by Frank Zafiro
Slightly more surprising was that so did his mother, even though she was there. She tried to make up for her forgetfulness several days later. She took him to McDonald’s for a cheeseburger and then to the movies. Together, they sat in the darkened theater and watched E.T., the Extraterrestrial. She even bought him popcorn and a soda.
More importantly, she wasn’t being mean to him.
That part lasted the entire movie and until they made it out to the parking lot. In the car on the way back to the apartment, though, she noticed that he’d wiped his buttery fingers on his jeans. Her hand whipped out and caught him alongside his head, accompanied by harsh words about how he “never took care of his things” and how he “ruined everything he touched.”
He clenched his jaw and said, “Yes, Mother.”
At home, he tried to slip away to his room and lose himself in a book. But she caught him first. Reaching out with her thumb and forefinger, she gripped the tender skin under his chin and pinched. This was even worse than the slaps. If he tightened the muscles that ran under there, her finger pinch turned into a finger-nail gouge, followed up with a slap to the head.
“Don’t think you can just run and hide,” she carped at him. “That’s all you ever do, is read your stupid books. You don’t know how hard it is to be a single mother and to try to keep this house in order.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Oh, get out of my sight,” she told him. “You disgust me.”
He fled to his room. The book he was reading now concerned a boy who was thirteen and going through changes. The boy discovered things about girls that Jeffrey was just starting to be interested in. Beyond that, things were happening to that boy that were also happening to Jeffrey. The one that worried him the most until he read about it in this book was that sometimes he woke up in the night and realized he’d wet the bed. At first, he was horrified because of the difficulty he used to have with wetting the bed and wetting his pants. But this was different than pee. Instead, there was less of it and it was sticky. The boy in the book called them “wet dreams” and he always had them when he thought about his best friend’s sister. Jeffrey couldn’t always remember what he’d been dreaming about, but the times that he did remember were confusing to him. Sometimes, he knew he’d been dreaming about the sounds that the strange woman made in the living room when his father was laying the whammo on her. Other times, he knew he’d been dreaming about his mother, though he couldn’t remember what happened in the dream.
Eventually, he learned that he didn’t have to be asleep or dreaming to make those things happen. He could think about things, touch himself and after a while, there was a wonderful feeling, followed by that same wet, sticky stuff. He marveled at what a wonderful secret he’d discovered. He wondered if anyone else knew about it, but he instinctively knew to keep it private.
All of the changes in his body that made him think that maybe when his father came home again, he’d talk to him differently when he saw that he was becoming a man. He’d grow big and strong. Maybe he’d join the Army and even though that would make his father angry, he’d get over it when he saw how tough Jeffrey was. He’d show him. He’d lay the whammo on lots of different girls. He didn’t know how many it would take before his father would love him, but he knew that if he did it enough, eventually he would.
February 1985
High school was a nightmare on all fronts. He’d hoped he’d grow out of his troubles, but they only evolved along with him, taking on different slants and hues but finding him all the same.
His retreat into the library was a permanent one. He graduated from hiding in the stacks of books, to working as a library aide and an audio-visual aide. Returning books to the shelves and setting up film projectors occupied his time. More importantly, it kept him flying underneath the radar of some of the school’s biggest bullies. He still took his share of casual barbs, as well as enduring the occasional act of intimidation. But he’d discovered a truth at home that carried over to his school experience.
He could handle it.
It would pass.
When they called him a name, he didn’t react. He just waited until they got bored and moved on. Whenever some jock or head-banger knocked his books from his hands, he merely knelt down and picked them back up. Did he get angry on the inside?
Oh, yes. He fucking seethed. But he learned to hide it. He learned to put it away for another day. A day would come when he’d get his revenge. He realized now that it might not be until he came back to the twenty-year reunion as a wealthy success that could buy and sell every one of the loser assholes who thought they were so much better than him, but his time would come. He’d roll into town in an expensive car with a big-tittied blonde trophy wife on his arm. Everyone would try to remember what he’d been like in high school, but all they’d be able to think about would be the nice car and nice rack in front of them.
All the girls in school would be jealous, too. They’d be sorry they didn’t get their hooks into him when they had the chance. Every one of them, especially the ones he thought about when he touched himself, would wish they wouldn’t have been such stuck up bitches.
Still, he knew that was years away. That didn’t make it easy to bear things, but it made it possible. He read books about anything and everything, learning everything he could while working in the library and hating every minute of high school.
Home was worse. His mother seemed to grow harsher each passing year. She had him doing all of the housework, even including her laundry. Her thin fingers still found their way under his chin for that demeaning pinch. “You can’t do anything right, can you?” was her favorite refrain.
She’d taken to walking into his bedroom without knocking. He didn’t know why she did that, other than the fact that she seemed to delight in watching him scramble to cover his erection and hide the fact that he’d been dreaming of girls at school and revenge. She’d order him out of bed to complete some mundane task like taking out the kitchen garbage, then stand there and watch him squirm while he made excuses to delay things long enough for his erection to subside.
