Penance

by Rick R. Reed

  “Very much. You are bright, aren’t you?” Morris stared at him, no expression. “Just lie down.”

  Avery lowered himself, staring straight up at the light bulb above him. Numbly, he let Morris bind his hands and feet with clothesline, opened his mouth for the gag. He could do nothing more, for the moment, than stare at the solitary light bulb above him, stare until its light was snuffed out by Morris sliding the cover of his box into place.

  Chapter 25

  Dwight was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, even though there was nothing surreal or odd about the dream…no slow-motion running, no impossible changes of scene, no falling off a cliff and then suddenly taking flight.

  This dream had all the earmarks of memory. Dwight found himself in a schoolroom. There were the desks, all lined up in six rows with military precision. Each desk had an arm that jutted out from the right side for writing. Dwight murmured and rolled over in his sleep.

  His eyes, under their lids, moved rapidly back and forth.

  He hated those desks and felt frustration as he walked toward one of them, his “assigned seat,” to sit down. He was left-handed and the placement of the writing surface always made it hard for Dwight to write.

  But writing wasn’t the only problem Dwight faced as he tried to sit down. His girth made it difficult for him to squeeze into the space provided. The desks were designed for normal-size eighth-graders, not ones that already weighed over two hundred pounds. As he held his breath and tried to wedge himself into the seat, he began to sweat. Frankie Johnson and Mike D’Amoto were watching him, both with amused grins on their faces. Both boys played football; Mike was a wide receiver and Frankie a quarterback. They were “popular” and “well liked.”

  Dwight hated them.

  He heard Frankie whisper to Arlene Beecham, “Give that hog some butter…so he can slide in.”

  Arlene giggled and turned her gaze on Dwight, who had at last managed to slide into his seat. The desk cut into his stomach, but Dwight tried to ignore it, ignore the pain and his audience. He picked up his Ohio history book and began to intently scan the lines, reading nothing.

  The flush on his face probably made the pimples and blackheads stand out all the more. He wished the teacher would hurry up and get there, so the other kids would stop looking at him.

  Dwight awakened from the dream all at once. He looked around his bedroom, filled with afternoon sunlight, to reassure himself that he was here, in a house on the west side of Chicago and not at East Junior High School in East Liverpool, Ohio. He sat up, willing the grogginess away with thoughts that he was a grown man now and that he was probably doing better and more important things with his life than any of those good-for-nothings who probably now saw their teenage years as the high point of their lives.

  But the feelings remained. The worthlessness, the frustration, the self-consciousness that haunted him back then, making him lie in bed at night and pray breathlessly to a God that never heard to make him thinner, more athletic, less riddled by acne lesions on his face, chest, and back.

  And always, he prayed for God to send him a friend. Just one, thank you. Just one would be enough to make me happy.

  But God never listened, or if He did, He never bothered to respond.

  He sat up in bed and wasn’t at all shocked when he saw his aunt Adele sitting on the stool in the corner of the bedroom. She was leaning forward, her legs apart, like a man’s, elbows on knees, smoking a cigarette. A bottle of Black Label beer was on the floor beside her. Dwight remembered the black and red labels from his childhood. Aunt Adele was wearing a black and blue plaid flannel shirt and jeans, rolled into a big cuff at her ankles. She had on a pair of black penny loafers and white socks. The outfit was her uniform when Dwight was growing up. She wore it, or one similar, every day except Sunday, when she squeezed herself into a plain black dress and dragged Dwight to Mass at eight A.M. She was staring at him, as if she’d been waiting for him to wake up. Dwight remembered back to when she was alive and how he would often awaken to find his aunt just like this, in the room with him, waiting for him to wake up. These visits to his room seemed to get more frequent when he reached his teenage years. Dwight was taken back all at once to that time and wondered, with embarrassment and humiliation, if he had had a wet dream. Aunt Adele always knew.

