Shattered Dreams

Young Isaac Horn is a grocers son in the cliquish backwoods 
community of Bedrock when some outsiders move in next door to his 
fathers store. The new family has a couple of kids, a boy and a 
girl, about Isaac's age. Newcomers are usually shunned by the local 
kids, but Isaac immediately gets a crush on the new girl and 
becomes the best friend of her brother. However, some of the other 
local kids have other ideas about how the new kids should be 
welcomed. In spite of Isaac's efforts to protect his new friends 
from the uncouth elements of his culture, their innocence does not 
go unpunished!

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Shattered Dreams

I stood waiting for Jeff as he ran up the hill coming back from the 
boys' bathroom. We were barely going to make it into class before 
the second bell rang.
"Ike, I got ta tell you something," Jeff gasped, out of breath from 
running. I knew something was wrong when I saw him. He was as white 
as a sheet and he was trembling.  I tried to listen to him amid the 
noisy clatter and bustle of dozens of kids scrambling through the 
hall trying to get to their first-period classes before the bell. 
We had Mrs. Davidson for ninth grade English and she was a strict 
old biddy; most of the kids hated her.
"Something happened down at the bathroom," he croaked, in a 
breaking voice, almost crying, just as the bell rang. "There were 
these boys down there and..."
"You two!" boomed the stern voice of Mrs. Davidson. "Isaac, 
Jeffrey; I'm going to have to separate the two of you. I've warned 
you all before about talking in class. Jeff, you just come up and 
take this seat on the front row by the wall; and I don't want to 
see you even turning around to look at Isaac. Is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am," he sputtered, in a sniveling voice. He looked like he 
was about to cry as he docilely took the seat Mrs. Davidson had 
assigned him.
After everyone was in their seats Mrs. Davidson had us stand once 
more recite The Lord's Prayer together. This was always done when 
the first period class started, no matter who the teacher was. It 
seemed to kind of calm the students down and get them in the mood 
for study.

___________

Oh yes, my name is Isaac Horn. Most of my friends just call me Ike. 
I grew up in the small town of Bedrock in the 1960s. Two state 
highways crossed there, forming essentially the only paved 
"streets" in our little town of fewer than a thousand souls. We had 
a school though. Over a dozen busses brought kids in from miles 
around to Bedrock Public Schools. When school was in session the 
population of our town more than doubled. Counting kindergarten 
through twelfth grade our student body numbered about eleven-
hundred. A typical graduating class would only have about fifty 
members. It was a small town and a small school.
My family owned one of the three grocery stores in town. It was 
right in the intersection and of course we had gas pumps out front. 
I always counted myself lucky to be the son of a grocer and not a 
farmer. I had two uncles who were farmers, and I occasionally 
worked for them, hauling hay and tending livestock. It didn't take 
me long to figure out that I liked working at my dad's store a lot 
better. Not only was the work easier, but I was always meeting 
girls at the store.

