by Simon King
8.
As we came out of the school, I saw Royce’s police car sitting in the parking lot and began heading toward it. Home was around 3 miles out of town back then and my legs felt rubbery from the beating I had.
“Where do you think you’re goin’?” the big man said from behind me. I stopped to look at him but he was already walking the other way. “Think we’ll take a stroll.”
Eddie groaned inside my head as I turned back to follow him, not hurrying to catch up. The clouds were beginning to thicken overhead and looked bleaker towards the horizon we were now walking towards. This day would turn even pissier if we also had to walk around in the rain.
Royce must have slowed his steps because within a couple of minutes I found myself beside him, trudging slowly along the footpath, flanked by one of the tallest men in Cider Hill. I peered through the chain-link fence and could see faces watching us, or rather, me. Their beady eyes were wide with curiosity, hovering just above the bottom of the window as if trying to hide.
I saw a couple of girls raise their faces and poke their tongues out at me. One ran her finger across her throat while appearing to laugh. I looked down at my feet as we trudged along and tried to put push them from my mind.
“Move it. Want to get back sometime today, kid,” Royce said, grabbing a handful of my hair and dragging me a little forward. Why do people always know exactly where the sensitive hairs are? You know, the ones right down the back of your head?
“Sorry, Sir,” I said, trying to sound puffed, hoping that he’d cut me some slack, but there was no sympathy from him. He grabbed me painfully by the shoulder, digging his ridiculously long fingers into the flesh and yanked me forward a couple more feet.
9.
We continued towards home and eventually made it out towards the main road. The walk had been mostly in silence, the policeman whistling occasionally. It was the same tune, over and over again. He seemed to be smiling. Not just on his face but his whole demeanour seemed to be reflecting joy. He had a spring in his step, waving his arms as he walked, almost as if dancing.
As we passed the final few houses before reaching open road, my stomach began to feel an uncomfortable heaviness. It was then, as the final cottage passed by on our left, soft music reaching out to us through its open windows, that the policeman began to speak.
“So, you like chewing on ears?” At first, I didn’t know what to say. I tried to think of something, anything to answer him with, but then as he spoke again, realised he didn’t need me to reply. “You certainly have a decent set of teeth on you.”
The footpath was coming to an end and Royce stepped behind me, lifted me by the hair with one hand and hoisted me across the small gutter, setting me down on the road. The blinding pain that gripped my scalp was instant and hot; my hair feeling like it was being torn from its roots. The top of my head began to throb hard as I stumbled a little, kicked a large rock and fell hard onto my knees.
His hand now grabbed the back of my shirt, yanking me back to my feet as the buttons on my shirt exploded like a barrage from a machine gun, flying in every direction. Royce only laughed. When he saw my chest exposed, his laugh quietened, as if his brain had suddenly shifted its interest elsewhere.
We continued walking, my knees now feeling grazed and itchy. To say that I was uncomfortable would be like saying that ice-cream was a little chilly. I swear my arsehole was puckering nervous twitches with each step we got closer to home. I could feel his eyes on me, just staring at me from above.
I tried to avoid looking at him but you know when you try really hard not to do something? You tend to do it even more and every time I tried to steal a peak at him, I would see his black eyes just staring at me, one hand picking at a scab on his cheek.
10.
“Do you think your Daddy cares about you, boy?” he suddenly said, breaking the silence. We were approaching the Drummond Lane turn-off. Home was at the end of it, past Mr. McNally’s farm. There was only half a dozen or so houses on the entire road, the biggest of which was old Mrs. Taylor who still had cows running around her paddocks. The whole road was tree-lined with big gums and provided a good deal of shade in the summer when walking to and from school. A hand slapped the back of my head. “Speak, boy,” he snapped at me.
“Sorry, Sir. Yes, I think so.” He began to cackle, as if highlighting the absurdity of my answer.
