about it. Who would they tell?
iss Webb was the first girl I ever gave a Valentine card to. The only one ever, to be truthful about it.
She knew I could never bring books home—the Beast would tear them up just to be doing it. But I could bring the things she baked, and the big bottle of milk she always had for me, too, as long as me and Tory-boy could make them disappear quick enough. We got real good at that.
Miss Webb never tried to get me to read anything special; she just left me on my own. But she could get books I wanted just by ordering them from bigger libraries. I loved her for doing that even more than I loved her for feeding me and Tory-boy the way she did.
You are what you do. So I was able to love Miss Webb just for being herself.
I was a little ashamed of that feeling. I know I should have been wishing that Mr. Trammel and Miss Webb would get married, but I just couldn’t make myself do that.
I’m not even going to lie and say I tried.
’ve had this sense of balance inside me ever since I can remember, but I didn’t really feel it kick in until I found science. It was like a holy spirit, the way it beckoned me.
Preachers will say they “got the call.” I don’t know how it was for them—or even if they’re being truthful when they make that claim. But for me, there could be no doubt. Science called: loud, hard, and sharp. A bright- white light calling, “You come this way, boy!”
Igniting something that had been inside me all the time, as congenital as my disease.
That does happen; I know it for a fact. Homer LaRue is the finest fiddle player there is, even if you’ll never hear him on the radio. Folks say he just picked up an old fiddle one day and made it sing. Every year, people would come back from Branson and swear they hadn’t seen anything to compare to him. And Homer LaRue never had a lesson in his life.
Folks say the music was born in him, but he didn’t know that himself until it called him. That was like it was for me with science.
When Miss Webb saw me with an algebra book, she asked me if she could help me with it. I was stuck for a minute, like I was being pulled two different ways. I wanted to say yes; I always loved having her close to me. But I wanted to show off for her even more.
When I demonstrated that I already knew how to do all the problems, she couldn’t hide her surprise. “Oh, Esau, I never imagined—” Admitting that she had underestimated me caused her to blush. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
I was only about twelve or thirteen when it happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
And I will treasure it forever.
Oh, how I wanted to see that blush again. But I couldn’t surprise her twice. After that, no matter what outlandish claim I’d make about what I knew, I couldn’t even get her to raise her eyebrows.
t wasn’t just killing I studied. I had to know about why me and Tory-boy had been so cursed. And I finally found the explanation I prayed wouldn’t be there when I looked.
Once I followed the trail down to its natural end, I found myself studying genetics. After that, it didn’t take me long to work it out.
I don’t remember my mother. No, that’s wrong. That’s just dishonest. What I mean to say is that I have no actual memory of the Beast’s woman—the one he always told people had run off on him. I knew that she hadn’t given birth to me.
I remember thinking how, if her first child hadn’t turned out to be a girl, she might have lived long enough to have actually been my mother.
I couldn’t think past that point without crying, so, after a few tries, I stopped. For good.
es, I wanted it more than anything on earth. And, yes, I worked at it every waking moment. But when that flower finally reached full bloom, it wasn’t due to any plan of mine.
It just happened, as if its time had come.
If people could look at a videotape of what happened, they’d get sick. And if they liked what they were seeing, they’d
The way it started, I didn’t have any feeling about it at all. It wasn’t new; it was part of my life. But when the Beast turned vulnerable, it was like looking at a beautiful new butterfly, opening its glistening wings as it rested up for its first flight. One of those rare sights, one you knew wouldn’t last but a few seconds.
And something you’d maybe never see again.
I say it just happened because it started the way it always did. Rory-Anne came in real late one night. The Beast was waiting. He said he could smell it on her, what she’d been doing. Rory-Anne was too messed up to notice his eyes had already turned red.
He made us watch. I was nearly fifteen then; Tory—the child she’d named after herself—he was turning seven. Old enough for school, but nobody ever thought of sending him. He’d watched the Beast hurt Rory-Anne plenty of times, just as I had. He didn’t understand that this time was going to be different. At first, neither did I.
The Beast had done all kinds of things to Rory-Anne before. We were used to it; she was used to it. He always called it “God’s punishment for whores.” First he’d use his belt on her, and then …
That night, when he was finished with the belt, he made her get on her knees. I thought I knew what was coming next—I’d seen that particular punishment a lot of times, even more since Tory-boy had been born.
By then, I knew why the Beast wanted Rory-Anne to get pregnant again. He wanted a baby girl.
The Beast unzipped his pants, but when he pulled his thing out, it just hung there, limp.
Rory-Anne burst out laughing at him. She called him all kinds of dirty stuff. I thought he’d beat her some more for that, but he just zipped up his pants and walked away. I figured he was headed for one of the bottles he always kept in his room.
When he walked back in, Rory-Anne was sitting on the couch. But she wasn’t crying, she was having a good time. Kept calling the Beast all kinds of foul names, pointing at him, laughing like a crazy person.
“Good thing you can’t get that little thing up no more, old man. Nigger cock tastes a lot better than yours, anyway.”
She didn’t stop talking that kind of stuff until she saw the pistol in his hand.
The Beast walked up real close to her and shot her in the face. Pieces of her head flew off behind her.
He looked at what was left of Rory-Anne’s face like he expected her to say something. Seconds passed. Then he put down the pistol, spun around, and walked over to the kitchen. He came back with the butcher knife in his hand.
When he started to pull Rory-Anne’s body by the hair, I knew what he was going to do. And, sure enough, he told me what to tell the cops if they ever showed up.
“I don’t expect no cops,” he told me. “That whore must’ve run off with someone. Not the first time she did that. But if they do show up …”
The Beast told me that if I didn’t say what I was supposed to, say it exactly the way I was supposed to, the Law would carry him off.
“Then you wouldn’t have nobody to take care of you and that little dummy,” he said. When he saw that wasn’t much of a threat, he told me if they put him in prison the Welfare would come and take me and Tory-boy away.
That didn’t scare me, either. But the Beast knew me better than I thought. When he said the Welfare wouldn’t just take me and Tory-boy away from the house, they’d take Tory-boy away from me, those words stabbed me right in my heart.
“They take me down for this and he’s gonna be put in one of those schools for retards, you understand that? You know what those places are like? You seen those things I always done to that whore for punishment? That’s what they’ll do to him. They’ll fuck him in his ass until he can’t walk. Every day. Every night. But you won’t get to see that for yourself. No, they’ll put you in a place for crips. You’ll never see that soft-in-the-head little freak