  And she always chastised him for it, calling him “dirty” and saying he “needed to learn self-control.” Dwight rolled away from her now, remembering how she would make him eat his own semen, scooping it from the inside of his pajamas. “Keep it back inside yourself, boy, where it belongs,” she would always say. And then she would make him pray, on his knees and naked before her, pray for forgiveness and the strength to keep his seed inside, to keep the impurity from rising up and jettisoning itself out of him, wasted.

  But now, the sheets were dry, save for an overall moistness that Dwight assumed was from sweating. He threw back the sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked back once more to the stool, expecting his aunt to be gone.

  But she was still there.

  She wore an amused expression, her thin lips turned up at the corners, making her eyes slit.

  She looked real enough to touch.

  Dwight stood, looked in the mirror, and combed through the wisps of his hair with his fingers. Finally, he turned to his aunt and asked, “So what do you want?”

  Aunt Adele gave out a short little laugh, almost a snort. She pulled a black vinyl cigarette case out of her shirt pocket and took out another cigarette. Dwight smelled the acrid odor of the burned-out match and the newly lit Winston.

  He was filled with desire: to run over and touch her, see if the flesh that looked so warm and alive was really cold and hard as it had felt when he’d touched her in her coffin.

  “That new boy, the fat one, he’s just like you, isn’t he?”

  Dwight didn’t answer. He thought about walking out of the room and then wondered if she’d follow. Wondered about the wisdom of talking to her at all.

  “I asked you a question, young man.”

  Her voice always made him tremble inside, reminding him of the thoughtful punishments she never tired of dreaming up. Such imagination! Dwight figured that if he didn’t want her Winston applied to some nerve-ending laden area of his body, he’d better speak to her. “No, Aunt Adele, he’s not just like me.’ He’s a street kid, some runaway who doesn’t have the proper respect for authority.”

  “He’s just like you and you know it.”

  “Yes, Aunt Adele.” Dwight sat down on the edge of the bed and folded his hands in his lap.

  “He could be a boon to you, boy. Do you realize that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’s a carbon copy of you at that age.” The old woman snickered. “Zits, flab, and all.”

  Dwight recoiled from her words. She never held back, not with him. “So?”

  “So, use him, use him! You and he…why you two’d make the pair you’ve always dreamed of. He may not be as pretty as some of them you bring home”—here his aunt paused and smiled at her nephew, full of knowledge—”but he’s your match, Dwight. You and he will have an understanding, be better able to get along. Someone young like him will help you get that last little bugger you’re gunning for.”

  Dwight stared at the floor. “How do you know?” he mumbled.

  “Dead people know these things.”

  Her voice suddenly seemed toneless with her last remark. Dwight looked up suddenly, toward the stool.

  His aunt was gone. The stool’s maple legs gleamed in the reflective sunlight coming in through the window.

  And in the air, Dwight insisted he could still smell the lingering aroma of a Winston cigarette.

  *

  At least the box wasn’t as bad as the truck bed. At least here Avery didn’t have all the fumes to contend with and the bumps.

  But he could stretch out only on his back, with his hands and feet
bound.

  Avery stared at the top of the box, then closed his eyes and marveled at the colors, the reds, yellows, and purples that washed over his inner eyelids.

  He’d been thinking. What he’d decided was this: that he must stay calm, no matter what he saw, felt, or heard. Calmness was the only way he would ever find an avenue of escape out of this nightmare. Struggling in any way would only hasten his downfall. He must win Morris’s trust. Must get Morris to believe he was an ally. He thought of Patty Hearst and how she became one of the Symbionese Liberation Army. He would convince Morris that he wanted to help, be his partner.

  He didn’t know how he’d do this. Morris would, of course, be skeptical. Convincing him would be the true challenge. He turned in the box as much as he could, trying to lie on his side. He deliberately breathed slowly, taking in a lungful of air and letting it out by degrees, trying to ward off the panic that was just below conscious thought.

  He couldn’t listen anymore to Miranda’s whimpers. He mustn’t shudder when he felt something scurry over his body in the box. And he must never, never let his outrage show.

