Jeremiah Quick (3 page)

I tease her about her writing, her books,
but only a little.

Then I step away from her, setting her free,
well… sort of. As much as I'll ever set her free.

There are some things I need to clarify.

I pull my wallet out of my pocket and fish
out a pink piece of paper, hold it out to her. "Read it to me. Just
the first part."

She takes the paper, carefully avoiding
touching my fingers, and I hate her for doing that.

But then she glances at the paper, and the
cutest blush colors her cheeks, and I stop hating her
immediately.

It was the poem she put on her blog when she
thought I was dead. Would have been nice to get it from her when
she thought I was alive, but maybe it's one of those things that's
better late than never.

Her voice wavers, like she’s self-conscious,
but she looks into my eyes instead of at the paper because she
knows it by heart, and I can't help but love her for that.

There's a childhood friend

You'll never forget

He's the one who affects you the most

He'll make your heart melt

With the things that he's felt

But the memory's only a ghost.

There was that word, that stupid vague word
that deleted all my horror.

Her heart melts for all the
things
I'd felt.

I want to shove her against the fridge again
and slap her pretty little face.

"Not things," I say, a little bit sorry that
I sound deadly, but I truly cannot help it. "Pain. Rape.
Desperation."

Something flares in the dark blue of her
eyes, grief maybe, or regret. Or maybe simply fear.

I am so out of place here, I don't fit in
any sense of the word. Fear is probably appropriate.

"Let me tell you about the
things
," I
say, not even sure where I'm going with this. "The snot-licker who
claimed himself my father gave me oodles of pain, my dear. A punch
here, a slap there. A kick, if he could get one in. I never knew
why he hated me, just that he did. I wasn't all-American-boy
enough, perhaps. Makes no difference why, the fact is he hated the
sight of me. Cigarette burns, cracks to the head. I kept trying to
turn his hatred, but never had any luck.

"I had a paper route for a long time while
planning my escape. Saved and saved my money until I had quite a
lot. Saw this car. Had some asinine idea that fathers and sons work
on cars together, and maybe this car would improve our
relationship, so I paid for it, had the guy I bought it from drop
it off.

"My old man smiled, put me to work cleaning
the garage, making room for this car. I should have known to be
scared. I'd just given him a whole new arena in which to perpetuate
his abuse."

Her voice comes from my left, startling me
into silence.

"I'm sorry."

Rage makes me see red, because I'm on a roll
and now she's interrupting my train of thought and the words were
flowing so effortlessly, and there's a part of me that can't
believe I'm going to
tell
her all of this. But I've started
now, and so apparently I am. "What are you sorry for? You weren't
there. You didn't do anything."

"I'm sorry I didn't know. I'm sorry I didn't
ask."

She's moved away from the fridge – has she
sensed my impulse to slam her against it and watch her head
wobble?

She sits down at the kitchen table. Not
exactly out of reach.

"Doesn't matter. I wouldn't have told you
anyway."

I shake myself, literally, then tuck the
sides of my hair behind my ears, looking for the thread of my
story, finding it, tugging it.

"The car. I was… fifteen, I suppose. Anxious
to get my drivers' license and get the fuck out of dodge, but young
enough that it felt like forever away. It was a '78 Ford Ranchero,
ugliest yellow you ever saw. It had a bed, and a tailgate like a
truck, but was a car. Oh, not the skinny streamlined El Camino –
the Ranchero, harder edges, more square. I thought my dad would
like it."

I stop to laugh for a minute. It was so
ridiculous.

"Now he'd say, 'C'mon, jackass, let's go
work on the car,' and I could look forward to odd-shaped bruises
made by a whole new set of tools, no longer just hands and feet and
glass ashtrays in assorted shapes and sizes."

She makes a noise deep in her throat, a
strangled indicator that she doesn't want to hear this.

"Yeah, you know the pointy jacket you loved
so much? I put all those studs on it so when he hit me, he'd hurt
himself." I laugh a little at my deluded young self and my
pathetic, ineffective suit of armor.

"Sometimes we actually worked on the
car.

