Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 22:31:58 EDT
From: Marrauder 390 <marrauder390@hotmail.com>
Subject: Will's Story

The story that follows is pure fiction.  Do not read anything into it. It's
make believe: what you see is what you get. The author neither promotes nor
agrees with sexual relationships between men and teenage boys. I'm sure
that there are characters who resemble those depicted in the story, but any
resemblance to persons living or deceased is unintentional coincidence. Any
sex acts depicted should not be attempted without proper precautions. You
only have one life. If you value it, you will comply.

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			       Will's Story

I first met Will when I was studying for my Master's Degree in counseling.
One of my long term assignments was to do some practicum (its like an
internship) with young children. Being a typical college student, and
therefore completely lazy, I chose to do my practicum in the elementary
school near my apartment. As I suspected, the school principal was
overjoyed to have someone willing to work for free in any manner that he
saw fit. I soon found myself working one-on-one with several kids who were
chronically in trouble with their classroom teachers. There was usually one
to three kids waiting for me when I showed up at ten each day, and it was
my job to get * some * school work out of them while they were with me. I
was free to do whatever I deemed appropriate with them after they had
produced some work. This way, the kids didn't view me as a total ogre.

Now, at that time in my life, I think that I should say that I did not know
that I liked guys, or that I preferred younger guys best of all. I was just
your average professional student, and I viewed this assignment for what it
was: a royal pain in the butt. I didn't get into dating too much, because
of how it interfered with my schoolwork.  So you see, I hadn't had enough
experience to determine that something was missing in my life. That
something, whether I recognized it or not, first walked into my area in the
school library about 3 weeks into my stay at the elementary school.

Will (as I now call him) was your basic hyper kid. I didn't know much about
learning problems and kiddie disabilities at that time, and Will was really
a handful. Will was a typical third grader, a little under four feet tall,
skinny as they come, and sporting a messy summer blonde bowl cut. He soon
became a "regular customer", even as my impromptu counseling was helping my
other "regular customers" to see less and less of me. What I could get out
of Will was rather common among the group of kids that I had been
seeing. He was left alone a lot at home while mom and step dad were out
(drinking and partying).

Weeks passed, and the only new information that I had found out about Will
was preferred to be called William. I was also fairly sure that he was
overmedicated for his hyperactivity problem.  Will was the only kid sent to
me that I couldn't reach. It galled me. In fact, it galled me so much that
when my own semester ended, and with it the need for practicum, I decided
to finish out the school year in an attempt to reach this kid. Needless to
say, the principal at the elementary school was quite pleased to get more
free staffing out of me, especially now that I had completed my degree in
counseling.

Well, right about here in your typical story, I would say that the extra
two months were the turning point and that Will and I became friends. This
didn't happen. Will stayed the same, and although he seemed somehow less
hostile towards me. We never really got anywhere with helping him to get to
the root of his problems. The only positive thing that came out of this
experience was that I realized that I liked working with kids. When the
school year had ended, I circulated my resume intending to get a job.

				    II

Four years and two degrees later, I finally got around to taking a job. Its
not that they hadn't been offered to me, but you see, I just wasn't
ready. I was too busy being a professional student.  The time finally came,
however, and I got a job at, yes, a school near my new house. This time, it
was a middle school, and it was actually closer to my new house than the
elementary school had been to my apartment. My job was to assist special
needs kids with fitting into regular school classes.  I knew going in that
this would be a challenge, but after what I had gone through with the kids
in the elementary school four years earlier, I was sure that I was up to
the challenge.

I had deliberately not read my student files before the first day. Not even
names. I am a strong believer that kids can and do change. I really do
believe also that sometimes when a kid seems trapped into certain patterns
of behavior, it's his teacher's fault as much as it is his. I think
sometimes, kids behave a certain way because the teacher expects them to. I
also believe that certain teachers just decide that certain kids are bad
and write them off early. But enough of this soapbox preaching. I had no
idea who my students would be, so it was a total surprise when Will came
into the room. Will said something smart like 'Oh, its YOU!' I had always
thought that I'd be glad to see him again, but here he was and I honestly
didn't feel anything.

Back to the first day though, the morning went as mornings do on the first
day, full of paperwork, and more paperwork and a lot of administrative
bullshit. Will didn't do anything that would warrant my attention, but he
had a very sullen, heavy-browed look for me every time I looked in his
direction. I was sure it was going to be a long year working with him. I
was surprised after lunch to see the change in Will. He seemed lethargic
and slow moving. Almost like one of the 'living dead' from zombie movies. I
was so certain that he had gotten into drugs or something that I called the
nurse.

