by Jason Parent
“It’s too hot! Please, Father. It’s too hot!”
She tried to stand, but Father grabbed a handful of her hair and drove her back down. Her rubber soles slipped along the tub floor, and she slid down into the water. It turned her exposed skin a deep red.
The tub continued to fill. Tessa continued to scream.
Chapter 3
Michael Turcotte unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his jeans, and let them drop around his ankles. He glanced behind him at the seat, hoping it was clean. He saw no streaks or nasty liquids. Normally, he would paper it three times over, but he had no time for daintiness. His cheeks were clenched tighter than a nun’s legs. He hastily pulled down his boxers and lowered himself onto the toilet seat.
School was the last place a small fish like Michael wanted to let loose. The bigger fish were always circling, targeting the weak and the helpless. He couldn’t think of another place where he felt so vulnerable, so exposed. But sometimes, it just couldn’t be helped, so it was best to do it as quickly and as silently as possible.
The restroom had been empty except for one boy, another freshman named Jimmy Rafferty. Jimmy had made eye contact with Michael as he entered, nodded, and let out a sigh of relief when he had seen that Michael wasn’t a threat. From the entrance, the urinals were on the right, the sinks on the left, and the stalls along the back wall. Jimmy had hurried to finish his business at a urinal—Michael assumed for the same reasons he was in a hurry—and had headed across Michael’s path to wash his hands as he shuffled toward a stall.
Michael squirmed on the throne, waiting for Jimmy to exit the restroom. He feared that if he let his bowels loosen, he would release a booming burst of wind as last night’s supper exited his colon. As a high school freshman in an unfamiliar school, he was only beginning to develop his identity within his class. The last thing he needed was to be known as the loud farter or something equally stupid. So he clenched his cheeks a bit longer, hoping Jimmy would hurry.
The restroom door creaked open. Assuming it was Jimmy leaving, Michael started to relax. He listened for that wonderful sound of the door closing, leaving him in blissful solitude.
“Excuse me, Glenn,” Jimmy said, his voice trembling.
Not Glenn. Michael leaned forward and checked the lock to the stall. All that stood between him and the worst bully Carnegie High School had to offer was a cylindrical metal latch secured in a flimsy rusted casing. He lifted his legs, hoping to make himself invisible to anyone peeking under the door. Then, he closed his eyes and prayed.
Please, God. Not now. Not when I’m like this.
Michael hadn’t yet fallen victim to Glenn’s cruelty, but he’d seen it go unpunished nearly every day at lunch. He knew his time would come sooner or later, but he would have given anything for that time to be anytime other than the present.
“That’s Mr. Rodrigues to you, shit for brains.”
Ugh. Michael recognized that burly voice. Glenn was bad enough alone, but with his posse, he gave new meaning to the term “mean-spirited.” And Robbie Wilkins, the voice’s owner, put might behind Glenn’s malevolence. A sophomore whose growth spurt had hit early and never stopped, Robbie was all brawn and no brains, easily manipulated muscle. His size alone made him ripe for enlistment as one of Glenn’s henchmen. His unquestioning loyalty made him a vicious puppet.
“I got this, Robbie,” Glenn said. “You just stick to what you do best.”
“So what’s the plan for this punk? Make him lick the toilet? Eat a pube? They don’t call those things urinal cakes for nothing. Who doesn’t like cake? You like cake, don’t you, you little motherfucker?”
And there’s the third. With Glenn and Robbie, Ryan Taylor was never far behind. Like Glenn, Ryan was a junior but much smaller, 105 pounds fully clothed and after Thanksgiving dinner. Without his partners in crime, Ryan wasn’t much of a threat—all bark, no bite. Michael never understood how Ryan had made it into Glenn’s gang; his wickedness was his only noticeable contribution.
“This freshman’s taller than you, Ry,” Robbie said.
“Yeah? What’s your point, meathead?” Ryan asked.
“I’m a meathead? Your mother gives my meat good head.”
“Okay, okay, settle down, boys,” Glenn said. “You’re scaring our new friend here. You don’t have to be scared of us, kid. We were just teasing. What’s your name?”
