The Darker Side

  22

  IT WAS A GREAT SUMMER DAY. GREAT. HOT AND NOT TOO muggy and filled with the promise of everything but school.

  Dexter stood on the porch of the house and surveyed his neighborhood. It was a good neighborhood, no doubt about that. Not the good that came of new homes, but the comfortable good of old homes kept up to snuff.

  The sky was blue and visible in that way Mom called “Texas Sky.” Texas was flat and rolling and Austin was not all that fond of skyscrapers, so in many places you could see blue from horizon to horizon. It was all right.

  Dexter had awoken this Saturday to do his usual routine. It was precious to him, and growing more so as he got older and began to get the hint that times were changing. He was eleven, and already he could see the lines between the sexes—once so blurred—being forced into focus. Guys only a year older were talking about things like “pussy” a lot more and with a genuine interest and hunger. It was disconcerting.

  Dexter had been able to wake up at 5:30 A.M. on Saturday mornings with no alarm since he was six years old. He’d discovered that some of the best cartoons, the old black and whites that you never saw anywhere else anymore, were on in those early hours.

  He’d get up and head down to the kitchen and treat himself to homemade cinnamon toast. His version included huge hunks of butter, unhealthy helpings of sugar, and just enough cinnamon to give it all a little bit of bite. In it went to the toaster oven, out it came with the butter bubbling. He’d watch it cook, stare at the heating coils turned orange by their temperature.

  He loved these mornings, loved that no one else was awake, that he had the house to himself, at least in illusion. It was a feeling of freedom and safety, not so much as if nothing bad would ever happen—but the certainty that nothing bad would happen now, at this moment. The times between 5:30 and 8:00 A.M. were an armistice in Dexter’s heart.

  He’d grab the toast once it had cooled enough (but not too much) and put it on some paper towels and head into the living room where the TV was. He’d switch on the set and put it to the right channel and plop down on his beanbag. Mom hated the beanbag, and Dad wasn’t all that excited about it—he called it a seventies throwback—but Dexter had stood firm on keeping it. It was a talisman, a part of the ritual.

  Sometimes they’d still play “Inky and the Mynah Bird” in Texas in those early morning hours, but most of the time, it was “Huckleberry Hound” or some old unclassifiable cartoons. These turned into “Tom and Jerry” and from there to the “Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show.” He’d watch them all, and make mental lists during the commercials of the cool new toys to bug Mom and Dad about.

  The first part of the magic ended at about 8:00, as Mom and Dad got up. He loved them both, but the ritual was all about solitude; their presence broke the spell. He’d hit the shower and get dressed as they stumbled through their first coffees. A kiss on Mom’s cheek and a mumbled good morning from Dad and he was out the door by 8:30.

  Now here he was, cartoons and cinnamon toast behind him, the whole day before him. What to do? He had a few bucks in his pocket, the result of lawn-mowing industry. He could head to the Circle K and buy some comics. He could grab his bike and ride to the pool. Heck, he could do anything he wanted!

  He opted to walk, an unusual choice, but the day was just so great and he wanted to feel the ground underneath his tennis shoes. He headed down to the junction, which is what he called the top of the T where his street met another at a stop sign. Right took you to the park and the pool, left took you to Rambling Oaks, what the kids called the “woods.”

  It was not exactly a “woods,” more like a copse gone wild. It was the edge of development, dirt not yet turned by tractors in preparation for new home construction.

  Most times he didn’t like to go to the woods alone, but today was different. Dexter was a social boy, but he didn’t feel like company right now. So he turned left and not right. It was a simple decision that would change his life forever, which is the way it usually goes.

  The street dead-ended in dirt. The dirt ended at the trees. Walk through the trees a little and you came out to grass, which then led to more pavement and new homes. The woods were a kind of last stand and all sorts of things happened there.

  First cigarettes had been smoked in the woods by more kids than could be counted. First kisses had been tasted, and of course there were the rumors of first blow jobs and such, though Dexter wasn’t sure about that. He wasn’t brilliant or anything, but he had a little more wisdom than most of his peers, and he had the sneaking suspicion that getting a girl from this neighborhood to suck on your Johnson involved better surrounds than a place like the woods. A car, at least.

