The Value Of Rain Page 3

  I started screaming incoherently, a loud warbling nonsensical rush of despair and rage. My fear that Charlotte had never wanted me, never cared whether I lived or died, was finally realized in his explanation of my name. The feelings of recklessness, yearning, and ultimate abandonment were indescribable, immeasurable. Minot finally stepped up and walloped me hard across the face, drawing blood as he silenced me.

  He grabbed my jaw between his fingers and tilted my face up to him as I looked at him in shock.

  “You’re mine now, Charles. It’s just me and you, so you might as well forget about your mama and your little fag friend. This is home now, and you are going to be here for a good long time. You can make it hard, or you can make it easy. Your choice. But from now on, you’re mine.

  “Fuck you,” I spat at the only available target for my rage.

  He released my chin with a look of surprise and stepped back, a grin breaking across his face. He bobbed his head at me, taken up by the only challenge I had ever voiced in my life. “Good. I like that, Charles. I like it very much.”

  Minot turned his head slightly, without taking his eyes from me, and spoke over his shoulder at someone outside the door. “Mr. Robbins, escort our young friend down to the white room. I’ll be there momentarily, and Charles can see just how much I enjoy his little challenges.” He looked at me a moment longer and walked out without another word.

  One of the orderlies from the day of my admission side-stepped into the room with a leer after Minot had passed him. He bent close to my ear and groped my ass with a large rough hand. “We’ll get acquainted later queer boy, count on it.”

  *****

  The white room was just that, white. Hardened like a carapace for insanity, its tiles echoed the muffled screams of the abused and bounced them back ten decibels higher. It was a cold stiff room that waited with an unquenchable thirst for the arrival of the undead so that it could steal away their innocence while they convulsed in agony.

  In the center of this white mosaic of madness was the machine that provided many of Minot’s miracles, and ultimately led to his downfall. It was his baby, his birth child. Smuggled in from a defunct asylum, the Lightening Bug, as it was affectionately known by the wards of Sanctuary, was liberally used to dose us with the nostrum of Benjamin Franklin.

  I backpedaled immediately. I knew an electric chair when I saw one. Robbins laughed and tightened his grip. “It won’t hurt you, queer boy, it’ll help you. Ask Dr. Minot.” He howled with laughter, ripped my paper jumpsuit off with his free hand, and strapped me in, leaving me to be electrically lobotomized into submission.

  My first screams for mercy went unheard, as did my tenth. Only Minot could decipher when his wards had learned their lessons, and he was not one for easy lessons, particularly with me. It seemed that I was a special project of his; a private commitment versus the state ordered adolescents I was boarded with. That license gave him free reign to experiment in my social regeneration, without all those pesky petty bureaucrats looking over his shoulder. I learned quickly that his dislike of children bordered on pathologic, so much so, that he probably would have exterminated all his wards had it not been for the paperwork involved.

  That first time, I awoke from the ministrations of the Bug the same way that I would awake from it many, many times afterwards; my heart trying to pound through my ribs, my body covered in sweat, my mouth filled with the metallic taste of terror. Minot was there, as he always would be, standing over me with his fingers running lightly across my chest or clasped tightly under his arms in annoyance.

  He never took any sexual liberties with me, though there were those such as Robbins who were not so conscionable about such things.

  “When are you going to stop this nonsense, Charles?” he asked me. “Don’t you see where this is leading?”

  Invariably, my reply was to either swear an oath of future good behavior, or simply tell him to go fuck himself.

  Minot’s response was always one of disappointment. “You’re going to be a man of tics, Charles. A man of tics.”

  It became his credo.

  I did try to escape, many times. But I was never successful. I was hunted down, popped with Valium and Thorazine, and from there, straight-jacketed or body bagged before being dumped in a padded room. When my fury had wrung me dry, and the drugs had taken complete effect, I was stripped and cuffed to a bed in two or four point restraints and left alone until I was docile enough that the sound of my pleas bordered on obscene. And, of course, the escape attempt earned me another appointment with the Bug.

  The rest of the names and faces are a blur. Between the haze of drugs, the Bug, and the mental self-deletion of Robbins’s actions, only the stark desperation of the place remains firmly fixed in my mind.

  That, and the death of Bruce Livermore, the boy who precipitated my exit from Sanctuary.

  Chapter Three

  February 1991

  Charlotte is still breathing and the house is quiet except for the clatter of a distant train in the snowy fog.

  I’m sitting on the windowsill watching Charlotte and wondering if she’s ever sat here during her illness and felt the complete emotional vacuity that surrounds her. Has she ever understood that her room was never anything but a precise reflection; that while her flesh pulsated, the rest of her existence was dead? She had made it so that no one cared, ever.

  Is that living?

  I turned back to the darkness outside and let the timbre of the train take me with it. Could these snowflakes catch all these mixed emotions and carry them in their contours until the spring thaw? Could we really start over again? It seemed unlikely, especially when the doorknob turned and Jarrel’s form became shadowed in the back light.

  My uncle is a hulking man with red hair and thick, heavy hands. His face is lined and demarked by obvious feelings of raw inferiority and anger, though I should note that I have seen his eyes carry warmth, but strictly for people outside the family.

