The warm aroma of fresh biscuits arose to his nose as the source of his awakening. The clatter of pans hitting the rushing flow of water almost out roars the jumbled voices in the kitchen, of muffled cries from Mary, screeching her normal complaints. Abruptly, the loud slap of wood on skin silences her, and the only cry comes from the pan suffering the cleanse and waterboard method.
His body lays stiff under the thin quilted sheets his grandmother made the previous year. A swift kick from Mary rolled him out of bed, and landed himself onto the cool of the floor. That awoke his eyes, not just of the difference in comfort, but the harsh hit to the head he endured upon the fall.
Shaking his head, as if wringing his mind of all aspects of tire, he pulled on his fluffy damaged slippers and followed Mary to the crisp red dining room. Red was the best way to describe such a room. Walls have a bloody base with tin signs that cheesing entice all eyes upon each image denouncing his mother’s humor. A red and white plaid table stands idly in the center with compact bright red leather chairs surrounding it in a huddle. Certificates hung bragging Mark’s victories in spelling bees, and disproportionately framed pictures of the family with the community’s pastor hung with great pride. Abnormally hanging low to the head is his mother’s poor intent to richen the room with a sparkling chandelier. With any instant urgency to stand, Mary always hits the lower bearings and rattles the ceiling adding additional cuts to the peeling white paint.
Upon each setting, rests a plate with runny loose grates and a biscuit confirming his rightful instincts. His mother strolls in carrying soft butter and jam for the spread, and Mark plops with one hand grabbing for the jam and the other gulfing grates down.
Mark continues with a faster pattern, undistracted by his task of spreading the biscuit when his mother watches in repulse: “Hold your horses, Mark! You’re gonna shove it down so fast that your stomach won’t be able to handle it!”
Mary chips in smirkingly, “Sure won’t! Timmy ate his cupcakes, at Donna’s birthday party, so fast last week that the moment he swallowed it all came right back up!”
“Not a discussion for the table, Mary.” Grunts the mother, as she shuffles off with the spare dishes, bringing them back to the racket of cleansing. Washing is what the mother spent the majority of her time doing. Tough sponges soaked in pure lather and scrub each in hand, then a blast of hot water to suffocate any other germ or stain on the dish.
“Washing dishes is like washing away any sins”, the mother would say. Cleansing of the soul, she takes quite seriously, and her children knew that well.
Mark shuffles around his room in search of his loose striped tie, he wouldn’t be upset to have lost it. Ties choked every breath out of him each day, and as he couldn’t properly tie it himself, his mother would wrap it narrowly to teach him of proper presentation in public. Mark stood and sighed as his tie indeed was gone and tardiness is another word is mother shuddered at.
Tall towers overshadow with a becoming dismay that befalls on his small figure. A single tower, is where all the children fantasized of a trapped princess in wait for her knight in shining armor, but such a woman was just an imagination. There, the office of Father Francis lays, where he sits perched overlooking his students and attending to the community's worries.
A sigh is released from Mark, as his leather saddle thumps against his waist, each step up into the school.
“Mark!” A young boy runs up from behind and continues saying, “did you hear? We have an assembly today. Something about bomb threats? We are going to hide under desks like some game. I overheard my parents about this, the Russians, with that airplane in space they can target us! Like out of nowhere!”
“A bomb?” Mark questioned, concerned. He’d only seen clips of them on tv, they are used in war, not for innocents.
Mark slips into class right as the teacher hits the board with the lesson of the day. He sits as the words draw into a completely foreign language, and he distractingly doodles in his textbook.
“Slat!”, the ruler hits his desk and he is forced to look up at Sister Jane, she has an undetermined age. The frown was the first feature his eyes fell upon. Her lips fell into her mouth and tightly pronounced her irritants of his lack of respect. With his mouth open in fear, she smirks and walks back up to the front of the class and continues the lesson. His tense shoulders gave out once she turned back toward the board, and his back slumped. School is a menace for him.
Assembly began in the small gym, cramped with all the students of the school in random formations. Mark shuffled foot to foot, in urgency to leave, he whispers to a Sister asking for a bathroom break and is granted such. Cheeringly he rushes to the hallway and plops down around the corner and pulls out his notebook to write. Suddenly, he was soon interrupted.
Father Francis blinked with his stormy eyes, “Son, stand up for me shall you?” Father Francis hovered above Mark with a lending hand reached out. Mark grabs hold with a firm grip and stands up next to him. His shirt tightly grabbed at his belly, tugging him in discomfort. In Mark’s eyes, he looked disheveled, stressed, and utmost improper for a Pastor. But the pastor didn’t let go once Mark’s feet landed on the floor, he instead pulled him as if to follow down the hallway.