“Why do you think he cares for you?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t have the answer for him and my stomach still had that nervous heaviness. I just wanted to get home and go to my room. Hopefully my father would be there and this prick could have a beer with him and then leave.
“Think we should ask him when we get home?” He laughed again, and something in that sound only served to strengthen my dread. “Think he’ll be home, Harry old boy? Think he’s really there?”
I looked up at him again and saw him grinning at me, his tongue wetting his lips, as if anticipating a cool drink. My chest tightened at the realization that this walk had been planned, in all likelihood, by my father. Each step forward was now taking me to whatever plans this man had made with him. Maybe they’d decided to finally get rid of me once and for all. “It’s amazing just how little money a drunk is willing to accept for just about anything, Harry. It’s almost a crime just how little.”
We were now passing old Mrs Taylor’s house, the final home before my own, its roof already visible above the trees now facing us over the small hill. His steps seemed to quicken a little because I started struggling to keep up with him. Every few steps he would either give me a hard shove that nearly drove me into the dirt, or he would grasp my shoulder painfully and drag me up beside him if I was falling behind.
I could see old Mrs Taylor sitting on her porch, a cup in her hands. She didn’t wave even though Royce did. She just sat there, staring as we passed her driveway, sipping her drink.
“Do you know why it’s so great to be a cop, Harry?” he suddenly asked. I shook my head, unsure of the question. His answer didn’t make any more sense, not then at least. But it made perfect sense shortly after.
“Because no-one polices the police.”
11.
From the second I opened the front door; I knew the house was empty. The silence that shouted out to me with contempt only proved to increase my fears further. As I walked through the door, I suddenly realized that for the entire time it took to walk home, Eddie had not spoken to me once. It was as if he had hidden himself, leaving me to deal with whatever was waiting for us.
The room suddenly grew dark as the sunlight was temporarily blocked as Royce stepped through the door. I turned to face him, ready for the prick to shoot me. He didn’t even bother closing the door behind him as he fumbled his pistol’s holster. I grew hot and sweaty, my bowels suddenly feeling cramped.
“Run on up to your room, kiddo,” he said and I didn’t need to be asked twice. For a brief moment, I actually believed he would simply turn and walk back out, leaving me be. I bounded the stairs with renewed hope. I didn’t hear him move and when I reached my room, slammed the door behind me, the house resuming its cold and silent mirage.
12.
“What’s he doing?” Eddie whispered to me. I stood perfectly still trying to hear any indication of Royce’s whereabouts, but there was nothing. I thought that he may have left and turned my head to look out the window. The road, what little I saw, was clear and empty as it ran away from the house and disappeared over the crest of the hill. I felt heat rise in my cheeks as beads of sweat now formed on my brow.
The only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat thumping away in my chest. The front door suddenly slammed shut and I jumped, the pulsing in my head going up another gear. But was he on this side of the door or the other?
“What’s he doing?” Eddie repeated and that was when the whistling began. It was low at first, the same tune I had heard him whistle before. I would later learn the name of that tune as “Fur Elise”, a classical piece. And then, as if to
confirm my worst fears, I heard the creak of the first step as he began to climb, his tune becoming louder and faster with each stair.
I started backing away until I hit the far wall, my bladder feeling painfully full. He continued climbing until I heard him reach the top and begin to walk towards my door.
“Haaarrrrrryyyy,” he sang in between his whistling, “time to do the time. You know the time? The crime decides the time, little rabbit.”
I began to shake with fear, backing up against the wall. I slid down onto my knees, then crawled towards the underside of my bed as Eddie began to sob in my head. My head had just managed to duck under the side rail when the door suddenly crashed open like a thunderclap. I made a frantic dive to pull my legs under but Royce grabbed one of my ankles to drag me back out.
“Where you goin’ little rabbit? Time to do the time,” he said again. I screamed and began to kick out wildly, my legs pistoning my feet out, driven by fear and panic. I felt one of my feet connect with the soft side of his face and although I heard him yelp, his fist connected with the side of my ribcage. It was enough to stop me, the wind forced from my lungs as the cracking magnified the shooting pain piercing my chest with every breath I tried to steal.
