Crush (26 page)

her send you a video?!”
“No, Jamie! I didn’t!” The pain in Tammy’s eyes stabs me. “I
didn’t
have
her send it to me. She has a friend at the police
station, and she got her hands on this awful video…and she
mailed it to me…I watched it…this morning…”
“How do you know it was Yvette?” I’m hyperventilating and
retching simultaneously.
“That’s whyshe pulled me aside at the bar tonight, Jamie. To
tell me she sent it to me.”
“Whydid you
watch
it?!” I shriek.
“It had no label…I didn’t know what it was…until it started
playing…”
“What did she have to sayabout it?”
“Never mind, Jamie…”
“What did she say?!” I snap.
He sighs crossly. “What do you care?!”
“I want to know!”
“She said it was disgusting.”
“What else?!”
“Jamie…”
“What else?!”
“She…thinks you…liked it.” He adds hastily, “She didn’t
watch the whole thing.”
“Oh fuck…” I’m dizzy, and I fall to my knees, my heart
hemorrhaging. “Whydid she send it to you?! Why?!”
“Because she’s a fucking evil bitch!” Tammy screams,
sinking down, trying to touch me. “She was quite pleased with
herself. She was
gloating
! She’s a fucking cunt!”
“Get off!” I roll into a ball on the floor. I’m destroyed. After all
the years of trying, God has finally killed me. He’s finally stamped
me out. He’s wanted to do it for thirty-one years, and now, mission
accomplished.
Tammy scoots away on his knees, crying, his face in his
hands. “I’m sorry, Jamie!”
“You watched it…you didn’t turn it off, did you?” I sob bitterly.
“You watched the whole thing!”
He nods, his face hidden, like a child caught red-handed. “And now, you think I’m a whore, just like everyone else! They
filmed themselves fucking me, burning me with cigarettes, so their
sick friends could get off on it! But I’m a whore! Right?!” “You’re a
victim
, Jamie!”
I ignore him. “Did
you
get off on it too?” I know I’m being evil, I
know I’m being hateful, but I’m so ashamed…I’m so ashamed…I
can’t escape it…I can’t get away from my past…I can’t get away
from the horror, the scandal of it…no matter what I do, where I

go…“How can you even
think
that?” Tammy roar-sobs. “Maybe I should ask you the same thing! Is she right? Did you
like
fucking ‘Daddy’?”

