Raunchy 2 (25 page)

The Next Morning

The next morning the blood was wiped piss poorly off the floor and Mr. Nice Guy’s body was gone. The gentle man. The sweet man who had taken a liking to the boys, who genuinely cared about them and their well-being was now dead. This was a crushing experience. And it was also an experience that would affect each of them differently.

Instead of the usual silence after a night of Harmony’s drunken escapades, they heard her busying about the house although she didn’t come to their room.

Sitting on the bottom bunk, Jayden looked at his brother. “You think she gonna be mad with us?”
“I don’t know.” Madjesty shrugged. All morning his gaze remained on a yellow stain upon the wall, next to the door. He couldn’t understand any of this and how people could be so mean to one another. “
“She gonna be mad.” Jayden said. “I know it.”
Both of them were riddled with fear when Harmony walked into their room frowning, looking like a monster. Once inside their space, she closed and locked the door. The whites of her eyes were blood shot red and around them were black. Tearstains rested on her bruised face and she smelled of alcohol.
“Because of you, Madjesty,” she said plugging up an iron that was thrown in the corner of the room. “Wagner is dead.” She tapped her fingers over the hot part of the iron checking the temperature. Finally she pressed her finger against her wet tongue and touched the iron again. It sizzled. “And now you gotta pay.”
Madjesty cowered in the corner and Jayden screamed out, “Mama, no! Please don’t!”
“Shut up you, little bitch!” She pointed in his face. Then she turned back to Madjesty. “Wagner would still be alive, if you hadn’t opened your fucking mouth. That man loved me and I was going to leave Ramsey for him. And you ruined it all!”
When the iron was hot enough, she removed it from the wall and caught up with Madjesty. Overpowering him, she placed her knee on his throat and held him to the floor. The more he moved, the more pressure she applied until it was difficult for him to breathe. Taking down his pants, she placed the iron on his thigh. Loving the pain she was causing her son she smiled in delight.
Next to alcohol, Madjesty derived a strange pleasure from inflicting pain on her children. She wanted to make them hurt as much as she hurt on a regular basis. She wanted them to hate life as much as she hated life. In her mind, in her own sick way, if they hated their lives, she could make them feel one ounce of the mental torture she felt on a regular basis. Alcohol was the only way she conquered the demons she saw in her dreams. And abuse was the only way she got revenge. She knew very personally what the term, misery loves company meant because she operated that way for so long and more importantly she had no intentions on changing.
As the iron pressed against his skin, the pain Madjesty felt was overwhelming. Striking pain ripped through his flesh as if he was being skinned alive. His eyes rolled up into his head and Harmony smiled. Over and over she burned him on the thigh until the iron was too cold to do further damage.
When Harmony was done she stood up and looked at his pus-raised skin, “You better never tell nobody about this. If you do, I’ll have you killed and dumped where Wagner is. You understand me?”
“Yes,” he cried. “Yes.”
For days on end, she would come into the room and burn Jayden once or twice but Madjesty the most. She wanted to scare the children into secrecy so that they’d never tell about what happened to Wagner when Ramsey finally returned home. She never, not once, saw that Madjesty was changing for the worse. How could she, she was in a drunken daze most of the time and mad at the world the rest.
The twins were out of school for a week before she finally let them return. The sun wasn’t as crude as it had been in the week’s prior but it would not have made a difference to them anyway. Their spirits were broken and they barely spoke to each other. They sauntered to their elementary school in silence. Troubled thoughts occupied their minds but there was one thing that Madjesty still looked forward to, and her name was Tisa.
After Mr. Nice Guy was murdered, Madjesty wasn’t allowed to look out of his window, or leave his house during the entire week Harmony kept them at home. She was too concerned Mr. Bad Guy would come back to kill her and the boys. Even though he moved his family out of the neighborhood, fear held Harmony and her children hostage. Through it all there never was a day, ever, where Tisa wasn’t on Madjesty’s heart and mind. It was all he had to keep going.
When they walked into the school Madjesty couldn’t believe his luck. Tisa was there, holding her book bag and laughing with friends. Madjesty was always amazed to see people laughing because he very rarely ever did. What was she laughing about? What good things were going on in her home, that wasn’t going on in his?
When Tisa saw Madjesty in the hallway, she approached him. But after days of heartache and physical pain, Madjesty was waiting on it…waiting on the thing she did to make his day. Smile. And then she gave it to him. But there was something wrong. This smile was different because it didn’t seem to make the complete upward motion it needed to expose all of her pretty white teeth and spaces. What was wrong? What changed?
Needing to be alone Madjesty said, “You can go into the class, Jayden. I’m coming.”
Not liking Tisa anyway Jayden said, “Okay.”
