The Humper Game Pt. 01 Ch. 08

Mrs. Church asked a question. "Miss Brown, if you were so terrified, why did you agree to this complicated ruse?"

"I really did trust Mr. Miles, but I felt terrified because I couldn't help remembering the other time. Putting myself in their hands, in their power, even for a minute or two was really hard for me. But I was sure that they would be looking for opportunities to attack another girl, if not me, and I wanted more than I can say to see that prevented and to see them brought to justice."

There was a spattering of applause and a lot of, well, not exactly cheers but approving noise from the students' seating. Mr. Peters glared and picked up his gavel, but the noise had already died away before he could rap with it.

Mr. Anderson called me to the stand. I went up, feeling so nervous I was afraid I would collapse as I went up. "Maggie is a lot more timid than I am. How did she manage to do so well?" I thought.

I was sworn in—since that's what they apparently called it, though they didn't ask me whether I swore, only to say that I would do it. Tell the truth, I mean.

Mr. Anderson asked me to describe what I knew, of my own knowledge, of the events of that night. I said what I've already told you, but much more briefly. But I began with a different matter.

"If I may, I wish to corroborate something already testified to. As a couple of people have testified, I talked to Maggie, um, Miss Brown the day after the first assault, prevailing on her to tell me what was wrong, because she was obviously distraught. I know nothing of my own knowledge of the events she told me about, and I am not testifying about those events. But I want to go on record as saying that the testimony she has given today is substantially the same as what she told me that day, more than four weeks ago. I can and do testify that she has not changed her report of those events at all.

"At any rate, regarding the events of one week ago. I heard Miss Brown discussing her headache with her friends, and when one of them suggested that she go to the infirmary, she said she would after supper was over. She was barely picking at her food. I saw two of Wagner's friends grin at each other and kind of give each other thumbs-up signals and hurry off." I named the two. "They soon came back and hurriedly finished eating.

"The rest of them came to those two, carrying softball gear, and told them to come on out and practice ball before it got too dark. They all went off, all of those down there plus Wagner, and spoke to the monitor and went out.

"I went off to wait near the door for Miss Brown. When she came, I spoke to her and offered to escort her to the infirmary. She asked me not to and went on. A minute later, I spoke to the door monitor, asking him to call someone in authority, saying that Wagner and his friends were going to ambush Miss Brown. He told me to mind my own business. I told him then to call and say what I'd told him and say that I was going to try to prevent that. I hurried out the door, hearing him tell me to stay inside, and I followed Miss Brown. And yes, I knew that going out without leave is a grounding offense.

"Since Miss Brown had told me she didn't want me to go with her, I stayed back. As she told you, she was walking very slowly, kind of dragging her feet. I assumed this was due to her headache.

"When I came up to the thicket she mentioned to you, I left the path and went over to the trees and shrubbery, hoping that neither Miss Brown nor Wagner and his gang would see me, and I tried to catch up with her.

"I was seized from behind by a member of the instructional staff. He covered my mouth. He asked me if I would keep quiet if he released me, and I nodded. At this point I was hoping this meant that Miss Brown was being protected. I can't begin to tell you what a relief that was! He told me that he needed to be up farther in case there was trouble, and told me to keep behind him and be quiet and not to interfere.

"When we got to where I could see, it was starting to get dark, but I could see well enough. Under the trees where we were it was darker. They had a bag over Maggie's—Miss Brown's—head and her hands tied behind her, and they were carrying her over to the thicket. Suddenly, a lot of men—about a dozen and a half, I think—ran out and surrounded them, as Mr. Miles ordered them to stop where they were.

"Wagner accused Mr. Miles of always trying to prevent him from having any fun. He pulled a knife from somewhere and jumped toward Mr. Miles. Mr. Miles stepped aside and threw him, I guess with some martial arts throw. I couldn't really see how he did it but Wagner went flying and came down hard on the back of his head. One of the other men went and looked at him, saying he was dead and that he couldn't say whether it was due to landing on his head or the fact that in landing he had stabbed himself.

