By Jim Mullett

Every winter I can picture him. Skate blades cutting the ice as he glides across in front of me, stick held waist-high, not looking for a pass, just enjoying the freedom of his speed. On skates, nobody could catch him. I'm not sure what he was feeling. Maybe while he was out on the ice he thought he could outskate his problems.

It was 24 years ago, but I can still see the smile on his face, the pencil-thin moustache--the kind 15-year-old boys grow as they try to hurry manhood, the joy in his face as he easily carried the puck through the groping sticks of youths and adults alike. Nobody on that outdoor rink could touch him.

Soon the supper call would come, and typically he would carry the puck up the ice one more time--just one more free-wheeling skate. You knew he'd stay out there all night if you let him, gliding around, bobbing and weaving. For a brief few moments he was somewhere else, perhaps someone else--another place, another time.

But it was time to come in and get back to reality. For Steven, (not his real name), reality was a tough place to be, and in a very short while it would get even tougher. Many would argue, perhaps justifiably, that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

His victim and her family could understandably say Steven may even have it too soft. For all those who agreed, they could rest assured things would get worse. They would definitely get worse.

You see, Steven, a young offender, was a boy who grew up tough. By most standards he grew up in a nightmare. And it was still going on. Steven was a victim of sexual and physical abuse, and learned at a very young age that life to him would be a running gun battle to escape pain.

It was the kind of pain no pre or post-adolescent youth, or for that matter any adult should have to endure in two lifetimes.

To escape the pain Steven made some bad choices, not surprising considering he'd never seen a good choice made in his world.

He survived by one premise. Instead of suffering the twisted day-to-day mental and physical agony of abuse, he would create his own world. Like all other boys, he would get only one crack at childhood. I guess he felt it would be up to him to find some happiness. With that in mind, Steven started sniffing gasoline and solvents. It was his fantasy world, his shot at childhood happiness and freedom. The real world wasn't providing it.

And it was during one of those fantasy trips that he crossed paths, unfortunately with a girl from his school. So he raped her, cutting her blouse off with his knife. And when he was finished he gave her his hockey jacket, with his name on the sleeve and dropped her off at her doorstep. The bizarre scene could have been a date in the state of mind he was in.

The girl was of course, severely traumatized and probably required long-term intense therapy to overcome it. Steven, a danger to society and in serious need of help, was placed in a juvenile institution where he awaited trial for 10 months, after which he was transferred to an adult jail at the age of 16.

Being a ³skinner,² a jailhouse term for sex offenders, he required protective custody, a service provided by the prison and a kindly lifetime convict who probably couldn't believe his eyes when a fresh-faced, vulnerable young boy was dropped into his lap.

What was missing was the quality of therapy a young man victimized by childhood abuse required. He told me he'd seen a psychiatrist a few times, but the appointments were few and far between. After all, governments aren't known to spend a lot of people's hard-earned tax dollars on rehabilitation of criminals.

So Steven sat for the full five-year sentence, enduring I hear, constant sexual abuse while he was in there. And getting little or no help. So his state of mind and condition got worse.

Two weeks after Steven was released, he committed another rape. He was sentenced this time to 10 years.

I lost contact with him long ago. The severe damage from childhood on is probably irrevocable. Unless a miracle occurred, like intense therapy during the last sentence, I hope he never got out.

It's an incredibly sad story for both Steven and his victim. Somebody got their pound of flesh.