The Unforgiven

by Alan E. Rose

  “Yes,” Peter murmured. “Yes, I remember that night.”

  The ten of them sat around the campfire circle. Other cabins were meeting in different parts of the camp. Spencer and another boy had smuggled two bottles of bourbon from that day’s trip into town for supplies. They passed the bottles among themselves, knowing they wouldn’t be caught. Since the show was for the counselor staff, they were not permitted to be present for the planning and rehearsal. Which they did not mind, enjoying an evening off to themselves in Father Mac’s cabin, where, by odd coincidence, they, too, were indulging in several glasses of bourbon.

  Peter had never tasted hard liquor before, but drank with the rest of the boys as the bottles were passed, taking a slug each time one came around. They joked and laughed and drank for over an hour. Little planning was accomplished, but these shows were largely impromptu anyway. No one expected talent scouts in the audience.

  At nine, the bell sounded, calling the campers to return to their cabins. As he rose to his feet, Peter was alarmed at the sudden and decided tilt of the planet and toppled headfirst onto the ground. He lay face down in the pine needles, inhaling the rich smell of the forest humus and heard Billy’s laughter above him. The other boys stashed the empty bottles in the bushes, doused the fire with the bucket of water, and were leaving.

  “C’mon. We’re going to be late,” said Billy, yanking and pulling on Peter’s arm, helping him to his knees, then to his feet. He threw Peter’s arm around his shoulder, switched on his flashlight, and they started walking unsteadily back to camp.

  “Man, you shouldna’ drank so much.”

  The evening was mild, and they were dressed only in their shorts and T-shirts. Slowly, the two of them made their way along the path like some uncoordinated four-legged creature. For Peter, it was like learning to walk all over again, requiring intense concentration to place one foot in front of the other, then the next, and the next. Not bad. He was getting the hang of it, and he cheerfully began to sing.

  “No, sh-sh,” whispered Billy. “Don’t sing!”

  They emerged from the woods, entering the campgrounds, when Billy stopped and switched off his light. They could see the counselors out with their bright flashlights, herding their charges back from the lavatories to the cabins after brushing their teeth.

  “Oh, shit,” said Billy.

  “Whazup?”

  His arm around Peter’s waist, he drew him aside, off the path. “We can’t let them see you like this.”

  Peter turned his face into Billy’s thick mop of hair. “Like what?” he slurred. The hair was so soft, smelling of shampoo and the lake, and he nuzzled it as Billy guided them over to the old cabin next to the path. He propped Peter against the back wall as he peeked around the corner.

  Peter’s chin was down, resting on his chest. He was beginning to doze off when Billy shook him. “No. You can’t sleep here.”

  He raised his head, not sure where he was, and saw Billy frowning at him. “Oh, man, why did you have to drink so much?”

  “Didn’t drink that much. No more’n—” He started hiccupping.

  “Sh-sh.” Billy was still holding him up, his hand pressing against Peter’s chest as he peeked around the corner again, then turned back. “Okay, we’ll stay in here until everyone’s asleep. Maybe they won’t notice we’re gone. In the morning, we’ll say we got lost.”

  “Good i’dear,” said Peter through his hiccups.

  “Sh! All right. Now stay standing.”

  He dumbly watched as Billy opened the rear window and returned—“C’mon”— maneuvering him around and giving him a foot up onto the window frame. As Peter clambered onto it, he was pushed from behind and toppled forward, landing on the floor inside with a thud.

  “Ow!” But it stopped the hiccups. He lay there, sprawled on his back, and had just closed his eyes when he heard a thump! Billy had jumped from the sill and was shutting the window, then kicked off his sneakers and stripped off his T-shirt. “It’s hot in here.” The cabin was warm from having been closed up all day. Peter was beginning to doze again when he heard footsteps around his head—clomp-a-clomp-a-clomp-a—then another, softer thump next to him, and he opened his eyes. Billy had flopped one of the mattresses onto the floor and was now grunting as he dragged Peter by his arms onto it. It smelled moldy but was soft and Peter just wanted to go to sleep. He had never wanted to sleep so badly in all his life.

