Here's the thing about lying. If I had just said, he tried to mug me, it would be common enough. But details like the knife are enough for someone to latch on to. The police would surly search the man and find his knife. The thought is, how would he (meaning me) know about the knife unless the story is true. The details about the sexual assault are slightly embarrassing to me. (or they would be if I actually possessed the ability to be embarrassed.) But, they would be much more embarrassing to someone who is clearly an angry homophobe. The thought here would be, why would someone tell a lie that would be even remotely embarrassing to himself?
The police came, and I filled out a statement. This was also a great opportunity for me to try out my new 'subtle cry.' I'd been working on it for a while. It's where you look like you are trying not to cry, but you let a few tears escape. It’s the most pathetic I think because it shows a not wanting of the embarrassment of the emotion, but that the underlying trauma is just too powerful to be contained. It's a difficult emotion to imitate, but I have to admit, I was spectacular.
The police offered to give me a ride home, and I made sure to take them in the direction of the old dive bar that the homophobe was in. He's probably been in there for long enough to get a few drinks in him. He didn’t seem like the 'light buzz' kind of drinker.
So when the car passed by, I banged my hand on the window and cried out, "That's him!! That's his car!!"
The cops put on their lights and parked right behind (oh, let's call him Jethro.) Jethro's car.
"Stay here!" One of them said as they both went inside.
It was maybe five minutes later that Jethro was being carried out by the two policemen. A crowd of really tough looking alcoholics came out to see what exactly was going on. I saw Jethro throwing an absolute fit when the officers told him what he was being accused of, and good ol' Jethro helped me out more than he knew by screaming out loud enough for his friends to here that he didn't "Touch that boys dick!"
Well, the crowd of bar patrons chuckled and pointed at Jethro. One even made kissy sounds as the police began to search him.
"Bingo." One officer cliché-ly announced as he pulled the switchblade out of Jethro's pocket. Jethro looked at me in the car with murder in his eyes. I kept my pathetic victims face, but allowed enough of a smile to shine through my eyes to let him know I enjoyed his predicament.
His murderous rage turned into an explosion of brutal wrath. He shoved one of the police officers to the side and tried running towards me in the back of the cruiser. The other cop tackled him and took him straight to the ground, holding him there while the other officer came in with a well placed knee to his ribs. Jethro's friends from the bar roared with laughter. They moved me out of the back of the squad car so they had a place to hold Jethro's while they waited for another unit to show up.
Now that they were booking him for assaulting an officer, I was able to tell them that I didn't want to press charges, that I just wanted to go home. They understood, but they were thrilled to be able to take Jethro away nonetheless. The other squad car showed up, and I climbed in for my free ride home. Jethro was screaming at the top of his lungs in the back of the squad car. His eyes met mine, and he tried to melt my face with his gaze. He calmed down enough to project pure hate through his eyes. He slowly shook his head in an 'I'll kill you' sort of way. As my squad car pulled away, I made sure he was the only one who could see me smile sweetly and give him the finger. He exploded again and actually kicked out one of the windows of his squad car. The last thing I saw as we turned the corner was the other two officers opening the back too to 'subdue' him once again.
But I got off point That's not the story I meant to tell. I was going to tell you about my 'second birth.' I was four years old, and for all intents and purposes, I was...normal. Our house was less than a block away from the beach, and my mother, father, and myself were returning from a sunset walk on the beach. The sun doesn't set over the ocean in Jacksonville bBeach, but the sky still changes in the most beautiful display of colors that reflect off of the water. The sand is no longer as hot as the surface of the sun, and a life changing breeze always blew off of the water and into every cell of your body. It was a beautiful time of day.
I was barefoot, and I distinctly remember the feeling of the soft squishy sand between my toes as we left the beach and moved onto the small road that was literally a stone’s throw from our front door. There was a big white van with tinted windows parked backwards in our driveway. My dad cursed something about 'townies' and grumbled his way through the yard.
'Townies' was the term for non beach dwellers. People from town who don't live at the beach, but they park in the driveways, in yards of residents, and don't take care of the beach like the locals do. They were not looked on fondly by anyone who actually lived there.
As we got to the porch, we realized that the front door was open slightly. We almost never locked it on our short sunset walks. The neighborhood was nice, and everyone looked out for each other.
"I must not've closed it all the way," my mom smiled.
I closed my eyes and faced the direction of the ocean. The salty smelling air filled my lungs and I inhaled deeply. I could still hear the waves crashing, and a dog barking off in the distance. This was always my favorite time of day. I closed my eyes let the sun burn into my face for one final second before turning into the house.
