Free The White House Boys: An American Tragedy by Roger Dean Kiser Page A

in.
    “Caught this little bastard smoking,” stated Mr. Tidwell to the other man.
    “No, sir. I wasn’t,” I replied.
    “Walk over there and smell his breath,” Mr. Tidwell told him.
    The man walked over, placed his nose to my mouth, and asked me to blow.
    The man turned and said, “He was smoking alright.”
    Knowing I was as good as dead and that there was no reason for me to try to explain the circumstances, I just stood there shaking, doing my best to stare a hole in the concrete floor until I was told to report to my cottage housefather.
    When I got to Mr. Sealander’s office, he asked me to explain what had happened. I told him there was no reason to explain. He asked me if I was guilty of smoking, and I said that I was not. He patted me on the back and told me to go join the capture-the-flag game already in progress on the basketball court.
    To me, Mr. Sealander was a kind and gentle man. He knew exactly what I meant when I said that there was no use to try to explain. He knew that the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna had turned into nothing more than a concentration camp for boys, that all sense of right and wrong had totally lost meaning.
    On Saturday morning, I walked to Mr. Hatton’s office and sat down on the wooden bench. Within thirty minutes, Mr. Hatton, Mr. Tidwell, two other boys, and I made our way to the White House. The five of us walked into the narrow, smelly hallway and made our way to the beating chambers.
    As Mr. Tidwell pointed for me to enter the chamber cell on the right, I looked up into his face. His expression did not seem as cold and hard as usual. I smiled and waited to see if his expression would change, but it didn’t. For two days, I had hoped and prayed that some form of compassion would come over the man. But, in Marianna, prayers were useless. Even to this day, I ask God for very little.

    My heart pounded as I defiantly smoked this cigarette in one of the White House beating chambers, fifty years after that beating. If you are going to be accused of something you did not do, guess you might as well go ahead and do it. This one’s for you, Mr. Tidwell.

Bits and Pieces
    A s I entered the small chamber as Tidwell instructed, I stood at attention. Not surprisingly, the bed was covered in blood, spit, feces, and slobber. I had become accustomed to the site, as had many of the other boys, and we just took it as part of the emotional punishment. Besides, the stains and ungodly smells were the least of our problems when we were in the White House.
    I laid down on the bed as ordered, holding my breath, and I turned my head to face the bloodstained wall. I buried my head in the soiled pillow. Suddenly, I felt something cold and hard against my cheek. Slowly and carefully raising my head so that I could see from my left eye, I saw a chunk of tongue and maybe a piece of lip that had been bitten off. Startled and frightened, I jumped from the bed screaming and was immediately knocked backward by Mr. Hatton.
    In a state of panic, swinging, screaming, and yelling, I forced my way past Mr. Hatton and made my way to the corner of the cell.
    All I could think about was mean old Mr. Ball, my houseparent at the orphanage, cutting off the head of a live possum when I was about eight. With its mouth still moving, he made me pick up the animal’s head and roll it down the driveway like a bowling ball. Then he laughed and cut off the tail of the still squirming body, and I screamed. He pushed the tail, still moving grotesquely, into my pants pocket. I will never forget the horrible feeling of the head in my hands and the wiggling tail against my body or the sight of the headless possum on the ground.
    When Mr. Hatton and Mr. Tidwell realized what had actually happened—that I had put my face on pieces of tongue or lip—I thought they would never stop laughing. In the hopes of ending the beating, I joined their laughter, still huddled and shaking in the corner.
    The beating came