I had been sitting in front of my computer screen for days, reviewing memories of passionate adventures, unable to grab the string that would unfold into something I'd be happy to share.

Yes, one story I did not want to expose kept coming back to me, as if to tell me that no other stories would be written until this one had been told. Despite my best effort to push it to the backof my mind, it just slowly wound itself into whatever I was working on, satisfied only when ideas and memories withered to oblivion.

"Fine", I thought. "If this is what it will take to move on to happier memories, then let's get on withit and exorcise the demons!".

It's June, 1975. School is almost over and summer around the corner. Things were looking pretty good for a 12 year old with little parental oversight. We had been living in this little Southern French village for over two years, in a 17th century village farmhouse that my mother and her partner were slowly converting into a modern structure. Between the demands of their respective jobs and the construction around the house, they had little time and desire to beconcerned with what I was doing. That suited me well as I spent a great deal of time riding my bike and playing with friends in the beautiful nature surrounding the village.

What I hadn't realized was that things were going to change again for me. I was often reminded that I lacked self-discipline, as if this was something we were all born with and grow to become. I also lacked parental attention and direction I thought but much, much later in life. However, as a 12 year old, the problem was me, not the way in which I was raised. I rebelled as best as a preteen can rebel, throwing tantrums, doing poorly in school, getting caught with my first cigarettes.

"This can't go on like this!" my mother asserted in a near hysterical sense of self pity. "If you can't make the effort, then we will send you to a school that will teach you!".

Not again, I thought to myself. Following my parents' divorce and her getting together with hernew partner, the family had moved several times. I had been sent to and pulled out of 4 different schools since Kindergarten and it looked like school number 5 was in the cards. But this time it was going to be different.

"We are going to send you to a Catholic boarding school. I hear it's very good and they'll help you with your grades" she said. To soften the blow, she added " You're lucky, you'll be able to come home every weekend. Some of these boys live so far away, they can't even leave the school". Really? I was devastated. I would be in the city. No more running around in the countryside, no more bike rides, no more friends. Prison.

I was sent to prison, I thought.

The end of summer was approaching, doomsday was near and my emotions were running high.I was ferocious, "I want to be emancipated! I can live on my own, you won't have anything to do with me!" Nothing worked. September rolled and I started Saint S. in tears, scared and lonely.

This all boys Catholic school looked like a prison and might have been at one time in its history. From the streets around it you could only see high walls and small windows protected by heavy iron bars. Inside, the buildings were surrounding two concrete playgrounds, one half the size ofthe other. The larger playground and building overlooking it was reserved for the high schoolsection and we were never allowed there. A large wood and iron gate kept the separation clear and my world was now narrowed to about 5000 square feet of classrooms, dormitory, eating room and playground.

The middle school had about 200 kids. It turned out that the full boarding school kids only represented about 20 percent, the rest being divided between half boarding (taking their lunch meal at school) and externals who only came to classes. It also meant that whenever full boarding kids were being bullied, there was always a reference to us being abandoned idiots.Yes, like it is probably the case at that age around the world, the bullying was ruthless. My fear of being bullied was constant when the bell rang for the breaks until the non boarding schools kidshad all left for the day.

Lunch breaks were particularly hard because they lasted so long. A group of half boarding kids had established their reign of terror and, like a group of lions in a parkof gazelles, they hunted the weakest as they pleased with little oversight from the 1 or 2 adult superintendents meant to keep order from chaos.

I owed my salvation to 3 essential factors: The first and most important was that there were weaker kids on the playground than me. They suffered tremendously and even at that age I felt agreat deal of empathy for their suffering and helplessness for being unable to do anything about it. The second factor was that I had the protection of a half boarding kid I had befriended who was the lonesome tough-guy-you-don't want-to-mess-around-with. Once, after the lead bully, a massive 14 year old rugby player, had threatened to beat me up for fun I had rushed to tell myfriend who walked straight to him and set the rule straight:

"You touch my friend and I'll beat the crap out of you, understood?"

