by Void Munashii (Orphanage~Valentine's Day~Murder)
My earliest memories are of being in the Watchful Guardian Home for Children. My mom died when I was little, she had no family and no one knew who my dad was, so off to the orphanage I went. It wasn't a great place, but it seemed nice on the surface.
The problem was the guy in charge: James Russler. He seemed like a nice guy; he certainly loved kids, and that was the problem. Boys he could take or leave, but he loved the girls. He lived at the facility, so did some of the other staff; it kept the facility manned at all hours, technically. Ultimately those people did nothing to protect us from the real problem.
Every couple of weeks James would select one of the girls for a “special dinner”. I used to complain about him only selecting the girls, but one of the older kids would distract me from it, or otherwise shut me up. In some ways us kids were as much James' accomplices as the staff members who pretended to not know what was going on around them.
I was thirteen when I finally realized what was going on. I was just getting interested in girls, or more specifically, one girl. Her name was Becky Sue Romano, she was a year older than me, and she had long beautiful blond hair and a voice that sounded like sunshine. I would have done just about anything for her, and I did.
It was around midnight, and I was sneaking down to the kitchen for a snack; they locked the fridge and cabinets, but I knew where the spare key was hidden. I also knew it was Larry's week to man the front desk at night which meant he was likely off somewhere looking at porn.
I was lifting the picture showing Watchful Guardian's opening day next to the front desk to retrieve the kitchen key when I heard someone crying. I abandoned my pursuit of food to see what was up.
Following the noise to the TV room, I found all the lights off, as it should have been in the middle of the night. I didn't see anyone, but I could still hear them.
I called out quietly when I went into the room, but I got no response; just more crying. I eventually found Becky curled up under a table, crying. I knew it had been her night to have a “special dinner” with James, so I didn't know why she would be upset. She told me to go away, but I've never been the sort of guy to take “piss off” for an answer, so I sat down on the floor.
Eventually she started talking, and I did something I have never been terribly good at: I listened. She told me what James did to her. She didn't tell me everything in detail of course, but she told me enough to make me see red.
He had given her a couple glasses of wine with dinner, and complimented her on how mature she was. He flattered her, and complimented her, and held her hands, and acted like a regular Prince Charming.
Then, once she was a little drunk and felt comfortable around him, he made his move. Becky told me she tried to get away from him when she realized what he was doing, but she couldn't: he had locked her in his apartment.
He took her.
I was pissed, and ready to go beat the crap out of James, or at least try to. I would have done it too if Becky hadn't actually tackled me, and held me so I couldn't get up without possibly hurting her.
You would expect that with all the noise we made it would have attracted Larry's attention, but he never did come to see what was going on. As far as I know he never even knew we were in there. He probably was being even more negligent in his duties than usual because James was having a “special dinner”, and wouldn't be coming down to check on him.
We lay on the floor of the TV room for another hour or so before someone did come in the room. It was Derrel and Marilena. They were a couple of the older kids who would be aging out of Watchful Guardian in the next couple of years. They knew about James and his “special dinners”.
Derrel stayed by the door, keeping a lookout for any staff members while Marilena came over to where we were lying. She asked Becky if she had been injured, and told her that she would be okay. She asked Becky to come with her so they could clean her up.
Becky refused to even let me go until I promised not to go after James. I agreed reluctantly, and Marilena took her back up to the girl's dorm.
Derrel took me back up to our side of the second floor. He and the rest of the boys who knew what was going on were gathered together, and they told me the truth; told me I was one of them now.
I asked why no one did anything about it. Why they let it go on.
I'm not going to say that Derrel looked exactly shame-faced when he answered, but he certainly wasn't proud. He explained to me that it had been going on since before he came here, and it would be going on still after he had left. He explained to me that someone had tried to stop it once, but that the staff sided with James and it had all been dismissed as a juvenile delinquent trying to cause the wonderful James Russler's name to be tarnished.
A few weeks later that boy had supposedly jumped off the roof. I say supposedly not because the kid may not have died falling from the roof, but because the roof is kept locked, and there is no reason he should have had access to it. I say supposedly because I don't think it was suicide or an accident.
Not knowing what else to do, I followed Derrel's lead. When a girl was selected for a “special dinner”, I helped keep the boys from asking too many questions. I felt like a piece of shit for doing it, but Becky seemed to have recovered okay; become more or less like she had been before. She was doing the same for the girls, and I didn't want to upset her.
Life at the orphanage went on, Marilena aged out, but Becky had the other teen girls for support. James had invited most of them to “special dinner” at least once, some more than once. She also had me. We became even closer than we had been before, but it never got physical.
In a strange, sick way James' dinners brought some of us kids closer together. They made us a family of kids with no families who tried to help each other while simultaneously protecting a child molester. I probably could've kept going like that until I aged out of the system if he had just left Becky alone.
It was the following Valentine's Day, which was not a big deal in a place full of kids who no one loves. The staff gave each of us small boxes of chocolate, and we were encouraged to make a give cards to each other. No big deal, except for James' extra special Valentine's Day “special dinner”.
