STAINS

What is that? Mustard? Or possibly this disgusting person just decided to poop and rub it on the front of their pants. What are those, anyway? They look like they could be pajamas and they’re clearly too large for him. I fucking hate this school. All these other kids are just the same as him, just picking their noses and rubbing it on their pants, like I didn’t just see that. Hopefully fifth grade will be better.

I hate when my teacher decides to start teaching “Science” if you could even call it that. Here in Mississippi, science is not a very valued class, but at least public schools get something. My parents put me in a good christian school. They try to teach something that they believe to be a good Christian science.

“Julian.” I look up and see the teacher and most of the class glaring at me intently. It seems my effort to look busy went in vain. “Yes, Ms. Bable?” “What can you tell me about how the world came to be?” she asked. “Well, for me to know that, you would have to teach something Ms. Bable.” Ms. Bable just stared at me, angrily, for a second and walked to her desk. She picked up the phone and dialed. “Yes, Principal Richards, Julian will be coming down to your office in a few minutes… Yes, I believe we’ll need to schedule a meeting with his parents… ok great , bye.” She hangs up the phone and looks at me and sort of gestures towards the door. As I walk out I can feel the entire class staring at me. I am not well liked here, I am different, but I do not like them either. It doesn’t seem that I really like anybody.

I decided to leave school. What real reason do I have to go to the principal's office, anyway? I am probably going to get the same level of ass beating I get from my step dad. I might as well have a few hours of freedom before I succumb to my fate.

This is a pretty small town so the only real place for me to be happy is to go into the forest. And being a small town in mississippi there is a lot of it. That’s at least one thing even this place can’t ruin. The forest is nice. The air feels like there’s less fat, sweaty people breathing in it. I can smell the trees. I am not sure what kind they are but they are tall. I can see squirrels running and climbing up and across branches. The sun shine pokes out through the leaves and spots the ground making it look like a sort of distorted plaid.

As I’m walking I see something poking out from behind a tree. A deer! Eating some fruit fallen from the tree. It’s so pretty. I almost want to go up to it but i don’t want to scare it away. So i’ll  just watch from a short distance. I can feel the serenity of this moment.

BANG!

The deer falls to the floor, it’s blood spattered across the tree and parts of the ground. When out steps my step-father, the jackass hunter.

“What the hell are you doing out here boy? I know you’re ‘posed to be in school. And i don’t want no smart ass remarks.” “So do you want a smart ass remark, or not i don’t really understand you.”

He gives me a sort of glare, and puts his gun away. I know that look. I’ve seen it too many times before, and i know what comes after. I take off running in the opposite direction, but who am i really kidding he’s a grown man. I can hear his footsteps getting closer and closer. He’s gaining on me and i will not make it far. Was that snappy remark worth it? Probably, as he would have found out that I talked back to my teacher.

As he gets close enough to get his hands on me, he gives me a forceful push sending me into the rock covered ground. The rocks dig into my side, however I’ve felt worse from that kid with the shit stain on his pants.

 “You’re gonna learn how to talk to me!” He says forcefully.

He punches me, hard in the stomach. He does this again. But he does not want me to be injured so badly that he has to carry me so he takes me by the hand and stands me up. He quickly smacks me across the back of the head and we start heading off.

I think we might be headed home but I am not sure. We are definitely not headed towards the school. As we are walking in silence, we approach... it. Of Course he wants his deer. As we approach it i can hear it groan. Is it still alive? But i thought my dad shot it? Clearly not well enough to kill it. The groaning of the deer is too horrifying to bear. It’s clearly in great pain.

“Go on help it!” I cried

“What do you mean help it?” My step father asked rhetorically.

“There is only one thing to do.” He takes a large knife he had on his belt.

“W-what? Well okay just do it fast!” I say just wanting the deer to stop making those awful screaming sounds.

“Me? I’m not doing anything.” He looks at me and hands me the knife. “No, no, no, no, I won’t, I can’t, you can’t make me.”

