Sweet Song by Terry Persun

tender her manner was superior. Was he her nigger, like Bess was her father’s nigger?
    Enough pain slithered through their little shack even before he was born, was he to carry that pain through, add new ingredients, and make it venomous? His mind boiled and his body ached. The way Hillary rubbed against him made his skin crawl, yet the way she moaned made him hard.
    Leon dashed the thoughts from his mind. He grabbed his plate and stood quickly, exerting his body to release its hold over his thoughts.
    He never had to make a decision on his own, but it was getting to that time and he could feel a decision standing over him like a large man in a black cloak. He couldn’t let Tunny and Bud see him with Hillary again. He couldn’t imagine his father watching. And Martha knew. Bess? His stomach churned and his throat opened. He squeaked and groaned. He gagged at the combined thoughts of Hillary and Bess and their awful connection through him, through Sir, through Big Leon, who knew too much about his own family to stay inside the same shack for more than a few hours at a time. Hell could not be a hotter, more sinful place.
    Leon wiped sweat from his brow. He used a shoulder to wipe his mouth dry. His hand and shirt were rough and scratchy, work heavy and sweat soaked. He remembered as a child being hugged by Martha and caressed by his mother. He had wished to be touched by his father, but that never or seldom happened except by accident. His mother’s touch soured. Martha retreated. Now his skin tightened at anyone’s touch except his own. He’d move out of the way to avoid being brushed against. As Hillary searched his body, he squirmed and shifted claiming that it tickled or scratched or hurt.
    He kicked the dirt, sending dust into the air. He swatted at a mosquito using his empty plate. He breathed deeply, looked to the sky, said a silent prayer for himself, for Hillary, and for the rest of hisfamily. He had decided. No matter the outcome, he could go on no longer. Not as things were.
    Big Leon returned home. He sat near the wash basin, then lifted his eyes to stare out the window, his head held high, his eyes fixed on a cloud, the sky, the treetops. Neither Leon nor Big Leon spoke. Leon set his plate with others on the ledge. In his own corner of the room, Leon sat on his bed of straw. He reached down and back with his hand, touched his book, the one he’d kept, Wordsworth.
    Martha lay flat, barely visible in the dark, yet she was the witness in the family. Bess lay curled facing the wall. A thin cover lay over her back now. Martha must have covered her. Still her bare shoulders shined with sweat. Her neck looked soft. That single thought shot guilt through Leon. How could he think such a thought? What tenderness he felt for his mother was tarnished and although it was tenderness he wished for, he could no longer accept it. That he knew. Martha seemed to know it as well. Big Leon appeared to deny it.
    An urge to stand and shout came over him, but he did not move.
    Big Leon must have felt the boy’s energy. He turned and looked at Leon. “Go to bed,” he said. “Rest.”
    “Yes, Pa.” He wanted to hear his own voice as he addressed his father. He heard the familiar sound, but it stood riddled with untruth. So many untruths lived in that one small shack. In that room. At that moment. Leon nodded and Big Leon returned to his eyes-fixed position.
    A heavy breeze blew in. Leon wiped his mouth dry. He undressed and lay down. He felt like pissing, but wouldn’t get up to go outside. He fell asleep with the slight pain of an unreleased bladder. Horrible dreams plagued his sleep. He could do nothing inside them without an audience, without being watched. The woods were riddled with people watching him. His home was no better. Faces peered in the windows, from every corner, in through the door. Leon tried to run, but faces appeared in the sky, in the trees, and in the rocks along the river.
    He awoke before sunup,