Chapter 1
My name is Commander Jason “The Reaper” Armell and this is my story.
The first eight years of my life were picture perfect. My dad was Vice President at a technology company. My mom was President of the PTA and attended bake sales to raise money for our school field trips. All that changed when my brother, Gabriel, drowned in the pool in our backyard when we he was just seven-years-old.
Gabriel had autism and our nanny left him alone sitting on the side of the pool while she went inside to get him a snack. My brother and I both were in the Boy Scouts and earned lots or merit badges, but Gabriel was always afraid of the water and he never learned to swim. My parents never recovered from my brother’s death. It all came tumbling down when my parents both decided to take their lives down what could be called ‘the wrong path’.
My dad turned to hookers and alcohol to cope with the grief, and my mom turned to prescription pills. He left my mom and was never heard from again. A few days later I found my mom in bed, dead from an overdose of prescription pills. Losing my entire family so quickly really changed scarred me emotionally, and I never wanted to get close to anyone again.
Gabriel and I had sold lemonade in our front yard for five cents a cup in the summer. At night we would camp out in the backyard, in our treehouse my dad built for our birthday one year. Every morning I would help Gabriel get dressed for school. He was so annoying, always playing around and making us late, but he was my kid brother and I loved him. When Gabriel died a piece of me died that day to. I never knew my mom’s side of the family for some reason. She never talked about them, she never let us visit our grandparents or any of her siblings. My dad had two brothers, but both of them were in jail for bank robbery.
Since neither of my parents had any relatives who were willing to take in an eight-year-old orphan boy, the State of Pennsylvania sent me into foster care. For the next year I stayed in a few decent foster homes, but none of the families wanted to adopt me. When I turned nine-years-old the juvenile judge decided to send me to the Graveyard State Boys’ Home to give me a better chance of being adopted, but that place turned out to be a real shit hole. Graveyard State looked like the prison from that movie Shawshank Redemption.
That boys’ home was definitely a place where children were sent to and forgotten. Inside that place was where I learned to grow up really quick. I will never forget the first day I stepped off the bus into the yard. It was a really hot day in August. There were dozens of boys running around the yard playing kick ball. There were around fifteen of us that arrived that day. We all got off the bus and lined up, awaiting further instructions. On the way over I heard some of the boys on the bus talking.
First, there was the corrupt warden, Joseph Litwalk who liked to touch little boys and ‘make men out of them’, as he described it. He had a room in the back of his office where he would take boys to “counsel” them. I heard from some of the other kids that he used the money he got for the home from the State, to support his gambling addiction and to pay off the guards.
Second, was Brian Johnson, who was captain of the guards and Litwalk's second-in-command. He would beat you within an inch of your life if you looked at him the wrong way. As we stood in the yard, a tall, slim black man in a blue uniform and hat approached us.
“I am Captain Brian Johnson, and I now own your asses! You do not eat, sleep, piss or breathe without my permission! You will not give me or my guards any trouble or your asses will not make it out of here alive. In case you don’t know, you all are here because no one wanted you and you all are the worst juveniles in the state.” He paused briefly to sneer at the boy next to me. “Once a month, potential foster parents will come and take a look at you all. If no one wants you, you will have to stay here until you are eighteen years old. If you obey the rules, maybe then you will survive that long. Does everyone understand me?”
A loud, “Yes sir!” sounded all around me. I kept silent. This guy didn’t scare me one bit. Captain Johnson walked over and stood right in front of me.
“What’s your name boy?”
“Jason,” I said.
“No, your fucking name is what I tell you it is, Number 62514! What is your name boy?”
“Jason, like I said before.”
A crack sounded gaining the attention of everyone around the yard. Captain Johnson had slapped me hard across the face for the insubordination.
“Well, since Number 62514 doesn’t know his name, I think it’s time he spends some time in ‘The Breaker’ until he learns how we do things around here.”
Suddenly two large guards grabbed me on either side and dragged me across the yard toward a large wooden box. It had heavy metal chains wrapped around it and holes in it. All the boys in the yard had stopped playing and ran over to the fence to see what was going on. They opened the box and made me lay down in it and padlocked it closed with the chains. I could see Captain Johnson standing over the box with a large fire hose. As he turned on the water, the box began to fill. After about fifteen seconds the box had filled with water, and I began to panic. I started to hold my breath but was able to breathe a little through one of the small cracks in the box. Suddenly Captain Johnson opened the box and snatched my limp wet body up in the air and held me in front of him. I had swallowed a lot of water so I was coughing and spitting it out. I was having trouble breathing. How could he do this to me? Wasn’t this abuse and illegal? At that moment I knew I had to do whatever I needed to in order to survive. I could see the other boys looking on from behind the fence. Each of their faces looking at me with sadness in their eyes.
“Now what is your name boy?”
“Number 62514, Sir.”
