Why I hate Mackworth Island (continued)   BY RICK WORMWOOD

Compounding that tragedy, when their potential legal troubles disappeared, nothing prevented Kelly, Youngs, and Repass from collecting their pensions, since they had resigned and not been fired. Dr. Youngs angrily professed his innocence to anyone who would listen right up until he died of cancer a few years later. Dr. Kelly left the state, but he still gets a monthly pension check from Augusta. Jan Repass is Portland Adult Ed’s most popular sign language instructor. I check the catalog every time it comes to my house, and his classes are consistently marked "fills up fast," which always makes me want to puke. Maybe he’s made his peace with the past, but I’m still making mine.

This is why I hate Mackworth Island, and I even hate that people around here think of it as such a beautiful, wonderful place — perfect for short hikes or long picnics. Two married members of my band, the Rumbling Proletariat, go there for romantic walks. I know someone else who was proposed to there by her longtime boyfriend. That one really bothered me. Would you propose to someone at Auschwitz? Would you stroll around Ground Zero, holding hands with your baby and listening to the birds sing? I guess that you might if you had no idea of what had transpired there, and that’s the way it is with most people around here regarding Mackworth.

Lots of people know that something untoward happened on the island, but they aren’t sure what, and they aren’t real keen to find out. Why would they be, if it never touched their lives? I can’t blame people for not wanting to face it. I’d prefer not facing it myself, but to those of us connected to what happened at Governor Baxter, it’s a piece of recent history so big that it seems to fill the sky. I’m not saying that nobody knows, just that almost nobody knows the real story. Sure, it’s been in the press. It’s been written about dozens of times since 1981, and I’m sure a lot of people saw the articles about the budget fight over what’s commonly called the Governor Baxter School Compensation Fund, which was set up for the victims several years ago, or the preparations for destroying the farmhouse.

Not even Governor Baldacci knows what happened. On March 25, survivors, supporters, and deaf activists gathered at the State Capital to protest the proposed budget, which at the time did not include the promised funding for the Governor Baxter School Compensation Program. After all of the speeches on the steps, and several victimized former students once again told their stories to the state media, everyone moved into the rotunda, where Governor Baldacci was about to proclaim April 15 "Teach Kids To Save Day."

When this bit of flummery was over, one of the deaf activists asked Baldacci if he would briefly meet with the Governor Baxter alumni there that day. Baldacci came right over, listened very intently to the deaf plead for the Compensation Program, and then told everybody that no mater how much he wished that things were different, he was committed to a balanced budget, and this prevented him from being able to allocate the six-million-dollar infusion the fund needed. Eventually, when the final budget passed, the money was included, but that was their party line on that day.

The Governor Baxter alumni then asked Baldacci about Dr. Kelly’s pension, a subject that Maine’s deaf community finds endlessly infuriating. As they explained who Kelly was, the governor seemed confused, and then, as he listened, mad. "Who is this man?" Baldacci demanded, before adding, "Someone give me a pen and a piece of paper so I can write down his name."

I was standing behind the governor at this point, and once the interpreters finished signing what he’d said, 40 deaf people went into their pockets all at once, they were so anxious to meet his request. Some of them actually seemed to think that he was going to do something about Kelly’s pension. But Baldacci, by his own admission, was in the dark and didn’t even know who Kelly was. Maybe that’s why he could live with not funding the Governor Baxter School Compensation Program. Worse, if the governor doesn’t know about Dr. Robert E. Kelly, whom I consider an evil, degenerate, and remorseless pedophile who got his twisted, illegal jollies right under Augusta’s nose for decades, then how the hell does he know to look for the next Dr. Kelly, who could be coming soon to a school near you?

That’s why I was on Mackworth Island to watch that damn farmhouse burn down to nothing. That’s why we were all there. Hardly anyone knows the truth, and hardly anyone cares. Whatever peace there was to be had wasn’t going to come from outside the deaf community. We had to go out and get it for ourselves.

Dr. Kelly’s persuasion tree had been cut down several years earlier with similar ceremony. Many of the people who came to watch the house go had also been there when the tree came down; they pointed out the spot in the grass where it had stood.

Several rows of folding chairs had been brought down from the school, but nobody sat. For the sake of closure, which I have always considered a cheap and overrated concept, we were all invited to throw an item onto the farmhouse’s porch to be consumed in the inferno, the idea being to transfer our rage and anger to these things and then let these emotions go forever when they were destroyed. Small blocks of wood were provided on which to write messages. Some people threw in the pictures that Kelly had taken of them. Then the local fire department burned the place down to almost nothing. It was hot and glorious.

In 1984, my sister suffered a mental breakdown from which she has never recovered. She needs to be constantly assured of her safety, always asking, "Is everything okay? Am I safe? Do you like me?" She is obsessed with sex, and has believed herself to be pregnant for longer than I care to remember. She carries around a doll in place of the baby that never arrives. Occasionally, she makes up stories about being raped, at different times alleging that both my father and I have raped her.

Do these rape visions have anything to do with her time at Governor Baxter? You could ask the same question about her mental illness in general. Was it the bad luck of biology, or did the God-knows-what that happened to her on Mackworth Island drive her crazy? A school friend of hers once told me how groups of boys would run Sharon down in the dorms at night like a wolf pack in order to pin her down and grope her, and this wasn’t something that only happened occasionally. For years, if you asked Sharon about anything improper that happened to her at the Governor Baxter School, all she would say is that once a housemother smacked her on the hand for no good reason. Press on to inquire about possible sexual abuse and she would adamantly contend that nothing like that ever happened to her. She doesn’t know about it happening to others, either, but these denials belie her sexual obsession.

Her story on that matter has changed slightly in recent months. When she was asked to write down anything abusive that might have occurred to her, she supplied three words before refusing to elaborate: "dorm," "principal," and most ominously, "sisterhood." Does a mystery like that lead to closure? Man, I hope so. I hope maybe someday.

It’s rumored that Dr. Kelly lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida, although some say Ireland. Wherever he is, Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a free man, sitting somewhere unperturbed. He may be thumbing through his old snapshot collection as you read this. But we cheered anyway as the flames consumed his old lair. The fire didn’t make up for anything, but when justice is elusive and imperfect, you have to hope that there is a reckoning somewhere other than on Earth. In that context, watching those roaring flames and imagining that they are the judgment awaiting Kelly someday, somewhere, was slightly satisfying, and when you’ve been marked by something as terrible as what happened to so many, for so long, on that lovely island, slightly satisfying is as good as it gets.

Rick Wormwood can be reached at rickwormwood@excite.com