Night Victims

13

Arkansas, the Ozark Mountains, 1982

Seven years old and he was terrified.

But he was used to being frightened, existing with the living lump of fear in his stomach. There was no light or movement of air where he was, only heat and darkness. His mouth was dry, and the corners of his eyes stung with perspiration. Listening to the sounds coming from the other side of the locked closet door, he wondered why his mother did this. Did all mothers do it?

He understood some things from hearing his mother and father arguing, yelling and losing their tempers, like he did at times. Their faces would be red, their eyes bulging. Their mouths were ugly and shaped like the ones on the stone things he’d learned about in school, the gargoyles. They would scream at each other sometimes until they got too tired to go on. Did they feel as he did afterward, empty and lost? He thought they did.

He knew his mother had once been a snake handler in the name of God. At least that’s what his father had said. Both his father and mother said God a lot when they talked or yelled at each other. What a snake handler was, the boy didn’t know. It had to do with a special kind of church, he was once told by his father. He was then given a look that made it clear he wasn’t to ask about it again.

His father was away most of the time because he was in the army, leaving the boy in the care of his mother. She would beat him with one of his father’s belts at times when he was bad, which he deserved though it made him mad for long times. Teaching him respect, she would say, or sometimes shout, losing her temper. Teaching him respect. Respect in this world that was hard.

He wished the noise on the other side of the door would stop so he could be let out of the closet, so he could finally have something to eat. He wasn’t sure if his stomachache was from fear or from hunger.

Here were the spiders!

After a while in the dark closet they always came. He knew the place he lived was old and all by itself in the woods, and he’d heard his father say the rotted wood house was full of termites. That’s why it had so many spiders, they ate the termites. And there was no shortage of flies and roaches for them to feast on, according to his father.

Then why did they still bite?

The first spider was like the touch of a feather on his left arm. He knew better than to knock it off with his hand. The spiders could bite quickly.

He made himself lie still while the soft exploring tickling sensation traveled up his arm toward his shoulder. There was another tickle on his right ankle. His left arm. His cheek. His mouth was open wide but he knew what would happen if he screamed. So he screamed silently because he had to. He couldn’t be seen or heard in the dark closet.

Oww! A bite on his left arm. He made himself stay perfectly still. Painful experience had taught him that was his only defense. Lie still. Let the spiders have their way.

There was one on his right cheek. He hated it when they got near his eyes. It wasn’t a terrible sensation, more like somebody slowly dragging a piece of thread across his flesh, but he didn’t like to think about being bitten in the eye. He did take the risk of clenching his eyes tightly shut. Then he closed his mouth and gritted his teeth, protecting his tongue.

More tickling on his chest and stomach. He wished he was wearing more than his underpants. Lying on his side on the bare wood floor, he wanted to curl up, to sob. But he knew he couldn’t risk crying. It made his body shake. Made them bite. Very slowly he allowed his knees to draw up. He couldn’t help trying to make himself smaller-small as a spider-so he could crawl right out through the crack of dim light beneath the door.

He told himself it wasn’t all that bad, the slight tickling all over his body. He told himself it could even feel good. He was getting used to it and so were the spiders. They didn’t bite him so many times now.

But he knew they might if he moved suddenly, or if he didn’t. He knew they might.

“In the name of our Lord!” shouted his mother’s voice from outside the dark closet.

The spiders were still.

“Amen in the name of the Lord of the earth!” shouted the people who were out there with his mother. Her flock, she called them.

“Praise be it, the poor shall inherit the earth, and after them the animals and then the smallest of the Lord’s earth, the kings of heaven!” The boy listened. What did it all mean?

“Praise be it!” shouted everyone beyond the door. “The kings of heaven!”

“The flesh of the rich shall be rent with disfigurement and the pain of their sins! The green of their money and gleam of their possessions shall be as the black of dust. The small and the crawl shall reap the reward. And the reward shall be ours and then theirs.”

“Ours and then theirs! Ours and then theirs!”

The chanting had started. He knew that soon they would be singing. And dancing. Wild voices.

“The psalm of the mandible!” his mother said. “The psalm of the hive and the wing! The small and the crawl!”

“The small and the crawl.”

The singing began. The boy felt his heart jump and jump. The dancing started, the shouting and tromping on the old plank floor-the rhythm of God, his mother had called it- making the whole house shake. The old house shake. The pots and pans rattle in the kitchen. His room, the closet, everything felt it. Everyone felt it. Maybe God felt it and paid notice. Or Satan. His mother talked and screamed so much of Satan while she made the house bounce, the whole house shake, while she beat and beat with the belt.

She loved him. The boy knew she loved him. She would kiss his forehead and make him feel better when he cried; she told him nothing was his fault. And sometimes at night she would read to him from the Bible till he went to sleep.

If she loved him, why did she lock him in the closet? Why did she beat him with the belt?

What did it all mean?

In the dark, the spiders began to move.