Glenn’s friendly act wasn’t fooling Michael. He doubted it was fooling Jimmy. His classmate was in some serious trouble. He had broken a cardinal rule: always call Glenn “Mr. Rodrigues” or “sir.” Freshmen learned that even before they learned who their teachers would be.
Michael wondered how Jimmy could have messed up so badly. His heart bled for his fellow freshman. He put his feet down and started to rise when he noticed he was shaking. Ashamed, he sat back down. Jimmy was on his own.
Without Glenn, the gang was a snake without its head, no better than a band of mindless thugs. Glenn was the real threat. He was smart and could have had a bright future had he not wasted his intelligence on developing ways to torment those weaker than him. A delinquent with a soul blacker than night and a conscience empty enough to turn a blind eye to his every evil inclination, Glenn was the bane of all underclassmen. With shifty eyes and a sinister grin lined by sporadic stubble, he would dole out punishment indiscriminately.
And it was Jimmy Rafferty’s turn to be punished.
Frail and nerdy and a ginger kid to boot, Jimmy had taken enough abuse from his own classmates, the usual high school hazing. But the hazing Glenn applied was never of the usual variety. Jimmy was defenseless against the brutes who harassed him in the bathroom. Michael wanted desperately to help him, to muster all his courage and rush to his classmate’s aid, to face might with might without consideration of the consequences.
But there were always consequences, and Michael couldn’t ignore them. He was scared. Any help he offered would only redirect Glenn’s wrath toward him. Right or wrong, Michael wasn’t prepared to face that wrath. Feeling low, he sat quietly and did nothing, hating himself for it.
“Well?” Glenn prodded. Some of the pleasantness had retreated from his voice. “I asked you a question, kid.”
“J-Jimmy… sir. Mr. Rodrigues, sir.”
“Well, Jimmy,” Glenn said loudly. “Nice to meet ya.” He laughed, the kind of laugh that seemed touched by insanity. Michael didn’t know if it was genuine or if Glenn was merely being theatrical. Either way, the sound sent shivers down his spine.
“Now, J-J-J-Jimmy,” Glenn continued. “You do know that it is polite to address your elders as ‘sir,’ don’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Rodrigues, sir,” Jimmy said, his voice breaking. Michael could almost feel his trembling. “It won’t happen again, sir.”
“That’s right. It won’t.” Glenn’s easy tone was misleading, the calm before the storm. “Robbie, put him in the urinal.”
“Sure thing,” Robbie answered. “Sorry, kid. This ain’t your lucky day.”
Michael couldn’t see much. His vision of the happenings outside his stall was limited to vertical slivers where the door was hinged to the stall’s left wall and at the opposite side of the door, where it latched into the stall’s right wall. Through this latter crack, Michael saw Jimmy backing toward the sinks. He looked ready to wet himself. Michael almost laughed when the thought crossed his mind that at least Jimmy was in the right place for it. Guilt immediately followed.
Robbie came into view, his face void of emotion. Jimmy shrank between two sinks.
“No.” He held his hands up in front of him.
Robbie grabbed Jimmy’s shirt at the shoulder, stretching out the collar. Jimmy sank deeper between the sinks. The oversized brute was too big to squeeze in after him, so he crouched and reached underneath the sinks for Jimmy’s legs. Jimmy kicked but only succeeded in making his leg easier for Robbie to grab.
Robbie dragged him by his ankle across the filthy floor. The vultures circled.
Fight them, you idiot. Stand up for yourself. Michael wanted to believe the world was ideal, that if Jimmy proved himself brave and virtuous, some karma god would see justice done. But Jimmy didn’t even try to flee, much less fight back. He seemed resigned to his fate.
Robbie stood over Jimmy. He bent over and jabbed his meaty hands into Jimmy’s armpits, then scooped up the smaller boy as if he were as light as a doll. He turned and carried him beyond Michael’s view out of the door crack but reappeared a second later through the hinge crack on Michael’s left, still carrying Jimmy toward the urinals. Repulsed, Michael watched as Robbie pressed Jimmy’s back into a urinal. Ryan ran over to them and flushed the urinal repeatedly, sending waterfall after waterfall down the back of Jimmy’s shirt. Glenn watched, never so much as getting a finger dirty.
