Boys in Gilded Cages Read online

  Her group of gawky girlfriends, Patty, Laurie and Julia, did not share her taste for revenge.

  “Just let it go, they’re stupid.”

  “Yeah, having herpes is punishment enough.”

  “How much do you have to hate yourself to go out with a guy who date rapes you every Saturday?”

  Going with the most obvious solution first, she searched geocities message boards at the school library for spells to cast on the whorific duo. One involved olive oil, vinegar, a bath tub, and a piece of marble. She was supposed to step on the marble with a bare right foot and chant: “You, so precious to so many, you, so wrapped in vanity. I bind you from doing harm to others, lest harm comes to thee.” Another’s instructions were to write the bullies’ names on a piece of rice paper, fold it into a tiny square, and put the paper in a freezer.

  None of that shit worked. Sunday after Wednesday, Wednesday after Sunday, she saw Vanessa and Janessa at Hawthorn Baptist Church, a cruel kick to the gut after being ignored by them at school. On Sundays, they had to be quiet, but Wednesday evenings were intended as social gatherings, with Bible study and fellowship the central part of the service. It was the same. They go into the sanctuary and they sit far apart from each other, parallel to the magenta stained-glass windows and they listen to Queen Frostyhair speak to them like little cute-but-singed stuffed animals, as if obligated by a child to acknowledge them as real humans. Sunday, Wednesday, all the same, a sermon they didn’t listen to.

  Marcia kept quiet, even when called on, while Vanessa and Janessa passed notes and whispered about her. But it was a Wednesday evening that Marcia’s dream boy came into the light.

  This Wednesday evening was different because it was decorated in Dollar Store streamers and ink-jet “Happy Birthday!!!!” signs. Juan, her flamboyant brother in New York, must see this fucking place, she thought.

  The children piled in, sweaty from outside and kind of stinky. Trailing behind them was Daryl McAdams, a boy Marcia had known and loved since she was in the sixth grade.

  He was wearing sunglasses inside and had a pout that she couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not. He’s the sort of boy who could get away with such nonsense, somehow, and not look ridiculous. He was the sort of boy who had no future but knew exactly what he was doing.

  Then, the plot thickened when Queen Frostyhair raised her right hand to silence the crowd, and said this:

  “Okay, as you know, it’s Daryl’s birthday this week. Cake and punch downstairs.”

  The kids waited for Queen Frostyhair to sit down, and as soon as her backside hit the pew, they jumped up and stampeded to the stair case, ignoring the pleas to slow down, don’t run in the sanctuary, don’t rush downstairs and hurt yourselves.

  Marcia shambled down the stairs next to Janessa, who ignored her presence. Her perfume flooded the stairwell, and it would have been sweet to your average dirty old man with no taste. To Marcia, it was nauseating, like lavender and White Diamonds. Janessa’s breasts jiggled a little and it made her want to cover her stomach, which also jiggled. Marcia watched her posture, never slouching for a minute. She truly hated her.

  Marcia tried to imagine her as a forty year-old housewife, with a paunch of flesh above her crotch from having a few kids and a pound of makeup, sideburns of orange makeup-line.

  Daryl McAdams sat at a lonely table, flicking a lighter, fixated on it. He didn’t look sad or vacant. Rather, he looked like he was focusing on the flame, trying to decide how to nurse it brighter. His sunken eyes looked down at the lighter and his other hand, bony and masculine, cradled the flame.

  As the kids forked off around the cluster of tables, his eyes caught Marcia staring. He smiled, and she reflexively turned away, embarrassed. When Marcia looked at him again, he made eye contact for a second and looked elsewhere, trying to avoid another awkward exchange. Janessa sat directly across from him. “Hey, Daryl,” she said, poking her nipples upward. Daryl seemed to take in the sight of two adorable breasts and moved his eyes quickly to her face and smiled disingenuously.

  Marcia got brave all of a sudden. She sat next to Janessa, and that seemed to surprise Daryl.

  “How’ s it going, you two?” Daryl said, looking at Marcia.

  “I’m fine,” Janessa said, giving Marcia the sideways stink-eye. Daryl ignored her.

  “And you? How are you, Miss?” He said to Marcia, grinning widely.

  “Happy Birthday,” was all she could manage.

  “Why, thank you.”

  Daryl leaned back and took a swig of whatever was in his red cup, his black t-shirt riding up over his biceps. “Killer party, huh?” Still looking at her. “A real hoot and a holler.”

  Marcia chuckled. She started to open her mouth to speak, but was cut off by Queen Frostyhair starting everyone off to her vibrato-filled rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. Daryl looked up to Heaven in horror. Marcia held back laughter as Queen placed the cake in front of him.

  “Make a wish,” she said.

  “Okie doke.” He blew out the candles and his breath moved Marcia’s bangs.

  The sound of tens of Baptist children running around, screaming and by-word cursing in Southern accents seemed to irritate Daryl as much as it did Marcia, even though he had one of the thickest drawls she’d ever heard.

  He also had a thousand-yard stare. When Charles Donovan, the meanest little bastard in the second grade, accidentally kicked Daryl’s sneaker on his way to the throat of a classmate, Daryl’s glare made him stop and apologize.

