It was my first day of first grade and I was walking home after school, loaded down with all my new books and things. I had only a two-block trek to get home but I was making my way by myself. Contrast that with kintergarden, which was in a school beyond the highway and necessitated an escort to get safely across. Besides, at a full year older, I was a big boy now. In late summer, the leaves hadn’t yet changed and were green and waxy and filled all the trees. Rays of golden sunshine peeped shyly through the branches and forced me to squint my eyes.

My jacket didn’t fit well; I had outgrown it over the summer and the sleeves were short and I couldn’t zip it up properly. Which was unfortunate, since it was an uncharacteristically cool September. So I was ambling along, balancing books and my Jetsons’ lunch box and trying to keep the chill off my chest, when I heard someone beckon me.

“Hey, Kid,” said an older man–I estimated him to be in his late teens to early twenties–sitting in the passenger seat of a long, sleek, blue muscle car. I subsequetly identified the vehicle as the new Pontiac GTO. I had taken one step into the crosswalk at the intersection; I halted and looked over at him. I couldn’t see the driver; he was hidden behind the passenger. “C’mon, Kid, get in,” he indicated the rear seat of the car with a sweep of his hand. “We got toys in the back seat,” he said enticingly.

Toys! Now, that was something that I could understand. I leaned to get a look into the back, but couldn’t see anything. No room there for a new red wagon, which I desperately yearned for. But maybe…

“C’mon, Little Man, said the passenger, a little more abruptly this time. I was about fifteen feet from the car and could clearly make him out. He was big, had messy dark hair and large, ugly white teeth. “You gonna get in, or what?” he asked. Suddenly his door cracked opened. I took a precautionary step back, onto the curb. Before I had started walking to and from school, my Mom had instilled in me not to trust anyone offering me a ride when I was out and about, unless my parents knew them. I hadn’t fully understood her warnings, but I was beginning to sense the wisdom of her advice now.

“C’mere, I’ve got something for you, Little Boy.” And with that he opened the door fully, stuck his hand in his crotch and exposed himself. My eyes popped open wide and in a heartbeat I was sprinting back towards the elementary school and safety. My arms were driving like pistons and my feet were just a blur. I divested myself of books, pencils, lunch box, everything at a dead run.

At one point I looked back, only to discover that the sleek blue car had vanished in a haze of exhaust fumes and dust. I stayed at the school, looking out the door, for about ten minutes, then I stepped out the heavy school doors onto the concrete pathway. Suddenly there was a presence behind me. A large hand clamped down on my shoulder and I jumped.

“What are you up to, Randy?” asked a high-pitched man’s voice. It was a man we’d all been introduced to briefly that morning.

My older brother had told me about Mr. Dinwiddie, the principal of the school. “Just because he’s the principal doesn’t mean he’s your pal,” quipped Ellis, but I didn’t know how to spell, so his words fell uselessly at my feet.

“I said,” repeated Dinwiddie, “what are you up to?” His hand bore down harder on my shoulder. I tried to squirm away, but he was too strong.

“Don’t Mr. Dinwiddie like little boys?” I asked Ellis naively.

“Sure he does,” said Ellis with a sneer. “Wait’ll he gets a load of you.” And he laughed harshly. Ellis wasn’t always a good brother and, at six years older, often talked over my head.

When I didn’t answer Dinwiddie’s question, he told me to follow him. I did. Down the long, now-deserted hallway to the suite of offices set aside for the principal and the secretary. We filed through a frosted glass door and he sat behind his desk. He told me to sit. As there were no other chairs apart from his, I sat on the floor. Dinwiddie looked down at me and scowled. “Don’t sit on the floor,” he scolded.

I climbed to my feet.

“Sit here,” he ordered, indicating his lap.

I gulped.

“What’s the matter?” said the principal softly, “don’t your parents ever take you in their laps?”

I shook my head no. My parents were never affectionate. It was only after I began school, when I observed my schoolmates with their parents, that I came to realize that what Ellis and I experienced was not normal, but different.

Dinwiddie reached out and pulled me onto his lap. I sat there, my face burning, as I felt something hard in the middle of Dinwiddie’s lap. I instantly remembered the man in the sports car. Suddenly I wanted to be anywhere but there. I looked bleakly across the office and saw a bust of Napoleon on a shelf with scores of books. I held my breath.

Dinwiddie began rocking me, humming to himself. His hands began exploring. All at once, he grew rigid and then twitched violently. My eyes were wide. Next, he gently removed me from his lap to stand beside his chair.

“You’re a good little feller, Randy,” he said in a strained voice. “You go on home to your momma, you hear? And don’t tell her you were in the principal’s office. You don’t want to get into trouble, young man. Go on now, we’ll talk again.”

Somehow I found my way down the long, abandoned corridor to the door and let myself out. I collected my lunch box and my books and my pencils and wandered home. I never told my parents about being in Mr. Dinwiddie’s office. I didn’t want to get into trouble. But Ellis knew that something had happened the moment he saw my face.

“Were you a ‘good little feller,'” Randy?” he teased. I only stared at him. For the rest of his life I wondered at how my own brother had let me walk into that trap unprepared. Never close, we became even more distant after that. We never shared the things that I saw my friends share with their siblings. I never told anyone, even my wife, what happened, with either the blue car or with Mr. Dinwiddie.

Frances Dinwiddie died 20 years ago at 71. I refused to let myself wonder how many other children he abused in the more than 40 years he was principal at that grade school. I felt I had enough guilt without taking that on. I only know that, on my first day of first grade, back in September, 1964, I lost another piece of my childhood.