Cowed
By Steven Norfolk
He was a small boy to begin with. Unable. In a house with doors.
A mother.
“You’re just like your father,” she’d say.
“It’s all your fault,” she’d say.
“Look what you’ve done,” she’d say.
It wasn’t just at home. It was everywhere.
At school.
“Homo,” they said.
“Loser,” they said.
“Jerkwad,” they said.
At work.
“You call that mopping?” they asked.
“Why is your drawer always short?” they asked.
“Do you wanna make $50?” they asked.
And with every word, every syllable, the weight bore down.
His back arched forward under it, until he was a hunchbacked waif.
Enter the girl.
Nearly as tall but thin as a willow.
And shy.
The found each other in music chat. Psychedelic Furs. Muse. Breaking Benjamin.
“You aren’t some thirty-year-old guy living in his mother’s basement, are you?” she asked straight off and he could hear the joke in it.
“Nah. I’m just me.”
“And who is that, exactly?”
“Slacker?” he joked.
“Don’t see that. No.”
“Look, I’m not sure who I am. You know?”
“Still becoming?” with a giggle.
“Something like that,” with a smile.
When the finally met, face to face, he stood a little taller, a little straighter.
He felt for her. And she appeared to feel for him, as well.
The pain in his back was incredible when he flexed it to dispel the hump. But it was worth it., for her. Worth it for him.
Suddenly the words didn’t cut so deep. The weight eased.
‘I think it’s going to be okay,’ he told himself.
And, for the first time in his life, he believed it.
Still, there were problems.
Some of the scars pained him at night. Especially the emotional ones. And the only thing the seemed to help was a couple of good shots and a bowl full.
For years, they had no insurance and, when they finally did, he’d been drinking for decades and had no way to stop.
“I don’t think the medication’s working,” he told his therapist.
He’d been going for years and still.
“It’s all still there.”
“There’s a lot in there, the therapist agreed.
But no matter how many sessions there were, nothing seemed to work.
Then it all turned bad.
“I’m going,” she said.
He looked into her eyes and saw it was true.
“Why?” the only real question.
“Things never changed.”
“Things?”
She huffed. Frustrated. Yet prepared to enumerate.
“Your drinking. The drugs. Your crazy dreams.”
“The things that keep me alive?”
“It’s not just your life,” she emphasized ‘your”.
“I know. I know.”
She looked at him.
“You won’t change. I know it.”
He had no answer.
She picked up her bag, looked fit to cry, then walked out of his life.
He went to work that day a broken man. And, again, appeared snapped in half. A definitive curvature of the spine. And the scars opened up. And the words cut deep, again.
It wasn’t long before he could be seen in the drugstore, checking warning labels and thinking about overdose percentages.
Had it all planned. The music: Pink Floyd’s Obscured By Clouds.
The place: In a nice warm bath. Perhaps he’d even drown.
And now that she was gone he could.
The scratches on the vinyl crackled in the pre-track silence.
He popped e cap on three bottles of NyQuil, then drank them down: one, two, three
He leaned back in the bath and closed his eyes. The music began. His consciousness lapsed. His breathing slowed. His heart failed. He took one final breath.
It was over, at last.
This Monster You Create
By Steven Scott Norfolk
When you come into my cell
And steal or destroy my personal property
I learn that this is what personal property is for
To be stolen or destroyed
When you violate prison regulations
And break state and federal laws
In your dealings with me
I learn that regulations are meant to be ignored
That laws are meant to be broken.
When you house me in 120 degree heat
With no air-conditioning
And feed me food not fit to slop pigs
And provide me healthcare that would shame a 3rd world country
I learn that human life is worth nothing.
When six of you beat a handcuffed
65 year old man to death in his cell
And do it with impunity
I learn that murder is acceptable
But, one thing you haven’t considered is this:
That one day I will be released
Out into the world
Where you
And your friends
And family live.
This person who now understands that personal property is meant to be stolen or destroyed
This person who now understands regulations are meant to be ignored and that laws are meant to be broken
This person who now understands that human life is worth nothing
This person who now understands that murder is acceptable
This monster you create
My Sacrifice
By Steven Norfolk
He touches me.
Sometimes when I’m asleep.
Sometimes when I’m awake.
In places he shouldn’t.
And sometimes makes me touch him
In places I shouldn’t.
He tells me I’m “such a pretty little girl”.
Tells me to keep our secret.
That no one else would understand.
And, so, I keep it,
But out of shame.
It’s just another morning.
Mother’s gone off to work,
And I’m alone with him.
We play the “game”.
Routine, now, it’s been so long.
No memory of when it began,
Only that it’s been a part of my life as long as he.
Satisfied, he rolls over to go back to sleep.
I shower, and dress, and head off to school:
The third grade.
Feeling so much older than I am.
As I walk the halls, I wonder,
Do they know?
Can they see this about me?
Am I the only one?
I know there’s,
At best,
One other as broken as me.
I see him walking the halls, alone.
Sometimes in class.
I don’t have to wonder what broke him.
I see it every day.
The way the other kids torture him
With their looks,
With their words,
With their fists.
And, seeing him,
Broken as I am,
I don’t feel so alone.
But our hurts are different,
So there’s a gulf between us.
Still…
I wonder which hurt is worse.
His?
Or mine?
In class I have a memory
About standing in the bathroom,
A razorblade in my hand,
About to make the cut and end it all.
And not the first time.
But, I never can.
I’m a coward.
Or maybe I’ve just become so used to his touch
That it doesn’t drive me as deep as it did, before.
So, All I can do is dream of escape.
At my desk,
Lost in that reverie,
I’m distracted by a sound.
A “POP” somewhere in the distance.
Then the screams,
And the sound of feet rushing about.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
They come closer.
I turn to the door as the teacher goes out,
The hallway beyond filled with a rush of panic.
Something makes me stand.
Maybe the Pop! Pop! Pop! Calling to me.
I go to the door.
Our teacher lies in the hallway,
Red blossoming beneath her.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
And I see him:
The broken boy.
He strides down the hall,
A gun in hand,
All power, now,
Dropping classmates left and right.
I see my chance.
Step into the middle of the hall.
He sees me.
I start forward,
Toward him.
Does he see the broken me?
Or just another target?
His eyes lock on me,
And I know.
Just another target.
Good.
I can’t stop myself.
I enter his line of fire,
And, step by step, move closer.
He hesitates,
But I won’t let him.
Step by step, closer.
Any moment now.
There’s a flash.
A hole torn in me.
The world tilts,
And I fall.
My head hitting the floor,
A butterfly kiss to the pain in my chest.
An accent to the warm, crimson flow I fall into.
I turn to smile in thanks.
Someone tackles him.
They crash to the floor.
The gun skitters away across the tile.
I feel darkness closing in,
And I can only smile.
I am dead, now.
I am free.
At last.
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