Читать книгу Flam Grub - Dan Dowhal - Страница 7

Chapter 3

The precious hours spent in Turner’s Bookstore became Flam’s only respite from the misery that permeated the rest of his gloomy life. When he moved on to attend the large and crowded local high school, he still made no friends, not even among the other outcasts and social misfits. Flam did once try to join the school’s computer club, hoping to find camaraderie among those who shared his virtuosity with the digital devices, but there also he could not penetrate the tightly-knit clique, and was ridiculed and ostracized until he quit.

The bullying that Flam continued to encounter was subtler, but no less pervasive or cruel, although the name-calling was perhaps a bit more creative. The Grubby and Flam Chop of grade school was supplemented by Rack of Flam, Flamingo, Grub-a-Dub-Dub, and Flim Flam Man, among others.

In contrast to the cruel attention of his peers, Flam found his teachers lazy and uninterested, and although he soaked up as much as he could from them, he gave nothing back. He wrapped himself in his introversion, like some semi-perfect cloak of invisibility, minimized the contact with his peers, endured their taunts and assaults when they came, and counted the minutes until he could go running back to the bookstore.

At home, Mary’s missionary sternness continued—a thing that Flam, in moments of black humour, thought of as his particular cross to bear. He was unable, however, to find any humour in Steve’s dreaded irregular appearances, which often precipitated beatings and hateful verbal tirades. Steve’s disdain for his son had now evolved to focus on the freshly-teenaged Flam’s seeming lack of manhood, as puberty lagged in delivering its overt signs of masculinity.

Only once did Flam try to fight back against his father’s abuse, and it ended up costing him dearly. On that occasion, Mary had taken advantage of Steve’s unplanned, drunken appearance at home to rush off to a special night church service honouring a visiting bishop.

Mary had barely closed the door behind her when Flam, alerted by the crazed look in his father’s face, tried to crawl into his book-walled refuge beneath the dining room table. Steve had anticipated this, and grabbed Flam from behind, spinning him around and back into the open.

“Oh no, you don’t, twirp. You stay out here. You and me are going to have a little talk,” Steve commanded, reaching menacingly for the boy. That was when Flam made the mistake of trying to resist, forcefully shoving away his father’s arm and kicking out at his shin. Steve bellowed in outrage, and flung Flam up against a wall with a force that sent Mary’s religious icons swaying on the wall. While a rake of yellow-stained fingers grabbed both skin and fabric in the front of Flam’s shirt, rendering him immobile, Steve’s other hand balled into a fist that wavered menacingly in front of the boy’s fear-stricken face.

“You puny piece of shit!” Steve screamed at his terrified son, the reek of alcohol wafting from the man’s breath in concert with his mounting anger. “Look at you! How did I ever end up stuck with a girly-boy like you?”

“Leave me alone! I didn’t do anything to you,” Flam protested, desperately squirming to try to pull himself free of Steve’s grasp before the onset of the inevitable blows. The boy’s struggles tore and stretched his T-shirt, but this only served to entangle him further as his father wound up the slack into a tighter knot, which lifted Flam up onto his toes and began cutting into his flesh.

“What do you want from me?” Flam began to scream, tears erupting. “Stop it . . . you’re hurting me!”

His entreaty was met with a slap across his ear.

“Shut up, you little cry baby . . . you make me sick. I hate everything about you.”

“Please, Dad, let me go, don’t hit me, leave me alone.” The words were barely intelligible through the heaving sobs now coming from Flam.

“I said shut up. Don’t call me Dad . . . you’re no son of mine. That goddamned bitch has turned you into some kind of a faggot freak, starting with that fucking stupid name of yours.”

Now the blows began to rain down on Flam’s head, a percussive accompaniment to Steve’s taunting chant. “Flam!” Slap. “Flam!” Slap. “Flam!” Slap.