  Dirty mags had been read here, and Dexter had seen a few in the last year, though his reactions were ambiguous in a way that didn’t seem to match up with his friends’. So he’d leered and joked with the rest of them, tossing off verbal gems like “hairy clam” and “furburger” with snickering confidence and aplomb. None of it made sense to Dexter, as the girls in the pictures he saw were hairless down there, and what did a burger have to do with it, anyway?

  People had wept in these woods too, Dexter was aware. Nice neighborhood or no, kids still got beat, from time to time. Abuse existed, though it wasn’t talked about much. The woods had been a sanctuary, a haven, a place for the simple, the illicit, the groping, and the sad. Even at eleven, Dexter understood that the woods was going to be one of those places he’d never forget. It would always have power, even if just in memory.

  He took his time walking down the street. Enjoying the sunshine and the sounds. No one was crazy enough to be out mowing this early, but two people were out washing their cars, which Dexter thought was a fine idea. He stuck his hands in his pockets and found a white stone in one of the gutters to kick. It was going to be a hell of a day!

  The pavement ended and he hit the dirt. There were two kinds of Texas dirt. There was the dark, dry, clumpy sod, the kind that grass grew in and came out in chunks. Then there was the tan, almost granular kind, that soaked up the sun and was generally filled with detritus, stones and such. This was the second kind.

  The trees weren’t too far off, and Dexter decided that he would really make a morning out of his walk. He’d head through the woods, out the other side, and into the neighborhood next door. He’d circle around and be back at home in time for some bologna or peanut butter and jelly and probably some Kool-Aid. Then maybe a trip to the comic store and the pool.

  Why not? The day was his.

  He quickened his pace toward the trees, excited by all the prospects unfolding before him.

  That’s when he heard them.

  “Kiss it, you fucking retard,” the voice said.

  Dexter recognized this voice. Any kid in the neighborhood would. It belonged to Mark Phillips, bully and all around evil individual. Mark’s story was as unoriginal as the Texas dirt under Dexter’s tennis shoes: he grew fast, he grew tall, he grew wide, and he liked the power this gave him over others.

  He had various protection rackets running, as bullies will. Some lunch-money graft, comic-book offerings, allowance percentages. Noncompliance was met with punishment, and it was here that Mark truly excelled. He was a cut above, willing to go that extra mile.

  The average bully would smack you around, maybe give you a titty twister, or hold you down while dripping a stream of spit into your mouth. Mark used these standbys as well, but the difference was in how far he was willing to take it. Tears were generally a sign that your point had been made. Not so for Mark.

  Dexter had been on the receiving end one time. For some reason—he still didn’t know why—he’ d refused to turn over a comic that Mark had asked for. Mark’s response had been instant and savage. He’d slapped Dexter’s face so hard it made him feel like his eyes were rattling around in their sockets. Mark had followed it up with a shot to the solar plexus that drove Dexter to his knees, gasping for breath.

  Mark had swarmed on top of him in an instant,
pinning him to the ground, arms trapped under Mark’s knees.

  “Faggot grew some balls, huh? Bad idea, faggot. Now you gotta pay.”

  Dexter had felt he was already paying. His inability to catch his breath had panic rising in his chest like a flood. He was sure that he was dying. He wasn’t, but it felt like it.

  “Gonna show you something I learned watching a martial arts program, faggot,” Mark said. His tone was almost happy, and Dexter looked up at the boy and removed the “almost” from that equation.

  Mark put a thumb to either side of Dexter’s face, digging into a spot just under the upper cheekbone. He pressed up. Not hard, which made it all the more terrifying, because even that little pressure hurt.

  “It’s a nerve someajigger or a pressure point or something. Whatever they call it, it hurts worse than a kick in the balls.”

  Then he really dug in, turned his thumbs into steel rods and pressed with all of his not inconsiderable strength.

  Dexter couldn’t help it; his eyes bugged out and he didn’t just yell, he screamed. The agony was instant and terrible and everywhere. It felt like Mark had driven spikes into Dexter’s jaw.

