Stevens School Runaways -- Part 20

“The Conclusion”

For weeks after Rich and Tom’s opportune rescue, a media circus ensued. Throughout the United States and Canada, television and radio stations blared the sensational. While the Stevens School’s true nature (reform school) was a matter of public record, this simple fact was often obscured. It was intimated, if not usually said, that Stevens was an exclusive private school stressing “academics and discipline” situated in a peaceful, if remote setting. Several well-known commentators hosting nationally broadcast programs referred to “Stevens students” as college preparatory-minded boys from wealthy families attending voluntarily – not inmates placed by court order in a sadistic institution. In fact, according to the “official” version of events, Alfred Cousins had been “employed” by the school in some menial capacity, maybe janitorial. There was nary a mention of his former status as a tenured mathematics instructor. It was “leaked” in somewhat contradictory fashion, that Cousins, 56, ringleader of an insane satanic cult specializing in the abuse, torture, and mutilation of “boys as young as five” – was a serial kidnapper with a predilection for “violating” boys attending private schools. Sources were never identified. Within a week of the “abduction,” tens of millions of “enquiring minds” regarded Cousins as the pariah that he wasn’t. Tom’s parents believed these and other gross deceptions, while publicly supporting the massive and very public effort mounted by an international coalition to “save” their missing son.

Rich’s parents tried keeping the lowest profile possible. Categorically refusing extensive interviews with tabloid television shows and maintaining a cautious and even aloof posture with those insufferable reporters who dared encroach upon their family’s privacy, they kept in discreet contact with Rich and his guardians hoping to eventually “fetch him home” when the time was right. Unfortunately, this strategy had an unintended effect. Like it had with the parents of Jon Benet Ramsey, the media became more interested in the Hansens – and began to regard them as accomplices in their son’s abduction. Suspicion cast upon the family – even upon Rich’s slightly elder sister – an accusatory judgment – became a prevalent mindset – especially when the irresponsible media began framing lurid stories along these lines. When Rich’s parents did dare to visit their son, they’d been tailed by law enforcement agents. Soon the boys’ whereabouts – and the whereabouts of everybody with them – became an open secret. A discreet surveillance commenced. Eavesdropping devices camouflaged into the natural surroundings provided visual data and even the minutest details of conversations between the four principals. The lost genitalia of both Edgar and Alfred – along with actual photographs -- became grotesque curiosities – like an old-fashioned freak show -- and ratings-building topics for mass consumption TV. Were they “deformities” -- possibly induced by incestuous breeding – or gruesome self-mutilations? When Edgar and Alfred began mingling the boys with some other eunuchs in the area – how many eunuchs were there in those woods – forty–fifty–sixty? Was this cult-like community dangerous to young boys? It was quickly assumed so. The authorities would “pounce” upon the eunuch community and “recover” the “children” in due course – it was only a matter of time. American and Canadian plainclothes operatives began inhabiting the nearby woods in the vicinity of the lodge – living mostly in makeshift shelters. Despite this whirlwind of activity that was admittedly foreign to those wilderness environs, a certain stealth credited to intense military training methods and inherent to what the American government was now calling “Operation Canadian Courage” enabled Edgar, Alfred, Tom, and Rich to remain – perhaps blissfully – unawares. It might have helped if there’d been a television set in Edgar’s abode.

*

“Operation Canadian Courage” came to its intended and appropriately sensational climax on the evening of August 28, 2001. Tom and Rich had been introduced to the other eunuchs about a month before. There’d been an initiation ritual, the boys had gotten naked for it, but none of the exercises required sex or pain. “That was so tame,” Rich later said, after he’d been immersed outdoors in a tub filled with moose urine, and later rinsed off with a dip in the now lukewarm pond. “I can’t wait until they DO me.”

Tom was against the impending castration and partial penectomy of his best friend. “I can’t figure out for the life of me why you would want to let them do that to you,” Tom said, “I mean, imagine. It’s going to hurt like hell and you won’t ever be able to jerk off again, let alone have kids someday. I think you’re crazy!”

“I know,” Rich said, almost sadly, “but it just seems right. I won’t ever feel a part of the Lost Brethren unless I do get it done. I l-love both of them – Alfred and Edgar too – and I want to live here forever.”

“What about your real family? They came all the way up here to see you. You love them too, don’t you? Did you even TELL them about what’s going to happen?”

“I think Dad was afraid to ask. Mom didn’t have a clue. I don’t know, maybe I’ll change my mind at the last minute, but I don’t think so.”

“I still think that you’re crazy,” Tom repeated.

