37

STANLEY’S SWEATY GRIP CHOKED him again. Morgan had said the wrong thing.

“I swear, if you don’t learn your lesson, you pathetic little rat, I’ll tear every inch of your hide off!”

Tears soaked young Morgan’s face. I hate you, he thought. I hate you! Every inch of his body screamed in pain. He’d broken one of the steps on his tumble down the cobwebbed stairs leading into the basement. His back fractured one at the center and left his zombie t-shirt a dirty, tattered mess. He couldn’t help the wounded, trespassing notions that if he had been born as some other creature, he’d receive better treatment. But he was cursed to crawl the basement floors in fear and trembling as nothing more than a pathetic human boy.

Worse. A rat.

Fresh bruises took refuge below his cheekbones. If he got tired of using his belt, Stanley got creative. Welts one and two came from a greasy skillet. Morgan questioned if he was supposed to thank God the skillet wasn’t hot.

God.

Or the other one.

Morgan couldn’t move, and breathing became a severe chore. Stanley told him to stop wheezing, but the dust settling into his lungs didn’t help. Both middle fingers were broken, facing the wrong way; the merciless irony stung.

“I want to die,” he whispered, never meaning for Stanley to pick up his muffled, listless request.

“But life is beautiful, son,” Stanley returned. How could he do that? How could this man, who didn’t deserve to be called anything but a vile sperm donor, call him son as he clenched his knuckles into a fist and unleashed another blow? “I take care of you. Your mother, mouthy tramp that she is, takes care of you. Don’t be stupid, Morgan. You got the goods, dontcha know? You’re livin’ in a paradise. Be thankful.”

As Morgan coughed, Stanley tickled his cheek with an unclipped fingernail. It might as well have been a razor.

“There are tiny little babies dying all over this wretched world, AIDs-infected, hungry little vermin. But I’ll bet you not one of ’em is as sorry looking as you are right now. If you think you got it so rough…If you think life’s sooo bad, why don’t you stand up and fight back? Unleash hell. Come on, I’m waitin’, rat!”

A string of spit shot into Morgan’s eye. It was Stanley’s drunkenness, he reasoned, that fueled this relentless assault. He always wished for there to be some form of love inside such a depraved soul. If not love, perhaps mercy. Perhaps blind pity.

But Stanley didn’t stop. With the heel of his boot, he kicked in both of Morgan’s knees, dropping him quickly. Shortly after, Morgan rose and struck Stanley once before starting to claw at him, shrieking like a beast.

Curses climbed the concrete walls and wooden frames of the basement, circled the pillars then came back again.

“He’s got backbone.” Stanley laughed, thrusting his knuckles into his son’s chest and watching him smack against the cold surface. Dust fogged the air.

Stanley edged closer, his eyes intensifying the haunting mood the dragon had birthed in this dark, unholy hour. Those crooked yellow teeth executed a vile sentence all their own. Breath like sewage hovered over Morgan’s nostrils.

And then it came. Stanley’s giant grip swallowing his own. Morgan’s hand was violently guided into Stanley’s jeans. He hated how the zipper irritated the skin on his forearm. It was like ice. What he touched, however, felt warm and horrible and filthy.

“This is how we pay for our sins, rat. You don’t want to go to hell, do ya?” Stanley asked.

With dirt mocking his tears, Morgan answered only by shaking his head, the tireless dragon looming over him, his shadow enlisted to help devour a boy piece by piece.

“Make me happy, and God won’t make you suffer in the next life. We pay a toll here,” Stanley groaned with satisfaction, “but you’ll thank me. One day, you will.” And then, like clockwork, came his title: “Rat!”

It came to life a thousand and one times.

“No one’s innocent, not in this life. And not in no other life either,” Stanley convinced his son. It was a cruel form of safety. “Penance, boy. That’s what the men of the cloth call it, yes they do.”

This was how the world operated, he had been taught. From an early age, Morgan was told that all kids went through this kind of growing pain, or pain just like it. Part of shedding the adolescent skin. Morgan never wanted to go to hell, so he did as Stanley asked. Honor your father and mother, that’s what the verses spoke of.