  “Watch it,” Daryl said softly but sternly.

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah.” Daryl turned around towards Marcia. He jerked his head toward the door, as if to motion her outside, and left the basement, attracting the attention of more than a few church deacons. His scent lingered there, beckoning her outside, telling her that she should follow him. Janessa’s hard, envious stare barely burned her scalp as she left, as the anticipation in her tummy felt too intense to notice anything else.

  As she slumped up the stairs from the basement entrance, Daryl was standing about ten feet to the right, staring up at the weird green sky, barely tending to the cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looked like he was in a trance. Marcia stood next to him and tried to see what he saw. She wasn’t sure what he saw. He took the cigarette from his mouth and offered it to her. She didn’t know if she should take it or not. He seemed halfway offended.

  “What?” He asked, almost defensive. “I didn’t nigger-lip it.” His use of the word surprised her, but stunned by the attention he paid to her, she avoided getting outwardly offended. He slapped his forehead. “Aw, I’m sorry. My dad uses that word a lot. Just kinda slipped out. Didn’t mean it.”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said. “It’s just that…I don’t smoke.”

  “That’s good,” he said, chuckling. “Shouldn’t start, neither.” He reverted his eyes back to the sky, and he looked like he was starting to say something, when she gently pulled the cigarette out of his hand and took a drag. Menthol. The brushfire feeling of it infiltrating her chest, her lungs, her throat, the fact that it was Daryl’s…She hacked suddenly.

  “I can tell you’re not a smoker. Gimme that back, girl.” His wide smile showed a mouthful of perfect, square teeth. “You look familiar. What’s your name?”

  “Marcia.”

  “Pretty. How do you spell that?”

  “Like Marcia Brady. But you pronounce it like Mar-See-Ya.”

  “Mar-See-Ya,” He courteously repeated. “I like it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He stared off at whatever for a second, and then started walking away from the church. She asked him where he was going, and he spun around and looked at her like she had asked a stupid question. “I’m going home!” He grinned. “I’d offer you a ride, but well, I have Scoliosis.” She chuckled.

  “But it’s your party!” Marcia called out. A fast walker, he was already off into the darkness.

 
HIGH SPEED CHICKEN FEED

  Every day before school, I go through Daddy Redmond’s chicken houses and pick up the dead. He pays me five dollars an hour. By this time it’s really late at night to me but it’s early morning to most. I hate doing it because I have to wear a dumb-looking mask that looks like a gas mask and sometimes the chickens have been dead for a while and overlooked and the smell creeps in the sides of mask and I want to puke.

  I enter the first house, wearing a pair of overalls and rubber boots, holding a sturdy metal wire with a handle on it—they call it a chicken hook. I bang and clang around on everything to scare the chickens away, hoping with dread to find one that has died. They die of various things; heart attacks mostly.

  The dead are sparse. Out of twenty thousand some-odd birds, you may find ten that have died per day. But the whole barn smells like death.

  Sometimes I bring my old Walkman with me, but I keep it hidden deep in my overall pocket because the air is thick with dust and ammonia and feathers and a few hours of exposure could ruin it.

  Yesterday, my foot was caught on a water line. My feet are always caught on things; it seems the world is in my way.

  Anyway, my cranium crashed into the body of a particularly obese chicken. Maybe six pounds. Maybe more. The chicken squawked in pain and that’s the last sound I remember hearing in this dimension.

  Everything went quiet.

  My body was below me, and I felt discombobulated like my head had been knocked off. That chicken towered over me. He shook his head, red tissue swinging off his chin.

  You disgust me, his look said. So cavalier and cruel, and so hungry and animated at dinnertime. You eat me at dinner. And you don’t even understand what you’re eating.

  I ought to puke my hormone-corn all over you.

  I ought to take your hook and lop your head off.

  I ought to peck your eyes out and turn them on you to see how pathetic it is that I have the upper hand right now.

  I ought to pluck your pubes out of your body, one by one.

  I ought to skin you alive.

  MEET HAWTHORN BAPTIST CHURCH

  Source: manchildnewyork.com

  Westboro Gives Birth to Even Weirder Bastard Church

  The Westboro Baptist Church has some competition. Or maybe they’ve created a monster. Hawthorn Baptist Church, established in 1977 but recently reinvented by former music industry executive Harold Redmond, has a less defined philosophy than Westboro’s “God Hates America.” Redmond’s philosophy is more “God Loves A Good Protest.”

  Led by Redmond--who is former Vice President of Eye of the Needle Entertainment in Nashville--since 2008, the church is growing in size. Shortly after Redmond started his pastoral career, he reached out to Westboro Baptist Church, and briefly began protesting alongside the church--on Wednesday, they aimed to cause some trouble at a Lady GaGa concert in St. Louis. It’s unclear how many Hawthorn members attended. It’s also unclear if Redmond has protested at military funerals, the type of protests that made Westboro so infamous. Redmond, after a backlash from his congregation, claims he didn’t; Westboro claims he did.

