Elan School in Poland Maine, training "problem" youth the sadistic way

Wayne accused Danny of sexual abuse and that's criminal. Danny hasn't responded

WoW!!

Not one of us Elan survivors doubt the book is true

JR what's uuuuup!!

Yep!!

Chapter One

1

An early frost killed the fall colors that year. Everything died before becoming beautiful. The Great Blizzard of 1978 had come and gone leaving Connecticut buried in snow and its residents in the mire of an ugly winter.

When the call came the night before, informing my parents that I had been accepted at Elan School, in Poland Springs, Maine, the man on the phone said that I should come right away. I wanted my father to drive because there was snow in the forecast, but the man said that the school would fly me the next morning in their private jet.

There were two things on my mind as we climbed the stairs to the glass doors leading into Danbury airport: Airplane crashes and Roy Sullivan. In the past year jumbo jets fell from the sky like 400-ton snowflakes. There had been crashes in Guatemala, Havana and Bombay, and in Tenerife, two Boeing 747 jets collided on the ground killing 583 people. Those places weren’t very close to home, but in December a Douglas DC-3 crashed, killing the University of Evansville basketball team, and in October three members of the rock group, Lynyrd Skynyrd, were killed as they attempted an emergency landing in Gillsburg Mississippi.

I called Doctor Peck and told him about my fear of flying, but he explained to me the amazing odds against being in a plane crash, and told me it was safer to fly than drive, but I thought of Roy Sullivan, a park ranger in Virginia who had just been hit by lightning for the seventh time. My father looked at me when we heard about it on the TV set. “Sounds like something that would happen to you.” He said.

Bad luck and bad timing were my forte. If there was a wrong turn to take or a wrong time to do something, I did. As the insanity in my head became worse, so did my luck. I was convinced that I was going to die in a plane crash.

The wind blew; causing Mom to duck her head. I lost my balance and my hat almost blew off, so I grabbed the hat with one hand and handrail with the other, steadying myself on the wet stairs. “Wow, I almost fell.” I said. “The wind…”

Mom pulled the door open. “C’mon,” she said, “Damn the wind.”
#
Danbury airport was the size of a supermarket, not what I expected for a major traffic hub. Even the planes were small. In New York City we took commercial jets, and though bigger planes crashed, everyone died on impact. Small planes always went down in icy waters, rarely killing everyone onboard, leaving survivors to suffer before they die.

Mom looked tired. Her clothes didn’t fit, and her hair was undone, which was unusual for her. She was anxious, and rushed me the whole morning, as if she wanted the trip to be over. She was intense and silent the whole day. There were seven other kids at home to take care of and the stress was taking its toll on her. I could see that she felt bad about my leaving, but I could also see that she felt guilty for being relieved that I was going.

As she dealt with the woman at the desk, I pointed to the vending machines. “I’m gonna go get a Coke.”

She paused the conversation with a hand gesture. “Get me one, would you?”

“You got it.”

In spite of a snow warning the woman at the desk said I was going to fly to Lewiston Airport. I didn’t understand the extreme urgency but was happy to be getting away from home. I needed a break from my family as much as they needed one from me, so when Doctor Peck suggested Elan, I was happy to go—I just wanted to drive.

I considered the coffee machine for a second, but my stomach told me not to. I got two cans of Coke and returned to the desk. “Here ya go.”

“Thanks.”
#
To Mom, for one day, on March 23rd, 1963, I was the miracle child because I wasn’t supposed to be born alive. The umbilical cord had broken the day she went to the hospital, so, they did an emergency cesarean section, and I was born into the world in horror. I didn’t remember it, but Doctor Peck told me that my subconscious did, which affected me nonetheless.

That may have been the reason for the nightmares. I had them for as long as I could remember, but they got worse at ten years old and I went from miracle child to problem child. I wet the bed until I was a teenager, and dreamed of monsters. I said the wrong thing at the wrong time and got into trouble at school and play. I stole money from my parents and fought with my siblings.

By the age of twelve the monsters in my sleep began to haunt me when I was awake. Though I knew they weren’t real, I saw bloody, violent flashes, which scared me, so I said, or did inappropriate things to get away from people. At thirteen years old I was caught lighting fires by a neighbor, and my parents realized my behavior was more than just growing pains.

The guidance counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists were a waste of time because I lied to them all. They reported to my parents, and my parents made fun of our Uncle Mike for being crazy. I didn’t want them to humiliate me that way. They called him, “Mike Loose,” because he was loose in the head, and my brothers laughed.

My brothers already made fun of me. They called my bedroom, “Wayne’s Pissaria,” so I let the shrinks believe that I was acting out for my parent’s attention. My father beat me with hockey sticks: his attention was the last thing I wanted. But, it was better they believe that than know the truth.

My psychologist, Doctor Adler, suggested, Vitam, a drug program in Norwalk, Connecticut, and though I hadn’t done drugs, I wanted to get away from home. I did better there, and my family seemed to do better without me, so the relief was mutual. After Vitam it was clear that a drug program wasn’t going to help me, so that was a concern when Elan was suggested.