Tisa walked up to Madjesty who was dressed neater than he normally was. The night before Harmony washed a bag of clothes for them to wear at school for the week. She wanted to have as little attention on them as possible. She didn’t need some nosey teacher pulling them into the office because of their dirty condition only to learn about the Mr. Nice Guy’s murder. No, she was being careful these days…for now anyway.
“Hi, Madjesty.”
“Hi.” He smiled.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Why you haven’t been to school?”
“Not feeling well.”
“Oh…I had a cold too.” She let out two quick coughs.
“Feeling better?” He asked, genuinely concerned.
“Kinda.”
Silence.
“Well…I gotta go to class.” She continued. “But I can’t be your girlfriend no more.”
Madjesty tugged at the bottom of the white shirt he wore. Suddenly it seemed to itch against his dry skin. Suddenly it seemed to be too tight around his neck.
“Huh? But why?”
“Because I go with Antwan now. I’m sorry.”
She walked away. She left him alone. She left him devastated.
The news of his first break up took all he had left. “Go to class, Madjesty.” A teacher said.
Angry about losing Tisa, he spoke quickly to the woman. “I’m going! Wait!”
The teacher was stunned but left it alone. He wasn’t her student. Madjesty was growing rebellious and anger was quickly becoming his best friend. In his mind adults were evil and didn’t deserve to breed or take care of children and that went for all of them. The teachers, too.
“I go with Antwan now. I’m sorry.” Kept replaying in his mind. “I go with Antwan now. I’m sorry. I go with Antwan now. I’m sorry. I go with Antwan now. I’m sorry.” He couldn’t stop it and it was tearing him apart.
Once in the classroom, Madjesty grabbed the encyclopedia that was on the wall and approached Antwan. He was pissed at the world and decided he wasn’t going to be too many more of his punks. He wasn’t going to be the kid who bit his tongue all the time. He wasn’t going to be someone too afraid to talk. Besides, he’d done that already and it had gotten him picked on, beat and ridiculed. It was time to change and it was time to change now.
Although everyone was talking at first when Madjesty approached Antwan with the book, the room got deadly silent. Seeing something different in Madjesty’s eyes, Antwan wasn’t as cocky as he usually was. He was stunned by his boldness in even approaching him. “What you want, stupid? Another piss sandwich?”
Everyone laughed except Madjesty. Gripping the book tightly he could feel his nails digging into the fabric on the book’s cover. He hadn’t expected it to be so heavy and he wondered how Antwan held it so securely in his hands, the days he hit him repeatedly in the back of the head.
When Madjesty gripped the book how he wanted, he whacked himself in the front of the head. Then again…and again...and again, until the wound Harmony caused reopened. Blood poured down his face and Antwan’s eyes grew larger. He was frightened and the other kids in the room including Jayden were too stunned and scared to make a sound. What had gotten into him? What could make a boy who was so quiet and so withdrawn so crazy at the moment? Life had fucked him up. Life had stolen the only precious moments he had to live for and life had taken both Mr. Nice Guy and Tisa.
When the teacher finally walked into the classroom, Madjesty was dripping in his own blood and a grin rested upon his face.
“What the fuck is going on here?” The teacher asked rushing up to Madjesty, removing the book from his bloody hands. He didn’t even realize he’d used profanity in his classroom. Madjesty didn’t allow his presence to move him either which way. As far as he was concerned, he could suck the dick he thought he had between his legs. His focus was razor sharp and zeroed in on Antwan with precision, never taking his eyes off of him the entire time. He wanted him to know that what he just did to himself, he could have easily done to him.
Madjesty, in that moment wanted to make a statement. That you could never hurt a person who could easily hurt themselves.
“Are you crazy or something?” The teacher continued.
When the teacher said that Madjesty looked at him and said, “Fuck off.”
“What you just say to me, boy?”
“I said fuck off!” The teacher anchored his arm and rushed him out the room thinking he was losing his mind. When in all actuality he was. But was it his fault? How could he be normal when life around him was anything but?
“You stay here and don’t move. I’m calling your mother.” The teacher said after they walked into the Nurse’s office.
Madjesty sat in a seat too big for his small body. His legs dangled under him as he waited for the nurse to come in and do her job. An unrelated woman walked into the room and looked at the bloody little boy in shock. What happened to that small child? She said to herself as she kept it moving, as every other adult he encountered in life did to him. No worries though. He would simply add her to the list of adults who didn’t give a fuck.
A blue baseball cap sat in the seat next to him and he lifted it up. Who did it belong to? Who had left it? Whoever it was they were short because now the hat belonged to him. He put it on his bloody head and smiled. It fit! The pressure against the wound stung a little but he was use to pain now. Something happened to him in that moment. The hat made him feel safe. It made him feel right. He pulled it down further to cover his eyes and his face produced a menacing smile.
That moment sparked a change in his mental direction. He was no longer afraid of anything and he was susceptible to pain. As he grew into a teenage boy, and eventually into a teenage girl, he would no longer move to the beat of another person’s drum. He would be forever changed. He would forever be Mad.