“I have an aquarium in my office, why don’t you come and help me attend the fishes? I’ll even let you name one!” The pastor eagerly smiles, and Mark’s curiosity grew to question his intentions. Yet he followed, unsure if saying “no” was appropriate to a father, or even a headmaster. Reaching the tower door, Father Francis hanks on the metal handle and heaves it open. The stairs wound into a pit of darkness at the top, he couldn’t see the end. Father Francis grabs his hand and leads, like a light, towards his office. It reeked of burning wax, and some leftover fast food left in the bin. Mark’s eyes darted around in search of these compelling fish but were left mistaken. Was this the right room?
Father Francis gestures to the chair sitting right in front of his desk for Mark to sit in. Mark uneasily seats, and silently rocks between thighs in discomfort. He felt the pastor’s eyes on him, staring him down, detailing every crinkle, every shadow upon his figure. Clearing his throat, Father Francis creeps close to Mark and crouches next to him. Mark could feel his breath on his neck, he felt the warm air course - sprouting chills on his body. He continued to look at the desk, begging for a way to leave this confusion. A hand reaches for his thigh, running up and down, not to soothe, but to please. Mark's eyes turned blank, a veil had fallen over his eyes, he had lost sight. He lost air. He lost words. Father Francis shifts his weight and leans to whisper in Mark’s ear. His hearing was lost too. Every sense froze, as the actions being done by Father Francis continued. Mark felt a doctor should declare him dead, for he is not viable. Why couldn’t he move? Why couldn’t he yell? What was happening? Mark’s mind seemed to be ignoring his orders: to run, to yell, to hit, to escape.
Mark doesn’t remember leaving the room. He doesn’t remember going back to class since the assembly was finished. He doesn’t remember getting into his mother’s car after work. But there he was, falling into the cushions of his seat. Recurring strums of “Rock my Baby” bellowed his emptiness that called for his mother’s comfort. Mark wants affection, he wants reasons to explain what had just happened, what he could have done to prevent it. If that was normal?
“M-mom. I uh… have a question.” Mark mutters in complete stuttered breaths to his mother.
She looks over at him and replies brassily, peeking between her rims that encompassed a majority of her face, “What is it, child?”
Heat burns his cheeks, and his fumbling moist hands ease his mind as he works his words out slowly, “I was in Father Francis’ office - today.”
“Are you getting in trouble now? Why didn't I raise any hooligan!” The mother’s eyes squinted with anger, and her mouth drew in a disappointed snarl.
“He said - said there was fish”, tears welled in his eyes as the baffled boy fell upset. “I just sat there. I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know why he-”
“Father Francis is a good man, you must have done something wrong for him to pull you aside.”
“He kissed my neck. He touched my leg. He-he touched me!” Tears gushed out of his eyes but Mark’s stare carried no purpose. His hands covered his face in complete shame, afraid to see his mother’s reaction. The dawning truth overwhelmed him, that wasn’t supposed to happen. What Father Francis did, what he is, is evil. He preaches of sinners and how to avoid the temptations, but why should he ignore his own belief. Does he think he’s above morality?
Silence pulled at his skin in complete anguish over regret for speaking the truth. The sharp turns of the car and the increased roar of the overheating engine spoke to Mark. He is derailing too. A shrill outcry from the tires announced they have arrived.
Mark is startled, as the car door whipped open to his frantic mother’s muttering: “Let me clean you. I’ll clean you. A cleanse of all sinners, absolving any harm.” The mother pulls Mark out of the car and carries him inside the home until she reaches the bathroom. There, she turned to the bathtub and ran the faucet to a boiling rate. She began to quickly undress her child until he was only in his tighty whities. He was bare, standing in complete nakedness shaking in fear. His mother nods her head towards the tub, towards the scorching steam, towards his cleanse. Closing his eyes in panic, he dips his toes in with ease. His mind yelled for him to get out because the water burned as he continued to lay himself in the tub. The sponge quickly distracted him from the heat, with grains of soap buffing in friction. Skin burning, skin peeling, skin reddening, he screams in pain.
“Shush my baby. I am helping you. Cleaning is the only way to rid you of the sinners.” She huffs and moves her hands in a faster motion against his skin. His skin stretched and contracted with her touch. He yelled under his breath, and the skin began to tear. He is aflame. A foul odor arose above the lather, demasking the real pain. Time lost meaning, as his skin grew more and more exposed.
“There, there my child. You are clean.” Her stretch of a smile stares over Mark. He is left breathless, unknown to his aching sores. She wipes her hands simultaneously on her pants and stands; leaving him, drowning in his sorrows and agony. The lather and sponge mocked Mark on the stool next to him. Laughing at his open burned rashes covering him. Laughing at the small burnt figure. He is broken, he is finished, he is still dirty. Crying in pain, he leans over to silence the sponge. Dripping in heavy soap, he scrubs himself away.
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