The Pain
With dainty step and golden, flowing hair, the morning tiptoed over the horizon; the night slowly withdrew to take up its constant sleep on the other side of the world. A rooster called the wake up time; a desert coyote howled in the distance. Its voice seemed one of yearning.
We all sat there together in a circle, on the floor of a prison that was once an old warehouse. It was somewhere off Interstate 10, in what used to be Las Cruces, New Mexico. Though the light was growing brighter outside, behind the walls and bars our faces were still dim as night. We'd been talking for hours, the 6 of us, unable to sleep on the cold concrete. For my sake, we introduced ourselves, discussed this and told that. Mostly we spoke about what had been, relived our memories of things lost.
The doctor, her name was Jane, had looked me over and concluded that in addition to my obviously missing front tooth, I had a concussion, several broken ribs, severe bruising, lacerations on my scalp that needed a few unavailable stitches, but no internal bleeding to worry about. "You took quite a beating, but you'll be alright," was her prognosis. Of course Mic had to follow up with, "until they kill you in a few days..." Jane was around my age, slender, with average looks, but her tenderness and personality gave her an allure. I liked it when she checked me for injuries. Her hands were warm and gentle. I almost felt the love in her when she put her ear to my chest to listen to my heartbeat. "Inhale. Exhale." In another life, I could have been happy with a woman like Jane. I could have stayed home and slept in on weekdays, written stories at my whim, done all the cooking and cleaning while she worked long shifts at the hospital.
As for the Indian, he still never said anything but "YES," but he knew when to say it, and from this one word, we knew he felt the same way we did. "This sucks," Mic expressed several times during our group conversation, in reference to our imprisonment, to which the Indian would always reply "YES."
As for the two gay lovers, one was named Jared and the other was Eric. I think Eric played the husband role and Jared that of the wife, but in any case, each called the other "partner." The two, I learned, were locals that had lived an openly gay relationship for 5 years before The Disease came. Jared had been a manager of a Chinese buffet and Eric had been employed at a local coffee house. They were simply victims of Stendhal's tyranny. There was no way for guys like Jared and Eric to live side-by-side with a radical Christian community that made its own laws. "At first, Stendhal just made us attend church," Jared explained. "But as his power and congregation grew, so did the intolerance. Before long, we were ordered to live apart, so we did. We had to if we were going to eat. Stendhal even gave us blessings. He put his hands on our heads in front of the entire congregation and expelled the ‘demons' from us. In the end, the church thugs came and got us and locked us up in here, for no apparent reason. We've been here for months and don't know what's going to happen."
***
"I don't know how you do it," said Jane.
"Do what?"
"Take a beating like that and then sit up with us all night, talking."
"No shit," said Mic. "It's like you were trained for this or something."
"I used to be a lawyer," I answered. "I've been married 3 times."
Light laughter erupted around our circle.
"Now there has to be a story behind that! Married 3 times?" asked Jane.
"If I'm tough enough to take beatings and cold enough to break so many hearts, my childhood must have done it to me."
"How so?"
"It's quite a story, but you'll all probably see me in a negative light if I tell it... You'll think I'm crazy."
"No, I want to hear it."
"Me too."
"And me."
"Yeah. Go ahead."
"YES."
"O.k. I know it is cliché to blame our parents for what we become, but some parents really do fuck their kids up. For me, it all started with my first memories. I remember sitting in my room at 4, no... 5 years old. I was being "PUNISHED," as my mother put it. For what? I can't recall, but I was locked up in my bedroom with the window shades down and the lights out. Darkness was mandatory. It was much like it is here. I didn't have any toys to play with because according to my mother, being PUNISHED was about not having anything. Perhaps the idea was that to fully contemplate our sins, we couldn't be distracted by things like toys. In fact, I wasn't even allowed to touch any pennies during those times. I might take them out of my piggy bank and line them up, pretend they were soldiers, or cars, or something like that. I didn't dare play with anything. One time, I took off one shoe during a PUNISHMENT session, and pretended it was a boat, so, my shoes were taken away. If I turned on the light, made a peep, or was caught playing with anything, I was immediately reprimanded with THE WOODEN SPOON. This involved having my pants and underwear pulled to my ankles so that my bare buttocks and hamstrings were exposed for beating. I still remember it always hurt the most when I tried to cover up with my hands. Taking THE WOODEN SPOON to the knuckles hurt like hell."
"Jesus, that sounds kind of tough," said Mic, "But lots of kids were spanked and given time out."