Our school nurse has got to have one of the nicest jobs in the school.
She's mean enough to most of the smaller kids that they don't come in
unless they're dead or dying. The bigger kids avoid her because she sees
through their tricks and dispenses detentions for wasting her time about as
much as she dispenses medicines. Because of this, she is able to spend her
days on the phone socializing. Well, I didn't get what I should have,
turning to such a person. It seems that she had a soft spot for Will. She
told me, quite indignantly, that I should be seeing such behavior out of
the boy, given how medicated he was. When I asked for clarification, she
read off a grocery list of medicines that he was on, the combination of
which should have guaranteed total unconsciousness to an adult rhino. We
were both pissed off by the end of the phone call.


It took two months and a lucky break to get Will off of all those meds. I
had called our school system psychiatric caseworker, who assured me that
there was no valid reason for the boy to be taking such a mouthful of pills
every day, and so my supervisor and I got on his mom's case. She was quite
resistive to our efforts, in part because she had probably talked the
doctor into the meds in the first place.  She really was quite short on
parenting skills, and had probably come to the conclusion that a pill could
take the place of the attention that she wasn't giving the boy. She would
have most likely continued to resist us for the long run had her common law
husband not gotten arrested in a brawl.

Will's step dad Vinnie was not going to win any awards for grooming or
social skills, and I really wondered what his mom saw in the man.
Therefore, it surprised me when Will's mom took the unusual step of
requesting that the court not allow him to return home until he was clean
and sober. Vinnie took this court order as a really good excuse to leave
her high and dry, and promptly fled the state. Deprived of his money
earning abilities, Will's mom soon ran out of funds for all the meds that
she was feeding her son, and our idea of a med-free boy suddenly started
looking quite nice indeed.

				    III

Once free of the meds, Will soon became a different person. The zombie -
like behavior that I had seen most afternoons, and quite a few mornings was
gone, and in its place was an inquisitive, hungry little mind. Will was
starved for information, and was soon a regular sight in the library after
school, and in the town library during the evenings.  This of course made
me quite happy, and raised my opinion of Will considerably.  Will wasn't
perfect, though, despite his ravenous intellectual hunger, he still needed
to have someone from our staff nearby when he was with certain teachers. He
was still prone to violent reactions to not getting his way, and sometimes
his classmates would manipulate him into misbehaving as a means of avoiding
some lesson or other. Will was also singularly unable to handle certain
events, such as a substitute teacher. Will seemed to view a substitute
teacher as a really good excuse to act like a monster.

It was on a day when I had pulled him out of class to keep him away from a
sub when I got my first glimpse past his barriers, and saw the real Will
inside. Will seemed excited, for no reason that I could fathom, and was
talking a mile a minute. I had intended to have him do some independent
study while he was out of class, but instead, I ended up listening to him
prattle on about various topics that could only interest a 12 year old
boy. Finally, without warning, he just dropped the bomb 'Mr. O'Connor, do
you like me?'

I replied 'Yes, of course,' as any adult would.  Will pressed me for
clarification, reminding me of his past, and how he was still viewed with
suspicion by the principal, and how he sometimes did strange things to
amuse his classmates. I of course replied that I liked him for himself, and
not for the things he did or what he wore or who likes him. I reminded him
of how much progress he had made since the beginning of the school year,
and told him that he was rapidly becoming a favorite of mine.

Well, you would have guessed that I had kicked him in the 'nads. He
immediately began crying. Now, Will doesn't do anything by half measures,
even to this day. Will started sobbing these deep, gut-wrenching sobs that
would make a United States Marine feel pity. I didn't realize at first why
he was crying, but after a moment, I realized that this was probably the
first time someone had said anything nice to him or about him. I felt
really bad for him at that moment, and grabbed him in a big hug and held
him until he stopped crying. I didn't care if touching students was frowned
upon by the school administration; this kid needed a hug.

When he finally stopped crying, and he realized that I was holding him,
Will seemed a bit embarrassed. I released him and he scuttled back a few
steps. We stood looking at each other, perhaps seeing each other truly for
the first time.

Will was now about 5 feet tall, and still skinny as a rail. His clothes
were filthy, and his hair was badly in need of a decent cut. It was an
interesting soft blonde with lighter blond highlights, and would probably
be quite stunning if it was neat. He was wearing it in a mostly shapeless
mop that had probably once been a bowl cut. I'm guessing at that. He did
have a rather heavy forehead, but it was graced with the kind of neat
eyebrows that look almost groomed. His eyes were a deep green color, the
same color that you see in the ocean off the New England coast.  The space
under his eyes was more than a little bit puffy and purplish from lack of
sleep. A neat round nose stood guard over full pouty lips, and a cute
little rounded chin finished the face. He had rather high cheekbones, and
the whole effect less the shapeless hair, was quite like that of an English
schoolboy sent 'round by Central Casting. My heart went out to him.

More coming soon....

Positive comments may be sent to marrauder390@hotmail.com.
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