The Boy Who Lived on Seventh and Mason

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THE BOY WHO LIVED ON SEVENTH AND MASON Š All rights reserved 2014 No part of this book may be reproduced, printed or distributed without written consent from the author Written in East Coast, Singapore

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here are things in our lives that we choose to forget—a distant memory, a lost love, a forgotten mistake, a fleeting defiance. No matter how truthful we say we are about who we are—or at least what others honestly may think about us— we will always have some things that we choose to never disclose about ourselves.

So what is your secret?

Carlo Peña

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I

n a flurry of cinder and brimstone, that was how it ended. All the mockery, the anguish, the cries and unreasonable dilemmas he faced as a child. That was how it all ended. Jeremy had little remorse left in his young, scathed heart; the only thing that remained was his deep scorn towards him, his father, who had abandoned him long before he knew who he was—and even more so now that he had known who—and what—he is. Was. The two-storey brick house glowed with crimson tongues, scorching the building from the rooftop to the cellar. The house stood quite vehemently against the raging flames, brick by brick, torched slowly by the fire that burnt in Jeremy’ eyes. To the boy, he saw each brick melt, like the candles he used to see almost every night, growing up in the orange-bricked house. He clenched his fists tightly on his sides, as he heard the faint wailing of a man he hated with all his being, much to the assent of the tears that slowly traced his cheeks.

He was a bad man, he kept telling himself. He was a bad man.

Jeremy was four when he was brought into that very same brick house that stood quite aloof from the rest of the brick houses along Seventh and Mason. Riding in this man’s car from the orphanage, he could starkly remember what the old nun said as she handed him to Phillip Sanders, “He can be quite a handful at times, but he is a good boy.... Mostly quiet during the day... He sleeps early at night… He likes Popeye.”

The 1967 orange-tinged Sedan stopped in front of the brick house that stood along Seventh and Mason, the engine purring into a 4 | the boy who lived on seventh and mason

sudden stop, before Phillip Sanders looked at Jeremy with those deep blue eyes, and a smug that he will never forget, “Your mother was quite a handful as well… but you’re home now. With me.”

Phillip Sanders seemed like a happy fellow in his snappy brown suit that smelled of day-old lint and cheap cleaning detergent that they used in the laundry mats near the orphanage that sat on a sleepy hill near the edge of town. He wore a golfer’s hat that day when he picked up Jeremy from the orphanage. Looking back, Jeremy realised that Phillip Sanders wore the same hat for the entire 10 years that he had stayed with the old man. More often that not—if he hadn’t smelled of detergent—he would smell of candles wax, or menthol or Vaseline. Jeremy didn’t really take notice of how Phillip Sanders smelled. He took heed of this quaintness only until a few years after.

Jeremy closed his eyes as Phillip Sanders carried him out of his car, clutching him with his left arm, and scuffling for his house keys that seemed buried in his pockets with his right hand. Soon the man was able to open the front door that led Jeremy inside the brick house.

Inside, the main corridor seemed to stretch over a kilometre for little Jeremy, leading to a hallway of doors and nooks that Jeremy would soon find comforting, in the darkest of night.

As a four-year-old, Jeremy made a lot of effort to look at himself in the gigantic mirrors that stood beside the fireplace of the living room which was at the end of the hallway. His scruffy brown hair and thick eyebrows fell effortlessly on his face like a pancake on a sizzling pan. He was shorter for his age, and other children in the orphanage would tease him constantly about it, calling him a runt or a toadstool as often as they could. Jeremy was fascinated with his face, his hands, his feet. He took little notice of anything and everything about the house, not even asking what was it that clamoured at night when he was too drowsy to even squint his left eye, or the shadows that constantly passed by his closed door whenever Phillip Sanders had houseguests.