"By this time all of the others were being held by two men each, and men were holding lights as well.

"Mr. Miles told one of the men to bring Miss Brown to me and have me untie her. I did so. He was speaking to those boys, but not so that I could hear clearly, and I wasn't listening at that point anyway. In a few minutes he came over to Miss Brown and me. He told me to take her back to the girls' wing. He didn't say in so many words that I was grounded—merely that I was to see him in his office at six the next morning and that this was a disciplinary matter—but that's what it amounted to. He said he would meet with me to discuss that at six the next morning.

"He told me that he approved of my courage but that I hadn't shown any intelligence in coming alone to try to stop seven boys.

"I took Miss Brown back to the entrance to the girls' wing. The hall monitor there told me I was grounded, and to be in either my room or the lavatory until I left to go to Mr. Miles's office in the morning. She had had one of the girls I had been studying with bring her my things, so that I could take them with me."

After a minute or so, Mrs. Church said, "Mr. Morris, Mr. Miles's comment makes sense to me. Why did you go after Miss Brown, expecting to face odds of seven against one?"

"I didn't see anything else I could do, in the circumstances. But my plan, as far as I had one, was to wait—until they had grabbed Miss Brown and were focused on her, but before they tied her—and then to attack Wagner from the rear by surprise. I hoped I could take him out of the action, at least knocking him unconscious, and then monopolize their attention until Miss Brown could escape. It might even have worked, but I knew I would at best be severely beaten, so I'm very glad that others were on the job. I was terrified, but I felt that I had to try."

There were no more questions, and I was told to go back to my seat.

Mr. Miles was called next. He confirmed what Maggie and I had said, with a few additional details concerning his own plans for the event.

Mr. Carson asked him, "You deliberately set up a trap for these boys, using Miss Brown as bait to entice them to do something wrong. Doesn't that constitute entrapment?"

"Not in the least. We knew what they had done before. We provided them with what looked like an opportunity to do it again. Sooner or later someone would have provided such an opportunity, and they would have taken it. The only difference would have been that we would not have been prepared. They knew that they were doing something wrong and criminal, but no one at all made a suggestion that they act in that fashion, and such a suggestion is the essence of entrapment. They decided entirely on their own to rape Miss Brown as they already had. To be guilty of entrapment, one of us would have to have been part of their group, suggesting to them that they commit this crime.

"I certainly can't say that there is no other boy in this class who, meeting a girl in a lonely spot, would take that as an opportunity to rape her. There are one or two whom I am aware that I wouldn't trust. But I can say that almost any would have greeted her and gone on. Mr. Morris almost certainly would have offered to escort Miss Brown to the infirmary and back if he had come upon her, since he was aware of the previous attack and had escorted her in the wake of that. There are a number of other young men here whom I would think likely to make such an offer. These six, and Mr. Wagner, whom they regarded as their leader, saw this as an opportunity to abuse a young woman. They were not entrapped. They were given the opportunity to demonstrate their own characters."

"Why didn't you simply arrest them when the first assault came to your attention?"

"Because the evidence was purely personal testimony. I include Miss Bruja's testimony, which she was eager to provide even though it incriminated her as well. The perpetrators would simply have denied that they had committed such an assault. Any physical evidence which might have identified them was long gone. But they cannot credibly deny that they were intending such an assault in the second case, as there are many witnesses. And all the features of this attempt, for example the use of pillowcases to blind and gag Miss Brown, are the same as those reported after the first event. The judges must make their own assessment, but I see no reasonable way anyone could doubt Miss Brown's and Miss Bruja's earlier testimony in light of this attempt.

"I should add that we were able to set up video cameras to record all this, from the time that Miss Brown first approached where these young men were lurking in ambush. The quality is very poor, but I should have mentioned this earlier. I meant to do so and forgot. If it is desired, we can show the recordings."

Mr. Peters said, "I think we must view these recordings. Do we need a recess while they are prepared?"