He pulled my head in front of his own until we were almost nose to nose, one big hand on either side of my face, his fingers painfully pinching my ears. I could smell the reek of his breath; musky and stale.
“Your Daddy asked me to give you a little attitude readjustment. You do the crime; you do the time.”
He suddenly twisted my head to one side, my body turning to prevent my head being twisted completely off. He then picked up my hands and forced them on to the window sill.
“If I see those hands move off of there, I will break your fuckin’ fingers. You understand me, rabbit?” he snarled into my ear. I nodded, the tears growing in my eyes now. Eddie was bawling his eyes out in some corner of our mind and I can’t say I blamed him. I was shit scared myself. James, I was just a kid, a 9-year-old kid and this fucker was about to cause me some serious pain.
“Don’t fuckin’ move” he whispered again and this time yanked my pants down around my ankles. I felt something wet probe my arse, it may have been his finger, and then push it inside. I cried out a bit but he grabbed a handful of hair and shook my head from side to side. “I said don’t fuckin move.” He let go of my hair, removed his finger from where I shit and grabbed my hips with both of his hands. I felt something large and blunt push against my arse again but this time it didn’t stop. It seemed to tear its way inside me, ripping me as he penetrated deeper and deeper. I remember screaming but I don’t know who screamed first; Eddie or me.
13.
That was the first time Royce Packard raped me. It wasn’t, however, the last time. I found out later that he was paying my father for the privilege. It became an almost weekly occurrence, Royce turning up when I was home alone; my father conveniently out getting drunk somewhere, while this fucker could do his thing to me. My rage continued to build with each rape, the cunt completely oblivious to the monster he was helping create.
Chapter 2
1.
My father was a very sick man. There’s no denying it. I knew what he was and despite everything he’d done to my mother and I, felt sorrow for him. He was a victim of his own creation, one that I had no escape from.
Although there were a lot of bad times growing up, there were also some good times. These good times were extremely rare, but when they happened, it made home feel just a little normal.
I remember sitting out on the veranda one afternoon, reading a book as my father was inside, sleeping off one of his late-night drinking binges. He must have awoken at some point and gone into the bathroom to wash up a little. Believe me, washing up and my father don’t belong in the same sentence, yet that’s what he’d been doing.
Anyway, the first I knew he was awake was when I heard his disgruntled scream coming from somewhere up on the second floor, followed by his heavy-set footsteps charging down the stairs. The door crashed open and my father stood on the decking for a moment, his braces hanging down. His face was only half shaved and he peered at me with those scorning eyes of his.
“Harry,” he snarled at me, “come help me.” He walked around the side of the building, jumped from the decking and walked towards the shed. I followed, unsure of what he needed. I do remember feeling that heavy dread in the pit of my stomach, sure that I was about to cop it again. But when he reached the shed, he grabbed his toolbox and beckoned me to follow him.
“Damn pipe’s leakin’. ‘Bout time we fixed it up,” he told me as we walked back towards the house. I followed him back into the house, my father and I about to do some genuine plumbing in the bathroom.
It wasn’t an all-day thing, maybe an hour at the most. But as sad as it is that a good memory of my father was nothing more than fixing a rusted-out pipe in the bathroom, it was also one of the few times I saw my father smile at me.
Every time he’d ask me for a tool, I found it and handed it to him, watching as he worked, lying on his back half inside the bathroom cabinet. At one point, he began to whistle, a tone I instantly recognized as the one Royce would sometimes bellow out. Despite the tune putting a dampener on the experience for me, he soon stopped, swearing as the wrench slipped, his knuckles slamming into the corner of the cabinet.
