Chapter 24

Hans drove me over to Holton the next morning. Mrs. Parsons came downstairs to sit with me at breakfast, and to see me safely off. She looked more natural than she had the night before, but still very tired and wan. I told her that I needed her to try to eat better and to regain her strength. She said that she had already checked with the school and cleared it with the administration for me to be picked up Friday after five P.M. It was school policy to try to be responsive to the wishes of parents and guardians regarding visitation and absences from campus. I found out from Hans that this was a very expensive prep school, and that they specialized in students with behavioral problems, and ones from other countries who needed help to get a better grasp of English.

When we got there, the buildings and grounds were impressive. The campus was located on sixty acres of land that had been in the Clement family for six generations. Originally, it had been part of a much larger farm, but half had been sold in the nineteen thirties, during the height of the depression, and the remaining half section was divided among the six surviving Clement children. Each son received sixty acres, and the two daughters received forty acres each. Since both daughters were married, their husbands sold their inheritance to Malcolm Clement the eldest brother, and the only one in the family with a steady job, and the willingness to sign a promissory note for two thousand dollars for these two parcels.

The sixty acre parcel the Academy was located on had been the one belonging to the youngest son, George Clement, who lost his inheritance in a poker game in Korea during the winter, early in 1952. The winner of the land had been one Alexander Courtney Billings, a corporal that served with George in the 32nd Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division. In May of 1952, Cpl. Billings was pinned down by enemy fire, caught out in the open, as he searched for a place to void his distended bowels. It was that same George Clement, who sighted in, and laid down a sustained barrage of covering fire with a BAR that George had converted into a scope mounted sniper rifle, his actions thus enabling Billings to escape with nothing more serious than a nearly spent machine gun slug lodged in his right patella, heavily soiled skivvies, and a heart that was beating at close to 190 beats per minute by the time a corpsman finally reached him, pulling him to safety.

Due to the nature of his injury, Corporal Billings was sent home with his 'million dollar wound', while poor George Clement was left behind to endure nine additional months in Korea. Returning to school under the GI Bill, Corporal Billings earned a Doctorate in School Administration, married well, and then built the Academy on George Clement's land, using his new wife's family money. From that humble beginning, rose the majestic empire that became Clement Academy.

Opened in 1960, it quickly gained a reputation for being isolated enough to tame the unruliest of problem children. Through word of mouth, by 1984, Clement Academy had grown through institutional grants and generous private endowments, into an institution of learning that was impressive in its appearance, and noted for high academic standards, if not for its list of distinguished graduates. It was really a three tiered prep school. One third of the student population was concerned with academic excellence, one third was concerned with English familiarization training, and the final one third were essentially informal inmates at an expensive private boy's reformatory.

Catering to grades eight through twelve, "CA" as it was generally called, was home to over one hundred boys and young men. They were housed in three residential buildings, each one bearing an official name. They were named after tree types that were never present on any part of the property, Oak Hall, Birch Hall and Sycamore Hall.

Oak Hall contained three floors of expansive residential apartments, four boys per apartment, four apartments per floor. Each apartment contained four private bedrooms, each measuring ten feet by twelve feet, a large bath, with four sinks and four toilets, a large shower, and a common living/study area, with four separate study desks and chairs. It was reserved for the serious academic students. This is where I was housed after Hans dropped me off in front of the administration building. Oak Hall was for the boys who spoke English well already, and who presented no discipline history. I found out quickly enough that the students referred to it as "Joke Hall".

Birch Hall was the same size as Oak Hall, with the same number of apartments and rooms. In Birch Hall, each apartment had its own resident 'counselor', an adult, usually with a background which included competence in some form of unarmed combat. Students residing in Birch Hall were subject to random searches, inspections, and the kind of discipline you might find in a military boot camp. This residence was call "Search Hall" by the students.

Sycamore Hall had thirty two private apartments, sixteen per floor. Fully half of the students housed there were accompanied by a cook/servant/companion. This is where the students from foreign countries came for a crash course in American English. The student population referred to this residence as "Spicamore Hall".

I was informed in my orientation interview that I was now part of a student body numbering one hundred seven students. Forty six in "Joke", thirty six in "Search" and thirty one in "Spic". Eight of the students in my new residence were foreign born, but fluent in English already. Since I was coming in as a tenth grader, I was housed on the second floor. Only juniors and seniors were allowed to reside on the ground floor.

The Academy was actually three miles due west of Holton, on a farm road that connected to Hwy 75. Topeka was about thirty three miles from the Academy. A team of two of the 'special counselors' kept a perimeter watch on the Academy grounds. They told us it was to keep people from sneaking into the Academy, but everybody knew it was to prevent runaways from "Search".

The three other boys in my apartment were made up of two other tenth graders, one from England, and one from Ohio, and an eleventh grader, Terry Gorsen, from Illinois, right outside of Chicago. Terry's main claim to fame was that he came into the school as a resident of "Search" and had worked his way up to being a "Joke". The other boys whispered that his father was a hit man for the Mafia, but Terry just laughed and said his father was in the dry cleaning business. The English boy's name was Nigel, he was fifteen years old and as soon as he started speaking, you knew he was very smart. He was starting his second year at CA, and his father worked in New York for Jaguar, the British car maker. Jerry Sandor was another fifteen year old. He was just coming to CA from another boarding school that only kept boys through the ninth grade. His parents were divorced, and his mother had remarried a man who was a lot younger than she was. Jerry hated him, and his mother kept Jerry in boarding schools because his being around made it hard for her to claim to still be in her twenties. Jerry stuttered, picked his nose, and then put the snot in his mouth when he thought no one was looking at him.

Nigel was gay. When I first met him, that was the first thing he told me about himself, even before he told me his name. The second thing he told me was not to worry because he was already booked up through graduation. He was funny, and except for his strange accent, and the fact that he was a boy, he kind of reminded me of Bea. Terry told me to be careful around Nigel because he wasn't always able to resist a new delicacy. I think he was kidding. He was laughing when he said it, and so was Nigel.

I was given the room closest to the bathroom, and they told me we were each responsible to keep our own rooms clean. The newest boy was what they called the 'latrine queen', which meant his cleaning assignment was the bathroom. Each boy was responsible for his own sink and the mirror in front of it, but I had to clean everything else, including the toilets and the showers. I didn't mind, because I had a lot of experience doing that already. Terry, being the only junior was the apartment captain. He had to handle all of the messages and reports coming out of the admin building. Jerry was responsible for keeping the common living area clean, and Nigel was responsible for laundry and supplies. He didn't do the laundry, but he had to take it over to the cleaners, and then return the cleaned things back to us. All of the boys already had their school uniforms except for me.

Because of all my years living at the orphanage, I didn't have any trouble adjusting to the new school. All of the teachers were men, and most of them were older men. Most of them had been college professors before coming to CA. There were three women on campus, one in the laundry room, one in the admin office, and one working in the kitchen. I ate lunch that first day, and I knew right away that I was going to miss Gerta, a lot. Dinner was a little better, but nothing like what I'd gotten used to enjoying at Mrs. Parsons dinner table. Each floor had two pay phones, one at either end of the hallway.

I called Brenda on my first evening there, but we only talked for about ten minutes. The phone call cost me sixty five cents, and I made a mental note to ask Hans to stop off on the way back from my visit, so that I could get more change for phone calls. The second night I called Mrs. Parsons. When she came to the phone, the first thing I told her was that I was low on change for the phone, so I wouldn't be able to talk to her for long. She asked me the number on the front of the phone, so I gave it to her. She had me hang up, then called me back right away. It still cost me twenty cents, but that was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.