It was in the summer of sixty-three, just before I entered the 
ninth grade, that the Turners moved into the rent house next door 
to our store. The Turners weren't natives; they were from some big 
city in the east somewhere. Mr. Turner was an engineer working on a 
new dam they were building just twenty miles up the road from 
Bedrock. They would be moving out as soon as the dam was completed 
in about three years, so they just rented a place. We weren't used 
to outsiders living in Bedrock, but this new dam, a big federal 
project, was bringing in lots of them. The project was bringing in 
lots of new jobs too, so nobody complained.
The Turners had two kids. A boy, Jeff, who was about my age, and a 
girl, Misty, who was a couple of years younger. Because they lived 
right next door I got to know the Turner kids sooner than anyone 
else. In fact, I don't think they ever made any real friends; it 
was really hard for outsiders to be accepted Bedrock and I think I 
was probably the best friend they had there.
The first thing that struck me about Jeff and Misty was that they 
were so innocent and naive. It was as though they had stepped right 
off the screen of a Disney movie. They were city kids - not tough 
kids from the other side of the tracks - but middle class, suburban 
kids who had led very sheltered lives. Also, they both seemed small 
for their ages and Jeff was rather effeminate. Misty was beginning 
to fill out very well and I thought she was real cute.
Everything in the country was new to them and they looked 
innocently at everything in wide-eyed wonder. In those days 
television and other media had many more taboos and did a good job 
of helping keep kids ignorant of anything sexual. Jeff only vaguely 
understood that the male was somehow involved in causing the female 
to have babies (calves, kittens, puppies, or whatever) and didn't 
have a clue as to what was actually involved. I explained it to him 
as much as I could. He was curious, but also very ashamed that he 
was curious. I took him to a neighbor's pasture and showed him a 
bull and some cows. There were also some steers in pasture. I 
showed him the difference and explained what a steer was and how  
they got that way.
His reaction was a combination of awe and fear. He had never before 
known that in the world of livestock almost all the males were 
castrated. Only a tiny handful were spared for breeding purposes. 
Jeff had never known what castration was until now, and he was 
learning that it did a lot more than just prevent the male from 
making babies. The steers didn't look that different from the cows 
except that they peed from underneath instead of behind. The bull 
however, with its thick muscular neck and huge head, was about a 
third larger than the others and appeared for all the world as 
though he might belong to another species altogether.
I told Jeff we had to be careful around the bull and not get too 
close. Bulls could be dangerous. Jeff said he had always heard that 
bulls were dangerous, but didn't understand why. I explained that 
one of the main reasons farmers castrated all the male animals they 
didn't need for breeding was to make them gentle. Of course you 
could be hurt by a cow or a steer, but it was far less likely.
It was kind of funny watching Jeff's reaction to all this, but I 
also felt a little sorry for him. Kids shouldn't be raised so 
sheltered that they are completely ignorant of these things. Jeff 
had assumed that if you were born a boy that it was just a given 
that you would grow up to be a man. Now he realized that wasn't 
necessarily so. With a very simple little operation that didn't 
even require a doctor, any male could be reduced to a creature that 
was neither male nor female.  Jeff almost went into shock as he 
stood there looking at that bull and those steers.
Jeff asked me if I had ever heard of anything like that happening 
to people. I told him that I had, but didn't know any personally. I 
reminded him that history books and even the Bible mentioned 
eunuchs, so it must have happened to quite a few men back then. 
Jeff said he remembered reading about those too, but he didn't 
really know what they were until now. He said the most horrible 
thing about it is that it doesn't just make you unable to do it, 
but it makes you so you don't even want to do it. We were both at 
the age where we were just beginning to get real interested in 
girls and I could tell the whole idea of castration bothered Jeff a 
lot. I don't think we ever talked about it again after that.
The thought was rather disquieting to me too. Whenever I thought 
about it I thought about Misty and the little tingle I felt when 
ever I looked at her. I suppose if the truth be known, I was 
developing a crush on Misty. I tried very hard to conceal this 
because she was so young. I was fifteen and she was only thirteen 
and that made me feel like a pervert. I would rationalize that when 
I was twenty-five she would be twenty-three and that didn't sound 
bad at all, but for now, I felt I shouldn't be thinking about her 
like that. Of course the more I tried not to think of Misty, the 
more I thought about her. I just couldn't get her out of my mind.
The idea of me and Misty getting married when we grew up didn't 
really seem all that absurd either. Of course it was just wishful 
thinking because I had never asked her what she thought about the 
idea - at least not yet. The Turners seemed to like me though. Mr. 
Turner showed me maps of the new lake and where the shore line 
would be. He talked about how great the bass fishing would be there 
in just a few years. I thought it was so neat how they knew where 
all the little islands and things would be before the lake ever 
filled up. I wanted to become a surveyor or maybe even an engineer 
like Mr. Turner.

One Saturday morning in late fall, a familiar old 1952 Chevy pickup 
pulled up to the pumps in front of our store. Originally green, the 
paint job was badly faded. The left front fender was primer gray 
and several other small spots on the tuck were sanded a painted 
with an assortment of primer colors. A pair of black-and-tan coon 
hounds were in the back, tethered by short chains to the spare tire 
that was lying in the bed. A Stevens .22 pump rifle rested in the 
gun rack over the back seat.
C. W. Foley was driving and his passenger was Bubba Willis. I knew 
these boys; they were both seniors at Bedrock High. Actually, I was 
a little kin to C. W. - about a fourth cousin or something. The 
truck belonged to his dad, but C. W. drove it most of the time. C. 
W.'s initials didn't stand for anything; he was just C. W. His 
folks had christened him with that name when he was born.
Bubba got out and went on into the store and I began pumping gas 
and talking to C. W. It seems that he and Bubba knew where they 
could get some moonshine whiskey and they were going to take a 
couple of big jars of it with them coon hunting that night. C. W. 
invited me along, knowing all along that I would make up some 
excuse not to go.
Suddenly the two black-and-tan hounds broke into a chorus of 
barking in that deep resonant voice of which only a black-and-tan 
is capable. Jeff and Misty were in their back yard playing with 
their new puppy, Skippy. It was the puppy that caught the attention 
of the hounds. Skippy started barking and running toward the hounds 
with Jeff and Misty in hot pursuit.
"Skippy! Skippy! Come back here!"
"Come on, puppy. You don't need to go over there."
Jeff managed to catch Skippy by the collar and Misty scooped the 
puppy up and cradled him in her arms. She bounded up the back steps 
carrying the puppy inside out of harm's way. Jeff turned and gave 
us a sheepish grin before following his sister into the house.