“I liked Vitam,” I told Doctor Peck, “but, I didn’t have anything in common with the people there…they were all drug addicts.”

“Vitam was a mistake,” Doctor Peck said, “Elan is different.”

“Really?”

“Elan specializes in troubled adolescents, and has a ninety five percent success rate.” He said. “It’s like school, with therapy. They have counselors and psychiatrists, and activities.”

He was very convincing.
#
The pilot looked like a pilot, with his official hat and jacket. He was old and sure of himself, so I relaxed a bit. He spoke to Mom first. “Hi, I’m Jim,” he said, and shook her hand. “I’m going to do this run.”

He shook my hand next. He had hairy hands, like the monster in my dreams. “I hope the plane don’t crash,” I said.

Everyone stopped and stared at me. I regretted saying it as soon as I did, and was as shocked by what I said as they were. It was a line from a Bill Cosby comedy routine, so I knew why it was in my head, but something told me that it was inappropriate, and not to say it, and my mind agreed, but my mouth said it anyway.

“Wayne!” Mom said.

“I’m sorry.” I hung my head.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jim said, “It was a joke.”

Mom turned to me. “So, I guess this is goodbye.”

As happy as I was to be leaving, I wasn’t. “I guess.”

“I’ll come up and visit as soon as I can.”

“Okay.”

I turned and gestured for Jim to lead the way. We started towards the tall grey doors to our left. I didn’t look back.
#
We passed through the doors, went down a hallway, which led to another door, which let us out to the runway. There, a six passenger, twin engine plane sat with its engines running. “Get in the front seat,” he said, “I need you there to take off.”

“Do you?”

“I can’t take off or land without a copilot.”

He was being nice, I knew, because he would then have no way of getting back, but I smiled and climbed into the front seat like a starry eyed kid. “Cool.”

Jim taxied us to the runway, cleared us for takeoff and took to the air. My stomach felt queasy on the way up, but when we leveled off it passed. I looked out at the ground below, to check for icy waters.
#
The airport in Maine was smaller than the one we left. It was simple and quiet, and there were only two runways. They were expecting us, obviously, because there was a group of people there to greet us—two men in work uniforms, a man in a suit and a mid twenties hippie-looking guy in jeans and a ski parka.

The two workmen didn’t mind me as I got out, but the man in the suit greeted me, and introduced me to Mark. I shook his hand. “Good to meet you.”

“Same here.”

When we had my things, Mark and I got into a striped Chevy van, and started down the road. “You don’t have any drugs on you, do you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never done drugs.”

“Oh, so you’re court ordered.”

“No, I’ve never been arrested.”

He laughed. “Then what are you doing here?”

I shrugged. “I’m a problem kid.”

“Well, if you don’t cause any problems for a while, you’ll be going home in a year to eighteen months,” he said, “Some people go through the program in less than a year.”

“How long can you stay if you like it?” I asked.

He laughed again and turned down a road that looked like it went nowhere. We drove quietly for a while as if he didn’t want to burst my bubble by telling me that I wasn’t going to summer camp. Eventually he pulled into a clearing and said, “Here we are.”

It looked like a camp, with small cabins and a bigger, more administrative looking house. Mark pulled up next to the bigger one. That’s when I heard the screaming. It started out as one voice, was followed by another, and then another.

Mark led me toward the screams unbothered. “It’s not all that bad, Wayne. You’ll get used to it soon.”

“What’s all that yelling?”

“That,” he said, “is a haircut.”

“What’s a haircut?”

“If you do something wrong you get yelled at. Sometimes there are three or four people who do it. It’s called a haircut.”

Only the staff did that at Vitam, and they didn’t scream with the venom these people did. I knew there would be discipline, but this was bad. I already wanted to go home.

What greeted us entering the main house was out of Alice in Wonderland. People were dressed up like babies and Klansmen, and people with signs and household appliances hanging around their necks wandered the huge house as others shouted at them angrily, berating and degrading them. There were people with cups and plates strung around their necks like chunky junky jewelry. Everyone was screaming at everyone else.

The Klansmen were actually dunces, wearing dunce caps, and signs that explained why. My Vitam experience told me that these were punishments, and that Elan was going to be more than simple discipline, so I told Mark that I wanted to go home.

“You don’t get to go home.”

“What do you mean I don’t get to go home?” I said. “I’m not mandated here. I was told that if I didn’t like it I could leave.”

“Then you were lied to, Wayne. You’re not going home for a while.”

He was telling the truth. Doctor Peck and my family had lied to get rid of me.
#
I spent the first night in the dorm of Élan Three because it was late. Though I was going to be a resident of Élan Seven, they kept me there to go over the rules, and do what they called, “Pulling you into the program.”

Mark told me that I had to sing at the morning meeting in front of fifty people. “I can’t sing in front of all these people.” I said.

“You have to.”

I was angry for being abandoned and deceived. “I’m not doing it.”