  He could see Mark through his pain, white-edged now, grinning away. Mark’s eyes were shining and Dexter became aware that the boy actually had a hard-on. Mark was making Dexter scream, and it was giving the bigger boy a woody.

  It should have stopped there. With another bully, it would have. But that was the day Dexter learned that Mark was willing to go that extra mile, to really put his heart into it, so to speak.

  Because he didn’t stop. He pressed harder. He pressed and grinned while Dexter screamed, and kept on pressing until Dexter pissed his pants. In the end, Dexter was begging the older boy to stop.

  “Is your momma a whore?” the older boy asked.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Dexter screamed.

  “Say it, then. Tell me your momma is a dirty old wetback buttfuck-loving, cock-gobbling whore!”

  Again, that dim awareness of Mark’s hard-on, throbbing now.

  To his credit, Dexter actually paused for a moment at this demand. But then Mark pressed harder.

  “Okay, okay, okay! She’s a dirty old wetback cock-gobbling whore!” he screamed.

  “Buttfuck-loving, cock-gobbling whore.”

  “Buttfuck-loving, cock-gobbling whore! Please stop please stop please stop please stop please—”

  And then Mark did let up. He removed his thumbs. He didn’t get right up and off Dexter, though. He stayed where he was, staring down at the smaller boy, eyes half-lidded and predatory, hard-on throbbing against Dexter’s stomach. Drunk on power, the power of might-makes-right and the dispensing of pain.

  “Listen up, faggot. You ever tell anyone I did this to you, and I’ll find you and tear your cock off. You think I’m kidding?”

  Dexter couldn’t speak. He was shivering, the throbbing in his cheeks wouldn’t stop, it was almost as if Mark had never pulled those thumbs away. He shook his head no, and began to weep, big, long, ropy sobs. Mark looked down at him in disgust.

  “Fucking pussy faggot.”

  A moment later the bully was gone. Dexter turned on his side and vomited into some of that good old Texas dirt. His cheeks were on fire. It took almost two days for the throbbing to die down completely and he couldn’t eat right during that time.

  It was Dexter’s first brush with full-on gibbering terror, and it had left a mark. He had no doubt the bully would make good on any threat. Mark liked handing out a hurting. Handing out a hurting put some air in Mark’s tire, put a little bit of bone in the old hot dog.

  Mark was evil. Dexter understood this. Kids don’t look for shades of gray. Moral ambiguity is something that comes later, when they need to start justifying their own misdeeds. Mark was a monster, black and white, and Dexter took that at face value.

  So, hearing the boy say “kiss it, retard,” was not a good sign, not a good sign at all.

  In later years Dexter would wonder why, knowing this, he didn’t just turn around on that tan Texas dirt and head right back to where the pavement began again, back up to the junction and the way that led to the park, the pool, and still being an eleven-year-old.

  He moved forward that day, toward the voice, filled with dread but unable to turn away.

  Once through the first line of trees, a small clearing opened up. Dexter saw Mark there, standing above Jacob Littlefield.

  Jacob was older than either Mark or Dexter, almost seventeen, but Jacob was smaller than Mark and mentally slower than either of them. Dexter now understood that Mark’s use of the word retard was not figurative. He was using the unkindest cut as a matter of course, an insult that Jacob had surely heard before and probably understood.

  Jacob was down on his hands and knees, and he was crying like a lost baby. He had a big round face and short cropped blond hair. His skin was milky white. Dexter had always thought privately that Jacob had the most beautiful skin he’d ever seen on another guy. Jacob was a sweet kid, always smiling, very trusting. His mom usually kept a close eye on him. Dexter wondered what the hell had happened.

  Mark pointed at his right foot, which Dexter noticed was bare. It looked fugly and toe-jammed and altogether unappetizing.

  “I said, kiss it, you stupid retarded fuckup. You drool enough already, you shouldn’t have any problem working up the spit to clean up between my toes.”

  “But I don’t wanna,” Jacob blubbered. “Please don’t make me.”

  Mark slapped the boy’s face. Hard. Dexter heard the smack and shivered.

  “Do what I tell you or I’m gonna beat the shit out of you, you fucking retard! You hear me?”