“GOD-DAM SON OF A BITCH!” my father bellowed, looking at his hand as bits of skin hung down, blood already weeping from where he skinned his knuckles. The wrench went flying and as he tried to stand, a fart screamed out of his arse, loud enough to sound like his pants had ripped. He stopped, looked up at me, then began to laugh furiously, forgetting about his wounded hand.
I laughed with him, cautiously at first, but let my walls down a little as I saw tears begin to stream from his eyes.
“Don’t matter the language you speak, son. A fart is funny in whatever tongue you use.” I didn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about, but that moment was one of the happy memories for me.
“What’s so funny?” a voice suddenly asked from behind us and I spun around to see Royce standing in the doorway, leaning against the side as if he’d been standing there the whole time.
He had a strange grin on his face, one I cannot describe, other than to say it looked as if he knew something we didn’t. The laughing stopped almost instantly, a strange silence descending over us. Even my father looked uncomfortable and I could tell from a single look at him that he was ashamed.
Our eyes met for the briefest moment, a mere second. That was all it took for me to see the shame in his eyes, and for him to see that I saw that shame. He swung his meaty hand at me, the back of it slamming into the side of my face.
“Pick up these fucken tools and get ‘em back to the shed,” he hissed at me. He then stood, took a final look at his handywork and walked out of the bathroom. Royce took one final look at me then turned and followed my father as I began to clear the floor.
2.
Time passed for us and although I wish I could say there were more good times than bad, there weren’t. Except for one. One major one. A moment that would forever remain as the only time my father ever made me feel like his son.
It happened the day after my 12th birthday. Isn’t funny how all these things always seem to happen around birthdays or other special days. Although there were no presents for me that day. The prick didn’t even wish me a happy birthday when he shuffled past me that morning. He did slap me painfully in the back of the head when I took the last slices of bread for my lunch. It was a school day and yet old Daddyo woke up with a bad case of booze temper. I swear he was still drunk.
“No school today. I need you to take a shovel to the old Windmill and dig a new rubbish hole. You make sure it’s big enough for all of it.”
Before my mum had died, my father would often be forced to dig a hole at some point on our property, a place to dump our household waste. Given that he hadn’t dug a single hol
e in all the years she was gone had meant the build-up of shit had never ended. It surprised me to be asked, but I figured maybe he wanted to clean up the place, something that made me happy.
I did as he asked, taking a shovel and walking the half a mile to where the old windmill stood. From this spot there was virtually no sign of civilization in any direction. The nearest home was through more trees beyond a ridge. It was a hot day and within an hour, had stripped off my shirt as the sweat flowed freely from every pore of my body.
After maybe three hours of non-stop working, I stepped out of a hole that sat almost 3 feet deep and at least 10 feet long. It was a couple of feet wide and I hoped that it would be enough. There was an old abandoned cart that sat a few yards from this spot, a relic from the previous owner. It had a busted wheel, but the tray was still in one piece.
I walked over to it, jumped up and sat with my legs dangling down. I then reached into my pocket and pulled out a prize I’d stolen from my old man. It was half a cigarette; one he’d stubbed out and left on the kitchen bench.
I straightened it, gave the end of it a rub and popped it in my mouth. It felt strange, the taste a little musty. But all the tough kids smoked and I figured it was time I did too. I pulled a book of matches out, snapped one off and struck it. The flame danced a little, no breeze to ease the heat. I let it lick the end of the cigarette and drew in, pulling the flame into it. I could feel the smoke fill my mouth and sucked it into my lungs.
The explosive coughing fit that erupted from my throat was painful, but not as painful as the low cackle I heard from somewhere behind me. I spun my head and saw Royce Packard leaning against a tree. He had a cigarette dangling from his own lips. His eyes were as dark as ever, eyeing me off with that same look he had during that very first walk we took.
“Steal that from your old man, Rabbit?” he said, pushing off from the tree and slowly walking towards me. “You know, I been watching you these last few months and I noticed something about you, kid. You’re gettin’ big.”