"That's true. But for me, it was a daily activity. When I started kindergarten, I went to school, came home, and inevitably, I'd do something to merit PUNISHMENT. And back I'd be in my room again, lights out, no toys, no pennies, just contemplation of my sins against my mother. But back to my first memories. I remember I was 5, sitting in my room. I held 5 fingers up in front of my face in the darkness and squinted at them. That was my age. Even at 5, it seemed I'd been alive for a very long time, an eternity. It seemed I'd already lived forever. I couldn't remember my birth, so I couldn't remember not being alive. I'd been alive forever, though I couldn't even remember my 4th birthday. I knew that by the age of 10, I'd still not be an adult. One of my cousins was 10, and he still lived with his mom and dad. To hold up 5 fingers, which had already been an eternity was bad enough. To then hold up all my fingers, all 10 close in front of my face, in that dark room, and to realize that I'd still be facing my daily confinement when my age had doubled... It was a horrifying moment. The silence rang loud in my ears. The depth of the emptiness, of my guaranteed long-suffering... It was as if I were frozen in time, in an abyss with no sides and no bottom. Looking at my 10 fingers held close to my nose in the darkness was like being swallowed by a behemoth."
I paused. Everyone just sat there listening, waiting to hear more.
"My second earliest memory is also from when I was around 5. The family was driving to K-Mart. My younger brother and I were in the back. He was strapped into a car seat. My mom and dad were in front. I was waiting for the opportune moment, because I'd planned an escape. For several weeks before, I'd paid close attention to how the childproof locks were set on the inside edge of the rear passenger door. I finally realized it was a simple switch that clicked into an up or down position. Up, the locks were on, so the door could only be opened from the outside. Down, and the door would open from both sides. The day we were going to K-Mart, when we were getting into the car, I'd gotten my chance. My dad forgot something in the house, so he went back inside for a minute. He left me standing there with the rear driver's side door open, waiting for him to return and buckle me in. My mom was looking forward, I think dialing the knob on the AM radio and my brother, being 2, had no idea what was going on. With a quick move, I flipped the switch into the down position. When my dad returned and buckled me in, he didn't notice the adjustment I'd made. All the way to K-Mart, I had a nervous feeling in my stomach. As soon as we pulled into a parking spot and the engine went off, I would bolt for freedom! I'd never be PUNISHED again! THE WOODEN SPOON would never bite into my ass cheeks or hamstrings again!"
"What happened next?" asked Eric.
"We pulled into the parking spot, the engine went off, and I opened the door and ran for it. My mom yelled to my father. ‘GET HIM!' I made it about 50 steps before my dad's heavy footsteps caught up to me and I was snatched up into the air, like a field mouse in a swooping hawk's talons. We drove straight home and my prize was..."
"THE WOODEN SPOON."
"PUNISHMENT."
"That sucks."
"YES."
"Didn't it all come to an end, when you got older?" asked Jane.
"It took until I was 13. When I was about 7 I decided to start fighting back. I started refusing to go to my room and simply took spanking after spanking. Sometimes blood was drawn when the skin on my ass broke open, but with perseverance it finally got to the point where spankings didn't work to send me to my room or keep me there. So my mother started slapping my face and using her fists on my body. By the time I was 8, my mom had hurt her hands so may times, and broken nails on me, she gave up trying to control me. At that point, I had all the free playtime I wanted after school, at least until my father got home from work. At 5:30pm every weekday, he'd arrive. My mom would tell him about all the terrible things I'd done, I'd take off running, he'd chase me, tackle me, usually on the kitchen linoleum floor, then hold me down. My mom would pull off my pants and that is when I started getting THE BELT. Shit, I can still hear that fucking bitch yelling ‘HOLD HIM DOWN!"
"But Johnny, what did you do to be punished every day?"
"My mom found any reason. It could have been a few points lost on a homework assignment, my showing up home from school at 3:22pm instead of 3:20pm, and if that didn't work, it was for rolling my eyes or making faces."
"What happened when you were 13?"
"I'd grown to 5'10", the same height as my father, and was 138lbs. My dad was 220lbs, but it was all fat. He never exercised. So, one day after he got home from work, my mom yelled ‘HOLD HIM DOWN!' I didn't run from my dad and let him tackle me, restrain me so my pants could be yanked down, my legs and ass exposed for the teeth of THE BELT. I turned and faced the cock sucker as he came at me, and gave him a good hard punch to the nose. His eyes watered, his hands cupped his face, and I turned the son of a bitch into a punching bag. I must have hit him 20 times. To this day I still feel no remorse. I have no empathy for him, seeing him fall to the linoleum in a mess of blood. He curled up there and cried like a baby for hours. My mom ran off to her bedroom in tears."
"God. You did that to your own father?"
"Yes."
"Didn't you help him?"
"Or say you're sorry?"
"No, I just stood there, over him, yelling at him at the top of my lungs. FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, YOU GOD DAMNED PUSSY! That will teach you to HOLD ME DOWN YOU COCK SUCKER!"
"Fuck, that's harsh," said Mic.
"YES."
Jane was quietly sobbing.
The other two just sat there silently, hanging their heads, holding hands tightly.
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