Free Boys in Gilded Cages by Jarod Powell Page B

over
again.
    Bring the bike to his house, He heard a man
in a thick Hispanic accent say sternly. I’ll take him home.
    He needs to go to a hospital.
    Do as I tell you.
    Marcia’s voice trailed off. She was
muttering something that sounded like, “I’ve done it again, I’ve
done it again,” but it wasn’t clear enough to be sure.
    He fell asleep on the porch step, where
Marcia’s father left him. He had knocked on the door, but no one
heard him I guess.
    He woke up in bed, to the hum of the
humidifier and with a drying rag on his forehead. He was quizzed by
his parents extensively about what happened this time, where he
was. He said nothing.
    With the day off from school and his mom and
dad at work, he ignored his lingering migraine and rode his bike.
He expected to see Fatty Greer outside his house, as he was
suspended for a couple days for throwing a lit firecracker beside
Mrs. Danforth’s tire on her way out of the parking lot. He wasn’t
there, so he kept riding past Chester the Molester’s house. But he
saw Fatty’s bike on top of the storm cellar.
    He rode farther up than he ever had, and
then onto the highway, all the way to the convenience store owned
by the Redmond family. He bought a Gatorade and Mrs. Redmond said,
don’t stand outside and drink it. Be on your way. He did anyway and
that weird hag didn’t do anything about it.
    Riding back home was a fucking chore. He
stopped at the T in the road to catch his breath and he saw Fatty
sitting on Chester’s porch smoking a cigarette. He waved at him. He
started riding toward him.
    This dude’s got cigs! He said with glee. You
want some? He gave me half a carton.
    Sure, he said. Chester came outside,
shirtless and smoking.
    How you doin’? How’s your mom? Chester said,
stroking his mustache, barely awake.
    I turned the A/C on. Looks like you could
use it.
    Nah, he said. I gotta go.
    Suit yourself, Chester said. Charlie, you
gonna be long?
    No sir. Fatty looked at our boy and
whispered, I’m doing chores. This faggot will give you whatever you
want if you do bullshit for him.
    Hey boy, Chester said to Daryl. You ever mow
a lawn?
    Yeah.
    Fatty looked at him with warning. Yes sir,
he whispered.
    Yes sir, Daryl repeated.
    Chester grinned. That sounds so much
better.
    His voice, the mannerisms. They were
familiar to our boy. Chester and our boy were related, but
strangers. He couldn’t place it.
    Chester didn’t have much of a lawn, and less
of a lawnmower. It took our boy about half an hour to mow the
entire lawn front and back. Chester came out with a drink three
different times, then offered to make him a sandwich. Knowing what
he knew, he should not have gone inside, but Chester the Molester
was familiar to him and our boy wanted to figure out who this dude
was.
    Inside was a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon on
television, and a vacant-eyed boy watching it, much younger than
Hopper, occasionally looking at Daryl longingly.
    Let’s get out of here.
    Inside this dilapidated house was a grown
man getting too close to the demon inside our boy’s own dilapidated
dollhouse of a brain.
    His brother has said that our boy’s
recurring migraine was a demon inside him, aggravated by something
and lashing out from within. Shame has prevented him from saying
what has aggravated this beast.
    The teenage orgasm is a shameful thing, as
children are not meant to experience them, and knowledge is not
meant for them, either. The truth is that our boy thought they were
punishment, as if his brain or body, or maybe his soul, was
rejecting this knowledge as if it was an alien organ
transplanted.
    And so, you can guess how our boy recognized
Chester the Molester. The migraines were probably not demons.
    It was on this morning that it all came
together and it was too much to take. Our boy didn’t kill Chester
the Molester, though he wanted to, and you might say he should
have. He had the opportunity to be a pre-teen hero and he rejected
it. This is something to regret later in