  His chest heaved as if he was about to begin a long oratory, but he fumbled, biting at his lip, and began searching for the light switch instead.

  I watched him grope the wall and felt a sting as light flooded the room and soaked up our emptiness. His eyes fell on me heavily, but not without some reluctance, as he rested his bulk awkwardly against the doorjamb. “Charlotte needs her medication,” he said, his expression not quite as pinched and determined as Penny’s had been.

  “Fuck you, and her,” I told him.

  His mouth puckered into a displeased little knot, but he said nothing. He’d been sent on a mission that he obviously hadn’t wanted and seemed ashamed of being here. Most likely because he had astutely avoided my eyes when I first came in, and only his loyalty to Penny had allowed him to be prompted into acknowledging me now.

  Unable to speak, he spread his hands apart as if asking for a break.

  I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, watching him in unforgiving silence.

  His eyes dove to the floor with a frown as his hands came together and began to twist around one another.

  “Not so easy to disguise anymore, is it Jarrel?”

  He looked up, glowering slightly, his bitterness not quite in equal proportion to his vulnerability.

  “I don’t hate you, Charles. I never did,” he answered flatly.

  I caught myself staring at him in utter disbelief, the pulse in my eye glittering with the same clenching desire that my hands demanded. I could taste his flesh on my tongue, feel its rough surface slithering down my throat. I hated this man with every fiber of my being.

  He looked at me for a long moment, his breath seeming to slip away before he slid his hands into his pockets and looked up at the ceiling. “Those were different times, Charles. Hard times. You have every right to hate me, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did...”

  “Fuck you.”

  Jarrel glanced at me and shook his head. “It’s not an apology. I don’t expect your forgiveness. If I can’t give it,” he said with a
bulleted glare at Charlotte, “how can I expect you to? I just wanted you to know that I regretted what I did.”

  I stood frozen, rigid with rage. All those years, all those beautiful, beautiful boys...

  I flung myself across the room, my scream rising to a roar as I spat in his face. “Fuck you and your apology!”

  His chin lifted. His eyes hardening on my panting frame, every muscle in his big body tensing. But he didn’t move, not even to wipe away the spit dribbling down his face.

  Sylvie, his wife, came in, her hand reaching out for his forearm and clasping it tenderly as she stared at me.

  “Get the fuck out!” I growled at Jarrel. “You, your wife, and your brats. And take your goddamned non-apology with you.”

  Jarrel stared down at the floor, beaten by all that I had witnessed and survived. But Sylvie, stirred by her love of the man I so hated and despised, pulled herself close to him and drew her lips back as if ready for a brawl.

  Her eyes shifted to Jarrel and softened immediately. “Tell him, honey,” she whispered softly.

  Jarrel shook his head, tears brimming as he stared at the floor. “No use.”

  “Tell him,” she insisted. She took his chin and brought his gaze to her. “Tell him, he has a right to know too.”

  Jarrel’s eyes came back to me unwillingly, and with a deep anger that I recognized in my bones. “Your mother had me molested to keep me in line, Charles. You became a pawn between us because you were the only way to pay her back for what she did. That’s why I sent you to Sanctuary. So now you know.”

  His whole body slumped with defeat. He lifted his arms as if he was about to offer something more, but suddenly dropped them and walked from the room. Sylvie watched him helplessly. We stood there in utter silence looking at the empty doorway.

  “You have another cigarette?” she finally said.

  Still dazed, I handed her the pack.

  She turned in Charlotte’s direction as she lit up and raked her eyes across the cruelty she saw there. She could only shake her head as she handed back the cigarettes.

  I watched her, knowing that, had we the time, I could get to like this pert little dark haired woman. She was absolutely unafraid of any of us. I took the pack and returned to the window, lighting one up for myself. Sylvie took the chair by the bed and looked me up and down.

  “You have one very fucked up family, you know that?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  She nodded, blew out a puff of smoke and sat back, satisfied that we had established a repoire.

  “It’s ironic,” she said,” because all of you each have your own little narrow view, and not one of you has been brave enough to span the breach and see what the fuck is really going on.”

  “Which is?”

  She chucked her head in Charlotte’s direction. “Divide and conquer. It’s been her mainstay.”

  I glanced at Charlotte. “Go on,” I prodded Sylvie.

  “Tell me about your grandfather,” she said.

  I looked at her curiously. “Francois?”

  She nodded.

  “He was the only person I ever trusted in my childhood,” I offered.

  “But what do you know about him?” she insisted.

  “What are you looking for? He died when I was fourteen. What more can I tell you?”

  “Cancer?”

  “Yes. I.... He struck me as an aristocrat, you know what I mean? A noble ex-New Orlean without title. He had this aura that made people gravitate to him.”

  “Did you know Linda?” she asked me.

  “Linda Preston, his second wife? No, but I don’t think Charlotte ever forgave my grandfather for marrying her either. She was Jarrel’s mother, as I’m sure you know, and Charlotte claimed that her maternal grandparents had some pretty strenuous protests about him marrying Linda and raising Charlotte in squalor.”

  Sylvie raised her eyebrows looking for further information.