The lights were out, but there was still enough light from outside to see the whole living room. When I walked inside, I heard a loud and sudden "Crack" followed by the slamming of the front door. I jumped as high as my startled legs could and spun to the door where a man with pantie hose covering his face held my mother in a choke hold. Her eyes met mine, and even though I was too young to really understand the situation, her look was enough to turn my very soul to ice. She moved her eyes up from me, and I followed her gaze to my father who was face down on his hands and knees; staring at the floor. Bright crimson flowed freely from the back of his head and dripped over his ears and cheeks and pooled on the floor below him. His arms trembled. Whether from loss of blood, or terror, I don't know.
Another man with pantie hose covering his face had a wicked grin shining through his otherwise distorted features. He held a shotgun with both hands. He struck my father again with the butt of the gun. This time, instead of a blow to the head, he hit him between the shoulder blades, my dad went crashing all the way down to the floor. The man who struck him laughed, excitedly shuffling his feet back and forth like his own dance of anticipation over the gaping head wound he caused.
Then, a third man came out of the kitchen. His pantyhose mask was pulled up slightly so he could eat the chicken leg he took out of our fridge.
"You're home early." He said spitting pieces of chicken with each word. "But I think we can have some fun together..."
My mom screamed, and I turned around to see the first man still holding her in a choke hold with one arm, but his other hand was up my mothers shirt and squeezing her breasts. He laughed at how hard she tried to fight to get away.
I couldn't understand what was happening. I silently stood watching events unfold, and all I wanted was to be in my room away from all of this. So I ran. The chicken eater grabbed me by my shirt collar and pulled me back into the room.
"Sorry, champ." He said. "Can't have you running around the house while we play with mom and dad."
"Yeah, it's rude to leave when company visits!" The laughing man over my father chortled.
Then, the chicken eater grabbed my mom by her wrists and flung her to the floor in the center of the living room. He pulled his belt off in one quick movement and began to fumble with his pants.
The guy at the door protested. "No way, I'm first!"
"Fuck you," said the chicken eater. "You assholes get MY sloppy seconds!"
"That's bullshit!" The one at the door complained.
Then, my mother sat up, and in a feat of strength I had never seen, she punched chicken face right in
the side of the head. His melon rocked with the force of the blow, and he was temporarily dazed. At that same moment, my dad got his second wind and tried jumping up. Both rebellions were quickly squashed. My mother was punched square in the face, and her nose broke with a brilliant river of bright red blood. My father was kicked hard in the ribs, and then the shotgun was cocked. The cool steel up against his fresh still bleeding head wound must have been enough of an incentive to prevent another attempt at heroism.
Chicken breath shook off any remaining fuzziness from my mother’s punch and then smiled a smile that I will never forget. And know this...I have watched and studied people for so long, and I have become so proficient in reading people's expressions, that I can tell when a person is putting on a show, or genuinely feeling the expression they portray on their face...
The grin on the face of that carnivorous criminal was one of pure unabashed joy. He was exactly where he wanted to be, doing exactly what he wanted. He jumped on my mother like a lion onto an injured gazelle. He kissed her and didn't seem to mind the blood that flowed freely around and into her mouth. But it turned out my mom had more fight in her than he thought. She bit his lip hard. Hard enough to break skin and even pull a little bacon bit sized piece off.
"Bitch!" He screamed as he slammed her head into the floor twice to knock more of the fight out of her. But my mother still tried to claw at the poultry pervert. He batted her hands away with ease, but the look of annoyance on his face was apparent. He was shocked that someone, anyone, would keep him from his prize for so long.
"Would one of you assholes get the kid and motivate this bitch?!" He said with a level of irritation rising in his voice.
I didn't see which man grabbed me, but I was picked up and brought next to my mother. A hand that was big enough to grip my entire head turned my head towards my mothers face, and then I felt something cold and sharp against my throat.
I was frozen with fear and uncertainty.
My mother began to cry with a look of pain so great that I have yet to see it matched. What happened next was terrifying and confusing, and something that no child should have to see. With a knife to my throat, the three men took turns raping and beating my mother. Her cries went silent, and she kept whispering to me to close my eyes. Each time I did, I felt the blade on my throat take off another thin layer of skin. Behind me, I would occasionally hear my father stir, and then get beaten back into unconsciousness. The laugher of the men while they did this was so harsh and abrasive, that each cackle caused my body to convulse.
I wasn't sure what it meant at the time, but the third guy turned my mother over onto her belly and said, "Fuck if you think I'm goin' in the same hole as you fucks!"