*

The logistics, from a military operation’s standpoint, and also from a propagandist’s perspective, were not black and white. “If the kid wants to get his cock and balls cut off, maybe we ought to let it happen,” said the President of the United States to one of his Pentagon aides, “It would justify to the American public how heinous and evil these eunuchs are, and then we could massacre the whole idiotic bunch of them without political fallout. Besides, with Alfred Cousins dead, he won’t be in a position to spill the beans about the “pain threshold” experiments at that school, what’s its name, Simons?”

“Stevens, sir. It’s called the Stevens School.”

A woman spoke up. She was with the Justice Department, a high- level official and political appointee.

She had frizzy hair and very prominent eyebrows. These latter appendages were furrowed in a fit of worry.

“I think that you have a tough decision to make. Whether the one is castrated or not, I think both boys need to be killed. We don’t want those child abuse people dogging your administration to kingdom come. If we bring their bodies back, it might even play well in the press.”

“You can’t do that!” the Pentagon aide exclaimed.

“I’m sorry,” said the President, “I guess that’s why I’m the President. I’m not afraid to make the tough decisions in the interests of national security, and frankly, political expedience. That’s my job.”

The Pentagon aide was aghast, but powerless to do anything. He was in the presence of the most powerful man in the world. “What if the public finds out?” the aide ended up saying.

The President laughed. It was an evil laugh. “They won’t,” he finally squeaked out between chortles, “They never do.”

*

The evening of August 28th was mild and pleasant on Rich’s bare skin. He was staked out in the clearing, amid a grove of trees, in what must have been an ancient ceremony, and at least was two centuries old. Tom watched the entire proceedings. Leather thongs had been attached to all twenty of his friend’s stretched out fingers and toes; his nude form lay splayed out and spread-eagled on the uncomfortable ground, a ground strewn deliberately with sharp twigs, thorny brambles, and stinging nettles by the eunuchs – but not merely for the purpose of causing pain. “I guess it’s time,” Edgar said, grasping the razor-sharp dagger used in a hundred such rituals over the years.

“I guess I’m ready,” Rich said, and what was odd, so weird, Tom thought, his friend was smiling, although an instant later, when he saw the big man advancing upon his genitals with the sharp ceremonial instrument, Rich at least gritted his teeth. The pain along the entire length of Rich’s backside was actually distracting the boy somewhat from what was about to happen. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. The bullet struck the kneeling Edgar’s back just beneath the seventh vertebrae, making him an instant paraplegic as well as a eunuch. He toppled over headfirst and landed on Rich’s chest. “Shit!” an unfamiliar voice screamed, “Why’d you do that? Orders were to let the boy get castrated, and THEN kill them all!”

Suddenly, another voice was heard. It was that of the hero, Alfred Cousins. “I took the liberty of notifying the Hansen boy’s folks. So I guess nobody gets killed today – you bastards!”

“Nobody but you and the other eunuchs,” came a retort. More shots rang out. Soon Tom and the still spread-eagled Rich were the only ones left alive.

*

But it hadn’t worked out in the manner that the American President had intended. Rich’s parents became Tom’s legal guardians, and both boys went to live with the Hansens. It all seemed like a dream – what had happened to them over the past year – especially the bad things. Tom and Rich sharing a room like brothers, they refused to move into separate rooms – it was Rich’s old room at home – very familiar surroundings to him – but they wouldn’t be separated except in classes at school. As autumn progressed, everything was different anyway. It was a brave new world – post September 11th – and the only name on everybody’s lips was that Arab arch-villain, Osama bin Laden. The “eunuch-gang” as they were now occasionally referred to, and even the murdered Alfred Cousins, were “yesterday’s news.”

*

One evening in October, Tom and Rich were in their bedroom engaged in a familiar activity that Rich’s sister found disgusting. She peeked in the open doorway. “Ewwh gross!” she said.

“I don’t know why she says that,’ Rich said, “I think that your toenails are great.”

“Just finish up with them,” Tom said, holding his left foot up so that Rich’s teeth could gain a better grip. “I just know I need an extra-thorough massage tonight. Extra thorough.”

*

Later, that night after lights out, Tom started sobbing. Rich woke up to caress and hug his friend. Sometimes his family joined in when this happened – Mom and Dad and even Sis taking their turns comforting one or the other once-tortured boys who was having a crying jag. They came on spontansously, those tearful episodes. Tonight it wouldn’t be necessary to convene a family "hug-in." Rich had matters well in hand. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re safe!” he whispered loudly into his best friend’s ear.

“No, I’m not,” Tom suddenly joked like a bolt that sprang out of his deep blue eyes, “It’s not the Stevens way.”

This simple one-liner sent both boys into a fit of hysterical laughter until Rich saw the photograph of Alfred Cousins on the bedside table. The photograph had the effect of quieting both boys like nothing else. "Was Alfred a hero?" Tom said.

Now it was Rich's turn to cry.

The end