Burn, Baby, Burn by Michael Seale (Prologue)

 

Burn, Baby, Burn

By

Michael Seale

“The truth is the light and the light is the truth.”—Narrator Invisible Man

 

Summer 1982

Into the Dark

Mike had heard it often enough, the yelling and screaming from the upstairs bedroom. His bastard father would beat their mother with a belt over her bare back, leaving red welts. She would scream and cry out and desperately trying to get away from his vice like grip. They would mark his mother for the days to come with purple bruised fingers splayed across her forearm. As he would tire, she would collapse in a heap on to the floor. It was then that he would demand her to undress. If she would dare say no, he would rip the clothes from her body. He would force himself upon her, pinning her down with his weight. Her slight frame made her unable to fight back. The pain was unbearable, her back, her arms and between her legs, it was all too much. She would beg him to stop, pleading with him to stop hurting her. His mother would gasp for air as he penetrated her over and over, his hands around her throat. The bastard told her how much hurting her turned him on, how she was a whore and needed to be fucked like one. His father raped his mother; Mike wondered if that was how he had been conceived. He huddled in his room with his siblings, hiding from the monster that should love them. Knowing there was nothing they could do to help their mother. 

The bastard pushed the last half of his cigarette into Mike’s ten-year-old body. He tried not to flinch; he knew it was best not too. If he whimpered or cried, it would be worse. The dark red scabs no longer bothered him; somehow they gave him power, he thought as he picked at them. His young shoulders absorbed the heat and pain; the burns made him feel stronger. There were small round light pink scars already littering his young shoulders, presents from his loving father. The bruises he had from last week’s beatings he wore as a badge of honor, as he had once again refused to cry. 

But it was the words his father used that hurt the worst: worthless, bastard, idiot, stupid. Every time he heard them, it renewed his pain. The old man’s tune was always the same, he was a sinner, and that destined him to burn in hell; he was worthless, not worth a shit. Those words made him cry alone at night, always alone. They hurt more than any fist or cigarette burn ever could. 

By the time Mike was ten, he had endured more violence than any other little boy should. He couldn’t help that he was quick to think and quick to act. Or that he was smarter than most of the other kids his age, but those were the things that his father hated. The old man hated the fact that it seemed everyone adored his son. His father hated that everyone said he looked like his mother, blue eyes, sandy blonde hair and a charming smile. All he heard was “the boy is weak, like the bitch that pushed him out.” But what he hated the most was that he had given the bastard kid his own name. 

Mike’s father believed that his first-born son didn’t deserve his name or let alone any other. He felt that the boy wasn’t worth two-shits. But that was at home; everywhere else he was the doting father, his beloved son, his son that was smart and helpful and good. The old man lived the perfect example of a hypocritical life. His devotion to his church, to his God, knew no boundaries; he would give up his hateful, unloving, sinning family in a heartbeat, if he believed that his God wanted him too. The problem was the church wanted their deacons to be family men, so that was what he was for them, the loving father, the loving husband. No one knew the family secret. 

One day everyone would see what he already knew, that the boy was worthless, how inept he was, how stupid and above all else, he is a sinner. That wasn’t even the worst of it, Mike was a lustful fornicator. The little brat had walked in on his mother getting dressed and didn’t look away in shame. The boy had lied and had lusted after his own mother; he knew it; he saw it in his eyes. So, he would punish him, he would show him the way to the light. Mike needed it, more than love, more than food, more than water for his thirst; Mike needed to be shown the light. He had defiled himself and the ugly bitch; he knew this was the only way he could repent and turn away from his sins. 

Mike never knew what the bastard was talking about. The bastard, he never called him dad, of course he never called him the bastard to his face either, it was always sir. Sins, defiled, lust, fornication, the words meant nothing to him. He would drone on about repentance, but how could he repent if he didn’t know from what, he often wondered? He would say the words all the same, the words his “father” wanted to hear, in hopes the beating would stop. They never did. It only stopped when his father lost interest or got tired. The bastard would end it with his hands on his small shoulders; he would look Mike directly in the eyes and say that he did it for his own good, and that he knew Mike was a good boy. This despicable act is what Mike hated the most. 

As Mike turned thirteen something changed, not in Mike but in his father, his sermons of hell, fire and brimstone became a daily routine. They were no longer reserved for the weekly beatings. Day after day he would tell his son that he would burn in hell and just to remind him he would put his cigarette out on his shoulder. It became his father’s obsession, saving the defiled, turning them towards the Light. 

He often dreamed of killing his father, but it paralyzed him with fear. He could not raise his voice, let alone stand up to the bastard. At least, that is what he had thought. 

The school year was almost over, Mike came home as usual, racing directly home so he could finish his chores before the bastard came home. But this day was different, they had not locked the door. He noted his father’s sickly green rusted Maverick in the driveway. His mother’s Ford Fairmont station wagon with the scratched wood paneling sat next to it. Mike wondered why they were both home during the day. Perhaps they were sick, he thought, knowing this wasn’t the truth. His stomach filled with dread. The beating would come early. At least then it will be over with.

The small cookie cutter house was quiet, no TV, no yelling, no crying. They lived on the army base near the end of a long street. All the houses looked the same, white siding with yellow trim. The lawns were all neat, theirs’ was immaculate, it had to be. Mike cut the grass every week, no matter what. There were never exceptions. The house itself was small, with three bedrooms and one and a half baths. Mike and his little brother shared a room, which was ok. This way if he knew where the little brat of a brother was, so his father couldn’t get to him. 

Mike made his way through the house without saying a word, stepping as quietly as possible. His brother and sister would be home soon. He searched for his mother in the kitchen, her one sanctuary, the one place his father let her run. The phone rang cutting the silence of the house, Mike almost jumped at the sound. The receiver hung on the wall in the kitchen, next to the old fridge. Its beige plastic coated bell rang out over and over, it’s long tangled cord dangling to the floor. Mike reached out to pick it up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something that would forever change his life.