  “G’night, Billy Clubfoot,” he murmured as his eyes closed.

  ‘“It was late and very dark that night. I remember there was no moon. And I thought I saw a light in the far cabin. No, I never once considered the possibility of ghosts, Peter. Not with so many young boys around. I knew the glow of a flashlight when I saw it, and I started walking toward the cabin.’”

  The teacup was rattling in its saucer as his hand shook, and Peter set it aside.

  Someone was tugging off his sneakers. Peter opened his eyes and struggled up onto his elbows. “What are you doing?”

  Billy was kneeling on the mattress, the flashlight next to him. Dust motes danced in its beam. In the faint light, he grinned as he began massaging Peter’s crotch through the soft cotton fabric. “Want to get together one last time?” he whispered.

  Peter was swelling under his hand and grinned back. “Okey-dokey.” He was pulled up into a sitting position, his T-shirt lifted off over his head, and he flopped back onto the mattress as his shorts and briefs were pulled down his hips. Billy knelt between Peter’s legs, spit into his hand, and began stroking him, and Peter groaned from the pleasure. This was the best yet. So this was why grown-ups drink liquor, he thought. First they drink and then they have sex. He lifted his head off the mattress just as Billy’s face floated up before him, like a pale grinning balloon, bobbing there, then leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Peter giggled. “Oh, man, this is so queer,” he said. He had never kissed a boy before. Actually, he’d never kissed a girl either; his mother, sure, but not like that, so it didn’t count. He lay back down on the mattress, hands folded behind his head, swimming in a blissful, erotic wooziness, and looked up into the rafters, where he saw a boy watching them. The boy was hanging by a rope around his neck. And Peter’s mind went blank…

  “‘As I drew closer to the cabin, I could hear sounds of a struggle inside, of a fight going on, yelling and shouting, and I had started running toward it when I heard Billy scream…’”

  “Oh, my God,” whispered Peter. He lurched forward, head over his knees. He was going to be sick.

  From somewhere high above them, Peter watched the two boys. Billy was lying between the other boy’s legs, pumping him, when something changed, as if the atmosphere in the cabin had shifted. Billy raised his head, startled to see his friend again up on his elbows, watching him with glazed, half-lidded eyes. In the flashlight’s soft beam those eyes appeared to be glowing. Billy grinned—“What?”—but there came no response. The other boy continued staring at him. “Pete? Peter? You all right?” But still no response. Just that dead, cold stone stare. “Something wrong?” He let go of the stiff organ as the other boy sat up, getting to his knees and at the same time pushing Billy back down onto the mattress. Billy gave a half-smile. Was Peter playing? But the smile quickly disappeared as the other boy towered over him, his erection now large and suddenly threatening.

  Peter watched the boy roughly turn Billy over onto his stomach, causing him to cry out in surprise, “Hey!” His shorts and briefs were yanked down and off his legs. “Hey, wait a minute!” Billy shouted as his hips were pulled back, buns up in the air; his legs were being forced apart. “No, I don’t want to do this!” He tried to jump to his feet but the other boy hooked him around the waist, slamming him back down onto the mattress. “No, stop it!” he cried. His thighs were being forced open. “Fuck, man! Don’t!” His voice sounded small and angry and scared all at once. His face was being pressed into the smelly mattress with one hand as his legs were spread further apart. “No!” He struggled as he was held
down, clenching his buttocks tightly together, but stronger knees were forcing them open. “Don’t! Don’t! I don’t want to do this!” Peter watched the larger boy lay on top of Billy, pinning him, pushing against him. “No!” Billy’s shouts were muffled as his face was mashed into the soft mattress.“No, I don’t—”

  The cabin shook with his scream.

  Peter continued watching from overhead as the two naked boys wrestled; the larger boy riding Billy, his cheeks clenching-unclenching-clenching, over and over, his hips thrusting faster and faster. As he observed them, a great pressure was building inside him, when suddenly the boy threw his head back toward the ceiling, his face contorted in intense pleasure-pain. As his heart exploded, Peter was surprised to see that it was his own face he was looking at.