  Mark slapped the boy again, and now Jacob was really bawling, full bore, the way a baby does, total abandon. Dexter watched with a mix of horror and fascination as Jacob bent forward and began to kiss and lick Mark’s nasty foot.

  Motherfuck was all that came to mind. Dexter didn’t swear too often, but motherfuck was a versatile word. It just fit right in some places. This was one of them.

  “That’s right, retard, clean ’em up good.”

  Dexter recognized that look on Mark’s face. Savage joy. He was just as certain that Mark had pitched a pup tent, as they liked to say during sleepovers. Its usual witticism seemed to fall flat here. Dexter’s throat was dry and his mouth tasted like dust. He was witnessing the worst thing he’d ever seen in his life right now. He was sure of it.

  He was just as sure that he needed to get the fuck out of there. The motherfuck out of there. Otherwise, he was pretty certain he was going to find himself right down there on his hands and knees with Jacob, licking the toe-jam and grime from Mark’s feet until they gleamed.

  But what about Jacob?

  The thought came, of course. Dexter was a decent boy, after all. The answer followed, fast and shameful:

  Sorry, Jacob. Sucks to be you.

  Not noble, maybe, but even the thought of what Mark had done to him before made his bladder feel loose and jiggly. Jacob was on his own, which was a motherfuck, but that’s the way it was going to have to be.

  Dexter turned to go and that’s when it happened. It was like something from a bad movie, the oldest cliché around: he stepped on a stick. It had been a dry summer, so the wood snapped like a firecracker.

  The thing about guys like Mark, Dexter would ponder later, their double whammy, was the singular lack of hesitation that having no moral code gave them. The stick cracked and Mark was on him in seconds. He heard the older boy’s movements first and felt one of Mark’s big, meaty hands grip his neck a moment later, all before Dexter could get the idea of run translated into motion.

  “Well, lookee here,” Mark chortled. “Looks like we got ourselves a regular retard convention going.”

  “Let me go, Mark,” Dexter said, more from force of habit than out of any real hope that the older boy would listen. “I was just walking. I don’t care what else is happening, I promise.”

  Mark squeezed a li
ttle harder and Dexter squirmed. It wasn’t exactly pain, but it was the promise of it.

  “I don’t think so, fag,” Mark said. “I’m having a little party here and I think you need to join in.”

  He turned without another word, still gripping Dexter around the neck, and marched them both back into the clearing. Jacob was still down on his hands and knees. He was shivering and blubbering. Dexter didn’t wonder why the boy hadn’t run away. Mark had probably said if he did he’d kill him. Better the foot slobbering in front of you than the unknown promise that kept you looking over your shoulder. All small kids who got bullied understood this logic.

  Mark let go of his neck by tossing him forward. Dexter stumbled and fell, landing at an odd angle on his wrist so that he couldn’t catch his fall, only slow it. He ended up clipping his chin against the ground. His teeth clacked together so hard he felt it in his skull, like a brutal rap with a big wooden spoon.

  “Get back to licking, retard,” Mark commanded Jacob.

  Jacob kept sobbing, but his resistance had been broken. He went back to using his tongue to clean between Mark’s filthy toes. Dexter brought himself to a sitting position and wiped his mouth. His teeth ached.

  The sun was hot, but no longer in a good way; it was more surreal now. It kind of made Dexter feel like he was being baked alive. The noise of bugs and birds in the air had a sluggish feel to it.

  That bad dream syrup, it’s everywhere…

  That’s what Nana called the quality of those nightmares, the ones where you needed to run but felt like you were moving through mush. She called it bad dream syrup, and had pointed out to Dexter that the bad dream syrup had the habit of appearing at times when you were wide awake.

  Mark turned a sleepy-eyed, lizard smile to Dexter. He was well pleased. This was it, for him, right here. Subjugation, degradation, power. Mark knew what he wanted and he wasn’t conflicted about it.

  “Listen up, faggot. You got a choice here. You can do what I tell you to do, or I’ll give you some more of what I gave you those months back.”

  The words gave Dexter a chill. Sweat actually broke out on his forehead. His mouth went dry.