|
He
watched Anna leave. Small, needle sharp teeth of guilt worried at Benny. Face
creased in a bleak scowl, he flopped back on the army surplus cot. Sightless
and angry, he stared at the cobwebbed shadows in the high peak of the loft’s
ceiling.
Only
fifteen, his face set was in harsh planes, beginning the hard lines of a man
who bore life’s trials without complaint. He wasn’t the sort to back down.
Not from anything. Not from anyone. But if he dared defend himself, he’d be
arrested so fast . . . And the Project would have him again.
Accompanied
by the usual flurry of hiccups, fear settled on Benny, smothering his heart.
He grimaced and snapped off the old stereo. It had been his mom’s.
Geezus,
but what was his problem? During all the months, the years, he had spent in
children’s homes, the reformatory, and later, in that cathouse Leda sold him
to, he prayed desperately just to go home, to live like a family again with
his mother. Most of the time he doubted he would ever see her again. God, just
daydreaming of spending an hour with Mom felt like paradise when he was in
hell.
Funny
how Grampa was silent, a cold shadow.
“I
love you, Mom,” he whispered.
But
church was boring.
His
skin crawled with the shame. Everybody stared. They all knew what he went
through, been forced to do in the cathouse. Because Mom was their ala:tsi:s:do:lo:s:ki, their preacher-Sacred Person, they despised
him all the more.
Mom
said to make friends with their kids. Kids he would have grown up with, had
peers among, had things been different. Huh.
All the guys ever wanted to do was snicker about what it was like for him,
there in the Manse.
And
the girls? Man, if he so much as looked at their sisters the guys would
bluster and blow, and their fathers would run up and quick-march the girls
away, giving him looks that made him feel dirty and trashy.
“Dirty,”
he concluded bitterly, was what he felt like. None of that crap that happened
was his fault. Why did people act like that? Evil, like old man Ryan, it
seethed and destroyed. And the people, the ani,
they weren’t much better, acting spiteful because he was Ana:Grey-Wolf’s
son.
Hell,
him and Carl, they were clean. Lawyers and courts decided that. Witnesses,
those not frightened off by the Treasury Department, the Feds, and the Project
that ran the Manse, they all said so.
Docs,
even the shrinks - well . . . shrinks are shrinks are weird - and a bunch of
others all said him and Carl were clean, too. No SIDS. Though he seemed
unaffected by the horror of being enslaved by the Project, the shrinks said it
all had given him a complex, and per- per-
Benny
scowled. His face scrunched up, deep in thought.
Predisposed.
Yeah. A predisposed thing towards
violence. Kidnapping him, because of the Project wanting his kids,
prostituting his and other hosts’ services at the Manse as a front for
covert operations. How many men and women did they bring as a cover? How many
died there. All because they wanted to keep him a secret from outsiders.
“Huh.”
Geez,
Carl suffered, definitely, but he suffered worse. The horror of it all, of the
chains and guests and the ultimate knowledge of what the Project really was,
all should have driven a Wy:O:Ming like him over the livin’ edge.
He
grabbed his crotch and spat at the floor. Baby
maker. Just ‘cause he could move in and out of the Forest, the nuts
running the place thought he had ESP or something.
Shoot. He threw his hand behind his head and groaned.
Just because he liked to mess around with spirit junk, and the spirits did
stuff for him, that nutty old Gracie Hylnn bought him and made him whore. To
soften him up, she claimed.
The
better to eat you, dead Benny.
Cold
and bitter, he uttered a chilling laugh. Old lady Hylnn was the perfect dog.
“A
real living bitch. Def’netly.”
Benny
grinned all the way back to his molars. Shrinks. Doctors and their needles.
Cops. Judges. Courts and bars and jails and god-like attitudes.
Justice
for all. Unless you were poor. And a red-nigger.
And
looked it.
His
gazed wandered aimlessly over the ceiling. A water stain was beginning to
show. There, on the east slope. Carl was going to re-roof the whole place. Him
and ol’ Papa Bear. They were going to tear off the cheap tin and replace it
with good slate cut from an outcropping Uncle Charlie used.
Benny
punched savagely at the air. He flopped over and tried not to cry. “Damn
Leda. Mom’s wrong. Nothing ever just worked itself out.”
In
the reformatory, ‘Gladiator School,’ the boys called it, it never did.
Sometimes a little violence stopped a whole lot of pain. One push in the right
direction and bam, no more problem.
Teeth
bared, he stilled his racing heart and slipped away into the quiet place, the
Forest of the Sun.
It
was like feeling music, living the scent of a rose. In the back of his head,
Grampa Waya scowled.
He
swam upwards through warm and gentle waters, the amniotic fluid of the spirit
world.
Wary,
Benny stooped behind a clump of vines. He really shouldn’t be here, because
it was where God lived, and . . . and he had this thing against God, man.
It
was called Life.
Benny
slid through the luxuriant growth of a wild tangle of grapevines, the grapes a
crisp blood-ripe and the size of golf balls. He eased through the pristine
Forest, ran laughing and free over tall hills and wide glens. Finally winded,
he came to a clearing where several white tail deer grazed or nibbled on sweet
fruit hanging from the bushes and vines.
A
buck, horns still ragged with velvet, jerked his head up to snort a warning at
Benny.
Then
they fled, moving like brown lightening through brush and trees.
“Stupid
jerks. No-body’s going to hurt you
up here.” He thumbed his nose at them and at the Dalonega
throne, then squared his shoulders with cool pride.
Yo,
but he missed coming here.
Used
to be him and Carl and Chris -
Benny
spat on the soft, sweet grasses. Dammed cathouse. That was where the
Eagle:Woman used him to lead the other whores to this place. Gave them hope,
She said.
How
much hope did that give bro-Chris? Buried under the shit-heap. Old man Conners,
if Conn was alive and kicking such as yet, was in Philly. No, Conn was still
in prison for his part in running the Manse. That was why the Infant Twins
from Hell, like Carl called them, were living with Aunt Mara and Uncle
Charlie.
The
girls had a motto, ‘Show No Mercy.’
They lived it. Benny shuddered. Compared to the girls, Cindy and the Project
were punks. The only thing those Alabamans respected, feared,
was the speed in which their ‘Unca’ Cahl,’ Papa Bear, paddled their
butts. One false move, and even their beloved Unca’ Carl was a dead man.
Maybe
Conn was lucky to be in prison after all. Y’know, for a whoremaster, the old
dude was okay, adopting the demon twins like that. What the girls needed was a
good exorcism. Too bad the Project had Conn nutted. And poor Turk. Benny felt
queasy. None were dead yet, but Turk and Conn might as well be. And the creeps
at the Project got clean away with it.
‘Cept
for the Arab, kid.
Not far from Benny, Grampa Waya growled a cold chuckle.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
|