  I shrugged. “Her words,” I said, indicating Charlotte. “There was a custody battle, which Francois won, but only on the terms that he relinquish all claims by him or Charlotte on Marie’s estate.”

  “Marie?”

  “Marie Montmarre, Charlotte’s real mother. Marie’s parents were so bitter that they let everything go to the state instead of their only granddaughter.”

  “Charlotte told you this?” Sylvie asked.

  “Yes. It’s all a lie, but yes.”

  “What did your grandfather say happened?”

  “He never said too much about Marie, other than the fact that he had moved up here with her from New Orleans. Mostly, he told me about Charlotte and her antagonism. How she had pushed Linda out of his life with it.”

  “And what did he tell you about Linda?”

  I chuckled. “According to my grandfather she was a saint. Kind of made me want her as my mother instead.”

  Sylvie cast a quick glance at Charlotte. “No doubt.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, anyway, he was pretty upset that Charlotte didn’t get out of his house before Linda died. He wanted her back.”

  “And your grandfather still adopted Jarrel and his brother after she died.”

  “Of course. They didn’t have anywhere else to go and he felt it was his duty because he gave Linda up for Charlotte’s sake.”

  Sylvie nodded slowly, lost in her own thoughts.

  “I think he thought of it as his final apology to her. He was always so sorry that he gave her up for Charlotte.”

  “But Charlotte drove Jarrel’s brother away even though she wasn’t part of François’ household anymore?”

  I nodded, but offered nothing more. Breece, my second and older uncle, was an unknown factor to me until just a few days ago, even though he had been mentoring me on the streets for almost five years. The revelation of his family connection was still a hot coal in my throat, one I could neither swallow nor spit out.

  “So,” Sylvie said, “you were born and Francois and Charlotte were brought back into contact.”

  “Yes, he wasn’t about to be denied access to his only grandchild.” I sighed. “He was my balance against Charlotte.”

  “Which you lost when he died,” she said.

  I nodded again.

  She took one final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out as she looked at me. “How old was Charlotte when Marie died, Charles?”

  “I’m ... not sure. I seem to recall Francois saying that she was almost seventeen.”

  “Seventeen. Seventeen, Charles,” she stressed. “It doesn’t add up on either side of the story.”

  “I’d take my grandfather’s version over Charlotte’s any day.”

  She nodded.

  “If I was in your place I probably would too. But I don’t think...,” she paused to put her thoughts together. “Let me ask you this, do you remember the coolers?”

  “The coolers?”

  “On your fishing trips with Francois,” she said.

  I smiled. “Yeah. His beer, my soda.”

  “How much beer?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. A case?” I answered hesitantly.

  “A case, for one man? On a three hour fishing trip?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing. I’m just questioning the idol worship you have for Francois.” She studied me in silence for a moment. “What if I told you that Linda Preston was really a little mouse of a woman?”

  “I wouldn’t say anything. She was dead and gone long before I was born.”

  “True,” she conceded, “but I think it explains why you heard so much about Linda and virtually nothing about Marie.”

  “I still don’t get what you’re driving at.”

  She leaned forward in her chair, eager for me to see it. “Linda was easily dominated, Charles. Just like Jarrel. He’s big and gruff looking, but he’s just a little mouse inside. Marie, your real grandmother, was just like Charlotte is. I don’t think your grandfather took too we
ll to that.”

  I flicked the stub of my cigarette out the window. “Fine, but what the hell does any of that have to do with what your husband did to me?”

  “Jarrel was a pawn too, Charles. Only his war preceded yours by a few decades. Charlotte used him as revenge against Francois. She destroyed his character and pushed him into the arms of a pedophile, and then tried to mold him into her own little weapon.”

  “Why? Revenge for what?” I asked, still clinging to my skepticism.

  Sylvie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “So all the years of planning and scheming backfired on Charlotte and everything hit me instead?” I asked heatedly.

  “You weren’t the target, but yes.”

  “And now I’m supposed to forgive him?”

  She shook her head sadly. “No. He doesn’t want that, Charles. He doesn’t want anything from any of you.”

  “Then what the fuck is he doing here?”

  “Trying to get some understanding of why, Charles. Just like you.”

  Chapter Four

  June 1975

  I learned a lot in the four years I spent at Sanctuary. Most of it was about how much abuse the other boys around me had suffered at the hands of those who claimed to love them. Two thirds of my fellow wards were sex offenders who had repeated the acts of abuse and violence on other kids, just as had been done to them. It was the only real human contact some of them knew.

  There were boys who had been raped by their fathers, brothers and uncles. Others who had been initiated into Satanic cults through the physical and sexual abuse of animals, themselves and other children. And still more who had been given up for adoption and dropped into the system because their parents already had too many kids, simply couldn’t be bothered, or were hooked on some kind of drug.

  There was no love at Sanctuary, nobody had any delusions about that, but there was nothing resembling treatment either. The boys were simply warehoused. They developed prison mentalities to prove their masculinity, impress one another, and save themselves from being further victimized. That mentality fed, and fed off of, the subculture of sex, violence and intimidation that dominated all interactions among the wards. And I was no exception to that.