He forces me in front of the deer and brings me to my knees over it. I  think it’s only a baby. It seems small and has many white polka dots. It’s sad that the white dots are almost all red now.

“ I can’t do it. Please! Don’t make me!”

He takes my hands in his and forces the knife down into the deer's heart.  

I don’t remember the last time i cried this hard. My step dad just looks at me, cleans off his blade and says. “ Come on, we’re going home.”

I can’t believe that even showering doesn’t make me feel clean after what happened earlier. I don’t think i’ll ever be able to stop hearing the doe cry for help. The worst part of it all is that, that asshole is cooking the deer right now. I don’t think I’ll have a choice about whether or not I’ll get to pass on the venison. “Julian! Come to dinner!” Yelled my now drunk step-father.

Dammit. I thought I might have some time to be able to recover, at least enough for me to stop shaking..

“Julian! Oh!. Sit down.” When I look at the table I see potatoes, green beans and a few pieces of fried meat already fixed for me onto a plate. “You set a plate for mom again.” I say to my step dad. He looks at the empty plate at the table. His expression turns blank as he just stares for a few seconds. “Oh right, ugh let me just get that.”

As he walks the dishes back over towards the cabinet he slowly puts them away without really watching what he’s doing. After he’s done he reaches for his flask. He shakes it and looks inside to see if there is any left but throws it and grabs a full bottle of whiskey from the cabinet.

As I’m slowly eating the potatoes and green beans my dad looks up at me and says

“I talked to yer teacher today. She told me she thinks she knows why you’ve been acting the way you’ve been acting.”

“And what way is that?” I ask, knowingly. “Let me just ask you this, what do you think of the girls at your school?” I look at him confused.  “Ugh...  I don’t know… they’re weird. Just like everyone else here.” He looks at me for a moment and shakes his head in disappointment.

“ Yer teacher said you’d probably say something like that. She gave me the number to place not too far from here that can help fix you.”

“What do you mean, Fix me. Are you saying I’m going away?”

“Yes.” He said with his head down. He walked out of the room without looking at me and takes another swig of whiskey. This is different. He’s always had something to say to me, or at least hit me with, but now he won’t even look at me.

Most mornings I might wake up to birds chirping, or perhaps the sun shining on my face. But not today. It’s only about five in the morning so the sun is still hidden over the horizon.     There are no birds either, which makes me feel like they could almost be taking the morning off in solace of my departure. I can hear the bus’s engine running outside. It pulled up just after I woke. I packed one small backpack with a change of clothes, and my toothbrush. I wanted to bring one of my comic books but my stepdad told me that they’d throw it away when I got there. What kind of place is this? I know I talk back sometimes but does that really mean I have to go live somewhere else?

I walk into the living room with my backpack to see my step dad holding the door open looking down at his bare feet.  I walk past him towards the dark blue bus. There’s a tall slender man with a very well trimmed mustache standing In front of the doors outside.

“Hello, you must be Julian. Come on inside the bus, it won’t be too long before we’re there.”  

“Where are we going?” I ask nervously. He gives me a smile and says.

“Boy, you are full of questions aren’t you? You’ll find out everything you need to know during orientation, and by the way my name is Dr. McMaron.” The doors open and he gives me a sort of welcoming gesture inside the bus. As I walk inside i notice that everything is incredibly clean. In fact, this bus is far cleaner than anything in my house (except possibly my room). All the seats are empty and I can smell the chemicals they used to sanitize the seats.  I’ve never been the only person on a bus before, normally I would be happy about this. I hope I won’t be on here long.

 

Everyone here is given a buddy or basically a roommate. But you’re responsible for eachother. My buddy is Jerald. A seven year old who has pissed his bed the past two nights I’ve been here. So far it’s been mainly me looking after him. I don’t know how or why I got paired up with him but it has to be some sort of a punishment.

