Free Alter Boys by Chuck Stepanek

dish.   Now there was a conflagrating electrical storm exploding in his skull.  Synaptic impulses of pain, fear, repulsion and sadness shot across his brain.  Bolts of serotonin flooded his pleasure and desire sensors.  And in his mind’s eye the images whirled, separated and swam together again.  The beautiful angels in heaven, his screaming pooper, Father Gus, omnipotent, beastly, the awful hard thing inside him, baby Jesus, hands and nails gripping his buttocks, blessed V irgin Mary, the telescope, the spider from the incredible shrinking man, Casey, cartoons, crying.  The pulses whipped back and forth in his mind, the thin membrane no match for the onslaught, melting in resistance. 
     
    He was racing down an endless dark hallway where portals, doors and iron grates exploded out, waggled violently on their hinges before slamming back into place.  Windows, shutters, drapes, curtains and sashes opened and shut, danced and waved.   Behind these he caught brief glimpses of garish figures:  Satan’s torso with the head of baby Jesus, a gigantic spider with telescopic tentacles violating the Virgin Mary from behind, Casey the engineer haling him but not with the traditional trainman’s lantern but with a red hot pitchfork upon which was mounted the head of Harry the Happy Hobo.  Harry looked none to o happy in this scene.   His eyeballs had been removed and squirming white grub worms and maggots filled his sockets and spilled across his cheeks.
     
    And then a final door opened.  But this was not a phantom door in what had become the psychotic haunted house of Corky’s mind, oh no, this one was for real.  A door that would end one nightmare and start another… 
     
    The door opened. 
     
    And everything stopped. 
     
    Three people, two of them men and one a young boy, held frozen.  All caught in the act.  All three taking in the image from their own perspective and (for once daddy was not alone) speechless in voice and thought. 
     
    The trio could not have been more statuesque than if having been instructed to pose for a photograph at the Sears portrait studio:  Daddy in the doorway, shovel in one hand, doorknob in the other.  Gus bent at the hips yet fully erect down below.  Corky limp and utterly lost, lost in a catatonic blackness between the cyclonic storm in his mind and the blessed rescue/cataclysmic admonishment (he could not have told you which one) he was about to receive.
     
    How long they held that pose is unknown.  It could have been an instant, a few moments, even untold eons in duration.  But one of them had to move and it was Gus.  Gus moved first and he moved fast.  He released the boy, almost tipping him off the stool in the process, and withdrew his erection while frantically hoisting his pants.  
     
    Corky was next.  His hands left the scope while his body wilted back and slithered to the floor in one elongated movement.  The pain inside him released, but his anal rim throbbed like fire.  His naked torso puddled on the linoleum and he wailed out long and hard.
     
    And while Daddy didn’t move, what he did do was an absolute milestone.  He spoke.  He spoke first and unprompted.  Fighting through the waves of confusion and anger he engaged his voice like never before:  “WHAT?!”  The word roared out of him.  “WHAT’S – GOING ON – IN ---HERE!”
     
    The words drove into th e priest like crucifixion nails.  And while they may have been intended solely for the priest oh, ohhh how those words also drove into Corky.  Corky’s wailing became a crescendo.  He wailed in fear and shame of daddy’s presence.  He wailed for God and Jesus and the angels that he had somehow displeased.  He wailed in fear of the kindly priest who had turned savage.  He even wailed in relief of the end of the torture. He wailed and wailed but had nothing left within him to wail for the most important part of all; his damaged mind. 
     
    The priest, now hastily clothed,