Season of the Witch

by Charlee Jacob

  No, I passed out, hit my head. I’d never attack Rosie.

  (Then how come you’re out of a job?)

  The book was in his hands as Chaz tried to put more distance between the gang and himself. He turned a corner, crossed the street, and slipped toward an alley. Then he heard them, loud again. They emerged from shadows, still moving as if part of a single body. He wondered how much time they spent choreographing movement. They still pointed accusing fingers at him, skin bone white, nails black. Now they came toward him.

  The noise hurt his head, brain cells popping. “Shut up,” he yelled at them. “Halloween’s not for five months yet. Get away from me!” He stepped back. He wasn’t a good runner. He didn’t want to try loping if they slipped into pursuit mode. Could they run, joined at the hip?

  Chaz’s skin crawled. Now he really saw into those gaping mouths. None had any teeth. The gums were raw, bleeding. Had they pulled their own teeth to do this gig? Damn, that was some fucked-up initiation requirement or gang badge or whatever.

  The stinking saliva pumped out as they approached. If they jumped him, how would he protect himself? They might be skinny but there were eight of them. They likely knew some deather-foo to zit-burst him. Shit, what happened to the good old days when gangs wore colors and sold drugs and did drive-bys? When they were an identifiable chaos in this world, instead of some other ‘other’?

  “I said get away!” Chaz cried. He brought the book up as a shield—and the scream died, carried away on spittle tides. It grew so quiet Chaz heard the clicking and twanging of wires holding open their jaws.

  Chaz stared, amazed, and continued walking backward, holding up the book until he could duck behind parked cars. Then he crawled away.

  ««—»»

  At home it was business as usual. Mom sat in her chair beside the entrance to the kitchen, folding table in front of her. She wrote in a spiral notebook, composing the material for her religious pamphlets. During daylight hours she canvassed city neighborhoods, knocked on doors, asking residents if they were saved.

  “If the end of the world arrived tomorrow, would you be ready to go to God? Or would you receive early damnation?”

  Dad sat on the room’s opposite side, watching television. He barely blinked as Chaz closed the door. Mom didn’t look, wrapped up for Rapture was she.

  “Live on your knees, stand on both feet in Heaven,” she muttered to herself as she jotted this gem down.

  Do ya know your son almost raped a girl tonight?

  (Momma, don’t let your babies grow up to be devils.)

  The TV showed an old movie. Black, gray and white hissing grit in pores and shadows. High drama performed by actors long dead, like ghosts purling in layered charcoal crypts and caverns.

  He spied framed family photographs on the sideboard. His folks in younger although not necessarily happier times. Himself as a chubby terrible-twos toddler, red blotches everywhere because the photographer had bribed him with a lollipop to get him to smile for the camera, unaware of the kid’s allergy to sugar.

  There were his two brothers, recent pics sent through the mail. He knew more from their childhood photos than from memory that both siblings had once been fat, too. Had the folks ever been? At any rate, the brothers weren’t that way any longer. Thomas and Steven, ages 34 and 36, grinned leanly into their images. Thomas was a minister, and Steven taught hearing-impaired children.

  God and silence.

  An ad interrupted the movie. For one of those telephone twat things. Call this 900 number to talk to sexy girls or psychics.

  1-X-IS-THE-DARK.

  Neither brother had visited home in ten years. Lived as far away as possible, had wives and fat kids of their own. They sent sizable cash to Chaz every now and then. Guilt money? To say they were sorry for abandoning him to Mom’s missionary guilt and Dad’s endless hush?

  The old man crumpled in his recliner, a stone-faced mannequin. His jaws clamped together tightly, might’ve been wired shut—the opposite of the Scream Gang. He’d glanced at Chaz for two seconds. Now he stared at the TV, quiet respiratory noises fluttering the unclipped hair at his nostrils.

  Chaz wanted to yell at his dad, Do ya know I almost raped a girl tonight?

