All the girls in school would be jealous, too. They’d be sorry they didn’t get their hooks into him when they had the chance. Every one of them, especially the ones he thought about when he touched himself, would wish they wouldn’t have been such stuck up bitches.
Still, he knew that was years away. That didn’t make it easy to bear things, but it made it possible. He read books about anything and everything, learning everything he could while working in the library and hating every minute of high school.
Home was worse. His mother seemed to grow harsher each passing year. She had him doing all of the housework, even including her laundry. Her thin fingers still found their way under his chin for that demeaning pinch. “You can’t do anything right, can you?” was her favorite refrain.
She’d taken to walking into his bedroom without knocking. He didn’t know why she did that, other than the fact that she seemed to delight in watching him scramble to cover his erection and hide the fact that he’d been dreaming of girls at school and revenge. She’d order him out of bed to complete some mundane task like taking out the kitchen garbage, then stand there and watch him squirm while he made excuses to delay things long enough for his erection to subside.
Other times, out of the blue, she seemed to refer to his activities when she told him he was “still a dirty little boy.” He pretended not to understand as embarrassment and shame swallowed him whole.
His father’s visits grew more infrequent and more intense. His parents would usually drink together, which devolved into a fight without fail. Either they’d end up in the bedroom or his father would storm out. Sometimes he just didn’t come back. Those were Jeffrey’s favorite times. But often, he did return and never alone. He brought women home with him, turning the living room into a sexual playground. Jeffrey was at once attracted and repelled when this happened. He lay in bed and listened to the voices and the sounds of sex in the living room. Excited, he found himself masturbating furiously to the noises, then lying in bed afterward, full of shame.
The next morning, no one left their bedroom until his father roused the woman and sent her on her way, although Jeffrey sometimes sneaked out to get a look at his father’s conquests. He felt a strange sense of pride while hating him for it at the same time.
Other times, his father felt the need to assert his alpha wolf status. Despite Jeffrey’s efforts to avoid him and not to offer any affront, it required very little drinking before his father took offense at some slight, real or imagined. Then he was called into the living room, where he stood at attention to be berated and slapped. This worked into his father theorizing that Jeffrey thought he was “tougher than the old man.” He’d challenge Jeffrey to “take his best shot,” demanding it until he reached the conclusion that Jeffrey was “too much of a queer little pussy” to do so. “Get out of my sight,” he’d bellow at Jeffrey. “You make me sick.”
Rarely, though, and for some reason he had never been able to pinpoint, the three of them were able to co-exist in an easy, quiet truce. Jeffrey read his books in his room while his parents drank slowly and watched television. On these days, he was able to escape the house and go to the library.
Sometimes, he’d take his books and go to the mall where he’d watch the same bitchy girls from school ignore him there, too. But he’d pretend to read his book and stare that their bodies. He’d imagine tearing the clothing off of them. He saw their surprise at how tough he was, what a man he was. As that realization seeped into their eyes, he knew that his father was right about what every woman wanted deep down inside. So he imagined laying the whammo on them. If they didn’t cry out with enough passion, he’d punctuate matters with a good slap upside the head.
He stored those thoughts and the sights of the girls at the mall for when he returned home at night. Lying in bed alone, he’d recall them over and over again. He obsessed and studied and dreamt and watched and masturbated.
His day would come.
He knew it would.
June 12, 1987
High school ended on a Thursday. He left just like it was any other day. Only the librarian, Mrs. Bryant, wished him a happy summer. He thanked her, wishing he could spend it with her at the library, but knowing he’d be spending as much time as possible at the public library or at the mall, looking at girls. Still, the librarian’s farewell reminded him oddly of his kindergarten teacher, Miss Reed.
He wondered about Miss Reed as he walked toward home. Did she still teach? Was she even Miss Reed anymore, or did she marry some guy and change her name? He imagined she probably had. Looking back, he decided she was fine looking. Someone would have come along and snagged her.
Strangely, the thought made him feel betrayed. She’d been so nice to him, but he imagined that she had probably been faking it all along. Women were generally traitors, at least as much as he could tell based on the one he lived with. He wondered if Miss Reed made fun of him to the other teachers after he left for the day. He saw her getting together in the teacher’s lounge and telling all the other teachers shitty things about him. Anger brewed in the pit of his stomach as he made his way toward the apartment.
He switched the scenario. Saw himself finding her at her house. Fantasized about what he would do to her.
He smiled, holding his folder and library book in front of his jeans as he walked.
At his apartment, he let himself in. His mother was taking one of her naps, so he kept as quiet as he could. In his bedroom, he put aside the book and the folder. He opened his button, unzipped his pants and slid them down his hips. Leaning back and touching himself, he imagined again what his visit to Miss Reed’s house would be like.
I’d lay the whammo on that bitch.
He closed his eyes and saw it all over again, like a movie playing in his head. Coming inside the house. Maybe a hard slap across the face to get things started. Tearing away her clothing. Bending her over the couch. No, over the coffee table. Ripping her shirt off of her back as he pumped into her. Listening to her scream-
The door to his room flung open. His mother stood in the doorway, glaring at him.
Jeffrey scrambled to his feet, turning his back to her. “Jesus, Mother! Don’t you knock?”
“I don’t have to knock in my own house, you dirty little boy!” She cackled at him. “I knew it. I knew you were in here being nasty.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.” He looked over his shoulder at her as he zipped his pants and snapped the button. “I was just going to change my school clothes, that’s all.”
She stepped into the room, shaking her head. “Liar,” she whispered.
“It’s the truth. I-”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s a lie.”
There was something strange in her voice that made him stop. Her words were slurred more heavily than was usual for this early in the afternoon, but he knew she sometimes started early. The difference in her voice went beyond that, however. It was oddly soft and gentle, something he could remember from years ago and only intermittently at that.
“Sit down,” she said, motioning to the bed.
Hesitantly, he sat on the edge of his mattress. She lowered herself clumsily, sitting beside him. The essence of her sweat and the alcohol permeated the small bedroom. Her eyes were red and watery, their customary hardness filled with an empty sorrow that wasn’t familiar to him.
“Do you think I don’t know what you do in here at night?” she asked him.
“I don’t do anything. I only-”
She raised her hand. He flinched involuntarily, expecting her to pinch beneath his chin. Instead, she rested her index finger on his lips, shushing him. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Every boy does it. Every single little boy ends up becoming a nasty young man and then a piece of shit just like your father.”