  Avery closed his eyes again. And waited.

  * * *

  Upstairs, in the kitchen, Dwight was mixing up a bucket of food for his “pets.” There was so much work now to taking care of all of them.

  “I need to get this over with soon,” he said aloud to himself, closing the refrigerator door and heading over to the counter. “Tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.” As he dropped the last of the leftover tomato soup into the bucket and stirred it into the other food, he imagined Jimmy’s face, in terror.

  Jimmy’s eyes reflected a gasoline can and a lit match.

  Perhaps the can and the match would be enough incentive to make the boy bow his head in prayer, to cleanse the filth from his tortured soul.

  It was the only way. Dwight gave the gruel one final stir.

  *

  When Avery heard the top of the box being slid off, he opened his eyes. Avery could swear there was something new in the man’s face: curiosity for certain, but something more. Avery wondered if it was sympathy.

  Morris looked at him for a long time, turning his head almost as if Avery were some curious specimen.

  Avery grew uncomfortable under his gaze, but was determined not to show it.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll be stupid enough to scream when I take the gag off your mouth?”

  Avery shook his head. Dwight reached down, lifted his head, undid the bandanna’s knot at the back of his head, and pulled it away. Avery took a big, quivering breath through his mouth, then smiled and said, “Thank you.”

  “My, aren’t you the polite one?” Morris knelt beside the box to undo the cord around Avery’s wrists and ankles. Morris had a dog collar and leash in his left hand.

  Avery cleared his throat quickly and said, “You know, you don’t have to use that kind of stuff with me. I wouldn’t run away.”

  Morris leaned back on his heels, surprise apparent on his face. Or maybe something more than surprise. It was almost as if he had suddenly recognized Avery. “I mean, I can’t go very fast anyway.” Avery smiled.

  “You shouldn’t talk that way about yourself.” Morris smiled back. “Look, son. I’ll give you one chance, but that’s it. Prove yourself now and we won’t worry so much about things like this.” He held up the dog collar and leash.

  “That’s fair.” Avery lay still, even though Morris had untied all the cords. He decided to wait and let Morris give all the directions, make him think he was in charge.

  “Okay, get up.”

  Avery managed to get himself upright and stepped out of the box. He followed Morris past the row of boxes, trying not to let the chill that was running through him show. It was easy to pretend that the boxes weren’t real, or if they were, that there weren’t people being held prisoner inside. Easy, until from within one of the boxes a thumping sound began and from another came a series of whimpers, guttural and pathetic.

  Avery stared over at the wall, intently scanning a hairline crack that ran from floor to ceiling.

  “Well, here you go. I hope you’re hungry.”

  Avery looked down at a dog food bowl, filled with a greyish-orange mixture. He could pick out here and there bits of meat, a corn kernel, a pea, celery leaves. It was garbage. Avery swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and took a breath. He then knelt down on the floor in front of the bowl and looked up at Dwight. “This is really good of you, Mr. Morris. Living like I do, it’s not often someone cares enough to give me a meal.”

  He lowered his face into the food and ate it all, trying not to think about the bizarre mix of tastes: acid, sweet, sour.

  When he’d finished, he looked up at Morris. He knew there was food on his face and he lifted his hand to wipe it away.

  “No, don’t.” Morris took out a handkerchief, squatted in front of Avery, and wiped the food from his face. “You were very well behaved, young man. I’m proud of you.”

  “Well, I’m proud of you.” Avery’s heart stopped thumping for an instant when he said the words. He was afraid their boldness would give him away, afraid already that he was being too transparent.

  “What?” Morris stared at him.

  Avery didn’t know what to do. He tried to think of a different tack to take. Before he did, Morris continued.

  “Are you saying you understand what I’m doing?”

  There was no turning back. “Yes, I think I do.” Avery looked at him, wary. “You’re doing the decent kids a favor, right?”

  Morris slowly nodded his head. “I suppose you could look at it that way.”