  He looked at his mother. The old woman bore Chaz when she was 48, so dried up he couldn’t imagine anything squeezing out of her save for dust bunnies. (Both were old, practically as decrepit as Marty’s grandparents who’d raised Marty because his own folks were dead.) Chaz hadn’t been planned. Nor wanted. But God had seen fit to either bless or curse Mrs. Chisholm. She’d done her duty, if little else. She was a busy woman, newly baptised, just saved, reborn. And this reborn status mattered much more than the other ‘born’ state, out of a nasty meat cave betwixt sweating thighs, sort of equidistant between the piss and shit holes. Mrs. Chisholm had never had time for Chaz, too busy dividing her evangelizing between writing self-righteous pap, raising money for the ministry by appealing to sinners’ fears, and wailing in tongues to hold back the infernal darkness.

  Mom, do ya know I almost raped a girl tonight?

  Maybe if she did, if his father did, the old man would finally talk to him—with a father’s strong understanding voice. His old lady would realize her boy could use some saving. Her prayers would be soft, healing.

  (Chaz tightly gripped the book he’d brought home, improbable events at the Git-n-Slit crystal clear in his mind. Voices who’d urged a terible deed, close-up against his head—from the inside of his ear or the outside? Schizophrenic succubi.)

  I need to be saved tonight.

  I need to be told my father is with me.

  My father, or the great Father of the Trinity, or any father at all.

  Chaz stood there, awaiting acknowledgment.

  Dad simply clenched his jaw. A muscle tapped in the cheek as the television flooded his retinas with black and gray, its cathode mist creeping across his body.

  Mom scribbled. Never waver from the light, though it blind you and shrivel your tongue and burn you black. The light is salvation, served with God’s sometimes ruthless love. Know that those who seek the darkness will fall into it.

  Chaz cleared his throat, attempting to make his voice rise to the occasion. All he managed was a whisper. “Do ya know I almost raped a girl tonight?”

  Then, ungraced by response, he shrugged and went to his room.

  ««—»»

  Chaz called Marty. Marty had his own extension so Chaz didn’t have to exchange pleasantries with the grandcreeps. Especially to have them ask why he called so late on a school night.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ya sleepin’ yet?”

  “Nope. These new sheets are so starched, it feels like I’m rolled up in cardboard.”

  “Guess what?”

  “Lay it bare.”

  “I had Rosie.”

  “You’re shittin’ me. All right!”

  There was a kernel of silence. Chaz realized the loneliness of virginity wasn’t something they shared anymore. (Even if they did.) It almost made Chaz regret this terrible lie.

  I still ought to be sorry. Why am I telling him this bullshit?

  “Her dad rolled in just as I shot my wad.” The words were like rusted nails in his mouth. “He fired me on the G-spot.”

  “Wow. He didn’t beat the crap out of ya?”

  “Dude, he’s got no legs. My grandma could outrun him and she died ten years ago.”

  “Think he’ll spill to your folks?”

  “No way. Little item called blackmail. I told him if he ratted, I’d tell the cops he was pimping his underaged daughter and contribbing to the delinquency of half the minor males at Baucum. The Bats. The Batshits. More like buttshoots. I can tell ya the Git-n-Slit is no more. Rosie’s been caught red light-handed. Go in tomorrow afternoon and see if it hasn’t changed.”

  “How was it? Spare nothing!”

  “Not bad, but a girl in her line of work should change her undies more often.”

  That lent
a note of authenticity. Chaz didn’t want to rave about how tight and sweet it was. Marty might suspect the truth if he went overboard.

  Chaz felt sick to his stomach.

  Marty chuckled on the other end of the line. “Ya do it in that stinky old bathroom?”

  “Nope, on Frank’s desk in the storeroom. It was after 8:00. The wife’d rolled him out the door. But he came back. Did ya know Rosie’s got stretch marks? I think she’s had a kid.”

  “No shit?” Marty sounded gleeful. And why not, hearing the downfall of a real bitch.

  “But this is backseat to what I really called to tell ya.”

  Silence again. Marty obviously couldn’t picture what could top this news.

  “Ya still there?” Chaz asked, pudgy hand touching his throat where bile crept up. Liar liar! Guts on fire!

  “Yeah. Trying to imagine what could be bigger.”

  “Than my cock?”

  “Well, ya know Rosie and roosters. Any cock’ll do.”

  “You’ll never believe what I found in the book rack tonight. Only one copy. My eyeballs almost unhinged to hang down like cheek testicles.”

