Читать книгу No Human Contact - Donald Ladew - Страница 14

Vincent sat on the sofa. He stared at the pile of broken glass that used to be the coffee table. His thoughts were miles and years in the past.

In a very real waking dream, he was being pulled through space like a chip of wood in a torrent.

The Orphanage. His feet barely touched the polished hardwood floor. Father Eustace towered over the five year old boy, his long, fish belly-white fingers clutched Vincent’s arm painfully.

Horse-faced with large stained teeth, Father Eustace hissed a litany of instructions in Vincent’s face.

On this day orphans were shown to prospective parents. Most of the boys didn’t care or think about having parents. Never having known real affection, they couldn’t conceive of a mother’s care, or the safety of a father, someone who would stand between them and the hurts of life.

What they understood was freedom, escape. To the last boy they would have done anything to get away from the rigid cruelty of the orphanage.

Father Eustace’s fingers would leave dark bruises on Vincent’s arm. The orders never let up down the length of the hall.

“Don’t spit. Don’t scratch. Don’t pick your nose. Smile. If you aren’t selected, you’ll be sorry. It costs a lot of money to look after the bastard sons of lust. Tell them you’re well cared for.”

It didn’t matter that Vincent didn’t answer.

On the sofa in the atrium, Vincent rocked and swayed, jerked and twisted as a fighter avoiding a hail of blows, but the pictures came too fast. Memories too powerful to suppress were loose in his world. Officer Keely had opened the Pandora’s Box of his life.

On and on... Don’t lie, God will punish you. Tell them you’re happy. Jesus loves you. Terrible, vile, disgusting lies.

He beat his fists on his knees and felt nothing. How can you hurt yourself more than you hurt.

We are all instruments of God. You are nothing, the result of animal lust, fornication.

How could he smile? Worse than dirt.

The boy, Vincent Vankelis, sat in the corner of a room filled with small, tragic cynics. Men and women moved about through the room. Some sat and tried to communicate with the boys. What could they say? The environment was overwhelmingly melancholic, uniquely unreal, silently desperate. The process had all the emptiness given to the selection of abandoned kittens at the animal shelter. Don’t be real, be cute, adorable, cuddly. The children knew the drill.

A middle-aged man in a loud plaid jacket and uncomfortable tie followed by a thin woman with a frozen smile were led by father Eustace to where Vincent sat in the corner.

Vincent’s chest ached. His hands were sweaty and he trembled. The fever was fear. The woman sat next to him and smiled, a good smile. Father Eustace stood in the background and glared.

She asked his name. Vincent’s answers were whispers. Maybe God wouldn’t hear. She asked him how old he was. He said, five. The woman asked him if he was happy.

In that instant he felt insane. Was he happy? Madness!

He forgot every warning and cried. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. He was only five. Without thinking, he turned to the woman and asked the only thing he could think to say.

“Is this Hell?”

The woman sat back as if she’d been struck. His simple question punched through the total self absorption of the adopting parent. The husband frowned in confusion. Father Eustace sensing wrong stepped in. Vincent, beyond caring, not seeing his eternal enemy through the veil of his tears, asked again.

“Please, is this hell?”

Father Eustace struck like a snake taking a rabbit and jerked Vincent from the chair. The woman wept.

“Child of Satan, you’ll never have a family, never! You don’t deserve a mother and father.” As he dragged Vincent away the woman wept aloud.

“See what you’ve done? You’ve made the good woman cry.”

All the way down the long hall with the polished wood floor, Father Eustace, slapped, pinched and shoved the small boy, and in the room where good boys were chosen, where good boys got families and escaped...hell, the woman cried.

In the tower of his prison, safe from the world, Vincent hunched over, head nearly touching his knees, hands clutched to stone-hard stomach.

Then quickly, as they had never done in the past, the images and the torment faded. Vincent sat up slowly, still staring at the broken glass.

As clear as if she were still standing next to him, he saw the fine gold hair on the nape of Teresa’s neck as she leaned over to work on his hand. The image started the whole encounter unfolding in the minutest detail.

He whispered to himself. “Why didn’t she arrest me?” She cried. I shouldn’t have made her cry.” He stared at the bandage, turning his hand to see it from every angle. He didn’t notice the pain.

“Nice. Neat work. She thinks I’m insane, why shouldn’t she.”

Vincent shuddered with the strangeness of it all, to be so close.

“Better that she hate me, better she think I’m a pervert.”

His thoughts moved in so many layers his head hurt. Beneath the worry, a powerful need to see her again, but the need sank in a whirlpool of dread.

The predominant feeling was confusion, ruthlessly suppressed desire; not the undiluted physical attraction of a man for a sexually attractive woman. That he could deal with. Hidden beneath the swirl of conflicting pictures, memories, was affinity, the desire to be close to another human being. But this thing, this affinity was the most dangerous desire of all.