"One day my dad's older brother came to see
it. It was eerie how much nicer my dad was when my uncle was
present. My uncle said it didn't matter if it was a Ranchero or an
El Camino, both of them were stupid, wanting to be a car and
wanting to be a truck. Make up your mind. I tried to explain it
wasn't a big truck, and didn't take up as much room.

"He blinked at me slowly, then said, 'Are
you retarded or something? This ain't no compact car.'

"I was so pissed, I made a gesture like I
was going to hit him, but he caught my arm, then spun me around so
my back was against his chest. He pinned my arms and held on.

"I didn't have my jacket yet, in case you're
wondering."

She.

She doesn't say a word just watches me with
apprehensive eyes.

"My uncle shuffled us both around so we were
leaning against the car, looking into the rusty bed. He said,
'What's the point?'

"Something was happening, but I didn't know
what. His voice was so calm, it was like the very molecules in the
air knew something I didn't. I struggled against the heaviness of
the air, though not against his arms, which were still locked
around me. 'For hauling stuff,' I said in exasperation. 'Like a
truck.'

"'What's it called?' he said, and his moist
breath tickled my ear.

"My head swam in confusion. I knew it was
called the bed, but I was afraid to say it."

I refocus on her, sitting on a chair, hands
clenched in her lap. She isn't watching me anymore. Her eyes
skitter around the kitchen, looking at her own hands, then the pile
of mail strewn across the table top, then out the window… back to
her hands. Looking at anything but me.

She feels my attention leave the past and
settle on her, because she hunches her shoulders forward and
whispers, "You don't have to tell me."

"Ah, but I do," I say. "I want you to know.
I want you to know it was
pain.
And I want you to know how
much."

Now she does look at me, for maybe as long
as a whole quiet minute. I can't tell exactly the expression on her
face - if it's sorrow or dread or the exasperation of having a
crazy person telling ugly stories in her kitchen. But then she bows
her head and nods.

As if I need her agreement.

Fuck that. She'll sit here and listen to the
story because I want her to.

"'Tell. Me. What. It's. Called,' my uncle
spat in my ear. And then he bit me, hard, and I yelped. He bit me
again, even harder, and there was this hot point of fire that
started in the middle of my outer ear and radiated into my head. I
shrieked and struggled against him, begging him to let me go.

"'No,' he said, and his voice was hard,
emotionless, and he held me even tighter. And I could feel his cock
was hard, and it dug into my ass through his jeans. Through
mine.

"'Tell me what it's called or I'll bite you
again. I'll bite and grind my teeth right through, and then you'll
really scream.'

"'Okay, okay,' I said, trying to catch my
breath. 'It's called a truck bed, okay? There.'

"'Close,' he said, and pressed his hips
harder against my backside. 'Now tell me what it's called in just
one word.'

"I sagged in his arms. I knew I'd lost. I
was too small, he was too strong.

"'A bed,' I sighed.

"'That's two words, but I'll forgive your
mistake this time. Now. Tell me what a bed is for.'

"He rutted up against me, and I knew what he
wanted me to say, but I wasn't going to say it.

"'Hauling things,' I said, defiance clinging
to my vocal cords.

"He ground his teeth together, right there
next to my ear, and my blood turned to ice water. I trembled in
sheer terror. Which was when I remembered my father. Wouldn't he
stop this? He wouldn’t just watch his brother... rape... me, would
he?

"I craned my head, trying to see past my
uncle's bulk, willing to plead for my father's intervention. But he
wasn't there. He'd left the garage, left me with this sick fuck.
Did he know what was happening?

"'There's no help for you, boy,' my uncle
breathed in my ear, as if he'd read my mind. 'Do what you're told,
and it will go better for you.' His arms squeezed the breath out of
me. 'Tell me what a bed is for.'

"'Sleeping,' I said.

"He laughed, and it was the creepiest laugh
ever. 'Try again.' His teeth edged against my ear, pressing in
without hurt, holding on to it delicately.

