Mercy

In the time it took to reach the basin from where I’d been lurking near the sink, I regressed to the frightened, towheaded child I’d seen only in a dream. In that dream, the child I’d identified as myself had been cowering in a wicker basket to avoid the imminent wrath of a foster mother whose wandering hands made a mockery of what should have been innocent bath time. A similar sense of terror brought about by the repressed memories was what must have awoken the traumatized little boy within me, and when I peered into the overflowing water, I wasn’t at all surprised to find his doe eyes peering right back at me. Muffled sounds beside the tub sent both our gazes darting off to the left, and yet another figment of my tormented past stood leering at us with an all-purpose scrub brush clutched in his hand. He brandished his strange weapon at us the moment he gained our undivided attention all the while his grin broadened at a sickeningly slow pace.

“Go ‘way, Elliot. You don’t belong here,” I heard myself stammering, though the voice which squeaked out was the innocent falsetto of the little boy’s. It felt as though we were two separate beings, yet our mirrored actions proved that we were one in the same.

At once, any remaining denial was shattered. The child from my dreams was, in fact, me.

“Neither do you, little Slut,” Elliot sneered, thrusting his brush out at my vulnerable form. Where it should have struck my naked flesh, the brush failed to make any contact. It did little more than pass right through my arm as if it was nothing but air.

“You’re lying!” my tiny voice cried out. “You can’t hurt me anymore!”

Chuckling darkly, Elliot countered, “Oh, but I can. I’m hurting you right now because I’m still in your head, Mikey. I’ll always be there, waiting for the day you implode.” He took an arrogant pause to allow ample time for his words to seep into my subconscious, and as he opened his mouth to finish whatever it was he had to say, his body was instantly kneeling at my side with his lips mere centimeters from my ear. Though he was amorphous as a ghost with no real substance or matter holding to the ground, his breath on my neck was real. It was there, and it sent an army of chills coursing up and down my spine.

“And when that day comes, I’ll be more than just a memory to you. Did you really think you could hide from me forever?”

I felt trapped and sadly exposed before that deviant of a man, yet the way in which he was genuinely unable to touch me, to harm me, brought the ghost of a smile flickering across my lips. He was merely a figment of my own rampant imagination at that point, and only I could put an end to his mindfuckery. I could defeat him at his own hateful game.

“No, silly, I wanted you to find me,” I giggled. It was a sound bursting with a sense of true mirth I hadn’t felt since before my daughter was taken from me. The sound itself and knowing that I’d been the one who had created it was liberating.

“You’re a dead little Slut. You just wait. I’ll find you, and you will be mine again,” Elliot growled, retreating to his place at the end of the tub. The knuckles on the hand holding the scrub brush had turned white in his anger towards my insolence.

Turning to face him, I stated, “You can’t have what doesn’t belong to you.”

I expected his rage to snap, for his eyes to bulge right out of his hideous skull and his face to flush in an assortment of unnaturally reddened hues, yet nothing I anticipated occurred. On the contrary, Elliot remained completely calm and collected as if we were having a civilized conversation. His abrupt change in demeanor was unnerving.

“We’ll see about that, Mikey, but now it’s Momma’s turn. She’s just itching to rub her dirty boy the wrong way, aren’t you, Cass?”

A handle squeaked, compelling the bathwater to cease its incessant flow, and my eyes darted towards the tub to find what caused the unexpected silence. I nearly screamed as the woman from my nightmare met my curious stare. She was situated inside the basin and stripped down bare as I was with her mess of dark curls pulled up into an untidy bun. Her lips were pulled back into a grin as chilling as Elliot’s had been, and coating those horrid lips was the one color I despised above all others. It was a shade of red I knew only as Vibrant Vixen.

Momma Cass lifted an arm in a lazy salutation, her hand barely opening enough to even consider her gesture a wave, and I was drawn to something sketched upon her arm. Like Billie Joe, she was tattooed, yet her body graffiti wasn’t nearly as extensive as his. Instead, it merely took up a patch of her shoulder with black markings surrounding a word. I couldn’t make anything more than that out, and with a pang of dread I realized I would never know what that word said unless I got into the tub with her.

“That man was right, baby, you’re filthy. Come on in here with your momma, and she’ll fix you up good and proper,” the woman cooed, motioning for me to join her. If there had been an actual person sitting inside that bathtub, the water would have sloshed about and rippled after sustaining such a disturbance, but as I continued to stare into the water, it remained still. I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself that she wasn’t real, that she was just a hideous reminiscence, but when I opened them again she was still there. However, the shade of her lipstick had changed to the color I had always thought she deserved. Vile Verde.

“Don’t worry. The water’s fine. That man tried to burn you again, but I cooled it down for your sensitive little rump. Now, mind me and get in the tub,” Momma Cass commanded again, though the sugar that had previously coated her voice dissipated into bitterness at once. I looked towards the end of the basin to see if Elliot was still standing there and mocking me with his presence, but he was gone. Holding my breath, I climbed into the tub and settled myself at the end opposite my foster mother. She smiled triumphantly, and the green which lacquered her lips made her appear far less menacing than she had in the dream. Without that goddamn red lipstick, she had no power over me because she wasn’t real. She couldn’t possibly hurt me in that ridiculous shade of green.

“What now, Momma?” I asked her, squinting my eyes in an attempt to see what was written on her arm. I still wasn’t close enough to read it.

“Take those bandages off your fingers. Don’t wanna rub your momma raw, do you?” she questioned, instantly making me feel filthy. This wasn’t like my dream where I did little more than hide from her. I was finally getting a taste of what her specific form of abuse was like, and I wanted nothing more than to spit it out and to never be forced to experience it again. Despite how every little detail about the woman disgusted me, I scooted a bit closer to her as I peeled the gauze off my fingers one by one. The moment I could make out what was written on her arm, I froze.

Billie Joe.

“There’s a good boy. Now come give Momma a kiss.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to move or avoid the contact the woman was trying to make with me due to a maddening inability to think straight. Why the hell did she have the old bastard’s name tattooed on her arm? Did she know him? Or, even worse, was she…Joey and Jakob’s mother?

When I opened my eyes, she was gone. For one beautiful moment I assumed every ghost and memory had vacated the bathroom to leave me in peace for the remainder of my bath, but I wouldn’t have such luck. Hovering over me with a foot on each side of the tub was Frankie, giggling like mad at the rapid way I was gasping for breath.

“Look who’s the little boy now, Squirt,” he mocked, jumping off the tub.

“What just happened, Frankie? Why am I still so young?” I sniveled, staring in horror at how impossibly small my hands were.

“‘Cause you’re conquerin’ a phobia or some shit. That’s gotta fuck with your mind a bit, don’tcha think?” Frankie responded, appearing to be thoroughly fascinated by the scene that had played out before him. “Just send those memories ‘n’ bad feelin’s packin’ ‘fore the wrinkly one wakes up. Wash ‘em away.”

“Ok…but what if I stay like this forever?”

“You won’t, babydoll. It ain’t real,” Frankie assured me.

I groaned in fear of my juvenile predicament lasting long enough for Billie Joe to see me so small and pathetic, but as I grabbed the soap to wash myself with, the hand which held it was no longer a child’s hand. Wide-eyed, I glanced down at my reflection in the water to observe whether my features consisted of blonde hair or not and was considerably relieved to find my usual mop of dark hair coating my scalp. With one swift and simple motion that would eventually lead to a triumph over my fear of baths, I had gained the courage and self-confidence to see myself as something other than a fragile being. I had transformed myself into the man I finally felt I could be.

A man that had been initially broken by a woman with the name Billie Joe tattooed on her shoulder.