A Seat of Learning by Jonah
More of the adventures of Simon and Garret and their boys. This is a loving story of good people. It features men looking after boys but do not expect to find any indecency here. Only genuine love. Not one of the characters in this story is a real person or is, in any way, based on a real person. At least one character, however, is the creation of another author. I wish to thank Jacob Lion, in the USA, for his permission to use his characters in my stories.
I hope you will enjoy this story, and I'm grateful to Nifty for enabling me to bring it to you. Nifty does not charge either me or you for doing so, but it does cost money to do it. Please consider donating to Nifty at https://donate.nifty.org/ to help keep this site going.
Chapter 5
Carl Druce was in Barry's room with him when I got back.
"Do you want me to stay," he asked.
"There's no need Carl, but it's up to you," I replied.
"I'll be in the kitchen if you need me." were his parting words.
"I'm sorry," Barry whispered, as soon as we were alone.
I smiled
"You don't have to be sorry Barry," I told him. "We just have to work together. Do you think you can manage to tell me the truth from now on."
He nodded shyly. There was no smile, just an earnest expression.
"Promise?"
"Promise!" he whispered.
"Pinky prom.... no, never mind."
Finally a grin.
"Barry, you didn't want me to see those marks did you."
He shook his head again.
"When I first came in you were barefoot. Weren't you worried I'd see the marks on your feet?"
"Yes," still whispered. Perhaps if I asked him for more than monosyllables.
"Why didn't you put socks on? Then I couldn't have seen them."
"Because the elastic in my socks hurts my ankles."
I should have thought of that.
"Barry, take your socks off now. If something hurts you, you must tell me. I don't want you to be hurt."
He pulled them off instantly. I crouched in front of the settee.
"Barry, lift up your foot. I won't touch you because I don't want to hurt you."
He lifted his left foot. He had shortish toes and the broad front end usually associated with very young children and his arch was high. A mass of bruising was on his arch and the front of his heel. There were a few stripes toward the back of his heel. None of that wrapped around the sides of his foot, which was why I hadn't been able to see it before.
"OK Barry, thank you for doing that. Now you and I are going to try to be honest with each other from now on."
"Daddy says you're gay," he stated.
"Well he's right," I told him. I hadn't expected him to start being that honest quite so soon. "In fact I'm married to another man."
"I think I might be gay," he said quietly.
"Yes, you might be," I told him, "or you might not be. It doesn''t matter anyway."
"Reverend Esau says it's bad."
"Reverend Esau is bad if he molests little boys," I replied. "Did he tell you the Bible says it's bad."
"Yes, it says God sent Fire and Brimblestone to kill the gay people."
"No it doesn't," I said. "It says God sent those things to destroy the people of Sodom and Gommorah because they tried to rape a couple of angels. People like Reverend Esau try to tell people it was because the people of Sodom and Gommorah were gay, but I don't know where they get that from because the Bible doesn't say so."
"Daddy says it's bad."
"Does your Daddy know you might be gay?"
The eyes went wide as he shook his head. I had just voiced the unthinkable.
"Well we won't tell him yet then," I told him. "You'll know when it's time, but it will only be when you want to tell him."
"But it must be bad," he said, almost to himself.
"Rev Esau told a lot of lies. He also didn't tell you most of the most important things in the Bible. Did he tell you about the Ten Commandments?"
He nodded violently.
"I thought he might have," I remarked. "I bet he didn't tell you that there are more of them. Jesus gave us a few new ones for a start. The most important one is that we are to love one another as He loves us."
"That's in the Ten Commandments."
I was impressed, but still not buying it.
"Love your neighbour as you love yourself?"
"Yes."
"Not good enough. That means if you don't love yourself you needn't love anybody. Jesus told us to love each other as HE loves us - but he didn't say there were exceptions. He didn't say "except for gay people - you needn't love them" for instance."
"So Christians are supposed to love gay people?"
"They are, but a lot of people will tell you differently. A lot of people don't read the Bible, but they like to make up things that they'd like to be in it. Reverend Esau did that. He gave you a beating for not believing him - or so he said. I think he beat you because he wanted to."