"Ike, have you got yourself any of that stuff yet?" C. W. inquired, 
in a lewd voice. A leering expression was on his face.
"No, now come on, C. W., she ain't but thirteen," I protested.
"That don't stop up no holes," he replied, that silly, lewd grin 
still on his face. "If a girl's old enough to get a man hard, she's 
old enough to fuck. That's what I always say. I'll bet she'd shore 
be tight. What do you think, Ike?"
Before I could reply, Bubba emerged from the store with a brown bag 
of goodies.
"Hey, Bubba!" called C. W. "You hear this?"
"Hear what, C. W.?"
"Well, Ike here, has been livin' right next door to that little 
Turner chick and claims he ain't got none yet."
"No shit! That so, Ike?"
"Look, now I told you she's too young for that."
"And I told you what I thought about that, now didn't I, boy. We 
gonna have to have ourselves a little party and invite that little 
Turner girl, and me and Bubba will let you watch and show you how 
it's done."
"Hell," said Bubba, "invite her brother too. He looks like a damned 
girl. We'll fuck him too!"
"You know," said C. W., "I'll bet her brother is tighter than she 
is. What do ya think?"
C. W. and Bubba both broke out in naughty boisterous laughter.
"Look, you guys," I said, "you know if you really did anything like 
that you would get into serious trouble with the law. So quit 
joking about it and forget it."
"Ike, what makes you think me and C. W. are joking? Now boy, we 
dead serious when it comes to gettin' ass."
C. W. lowered his voice to a near whisper and put his face up close 
to mine. "Now, Ike, you know you ain't goin' to get into no trouble 
for somethin' like that if your daddy knows the right people. Boy, 
these here are outsiders! And the law in these parts understands 
that boys have got to have a little fun once in a while. You know 
what I mean?"
"C. W., You're disgusting!" I shouted. I was so angry I was 
trembling. These boys were older and a lot bigger than I was. 
Either of them could have stomped my ass into the gravel without 
any assistance from the other one. C. W. was nineteen. The school 
had purposely flunked him (with his consent) so he could repeat 
twelfth grade and play basketball another year. I was prepared to 
get my ass whipped then and there, but I heard Bubba laughing.
"You know what, C. W., I think I know what's a matter with this 
boy."
"What's that, Bubba? If you know you'd better straighten his ass 
out, because I'm fixin' to whoop his smart ass good, right here.
"How long's it been since you've had a good ass whoopin', boy?"
I didn't say anything. I just stood there looking C. W. in the eye. 
He wasn't smiling any more.
"C. W., I think Ike here is sweet on that little Turner girl. He's 
wantin' to keep all that tight little pussy for himself."
C. W.'s face, which was taut with rage, began to break into a smile 
- a sadistic smile.
"Is that so, boy? Have you done gone and got yourself sweet on that 
little piece of Yankee tail?"
About that time a late model station wagon pulled up on the other 
side of the pumps. A well dressed woman was behind the wheel. We 
all recognized her as Wilma Bentley, the wife of Rev. John Bentley, 
pastor of the Second Baptist Church. Of all nine churches in 
Bedrock, they had the largest congregation.
Mrs. Bentley spoke to all three of us and asked me to fill the tank 
of her station wagon. She even commented on C. W. and Bubba's 
"pretty dogs."
"Well, me and Bubba's got to be goin'," C. W. said, as he counted 
out the exact change for his gas. "But we'll be back. We gotta have 
ourselves a little party one of these days, just like we planned."
"Yeah," said Bubba, "we ain't goin' to forget. And we know who all 
to invite, too."
 _____________

Mrs. Davidson seated me on the back row in the opposite corner of 
the room from Jeff. Although we couldn't talk to each other, I had 
a good view of him and I could tell something was wrong. His face 
remained pale and drawn with worry. He squirmed and fidgeted in his 
chair like a restless four-year-old in a church pew.

