45. Monster/Suicide/America

45

MONSTER/SUICIDE/AMERICA

LESTER

ABOUT EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO ― June 19 th , 1957

"It's good, right?" I ask as I show Landon the gun I've obtained from an underground seller.

"You know that shit better than me, brother," he answers, shaking his head. "I can't believe we're actually going through with this."

" I am going through with this." I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze, looking him in his eyes with a stern expression. "You don't have to do anything. You don't even have to come, Lan."

"I'm not letting you do this by yourself. We've got each other's back. I'll be there in case you need me. And I'd like to see the light go out of his eyes almost as much as you do. For all the shit he put you through."

I nod, thankful for him, because I don't know if I can go through with this without him there for support.

Tonight is the night we will kill our father.

Landon and I saved up enough money to escape his house of horrors a short while after we turned fifteen. We were able to rent a little apartment together in Fort Wayne, Indiana, far enough out of reach so our father couldn't find us and force us back.

He'd done so before. We escaped multiple times when we were younger, but we couldn't go far because we didn't have enough money or a place to stay. We just had to endure until we did.

Landon and I finished high school in Fort Wayne a while back, even though all I wanted to do was work and make a living. Landon argued that if we wanted to get on in life, we needed an education. So we both got our diplomas and prepared to start our new lives once and for all.

Our father needs to go, along with all the men who've touched me and my friend. We've waited and prepared long enough. Once he's out of the way, we'll have all the money in the world to do what we want. I want to go to the Art Institute in New York, and Landon wants to proceed in Politics. Despite his hatred for our father molding him into his perfect little politician puppet, Landon realizes he's good at it and believes that it's what he's meant to do.

I hope that after Father is gone, I will be able to live a life and somehow find a way to move on from all the pain he's put me through. I lost count of how many of those fucked up parties I was thrust into as entertainment. The endless nights where I was raped, abused, and tortured, depending on the type of man who won or paid for me. Some of them just sodomized me, others needed more.

The last night I ever spent there was the worst night of my life. Not because of what they did to me, but because of what they did to her . My friend, Rosemary. She was only ten years old when we first met in that dark room―same as me. It went on for five years, sometimes with months in between, other times only weeks.

Thinking about it makes it hard to breathe. Something died inside of me that night. Little by little, they stripped away pieces of my soul. With every thrust, every punch or kick I lost more of them. But when they took Rosemary to the big room with countless of men around her, laughing, raping her, using her up as if she were a doll…

It was the end of me.

Little boys were an acquired taste, so there usually weren't many men who wanted me the same night. But little girls? That was something they all seemed to like.

Her screams were agonizing, tearing me apart from the inside out. Even now, three years after that night, I still hear them every single day in my nightmares. I even hear them when I'm awake, as if they're woven into my brain matter. Etched onto my marred soul.

I only saw flashes of the scene because I kept getting pulled back into a separate room. But the glimpses I did get will never leave me. They've blackened my heart so deeply that it'll never regain its color.

She was bleeding so much. A whole pool of blood formed underneath her hips, and that's when some of the men stepped back in horror and shock.

I think they lost their appetite when her frail, abused body lay there lifeless, no longer wailing and begging for her life. Her tears were an aphrodisiac, her screams a chant that spurred them on.

She didn't wake up.

For so long, I did my best to save up enough so Landon and I could take Bunny with us. We were going to save her, give her a life that she deserved.

I was too late.

I lost my friend that night. Along with my soul.

My heart is pounding in my throat as I hold the gun in my shaky hand, aiming it at my father's forehead. His gray hair is slicked back, with a few loose strands from the struggle to get him in here and tie him up. Clad in his expensive pinstriped suit, he sits there with dark, dead eyes. Wrinkles are etched into his forehead and on the sides of his lips, because the man has had a permanent scowl on his face for all his life. I don't think I've ever seen him smile.

He doesn't beg for his life like I always imagined he would. When I fantasized about it, he'd always apologize for the things he did to me with tears streaming down his cheeks, his voice a shaking wail of fear. But even now that he stares death straight in the face, he's not sorry or worried about where he's going in the next life.

Does everything just turn to black, as if you're pressing the off button on the television? Or are you transported to another place, one where you go if you've been good, and the other if you've been bad?

He's never been religious, but even atheists must fear where they end up in the end. It's human nature. Though I suppose my father has never been human.

We're in a cabin on his property in Michigan, where we grew up, deep inside the forest. It's been three years since I've been here and it feels strange. The air feels dead and cold, and all around us in the wooden space are gardening tools that hang on their hooks. So many options and opportunities to torture him, but I don't want to give him the satisfaction of showing him that he ruined me deep inside my heart―show him the anger that resides in me.

Landon puts his hand on my shoulder as he moves to stand beside me. "End it, brother. He doesn't deserve one more second of your time."

He focuses on our father then. "We're taking everything―everything you've built, along with this fucking house, which will be sold in a flash. As soon as the bullet penetrates your head, we're grabbing every penny in the bank and finally start our lives without you." He squeezes my shoulder again. "Lester is going to art school. He's going to do what you've always tried to keep him from doing. Just wanted to tell you that before your death. Take that notion to the grave. You've failed as a father, and I hope you fucking burn for it."

I'm glad that Landon is voicing all the things I wish I could say. I just can't do it. Staring into the eyes of the man who has never loved me, who has tried to ruin me with everything he got, has my mouth sewed shut, as if someone used a needle and thread and pierced them through my lips.

Taking a deep breath, I steady my hands. My finger is on the trigger, and I allow myself just a few more seconds to stare into my father's hateful eyes. Landon pulls his hand back from my shoulder and takes a step back, allowing me the room.

I move the tip of the gun from his forehead to the side, because it has to look like he committed suicide.

"Goodbye, Father," I whisper as I pull the trigger.