Free The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

from the boys. I took my father by the arm and tried to turn him around, but he wrenched himself free and made a grab for Antle through the bars of the gate, barely missing him, then tried to poke him with his toting pole.
    “The ’Stab — ” Antle said, all but falling down to elude my father.
    “I’ll stab the ’Stab,” my father said. “And I’ll stab you while I’m at it.”
    My father put one boot up on the lowest horizontal bar. “If he can climb out, I can climb in,” he said. He tried to hoist himself up but could not get a purchase on the ice-coated gate with theother boot and, even as I was putting my arms around his waist to keep him from going any farther, he fell backwards, knocking both of us to the ground. A great mock cheer went up from the dorm, though with the wind knocked out of me and the back of my head smarting from where it had hit the ground, I was only half-aware of it.
    “Are you all right, Joe?” my father said, getting up on his knees, staring down at me, his toting pole in his hands as if he had felled me with it. “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you, did I? You hit your head, let me see.”
    “I’m all right,” I said.
    On his hands and knees, he stared at the snow-covered ground and shook his head.
    I managed to stand up and, grabbing him under the arm with both hands, helped him to his feet.
    “Let’s go home,” I said. This time he was compliant, allowing me to drag him away from the gate but at the same time shouting over his shoulder.
    “I’ll be the judge of your character someday, Reeves,” he said. “Judge not lest ye be judged. The boot will be on the other foot someday. Do you hear me, Whoremaster Reeves?”
    I led him towards home. After a while, he stopped hurling imprecations over his shoulder and, as he often did after such an outburst, became quite remorseful.
    “I’m sorry, boy,” he said, his head down as he shuffled along, his toting pole in one hand like a spear. “I’ve gone and made matters worse, like always. That’s all I ever do is make things worse. I’m no good, Joe, I’m no damned good and that’s the truth. But you are, boy, it’s not right what they’re doing to you, it’s just not right.”
    “Never mind,” I said. “We’ll go home and have some soup. I’ll tell Mother they let me have a night pass and I met you on the way home.”
    “Good enough, boy,” my father said, “good enough. God bless you, Joe, you’re a good boy. The best of the brood. And what a brood it is. That’s one thing that I’m good at. There’s nothing more potent than booze, you know.”
    The next day, when I walked into class a few minutes before the bell and took my seat, a hush fell over the boys. No one said anything, though some of them had been at the windows of the dorm the day before. At lunch-time, I joined up with the Townies on the playing field. Prowse, though I was certain he had heard, said nothing about what happened, and the other boys followed his lead. I told them Reeves had gated me a “whopping dollar,” as Prowse called it, for leaving the grounds without permission.
    “I’m not going to pay it,” I said.
    “If it’s a question of the money — ” Prowse said.
    “He didn’t fine me because I left without permission,” I said. “He fined me because my father called him ‘Whoremaster Reeves.’ ” Prowse and the others, who I was sure had already heard this from the ’Tories, laughed.
    “You’re probably right,” Prowse said, “but — ”
    “I’m thinking about quitting,” I said.
    “Don’t be a fool,” Prowse said. “You’ll be quitting over nothing. Boys here have been caned so badly they couldn’t walk for days.”
    “He knows I’d rather be caned than fined,” I said. “He knows what a dollar means to me. He wants me to go to my uncle and ask for it and humiliate my father.”
    “I told you,” Prowse said. “If it’s a question of the money, there’s no problem. We’ll take up a