Turning Idolater by Edward C. Patterson

wet
pavement, his eyes streaked and his soul seared. He gasped for air
as the thunder rolled as loud as the train on the overhead El. He
paced in a circle searching the ground for purchase. A chill swept
through him, his jacket soaked through and affording no comfort.
Philip thrust his hands into his pockets and crouched in the indent
of the metal buttress nearest the doorway.
    Terror raced through Philip’s heart. Where would
he go? What would he do? His jaw hung low catching the
torrents, his red eyes glancing up at the window. He could still
hear his father. It was a double dose, because his father’s words
raged in his temples — Take a good long, last look at your
mother, because you will never see her again . But he also heard
his father still screaming through the small apartment as if to
atone to God for having spawned such filth in the first place. His
mother’s weeping simmered beneath it like a lamentation. Philip
jumped up.
    “Mom,” he cried. “What can I do? I can’t help it. I
can’t help it.” His lips quivered, filled with all types of flood.
His voice failed now. “I’m not like the rest of you,” he whimpered.
“Where can I go? What can I do?” He wiped his cheeks. “Mom,” he
shouted. “Mommy, don’t leave me here. It’s a bad place and I’m
afraid.” He slid down the buttress. “I’m afraid. Mommy, it’s
raining. Look at me. Please, look at me. My heart hurts so. It
hurts.”
    The window slid open. Philip jumped to his feet.
    “Mom.”
    Lydia’s head popped out. She was the picture of
torment. Her hands shook, but they held something that Philip
couldn’t perceive in the storm. His mother turned, just in time to
avoid a clout from Gregor. She tossed the object, which plummeted
into a puddle. Philip hovered over it. A wallet. He scooped it up,
unfolding it. There had to be a few hundred dollars in it.
    “That’s not yours,” his father screamed.
    Philip didn’t wait for the man, who would be down in
the street, perhaps with the knife or a bat to assure that the
outcast had no quarter. Philip skidded over the curb and crossed
the street. The stairway marked TO MANHATTAN showed the way.
He had a sudden glimmer of where he could go. A soaked rat
deserting the sinking ship may have found convenient drift wood in
the wave to ride ashore, but Philip had only one way to go —
downtown; to a marginal acquaintance — a one time trick, who Philip
knew lived a short haul from Canal Street station. So with his ill
gotten wherewithal applied to a Metro Card and a slippery seat,
Philip Flaxen saw his home for the last time through a rain
streaked window on the rattling monster that had often shaken him
asleep with metallic lullabies.
3
    “Jesus Marie,” said the voice inside the
apartment.
    The hallway was dimly lit. Philip had been here once
before, but he hadn’t remembered it as well as he should have. He
certainly did not recall the pungent smell of cooking blended with
the piss in the stairwell. He also hadn’t recalled the strange
sense that he was being watched through the neighbor’s
peephole.
    “Who’s there?” came a scratchy, almost feminine
voice. “Jesus Marie, this better be good.”
    “Robert,” Philip gasped, positioning his face in the
peephole’s sightline. “It’s me. Philip. Philip Flaxen.”
    “Who the fuck’s Philip Flaxen?” grumbled the voice,
then: “Oh, I remember. Oooh. Nice ass.” Philip heard the door
unlatch, all three locks. Suddenly, Robert Sprague, clad in a silk
Japanese kimono, his hair in a terry cloth turban, opened the
door.
    “Come on in,” he said. “Jesus Marie, you’re all
wet.”
    “You do remember me?” Philip asked.
    “I remember your dick.” He closed the door, and then
examined the dripping wet sprite that he now sheltered. “What the
fuck’s the matter? You look like shit.”
    “Robert . . .” The taps flowed again, Philip a
trembling mess.
    “Call me Sprakie. I hate that other name.”
    “Sprakie,” Philip