“You motherfucker!” I slap Tammy’s face as hard as I can. He recoils, his hand covering his rapidlyreddening cheek.
Why are we hurting each other? Why are we stabbing each other with blades of accusation, with vindictive indictments?
Because it hurts.
And this is
exactly
what Yvette wanted.
Regret tumbles out of his mouth like marbles out of a cloth bag. “Oh, God, Jamie…I can’t believe I said that to you…I didn’t mean it…I didn’t mean it…I swear.”
“Oh, yes you did!” I screech at him. “You meant it, every fucking word! You think I
liked
it! And you think I had it coming, what theydid next! You think I deserved that! Don’t you?!” I’m out of control, raging full throttle.
“No, Jamie! I didn’t mean it!”
“Yeah, you did!”
“It hurt, Jamie…it hurt to see you…doing that!”
“I didn’t
want
to!”
“I know…I watched it…I saw what theydid to you…”
“Don’t you believe Yvette, your best good friend?” I sneer. “
She
thinks I loved it!”
“She didn’t watch all of it…But I watched the whole thing!”
“Why?! Whywould you
watch
that?! How could you…?”
“Because I needed to know…I knew if I watched all of it, I’d see the whole story. I know you were forced! I
know
!”
“Yeah…you needed to know, because you don’t
know
me. I didn’t ‘let you in,’ right?” I laugh bitterly. “How could you watch them do that to me? I feel like you raped me yourself, just by watching that sick shit!”
Tammy gulps loudly. “It made me sick…I’ve been sick all day. I wish I hadn’t watched it. I can’t get those horrible images out of myhead now…those screams. I did
not
get off on it! I wanted to save you…I wanted to help you. I had to keep reminding myself that that video is over twentyyears old…and that you’re here…with me…and that you’re okay.”
“I’m
not
okay, Tammy,” I mutter. “Believe me when I say, I’m not okay. Welcome to my world. I carry those memories with me every minute of my life. My dead fucking parents live forever. The first thirteen years of mylife are the ones I carryaround constantly. I can’t escape, I can’t forget, and I guess Yvette is going to make sure everyone around here knows all about it. She wants to annihilate me…she’s been out to destroy me for years. I have no idea why she hates me so much, but then, I never found out why my own parents hated me, so…” I trail off, my shoulders sagging in squashed subjugation.
“Jamie…” Tammy reaches for me. I easily evade him by leaning to myleft.
“And now she’s done it…She’s finally done it…I guess God
does
hate me.”
Tammy’s voice raises a few decibels. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve tried, all mylife, to believe God doesn’t hate me. I tried to believe Lloyd when he said God loves me as I am. But when everyone else around me, the pastor, the kids at church, the kids at school, the Christian radio stations, says God hates homos, it’s prettyhard to believe otherwise…”
“Jamie…please…”
Again, I’m sullied in front of Tammy. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve tried to overcome the shame, the guilt, the torture, the selfloathing…all these years. But now I give up. God hates me. He won’t let me live it down, what myparents did. I can’t move forward and put that shit behind me, because Yvette has to dig it up, like the dog she is. They’re raping me again.
“I can’t do this anymore. I give up. I just want to die.”
“No, Jamie! You don’t mean that…”
“I mean it, Tammy. I’m tired. I’m tired of living with this guilt. I can’t even have sexwith you without remembering what theydid to me. What they did gets into everything, taints it, ruins it. I can’t enjoymylife. I should never have gotten with you, because I knew, deep in my heart, something would ruin it. I should have stayed alone.At least I was able to get through mydaywithout constantly reliving the torture…”
