THE BENCH

He looks at the clock on the wall. Thirty more minutes and he will be out of this dumb stinking little hole in the wall.  I hope the bus isn’t late, Jack thinks as he stretches his feet out to get comfortable; if that were even possible on the hard wooden bench.  Noticing the splatter on his boots, Jack quickly pulls them back underneath him and glances at the old man behind the ticket window, who is looking at him.  Jack has seen that, " I’m better than you," look all his life and it pisses him off. He stares back with, "what the hell are you looking at", eyes. The old man looks away and nervously shuffles some papers.

It is the day before Thanksgiving and this year he thinks he has something to be thankful for.  Jack was born and raised in this town.  He hasn’t been back in twenty years, and not one person recognized him.  He had to take care of something that needed to be done, and, for the first time since Jack had been a child, the hate was not eating up his insides. Behind watery eyes, he looks back into his past.

He thinks about the farm.  He was the youngest of five children.  His father was kind and his mother was beautiful.  His father would go out before sunrise to get the cows from the fields for the first milking.  Sometimes, his father would wake him up and put him on his shoulders and take him out to the pastures.  He remembers how he felt like the luckiest little boy in the world. His father would put him on old Dolly the cow’s back, where the ride to the barn toward the rising sun always made him dream of adventures.

Too young for school, he played all day.  In the pasture next to the house, on top of a slowly sloping knoll, was a large pile of boulders.  They were his fort when he was a soldier, a castle when he was a king and a sailing ship when he was a pirate.

His brothers and sisters went to school but he had plenty of friends.  Rocky the sheep, Mazie the pig, Buffy the dog and then there was Poor Devil the rooster.  That old rooster hung out by the tractor shed between the house and the barn. Every time he wanted to go see his father in the barn that old rooster would chase him back toward the house. A smile slips upon his lips when he thinks about how he use to get peas from the refrigerator and throw them by the shed.  Waiting for Poor Devil to go and eat them, Jack would try and sneak past. Poor Devil would act as if he did not notice just until the little boy thought he would make it.  Suddenly Poor Devil with his head down low, wings a-flapping, making a sound like death was on its way, would turn the boy back in a run for his life to the house.

Jack remembers the summer that seemed to have no end.  He was now five and he could go to school.  His brothers teased him and tried to make kindergarten and Miss Willis sound scary, but he could not wait.  The farm was fun but in kindergarten there would be other kids his age and he would learn lots of new things.

The first two or three weeks were great. Having older brothers and sisters gave him a jump on the other kids. He knew the alphabet and could count to one hundred. The other kids were great but Miss Willis did scare him a little. She had a very hard look and never smiled. His mind starts to burn as he remembers when the heart of a little boy who loved to dream became embraced by darkness.

He and his friend Fuzzy were building a castle with blocks.  As Fuzzy got up to go to the bathroom, he fell back and knocked over the blocks.  “GOD DAMN IT”  Jack yelled.  He did not even know it was a bad word. His father said it every time something went wrong. He remembers how the whole classroom went silent. He was terrified as Miss Willis marched across the room screaming, “You dirty little boy,” and grabbed him by the ear and was slapping his face while dragging him to the sink, where she washed out his mouth with soap.     

He did not tell his mother or father because he was too embarrassed.  Everyday after that Miss Willis picked on him. She called him stupid, always ridiculing him in front of the class and called him the dirty little boy. He hated school and started wetting the bed again and did not stop until he was ten.

Before Miss Willis, nobody had ever been mean to him. The last day of kindergarten was when his fear changed into a hate that would forever enslave his heart. The end of the year party, was all the kids were talking about. All the kids were so excited and were playing in the line to wash their hands.  But he was the only one Miss Willis grabbed by the ear as she yelled, “No talking in line!”  She put him in the corner behind the door like she always did. For two hours he faced the corner listening to the children playing, laughing, and Miss Willis telling each one how she loved and will miss them.

When it was time to go home, Miss Willis pulled him out from behind the door and said, “Jack I did not mean for you to stay there all this time.  You should have come out when the party started.”  Jack could tell by the meanness in the tone of her voice that she was lying and he started to cry. She gave him a sip of juice in a cup and a broken cookie and put him on the bus. All the way home while the children were giddy with the start of summer vacation he cried until there were no more tears. 