"No, sir, we simply need to darken the room. The screen is behind you and the counsels, and me at present, so you will wish to turn your chairs or move to the other side of your tables."

They all turned their chairs around. When the first video began, it became apparent that sound had also been recorded by some kind of microphone intended to capture sound from a distance. The was a lot of noise, wind and various rustlings.

On the screen, Maggie stepped into the edge of the field of view and moved across it. Two figures ran quietly toward the path and then up to her, running beside the path. One—Wagner—grabbed her from behind, covering her mouth, as the other quickly pulled a white bag over her head, then pulled out cord and quickly got it around her head. He pulled it tight as Wagner removed his hand, and then tied it in back. As this was happening, the others all ran out into the field of view. Wagner, holding her arms behind her, said, "All right, you little bitch, you know what will happen if you give us any trouble."

There was enough noise from the environment that this was a bit hard to understand, but not enough to make it impossible.

Wagner's buddy wrapped another piece of cord around her wrists a few times and tied a knot. The two of them picked her up by shoulders and ankles and began carrying her generally toward the camera.

Mr. Miles's voice told them to stop, as a group of men rapidly surrounded them all, and the two of them dropped Maggie. I had been so startled that I had missed her jarring drop to the ground. We heard Wagner's cry of defiance, and saw the knife in his hand and his leap toward Mr. Miles. We saw Mr. Miles step aside. Since I knew what was coming, I was watching closely what Mr. Miles did. As far as I could see, he did something to trip Wagner, and took hold of Wagner's left arm and boosted him into the air in the direction he was already running. Wagner flew out of the field of view, but we heard him hit. We saw a man go over to check on Wagner, and report that he was dead, from off screen. The video ended.

Mr Miles said, "We will show the video from the other camera. It's from a different angle, and some of what you saw is off screen, but the ending shows in this one."

There were all the sounds of the previous video, but Maggie's appearance and their grabbing and binding her did not show. They carried her into the field of view. From there, everything was the same, except for the angles. Mr. Miles's throw was blocked by his body, but Wagner's landing and the examination of his body were in plain view.

The lights came back up, and those on stage turned their chairs back around.

Mr. Anderson asked, "Mr. Miles, is the origin of the knife Mr. Wagner had known?"

"It appears to be one of the knives put out in the cafeteria when something like steak is served. It's identical to those, and we have no reason to think it's anything else. We don't keep exact counts of tableware, so we can't be sure, and assuming it is that, we don't know when it was taken from the cafeteria."

No one asked further questions of Mr. Miles, and he returned to his seat, just a few down the row from me.

The next witness called was a physician, Dr. Dennis. He reported that it was impossible to say with certainty whether Wagner had died from trauma due to landing on his head and neck or loss of blood from the knife wound, though the latter was much more likely in his view. Wagner had somehow managed to pierce an artery. There were questions about the precise physiology involved, and I quickly got lost, despite having studied this two years earlier.

Mr. Peters said, "That ends the testimony we are aware of. Are there any questions for any of the witnesses?"

There was a pause, and then a voice from the other side of the room, from the section where the parents and guardians were sitting, called, "That man murdered my son. We just watched him do it. What are you going to do about that?" There were shocked-sounding noises and some comments from all over the room.

Mr. Peters rapped his gavel. "Mr. Wagner, you have my sympathy in your grief at the loss of your son. But both from testimony and from what we have just seen, he unexpectedly attacked a man, with a knife. That man, in defending himself, threw your son in such a way that he was killed. He was unarmed, and clearly had reason to fear death or great bodily harm at the hands of your son. This is a clear case of self-defense, and it is ridiculous to suggest anything else."

"That's fine for you to say, but it's my son who died!"

Mr. Miles stood up. "Mr. Peters, I am the one being accused, and I would like a chance to respond."

"Go ahead."