"Jeffrey!" snapped Mrs. Davidson, "if you can't stop fidgeting I'll 
give you something to fidget about!" Her gaze fell on the large 
wooden paddle hanging on the wall by her desk. We all knew what she 
meant. No one dared snicker or say anything, but there were a few 
subtle smiles and knowing glances shot back and forth across the 
room.
I knew something was wrong with Jeff. As soon as the bell rang I 
was going to ask him and find out, but Mrs. Davidson kept me after 
class a couple of minutes. It had nothing to do with what had 
happened this morning. English was my poorest subject and she was 
assigning me an extra book report that would allow me to pull my D 
up to a C. I did tell her I thought something was wrong with Jeff 
and that somebody should check on him. She replied that Jeff was 
quite capable of taking care of himself without my assistance and 
if I would spend half as much time on my studies as I did visiting 
with my friends I would be an A student. 
When I stepped out into the hall, Jeff was already gone and I had 
an algebra test coming up second period. We didn't have another 
class together until last period before we went home, but I would 
see him at lunch and find out what had happened this morning.
I had gym class in the period just before lunch. It was in the 
locker room that I first heard rumors about what had happened to 
Jeff. Word was going around that some boys had caught that little 
Turner kid down at the bathroom this morning and corn-holed him (a 
colloquialism for anal rape). That would certainly explain his 
behavior this morning.
The boys bathroom for the high school was in a small cinder-block 
building a couple of hundred yards from the main building. 
Originally, before the school had modern plumbing, the restroom was 
just built over a big cesspool, like you see in some camp grounds. 
When the school got running water and sewage they just installed 
flush toilets in the little building. They put a girls bathroom in 
the main building, but the boys continued using the little building 
down the hill. This provided just the right amount of isolation to 
allow something like this to happen there.

When I found Jeff his face was still drawn with anguish. He was 
obviously distraught.
"Jeff, what happened this morning?"
"Ike, I really don't want to talk about. I'll be alright now. It's 
stopped hurting so badly. It was burning like hell down there this 
morning, but it's starting to feel better now."
"Look Jeff, we can't let those boys get away with what they did. 
You've got to go to the Principal and tell him who did it to you."
"But I don't know who did it."
"You might not know their names, but you could recognize them.
"No I couldn't," he croaked, looking like he might cry again. "I 
didn't see them."
"What do you mean, you didn't see them?"
"Well, I was standing there taking a pee pee when somebody pulled a 
sack over my head. It was a cloth sack like a flour sack. Some guys 
grabbed my arms and then they tied the sack around my neck - not 
tight enough to choke me, but real tight anyway.
"Next they pulled my pants down and messed with me between my legs. 
They asked me if I had ever jacked-off, or if I even knew what that 
was. One of them said they ought to jack me off first so I would 
know what it felt like. The others said not to bother and to just 
go ahead and do it to me. Then one of them started sticking his 
thing up my butt while the others were still messing with me 
between my legs. I screamed and yelled, but I guess the sack over 
my head muffled it so nobody heard. They were all laughing a lot 
too."
Jeff was sniffling now and starting to cry.
"After they finished with me," he continued, "they pulled my pants 
back up and zipped them up and buttoned them. Then they just left. 
I thought I was never going to get that sack off my head, and when 
I finally did, they were all gone. There was nobody around."
Amid his sniveling, halfhearted protests, I grabbed Jeff by the arm 
and started pulling him toward the principles office.
"Come on, we're going to see Mr. Smith." 