The other two laughed and hooted.
My mother took in a deep sharp breath, and started to scream as he penetrated her. The chicken man grabbed me by the throat and thrust me into my mother’s face.
"Shut your whore mouth!" He spit through his teeth. At the same time, he slowly sliced open the side of my neck allowing my mother to see my blood. To be honest, I could barely feel it. He was squeezing my neck so hard that I couldn't feel anything. My mother cried silently, and whispered to me that she loved me. She promised me that everything would be okay.
When the third man "finished up", they each took turns kicking my mom until she passed out. They did a quick pass on the living; room smashing things that looked personal. They had taken some jewelry my mother kept in her underwear drawer, and they took her shredded panties from the floor beside her. And then, that was it. They laughed and snorted their way out the door. The last one out was the chicken man. He pulled the pantyhose off his head and gave me a wink. He was a very 'normal' looking man. He had short receding sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and sun damaged skin that looked like he spent his days on a boat. But that was it. No identifying scar. No strange tattoo. No unusual birth mark or anything that would allow me to give a decent description to the police. He was painfully...normal.
And then, I was alone.
I was just a little boy with his two unconscious parents who were leaking blood on our highly polished tile floors. I was scared. I couldn't exactly remember when it happened, but apparently I wet myself. After about an hour, my dad woke up and dragged himself to my mother to check on her. His tears left the floor just as wet as the blood from his fractured open brain bucket. My mother woke screaming and clawing at my father until she realized just who it was that was crying next to her.
"Get the phone..." Dad coughed. "...Call 911."
About ten minutes later, the neighborhood was sparkling with red and blue lights. All of the neighbors came out and looked on as my parents were put into the back of an ambulance. A very nice police officer let me ride in the front seat of his car as we followed the ambulance to the hospital. He looked panicked, and kept repeating,
"Your folks are gonna be alright, kid. Your folks are gonna be alright.”
He repeated it enough to let me know he was really trying to convince himself.
Once we got to the hospital, I told the policeman what happened in the house. Mom and dad kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time they would come to, they would relate bits and pieces of the story to the police, but really it was no more descriptive than my account.
My parents both healed...physically. They got divorced two years later. The worst of the damage happened long after the attackers left. People's minds are fragile and easily broken. My mom and dad grew apart quickly, and before you knew it, the marriage was as empty as my mother’s eyes. She lost her will to go on. My dad hated himself for not being Superman and having the ability to defeat three armed men who caught him off guard. He started to drink. He never got violent, but eventually, you could tell he just checked out.
As I finished my story, the dog stared at me with his mouth slightly open, his head still cocked to one side.
"Well, you little fucker," I said to him. "How's that for a bedtime story?"
The dog didn't move. He just looked at me with his lips slightly parted. Then, as if he was going to answer the question, or say something reverent, he took a deep breath in and opened his mouth a tiny bit more...and then he preceded to sneeze on my face. The cold combination of dog snot and spit coated my face, and when I opened my eyes, his head was cocked to the other side. I've always studied human emotions. I never cared to look at an animal, but at this moment, the fucking dog actually looked like he was smiling.
Using two fingers, I picked him up by the scruff of his neck and carried him across the room like he was a shit lined shoe. I dropped him on the floor next to the La-Z-Boy, and mumbled a string of curses under my breath. I walked back over to my blanket next to the fire, and by the time I laid down, he was on my pillow licking himself.
Realizing the futility of moving him again, I simply flipped my pillow, knocking him off in the process. I slammed my head into it as quickly as I could to prevent him from trying to overtake it again.
"Fucker..." I exhaled, as I pulled the covers up to my shoulders.
I think he realized there was no place on me to lay down, or shoot bodily fluids, so he curled up into a ball, and I could feel him in the small of my back. The last thing I heard before sleep overtook me was a small,tiny, squeaky...dog fart.
And that night, something unusual happened...I dreamed. I don't normally dream. When I do, it's usually just bits and fragments. Like watching a movie on fast forward with large chunks cut out. But that night, I did dream. It was more of a replay than a dream. I was remembering something that happened a long time ago, probably as a result of telling the little dog the story of my rebirth. But now, as I reflect on the events, the event of the attackers in my house was more of a conception than a birth. The event planted a painful seed. The birth... The birth was what I dreamed about.
I was a child again. The painfully average face of the chicken eater was all I could see when I closed my eyes. My mother's screams were all I could hear. I could smell the rich iron
laced blood of my father with every breath. My world was a constant agonizing struggle. I was so young, but I didn't want to go any further in this horrible life.
The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman Page 8