“You will, though. Everyone does it.”

“Not me.”
#
When I repeated this during the morning meeting I was allowed to sit back down. It wasn’t without warning. “You’ll sing down at your house,” Peter McCann said, “And you’ll dance as well.”

“No, I won’t.”

He laughed.
#
I was sent down the hill to Élan Seven a few hours later. The house at the bottom of the hill had the same yelling coming from it that Élan Three had, but by that time I was used to it. I understood that Élan was just a super strict version of Vitam, and to get along I was going to have to play ball.

The first thing I noticed about Élan Seven was that there were black and Hispanic people there. Three was only white kids, so I asked Stan, the guy Mark turned me over to, why. “Three is for rich kids. We’re the lower class here because we’re from the streets.”

“Why am I here then?”

“I don’t know. But you can ask Danny Bennison when you talk to him.”

“Who’s Danny Bennison?”

“Danny runs the house. All new residents speak to the director in the first few days,”

“Good, maybe he’ll let me out of here.”
#
I was introduced to Danny Bennison a few hours later when the house was ushered into the dining room, as if for a fire drill. The older residents, who patrolled the house with clipboards and did security—what Stan called, “Expeditors”—came out of their office screaming at the top of their lungs, “General meeting!”

We were ordered to sit in the dining room in silence with our hands folded on the table, to wait for whatever was coming. The quiet was harder on the senses than the constant commotion. Finally, my director came out and I knew it was going to be bad. He had a white mesh laundry bag with bright red boxing gloves in it, and everyone froze when they saw it.

He threw the bag against the wall, and there was a thud. Then, he looked at the waiting crowd and at Mike Calabrese in particular. “Get the fuck up here.”

Mike was dressed like a baby, with a bonnet and diaper. He wore a sign that he read every time he entered or left a room. He shook his rattle first. “Waa, Waa, Waa. I’m Mike Calabrese, and I’m a big baby. Please confront me about why I act out and make everyone miserable if I don’t get my way. Waa, Waa, Waa.”

Mike didn’t move fast enough, so Danny grabbed him by the neck and dragged him in front of the room. “I said get the fuck up there!” he yelled, and threw Mike against the wall.

Danny was physically imposing, with a smug face and perfectly feathered hair. He was a dark-haired, moustache and attitude, badass-white guy, and he was good at it. I was afraid of him immediately.

“What the fuck is your problem, Mike Calabrese? I have a pile of incident reports in my office, and your fucking name is on every one of them.”

Mike said nothing.

“I asked you a fucking question!”

“I don’t have a problem.”

Danny turned to the house, and said calmly, “Would you people like to tell him his problem?”

Suddenly, everyone jumped up from their seats and rushed at Mike. They stood inches away from him, screaming in his face. It was angry and bitter, and they sprayed him with saliva as they yelled. It lasted five minutes. When it was over Mike wiped the spit from his face.

“So, what do you have to say for yourself Michael?” Danny said, “You have the fucking audacity to question my expeditor in the kitchen, and then stand here telling me you don’t have a problem. I think you have a problem with authority as well as a lot of other things. You big fucking baby.”

He broke off and looked at the crowd, “Who wants to go in the ring with this motherfucker?”

Hands went up, and Danny picked the biggest guy in the room to have a boxing match with Mike. Mike resisted putting the gloves on, so, Danny had four guys hold him down while they spanked him with a racquetball paddle. He fought, but was outmatched. The paddle had holes drilled in it to maximize the pain. When he shouted out, I turned away: and looked instead at Danny Bennison, who was smiling. “Are you going to put the gloves on now Mike?”

They tried again, and Mike fought again. He was thrown back down and paddled some more. “Ten…ten more…Next… Ten…ten more…Next…” As good a fight as Mike fought, I could see that he was going to lose. It was brutal to watch.

When Mike put on the boxing gloves, guys from the house who were physically superior to him beat him into submission. I kept waiting to hear what he did to deserve such battering and humiliation, but all I heard was, “For being a baby.”

As the general meeting went on, Danny told the house about his prison experiences. “You’re going to prison someday Michael,” he said. Then, he looked at the rest of us. “All of you people are going to end up in prison with attitudes like this.”

He shifted back to Mike. “You, they’ll just gang rape in the shower, you fat piece of shit.” Then, he held everyone’s attention as he described sitting in his cell listening to a young man being raped. “I sat on the end of my bed wondering when they were going to come for me,” he warned.
#
I ran to catch up with Stan after the general meeting was over. “What was that?” I asked.

“That was a general meeting...”

I cut him off. “I know what a general meeting is, Stan. I told you that I know certain things from being in Vitam. I mean the boxing ring and the paddle. What’s the deal with that?”

“They have a physical abuse license. If someone is physically violent, they can punish him with the ring or spankings.”

I didn’t say a word, but he knew what I was thinking. “Wayne, if you just do what you gotta do, and keep your nose clean, you don’t have to go through any of that.”

I sang and danced the next morning without a fight.

Well alriiiiighty then. Be careful.