  “‘I hurried up the steps and began fumbling with the keys, searching for the right one and jamming it into the padlock. By that time, all was silent inside, which I found even more unnerving than the sounds of struggle a few seconds earlier.’”

  He was drifting in a sensuous womb-universe, hugging Billy to him, feeling his warmth, their skins melting together from the heat of their bodies, now fused into one being and one body. He floated in that sublime peace, in a profound pleasure he had never before known, when he became aware of a new sound, a whimpering. Someone was crying. The sound pulled him back down to earth, back into the cabin, and he slowly opened his eyes. He was lying on top of Billy when he heard footsteps coming up the porch, heard the rough sound of the padlock being opened, a rattling, clunky sound, and with it came the beginning of a terrible awareness. He quickly backed up onto his knees, heard Billy’s muffled cry, just as the door creaked open and a bright light blinded him. He squinted, raising an arm to shield his eyes.

  “My God, Peter! What have you done?” said the light.

  Now the whimpering was in the room with them and he turned his head back toward the sound. Billy was lying naked before him, curled up in a ball, knees drawn into his chest. He was crying softly, his slender body quaking with his sobs. A thread of blood trickled from his rectum, staining the yellowed mattress. Dazed, Peter stared at it. Hey, what happened to Billy?

  “Oh, Peter, Peter, Peter…” It was Father Scott’s voice speaking to him out of the light.

  No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do this, he wanted to say. He felt like he had come upon the scene of a crime that was committed by someone who was not him. Then he looked down. His silver crucifix swayed from his neck, glinting in the incriminating light, and below the shiny cross, he saw his own penis jutting from his body. The blood on it appeared black in the harsh light. He swung his heavy head like a marionette’s back to Billy, balled up and weeping, the dark stain spreading on the mattress, then looked down again. He choked, “No!” suddenly pitching forward, and heaved.

  *

  Peter was sobbing, weeping in his handkerchief, shoulders shaking, as the mother superior quietly continued to read.

  “‘You were sick throughout the night. Father Mac stayed with you while I took Billy into town to a doctor. Billy confessed to me that he had initiated the sex play between the two of you. He felt responsible because it had gotten out of hand. He never blamed you. I heard his confession and gave him absolution and told him that it was best that he try to forget this experience.

  “‘You continued vomiting for over an hour, until there was nothing left to bring up, and then you retched until dawn. The next morning you were still unwell, but we needed to talk.’”

  “You’ve done a terrible thing, Peter. You must pray for forgiveness.”

  He was hysterical, unable to stop crying.

  “Billy will be all right, but you have committed a grave sin. You must ask forgiveness for what you have done.”

  “‘At first, you denied doing it; said it wasn’t you who had committed this act against his own friend. For hours, you denied it. Finally, you broke down and confessed. I spent most of that day with you. You wept and wept and we prayed together, then you would weep some more. I could see that you were genuinely remorseful about your actions, and that you were sincere in repenting of your sin.

  “‘No one knew what happened that night, other than you and Billy, Father Mac and myself. Billy was kept in the small hospital until his parents came to get him. It was the last day of camp, and I wanted you to experience the grace of forgiveness, that you not carry this guilt with you back into your world.’”

  “Now forget it, Peter. Forget this terrible night. May God help us all to forget this terrible night.”

  “‘Little did I realize how effectively you would heed my counsel. I can only assume that your amnesia was gradual, for I know that you were still suffering your guilt and remorse for some months after that. You stopped attending mass and participating in the church youth group, and you avoided me. I understood. I was a reminder of that night and of your transgression. I accepted, though with sadness, that you needed to separate yourself from me.

  “‘A couple of weeks later, I traveled out to the coast to visit Billy and his family. We had told his parents that he had suffered an internal rupture from a fall while horseback riding. It was a different, more innocent time. I thought I was protecting you boys. And, too, Billy was ashamed for his parents to know what had happened. He blamed himself, not you. He genuinely held no resentment or anger toward you. You were his best friend.