In his first three years in the brick house, Jeremy would spend his days inside his room, where Phillip Sanders placed a similarly huge rectangular mirror at the corner of his bed, after apparently discovering how fascinated the boy was with mirrors and the images they showed his big, emerald eyes. In the mornings, Phillip Sanders 5 | cbpeña

left him to the care of a neighbour-friend—Mr Pickles, Jeremy remembered calling him as a child, since he smelled of freshly-opened pickle jars that Phillip Sanders used to make his midday sandwiches for Jeremy.

Mr Pickles was an odd fellow, who often asked Jeremy to remove his shirt and run around the living room with his favourite ball the minute Phillip Sanders left the house, driving off in his rusty Sedan, and coming back only at night, when the footsteps along the corridors would start hounding the little boy. When he grew tired, Mr Pickles invited Jeremy to sleep in his arms, as he hummed a quiet tune that made the young boy doze off as quickly as he had undressed. That and the milk that Mr Pickles brought from his house, whenever Phillip Sanders asked him to baby-sit during the weekdays.

In the evenings, Jeremy would awaken to the sounds of people talking in the corridors below, where his small room led to the bathroom at the end of the oak-boarded second floor of the orange brick house. Phillip Sanders often locked Jeremy in—at least in the first three years that he lived in the brick house. A cautious murmur would flood the halls downstairs, followed by the main door closing shut, and a flurry of footsteps walking towards Phillip Sanders’ room that was at the other far end of the second floor.

For the next three years, Jeremy would hear a variety of steps: light ones, heavy ones, thumpy ones, dragging ones, fleeting ones. But the steps that scared him the most were the ones that stopped right in front of his bedroom door, shadows looming from underneath the little space that separated him from the footsteps of the corridors.

Jeremy could remember a few occasions that his doorknob flinched a few times, as if the shadows from the other side were trying to let themselves in, and take over Jeremy’s room. They never succeeded— at least in the first three years that Jeremy lived in the orange brick house that stood between Seventh and Mason.

The news that Mr Pickles died left no remorse on Jeremy. He looked on as they took away his body in a black bag, contorted in a weird manner that only Jeremy knew why. He was 75 when he finally choked, and most of the neighbours regarded him with much praise for being the old man who was quick to greet everyone a ’good morning’ on his way to Phillip Sanders’ house. Jeremy knew better of 6 | the boy who lived on seventh and mason

course.

The police found Mr Pickles inside the bathroom on the second floor, his body in fetal position, with his eyes, rolled back to a point where there was almost no pupil to see. On his face were smears of red lipstick, and beside his cadaver, a torn pantyhose, half a bottle of Vaseline, and a 12-inch dildo smudged with feces and lotion.

Jeremy was twelve, when they found Mr Pickles. They found the boy shirtless at a corner of the bathroom, looking mortified, then listless as the coroners took the old man away. They shook him a few times as they walked with him towards the hallway, down the flight of stairs that led to the other far end of the second floor of the orange brick house, but the boy had a blank look in his eyes, and the policemen took that as shock, having gone through the ordeal and all.

They called Phillip Sanders who was on duty at a nearby publishing house that sold newspapers that ran twice a week; he was the doorman at the old Castro Building that was now being used as a warehouse to stock sardines. No one dared to talk about how the police found Mr Pickles that day, although everyone said it most probably was Jeremy’s fault, being a problem child from the orphanage.

Jeremy was seven years old when Phillip Sanders left his bedroom door unlocked. The boy started wondering why Phillip Sanders stopped locking his door from the outside, and yet, in his young mind, Jeremy regarded the gesture as a sign of old age. The boy took to himself to lock the room from the inside at first, but then, would find himself unable to sleep because of the constant attempts of the shadows from outside his bedroom door who played with the doorknob so frequently at night.

There were times that Jeremy needed to cover his ears at night, pillow cheeks flanking his small ears, since the ruckus that the doorknobs made became too unbearable for him during some nights.

The following morning, Jeremy would look at Phillip Sanders, trying to catch any hint of anger in the old man’s eyes because of his defiant locked doorknob during the previous night. Yet every time, he would see nothing but emptiness in his stares. He looked at Jeremy the same way, day in and out. The little boy eventually shrugged it off and took no heed.

