Robin Gaby Fisher - The Boys of the Dark: A Story of Betrayal and Redemption in the Deep South

The Boys of the Dark

ALSO BY ROBIN GABY FISHER

After the Fire

A Story of Betrayal and Redemption in the Deep South

ROBIN GABY FISHER

with MICHAEL OMCCARTHY
and ROBERT W. STRALEY

ST. MARTINS PRESS
NEW YORK

THE BOYS OF THE DARK. Copyright 2010 by Robin Gaby Fisher with Michael OMcCarthy and Robert Straley. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fisher, Robin Gaby.

The boys of the dark : a story of betrayal and redemption in the deep south / Robin Gaby Fisher ; with Michael OMcCarthy and Robert W. Straley. 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-59539-5

1. Florida School for BoysHistory. 2. ReformatoriesFloridaHistory. 3. ImprisonmentFloridaHistory. 4. Abused childrenFloridaHistory. I. OMcCarthy, Michael. II. Straley, Robert W. III. Title.

HV9105.F72.F554 2010

First Edition: August 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Events as recounted in the following pages are the basis of a civil action in which many of the people telling their stories herein are plaintiffs. Their stories remain under investigation and none of the alleged perpetrators of the torture and abuses they claim to have suffered have been charged or convicted of a crime.

The Boys of the Dark

It was the touch of a strangers hand that shook him free from his murderous thoughts. Before the soft, plump hand intervened, hed been walking through the Super Kmart looking for, of all things, a battery charger.

Out of the blue, chilling images of brutality and violence began whirling in his head like frames on a spinning reel of film. Apparently he was muttering profanities, too, because, as he was coming out of that familiar dark void, he recognized the sound of his own angry voice.

Startled, he looked first down at his handsthey were balled into fistsand then into the face of a stranger.

The woman was middle-aged with sallow skin and dull, brown hair, spun with threads of gray. Her turned-down mouth gave her an air of sternness, but her eyes were soft and kind and she looked genuinely concerned.

You all right, fella? she asked.

Roberts face was splotched red with embarrassment. People were gathered and he could hear their murmurs.

The guys crazy.

Is he alone?

Someone had better call security.

He locked eyes with the woman and held her probing gaze until he felt steady enough to move.

Perspiration dripped from his forehead and stung his eyes. When, he wondered, did his thinking turn from charging the dead battery in his van to revenge on some faceless adversary? He wasnt sure.

But then Robert never knew when he was about to go into one of his trances, or why he had such wretched thoughts.

As an adolescent, Robert thought a demon was in him. For a long time he reassured himself that his evil fantasies would one day subside, yet the intervening decades had not brought peace of mind; indeed, the uncontrolled episodes had intensified and come more frequent with age.

This one was so public and so obvious that he caused a scene in the store. He was frightened and ashamed.

Can I call someone? the woman asked.

Im sorry, Robert stuttered, his mouth twisting into a grimace.

Are you okay? she asked.

Im all right, he said, turning and walking quickly toward the exit. Sometimes I just... Im all right now.

Robert was not all right. He was nearly sixty years old and could not remember the last time he felt all right.

His hard luck began, he thought, when he was born, by cesarean section, to a mother who was prone to her own fits of rage. His mother was a piece of work, all right. She used to tell him stories about her days as a chorus girl and, over his pleas and protestations, insisted he learn tap dancing, saying his girlie legs were pretty enough to carry him all the way to a chorus line some day. She had said it so many times when he was small, Robert later told people, Its a wonder I didnt grow up to be a flaming queen.

Robert grew up on a tiny lake in rural central Florida. His parents had built their cinder-block house piecemeal, and although it never seemed whole, what was there was pristine and generously shaded by palmetto palm and oak trees. Rattlesnakes and sinkholes posed the biggest threat to the harmony of everyday life for most of the folks who lived on the lake. Robert had his mother to contend with. At least his father could get away.

Roberts father was a burly man who could hold his own in a bar fight, but at home he was subject to the strict rules of his overbearing wife, and he always ceded to her. Raymond Straley looked like Roy Rogers, but with one eye. He had lost the other eye in 1945 when his tank was bombed during the Battle of Okinawa. As a younger man, he ran moonshine in West Virginia, but by the time Robert was old enough to know better, Raymond was making a legal living, hauling sides of beef for the Lykes Brothers Cattle Company in Tampa. He told Robert that he couldnt explain it, but he loved the road more than almost anything else in his life. He worked more than he was home. It didnt take much for Robert to figure out that the job was his fathers way of escaping from the captivity of his stifling marriage. Robert didnt blame his father. He went to bed most nights wishing he could get away from his mother, too.

If only he had known then what would happen once he got his wish.

Roberts mother was certainly peculiar. A shapely, raven-haired beauty, she fancied herself an entertainer. More than anything else, she told her little boy, she had wanted to be an actress, and even changed her name from Betty to Elisa because it sounded more dramatic. Her unexpected pregnancy had foiled her dreams of celebrity, though, and she seemed never to have gotten over it. This is what kids do for you, she used to tell Robert, lifting her blouse to expose the ropelike cesarean scar that spanned her middle.

Between cleaning compulsively and hounding her submissive husband, when he was home, and her diminutive only child, who was at her beck and call, Roberts mother spent her days composing songs and writing plays. Roberts role was to memorize the lyrics and scripts and perform them at her whim. Even though it made him feel like the sissy his classmates at Lake Magdalene Elementary School accused him of being, compliance was still easier than making a fuss and triggering his mothers temper.

If Robert and his friends had any doubts as to whether the Straleys were the oddest family in their North Tampa community, they were erased the first time Robert invited a group of neighborhood kids to the house and his mother performed for them, singing and playing her bongo drums. By the following morning, everyone at school had heard about the impromptu recital, and Robert was a laughingstock. He was ten years old and never brought another friend home after that.

As entertaining as Roberts mother could be, her moods swung wildly, and her wrath was fierce. He never knew what might set her off. A moved tchotchke on a shelf or a footprint on a freshly swept rug was all it took. Then there was hell to pay. The emotional mauling was agonizing, and Robert used to wish she would smack him rather than badger him relentlessly for days after some perceived transgression.