5 - Penitentiary Justice
One day the teacher called everyone in from recess. She did a
head count. She was two or three short. She did not have to recount because she
recognized at least one missing face.
She went to the door and looked outside. There were no children
to be seen. She was afraid there had been a kidnapping. She decided to close
the door to prevent the escape of any more children and to notify the
principle. She reached back to unlatch the door, so it would close; and there
was Francis embracing
little Steven Goldstein. They were both enjoying a, for that age, passionate
and long kiss. They were oblivious to the teacher standing there.
“Ahem! Are you boys finished? The rest of the class is inside
waiting to sing.”
Lily was quite disturbed when the principal called her in to
tell her what had happened.
“I wouldn’t worry about it Mrs. Noir. Children that age--they
like to experiment. I wouldn’t be alarmed unless it continues.”
Steven Goldstein lived across the street from the Noir
residence. Francis had spent many days longing to cross the street to play with
Steven. Lily had not allowed Francis to cross the street--and now this. She
would have to watch him more carefully now.
She watched everything. She yelled at him when he was in the
bathroom gliding airfoils of toilet paper across the room. She insisted that
she inspect his toilet before he flushed it and screamed at him if he
accidentally flushed. She yelled at him not to spend too much time playing
alone in the bathtub.
She took to not letting him play with other boys on the block,
even when they promised not to let him cross the street.
☼
After a few years with no incidents, she allowed him to go to
the movies with the boys in the neighborhood.
Her natural instincts got the better of her and she reverted to
treating him as though he were a normal boy, after all, he was her child. She
treated him as she thought she should. She drummed into his head to leave
little girls skirts alone. She had reverted to her fear of men and how they
treated women. She seemed to forget about her recent fear that he would not
leave little boys pants alone.
☼
She received word from the penitentiary that Theodore had died.
The inmates had found him alone and strangled him. They had tied him upside
down to cell bars and cut off his penis. They had written in blood on his belly
‘MOLESTER.’
Lily tried to keep the fate of Theodore from Francis.
Especially, Lily never told Francis what the prison mates had done with
Theodore’s penis.
☼
One day his friends cornered him at school.
“You’re father’s a molester.”
“No!”
“You’re father’s a molester.”
“No!”
“You’re father’s a molester and we can prove it.” They showed
him a newspaper with a picture of his father and read him the story about how
he died.
“No! It’s not true!”
“Is this or is this not you’re father’s picture?”
“Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! He’s my father.”
He went to the grove of trees behind the school and cried and
cried.
Steven came to see him, “I’m sorry Frannie. I tried to tell
them not to do it.” He looked back at the boys who were making faces. “They
said I was a faggot.”
“Maybe we are.”
☼
Alright! Three days later the principal found Francis hanging
naked from his feet, which he had tied to the jungle gym bars. He was
uncomfortable but alive and more embarrassed than ever.
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