Not only do I have a pissy seven year old for a roommate, but I’m forced to sleep in a old bed under what looks like the most hideous stain I’ve ever seen. What is that? Mustard maybe? Or possibly someone finally got tired of this place and just decided to throw their shit on the ceiling. Whatever it is, I’m stuck with these disgusting spots left over my bed. I do not know what this place is or why my parents sent me here. As much as I’ve always disliked everyone and most everything, the worst part about this place is the shit colored mustard spots left on the ceiling over my bed.  

“Julian, are you awake?”

I turn my head to find my annoying little shit of a room mate standing over my bed, as if my view wasn’t already bad enough. “What do you want, Jerald?”. “I wet the bed again, I need you to help me fix it.” Jerald stammered on for a few more seconds but all i could think about was how I got stuck with someone 3 years younger than me.

“Jerald, look, you’re almost eight you can’t be doing this kind of stuff.  And by ‘this stuff’ I mean wake me up at three in the morning with pissed covered pj’s. Also, what do you mean by fix this, Jerald, all we can do is wash it. Look, we just have to get the adults. They can wash it and they won’t be mad at you. Come on.” I took Jerald by the hand and we walked down the hall towards Mr.Blonde’s room. When I open the door to the hallway I become quickly blinded from the searing white light. As we’re walking down the halls, I look around and get the feeling that this place is like a hospital, but there are no sick people here. Just us kids. And the adults don’t seem like any doctor I’ve ever seen. There is also a priest that gave us a really boring sermon the other day. I don’t know about what though. It’s so boring, I can’t help but look around and just try and stay away from the other little kids; they’re all so disgusting. I see them picking their noses, and rubbing it back on their clothes, like that somehow takes care of it. A walking disease, that’s what those kids are.

As we get to the door, Jerald clutches my hand tighter, afraid of what will happen.

“Come on Jerald, you’ll be okay.” I tell him confidently,

“You don’t understand Julian, you just got here a couple a’ days ago.” This is true.

I go to the door to knock but before my hand reaches it, it swings open to show the very neatly dressed (even in pajamas) Mr. Blonde. He has a very sour look on his face, as anyone who would have if they were woken up at three in the morning by a piss covered seven year old.       “Why are you boys-- ugh! And why is he-- ugh! You boys are in big trouble!” I’ve never seen Mr. Blonde like this except when he spilled his fruity looking drink and shouted at his poster of “The View” he keeps on the wall. “Mr. Blonde, Jerald wet the bed” Mr. Blonde quickly turned his attention towards Jerald

“Are you Serious, Jerald? What is it-- three times a week now? How does it feel to be 9 years old and still wet the bed?”

Jerald had a look on his face like he was close to sobbing, he faintly let out

“But I’m Seve--” But before Jerald could even finish his sentence, Mr. Blonde grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down the hallway.“ Well from now on, you’re cleaning up all the bedwetters’ blankets around here until you shape up.”

Relieved to be rid of that little annoyance, I wandered back to my room, tired. As I got into bed and lay my head on the pillow, I once again saw the gross, old mustard stains that spotted the ceiling above my bed.

This school’s foods about as good as any other school I’ve been too. Of course meaning it’s terrible. I thought for it’s bleached white hallways, and strict cleanliness it’d have some food to back it up, but no the same shit as always. Jerald doesn’t seem to mind it though. He’s been here long eno

ugh to get used to it all.

After a few minutes the pastor walks in. He’s short and balding and he reminds me of Danny Devito.

“Hello children. We’ll be having a special sermon in five minutes. Eat quickly, there’s no food allowed in the chapel as I’m sure you already know.” He looks around gives a very wide smile and a passing glance to all the children then pauses on Jerald for a moment and leaves the room.

Jerald looks at me and says. “He does this once about every three weeks. All of his sermons go in a cycle; there’s nothing really special about this one. They’re basically all the same.”

Jerald and I finish our lunches and walk with the other children towards the chapel. One fat kid pretends to accidentally bump into Jerald, and knocks him down. “Whoops!” He turns around laughing and joins his group. I grab Jerald by the hand and say “ Are you ok? Does that guy do that sort of thing often?” “Yeah, I’m fine. This is what happens when you’ve been here as long as I have.” He says dusting himself off.