He wished the figurines didn’t watch, though. He hated when they watched. An angel, with mighty, almost bat-like wings, sat perched on the edge of a high-rise steeple, mouth shut and silent as Sunday mass. Its white eyes made a scared, fifteen-year-old boy their target.

Morgan sought escape, but there was none.

Then another small statue found him. It was a gargoyle, or some beast he’d not learned by name. Its jagged teeth filled an open jaw. Scaly arms reached out as if seeking to claim something Morgan wasn’t at all ready to relinquish. So ghostly and haunting these figures carved by man were. He didn’t dare perceive any others. Instead, he hid, eyes tight, mind sent to a foreign place. Not here. Not now. Not with Stanley.

The revulsion became more real, the rage more potent. But Stanley knew best, didn’t he?

Well, didn’t he? Wasn’t a family supposed to be this way? Love meant doing things you didn’t always like. Love is supposed to be patient, kind, submissive, silent. And he couldn’t ever overlook that little part about forgetting the horrible flavors sinners made you drink.

But amidst the groans and the wicked smile Stanley’s vile lips created, Morgan came to realize the truth. No matter how many times he tried to believe what Stanley had fed him over these long years, love mostly played the hypocrite. Love left him alone. Scared. Crying in the dark, to no one. Maybe there was no heaven, no true angels, only the hell Stanley preached about. Only the hell he brought Morgan to each and every night while his quiet mother scratched the bedroom floors and did nothing to stop it.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

It was a long moment before Morgan could hear footsteps. When his mother finally answered the door, her faint voice seemed to resound even louder than Stanley’s greedy breaths. It displayed no sign of anguish. In fact, it was jovial in the most corrupt way, like the way normal people sounded—people with nothing to hide in their basements.

And then he heard the visitor’s voice, identified it immediately. It was one layered with low tones and indifference. A man’s voice. One who had come to meet with Morgan. A friend, supposedly. A doctor.

“All right,” Stanley said, tossing Morgan a rag for his hand and for his bruises. “Clean yourself up. Sounds like you got some company.” Smile. Hot breath. The zipping up of Stanley’s jeans. Less than a split second passed before the horrible weight of what he’d done in obedience to Stanley collapsed upon his young conscience. He removed his sweaty hand from Stanley’s boxer shorts a thousand times in a moment.

“Now, don’t be a rebellious, little runt. Be a good son. You love your daddy, don’t you?” Stanley said, letting go of some spit. He rubbed his son’s head, didn’t wait for a response.

Morgan was hushed. The filth was all consuming. The new draft was needles, injecting him with a deeper chill than usual.

Stanley vanished into the dim light of the stairway, avoiding the step Morgan’s frail body had broken.

The visitor spoke with his parents upstairs for several minutes while he remained against the concrete wall, the throbbing in his head and his back a constant threat.

He looked down at his fingers disdainfully, swearing at them, blaming them for their frailty, as he cracked one bone back into place. The pain overwhelmed him momentarily, making him feel suffocated. The carousel his mind was on now spun too fast for him to get off.

It felt like hours had gone by, but upon his arrival, the doctor said Morgan hadn’t been gone long. He’d merely dozed off. It seemed like the carousel had thrown him off in time to meet with the doctor, whether he wanted to be thrown off or not. Nevertheless, he was on the grass now, but it was so damp, and the smell reminded him of a basement. And then the ride operator revealed himself for real, stepping out from the corner and extending a rigid and bony hand toward him.

“Hello, Morgan. It’s time to come back to reality. Wake up, lad.” He was using a long, crippling tone, luring Morgan back from the other world. A happier world. This process happened slowly but, like all things, was eventual. In no time, his imaginary world disappeared, and the carousel gone with it.

Reality was so much crueler.

“I’m glad you came back, Morgan. It isn’t safe in that part of your mind. If you stay there too long, you grow more familiar with the other world, and if you’re not careful, you could become someone else entirely.” The doctor’s caveat was born out of calm. A voice much too calm.

Morgan’s slow reply came with tears. “Maybe I want to be someone else. Maybe I want to be someplace else. I like it there, Dr. Irons.”