"Mr. Wagner, over more than three years your son consistently displayed the attitude that he was entitled to do anything he wanted to anyone, and that any attempt to restrain him in this, on the part of anyone else, was an unjustifiable intrusion. As his gym instructor daily during his entire time here, I believe that I had more chance to observe this than any of his other instructors, but I know that I was not the only one who saw this and attempted to discipline him, both to protect others from him and to try to teach him that rules—including the law of the land and the social rules of civil society—are for everyone, and that he was no exception. We are holding this trial because he felt justified in leading in the gang rape of a young woman and later attempting a second such attack on her.

"From the nature of your statements, I can only conclude that your son learned this attitude from you. He was responsible for his own death. He attacked me with a knife, in such a way that I had to respond instantly, and you have just heard that his death was probably from the weapon he was carrying. But in my judgment, he would have eventually died in some similar way, because someone else would eventually have to defend himself against your son with lethal force.

"Or he might have eventually been killed in retribution, by a victim or perhaps a victim's family member. If the father of Miss Brown, who is here right now, took the attitude your son displayed, and that you seem to be displaying, I suspect that by now you would have been physically attacked. Your son, after all, organized and carried out an assault against his daughter, and you have just watched him beginning to do so again. Instead of blaming others for your son's death, you should be blaming your son, and likely yourself, for the outrageous pain he inflicted on Miss Brown."

Mr. Miles turned around and sat back down. There was rather a lot of noise of agreement, from both the students and the parents and guardians. Mr. Peters had to bang his gavel repeatedly, and it still took some time for the noise to die away completely.

There was a pause of a minute or two. Then Mr. Peters said, "Before the trial began, each of the defendants was offered a chance to testify in his own behalf. They all declined. Now, you six, I ask you one last time, do you wish to continue in silence? On the evidence presented so far, there does not seem to be grounds for anything but a conviction and a very stiff sentence. Do you have anything at all to say in your own defense? Do you have anyone who has knowledge of the events and who might testify in your defense?"

And he asked them each, by name, one by one. Five of them said no, but Wagner's lieutenant, so to speak, suddenly said, "Yes! I do want to testify!" So he went up to the witness seat, and was asked to confirm that he would speak all and only the truth, so far as it bore on the matters under consideration. He said he would. Just looking at him, I wouldn't have taken anything he said to be honest, but I had plenty of prior experience, so maybe that was just my prejudice.

He began. "Your honor, this whole thing is just trumped up. Miles had it in for Wagner and us from the beginning. In that game, he made up rules on the spot just to keep us from having fun like everyone else got to. So when we tried to make up for it by arranging a little fun for ourselves, he gets all mad and stops us. As for that little slut Brown, you can't believe anything someone like her says. And the same for that big pussy Morris."

By this time there was kind of an audible growl from the assembled students. I'd heard something like it once before, louder, and that too was in connection with the behavior and attitude of Wagner and his friends. And though both times I shared the anger being expressed, I was really frightened by what I was hearing.

Mr. Peters banged a gavel. "The spectators are to remain quiet. This young man has a right to speak for himself and be heard. We will hear him, and then it will be up to the court to assess his statements and all others which have been made today, for truth and relevance." And almost like magic, the crowd noise died away. I didn't think the anger had dissipated, though. My own certainly had not.

Wagner's friend continued, "What right do you have to be trying us? You make it sound like we did something wrong. Brown should be glad that she finally got fucked, and by real men, not wusses like most of the guys here. She enjoyed it, too."

He left the stand and went back to his seat without being instructed to.

Mrs. Church said, "Mr. Peters, given all the evidence, there hasn't been much we could do in defense of these boys in any case. But after that, I can't remain even as nominal counsel for the defense. His idea of a defense amounts to a confession, not in detail but certainly in general. I'm sorry, but I am resigning from the position I agreed to take." And she stood up and went down and found a seat in the main auditorium somewhere way at the back."

Mr. Peters seemed to be thinking but he finally said, "Mrs. Church, normally I would feel that severe censure would be appropriate. But I confess that I agree that your position was intolerable. Thank you for your earlier work to see that the defendants' rights were maintained."