I am Gideon: Chapter #2

The Holy Man.

Brother Darwin talked to me.  I mean, really talked to me, like I was a sentient being.  Like I was a person.  I was in love.  I spent two hours with him.  He told me about Al’Shadai – the Declivian name for the Creator.  He told me that there were other boys and girls here who ate food and learned things and got to wash their hands and faces.  He told me other things, but the thing that stuck was the phrase, “Come back when you can.” He gave me a small roll, and I went home.  My mother was still asleep.

That evening when she tried to drag me out from behind the couch, I kicked at her. The man who wanted me had longer arms, and despite my scrambling, he reached me and dragged me out.  I remember his face.  A civilized face, with good teeth.  Clean shaven. Gold Declivian eyes and a slit for a mouth.  He raped me in front of my mother and she laughed.  When he left, she beat me for kicking at her and being ungrateful for the work.  I huddled behind the couch with my rag of a blanket and cried and ate my roll. 

It became a pattern – a pattern that made the rest of it more bearable, I guess.  My mother would go to sleep on the couch after her nighttime exertions – her fighting and laughing and the creaking of the couch as she had sex with someone – and I would sneak out and go to the building and see Brother Darwin.  He showed me some books, and some words, and taught me a prayer to say, because that seemed to mean the most to him.  He gave me a bath.  A warm, soapy bath, and he washed me all over and then excused himself for a few minutes and let me soak.  It felt so good.  He gave me a clean shirt and clean pants to put on and kissed me goodbye.  I wondered if he knew what I did.  It began to dawn.  Not did.  Was.  It was the first inkling of shame.  If my mother noticed any of it, she never said anything.  

One day a few weeks into my new life, Brother Darwin said he was going to take me someplace special.  After soup and bread and a bath, he took my hand and we rode on a bus.  When we got off, we were at the Museum of Transportation!  A real museum, just like real people went to.  I remember feeling clean and important.  Brother Darwin was holding my hand and I hoped I looked like someone loved me.  

There were airships and spacecraft, buses and automobiles, both full sized and models, but the thing that caught my eye and made me melt with desire, was a train.  A black model train with the name, Lionel, written on the side in gold letters.  I couldn’t read it, but he told me what it was.  I wanted so badly to touch it, to hold it, to make the wheels go around.  Brother Darwin sensed my love for that train, and as we were going back to the building, he took my hand in his, and then put mine and his together in the pocket of his robe.  

When we got back he took me into a small room behind the church part, and he asked, “Do you love me, Gideon?”

“Yes,” I said.  It was the first time anyone had asked me if I loved them.  

He unfastened his robe, and I saw his erection.  He raped me.  Then he gave me a cookie.