  “What?”

  “necrOmania seXualis.”

  “Are ya serious? Ya got it now?”

  “Yeah. I see why the contents made ya feel both barfo and bonered. I had a kind of out-of-body experience.”

  Okay, basically that news was so big why did he lie about Rosie? He held a cult legend in his hands. Who cared if he slept with the local cheap-screw?

  Guilt is for liars.

  “Man, bring it to school tomorrow.”

  “Okay, but don’t breathe a word about it. If I’m caught with it, I’ll be flayed by the coach, castrated by the nurse, and impaled on the flagpole at assembly by the principal before he expels and excommunicates me.”

  “Ex-cum-municates?”

  Both boys snickered.

  “You’d better hide it good.”

  “I’ll hide it down my pants.”

  “I don’t know, Jazz. Doesn’t sound like such a secure spot anymore. I mean Rosie could come along to give ya a blowjob and find one of Cthulhu’s tentacles where your cock ought to be.”

  “A cock-tacle?”

  Chaz heard Marty’s grandfather scream, “Who’s that you’re talking to this late, Martin? What’s that about blowjobs and cocks? You want that phone taken away? You ready to return to Sadler’s, boy?”

  “Jesus riding sidesaddle on The Black Goat with a thousand young,” Marty muttered softly. “I’ve got to go. See ya tomorrow, Jazz.”

  “Later.”

  Chaz placed the receiver back in its black cradle. He stripped off his clothes, staring at the shirt Rosie practically tore off him. His parents hadn’t noticed that either. He was tempted to walk back out to the living room, nude, stick a match to the rag, and fling it on top of his mom’s words of whizdom. Talk about enlightenment. Instead he threw it into the wastebasket.

  Time for his ritual. Every night before he went to bed, Chaz stood naked in front of the mirror. He opened a small box and took out a red-headed stick.

  Boy with a match.

  He struck it, carefully brought it down while gazing at his reflection, shriveling a pubic hair. His penis jerked in wincing arousal, scrotum twitching. The muscles in the large gut contracted and the bulk rippled in a shiver of delicious revulsion. There were old pucker scars on his belly and nipples.

  He didn’t usually burn himself much, just a taste. But he remembered a night last winter… He’d inserted a just-blown out match into his urethra—a neat trick while only able to see his penis in the mirror. Pissing stung like a son-of-a-bitch for a week.

  Sometimes Chaz enjoyed peau flambé. He’d leave rubbing alcohol in a bowl for about two hours, letting much of the alcohol content evaporate. He’d apply a very light coating on a small part of his arm or leg—just after shaving the area. And he’d light it.

  Heat rushes and scorches weren’t fun this evening. He did the next step in his ritual. He looked for signs he was losing the baby fat, as his brothers had. Every night disappointed him. He looked like one of those people who never left their houses, who stayed in bed eating all day, who couldn’t even sit on a regular toilet but had to shit in the bathtub.

  Chaz looked at himself more honestly. Not that bad yet.

  It must be awful: their own balls-and-chains, manacled to their bodies by their flesh, dealing with the self-hatred which hobbled them, too. They failed to go out, not because moving was difficult, but because it hurt to see the loathing in the eyes of the world. Chaz knew that look. He experienced it every day from the Rosies and the Franks and the popular batshit buttshoot boys. He saw it right now in his own eyes, the self-hatred those other leviathan unfortunates likely didn’t deserve.

  Chaz deserved it, after tonight. For lying to Marty. Tears burned salt, fuzzing up the portly reflection.

  I’m a virgin yet not a pure innocent. Not virtuous but an incelibate, unchaste, indecent, defiling-obese-piglet-virgin who attempted a crime. Failing because a girl less than half my size beat the crap out of me. (Is that why they dragged me in there? Female voices, knowing I couldn’t do the deed…)

  Tears flooded his puffy cheeks, down to the soft angles of his jaw, blunted by jowl pockets, second band of chin. His brothers slimmed down during the ride into puberty. By thirteen or fourteen they’d lost the pudge. They’d never weighed as much as Chaz did now. He’d never change—except to get bigger. This wasn’t baby fat but freakishness in his dose of parental genes. He ate very little and really exercised. It never made an ounce of difference.