Captain Johnson released me from his grasp and my slim body fell to the ground. As I looked up at him the sun glared in my eyes. Suddenly as he raised his hand and was about to hit me, another man caught his arm mid-swing.
“That’s enough, Captain!” The man shouted.
“Stand up boy! Do you know who I am?”
As my eyes focused on a short, fat man with a thick mustache came into view.
“Stand up boy! Do you know who I am?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m Warden Litwalk! Come with me now!”
As I walked away with Warden Litwalk and another guard, I looked back and saw Captain Johnson staring at me. I knew things between me and him were only gonna get worse from here on out. As we walked to the Warden’s office, I wondered what I did to deserve being sent here. Just a few years earlier I was with my happy, loving family, but now I was in the lower levels of Hell! As we walked into the office it was depressing with no windows. There was a large brown desk with an old dusty lamp that gave off a dim light and a high back leather chair. In front of the desk was an old metal folding chair. In the corner of the room was a door that had a “Do Not Enter” sign on it. As I sat down in the chair, Warden Litwalk began to walk around me in circles. My legs started to shake and I could feel anger and fear brewing inside of me.
“Well Jason, do you know what it is I do here?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I answered, my voice shaking.
As the warden began to speak, he stopped in front of me and ran his hand softly across my cheek. He handed me a glass of water and I took a few sips. “I make boys into men and that’s exactly what I am gonna do with you. If you are nice to me then I will be nice to you. Do you understand?” I instantly felt a need to run away, but my legs wouldn’t move. Tears began to stream down my face. “Come on Jason, we are going to my special place.” I stood up and the Warden led me toward that closed door in the corner of the room. He stood behind me as we walked with his hands on my shoulders. He unhooked a ring of keys from his belt loop and unlocked the door. As we stepped inside, the motion lights instantly came on and I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was a bed, and a big screen TV with a video game console. The walls were lined with shelves containing of all different types of books. There was a couch in the corner of the room with a video camera standing next to it on a tripod. The Warden and I sat down. I didn’t understand why we were in this room.
“Jason, you are very special and you and I are going to be friends. Do you want something to drink?”
“Some water please!” I coughed.
“Of course.”
As the warden walked over to a small fridge next to the bed, he opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water. He then poured some in a glass and brought it over to me. As I drank, the warden sat down next to me and put his hand on my thigh. He then stood up and kneeled down in front of me. He put each of his hands on each of my knees and spread my legs apart.
“No please,” I begged.
I suddenly became dizzy and sleepy. My vision became blurred and I passed out. When I woke up the bright sun was shining through the window. I was in the bed with only a pair of boxers on. I sat up on the side of the bed and tried to focus my vision. There was a tray table next to me with breakfast on it. The eggs, bacon and toast with strawberry jam were still warm. My mouth was very dry so I drank the bottle of water and cup of orange juice that were on the tray table. I was so confused as to what happened the night before. I couldn’t understand why my throat was sore and why I had multiple bruises between my legs. I immediately threw up on the side of the bed. I saw a mop in the corner so I put some hot water on it and cleaned up my vomit before the Warden returned. There was a note on the tray table with instructions to eat the breakfast and shower. I ate the breakfast and then walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I removed my boxers and stepped into the hot shower. As the scalding hot water flowed over my body, I curled up on the floor in the fetal position, shaking uncontrollably. Suddenly the water went off. What I hadn’t realized is that the Warden had come into the bathroom.
“Jason, get off that floor right now!” He shouted.
I stepped out of the shower as he held up a towel and began to dry me off. I knew what was going on wasn’t right, but I was powerless to stop it.
“Well Jason, you were a good boy last night, but you got sick and I had to put you in bed. I have your uniform on the bed. Go and put it on and Captain Johnson will escort you to your room.”
After that night, I did my best to stay out of trouble and off the warden’s radar. Unfortunately, he continued to summon me regularly to his special room where he would have me do things to him and other boys. Often times I would black out because the pain was often too much to bear. He was always careful not to leave any visible marks or bruises on my body after that first time. I would let my mind to go another place where I thought of happy memories. I was assigned to kitchen and yard duty, which I had tasks to complete daily. I was given my own room when other boys were sometimes placed twelve to a room. After a while, I understood that only the boys the Warden took to his “Special Place” had their own nicer, private rooms and had extra privileges. My room had a large screen TV, mini fridge, and a library with lots of books. When I turned twelve I no longer had to go to the warden’s special room. I was also moved from my own private room and put into a much larger room. There was ten of us in total. Over the years, I knew what the Warden had done to many other boys here. There was an unimaginable anger inside of me. To cope with the pain, I began cutting myself in places on my body where no one would notice. I would go into the bathroom and cut myself across my chest and on my upper thighs so the scars would not be visible to anyone. It was the only way for me to release some of the pain and anxiety I was not able to express. My innocence had been stolen. I felt broken and empty inside.