Decade: 1920s

Legacy

by Linda S Barth

** Please note: storyline deals with child abuse **

The Child is the father of the Man.

~ William Wordsworth

The boy smashed his hands against his ears, wincing at the roar echoing in the hollow space behind flattened flesh. He clamped his eyes shut and buried his head against his bent knees. The coarse, whip-stitched thread on his patched trousers bit into his face, but he ignored the sting and pressed his back against the cupboard wall so tightly he could feel each small bony section of his spine.

Vertebrae, he corrected himself, picturing the illustrations in the library book he’d hidden upstairs under his bed. They’re called vertebrae.

The pressure would leave a cross-hatching of tiny scratches – excoriations — on his skin. He knew that, but he didn’t move, didn’t allow himself any easing of the pain. It was nothing compared to what he’d already endured. At least this time, it was his choice to inflict it, even upon himself.

He worked at taking deeper breaths – inhalations — slowly stilling the shuddering that wracked his gaunt frame. He needed to regulate his heart rate, release the vital organ from the spasmodic fluttering – arrhythmia – that made it feel as if it were trying to burst out of his chest. He had to be calm, to think clearly. He couldn’t make any mistakes, not this time.

He raised his head so slowly it was as if he made no movement at all. Becoming the snared beast of his nightmares, he dared survey his surroundings, uncertain if he would find a haven or a trap. He stared upward, seeing darkness, hearing silence. But he knew the musty old clothes  — moth-eaten wool, threadbare flannel, something that had once been a small furry animal – hanging on the rod above his head were only an illusion of disguise. This lair would be discovered, just like all the rest, and the dark secret sanctuary he’d created would be invaded by a real monster.

He wondered if there were any safe places left to find.

His body jerked at sounds he’d hoped he wouldn’t hear. The beating of fist against flesh. A guttural growl, a scream suddenly smothered. He covered his eyes and flinched as if the pain, the terror she felt were his own.

He wanted more than anything to break out of his cage, to run to her, to save her.

But he knew…he knew…it would only make things worse.

Tears oozed through his clenched fists, stinging a path along the freshest cut – laceration – this one on his cheek, raw, ragged, still crusted with blood from the blade of a rusty knife. It was a miracle there’d been no infection. Sepsis. There would be a scar, but he already knew he was ugly, so it really didn’t matter very much.

Footsteps pounded overhead, shaking the clothes rod, layering a drifting of dust over his huddled body. A black beetle, another soul seeking shelter, scuttled across his arm. He swatted it away, then crushed it where it fell, its shell crackling under his fist, a veneer that could not withstand a greater force.

He gasped, ashamed he’d thoughtlessly destroyed an innocent life. Primum non nocere. He’d read that in another of his precious borrowed books, a history of medicine. Hippocrates, Galen, Lister. Osler, Pasteur, Sydenham. He’d dared to dream that someday his name would join theirs. That he, too, would proclaim, First do no harm. How that phrase had touched his heart, had shone a light on another path, had pointed toward a way out..

The insect’s remains still clung to his hand. He would feel the shards of a lost life long after he’d brushed them away.

He shuddered and made himself smaller as if he could hide from his worst fear, the instinctive knowledge that the darkness he was born to might yet take root and grow within him. It couldn’t! He wouldn’t let it happen. But what if there was no choice…

A door slammed, then there was silence again, save for the helpless whimpering of his sister, the useless murmuring of their mother. He’d been granted a respite, but he knew it wouldn’t last. His time in this life was measured in moments. And what remained was far less than what had been.

Still, he did not move. He pictured his favorite book with its translucent drawings of the heart, images layered one over the other; its circuitous maps tracing blood as it coursed through arteries and veins; its renderings of human skeletons, some in classical balance, others so distorted he could almost feel the pain that had made them so.

They were called organ systems – cardiovascular, circulatory, skeletal – beautiful words, magical words. He’d studied the text and the drawings with endless fascination until the book had become his bible. How he wished he could take it with him.

He shook his head. What was the point in wishing? He could count on the fingers – phalanges –of one battered hand the wishes that had come true in the nine years of his existence.

He forced himself to focus on what was important in the here, the now. The evenness of his breathing, the pulsing of his heart. Not too fast – tachycardia – and not too slow – bradycardia. He allowed himself to feel the smallest bit of relief.

He was ready.

He scrambled to his knees, ignoring a lance of pain from the fractured kneecap – patella – that hadn’t fully healed. He pulled a small knapsack from the furthest reaches of the cupboard, sighing softly at how light it was. A shirt, some underwear, an old toothbrush. A single dollar bill  — crumpled, blood-stained — his father miraculously hadn’t noticed when it had fallen to the bathroom floor. Someday when he grew up, he would have so much more. But he wouldn’t keep it for himself. He’d share it, give it away to people who deserved it. He’d fill ten knapsacks, fifty, a hundred!

But for now, what he had would have to be enough. He hadn’t dared take too much from his small stock of possessions. He’d been meticulously careful not to leave a trail marking his intentions. If the others didn’t know where he was, then they couldn’t be forced to help find him.

A strange, stifled laugh burned his throat. Pharynx. How could they know where he was going when he had no idea of it himself? But the where didn’t matter, only the why, the when.

His lips thinned to a tight line. He’d find his way somehow. There still were some good people in the world, brave people he might meet. People like the ones who’d tried to help him — the village librarian, his classroom teacher, the school nurse. People who might succeed where the others had failed.

He shrugged, feeling his narrow shoulders rub against his ragged cotton shirt. And if they didn’t, then he’d help himself. He was strong and smart. He knew things, had learned much more than anyone realized. And someday when he became a doctor – physician – he’d help other people, too, people who’d been punished and made powerless, rejected by a world that should have sheltered and saved them. There were better places out there and he’d find them. It had to be true. If he couldn’t believe that, there would be nothing left for him.

And when he became a father someday, he’d never hurt his children. He’d defend them from all enemies. He would give them everything — hope, dreams, a home where they’d be safe, a place where no one could destroy them. He’d help them be their best, their truest selves. He would hold them close with love and tenderness and never let them go. His son would not —

Voices, footfalls jolted his vision of the future. It was time. He crawled from his abandoned cave, then took silent, stealthy steps across the damp cellar floor. He felt his hands shake – psychogenic tremors – as he clicked the outer door open, then crept outside into the gathering darkness.

He took a cautious step into the back garden, then another, and another. At the sound of a kitchen window scraping open, he disappeared into the shrubbery, a shadowed statue who pretended he didn’t hear his mother’s voice.

“Johnny! Where are you, Johnny? I know you’re out there!” She waited for a response he knew she’d never again receive. “John, you come here right now!”

The window slammed shut. He knew what she believed would happen next.

Not this time.

As he ran, he vowed he’d never look back.