The Group Home and Roy

In March of 1984 I flew to Goose Bay accompanied by my mother to serve my sentence in the group home. I was scared half to death, but tried desperately not to show it. I thought that I was going to hell for a year, and in my fourteen year old mind, a year was just short of forever.

When we got to the house (no barbed wire or monster guards!) I quickly found that all of my fears had been the exaggerations of my own ignorant mind. It really was  a home type setting and all of the staff seemed like nice friendly people. There were five other kids that lived there and when I met them they also seemed ‘normal’, not the hard cases that I had expected. Before long I was looking forward to spending a year here. It just may be pretty cool. It was just a house with a bunch of rules. No big deal.

The group home parents (as they were called) were Roy Lewis and his wife. Unlike the other staff who worked shifts, the group home parents lived at the house. They too seemed  very friendly. I was informed that Roy had been designated my ‘one on one’, so we would be spending a lot of time together and if I had any problems or anything that I needed to talk about I could go to him.

Roy and I quickly became friends. I trusted and respected him. He seemed to be everything that a father was supposed to be: understanding, helpful, kind. He would often bend the rules for me, letting me smoke in the house when no one else was around for example, and I thought that was beyond cool – An adult bending the rules for me instead of bending me to the rules. Yeah, it really felt good. I thought that someone finally had my back for a change.

One of the more popular pastimes among the guys at the home was wrestling. We would spread mattresses over the floor in the basement and have wrestling matches, imitating the WWF and having a great time doing it. These “matches” were a blast and only occasionally did someone loose their temper and get sent upstairs.

About two weeks after my arrival at the group home wresting lost it’s appeal. All of the guys had tired out and gone upstairs, until it was just three of us. The other guy got mad over something and lost his cool, so Roy sent him upstairs as well. We continued wrestling, laughing and joking around and I was having a great time. Then Roy pinned me beneath him so that I was completely immobilized. His arms held down my legs and his legs pinned my arms. I thought nothing of it at first and continued my struggle to get free, though I knew there was no way out. He had me and I couldn’t break out of it. He as much bigger and stronger than I was and my efforts were futile.

Then the nightmare began. Roy began tugging at my penis through my track pants with his mouth.

I froze, simply froze as my mind fought to grasp what was happening. For a moment I was unable to more or even breathe. Then fear surged through me like an adrenalin rush and I began struggling, thrashing wildly beneath him. It did no good. I was trapped and screaming was out of the question: I could picture one of the women upstairs coming down and finding out what “we” were doing. I twisted and turned and bucked, all the time trying not to yell, not to alarm anyone upstairs. It was useless and soon I was exhausted. I simply gave up and layed there, staring up at the ceiling. Roy had worked my track pants down and was sucking on my bare penis. The worst of it all was that I began to get an erection. I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing my body for being a traitor – how could it! My mind was spinning. How could he! How could my body react! How could this be happening! I had trusted him. He had been my friend! He was the group home parent for fuck sake!

Then my mind seemed to shut down. I laid there waiting for it to be over, staring up and seeing nothing. Waiting for it to be over… but it wouldn’t really be over for another eight or so months. in the meantime it would simply get worse.

Being my “one on one” Roy was able to take me away from the house whenever he wanted with no questions asked and since he lived in the house he could get me up early in the morning before anyone else was up. Soon my life felt like one twisted sex act after another and I lived waiting in dread for the next time, for whatever he would do next. My previously low self esteem crashed to new depths. I hated myself, loathed my body and though I had to hide it well, I great part of me hated Roy. During normal times when we were involved in other activities I still liked Roy. And yet while we were jumping on the trampoline or swimming in the pool I would have pictures flash in my head of ways that I could kill him. When there was no sex involved he was a great guy, but I always knew that he was waiting for a chance to get me alone and then the other Roy would return. The Roy I wanted to end.

My mind learned to shut off. My body would go numb. As Roy molested me it became so that I wasn’t even there anymore. I was off in the woods somewhere, fishing in some pretty little river. The sun sparkled off of the rippled water and a warm breeze brushed my face. I was going to walk up the river some more after just a couple more casts. I wanted to try a spot upstream that I hadn’t been to in a while. There were usually some nice speckles there…

I became a very good actor, fighting to hide my shame which had grown to be physical pain inside of me. I’d smile and carry on as if there was nothing wrong, scared to death of someone finding out what was going on. I thought that it was my fault. Somehow, there was something wrong, or something homosexual about me. There had to be for Roy to have picked me to play out his sick sexual games with.

As time passed I became less and less real. My life was a lie – one endless roll that I was playing. I drifted deeper and deeper into a dark void within myself. I could feel myself changing. I also developed a new fear; That one night I would in fact creep into Roy’s bedroom and plunge a knife into his chest. There were nights when a breadknife lay under my pillow as I pretended to sleep, listening to the small night noises of the house, knowing when everyone was asleep… and that his room was only a few steps away.