A small white saucer with a mismatched mug on it floated silently through the air across the dining room toward the hall that led to dad and mom’s room. The side of the mug read “World’s Best Dad” and was steaming with the black tea mom drank, but no one was carrying it.
From deep in his makeshift sleeping bag bed on the couch in the dark living room next to the dining room, Paul wanted to scream, to warn dad that demons were coming for him, coming with super hot tea, coming like his first grade teacher at church school said they would come for dad because he was one of God’s top soldiers and they wanted to stop him, but Paul couldn’t open his mouth, couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t move, like someone had turned off his body, but not his eyes, and left him to lie alone in the middle of the night on the couch.
And Satan in hell was watching Paul on his big TV screen in front of him in roaring hellfire, and he was laughing. Naked Christians were impaled all around him on sharp knobby stakes thrust up through their bottoms and poking out through their boobies, and they were sizzling like breakfast bacon, like the Christians that got burned by Cathlicks a long time ago, and they were screaming “No! Oh no! Please! Please, in the name of Jesus! NO! In the name of Jesus!” And whenever they said “in the name of Jesus” the hell flames turned into serrated blades of fire that twisted around them and shredded their eternally blistering skin, and a laughing demon squirted oil on them from a big can and twisted the stake inside them, but they couldn’t stop saying “in the name of Jesus” and they’d say it forever.
And Satan, huge and horned and blacker than sin, banged the butt of his gargantuan blood-stained pitchfork on the echoing obsidian of hell’s cave floor and laughed and laughed with his mouth stretched open in an impossibly wide smile that was ringed inside with row on row of very white knife point teeth, all angling back toward his gaping throat like a shark’s open jaws waiting, waiting, wanting to rip humanity apart and gargle the blood of God’s children.
On Satan’s big screen, Paul saw the mug and saucer being lowered down to the small nightstand next to the pillow dad’s head was on. Dad was on his back, eyes closed and mouth slightly open, peacefully asleep. Then, for no visible reason, his blue eyes flipped wide open and his body convulsed like he was being electrocuted, and his legs thrashed as he tried to sit up and his hands were gripping the empty air above his neck, pulling on invisible arms connected to the chokehold around his neck. Hell’s big screen zoomed in to a close-up of dad’s eyes and Paul saw fear in the strongest man in the world.
Paul watched dad twist his head to the left, looking for mom, despairing tears leaking from the corners of his eyes like life draining from him, but where mom should have been next to him in the queen bed was a lion-sized black dog with sleek oily fur who stared back at dad with red eye slits that glowed hot in the dark, and when dad turned to it, it snarled and pulled back it’s cracked black lips to show row on row of sharp shark teeth and it stretched its jaws wide, tearing bloodless gashes at the corners of its parched lips, and instead of a tongue, dry red flames licked out between its teeth from the back of its throat as it laughed, and then it slowly moved its jaws closer to dad’s quivering face and the cracked lips turned into snake scales, and white fangs sprouted like twin daggers from behind its upper lips, and a single bright red drop of venom grew, steaming, at the tip of each fang and dropped into dad’s open eyes, and dad’s eyes smoked into charred holes as he writhed in unbearable pain, and Paul watched his lips silently mouth, “In the name of Jesus,” again and again, and Paul woke up choking on a strangled wail on the couch in the dark in the living room.
He pulled the top of his sleeping bag into his mouth to hide his gasping cough and tried not to move. His face was hot and red and his body felt wet all over like he’d peed himself. Without moving his head, he looked over the end of the couch to the end of the hall that led to mom and dad’s room. He rolled his eyes in every direction, searching the dark for any sign of movement, but nothing moved. He tried to swallow away the lump in his throat and tried not to stare across the dining room at the square black hole that was the open door to the kitchen. He felt a cool trail of tears that ran from the corner of his left eye to a small pool inside his left ear on the pillow, but he didn’t move his hand to wipe his cheek. Not yet. Out of the corner of his left eye, he caught the cold blue stare of the boxy digital clock next to the goldfish bowl on the side table below the living room window. He slowly rolled his head a little to the left to better see it, but he already knew what the time would be. Sure enough, it was 3:33 am, like every morning when he woke up from hellish nightmares on the couch. Dad told him to sleep there until he wasn’t scared, and that all he had to do if Satan tried to scare him was to say, “In the name of Jesus!” He didn’t say that though.
Paul stared at 3:33 on the clock, and in his mind, real quiet so that Satan wouldn’t really notice but would maybe stay away from him like a bad dog would sniff hot sauce and then back away from it, he recited John 3:16 from the Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The clock changed to 3:34 as Paul repeated the scripture verse in his mind, the first verse he had ever learned and the only one he could remember, like a magic spell, when Satan entered his dreams. At 3:36 he felt a little better, so he stretched his legs, one at a time, and pulled his sleeping bag out of his mouth and wiped the wetness off his left cheek and ear with the fingers of his right hand. By 3:39 he closed his eyes, and the next time he saw the clock its digital display wasn’t as bright because sun filled the living room with glowing gold light from the other side of mom’s shiny yellow curtains.