"Am I going to go home now?"
"We don't know yet. It'll take some time anyway. Since they're keeping you separate from the other boys here while your wounds heal, we'll be going to the kitchen for dinner in a minute. After dinner we'll be looking at some arithmetic - at least nobody will be able to say I'm not educating you."
"I'll be able to say it," he said, then, seeing the expression on my face, he broke out in giggles. "I didn't mean it," he laughed.
"Little scamp!" I told him. "That's going to cost you."
"What's it going to cost me?"
"Let's see. What's for dessert? Prunes and custard - it's going to cost you two prunes," I told him, glad that the atmosphere had lightened.
"That could be good for me," he told me.
"Why?"
"Because, if I was a beggar-man and I gave you two prunes, I'd be rich," he said, laughing.
"Hey! we're doing arithmetic AFTER dinner," I said. "Come on."
After dinner , during which we had fought over the two prunes that he insisted on giving me - and that I genuinely didn't want, we did have arithmetic, though I took my lead from him and used the session for a series of mind games. Imagine, I told him, that you are a bus driver and, in your bus, you have eight passengers upstairs and twelve downstairs. At the first stop two extra people go upstairs, but one of the downstairs passengers gets off. At the second stop an upstairs passenger gets off but two new passengers go downstairs. At the third stop seven downstairs passengers and one upstairs passenger get off and four passengers go upstairs. At the fourth stop a dozen passengers all go downstairs but nobody wants to get off. Have you got all that? "Right!" I said in response to his nod. "What was the bus driver's name?" (you've got an advantage over Barry because you can go back and read what I told Barry to imagine - Barry couldn't do that of course ). I asked him what the name of the president of the United States was in the year 2001 (it was Joe Biden - he wasn't president in 2001, but he's always been called Joe Biden). I asked him, if the man who served in our local butchers was five foot eleven inches tall, had a 40 inch waistline and takes size eleven shoes, what does he weigh? ( he's a butcher, so he weighs meat, obviously). I then asked him, if a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, what's the square root of 87 to the nearest whole number (an easy calculation if you know your multiplication tables - a more difficult, but still do-able, one if you don't).
By the end of the afternoon I found that I was definitely falling in love with this funny, intelligent, somewhat cute, and very courageous young man. Was that a good thing? Well somebody had to love him. He hadn't seen a lot of that previously. I was almost sad when going home time arrived.
Simon, when I told him, was sad to learn that the Apostolic Fundamentalist Church was closed indefinitely, but he got over it quickly. I was surprised that his grief lasted the two seconds that it did. As for the-the-not-so-reverend Esau Rathmore, "I hope he burns in Hell," was his comment on that part of the story. "In Christian love, of course,"he added, unconvincingly.
Having dropped Lloyd and Philip off at school next morning, I arrived at Eastwold to find PC. Druce waiting for me.
"Barry's still having his breakfast," he told me, "but you're needed in the office."
Fair enough - the office it is.
With Mr. Tolliver, in the office, was Linda Knight and her boss, Mrs. Jenkins.
"Good morning Mr. Ito," said the latter as I walked in. "I hope your ears weren't burning too much as you travelled here this morning."
"Uh oh!" I replied as I took a seat. "That sounds ominous."
"I don't really know," she said. "What would you say would be the best possible future for Barry?"
"Tea, Mr. Ito?" said Mr. Tolliver placing a cup in front of me."
"Thank you," I replied then, to Mrs. Jenkins, "One that isn't going to happen - his parents coming to their senses."
"That probably is going to happen, but it will take time and the boy needs to live somewhere in the meantime."
"And he wouldn't be better off where he is?"
Mr. Tolliver cleared his throat.
"Mr. Ito," he said. "I'm the manager of this place and even I wouldn't claim that what we can provide here is the best for anybody. These boys need the stability of a family home, not an institution. Barry is here for temporary protection for as long as he needs it, but the sooner he can be in a proper home with people who love him, the better."
"I'd agree with you there," I replied, "but before I could agree to what Mrs. Jenkins seems to be working up to, I have to consider the other two boys. Our nursery was intended for Lloyd. It now contains Lloyd and Philip. Once it stops being a nursery and becomes a dormitory, all three boys are back in an institution."
