Boys in the Valley(75)

Poole says nothing, but Johnson sees fear in the man’s eyes. Recognition.

“Regardless, sickly Jeremiah was always difficult. Always suffering from some ailment or another, needing an ointment or medicine for this or that. A troublesome little boy for your poor mother, who raised you alone, am I right? Your father having died young, when you were just a baby. So sad.”

Bartholomew pats Poole’s hand. A boy snickers.

“But all those doctors . . .” Bartholomew tuts. “Quite expensive. Especially with no income from Father—God rest his soul—and almost nothing from Mother, who worked as a maid, I believe? Is that about right? I feel sick, you know, thinking how much money she had to make to continually heal you, to keep your pathetic little body alive.”

Bartholomew looks around the room. A magician making sure the audience is paying attention. When his eyes fall on Johnson, he winks.

“But. But but but . . . there’s a dark secret to this story, isn’t there Jeremiah?”

Poole turns his head enough to look side-long at Bartholomew. His eyes are wide, filled with fear and horror. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

Johnson thinks he’s mumbling the word “no,” over and over again.

“Yes, very dark. You see, it’s a wonder how Mother was able to pay for all those expensive doctors. How was she able to buy you medicine, Father? To cure your delicate innards again and again? On a maid’s pittance? Oh, wait. I remember . . .”

He leans close to Poole, relishing the moment.

“She was a whore. Mother was a prostitute, wasn’t she Father Poole? She did what she had to do, but you . . . you resented her for it, didn’t you?” Bartholomew’s smile twists into a snarl. “You self-righteous, ungrateful ass!”

Bartholomew lets out a breath, then the smile returns. “To be fair, it didn’t help that she did her business right there in your dumpy, shitty little house. As a matter of fact, she’d fuck strange men on the same bed where she’d once slept with your dead father. What do they call that? Oh, right. A marriage bed. Well, that was shot to hell, wasn’t it?”

He laughs and all the boys laugh with him. Silent tears spill from Poole’s eyes onto the thin pillow.

Johnson feels nothing. He only listens to the noise in his head. It comforts him.

“But the worst part? The worst part was that you could hear them, couldn’t you Jeremiah? Sure, you could. And it disgusted you. Upset your childish, Sunday School moralities. I bet it made your sickly skin crawl to hear the bumping and thumping and groaning and moaning of all that rabid sex, the slapping flesh. All those strangers giving it to old Mom. She must have been quite the dish, your mother, I’ll give you that. What, for all the fucking she did.”

“Shut up, damn you. Shut up!” Poole snaps, agitated, now weeping openly.

Bartholomew gently puts a hand on Poole’s chest. His smile wavers, and for a moment Johnson thinks the boy’s face flickers, becomes indistinct, as if covered in gray mold. But then the face returns, and he’s just a boy again. Or what was one.

“Finally, there was the night you could take it no longer,” he says quietly. “Do you remember, Father? The night you decided that you didn’t want to hear the sounds from Mother’s bedroom anymore. It was too horrible. Your imagination was going wild, wasn’t it? And so, you decided that you didn’t want to imagine it anymore. You wanted to see.

“So that night, you crept from your room and down the hall, quiet as a spider. You stood outside your mother’s room, listening to all that groaning and thrashing and what-not. You knew they’d never notice if you turned the knob and opened the door . . . just a crack. And so, you did. And you saw, didn’t you Jeremiah? You watched.”

Bartholomew’s voice grows quiet, so he is almost whispering into Poole’s turned face. “And what did you do next? You ran!” Bartholomew yells this and all the boys laugh. A few of them jump, enjoying the scare. “You ran back to your room and jumped into your bed, pulled the ratty old blanket over your head and you prayed, Father Poole, oh my Lord how you prayed and prayed to your feeble God, to take the memory away, to erase the vision from your mind forever, so you would never again feel the horrible shame of it all! Feel that burning hate for your mother which you felt in that moment. Do you remember, Father?”

Bartholomew, laughing along with the others, lets the moment settle. Then, when the room is quiet, he whispers into Poole’s ear like a lover, like a serpent.

“Do you remember what you prayed for?”

Bartholomew grips Poole by the chin, twists his head so their eyes meet.

“I do. I remember it like it was yesterday,” he says, the words oily and hateful. “You told God to take your eyes, didn’t you? You told him to take your eyes, because you never wanted to see anything like that ever again.” Bartholomew sits back, hands resting in his lap. He shakes his head. “Such a horrible thing for a child to ask for. Nay, to pray for. But as I’ve told you—your God is weak. You still have your eyes, obviously.”

Bartholomew stands. He slides the dagger into the waistband of his pants, and steps away from the bed. “But my god? My god is not weak, Father Poole.”

For a moment, he stares away into space, into nothing.

“Teddy,” he says, finally, and the swarm inside Johnson’s head screams. “Fulfill the Father’s childhood wish, will you?