That's all it took. As long as I didn't provoke the bullies and stayed a fair distance from them, I did not have to fear being beat up or mocked or whatever these mental cases were in the mood for. My savior however was pretty much a mental case himself with a sadistic streak in him, a carryover from a physically violent alcoholic father. In a cruel transfer for his protection he expected some right to assert his dominance over me and would hurt me for fun, increasing the physicalabuse whenever I attempted to rebel and face him down. He'd sometimes bring me to tears from pain and helplessness but somehow I felt better off than the 2 or 3 kids who were continuously at the mercy of the bullies.

The third factor that contributed to my relative safety came from one of the superintendents, Mr.S one of the daytime supervisor who looked after kids during breaks, at lunch and later in the evening, during study period when only the boarders remained. Early on after landing in thatschool Mr. S had been looking over me, occasionally pulling me from my protector's grip and discreetly giving me extra chocolate from our mid afternoon snacks. I looked forward to seeing him and spending time with him in the evenings. He and another supervisor had a little office with a sliding window looking over the study room. He frequently called me into this office and the three of us would hang out there while he helped me with my homework. He held me in hisarms or pressed against him, much like a parent with their child. I felt safe and cared for with him, much like a father figure. I had even told my mother about him and she felt that he was a grounding influence, particularly since I was getting free math tutoring.

A year in that school had certainly changed me. I had toughened up and in a quest for attentionhad become more mischievous, sometimes taking risks and pulling cranks that would backfireon me. As a result I would be punished, forbidden to return home on the weekend. Sometimes a month would go by before I could step outside the walls of the school. It was like living in isolation and discovering a changed world every time I finally could make it home. I was now 13 years old and my mind and body were beginning to change as well. While girls didn't yet mean anything to me, interacting with them on the outside made me miss the gentleness of theircompany. Also, 13 years old meant that I was now only one year away from getting a motorcycle and having the freedom to go just about anywhere without the need to be driven bymy mother or having to take a bus or a train.

Mr. S. had taken to asking me if I'd go to his apartment on the weekend to work on my mathproblems. Of course I had many other things in mind than being reminded of school on the weekend and I always gave him plenty of reasons for not going. Mr S. was my comfort zone while at school but weekends were my freedom, which I embraced more than ever. Beside, I wasn't quite sure what it was but he was becoming a little over protective. His need for myattention and presence was becoming a little oppressive as I was incrementally becoming more assertive and more comfortable between the walls of the school jungle.

Summer was finally upon us which meant a two months parole from school. My best friend had just turned 14 and had been given a Yamaha TY 50 cc motorcycle for his birthday, the crown jewel of the legally drivable motorbikes for our age group in France. Freedom was upon us! We spent much of the summer together, riding as far as the long days would allow us, riding dirt trails and testing our skills, absorbed by anything and everything we could read on the subject. We were boys discovering a tremendous amount of freedom with very lax parents. My October birthday wasn't far away and I spent much time contemplating which motorbike I was going tobuy, considering my parents were not going to finance that purchase.

Other than motorcycles, the summer also brought something new to my life: I started noticing girls. I started noticing that some girls intimidated me and made me feel strangely shy when they stared at me or talked to me. I was beginning to differentiate them in groups of likes and dislikes through very fuzzy criteria.

I wasn't so sure what all that was about but I definitely was liking the feelings. A friend had managed to get his hands on dirty magazines that we'd pass around, chuckling with immaturity over breasts and neatly shaved pubic triangles, each of us developing our theories on how children come out, where to insert our penis and how it might feel. We carefully hid our erections as a clear sign that all of this was of no great importance to us anyway.

The return to school was particularly difficult. I had experienced wonderful new things during the summer that I wanted to experiment with for a bit longer - freedom and girls- both of which were way out of reach within my prison walls. Mr S. was also distant, treating me like the otherboarder kids. I had not stayed in touch with him over the summer and he was making me knowthat lack of attention could go both ways. I was being extra nice to him to regain his kindness and by the time I reached my 14th birthday in October we had become closer again. When I got my own motorcycle for my birthday, I proudly rode it to school feeling like I had reached the pinnacle of manhood. Of course, Mr. S. was now insisting that I had no more excuses not to visit him at his apartment to put more efforts practicing my maths and improve my grade. He was right and so I finally relented and rode my motorcycle to his place one late Saturday morningin November 1976.