At first, Mr. Smith thought we had been fighting and started to 
discipline both of us. Finally, we got him to listen to Jeff's 
story and he sent the secretary, Miss Paula out of the room to get 
the school nurse. He got on the intercom and asked Coach McCullough 
to come up from the gym. He was going to have Jeff pull his pants 
off - underwear and all, and he wanted them to be present when he 
did it.
It seemed like forever before Miss Ruth, the school nurse came into 
the room. In the meantime, Mr. Smith was writing down the details 
of the incident as Jeff recounted them. It seems that two boys had 
actually raped Jeff and ejaculated inside him, but there were at 
least three other boys involved.  Poor Jeff was shaking like a leaf 
with shame and humiliation. As soon as Coach McCullough arrived Mr. 
Smith instructed Jeff to strip from the waist down.
Jeff's briefs were soiled with fecal matter and blood. There was 
also some sticky white stuff that must have been semen which had 
not yet dried. It also looked like someone had stuffed a black 
object just a little larger than a golf ball between his legs. I 
wondered what that was and why the boys had stuck it there. From 
the looks on everyone's faces, I think it struck us all about the 
same time. Nobody had stuffed a black object between Jeff's legs - 
that was his genitals! He had been elastrated - nuts, penis and 
all! Being deprived of their blood supply for all these hours had 
turned his genitals a dark purple, appearing black at first glance.
"Oh my god!" Mr. Smith exclaimed.
Coach McCullough and Miss Ruth both gasped and groaned in disbelief.
"I'll get Mr. Ferguson to bring some wire cutters from the Vo-Ag 
shop and we'll get that thing off," Mr. Smith said, as he picked up 
the mike on the intercom.
"No," said Miss Ruth. "It's too late for that. Gangrene had set in 
and it would poison his system if any of that leaked past the band. 
We've got to call an ambulance and let them take him to the 
hospital. Then they're going to have to do what they have to do."
"I'm afraid she's right," Coach McCullough affirmed. "I only wish 
we could have gotten to this about three hours ago."
Jeff's look of humiliation quickly changed to one of stark terror. 
"Do... does that mean... they'll have to...?"
"I won't lie to you son," Coach McCullough said, in a firm voice. 
"It doesn't look good."
Jeff began to bawl and wail pitifully. Miss Ruth put her arm around 
him and comforted him as best she could. Mr. Smith called an 
ambulance and he also called Jeff's mom.
Mrs. Turner arrived about the same time as the ambulance and rode 
with her son to the hospital in Springburg, the county seat. Mr. 
Smith and Coach McCullough asked me a few more questions and told 
me not to say anything about Jeff being banded. The only other 
people who knew about that were the ones that did it to him. They 
said the boys might slip up and say something that would give 
themselves away if word didn't get out. Then they let me go home 
for the rest of the day. (The word got out anyway. The story was 
all over school the next day.)

They kept Jeff in the hospital about a week We went to visit him 
almost every day. I remember he cried a lot. I felt real sorry for 
him. I remember my dad had promised to let Jeff work in the store 
that summer. Jeff was excited about that because I had told him he 
would meet more girls there in one weekend than most boys would 
meet all summer. Now girls would never be a part of his life again. 
I couldn't imagine anything more horrible than to lose all interest 
in girls and become like a steer. I knew Jeff couldn't either, and 
now it had actually happened to him.
Of course Jeff lost his entire package, testicles and penis. The 
doctors had to remove an inordinate amount of tissue behind the 
band to prevent the possibility of infection spreading throughout 
his body. My mom had talked to Jeff's mom and she told me that poor 
Jeff would never pee standing up again, and that he would actually 
look like a girl between his legs.
Mr. Turner immediately pulled Misty out of Bedrock Public Schools, 
even though it was only a month until school turned out for the 
summer. He rented another house in Springburg and they moved in 
less than two weeks after Jeff's castration. In those last few days 
that the Turners lived there, Misty would still come into the store 
to buy a few things, but that childlike innocence was gone from her 
eyes.
She brought Skippy to me and asked me if I would take care of her 
puppy. Of course I said I would. She said she would miss Skippy, 
but she knew I would take good care of him. She said she would miss 
me too, and that made me tingle all over. I promised to stay in 
touch.
A few weeks after that, Mr. Turner, as his request, was transferred 
to another project in another state. I can't say as I blamed him. 
We exchanged Christmas cards that year, then we never heard from 
them again. We kept Skippy for a couple of years, then he got out 
in the road and was hit by a car. I took that hard because I had 
promised Misty I would take care of him. Even though I regret never 
getting to see Misty again, I'm glad she got away from Bedrock 
before something horrible happened to her too. 
They never caught the boys that banded Jeff, even though they 
searched the school from top to bottom that afternoon. You can't 
stretch those little bands with your fingers and it would be hard 
to bring an Elastrator to school without somebody noticing it. Kids 
didn't carry book bags in those days, and very few kids drove cars 
on campus. But somebody had an Elastrator there that morning, just 
before the bell. Whoever had it would surely have been late to 
class after they hid it.
They searched the lockers and they searched the cars, but they 
never found a thing. I have a theory, but I can't prove it. I know 
one student who only had two classes. And since basketball season 
was over, he really just had one class - twelfth grade English - 
second period. He would have had plenty of time to put the 
Elastrator under the seat of that old green Chevy pickup and not be 
late for a second period class. His buddies would have just gone on 
to their first period classes as usual. As soon as C. W.'s, class 
was over, he would always get in his truck and drive to his job 
down at the lumber yard. By the time Mr. Smith knew he was looking 
for an Elastrator, it was too late. C. W. had already driven off 
campus. Like I said, that's just a theory. There's no way I can 
ever prove it.