  And if he believed this, then he was inclined toward the only thing that would save him from the fate of those condemned to shit in bathtubs. He seriously considered suicide. As young as ten he’d pondered finality as escape. He’d heard the tough-talk suicide counselors gave: that dying was easy, living took courage.

  Duh. Yeah, death’d be a lot simpler. That was the point. Living was too hard. Especially without hope his situation would ever improve. Sure, his parents were God and silence, ignoring him for the lump he was, barely linked to whatever substance or nothing making up the conceit of their miserable lives. He’d graduate soon and go his own way, starting the publishing business with Marty. He’d get away from this loveless home. But he’d never escape the unlovable body. It would become even more of a prison as his organs couldn’t bear the strain forever, turning him into an invalid.

  No woman would want him, not even someone as low class as Rosie. He’d only ever had one real friend, the boy he’d just lied to. And if Chaz could lie to the only person who’d been stand-up, then maybe he was just fat-assed Jizz Jizzum, beneath even a teenaged white-trash tramp’s standards.

  Could he cut himself? Laterally slash the forearms from the base of palms to the crooks of the elbows? Maybe a geometric trip, starting in a nip and tuck to the side just beneath the ribs, cutting across left to right (or was it right to left?), down, back the other way, finally up to meet more or less with the starting stab. Making a rusty rectangle, falling out like the grate on an old pot-bellied stove, intestines spilling onto the floor in the excruciating steam of his relief. He’d thrash a bit as he collapsed, then lie coiled in them as if wrapped in ribbons from Christmas, smelling his last meal.

  Didn’t Dad have a gun? Chaz could stick the barrel in his mouth, licking its blue-black length, tasting oil and the gunpowder sebaceous residue of when it had last been fired. A single roll and click the last thing he’d have to hear, unless one can hear the splitting of the mouth’s roof and the renting of brain and skullbone. Would the teeth sound like popcorn and the sinuses like firecrackers?

  Or he’d climb to the school’s gymnasium roof and dive, splattered brainpan and shattered spine. What if he didn’t die, became crippled, not to try again because he was even less than Frank Bunny? What if the kids laughed while he twitched or lay dead, joking about how his fat gut jiggled for minutes after impact?

  He
could step in front of a bus. Or lie on train tracks, waiting to be bisected. Or visit the pool, weights about his ankles. He’d stay upon the bottom until he drowned. He could chew up a drinking glass, swallowing shards, knowing what it was to be peeled from the inside out. Or swallow drain cleaner, telling himself it was a fitting symbol for his pain—acid and devouring.

  He might use a belt to strangle himself, becoming the big blue boy. Hallucinating as the brain starved for oxygen, fantasies of himself lean like his brothers, of Rosie kneeling before him with a red-lipped smile, of them reflected in his bedroom mirror like a carnal god and goddess. He’d die with a grin and a hard-on.

  Too many choices, not enough ways to die. And absolutely no ways to start over.

  Chaz shivered, thinking about those sideboard photos of his brothers. Only, they weren’t his brothers—but his uncles. The pics were taken years ago. The uncles died without children. One made quite a lot of money, leaving it to Chaz in a trust fund. He got cash every month which he used for his books, magazines, and videos. Most remained in the fund until he reached 21. He and Marty planned to use it, when it became available, to fuel their publishing company.

  He’d seen the childhood photos of his brothers a long time ago but those weren’t out anymore. Not framed, not displayed. Hidden away in a box somewhere with other things to be forgotten—yet not forgiven?

  Both killed themselves when they’d been miserable children, fat, unpopular, and never going to see a better situation. Happened before Chaz was born.

  His folks decided not to have any more kids, then Mom unexpectedly became expectant at forty-eight. They couldn’t look at him. When they did, they saw Thomas and Steven, two little boys they couldn’t help, maybe seeing their sons the way the bodies had been discovered. Steven at thirteen swallowed a box of carpet tacks, dying in terrible contortion in the garage. Thomas was sixteen when he rigged a hose from the car’s exhaust pipe in through the driver’s side window, sitting there with the engine running and the door closed. (Both died in the garage. Should Chaz make it unanimous?)