Becky came to me, almost in tears already, saying that James had picked her to be his date for the evening. She was scared to go because she knew what he wanted now. She told me that the other girls told her that he didn't even bother trying to be gentle when he invited you to your second “special dinner”.
I told her to go, and I would think of something. She asked what, and I told her I didn't know yet. She just nodded in response to that, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
This kid named Seth Roman had come to Watchful Guardian earlier in the year. Apparently his mom had her rights terminated for being a druggy, so he was dumped into the system. He had already logged time in juvie, and he had taught me how to pick the locks. I decided that this would be a good time to put those skills to work.
I waited until the early evening. I knew most of the staff would be out for their own Valentine's Day parties, dates, and whatsuch, leaving James, Anne, who was on front desk that week, and a couple other residential staff who hid out in their rooms at the orphanage.
When I was sure that my chances of being caught were at their slimmest, I crept up the third floor. That was where the residential staff lived, where the first aid room was, and where the solitary room (a padded room for kids whose behavior was endangering themselves and others) was. It was also where the stairs to the roof were.
I snuck up the stairs and quietly unlocked the door to the roof. I just had to hope no one would go up there and find it unlocked before I needed it. I wasn't too worried, ever since Melanie quit, she used to go up there to smoke weed, none of the staff really ever went up there.
All that was left was waiting, and thinking about how if I did not get away with this, I would probably never get to see Becky again.
At about eight, I went back up to the third floor, and started working on the lock to James' apartment. The lock wasn't difficult, no more so than the roof, but I could hear his and Becky's voices through the door. She was upset, and it made concentrating difficult.
I got the door open, and saw them. James had Becky on the couch, her shirt off, and his pants open already. Tears ran down her face as he groped her. It didn't look like he'd even bothered making a dinner this time.
I pulled out the camera I had borrowed from Sal Mervin. He had gotten it as a charity gift back at Christmas. It was a stupid gift for a kid who had no money for film, but it's the thought that counts, right? James didn't have to know there was no film in it.
“Hey, pedo!” I yelled, and started triggering the shutter. The camera whirred loudly as the flash strobed.
James turned, his face a mask of fear and rage, ”Michael Vernon!” he hissed, not wanting to attract attention from anyone else probably, “You give me that camera!”
“Fuck you!” I yelled, and then turned and ran.
James was after me moments later. I heard his ring of keys jingling against his hip as he rounded the corner behind me when I started up the stairs to the roof.
“Where are you, Michael?” he snarled, looking around, but not seeing me where I hid behind a chimney.
It was then that I realized something: I was about as tall as him. I had always seen him as being bigger than I was, I guess because he always had been for as long as I had known him. That had changed though, while he grew older, pudgier, I had gotten taller and stronger.
I rushed from my hiding place while he was facing away from me. I grabbed his right arm and wrenched it up behind his back while wrapping my other arm around his throat, James gasped, “Gah! Let me go, you little bastard.”
“I'm not so little anymore, and you are never going to touch Becky again,” I yanked again, and I think I heard his bones groan.
The pain was too much for him, “Alright, fine, I'll let her alone! Just let me go.”
I shoved him forwards, moving him farther away from the door, “This isn't just for Becky. This is for all the girls you raped, you sick fuck! How many girls did you do this to?”
“I don't know, a few.”
“A few, huh? How many?” I asked, still pushing him forwards.
“I... I don't know.”
“And the last kid that tried to do something about it, what was his name?”
“I don't remember.”
I pulled his arm harder, “What was his name!”
“Peter, Peter Zelig!”
I had walked him up to the edge of the roof. Only a knee high wall separated us from a probably forty foot drop the brick courtyard at the front of the orphanage, “And you pushed him off this roof, didn't you? It wasn't an accident, or suicide, was it?”
“No! Let me go.”
“Okay,” and I did. I shoved him forward, and his knees struck the wall. His arms flailed as he tried to find his balance, and then he was gone. There was a soft thud and a jingle of keys below.
I didn't stick around to see my handiwork. Instead I ran for the door and back down the stairs. I was just coming down to the second floor where Becky was waiting for me, her eyes still red and wet, when Anne's scream floated up the stairs.
We blended into the group of kids who stampeded down the stairs to see what Anne was reacting to. Once we saw Jame's twisted body leaking his lifeblood onto the bricks, the old kids started looking around for Becky. When they saw her clutching my arm they knew what had happened.
The rest of the kids created alibis for us by the time the police arrived, and Anne certainly wasn't going to say anything about where Becky was supposed to be.
The investigation found evidence of James' love of little girls in his apartment, but they were not able to pin down whether his death was an accident or suicide. The media went with suicide because it was more dramatic when combined with kid-touching.
None of the other staff were found guilty of any wrongdoing. They all said they had no idea what was going on, and that no one had ever come to them about it. Watchful Guardian was shut down though, and we were all split up to four different orphanages.
I never saw Becky again after the move. I hope she recovered from the abuse to become the beautiful person I know she was meant to be.
I still think about her from time to time; her and the murder I committed to protect her. Every Valentine's Day I make it a point to find a high place, usually the roof of a building, stare at the stars for awhile, and
wonder where Becky is. I like to think that somewhere she is looking up and
thinking of me too.