A few weeks after the shadows behind his bedroom door started pestering him at night, Jeremy found himself leaving the bed7 | cbpeña

room door unlocked. He soon realised that the noise that the doorknobs made were more annoying than the scurrying footsteps that led themselves to Phillip Sanders’ room at the far end of the hall at the second floor.

Jeremy started sleeping earlier when he turned eight, dozing off into deep slumber even before the footsteps—and the doorknob—made any noises. In his sleep, his dreams grew weirder as he aged year on end. Images of wrinkly branches passing through his hair as he walked through dense forests were mostly what he saw in his sleep. Long, white sticks that felt like arms would stretch over his face, making their way to the contours of his cheeks, his throbbing chest, his waist and loins. Soon the dreams showed even more branches, some glinting white light, an unfamiliar face that felt familiar, and more shadows that competed with those who stood behind his bedroom door. For the next year or so, Jeremy regarded them as dreams—as nightmarish as they sometimes felt for the young boy.

Seventh and Mason were quiet streets. A few other brick houses stood on their flat beds, laden with lawns patched with green cow grass, constantly fertilised by the neighbours’ dogs, and thinned by a few children who dared to play under the smouldering heat of the summer sun along the paved pathways of the streets where the orange-tinged brick house stood. Aside from the soda pop shop that stood at the end of Seventh, there was nothing but strings of houses along the quiet street. Sure there were the occasional children that belted profanity here and there, but they were easily halted by their parents who apologised to passers-by.

The streets were not known for anything either. There were no landmarks that made it stand out, no famous people that lived on either side of the road, no prom queens or football players, no famous businessmen who wrote books that sold a million copies, unlike those that Jeremy would read if he reached middle school.

There were just the houses, and the mundane lives of those who decided to buy their own orange-brick houses along Seventh and Mason.

When Jeremy came to live with Phillip Sanders, everything about the streets were amusing for him. For one, none of the buildings in the orphanage were tainted with the light orangey glow of the brick houses. Neither did they have skinny dogs that generously driz8 | the boy who lived on seventh and mason

zled the pavements with feces and pee in the morning, only to be scooped or immediately swept towards the edge of the sidewalk by scurried owners. The orphanage had children, yes, but most of them played by themselves, unlike the children of Seventh and Mason who have obviously created cliques as young kids and eventually, gangs by the time they reached puberty.

To Jeremy, the picket fences looked like castle walls guarding the fat queens that lay almost naked under the blistering sun, trying to get a tan although ending up looking like ripe tomatoes at the local grocers, while the men trimmed the cow grass to a stubbly lot that showed how dry their patches of land really were.

Growing up, Jeremy never liked going outdoors, but he enjoyed stepping outside the house once in a while. The neighbours often switched to gossip whenever he tried stepping out of the house.

He would get glaring stares from the mothers whose hairy legs were smothered with varicose, instantly dragging their children off the lawn saying, “Get inside the house. That freak is outside. It’s not safe!”

Jeremy tried to force a smile every time, trying to greet the other children a ’hello’ but would always end up being asked to stay away from the other kids. Eventually, Jeremy stopped trying to reach out to them and started enjoying the fact that no one bothered him as he did his business on the front yard of the orange brick house: playing with his Lego bricks and a shabby plush rabbit whose eyes had been poked out during a squabble in the orphanage. This was how Jeremy spent his afternoons, while Mr Pickles prepared his milk in the kitchen.

He pushed it in quite hard—intentionally, as the old man might have guessed—and Mr Pickles lost his balance and slipped on the wet floor drizzled with Vaseline. His head hit the shower tap and he fell to the floor, face flat, blood oozing from his mouth. Jeremy moved into the far end of the bathroom, shivering all over, although it was the height of summer, and outside the sun shone so intensely that the daffodils began to bow.