  “I mean, no one cares about us, cares about all the misery we cause for nice people like you. You just decided to stand up and do something.” Avery tried to look appealing, tried to make eye contact and hold it. It wasn’t easy, though, to maintain eye contact with a monster. Dwight’s expression was too intense, filled with insanity. The lines creasing his forehead and around his eyes belied the youth his small stature suggested. And the way he stared at Avery: it wasn’t normal. It was like he was trying to bore a hole into him. Avery shifted. “Isn’t that right?”

  “You’re a perceptive boy.” Morris looked him up and down. “Very perceptive. Maybe Aunt Adele was right.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.” Morris folded the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. “You know, son, it’s more than what you said. What I’m doing is kind of like…penance. Do you understand the concept?” Dwight shook his head and laughed. “It’s time for you to be getting back to your box. I have to feed the others.” Morris rolled his eyes. “If only the others were as easy as you.”

  “I promise, Mr. Morris, never to give you any trouble.”

  Morris smiled. “Call me Dwight, son. Okay?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” Avery followed the man back to the box. He decided against making a plea to stay out of the box, knowing that it was much too soon and a request like that would be sure to tip Dwight off to what he was up to. Instead, he hurried ahead of Dwight and climbed in the box, lying down without being told.

  Dwight squatted beside the box and looked down at him. He smiled. “You’re special. Are you sure you’re for real?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Never mind. I think I know that you are.” He reached down and brought out a length of clothesline. “Wrists,” he said and Avery put his wrists together and willingly lifted them to be bound. Dwight wrapped the cord around and around, then made a square knot. “Ankles,” he said and Avery lifted his ankles, waiting silently while Dwight repeated the procedure. “You know anything about where I could find Jimmy Fels?”

  The question took Avery by surprise. He wasn’t sure how to answer it. Not sure how to play this game he’d started. Immediately, he ran through the options: tell him what he knew about Jimmy, gaining his ultimate trust but perhaps at the same time dooming another of their group to
…what? Avery didn’t want to think about their fate, couldn’t think about it and go on. He could lie and say he didn’t know. If he did that, though, he knew he would lose Dwight’s trust because he’d know he was lying.

  “Son? Did you hear me?”

  “Sure, Dwight. I was just trying to think of where he might be found.” Avery knew that Dwight would find Jimmy with or without his aid and he might as well increase all of their odds by continuing to try to gain favor with Dwight. “There are several places he could be, you know. He might have come back to the Chicken Arms. It’s really his home, you know. Or he could be at Super Powers Arcade…he spends quite a bit of time there, just hanging out. Or, there’s always his mother…” Avery paused here. “I’m not sure what street she’s on. I’d know the building if I saw it. Might be Winthrop.” Avery shook his head. “I’m just not sure.”

  “Thanks a lot, son. You’ve been a big help.” Dwight smiled at him and Avery smiled back.

  He continued smiling until Dwight slid the cover of the box back into place. It was then he knew he was doomed and that only the worst was yet to come.

  He wished he could suck his thumb.

  *

  Dwight sat on the wooden steps of the basement, thinking. Now that all of his “pets” had been fed and watered, he wondered how he could go about getting that last one.

  He wished he hadn’t written Jimmy that letter! It was a stupid thing to do. He didn’t even need his aunt to chastise him about that. He was sure that if the boy had seen it, he was alerted now and that he was in hiding or, worse, had gone for help.

  Dwight knew he needed to end this mess and end it quickly. All too often, he had envisioned the flashing lights of police cars reflected on his living-room wall as they surrounded his house.

  “The boy, you idiot, the boy.”

  Dwight looked up to see Aunt Adele standing at the top of the basement stairs, looking down on him. “The answer, fat and ugly as you used to be, is lying right down there.” His aunt was exasperated, blowing out an impatient sigh. “Do I have to tell you everything?”

  Dwight stared down at his hands. He wanted to ask his aunt why she was so sure, but when he turned, the question on his lips, she was gone.