He needed to pee really bad now, so he threw off the top of his damp sleeping bag and popped out of bed. He paused for a second to wiggle his bare toes in the cream-colored shaggy carpet next to the couch and he shivered a bit as the cool morning air chilled him through his moist pajamas. He looked up from watching his toes play with the carpet and saw Goldie’s big black fish eyes staring at him from her bowl on the table next to the clock. She was opening and closing her mouth like she was trying to eat the smooth glass of her bowl and Paul was super hungry, so she was hungry too. He walked over to the bowl and picked up the little orange container of fish food with the yellow lid.
“I gotta pee super bad, Goldie,” he said as he pinched some flakes of food from the top of the container and sprinkled them over Goldie’s head, “but I can feed you real quick cuz I bet you’re starving.”
Goldie shimmied to the surface of the water in her bowl to start hoovering the flakes. It was his special job to feed Goldie and no one else was allowed to, not even dad. He watched her eat for a couple of seconds, then he backed away from the bowl to hobble toward the bathroom that was half way down the hall between the dining room and mom and dad’s room.
He bent slightly at the waist, trying not to stretch or bounce the big balloon of pee inside him. His looked down at his lower belly pushing out against the pickles on his pajama shirt like he was fat, but not from food, fat like the naked black kids in Africa who wanted to eat the stringy canned spinach mom served him sometimes at dinner. Maybe some of the kids weren’t hungry, they just had big bellies because they needed to pee really bad and the missionary didn’t know how to ask them in their language if they were hungry or just needed to pee. He decided to ask mom about it later as he turned the handle to open the bathroom door, feeling like he was gonna spray his pajamas if he didn’t get to the toilet pronto.
When the door swung open, he was surprised the lights were on, and then even more surprised when mom stepped out from behind the shower curtain, naked, and he never saw her naked, and her boobies hung down so big and her dark nipples were so huge, like round shields with spikes coming out of them, that his eyes froze open and he made a surprised “whuh?!” sound.
Mom grabbed at the towel rack for her long pink robe with the ruffles going all the way down the front from her neck to her ankles.
“Oh my goodness,” she said as she slipped her arms into the robe. “Paul, love,” she said with a little laugh as she looked at his open mouth and big eyes, “you really need to remember to knock when the door is closed. I forgot to lock….”
Her eyes flicked up over Paul’s head and her smile disappeared as she froze for a moment, then she wrapped her robe tight around her body and hugged herself under her boobs that Paul was still seeing naked in his head.
When dad’s big hand clamped around his right shoulder, Paul gasped and jumped. He twisted his head around to look up over his right shoulder as his stomach dissolved, and he squirted a little in his pants. Dad was glaring at mom, teeth clenched, and his grip slowly tightened on Paul’s shoulder until it felt like his fingers in front would touch his thumb in back and it really hurt, so Paul squirmed, but then dad gripped his left shoulder and Paul knew he shouldn’t move or make a sound, cuz then it would hurt more. He looked straight ahead at the toilet.
“It’s my fault, Burt,” mom said quickly. “I got up early and forgot to lock the door. I’m sure he just needed to go to the bathroom and didn’t think anyone would….”
“He knows better, Tiffany. This can’t continue. I warned him next time he opened a closed door without knocking he’d be spanked, and now he’s seen your…your….”
Burt ran his eyes down and then up her body, pausing at her breasts, focusing on her hard nipples pushing against the soft pink of her robe, then looked back up into her eyes with a sneer on his lips.
Mom looked down and turned to snatch her bath towel from above the toilet and she draped it around her shoulders and chest like one of her flowered shawls.
Paul saw his near future. He was pulling his pajama pants down by the chest at the end of dad and mom’s bed while dad chose a belt from his closet. Hopefully not the braided one. His belly was so full of pee it would burst like an overfilled water balloon if anyone bumped it. Dad would be looking grimly at him as he folded the belt in half and walked over behind Paul, but Paul wouldn’t look at dad because if Paul didn’t feel sorry, which he didn’t, dad would see it in his eyes and spank him longer and harder. “Eyes are the window to the soul,” dad often said, and Paul knew his soul was dirty, so best dad didn’t look in there. So he’d stare down at the chest while dad handed him a pillow to scream into, and then dad would squeeze his neck from behind and push his head down to bend Paul over the chest, and he’d raise the belt and pause for a few moments while he chose which part of Paul’s bare butt or legs to hit first.
Paul’s eyes would be squeezed shut in the pillow and he’d bite down hard on the fabric to help quiet his first scream. But there wouldn’t be more than the first blow because he knew that at the first whap! of leather on skin, he’d squirt pee from his private part all over the side of the chest and the floor and then dad would smack the side of his head so hard he’d fall over, still peeing, his pajama pants bunched around his ankles, and dad would yell, “What do you think you’re doing?!” and it would feel so so good to let the pee out, but then he’d be spanked again later, harder, maybe twice…..
“Please! Ouch! I’m sorry!” Paul hollered.