Jimmy looked sheepish, defeated. Michael hoped the kid wasn’t about to cry. Crying would make things worse for him. Robbie remained quiet, robotic, while Glenn and Ryan laughed hysterically.
“Enjoy the rest of your day, freshman,” Glenn said. “And remember, if you tell anyone who did this to you, you’re dead.”
Robbie released Jimmy, who bolted for the door. His sneakers squeaked and squished with every step. Michael heard a muffled thump, followed by a yelp from Jimmy and more laughter from Ryan. Michael guessed the bastard had kicked Jimmy on his way out.
“Jerks,” Michael muttered. He slapped a hand over his mouth. Stupid.
The bathroom went eerily silent. Michael’s anxiety caused his bowels to loosen. He could no longer hold in what needed to come out. His fecal matter hit the water with a plop and a muted splash. A few footsteps approached the stall. Michael froze more solid than a glacier. Silence returned, and for a moment, he tried to believe he was safe.
With a violent crash, the stall door swung open. It slammed into his knee, and Michael winced as sharp pain shot through his leg. When he looked up, Glenn was glaring at him. The smile on Glenn’s face spoke volumes. More pain would come.
“What do we have here?” Glenn asked. “Another victim?”
Michael’s rage boiled over. “Screw you!”
“So, the dog bares his teeth,” Glenn said, his smile widening into a thin curl. “But does he have any bite?”
Robbie loomed behind him, blocking the light and the exit. Michael couldn’t see Ryan, but he knew he was there somewhere, waiting for his turn to strike.
The evil thoughts forming in Glenn’s brain played out upon his face. Cornered and half-naked, Michael had nowhere to go. He reached for his jeans’ waistband, but Glenn got to it first. He yanked Michael off the seat. Michael flailed his arms as he was dragged partly out of the stall. His fingers slid along the walls, grasping for anything to hold on to but finding nothing. His tailbone hit against the hard tile floor, the pain sending nausea into his gut.
“Robbie, help me lift him,” Glenn said.
Before he could so much as kick in protest, Michael was hanging upside down, his head hovering over the bowl. His own shit and piss stared back at him. He squirmed with Robbie’s arms wrapped tightly around one of his knees and Glenn’s arms secured around the other.
Ryan crouched and put his mouth so close to Michael’s ear that his breath stirred the hairs behind it. Michael swung his head sideways, trying to head-butt him, but he only managed to graze Ryan. Still, Ryan fell against the stall, a minor but not insignificant success. Michael could at least say he tried to fight, even if it did him no good.
Ryan returned, and he looked pissed. The slap he gave Michael’s cheek stung, but it hurt his pride more than anything. I bet that’s the best he’s got.
Robbie let go of Michael’s leg with one hand and reached for the toilet lever. Michael’s level remained steady; Robbie needed only one arm to support his weight with ease.
“Leave it,” Glenn said. “This one needs to be taught a lesson.”
Robbie’s hand lingered on the lever for a moment. Perhaps even a mindless deviant could show some compassion. Glenn was going too far. His lackey had to know it. Michael couldn’t imagine anyone else being as vile as Glenn. But if Robbie had internally debated the action, Glenn’s command won out. His hand returned to Michael’s leg. The toilet remained unflushed.
“You shouldn’t have done that to Ryan,” Glenn said. “You may have only ended up with some wet hair. Now, we need to make sure you understand your place at this school, freshman.”
Michael stretched out his right hand, reaching for the handle, but it was just out of reach. If only his arms were a little longer, he could save himself a ton of humiliation.
“Ryan, lift the seat,” Glenn said.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Ryan said.
Glenn and Robbie raised Michael over the back of the toilet, clutching his knees with powerful grips. Without warning, Ryan backhanded Michael, temporarily stunning him. When his mind settled, the toilet seat was up and his head hovered inches above the water. No longer able to see the lever, his hands searched for it blindly. But Michael was disoriented. He had missed his opportunity to flush.
“Dunk him,” Glenn said.
“Are you sure?” Robbie asked. “It’s kind of—”
“Dunk him,” Glenn commanded.