Other times, out of the blue, she seemed to refer to his activities when she told him he was “still a dirty little boy.” He pretended not to understand as embarrassment and shame swallowed him whole.
His father’s visits grew more infrequent and more intense. His parents would usually drink together, which devolved into a fight without fail. Either they’d end up in the bedroom or his father would storm out. Sometimes he just didn’t come back. Those were Jeffrey’s favorite times. But often, he did return and never alone. He brought women home with him, turning the living room into a sexual playground. Jeffrey was at once attracted and repelled when this happened. He lay in bed and listened to the voices and the sounds of sex in the living room. Excited, he found himself masturbating furiously to the noises, then lying in bed afterward, full of shame.
The next morning, no one left their bedroom until his father roused the woman and sent her on her way, although Jeffrey sometimes sneaked out to get a look at his father’s conquests. He felt a strange sense of pride while hating him for it at the same time.
Other times, his father felt the need to assert his alpha wolf status. Despite Jeffrey’s efforts to avoid him and not to offer any affront, it required very little drinking before his father took offense at some slight, real or imagined. Then he was called into the living room, where he stood at attention to be berated and slapped. This worked into his father theorizing that Jeffrey thought he was “tougher than the old man.” He’d challenge Jeffrey to “take his best shot,” demanding it until he reached the conclusion that Jeffrey was “too much of a queer little pussy” to do so. “Get out of my sight,” he’d bellow at Jeffrey. “You make me sick.”
Rarely, though, and for some reason he had never been able to pinpoint, the three of them were able to co-exist in an easy, quiet truce. Jeffrey read his books in his room while his parents drank slowly and watched television. On these days, he
was able to escape the house and go to the library.
Sometimes, he’d take his books and go to the mall where he’d watch the same bitchy girls from school ignore him there, too. But he’d pretend to read his book and stare that their bodies. He’d imagine tearing the clothing off of them. He saw their surprise at how tough he was, what a man he was. As that realization seeped into their eyes, he knew that his father was right about what every woman wanted deep down inside. So he imagined laying the whammo on them. If they didn’t cry out with enough passion, he’d punctuate matters with a good slap upside the head.
He stored those thoughts and the sights of the girls at the mall for when he returned home at night. Lying in bed alone, he’d recall them over and over again. He obsessed and studied and dreamt and watched and masturbated.
His day would come.
He knew it would.
June 12, 1987
High school ended on a Thursday. He left just like it was any other day. Only the librarian, Mrs. Bryant, wished him a happy summer. He thanked her, wishing he could spend it with her at the library, but knowing he’d be spending as much time as possible at the public library or at the mall, looking at girls. Still, the librarian’s farewell reminded him oddly of his kindergarten teacher, Miss Reed.
He wondered about Miss Reed as he walked toward home. Did she still teach? Was she even Miss Reed anymore, or did she marry some guy and change her name? He imagined she probably had. Looking back, he decided she was fine looking. Someone would have come along and snagged her.
Strangely, the thought made him feel betrayed. She’d been so nice to him, but he imagined that she had probably been faking it all along. Women were generally traitors, at least as much as he could tell based on the one he lived with. He wondered if Miss Reed made fun of him to the other teachers after he left for the day. He saw her getting together in the teacher’s lounge and telling all the other teachers shitty things about him. Anger brewed in the pit of his stomach as he made his way toward the apartment.
He switched the scenario. Saw himself finding her at her house. Fantasized about what he would do to her.
He smiled, holding his folder and library book in front of his jeans as he walked.
At his apartment, he let himself in. His mother was taking one of her naps, so he kept as quiet as he could. In his bedroom, he put aside the book and the folder. He opened his button, unzipped his pants and slid them down his hips. Leaning back and touching himself, he imagined again what his visit to Miss Reed’s house would be like.
I’d lay the whammo on that bitch.
He closed his eyes and saw it all over again, like a movie playing in his head. Coming inside the house. Maybe a hard slap across the face to get things started. Tearing away her clothing. Bending her over the couch. No, over the coffee table. Ripping her shirt off of her back as he pumped into her. Listening to her scream–
The door to his room flung open. His mother stood in the doorway, glaring at him.
Jeffrey scrambled to his feet, turning his back to her. “Jesus, Mother! Don’t you knock?”
“I don’t have to knock in my own house, you dirty little boy!” She cackled at him. “I knew it. I knew you were in here being nasty.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.” He looked over his shoulder at her as he zipped his pants and snapped the button. “I was just going to change my school clothes, that’s all.”
She stepped into the room, shaking her head. “Liar,” she whispered.
“It’s the truth. I–”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s a lie.”
There was something strange in her voice that made him stop. Her words were slurred more heavily than was usual for this early in the afternoon, but he knew she sometimes started early. The difference in her voice went beyond that, however. It was oddly soft and gentle, something he could remember from years ago and only intermittently at that.
“Sit down,” she said, motioning to the bed.