I can feel his pain, but myown is too great to cosset him right

made your mark on me, Tammy. I’ll never again be able to live alone and semi-happy, able to push my mind past how it feels to be totallyand patheticallyin love with someone. I’ll never again be able to almost ignore how bad it hurts that I can’t have a normal life, ever.” I plaster my hands over my eyes and cry and cry. “Why did you have to come home? I was doing okay…reallyI was…”

I’m breaking his heart…I know…but I can’t…
Without taking my hands away from my face, I whisper, “I’m sorry, Tammy…I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. It’ll only hurt us to stayin this thing. Let’s just saygoodbye now. It will be better just to say goodbye now…” My nostrils are clogged with snot. After suffering all day long from that paralyzing fear that Tammy was through with me, that he wanted to dump me for whatever reason, I’m doing it to him.
He steps forward and takes myarm gently. “You can’t do this, Jamie. You can’t.” His voice is nasal.
“Let me go, Tammy.”
“No, you have to listen to me…you can’t give up.”
The pain is crushing me, all of the pain, from all directions. “I want to die. I just want it to end! I want this shit to
stop
!”
“Please, Jamie…”
He’s begging me.
Don’t do that, Tammy. Don’t add to my pain
.
“Let me go, Tam!” I jerk myarm free and reach back, readyto slap him again. For a moment, Tammy stares, his already soaking eyes puddling with new tears.
I’ve called him, “Tam.”
I never do that.
The bruise on his cheek is beginning to glow a deeper, more livid red, as if I really have slapped him again. He steps close to me again, tries to put his arms around me.
“No!” I shriek. “Leave me alone!”
“No,” he replies.
My arms flail wildly. “They raped me! They raped me! THEY RAPED ME!”
“I know, Baby, I know…Shhhh…”
“THEY RUINED ME, TAMMY!” I scream shrilly. “THEY RUINED ME! I CAN NEVER HAVE A NORMAL LIFE NOW! JUST GO! GET OUT OF HERE AND SAVE YOURSELF THE HEARTACHE! YOU CAN’THELP ME! NOBODYCAN HELP ME!”
“Stop it,” Tammy says calmly, locking his arms around my upper body.
“I’m just so sorryabout this,” I whimper. “All of it.”
“If you’re talking about us being together,” he says with an edge on his voice, “I’m not. I’ve never been sorry. Because it’s all I’ve ever wanted, all our lives.”
“I can’t do it anymore, Tammy. I can’t…and I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you
can
do this, Jamie…you can do this…we can do this…We were happy…we were so happy…”
“We
were
,” I clarify. “And now…”
Tammysobs feverishly. “Jamie, if it will make anydifference, I apologize. I love you. I never meant to hurt you. You’re right…just watching it…I shouldn’t have. I should have turned it off…” I’m too lethargic to respond.
“But…I kept forgetting it was a video…that it wasn’t the real you anymore…it was almost like I…didn’t want to leave you… alone…with them…hurting you…”
And abruptly, I understand. It comes to me through the layer of ice…the slightest bit of appreciation. Tammy’s eyes are overflowing. Mine are drynow, gritty. I feel dead inside. “I’ll tell you everything,” I sayquietly, limply, utterlydepleted.
“No…you don’t have to…I know now,” he says.
“You know what you
saw
,” I say determinedly. “And now you’re going to listen to
my
side of it.”
“Jamie…”
“No! You’re going to listen to what
I
have to say about it!” I declare in a controlled voice that astonishes me. “It’s only fair you hear
my
side of it. You’ve heard what Lard-Ash Feldman has to say, even though she knows fucking
nothing
! You watched my parents call me names while they stuck things in me, while they burned myass with cigarettes, while theyused me and tossed me like I was a piece of
shit
! Now you’re going to listen to
me
!” My
_{voice is shrill and gravelly, raw from screaming.}