Mom turned her head left to look down at Paul’s face. She nodded slightly and raised her eyebrows.
“Yes!” Paul continued, looking up at mom. “I gotta go to the bathroom so bad I’m gonna blow up!”
“Not ‘bad’, you say ‘badly’ Paul. I’ve told you that many times,” dad said. He let go of Paul’s shoulders.
“’Badly’” Paul echoed, as he stepped toward mom and turned sideways to dad, looking down. “I’m sorry. I need to go really badly.”
He took another step back toward mom and the back of his head touched her left elbow.
Mom stepped lightly around him, between Paul and dad, twirling around him like she sometimes did when they danced to classical music when dad was at his car parking job, dancing like the men in tights and the ladies in circle dresses danced in castles. She backed into dad, bending slightly to reach the bathroom doorknob, her wet brown hair falling forward, dripping shower water on the floor, and she pulled the door shut behind Paul.
“This is your last warning, Paul,” he heard dad say from the other side of the door. Paul watched the doorknob, hoping it wouldn’t turn. Dad should knock first. He wouldn’t though, because if you make a rule you don’t have to follow it.
“Oh, Burt, let him pee,” mom said. Her voice had the soft tired laugh she put there when she wanted to show upset people that it wasn’t a big deal and was maybe something to ignore, like when Paul was little and cried when he scraped his knees.
“Tiffany, this is as much your fault as it is his,” dad retorted, his voice harsh as a belt lash. “Are you incapable of remembering to lock the stupid door? Do I need to post a note on the door in big letters that says ‘LOCK ME’”?
“No, honey,” mom said, “I’m sorry, ok? We don’t need a sign. I’ll lock the door. I was just half asleep. Look, don’t you need to get ready for work? Are you hungry? I’ll get some yogurt. Do you want a muffin or can you eat eggs? What did the doctor say? I’ll pour some tomato juice.”
“I don’t want tomato juice, Tiffany. I told you I don’t drink it any more. Will you pay attention or do I need to write that down too? NO TOMATO JUICE.”
“Burt, just sit down, ok? I’ll fix you something.”
“How about you get some clothes on so we aren’t all seeing that you’re a little cold. Do you understand me? Hurry up. I need to get ready for work. Is my shirt ironed?”
Paul heard their voices getting quieter as they walked out of the hall toward the kitchen. He stood in front of the toilet and his first squirt of pee hurt when it came out because it wanted to come out so bad, but then it felt so good that Paul breathed a long “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” along with his tinkle and made circles in the toilet bowl with his pee stream. He aimed around the edges of the pee bubbles on the water’s surface to see if he could keep the bubbles from touching the sides of the bowl.
As his bladder emptied, he decided that after he got dressed, he was going to climb the biggest birch tree by the tall wood fence in the back yard and hide in the green leaves to spy on the house on the other side of the fence. Dad said he was not to talk to the two girls who had just moved in there, but he accidentally did talk to the older one a little bit yesterday when he was in the thick bottom part of the tree and a pretty girl with black hair and shiny black dress and black expensive-looking shoes and very white skin walked over to stare at him for a minute. They looked at each other, Paul sitting on the lowest tree branch just above the fence that was a little taller than dad, and she standing below him in the new green grass of her new backyard.
“How old are you?” she asked. “I’m 10.”
“6,” Paul said, and they looked at each other.
“Well,” she said after a few moments of silent staring, “I turned my dog into a cat.” She pointed to her cat. “Because I’m a witch.”
“In the name of Jesus,” Paul whispered as he clutched his branch in both hands, ready to jump all the way down to the ground if she pointed at him.
“What?” she said.
Paul slowly slipped off the branch, turning as he lowered his body, but keeping one eye on her. He hung from the branch for a second and then dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence from the girl who stood motionless, watching him. He faced her for a moment through the ½ inch space between the vertical cedar fence boards. He could only see one of her dark eyes and it didn’t blink. He backed away from the fence and forced himself to turn away from her to walk across the concrete patio toward the sliding back door of this house, back to mom.
“You’re coming inside already, sweetie? What were you doing out there?” mom asked cheerfully from the kitchen to his right as he stepped through the back door into the dining room.
“Climbing the middle tree,” Paul said.
He paused just inside the open door, watched her put a bunch of red grapes into a pan of soapy water and start to wash each grape between her fingers, one by one. She never rinsed all the soap off the grapes, so when she wasn’t watching, Paul always rinsed them again before he ate them. He hadn’t told her that, but felt he should tell her, but he didn’t want to tell because when dad complained about her food it made her sad.
She glanced over at him.
“Shut the door, little man,” she said with a small smile, glancing out the kitchen window in front of her before looking back down at the grapes.
“Ok,” Paul said as he slowly stepped back outside and turned toward the witch, “see you soon, mom.” He slid the door shut.
Mom looked out the small kitchen window that faced the patio and back fence. She saw Paul walking slowly across the patio toward the little girl in black who slipped her small fingers through the gaps around a fence board and pressed her head against her side of the fence to watch Paul with one eye. Mom shook her head a little and smiled down at the grapes.
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