Hesitantly, he sat on the edge of his mattress. She lowered herself clumsily, sitting beside him. The essence of her sweat and the alcohol permeated the small bedroom. Her eyes were red and watery, their customary hardness filled with an empty sorrow that wasn’t familiar to him.
“Do you think I don’t know what you do in here at night?” she asked him.
“I don’t do anything. I only–”
She raised her hand. He flinched involuntarily, expecting her to pinch beneath his chin. Instead, she rested her index finger on his lips, shushing him. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Every boy does it. Every single little boy ends up becoming a nasty young man and then a piece of shit just like your father.”
His thoughts raced. He had wondered if other boys did it, but based on the conversations he overheard, everyone denied it. He thought something was wrong with him, not just for doing it but for how often.
“You can’t help it,” she said in the same soft voice. “You’re just like him.”
She let her finger fall away from his lips.
“You even look like him. Hell, you could be brothers, you look so much alike.”
He didn’t know whether to be happy or not about that. Was it a good thing or a bad thing to look like your father?
His mother straightened the battered robe that covered her legs. Then she cast him a sidelong glance. “What do you think about when you do it, Jeffie?”
His heart raced. If she knew he touched himself, was it possible that she knew what he fantasized about? Could she know how he wanted to lay the whammo on the girls at school? Did she have some sort of motherly knowledge about these things? He tried to tell himself this wasn’t possible, but then why was she asking him this?
“Do you think about the little pretties at your school?” she continued. “Those girls with their fluffy hair and their tight jeans?”
Jeffrey swallowed. He didn’t know how to answer, but she was staring at him, so he gave her a small nod.
“Of course you do,” she said, her voice silky smooth. “What boy wouldn’t?” She leaned closer. “But tell me something else, Jeffie. Have you ever done more than just think about any of them?”
His heart pounded frantically.
She knew.
She knew.
She knew, she knew, sheknewsheknewsheknew!
He moved his head left and right with a frenzied shake.
She raised her eyebrow. “No? Never slipped off into a quiet place with one of those large breasted sluts?”
“No,” he whispered, though he’d imagined it many times. Did she know that, too?
She smiled as if she knew everything. “Is my little boy still a virgin, then?”
He hesitated, but the admission seemed better than the alternative, so he nodded again.
“I figured as much,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and let it out. The powerful odor of vodka washed past him. She glanced down at the thin wedding band on her finger. “You know what today is?” she asked him.
“Last day of school?”
She gave a small laugh. “I suppose so. But do you know what else it is? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a big day.”
He thought about it for a few seconds, but eventually shook his head. “I...I don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” she said, twisting the ring. “No one in this family seems to remember.”
He waited, expecting that she would tell him what day it was and why no one seemed to remember. Instead, she turned suddenly and was upon him. The force of her motion pushed him backward onto bed. Her legs straddled him. Her face pressed against his, her mouth searching for his. He parted his lips, letting out a surprised sound. Her kisses smothered his small cry. Her tongue snaked out and raked across his teeth.
No!
His stomach clenched. A hotness brewed there that filled with all the hate and love and desire and pain and confusion that he had ever felt. The tumultuous emotions broiled and twisted while her hands tore at his clothing. He lay froz
en on his back. He could taste the harshness of her vodka now in the back of his own throat.
His legs trembled. He realized that his erection was straining at his zipper.
Her mouth broke away from his. He gasped for air. Her lips found his earlobe, drawing it into her mouth while her hot breath plumed into his ear.
He raised his arms up in the air, his palms open, his fingers twitching.
What do I do? How do I stop this?
She tore his jeans from his legs, sending them flying across the room. The denim struck the far wall and dropped to the floor like a dead body.
He pushed at her chest while trying to slide backwards, away from her. Her robe fell open. He stared at her hanging breasts, the large red nipples erect. She looked down at him with a mixed expression he’d never seen on her face before, but he recognized them both. Her eyes were filled with a venomous combination of lust and pure hatred.
“No,” he gasped at her.
She grasped him by the wrists and pulled his open palms until they were against her chest. The warm flesh of her breasts filled his palms. He pulled weakly against her, shaking his head. His stomach clenched and roiled. She pressed his hands hard against her chest.
He felt light-headed.
“Mother, please—”
She shushed him, rocking her hips against his hardness. “Call me Cora.”
“Mother—”
“Cora!” she snapped, grinding herself downward onto him. His hardness slipped inside her. Overpowering warm wetness radiated outward from down there. “Say it!”
He surrendered. “Cora, please.”
She kept moving. “Please what?” she purred down at him.
All his strength faded from him. The absolute wrongness of the world at that moment came crushing downward upon his chest. He struggled to breath.
How could this be happening?
“That’s right,” she said. “Shut up and enjoy it.”
That feeling, that wonderful feeling that he’d always associated with his fantasies coming true, swept over him. He arched his back and grunted in surprise, in horror, in ecstasy. The force of the explosion rocked through his legs and up to his chest. His grunt became a primal cry.