“They started beating me when I was about three,” Jamie says in an eerie matter of fact manner, and I instinctively know he’s employing his survival skills. He’ll have to, if he’s going to be able to tell me this without going insane. He gently frees himself from myembrace and puts needed distance between us. I let him, because he won’t be able to do this with myarms around him. He has to be alone. There can be no vulnerability.

“It’s the earliest memory I have. They managed to duck the authorities whenever a teacher called in the signs of abuse.” He swallows. “Theybegan to lock me in myroom right after first grade began. Theyremoved me from school and locked me in myroom.”

My eyes close…I had heard about Jamie being locked in a room, about how the Sommerville Police found him…but how manyyears…?

“They let me out every so often, to shower and stretch my legs. One night, Daddy came into the shower with me and made me blow him. I tried to escape out the window. They caught me and beat me bloody…then they chained me to my bed…by my ankles.”

I’m sick. I’m so sick.
Jamie just sits there, not a trace of anything on his face or in his eyes, like he’s simplytelling a story. He hasn’t put his socks or his work shoes on yet, and I see his ankles beneath the hem of his scrub pants. Both of them have rings of scar tissue around them, an angry, glossy, lumpy deep red. The left still looks a degree worse, as though he has recentlybeen re-injured there.
“Theygave me a bucket bymybed to piss and shit in,” Jamie continues. He walks slowly back over to the bathtub, curls his hands around the towel rack hanging there. “They fed me whenever they felt like it. When I was about seven or eight, they began to come into my room and make the videos, which they sold to their friends, their friends’ friends, et cetera. They fed me less and less often. I couldn’t leave mybed because I became too weak. The videos changed then. Though it was a lot more fun to film me trying to fight them off, they said, some of their friends really liked watching me lay there too weak to move while they fucked and beat me, too weak to even participate.”
I don’t understand why he’s not crying, or going crazy, and I have to remind myself, his catatonia is a survival thing.
He grips the silver bar and pulls. “I stopped screaming. I learned to stop myself from screaming when Mom put her cigs out on me. I learned how to go awayin mymind, to leave that room, to turn off my fear, to ignore the hurting…When I did that, they stopped making the videos. They stopped, because, if I don’t scream, what fun is that?”
I dry heave. When the lurching of my stomach eases off, I interrupt him in a rough whisper, “Did their friends rape you too, Jamie? Did you have to have sexwith their friends?”
“No, just my Dad,” he replies in sterile, sullen monotone, pulling the towel bar, slowly dislodging it from where it’s fastened to the wall. “Aside from you, the onlyother person I’ve been with is my Dad.” His eyes change, become wild and angry. “I’m sorry! I didn’t
want
to be fucked bymyown father!”
“I know that, Jamie…I know…”
Brown pieces of wall and bits of white plaster begin to crumble from where he’s pulling. “Say what you really think, Tammy!” He spits the words out like bitter seeds. “Just say it! Say what myparents’ friends said! Saywhat you
all
think! I looked like I
wanted
it! I looked like I
loved
it, right? Right?! I made out with Daddylike I was a little
slut
for his big cock, right?!”
“No, Jamie…they made you do it…I know…”
Why won’t you believe me
?
“I was no different than
you
were, Tammy! He told me he
loved
me. He told me he’d never let anything happen to me, that he’d take care of me, and I believed him!” His emotional reserve is deteriorating before my eyes. “He kissed me, he touched me, he made me feel loved. I went for days, weeks, without human touch, and when he gave it to me…I’m
human
, Tammy! He made me feel like he cared about me…is that so horrible? To need someone to touch me?!”
One end of the towel bar comes free, leaving behind a gaping hole. More plaster rains into the white fiberglass basin. The other end remains bolted securelyto the wall.
His voice rises to a fever pitch. “Am I such a horrible person?!”
“No…” I sob. “No…”
“Mommy,” Jamie sneers the word, “was the truly brutal one. Daddy just liked to fuck me. And I would do anything for him, anything he wanted, just so he’d keep touching me, kissing me, loving me. When he didn’t come to myroom for days, or weeks, I’d cryfor him to come…” Jamie’s barelyholding himself on the edge, teetering on the cliff. “I loved him. I loved
both
of them. I only wanted to
please
them. I onlywanted them to love me too!”
“Your Dad manipulated you,” I tell him. “Everybit as much as your Mom did. I think that makes him more evil. I watched him. He made me puke, acting all sweet, making you believe he loved you! He didn’t love you, he used you!”
“You think I don’t
know
that now?!” he screams at me. “You think I’m still so stupid?! He wouldn’t even let me
eat
until I blew him! I was
hungry
! I was so hungry, Tammy!” His wails bounce from the bathroom walls. Plaster continues to avalanche down into a snowyporcelain valley.
“I know…I know…” My heart hurts for the child that’s still trapped…it
hurts
...
“The reason I can’t bear to let you suck me,” Jamie mutters between dry retches, his white knuckles gripping the edge of the bathtub, “is because it would make me feel like I’m myown father, like I’m turning into him. I don’t want to feel that, ever! Ever! Because I HATE HIM! DOYOU UNDERSTAND ME? I
HATE
HIM!”
“Jamie…I understand…I know…”
“If I blow you, I’m still me. If I let you blow me, I feel like Daddy, forcing a child…” Vomit spills from Jamie’s mouth, tumbles down the front of his shirt, into the tub, mixing with the rubble.
Holding the freed end of the towel rack, Jamie begins to twist the metal off from where it’s still affixed to the wall above his bathtub. “The police said Daddy shot Mom and then turned the gun on himself,” Jamie says, deadness in his eyes, puke and saliva copiously dripping in long strings from his chin. His hands and arms work in a circular motion. Twist, twist, twist...
It’s fifteen after ten. He twists, twists, twists. The towel rack separates, a portion stays embedded in the wall. The twisting has created a long, thin, warped edge, sharp as a needle, a razor, a crooked ice pick. Jamie touches his index finger to it. “The cops ought to have let me die in that room…I’m ruined…I’m a maggot… I’m a dirty, disgusting piece of filth…”
“Whydo you blame yourself, Jamie?!” I sob, past the point of hysteria. “Whydo you hate yourself when you did nothing wrong?!”
“There’s no hope for me.” His voice is as hollow and metallic as the towel rod he holds in his death grip. “You thought I was so pure, so sweet. I told you I was a virgin. I
lied
to you. I wanted to be a virgin, but the truth is, I’m
garbage
.”
“Stop it!” I yell.
“Go, Tammy. Just go home.”
“No…I’m not going anywhere…”
“You gonna watch me kill myself?” He positions the spindlelike point of the towel bar against the delicate, transparent skin of his wrist.
“I’m not going to let you kill yourself!” I step carefully towards