“How long have you been here?” I ask. “It’s coming up on three months.” He said, ashamed. “How long do most kids stay here for?”  I ask curiously. “The plan is for most kids to stay about three weeks but some don’t get better.”

As we walk into the chapel all the other kids sit in a circle around the priest. Jerald and I decide to sit in the back away from the others. “ Now, we all know about why we’re here. The devil works in mysterious ways. He’s constantly watching and he’s got a hold of all you, boys.” Some of the newer children gasp while the rest have heard this speech too many times before to care.

“ The devil wants to destroy your life by forcing you to question all these things. The devil wants you to question your faith to god. God wants you to stay here children, and get better. God loves you all.”

It doesn’t take long for me to zone out, about an hour and a half passes before Mr. Blonde walks into the room.

“Jerald. I need you to come with me.” He says.

“Yes, I suppose that’s enough for today. Come on children. Off to bed.” The Pastor says happily.

The next day I woke up to the sound of running throughout the halls. There seems to be some sort of direction to it. When I go to wake up Jerald, he’s not in his bed. I wonder if he has been with Mr. Blonde all night. I quickly make my way towards the hallway. Everyone is crowded in front of the laundry room. I walk up to the crowd to find Mr. Blonde doing crowd control, when he spots me. He pushes through the crowd to make his way towards me and through the gap, I can see Jerald. Hanging by a white sheet.

I don’t know what I feel at this time; confusion more than anything, I suppose. Why would he do this? I’m sure he would stop wetting the bed eventually. When Mr. Blonde reaches me he calmly says, “Go back to your room, Julian. Breakfast will be ready in about an hour.” as if nothing happened.

Mr. Blonde had Dr.McMaron escort me to my room. Dr.McMaron gave me the impression that he’s never been to college in his life let alone achieve his doctorate. He walked me inside the room and quietly asked me “Did Jerald, ever talk to you about anything? Did he, maybe, talk about wanting to run away?” “What? What are you even talking about? I just saw Jerald hanging in the laundry room, and you people have been trying to pretend nothing has happened. You’re not even doing a very good job!” Without saying anything or even changing the expression on his face, Dr. Mcmaron stood up and left the room.

I walked back over to my bed and sat there in disbelief. I looked at the clock and saw that only 9 minutes have gone by since I woke up this morning. Is this how every morning at this place will turn out? I wonder as I gaze back up into the acidic diarrhea-like stains on the ceiling.

About 45 minutes pass before I hear an announcement to come to breakfast. “Good, I’m  starving.” I say to myself, excited about breakfast. I walk into the cafeteria with the other children to find everyone eating and chatting like normal. It seems as if no one knows what happened to him. I walk over to the  lunch line and I hear they’re serving eggs and bacon, a classic. I get in line to hear the two kids in front of me talking.

“I heard they found another one over in the laundry room.” The first kid says.

“Are you serious? That’s like the second time this month.” His friend said in response.

This made me think about what Jerald had said to me before Mr. Blonde took him off to do laundry. “You don’t know what it’s like Julian. You’ve only been here a couple a’ days.” or some shit like that. But it’s true, I realize now that he was right. Things here are much worse than they appear on the outside.

As the line moves forward and I bring up my tray to be served, I catch a glimpse of the “eggs and bacon”. The eggs looked thin and pale with a sort of gray color. The bacon, while red, was hard and rubbery. Better this that nothing, I suppose. I take my tray and move towards the empty seat in the far left corner of the cafeteria, when two older boys come up to me. When they reach me, they look down at me smirking and say “We heard that Jerald is gone. What, could the little faggot not take it here anymore?” I look at them for a second bewildered, and say

“Where did you hear that from?” They both give me a look like I was living under a rock and said

“ Dude, you’re his roommate. Didn’t Mr. Blonde tell you, he’s being going around for like the past hour to talk to the other little fags.” Realizing these two mouth breathers aren’t worth my time, I go to my seat in the corner at eat this “breakfast”.