"I could feel the tears pooling in my eyes.
I fought them, didn't want them to fall, didn't want him to see me
cry. His teeth tightened, then released, then tightened again. I
thought I felt saliva drip down the side of my neck, slide beneath
my shirt collar, slippery and wet and gross, making my chills even
worse.

"I gave up, all my muscles going loose, and
would have fallen to the floor if he hadn't had a firm hold on
me.

"I knew what he wanted me to say, and I was
very, very afraid. But I gave in. 'Fucking,' I whispered,
defeated."

She.

She makes some noise, shaking her head.
"No," she begs. "Please."

I move to the table until I'm looming over
her, then lean down to set my lips against her ear. "Yes," I hiss,
and then I bite. I can’t help it. Her innocence is delicious.

She squeaks, one hand flying up to cover her
ear, the other pushing at me, pushing me away.

I have mercy on her and step back. Just one
step back, though. "Listening doesn't hurt."

Still holding her ear, she twists in the
chair so she can look at me. "Yes, it does."

"Not as much," I say, and smile. Her face
pales a little, and I wish for a mirror so I can see which smile
I've put on, that frightens her so. I will surely want to use it
again.

"He told me to lay in the bed, on my
stomach, like a good little boy and push my jeans down to my knees.
I was already tired of being afraid, and wanted this over with so I
could get away from him. I might not have been able to put it into
words at the time, but I knew he was eating my fear, sucking it
into himself for sustenance, and I wanted to take it away from
him.

"I obliged him. I think I believed all he
wanted was the fear, and that he wouldn't actually rape me.

“I was wrong."

She.

She cries as I tell her the rest, as I speak
every detail, how he spat on his hands and shoved two fingers hard
into me, as far as he could reach, how I imagined myself a
butterfly pinned alive to a specimen board, fluttering helplessly
as I died. For surely he was killing me, the pain was so great, so
unfathomable. Just from his fingers.

It seemed to go on forever, as I fluttered
and gasped, but refused to scream.

When he jerked his fingers out of me, I was
sure he took some part of me as well, not just blood and shit, but
layers of tissue clinging to his fingernails, leaving me raw and
torn, perhaps damaging me forever. He forced his dick into my
asshole, and I howled from the pain, bucking beneath him, fighting
to get free, but he only laughed and bit my ear, the same ear as
before, biting down, tugging at it with his teeth. I felt the
threat, that he would tear it right off.

I made myself be still.

When he started sawing in and out of me,
pushing in, pulling back, I couldn't stop the screams.

His hand settled over my mouth, muffling me,
stifling, and I could smell myself, my ass, on his fingers, and I
stopped screaming long enough to gag.

He let out a loud grunt and shoved into me
with a particularly vicious jab, then apparently he was done. He
slapped my ass as he pushed himself out of the truck bed, leaving
me lying there, gasping, my pants and underwear still around my
knees.

"You know, Jer," he said, peering at me over
the side of the truck box. "Your dad's abusive. Somebody could call
that in, you know? Send you to a foster home. Or maybe a relative's
house."

I struggled up to my knees and tugged my
jeans up, then stared at him, lifting my hand to my ear, flicking
my eyes to my fingers to see them sticky with blood.

I stared at the blood. Touched my ear
again.

Message received, and very, very clear.

"No," I said. I meant to say it loud, maybe
even yell, but all that happened was my lips formed the word, and
no sound came out at all.

He laughed.

My old man came through the side door then,
with a plate of sandwiches.

I almost threw up. He'd gone off to make
lunch while I was raped.

"Come on, Jeremiah," my dad said. "Quit
fucking around and have a sandwich."

I wiped my hand on my jeans. He hardly
looked at me. If he saw the blood from my ear, he pretended he
didn't.

Had I noticed before that my old man was
subservient to his older brother? I'd have to think about it, but
later.

My ass hurt so badly I almost cried climbing
out of the truck bed. All I wanted was to be away from them, to
wash him off of me, out of me, maybe go to sleep.

It was a day or two later my father
mentioned my uncle would be coming around more, helping me fix up
the Ranchero. "Lucky for you," he said. "He's better with cars than
I am."

It was all I could do not to vomit.