Linda put in her two penn'orth.
"Garret, I think you know that isn't true. Don't forget, I've seen what you and Simon have done with those boys. If there are financial hurdles to be overcome, we can help you with those. We're trying to do what's best for Barry, and I know you are too."
"Beyond the usual allowance, which we shall need, I don't think we need financial help, but I do need to talk to my partner before I agree to anything. Barry won't be back in mainstream schooling until his wounds have healed a bit so I'm here today and tomorrow at least. If Simon's agreeable, let him stay the weekend with us. If it doesn't work he'll be back here on Monday."
"And if it does work?"
"I'll home-school until I can take him back to school, but just one thing ..."
"What's that Garret?"
"At what stage do you plan on telling Jean Moffat that I'm now father to three boys and they all are in my class, because I sure as hell ain't telling her."
Linda grinned.
"I take your point Garret," she commented, "but I suspect that'll be too big a job for a case-worker. It'll need the director."
Mrs. Jenkins suddenly looked grim.
"If it gets Barry into a stable home environment," she said through gritted teeth, "I'll take on the dragon and Saint George as well. Mrs. Moffatt will NOT be a problem."
"I think, Mr. Ito," said Mr. Tolliver quietly, "that this is the point at which you go and do some tutoring."
"I think so too Mr. Tolliver," I said, making for the door.
Barry was lying stretched out on his settee, his bare feet on one of the arms and his book resting on his chest. I walked across and, lifting both feet by the backs of his heels, surveyed his soles. Other than a few dark grey lines across his arches, the purple bruising had mostly paled to an iodine yellow.
"Does that hurt," I asked.
"No," he replied. At least he was speaking now.
"How about your back?"
"I'm laying on it"
"No you're not. You're not a hen so you can't lay anything. You must be lying on it."
"No, I wasn't lying. It's the truth," he insisted with mock earnestness. This boy was too clever by half.
I lifted his legs to give myself room to sit down.
"What's the book?" I asked as I lay his legs back across my lap.
"History of trains," he replied.
"My partner drives steam trains," I told him, "at Sheringham, and we've got a 5 inch gauge railway in our back garden."
"I used to have a OO gauge one, but my dad had to sell it."
"Had to?"
"Reverend Esau said we were "sinful rich" and we should sell our stuff so that the Church could give the money to the poor."
"Reverend Esau never gave anything to anyone. He cheated your dad out of his money, and you out of your train set. Where was the first railway in England."
"Stockton and Darlington. Opened 1825."
"That's almost half past six."
"What?"
"Never mind. You did well to remember that, but railways were quite old when the Stockton and Darlington opened in 1825. George Stephenson was in his forties and he'd worked on the railway when he was a boy."
"He made the first steam engine," he pointed out.
I shook my head.
"Not by a long way. His father was a steam engine engineer before he was born. Their cottage was next to the railway and, when George was a boy he had a job chasing cows off the line so that they didn't get run over. Those books over-simplify. George's son, Robert, owned the locomotive works in Newcastle where the Stephensons built most of their locomotives. Why would they have a steam engine works if they hadn't been invented? Does it mention Richard Trevithick?"
"Yes it does."
"He was building steam engines when George Stephenson wasn't much more than your age, and there was a public railway in Surrey a hundred years before the Stockton and Darlington was opened."
I hadn't planned a lesson for this morning so - history it was.
That Thursday evening it was my turn to cook. I made Simon's favourite, steak and kidney pudding and Spotted Dick with custard to follow.
"That was delicious," said Simon afterwards.
"Thank you," I replied.
"So," he said, "what are you softening me up for and when's he coming?"
"It's only temporary," I said carefully.
"Life is only temporary," he replied. "What did you tell Linda?"
"That we'd have him at the weekend for a trial."
"The only trial will be the one Reverend Ratface will be attending. You can't treat a child like that. If he's coming, at least let him know that we want him to. We'll get a bunk bed ordered for him."
It looked as if I didn't have any say in the matter.