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The boys had an old tin flashlight with weak batteries -- it was
hard to get batteries these days -- and it barely lasted long enough for them to
get into the sanctis sanctorum, the little eight-by-eight-foot cellar at the heart
of the scrappily roofed bunker. This cellar had been meant to house the furnace and water
heater, of the home that would eventually be built if the war ever ended. When the light failed
the boys were scared. They almost panicked. Carmey, the slighter, more handsome of the
two, began to cry, fearing that they were trapped and would never find their way out of
this pitch-black labyrinth. He wept, freely lamenting that they had ever crawled in here,
evidently giving way to the belief that they had gone down into the earth, that they might
be buried in a cave-in and never found.
The chubby
boy, known as Bertie (from Umberto), was scared, too. But he didn't cry. He was almost
certain that the bunker was not deep, that they hadn't actually crawled down into the
earth, although it had seemed to them on their way into that darkness that they were
descending. But he retained a fairly strong impression of the surface of the site, with
the scrap-and-tarpaper covering that was itself meagerly covered by raw, clayey dirt --
the Commandoes had too soon wearied of camouflaging their bunker. Still, as children, the
boys did not recognize this excavation for what it was; they didn't see the pattern. To
them, it was a subterranean maze, not a simple square footing. But Bertie, at least, clung
to the notion that in an emergency they could possibly break out through the roof, as it
were, if they couldn't simply crawl back through the passageway to the entrance. He tried
to buck up his cousin, Carmey. He denied that, for instance, there were snakes in the dark
bunker.
And
then they saw a light. They almost squealed with relief, but this quickly gave way to a
greater terror. The huffing, bobbling figure that lurched toward the inner sanctum, out of
the pitch blackness, for a fleeting moment resembled a bear. But a bear with a flashlight?
And then Bertie had the weird impression that this was ... was what? Something familiar,
something he had experienced but only obliquely, never face to face: his guardian angel,
perhaps, or his doppelganger, another self born at the same time as himself, but already
fully formed, or more advanced, anyway, and always lurking on the periphery of his
experience.
But in the
next instant they both realized with horror that the bear, or weird ogre, could only be
Porky White, the awful brute who ruled in this subterranean domain, who must inevitably
discover them, and that he would be outraged at their violation of his secret castle. They
tried to get away, frantically bolting for escape by another tunnel, like baby rabbits
fleeing a badger or a weasel. But it was useless. Porky quickly caught them.
The older boy
dragged them back into the pit by their heels. He pummeled them with his fists and shined
his powerful flashlight in their eyes. The blows hurt their arms and backs and their heads
rung. They cowered in a corner, moaning and sobbing, rubbing their sore arms while Porky
lit a candle and placed it on a tin can that sat on a wooden pop carton.
"So,
it's you little Dago rats," he snarled, looking them over. His big moon face loomed
evilly in the flickering candle light. The little boys blubbered.
"Shut
your damn traps, you shitty punks!" he commanded. "So, you snuck into my bunker,
hunh? Thought you'd steal my treasure, hunh? Well, now you gotta be punished." He
sounded just like a troll from a fairy tale. The little boys quaked in despair.
"You
know what I'm gonna do?" the bully said. "I'm gonna beat the hell out of you,
that's what! Or maybe I'll burn your fingers. Yah! Teach you a lesson, you little
Wops!"
The boys
wept. They knew there was no escape. They stared aghast at his huge white face with his
wet red lips and glowing eyes. He was capable of killing them, they were convinced. He
might even eat them.
Porky
relished their terror. He tormented them with spectacularly imagined savageries. He would
break their bones, poke out their eyes, or even throw them to the snakes. He said he had a
snake pit, filled with rattlers and mocassins. The snakes would bite them and they would
swell up from the poison, puke and die. They would never see their families again. Nobody
would ever find their wormy corpses. He knew they hadn't told anyone where they were
going. No one would look for them down this hole. They were in Hell, that's where they
were! They might as well consider themselves dead already. The Devil was coming to get
them.
Carmey was
convinced that he would be murdered. Bertie wasn't so sure. As the older boy raged on he
began to feel less frightened. It was the bit about snakes: Bertie knew from Sister Mary
Frances' adamant insistence -- "There are no poisonous snakes in Michigan" --
that Porky was lying. Porky was just trying to scare them; maybe he would let them go. But
when? And after what kind of torment and physical violence? Bertie wasn't so hopeful about
that. He didn't know how to deal with this older boy's malevolence. He didn't want to
anger him further, stir him up to a fury in which he might do something that they would
all regret. He tried to get Carmey to hush, to calm down. Maybe this stupid boy would
content himself with just punching them, some painful but not too harmful punishment, and
then let them go.
"We just
wanted to be in the Commandoes," Bertie whispered. "We want to join up, be like
you. We'll do anything."
"Anything?" the boy asked. He sat for awhile, watching them, his eyes glittering
in the candlelight like a goblin's. Then he said, addressing Carmey, "Come over here.
You stay there," he said to Bertie. "You don't move, or I'll kill both of
you."
Carmey
crawled to the other boy. Porky rummaged in a box that seemed to serve as a kind of altar,
covered with an old flag and supporting a candelabra and a dented urn of some sort. He
pulled out a Boy Scout camping hatchet. He brandished it in the light. Carmey's eyes were
like ping-pong balls. "Take off your pants," Porky said.
He had to say
it again, twice, before Carmey understood. But then the boy unbuckled his belt and
unbuttoned his corduroy knickers and let them down. He stood hunched over in the light. He
still wore his white underpants. Porky was crouched before him. He reached out and pulled
down the boy's cotton briefs, somewhat damp and stained with urine from his fright. Carmey
trembled in horror.
"What
... what are you gonna do?" he asked.
"If you
don't shut up and do what I say," Porky said, "I'm gonna chop yer pecker
off."
The boy stood
still while Porky took hold of his penis and pulled on it, not roughly, but almost
tenderly. Porky was breathing heavily. He stroked the child's penis repeatedly, his lips
wet and nearly drooling.
"You
ever suck a fella?" he asked, suddenly.
Carmey shook
his head. "What do you mean?" he stammered.
Porky stood
up. He was much taller, and like Carmey, he hunched. He unbuttoned his own trousers and
took out his own penis. It was much larger than Carmey's, and it was strangely stiff,
sticking straight out.
"Here," he said, his voice rasping, "get down on yer knees and suck
it."
Carmey's eyes
were locked on the well-sharpened hatchet, but he shook his head. "No."
"Okay,
then," Porky said. "I'm gonna whack yer dick off." He grabbed the boy's
penis again and held it, stretching it, brandishing the brutal hatchet threateningly.
"Fatty,
help me!" Carmey squealed, inadvertantly using a nickname he often applied to his
pudgy cousin.
His tormentor
seemed to think that the name was applied to him. "I ain't Fatty," he snarled.
"Get down, before I chop this weenie off!"
Carmey sank
to his knees, moaning. The older boy hunched over him, breathing excitedly. "Open yer
mouth," he demanded, hoarsely.
Bertie picked
up a bottle that had been used to hold candles, its neck encrusted with wax drippings. He
held it by the neck and smashed it into the side of Porky White's head. The big oaf
stumbled backwards, tripped over his own trousers, then the box altar and fell on his
back. |