He remembers how mad he was when he ran from the bus to the house to tell his mother, but she was not home.  I have to tell Pop, he thought as he ran upstairs and got his brother’s baseball bat.  Poor Devil saw him and started his attack.  Jack stood his ground and Poor Devil  turned and ran into the shed. Jack laughed out loud when he thinks of how old Poor Devil was more chicken than rooster.

His father was putting a milking machine on a cow when he got to the barn. Through his sobs he told his father what Miss Willis has been doing to him.  He remembers his father’s face redden with anger when he said “Who does that bitch think she is?”  As he was getting off the stool he slipped and fell under the cow, who got spooked and kicked him right in the head.  It took two weeks for his father to die.  He never came out of the coma . Tears fill Jack’s eyes as he remembers that he never got a chance to say, I’m sorry.

The kids were too young and his mother could not run the farm.  One after another, the farm hands came and went.  They were all lazy and would try to steal anything that wasn’t tied down.  His mother started drinking and selling the equipment and livestock little by little to make ends meet.  Every night by ten o’clock she would be passed out on the couch surrounded by empty beer cans and smoldering cigarettes in the ash tray.  She started bringing men home that the kids had to call uncle.  She would be gone for days at a time.  He remembers how embarrassed he and his brothers and sisters would be when the bus dropped them off and their mother’s car would be in the ditch. She was too drunk to make it up the drive way.

One night he was woken up by the screams of his brothers and sisters.  Through the chocking smoke that filled his room, he made his way to the back stairs.  The last thing he remembered was falling down the stairs and something pulling on his leg.  He woke up in the hospital with his mother’s brother standing by the bed.  As cold as ice, his Uncle Buddy told him his mother and all his brothers and sisters died in the fire. He was not yet eleven.  He went to live with his uncle and aunt in the city of Albany in upstate New York.  The city kids were a lot different from his country friends.  He started hanging out with the tough crowd.  He started smoking, stealing, causing trouble and skipping school.  He still hated school.

He came home one night and his Uncle Buddy was waiting for him.  He was told to lean over the chair and his uncle started beating him with a belt.  His uncle was screaming, you want to skip school, steal, and not do what your told, as he hit him again and again.  The belt left not only  welts but tore the skin from his back as his shirt became wet with blood.  When he tried to get up his uncle grabbed the back of his neck and held him down without missing a stroke.  If it were not for his aunt dragging Uncle Buddy off, he would have beaten Jack to death.  It took two days for him to be able to walk.  He hitch-hiked to New York City.  He figured he was way better off on his own.  He was only thirteen.

His wet eyes dry with rage as he thinks about the last twenty years.  Twelve of those years were spent in prison, for drugs, breaking and entering, assault and rape; not even counting short stays in local jails for things like drunk and disorderly and petty theft.  He thinks about how the other inmates brutalized him without mercy. There is no such thing as free will in the joint, especially when you're small.  For the first time in years he has no fear.  He knows he will never go back to prison as long as he has one beat left in his heart.

He thinks about last night, from now on things are going to be different.  Confidence and pride begin to sliver through his twisted mind. He was surprised at how small Miss Willis was when she answered the door.  When he was a five-year-old child, she seemed like a giant. She had the same nasty voice when she asked him, “who are you and what do you want?”  He told her that he was one of her students, don’t you remember me?  She snapped back "why should I remember you?  I have taught hundreds of children." 

He relives the pleasure he felt as he punched her in the face and watched her stagger backwards across the room and fall over the coffee table. For two hours he beat and tortured Miss Willis before he threw her in the trunk of her car and drove to the old school house. He saw the school had been abandoned for years as he dragged the old lady by the hair into the classroom where he continued his assault.  He feels relaxed and confident that they won’t find her until she starts to stink.  He wonders what they will think when they find that nasty old woman nailed to the wall with railroad spikes, in that corner behind the door.

He sees the bus pull-up.  As he struts to the door he thinks to himself, look out world Jackie the Nightmare is on his way and he is looking to get even.  "Before he climbs aboard he asks the driver, "is this the bus to Albany?"