The same way every porno movie implies a score of people standing just off camera, knitting, eating sandwiches, looking at their wristwatches, while other people do naked sex only a few feet away . . .
To the stupid little boy, that was enlightenment. To be that comfortable and confident in the world, that would be Nirvana.
'Freedom' isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
That's the kind of pride and self-assurance the little boy wanted to have. Someday.
If it was him in those pictures with the monkey, he could look at them every day and think: If I could do this, I could do anything. No matter what else you came up against, if you could smile and laugh while a monkey did you with chestnuts in a dank concrete basement and somebody took pictures, well, any other situation would be a piece of cake.
Even hell.
More and more, for the stupid little kid, that was the idea . . .
That if enough people looked at you, you'd never need anybody's attention ever again.
That if someday you were caught, exposed, and revealed enough, then you'd never be able to hide again. There'd be no difference between your public and your private lives.
That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you'd never want to own or do another thing.
That if you could eat or sleep enough, you'd never need more.
That if enough people loved you, you'd stop needing love.
That you could ever be smart enough.
That you could someday get enough sex.
These all became the little boy's new goals. The illusions he'd have for the rest of his life. These were all the promises he saw in the fat man's smile.
So after that, every time he was scared or sad or alone, every night he woke up panicked in a new foster home, his heart racing, his bed wet, every day he started school in a different neighborhood, every time the Mommy came back to claim him, in every damp motel room, in every rented car, the kid would think of those same twelve photos of the fat man bent over. The monkey and the chestnuts. And it calmed the stupid little shit right down. It showed him how brave and strong and happy a person could become.
How torture is torture and humiliation is humiliation only when you choose to suffer.
'Savior' isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
And it's funny how when somebody saves you, the first thing you want to do is save other people. All other people. Everybody.
The kid never knew the man's name. But he never forgot that smile.
'Hero' isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
Chapter 6
The next time I go visit my mom
I'm still Fred Hastings, her old public defender, and she keeps me yakking all afternoon. Until I tell her I'm still not married, and she says that's a shame. Then she turns on the television, some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems.
The next visit, I'm still Fred but married and with three children. That's better, but three children . . . Three is too many. People should stop at two, she says.
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