Mr Pickles was trying to say something, trying to reach out for the young boy, his left hand stretching towards Jeremy, as if asking him to save him from the pool of blood and Vaseline that was starting to stain the bathroom tiles. Jeremy covered his ears with his hands, 9 | cbpeña

bobbing back and forth, trying to numb out the screechy sounds that Mr Pickles was trying to talk to him with. A few moments later, the old man’s lips stopped moving, and his eyes stared blankly at Jeremy.

The boy stared at the lifeless body that laid before him: one down, he thought. One down.

He was ten when Phillip Sanders came into Jeremy’s room one night and shook him lightly to wake him up. “Jeremy, I want you to meet some people,” the old man said. “But first, I need you to drink some milk.” He handed the young boy a tall glass of milk, saying, “I need you to finish the drink. All of it.”

As the boy tried wiping the sleepiness from his eyes, Phillip Sanders almost had to drag Jeremy out of his room. Soon the boy found himself walking towards the other far end of the hall of the second floor. Phillip Sanders opened the door to his room, and the strong smell of burning candles, menthol and Vaseline took over the young boy’s nose. He squinted to see what was inside the room: a large bed where old tree trunks seemed to have been arching and moaning in gyration to the blissful winds that came from the airconditioning.

At the side of the bed, a bear was tied to the bedposts, being whipped without remorse by masked hunters, while at a corner, near the study, was Mr Pickles, playing with a slimy black sword. Jeremy passed out after that. In the coming years, Jeremy would have the same dreams every night, over and over again. The old tree branches, the black swords, the smell of lavender candles and burning flesh, the bears and their hunters, Mr Pickles and Phillip Sanders. All of it didn't make sense to young Jeremy, and it would take a few more years before they finally did.

It was Saturday, when Jeremy decided it was time. He had turned 15 the day before, and he felt it was the perfect day. Outside, the sun was resplendent as usual, scorching almost peeling off skin as it shone on the few passersby who chanced upon Seventh and Mason.

The narrow roads could only accommodate one or two cars at a time, and so many would prefer to walk along the junction of the two streets.

Jeremy looked outside the window and saw the same faces of the children he wanted to play with but had grown to despise him, 10 | the boy who lived on seventh and mason

because of their parents’ constant heckling. Outside the window, he saw the same fat ladies with their varicose-lined legs and thighs, still donning their skimpy outfits too small to even fit a Doberman, and still looking like ripe tomatoes that were too red to eat and have started oozing out their seeds through their skins unintentionally.

And outside the window, Jeremy saw himself staring back at him— asking him to finish what he needed to do.

By now, Phillip Sanders had started losing most of his hair.

School and television has taught Jeremy that these were signs of ageing. His father was growing older, and that was the sign that he had long waited for. He too was growing up—stronger, more capable of doing what he felt was needed to do. Phillip Sanders now had fewer teeth, and could not eat anything harder than a cucumber, as long as he had his newly-fitted dentures on, courtesy of a certain Jonah who once dropped by for dinner at the house along Seventh and Mason.

Jeremy, on the other hand, ground his teeth at night, when the shadows visited his bedroom under the faint light of the burning candles and the pungent smell of lavender and Vaseline. He despised the shadows, and imbibed hatred against anything that smelled floral or oily.

That Saturday, Phillip Sanders was lying on his bed, at the far end of the oak-board second floor, his bedroom door slightly ajar, and his breathing quite faster than usual. Jeremy looked up at the cheap circular wall clock that hung at the walls that separated the boy’s bedroom from the rest of the second floor doors. Phillip Sanders brought home that clock on the night of Jeremy’s seventh birthday, saying it was a gift—not for him—but for his friends.

The young boy walked slowly up the staircase that led to his father’s bedroom. The sullen creaking of the floorboards were rhyming with every step that Jeremy took. His hands were trembling and felt numb, and he needed to stop midway of the stairs to catch his breath, before he continued walking up the stairs that felt like those that led to a belfry, only this one was just fifteen steps, and there were no bats at the end of the stairs—only a monster.

