The Lesser Blessed by Richard van Camp

could hear my father shiver again as I brought the hammer down and down and down and, for a second, I could see the stars before they went out. I could see the Blue Monkeys standing with steam coming out their eyes and I wentblack and heard the hoofs scraping the pavement before he kicked again. I was close to the beast, and he was laughing.
    “Now we’re even!” Jazz yelled. He was dancing around, holding his arms up. I didn’t try to stand. In my head, I could hear Johnny’s voice: “Just stay down.”
    There was a wave of people tackling Jazz. Mongoloid Moose pulled me up. “Juliet?” I thought. “Juliet?” I scanned the couples on the floor, and then I saw her. She was dancing, wrapping her arms around someone else. As I looked, she buried her head in his chest. He had his eyes closed and his mouth open. Johnny! It was Johnny, and he was grabbing her ass, too!
    I turned around and saw people pushing Jazz away. He still had his arms raised, and he was laughing. I felt with gentle fingers for any rips in my scalp but couldn’t find any. I ran by the track and down the street. I didn’t even stop to put on my damn jacket. When I got home, I ran some cold water and looked at my face in the mirror. I’d have my first shiner since the Darcy incident, and my head was pounding. I stood there for the longest time, feeling the throbbing of my skull.
    If I could ride the waves of pain, I could remember things. I could feel them. I got a flash of Rae and our house; me standing over him; fire roaring from room to room; me standing in the crowd with a box of matches and the hammer; oh God in Heaven forgive me, my hammer, my secret tusk; me standing over Dad and bringing it down, slamming it down, knowing Dad’s passed out, knowing he’s dreaming. I wanted to take it away, the sin and dirt and cum and blood in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were crying. My lips were split. I wanted to sew stitches through my lips. I thought he wanted me to pray when he said kneel down. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted stitches. I thought, Oh God, why is he feeding me mushroom juice? I couldn’t breathe. He jammed it so far in I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to sew stitches through my lips so he could never fuck me there again. Mother. The flame light. The flame rush. Youstand there frozen. Why am I ? Why am I—the snow. My face. My skin. It’s not supposed to be black.
    When I woke up, I was on the bathroom floor, bleeding from my ears. I went into my mom’s room but she and Jed weren’t there. I made it to my bed and slept for way too long.
    I was underwater, but I was coming up for air. I was swimming through Missus Stephenson’s legs. She was my nurse, and she did this cheezy exercise with the “pigs” and the lesser burned. We all had to hold our breath and swim through her legs. Except, as I was swimming through, I noticed that she had stumps for legs and that her feet and shins were wooden. I tried to swim faster through her legs, and as I did she began to bleed. There was meat in her blood and I was swimming in it. I tried to rise but I couldn’t. I tried to breathe but I couldn’t. I tried to scream but I couldn’t. When I surfaced, I was in the sniff shack with my cousins. I stunk of gasoline and my father’s blood. My hands were sticky. It was in my hair. We were all sniffing and Franky had a nosebleed. He was staggering. There was red paint splashed on his shoes. He was crying. His father was punched out somewhere, bleeding daddy blood. My cousin Alex was crying, too. His sister was holding a torn starfish between her legs. And we wept because we knew we had no one. No one to remember our names, no one to cry them out, no one to greet us naked in snow, to mourn us in death, to feel us there, in our sacred place. We wept because we did not belong to anyone. I cried too for what had to happen. Our shadows were black. Mine was the only one with fire in its eyes. I spilled two jerry cans