My Confession

by michaelcahill

Dark and Stormy Night Contest Winner

The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.
The author has placed a warning on this post for sexual content.

It was a dark and stormy night. It was the kind of dark that has an agenda and a storm born of my regret. Hell, was it even night? I could open my eyes, but they'd long since not recognized light. Day, night, an hour, a sunrise ... what did they matter to a life tossed to the maelstrom of murderous rage? Could any palette of colors conspire to draw a sunset to grace my story?

Rage provides its own cool logic. Vengeance gives prudence to justice. It all makes sense in the frenzy. I'm not sure if it's guilt I feel now or simple fear of recompense. I suppose the realization of wrong doing eats away at me. It steals my joy. Joy was the feeling. Justice, at the time, was the sense I felt. A serving of just deserts, wasn't that my mindset?

Well, I'm sure this is the ramblings of a mad man. That is what you, the many 'yous' who will weigh in with your opinion, will call it.

Dark and stormy nights started for me as a toddler barely able to walk. The thunder growling at me personally, certainly aware of my every misdeed ... then daggers from the almighty and vengeful God seeking me out in the Devil's darkness. My momma had told me all about it.

"Jehovah removes the light from the wicked. He lays waste the sinning spawn of Satan. Oh, foul beast! What have you done, Piss Pot Poo Boy? Have you bespoiled your linens? Flee from the fury of the Lord! Hide from the vengeance of his thunderbolts!"

It may have simply looked ludicrously insane to an adult. To a three-year-old boy, it embodied terror incarnate. The purification wash that followed chilled even more.

"The Mighty One turned Lot's wife to stone for daring to glance at wickedness. He gives me his power, foul boy. Do you feel it? Mind the consequences if you do not repent!"

She'd wash me in the tub, paying undo, soapy attention to my genitals. The physiological response in tandem with her rantings easily convinced me of her powers ... convinced and made me subservient in my abject terror.

Although her abuse escalated, the terror did not. My cognizance of abuse increased my disgust. It magnified my hatred. It fueled my yearning for payback. But fear is attached to the unknown. By the time I was ten-years-old, I knew exactly what she was up to.

I don't buy this nonsense that children think whatever happens to them is normal for they know not the difference. Give me a break. The other kids don't wash their faces incessantly. They don't brush their teeth at every opportunity. Hell, do you remember a kid in school who carried a toothbrush in his back pocket? Was there a kid who shied away from kissing the prettiest girl in the class? I guess there wasn't one like me then. One who feared you might catch on to what went on in my bedroom in the wee hours ... in the dark. One terrified of the truth of the twisted storm that was my mother and what she found pleasure in with her young son.

I could spell out the unthinkable and unspeakable details ... but they're easy to discern. Unthinkable and unspeakable doesn't exist within the human psyche. And my mom could do them, do them and add, "I'll get you, my pretty!" in her best wicked witch voice as she approached my room.

Dad? I'd like to tell you he was in a coma, or deaf and blind. Maybe dear old Dad was a victim of a terrible storm one dark night, back in the day. But, no, Dad was a good Christian man, Brother Latimer, front and center at every altar call, cryin' and yellin' and pourin' his soul out to the Lord. I guess it wore him out for the week.

I weathered the storm as it were. I saw any number of kids living away from home and knew at one point I'd be among them. My sister had left a few years earlier. She had a kid ... she was okay. It turned out, I was too.

Well, I was a bit of a hell-raiser, I suppose. But nothing like mom and certainly nothing like dad. I liked to drink, and I guess I had a little anger stored up. I spent some time in jail, usually from mutual fisticuffs, but being the angrier, as a rule, I did the time.

The accident that took my sister and her husband couldn't be helped. A dark night, a fierce storm, a drunk driver ... an orphaned little girl. Yours truly, Mr. Dependable, drying out in county jail on a ninety-day stay over on some trumped up charge ... aren't they all?

My mom and pop made the mistake of being there. Grams and Gramps could take that little orphaned girl in, and they had the testimonials of the Foursquare Briarwood Baptist Church membership to back them up. I didn't have much credibility, you see, being a brawling, drunken fool and all.

I agonized in jail and felt fear for the first time in my life. I rationalized too. Visions of redemption danced in my head. Glory, glory, hallelujah, mom had surely come to regret her wicked ways and saw this as a chance to do the right thing. This was a second chance for her. Praise God!

When I got out 42 days later, I had to make sure. I took a sawed off shot gun along with me, just in case a coyote snuck up behind me as I spied on the house and the warm family scene I expected to find.

I walked deftly up to the window of my old room, the one where I was sure my little niece was sleeping peacefully. Maybe Mom would tuck her in and tell her a bedtime story.

"I'll get you my pretty!"

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"I tell ya, Billy, he didn't raise an eyebrow. He handed the gun over like the Sunday newspaper. Not a bead of sweat ... not an expression ... nothing. His mother and father, Billy, dead as hell. Him, like a day at the office".

"Cold blooded, Earl. That little girl standing right next to him, too, drenched in blood. 'The wicked witch is dead', that's all she said. Both of 'em like a day at the ballpark. He's over there now, writing out his confession".

It was a dark and stormy night. It was the kind of dark

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