  It is partly Redmond’s association with WBC that has earned Hawthorn Baptist Church so much attention. But it seemed, for a while, that Redmond was unprepared for the attention he has received. He has discouraged internet use among his congregation, and the church distributes monthly newsletters warning parents of the dangers of Hollywood influence, often accusing celebrities of secret Satanism and homosexuality, including Hawthorn native Brandon Bennett. The pamphlets are written and designed tabloid-style, and they often have salacious headlines with offensive, homophobic language. If the WBC published a tabloid, it would look a lot like Hawthorn’s monthly newsletter.

  Unlike the Westboro Baptist Church, America still doesn’t know what to make of Hawthorn Baptist Church. Hawthorn, at this point, seems more like a self-contained town rather than a church inside of a town. Their protests are no less spirited, but seem aimed at a more mainstream audience. Post-Lady GaGa, there have been protests at local businesses run by open homosexuals, Springfield’s Missouri State University, and, interestingly, in lieu of protests of military funerals, they have picketed outside the National Guard for their perceived pro-homosexual policies. Though inflammatory and controversial, Hawthorn Baptist Church toes the line behind WBC’s universal maligning by following a simple rule of not offending funeral mourners. America’s okay with moralist doomsaying, just not when you’re fucking with our best and brightest, and especially not when they’ve died in battle.

  So what’s the deal here? Is this a plot by Westboro to creep into mainstream acceptance? No fucking way, says Shirley Phelps, WBC’s spokeswoman. “Those signs you see? Those signs you see that you spit on, they mean something,” Phelps told us. “Your flag and your money are things that you worship. You also worship the dead. Your flag and your money will be taken away from you, just as the dead have been. Harold Redmond worships money, and is unwilling to publicly spit on the American flag for fear of retribution. But money is his goal. His unwillingness to walk the walk makes him a fag-enabler. He is an abomination, just as you are an abomination.” Thanks, Shirley. Pleasure as always.

  Hawthorn Baptist Church may make a lot of money, and they may eventually “sell out” like a crossover pop star, becoming a mega-church and gaining acceptance alongside elderly hate-monger Pat Robertson, and that weird woman on TCT with tall, pink hair.

  But like most religious cons and cults, the more likely option is that it will eventually self-destruct. It’s unclear what the goal of HBC is, but it’s most certainly not spreading the word of Jesus. The 24-hour news channels are salivating over HBC at this moment, and it will be interesting to see how the reclusive Harold Redmond deals with the exposure. If there’s anything capable of destruction of a human entity, it’s nonstop television coverage. It will be fascinating to watch it unfold.

  THE BALLAD OF MAR-SEE-YA, PART ONE

  They came here from the Communist shit hole of Cuba—Or at least her parents did. She comes from the Nouveau Riche crater of St. Petersburg, Florida. She actually prefers St. Petersburg. Not that she wasn’t happy to leave. Her behavior required nothing short of moving, apparently, but I think her parents are only punishing themselves by moving here. She will adapt, but they won’t. They are far too old, far too elitist, far too stupid, far too brown.

  This town sucks for sure, but at least it’s quiet. She can sleep in a cocoon of homework and television, a new privilege she’s just not used to yet. She never grew the legs for softball or the tits for cheerleading and in the openness of a field such as this town, there is nothing but space for thinking and sleeping. Possibly going insane in the quiet of a church sanctuary, all of them solemn and lonely like funeral parlors.

  She stares up at the evergreen steeple, envisioning it getting sucked up into a cloud. This church looks near-death. It sits on the brim of a collapse and even the pigeons seem to feel unsafe standing on the gutters for more than a few seconds. If she had wings she’d fly the fuck out. The sky matched the color of the once-copper steeple, and her mother wondered aloud, as she exited the SUV, what that meant for the weather.

  Marcia shoves her bulky glasses up towards her eyebrows and looks up, pretending to care. “Looks cold,” She says. Both of her parents, in unison, shoot her an impatient glance.

  Her mother gently shoves the small of her back to guide her toward the sanctuary door. Janessa and Vanessa, two skinny white bitches from school who hate Marcia, smile at her as she pretends not to notice.

  “Marcia,” her mother snapped. “Those girls are smiling at you. Say hi or something. Be polite.”

  She finally makes dreadful eye contact with the two cunts and creaks out a grin. They look at her with ridicule, a dare to engage them. They’re making fun of her and all of them know it. Marcia, a chubby, and up until this point, home schooled Cuban dork with a thick accent. They, Goddesses with big tits and loose hips that gleefully sink ships.r />
  “Hello.”

  “Hi Marcia,” Janessa let out in a chuckle. “Hello, Mrs. Cruz.”

  “Hello, young lady.” Her mother’s accent was thicker than Marcia’s. It embarrassed her deeply.

  “Hello, Mr. Cruz,” Marissa said seductively. My father glared at her coldly. “Hello, Misses,” he said firmly, as they marched into the sanctuary. Marcia is pretty sure she heard Marissa say something about her father’s cock being big because he’s Cuban and the two cunt twins bursting into laughter, but she figured it was probably just her being paranoid. Marcia’s father seemed to have heard something similarly inappropriate because he looked at her reflexively.

  “Do you know those girls?” Her mother asked.