Flam was screaming hysterically now, so Steve reached down and grabbed his son’s testicles, squeezing hard, forcing the breath and the resistance out of the boy.

“Flam . . . it sounds like some kind of fruit cake. Is that what you are, a fruit cake?” Steve growled, squeezing even harder. “Do you like this? Do you like a man grabbing your balls? Is that what turns you on, you fucking Fruit Flam? Is that what you do down there in that bookstore with those old men?”

It was doubtful Steve really expected any reply, for nothing more than rodent-like whimpers was coming from Flam at this point as he fought for air and consciousness. Finally, when the colour palette of the boy’s face had played through hues of red and shifted towards a more malignant blue, Steve released his grip, in alarm that he might actually kill his son. Flam collapsed into a heap on the floor, his heavy breathing giving some reassurance he was still alive.

Steve bent over the boy and moved his face closer, until it was mere inches away from the boy’s own. The father bared his teeth, and as he hissed his final statement every foul molecule of drunkard’s breath was clearly detectable.

“I don’t ever want to see you in that bookstore again. Do you hear me? If I ever find out you’ve been hanging around with those men again, I swear I’ll cut your balls off and feed them to you. And I’ll do the same to that old faggot friend of yours downstairs.”

Steve straightened up, looked down at the whimpering heap at his feet, and delivered it a half-hearted kick. But the rage was now spent, and Steve shuffled off to the bathroom, enabling Flam to crawl to the table and drag himself into his sanctuary. As bad as his physical injuries were, the thought that he would be losing the one place that mattered to him, and the only friends he had in the world, was far more painful to Flam, and fueled his tears well into the night.

Mary returned home late and heard her son’s muffled sobs emanating from within the walls of books under the dining table. Puzzled and concerned, she went to him to seek out the source of her son’s sadness. Soon, however, she had problems of her own, as Steve awoke from a drunken languor, and attempted to cajole sex from his unwilling wife. Mary spent the night fending off her husband’s stumbling advances, leaving Flam alone to cry in his refuge.

Despite an unshakeable terror that his father would catch him and make good on his threat, Flam could not bring it upon himself to simply disappear from the bookshop without an explanation or farewell. The next day, he stuck his head in the door, quickly dropped a couple of books that Turner had lent him onto the front counter, and stood there silently, not making eye contact. Turner looked up, confused as to why Flam was hovering apprehensively in the doorway.

“Hail, young squire. Quid agis?”

“My . . . my father says I can’t come here any more,” the boy blurted out, trying hard not to cry. “I just wanted to give you those books back . . . and to say thanks for letting me come here.” With that the dam of despair burst and tears arrived in full force. Flam turned, as much to hide his crying as to depart.

“Flam! Wait! What’s wrong? Why won’t your father let you come to the shop? Let me go and talk with him.”

Flam had no desire to converse about his father’s abuse or threats. “He’s crazy, that’s all,” he wailed through the narrowing crack, “just stay away from him . . . just leave us alone.” And then the door closed, shutting out the friendship and sense of belonging the bookstore had provided to Flam, and the inner nourishment that had sustained him through his youth. He had never felt more alone.

Flam returned upstairs to the flat and crawled into his refuge beneath the dining room table, leaving the light outside. The pain within him now felt so intense he didn’t think he could stand it any longer. And tomorrow, he knew, would bring another day of torment—neglect and abuse at home, ridicule and beatings at school, punctuated only by loneliness, self-loathing, and now the loss of his friends. Surely death was preferable to such a miserable half-life, especially if it put an end to the unbearable suffering once and for all.

Although he had grown too tall for the space, and one wall of books had been removed so his legs could protrude out, in the darkness, the remaining stacks of books around him gave the snug space the feel of a coffin. He stretched out on his back and oriented his hands appropriately across his chest, and took slow, deep breaths, exhaling each as if it were his last, only reaching up occasionally to wipe away the tears trickling down his face. Eventually he stopped sniffling and fell asleep.