  “‘And so, I thought that was the end of a tragic and unfortunate event, and that it was all forgotten. Until that day you showed up here. Then I realized that it had not ended, and that you were still bearing the psychic wounds of that night. Billy’s injuries had healed; yours were deeper and beyond the reach of an internal physician.

  “‘You told me that something had taken you over. Yes, Peter, through the alcohol, through your adolescent lust, you discovered the Beast that lives within each of us, and that we are each capable of such evil. Your innocence died in the cabin that night along with the boy you were.

  “‘I hope this letter brings you some measure of peace, and that it may facilitate the healing that should have occurred thirty years ago. But then, that’s a temporal man’s prayer—a temporal man with little time left—and I’m reminded that time is an illusion, though by whose rules we play nonetheless. In God’s eyes, there is only eternity.

  “‘I asked when you were here, who lives without guilt. The answer: None of us. But now I tell you this, when we sincerely repent of the harm we have done to others, we then need to forgive ourselves. All that matters is that you are able to finally receive His grace and forgiveness, and your own.

  “‘In the event that I am not able to live long enough to deliver this letter to you myself, the goodly mother superior promises to see that you receive it by hand—if not mine, then hers, in one of our presences. This should not be read when you are alone and without support.

  “‘It is my prayer that this will now bring peace to your soul, Peter, and that it may at last be healed and become whole once again.’”

  The mother superior laid the pages gently on the desk and looked up, removing her glasses.

  “My son, he wanted you to know so you could forgive yourself.” Peter wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and silently shook his head. “We all need to forgive the past—what we did, what others did to us—so we can move on with our lives.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” he whispered.

  “Then you must try and forgive that thirteen-year-old boy who was momentarily overcome by alcohol and lust and lost control of his will. He has been punished long enough. Now is the time for healing.”

  He finished wiping his eyes with his handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket. “And how does that happen?”

  “It has already begun. Now you just need to let the healing take its natural course.”

  “And what do I do with it, this past that I now remember?”

  She smiled and gently placed a hand on the letter. “You leave it here.” Then she opened her desk drawer and removed an en
velope. “Father Buchanan wanted you to have this.”

  Peter took the envelope from her and withdrew a crucifix, holding it up to the light coming through the window.

  “Father said he couldn’t give you back your faith. But perhaps with this, you might find it yourself.”

  The crucifix shone brightly in the sunlight. He nodded and slipped it into his pocket, and stood. “Thank you, Mother Superior. I have taken enough of your time.”

  “What will you do now?”

  He looked back at her. “There is someone else’s forgiveness I need to ask.”

  *

  Peter was sitting at his desk, staring again at the camp photo of himself and Billy. He had decided against calling him. He wouldn’t know what to say, and feared that Bill Dawson would hang up on him as soon as he identified himself. And he wouldn’t dare drive back out there. Dawson would probably haul out his hunting rifle, and Peter could hardly blame him. No, safer for all concerned was to send a letter.

  He took out stationery and ink and began to write:

  “Dear Mr. Dawson.”

  He scratched it out. He felt like he was writing to Billy’s dad.

  “Dear Bill”—then scratched out the “dear.” Given the circumstances, it could be misinterpreted.

  “Bill,” he wrote, “I owe you a deep apology—actually, I owe you two apologies—”

  No, too familiar. He really didn’t know this man from Adam. And would Bill Dawson really want to hear from him, even a sincere apology? Wouldn’t it just be a reminder of a past that he had managed to bury until Peter showed up one day out of the blue, dragging its corpse with him? But for the next hour, he made several more attempts at the letter.

  “Dear Bill Dawson…”

  “To Mr. Bill Dawson…”

  “To Whom It May Concern…”

  “Dear Occupant…”

  Finally, he gave up and left the failed letters lying on his desk. A light rain was falling and he listened to its soft patter against the window pane, then got up and lit a fire to take off the chill in the room. The first fire of autumn, he mused. Its light and warmth comforted him. As he sat before it, he called Megan. She was at her apartment, and he whispered a prayer of thanks, his first prayer in many years.