Reaching the end of the stairs, he could hear Phillip Sanders and his heavy breathing even from across the hall. It’d been busy for him last night. About ten of them came. Jeremy slowly made his way across the hall, occasionally stopping to hold on to the walls or the railing, to make sure they were real—real enough to hold on to, if he 11 | cbpeña

needed to—lest they would crumble down on him like the white branches that passed through his hair, his cheeks, his waist, his loins, before the full weight of the tree trunks would crush him almost to suffocation, and yet they felt warm and not tree-like, most often scaly and reeking with oil, floral scents or candle wax.

Today is the day, Jeremy told himself. “Now is the time,” he uttered under his breath.

The room was not as Jeremy remembered it to be. The side couch that tamed Mr Pickles had its cushions torn open, slashed in X’s and Z’s, with the cottony fibres gushing out generously unto the floors that were riddled with used condoms and hardened candle drops.

The windows had been crudely blocked by black garbage bags and old newspapers that had turned yellow—no, almost brown, as if themselves stained by the odiferous candles whose fumes mingled with their printed words almost every night—and yet light still managed to peek through the edges that have decided to lay waste their abilities to stick to the glass and liberated themselves from the duct tape that bound both plastic and paper together.

The lonely bed had its blanket burnt with holes here and there, and the cigarette butts responsible for them lay lifeless on the very floorboards that Jeremy stepped on. He had to be careful not to slip on the splatter of lotion that flung from a bottle of Vaseline that tipped from the bedside, only to be stopped by a side table that was merciful only enough to release his insides and never his entire self.

On the bed slept old Phillip Sanders, unnervingly snoring in the mid-Saturday morning sun that splashed through the nooks and crannies of his old room, only to be absorbed by the unrelenting heaving of his now bigger belly. Jeremy walked right beside his foster father and stared at him for a few seconds. The old man, sensing the boy, had pretended to be asleep and waited to see what he was up to.

Jeremy too was aware of how sly Phillip Sanders was, and was prepared for this. He had long prepared for this.

In his hand left hand, he held a large mug, as his right hand was clenched firmly inside his pants’ pocket. He poured out the contents of the mug onto the bed sheets—moving around the bedposts—slowly at first, but then the best of him took over and he started splattering the clear liquid all over the bed, Phillip Sanders included. To this, the startled old man flinched and threw away most 12 | the boy who lived on seventh and mason

of the bedcovers that hid his naked body from the boy. He stood in front of Jeremy, his eyes furious, and yet the boy knew the old man was just as confused.

Jeremy stood back, and slowly walked towards the foot of the bed. He threw the remainder of the mug’s contents on Phillip Sanders. The liquid that splattered on his belly made its way through his thighs and exposed loins, before reaching the tips of his hairy legs and finally slowly dripping on the oak-board floors. “What is this that you’re up to, boy!?” ranted the old man, as he slowly stood up from his bed, his hands gripping on the stumps of his bedposts.

Jeremy took out a lighter with his right hand that was left clenched for most of the remainder of his exploit. He lit it up and placed the flaming cylinder on the bed sheets that caught fire quickly because of the oil stains, the lavender scents, the candle droppings.

Phillip Sanders stood there, staring at the bedcovers and at Jeremy who spoke nothing for the past seven years.

The boy walked towards the door, and locked it shut behind him, making his way down the creaky wooden staircase. In a flurry of cinder and brimstone, that was how it ended. All the mockery, the anguish, the cries and unreasonable dilemmas he faced as a child.

That was how it all ended. Jeremy had little remorse left in his young, scathed heart; the only thing that remained was his deep scorn towards him, his father, who had abandoned him long before he knew who he was—and even more so now that he had known who—and what—he is. Was.

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Carlo Venson Peña is a facilitator by training. He is pursuing a doctorate in Educational Administration, and has finished a master’s degree in development studies. He is married with one daughter named after him. http://www.issuu.com/carlovenson/docs 14 | the boy who lived on seventh and mason

All rights reserved © Written in East Coast, Singapore