Michael clamped his hands around the rim in a vise grip. In a sort of assisted handstand, his body weight bore down on his wrists as Glenn and Robbie loosened their holds.
“How long do you think he can hold himself up?” Ryan asked. He obviously found amusement in Michael’s struggles. The thought filled Michael with hostility, and with it came greater strength.
“Three more seconds,” Glenn said, chuckling.
Michael’s muscles were already straining. The athletic pose was not one to which he was accustomed. He managed to hold it for another ten seconds before his arms started to shake. He’d outlasted his own expectations, and he didn’t want to give up, but his body no longer wanted to cooperate. Slowly, he descended. His hair dipped into the foul water. Then his forehead went under. He closed his eyes, defeated and full of hate.
When his nostrils were submerged, Michael couldn’t keep the putrid filth out of them long. Soon, they filled, and unwilling to open his mouth, he couldn’t breathe. Doing so would only have offered him minimal relief, since his mouth soon followed the rest of his head into the depths. His heart raced faster than a car in the Indianapolis 500. Panic made it harder to hold his breath. He wanted to scream. He wanted to be free. He even wanted to kill.
When he heard the toilet flush, Michael thought that at least his horrible circumstances would soon come to an end. The water swirled and rose around him. But the water stopped rising somewhere near the bottom of his neck, and it didn’t recede.
A clog? The thought sent Michael spiraling toward hysteria. He needed oxygen desperately. If they didn’t release him soon, he would pass out, or worse, suffocate and die. And he would die before he swallowed what was in that bowl. Like a worm dangling from a hook, Michael wiggled frantically.
Something inside him snapped. Like a film reel spinning absently after the credits, Michael’s mind went blank. He was swallowed by emptiness, a great big expanse of nothing, a cold, dark place where bad things hid. A flicker of light like a candle’s flame burning faintly in the distance beckoned him out of the dark. The light filled him with peace and warmth as it grew bigger, brighter. Then it was too big, too bright, like wildfire raging toward him. It barraged his senses: tastes, sounds, smells—all foreign. A world painted itself into existence around him.
Somehow, he had been transported away from Glenn and that godforsaken toilet. He wondered if maybe he had drowned. He was surprised the thought didn’t bother him all that much. Any place was better than that bathroom. Even death was preferable.
As if from far away, he heard a door slam against a wall.
>
“Put him down!” someone shouted.
Michael felt his body being lowered, Glenn’s hands tight around his ankle, yet he saw himself standing somewhere else, his surroundings vaguely familiar. The rank water was already becoming a distant memory.
“You scumbags.” The second voice—so faint, then gone—had sounded like Jimmy Rafferty’s.
Michael no longer cared about the people of the real world. His mind had traveled far away from that abysmal bowl. His body seized. Cold and wet, he twitched on the bathroom floor. For better or worse, his mind embraced the detailed canvas of his thoughts.
Chapter 4
Michael stares blankly at the back of an open locker. An Avenged Sevenfold poster gazes back at him. He stands in a corridor lined by rusty aluminum lockers, their barricade broken by the occasional classroom door. He knows the corridor well—the west wing of Carnegie High School.
The locker before him is his. The poster is a remnant from a previous occupant. He likes the rock band, so he decided to keep it. The bottom half of the poster is hidden, blocked by books and notebooks piled in no discernible order. A few extra pens and a box of granola bars sit alongside the stack of books.
He glances at the digital display on his iPod: 12:54 p.m., October 14. His lunch period is almost over. Michael has six minutes to reach his algebra class on the opposite side of the school. He grabs his math and history textbooks, their corresponding notebooks, and a granola bar and throws them into his backpack. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Michael shuts his locker and mentally prepares himself for another dull afternoon of class.
As he heads toward what will undoubtedly be another round of Ms. McCormick’s overzealous selling of the applications of the Pythagorean Theorem to everyday life, his backpack seems unnaturally light on his shoulder. No, Michael himself seems lighter, as if gravity has decided to give up its normally relentless bullying. He thinks he could float to class if he wished, his feet making no sound as they move into the hallway traffic. But his own lightness somehow seems to make the atmosphere heavy.