t even want to.”
“Yeah, anything you want. You got some paper? I’ll tell you.”
Adam got the paper he’d brought, along with a clipboard to write on, out of the dugout. He told Dale to go ahead. Dale started talking and Adam started writing. Unknown to Dale, I was recording what he said on my phone. We were amazed. This was working just like we’d planned it. Listening to Dale, though, was troublesome. He’d hurt a lot more kids than we could have imagined. It took him some time to recount them all. He finally got to Riley, but it was a good fifteen minutes after he’d started. Riley had been his last victim.
“OK,” Tim said. “Anyone know of anything he missed. We looked at each other and none of us spoke. “All right, then. Dale, we’re going to loosen your right arm. You’re going to sign the paper. Then we’re going to tie your right arm back up again. You’re not going to try to get away when your arm is loose. The reason you’re not is that Steve is going to stand behind the screen with the scissors. You even reach for the knot on your other arm, you wiggle even a muscle, you’re getting stabbed with the scissors in your kidney. You clear on that?” For emphasis, Tim slapped him. Hard.
Dale whimpered when he was hit, then quickly answered. “Yeah, no problem. Sure.”
Adam went behind the screen with Steve and Tim after tying a piece of rope to Dale’s right wrist and feeing the rope through the backstop to Steve to hold. From behind the backstop form Dale, he then cut the cable ties off his right wrist and arm. Dale could use that arm, but Steve could also yank it back against the fence, and Tim was there to help hold it if needed.
Steve loosened the rope he was holding and Dale’s arm fell to his side. Dale began shaking it and clenching and unclenching his fist, trying to get circulation back in his hand. While he was doing that, Adam was looping other pieces of rope though the backstop wires and around each of Dale’s legs, then tying them off so Dale could stand but not walk away.
I brought the clipboard with the paper on it close to Dale and held it for him while Tim slipped a ballpoint pen into his fingers.
“At the bottom of the paper, underneath what Adam’s written, write ‘I am making this confession about these crimes freely and without any pressure to do so. I’m doing this to free myself of the guilt I feel.’ Then sign your name,” Adam instructed him. He had to repeat the words several times. Dale wasn’t remembering well.
Dale had no fight left in him. He was scared and cold and hurting. He wrote what he’d been told and signed. Then he put his arm back against the backstop without even being told. Adam re-secured that arm to the backstop with a cable tie. He was now standing naked, he legs spread slightly, his arms stretched out away from his body and tied at several points, the cable ties interlaced through the backstop wires.
I spoke to Dale. “We’re going to make copies of these. We’ll all have one copy ready, should any of us get hurt. You’d better pray that never happens. Even if you weren’t involved in how it happened, any of us gets hurt, you suffer. That’ll stop you from sending someone else after us. And another thing. Don’t think you’d get away denying this, saying we forced you to sign it. You’re the only one who knows about all these things you’ve confessed to, so you’re the only one who could have done them and described them. You’re obviously guilty. Besides, we all heard you confess. Even without the papers, we can testify to what you said. It’s all over, Dale. Fuckhead.” And I slapped him again as hard as I could. He yelped.
We were done. Well, the plan wasn’t over, but we were done. I said to the others, “OK guys, let’s get out of here.”
We all started to walk away. We’d only gone a few steps when Dale let out a cry.
“Hey, you can’t leave me here. I can’t be here all night. Let me loose. C’mon. I signed your stupid paper. Let me go.” He was whimpering.
“Sure, dummy, you think we’re going to take the chance you could get the paper you just signed back from us? Not on your life,” I said.
“But you can’t leave me here all night. I’ll get pneumonia. I’m already freezing my ass off.”
“You know, Dale, that really gets to me, you being uncomfortable and all. But, I’m a guy with my heart in the right place. I’m going to cut you some slack. I’m not going to leave you here all night. I’m going to arrange to get you loose.” Having said that, I took out my cell phone and pressed a number on my speed dial.
I stepped a few paces off so I could speak privately. I finished the call and then came back.
I spoke to Dale. “OK, a group of high school girls is coming down here. I told them there’s a pretty pathetic sight at the backstop behind the school, and they’re typical giggly schoolgirls. They want to see what I told them is here. They’ll be here in a few minutes. There’s a whole bunch of them, because I told them . . . well, you can guess what I told them. They’re all eager. They all want to see the big guy who has the smallest dick in the school; they want to see that dick, too. That got them curious. So they’re all coming. You don’t mind a bunch of girls coming out and eyeballing you, do you? No, I thought not.
“If you plead with them, beg a little, maybe cry for them, perhaps they’ll be kind enough to cut you loose. I’m really sorry we can’t stay and watch this. You’re going to be standing here, naked and cold and crying, and a bunch of teenaged girls are going to be standing in front of you looking at you. Think about it. It’s going to be great and we’re going to miss it. But you won’t. You’ll remember it all your life, how that felt. You’ll certainly remember it every time you pass any of these girls in the school hallways and they laugh at you. Well, we have to go now, Dale. See you around.”