I get up at about one in the morning. Tonight is the night where I finally get some answers. I get dressed in all black and start heading for the door. I pause for a moment to think. How did Mr. Blonde know we were out in the hallways last night? He must have cameras or something in the halls. I am not sure of myself. I realize that most likely i will be caught and subsequently punished. I go into the hallway and head straight for the laundry room. I am worried as most likely they already know I am out of my room. When i get into the laundry room there is no body. Jerald has been moved. Which is no surprise to me but what is surprising is there seems to be a few yellow spots on top of the washing machine. It seems to be urine. I don’t know who’s though, just that it can’t be Jerald. His sheets were nearly dry by the time we took them to Mr. Blonde’s room. It actually seems that someone tried to clean this mess up, they just left the stains.

As I leave the laundry room I spot a drop of blood in the doorway, but when I go to examine it I hear radio chatter approaching. Quickly, I sneak away moving towards the chapel. It can hardly be called a chapel because it looks like a portable with a few decorations and a nice rug. As I enter, I’m instantly hit with very powerful images: Jesus on the cross bleeding and wearing a crown of thorns. The very same image my parents forced onto me. They told me it was something I just had to learn. That his suffering is for my sins. Every sin i commit is another nail hammered deeper into the crucifix. But how can someone do that to a child? There must have been an easier way to tell me not to take money out of my mom’s purse. I scoff at the image and walk deeper into the chapel, looking around for anything that might help me. I snuck into the chapel offices and saw an outdated computer on the desk. The monitor was off but the tower was still on. I go over to the computer and turn the monitor on to see the priest’s most recent internet search: “How to make a chocotini”. I look at his most recent searches on google it didn’t have anything interesting: just other weird sounding drinks, a search for house hold cleaning supplies and a “camera for sale” search.

None of these seemed relevant so I went through the files to find a list of videos. Labeled 1-8. I click on the first video and I see a boy. He’s a little younger than me. He’s in the chapel whimpering in the confessional booth when suddenly a baseball hits him square in the shoulder, the boy screams and goes down. Crying he asks “What do you mean? Confess to what?” When another ball hits him on the side of the head. He goes down, not making a sound this time. When Mr. Blonde steps into view, he’s smiling. I’ve never seen him smile before. He goes to shake the boy when he sees a massive cut on the boys face. He gets up and goes to the camera and it cuts to black. When I look at the description they had created for the video it said

“The boy had not been willing to play sports with the other kids and after multiple weeks of treatment he showed no signs of improvement”. Is this what they do to everyone who doesn’t make it through treatment? I rush to look at the other videos and read their descriptions.  All different children who showed no sign of improving and tortured in different ways in accordance with some minor thing the boy did.

Then I get to the eighth and final video. I press play and see the laundry room, Mr. Blonde has his penis out and is urinating on something… Or someone. Then the camera pans over to see Jerald, using his own sheets to shield himself from Mr. Blonde. When out of nowhere Jerald runs for the cameraman biting him in his thigh. The cameraman drops the camera and knees Jerald right in the face and the video cuts to black. This is all i need to put those assholes in prison forever. I quickly submit every video onto different social media websites and newspaper websites.

“I can’t believe i did it.” I say to myself happy in my victory.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The pastor, Mr. Blonde and two other adults break down the door. They quickly get to me as there is nowhere to go. The priest goes over to his computer to see what I’ve been doing. “You’re too late. You should’ve spent more money on food for us rather than high speed internet.”  Furious, he strikes me across the face with the back of his hand. The two adults don’t flinch, as i can tell they’ve seen this side of him before. Mr. Blonde doesn’t take long to realize what’s happened and flies into a rage. They repeatedly strike me in the face and I go down. I stopped feeling the blows after the first three. Mr. Blonde’s fist is covered in red. I can’t see much, there’s blood in my eyes. All I can see is red. It’s strange even now I can’t help thinking about the white spots on the baby deer that like me are now only red.