The Stick in the Woods

Continued from 'The Sunken City'

What makes a man rebel against his own life force, to forsake all that is good? Shaped in iniquity and by sin conceived in our Mother’s womb – are we held by our transgressors to relive our punishments, again and again? A child in a world of pain. Somewhere deep in memory Ben remembers that child, he remembers blood specks in the snow.

Now we fly away from St Anns, with its rude boys and cruel girls - away from the shitty streets and awful alleys. We go back to a time and a place to chip into the frozen cliffs of Ben's past.

A peepshow into his yesterday – but why? To understand, to forgive maybe? These are the splinters of memories buried.

i) The Stick

Roosevelt was a bully. He was the boy with the plans; the war game commandant and self style arbiter of schoolground justice. A mop topped miscreant, with a cruel smile and worse laugh. He was our self appointed leader - we loved him and loathed him, but couldn't do without him.

Why this was I do not know. Was it his tarot cards and ouija boards? The cool records; ‘Reign in Blood’ and ‘South of Heaven’? – Or did the Nazi memorabilia he collected somehow elevate him to the status of playground fuhrer?

Always quick with a phrase, a one liner or scathing put down. He was a boy with that doggy smell of mud and blood. He was the master of our lives
in those dark days and we were his four disciples.

This time hate week was directed against me. I'd shown weakness and vulnerability now my fate was made. Like a raptor he was going for the jugular. My vulnerability was at its height and Roosevelt knew it.

We were up the woods. Near to Roosevelt’s house where we made our fires and dingy dens. It was a late summer night and so far it had been quite fun. Carroll, who could pass for seventeen with his manly shoulders and stubble, had bought some cans of cider. We’d got drunk and told stories round the fire. Roosevelt was telling us how he'd vivisected the cat last year. I felt sick as he alleged the poor beast had been still alive for hours and hours. He noticed and this empowered him all the more.

Roosevelt summoned Collett and Wilde for a secret meeting over the fence whilst I’d been throwing sticks over the grass with Carroll.
The day was almost done and it was time to go home. We were called over and then Roosevelt shrieked “Get him, get the heretic!” The two boys ran over and rugby tackled me. My face fell hard down in the mud. Roosevelt was now dragging out a huge storage barrel from the back of the den.
“Pin him down…….” he went on. “No mercy for the infidel….”
Now Carroll had thrown his huge shape over me and I was finding it hard to breathe. I tried to plead and to struggle it was no use.
“Now, into the barrel with him. He must pay for his beliefs….
They dragged me to the top of a hill and then forced me into the barrel.
“He now must renounce his evil doing, by eating his words…and as it is shit that comes from his mouth, then shit he shit he will eat……prepare the stick, beat him…”
Now Carroll was throwing in a few punches and the others were kicking. My lip must have been cut as blood filled my mouth. Now Wilde rolled the barrel down the ditch.
Roosevelt was rolling a huge stick in dogshit - there was no doubt. I was now trying to appeal to the goodsense of the others to let me go. Roosevelt moved forwards and then demanded I was held further. I could smell the shit on the stick. As tears filled my eyes, Roosevelt smeared my face in the filth. I retched and vomit filled my mouth. I was crying but the tears just made the stinking shit stick to my face. I must have gone limp and now the others begged Roosevelt to leave me alone. He spat at me and kicked me and then smiled. With what seemed like a primal howl, I burst into tears and Carroll it seemed was shocked into stopping this grim event. “Enough, Roosevelt….let him be it’s time for home.”
Collett looked shocked too. “We’ll end up making him kill himself or summat..........please stop it Roosevelt!”
Roosevelt, laughed and gestured to go home. “Sorry, Ben,” his face seemed to change from monster to boy again. “That was so fuckin’ funny…though.” He looked pitying at me and I almost felt grateful he had stopped. I almost felt gratitude, felt love for him now he'd stopped. I was shaking badly.....
Now he winked at me grinning, “Now don’t start your heresies again, now you know what the price for such, is…you fool….”
I wiped the shit and blood from my face, then stood up and went home. That night I sobbed myself to sleep. Something seemed to break - everything around me, my perceptions seemed to shatter.
It would never be the same ever again. My programming was bust, DOS corrupted forever and the hard drive of my mind filled with evil things...the breakdown began.