On his early morning walk in the woods near their campsite, his father found a large, thick brown and gray stick with a pointed end, around 5 inches in diameter. It was the perfect tool for the job. It was about an hour after sunrise, with the air chilly for early September. Tiny sparrow-like finches with stripped brown and white heads peeped and fluttered about in their early morning feeding, as plumes of fog floated just above the grass. The sky was plumb-grey ash with dirty clouds jutting out like 3D cutouts wrapped in polluted brownish paste. Gustavo, the Father, now stood outside his family’s small, blue tent, stick in hand, waving it above his head like a crazy baton.
“Carlos, time to wake up” he yelled to his son inside. The boy’s two older sisters and his Mother, were standing impatiently about 10 feet away, in a semi-circle around the white ashes of the cold, dead fire. That same fire had warmed them all until the wee hours of the morning. Gustavo was a short, portly man with bowed legs, a deep-set brow and small eyes barely visible above his fat cheeks, cheeks pitted like raisons from being picked at incessantly, from so many years of acne that afflicted him from when he was a teenager until now. He called out again toward the tent, an impatient edge to his voice now.
“Carlos—hey I’m not gonna tell you again, wake the fuck up you little piece of shit. Ven aqui!” Inside the tent, six-year-old Carlos tensed and sat up suddenly, rubbing his eyes, he was afraid immediately, he felt his insides open with the fear. That tone in his father’s voice indicated slaps and punches from Poppi would be coming soon. His open wounds from the last beating a few weeks ago were barely healed. Like a prison guard, every morning his fat Mother, demanded to inspect him after breakfast (which usually consisted of a piece of stale, white Wonder bread covered with sickly, sweet, Welches grape jelly) and before he left for school. She ignored his two porcine older sisters but forced Carlos to stand up straight, back against the kitchen wall like a wooden soldier. She checked to make sure he wore dark, long-sleeved shirts with high collars or turtleneck dickies to school, thus insuring that no one would notice the marks and bruises all over 90% of his body he endured from the monthly beatings of his father.
The air felt cold and looking through the open flap of the tent, Carlos, in his brown and beige monkey PJs began to shake as he stared at the cold plumes of steam rising from the ground. And there stood his Father, like some scary troll, glaring at him and brandishing a thick, three foot pointed stick. Thundering toward the tent, Gustavo bent down and entered. Carlos jumped and backed up in the electric, blue air but he wasn’t quick enough as his Father lunged toward him and grabbed the red-starred collar of the boy’s PJs, pulling him outside, then standing up unsteadily, still holding onto the collar of the boy’s now partially unbuttoned PJ top, one lone shirttail hung outside of his bottoms. His Father, now wheezing with effort, threw the boy to the ground into the cold, grey-white, dead fire’s ashes. In a slowly shrinking, curved line, his fat Mother and sisters closed in around him. “Come on do it Papi—whatever you gonna do—it’s so early! Why you get us up this early? Do whatever the fuck you’re gonna do already" Gutavo’s fat wife bleated like an angry goat.
“I’m gonna show you all what great little exercises my little-rat son Carlos can do. Come here hijo.” Carlos took small steps toward his father, his knees shaking and his breathing now shallow and quick. “HEY-VEN AQUI!…” His Father grabbed his son again, pulling him and with the other arm, he stuck the blunt end of the thick stick into the ground. The stick went in easily, as the ground was firm but not yet frozen; with a good 28 inches of the sharp end visible and sticking out. Now he made his son stand directly over the thing.
“There, there. Now stand right over the point. There” said Gustavo. “Good. Perfecto. Open your legs a little more.” Carlos obeyed, terrified now and beginning to cry.
“A-hah. Now bend your knees ratito.” Carlos cried harder and louder, his little boy’s body shuddering with every breath.
“OH POBRECITO, que lastima” Gustavo intoned with a sarcastic, grand tone, like some campy villain in a cheap 60’s Mexican horror film. “Ciera la boca. Now bend your knees!”
Carlos, shaking, did as he was told and felt the penetrating top of the stick poking through his monkey PJ bottoms until he could just feel the hard, sharp point grazing the bottom of his butt. He whimpers became a soft scream, like a terrified fox makes when cornered.
“Now, bend your knees hijo. Yes, that’s good. Lower, lower”
“Make him go deeper” yelled his fat Mother. The two older sisters were now laughing with large, round, wide-open eyes. Carlos did as he was told and screamed louder as he felt the sharp, top of the stick begin to enter his little boy's butt. Now, there was a surging pain burning his insides. His scream pierced the air like the high, sharp wail of a train whistle. His Father stood closer to him now, placing both hands on the boy’s shoulders and thrusting the boy’s body down, even lower, impaling him.
“Aaayeeee” screamed the boy over and over. Now his legs were shaking and blood was running down his legs from his butt soaking through his PJ bottoms. His Mother and two sisters were laughing louder now gleefully as if they were watching hilarious cartoons, or a cock fight.
“That’s some exercise you got him doin’ Daddy” his wife lisped. “He needs to go deeper though huh?”
“Si, mas.”
Gustavo pushed the small frame down one final time. The echoes of the boy’s screams could be heard miles and away in the deep evergreen forest. In the higher air currents above the scene, a yellow-tailed hawk glided lazily on the higher air currents, scanning the ground, searching for lunch.
Later when they returned home to their projects in the Bronx, in their parking space, the SUV stopped and Carlos’ Mother and his sisters emerged. Gustavo got out and reached into the far back seat, dragging and carrying his unconscious son out of the vehicle, his fat wife slamming the door behind him. The boy had been passed out for hours. His parents had wrapped him in a large, yellow smiley-faced, polyester fleece blanket. They’d wrapped him tight in the blanket like a trapped brown worm. The blanket had caught most of the blood seeping from the boy’s gnarled and frayed insides. Gustavo carried the small, limp rag-doll-like bundle into the yellow-grey building and rode the elevator up to the 13the floor with his fat wife and now solemn little girls and entered their apartment. Walking through the living room to the master bedroom, Gustavo lied Carlos down on the king-sized bed. While in a few minutes, his wife entered carrying a tray, upon which was a steaming cup of green tea.
“Come-on Carlito” his Mother rasped. “Green tea is healing—wake up little raton and drink. Drink por favor hijo" she intoned, noticing his chest moving up and down but his eyes remaining closed as she stroked the boy's thick, black velevty hair. She left the green tea on the tiny table next to the bed. Returning to the kitchen, she felt tired and her back ached.
Coming back some 30 minutes later, and checking on the boy, she noticed he hadn’t touched his tea which was now cold and, indeed hadn’t even moved at all. When she bent over him and touched her finger to his cheek, his face was grey-green and his neck and body felt stiff cold and to the touch. She screamed and her eyes gushed crocidile tears. “Oh God, Oh sweet, baby Jesus, call 911” she wailed. “Call them somebody, POPPI, oh baby Jesus... Oh God somebody help him--my baby boy is dead. My baby boy is DEAD, oh God, oh God Oh God!"
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