Mercy

I didn’t drink enough tonight. A closet alcoholic needs a substantially greater amount of their secret vice to get loaded than a conservative drinker, and I sure as fuck didn’t load my barrel properly. I was too anxious over getting up on that stage to pound more than four beers, so now I’m halfcocked and buzzing for something else to shoot. Only another drink or five can take me to that special place of blissful silence where the voices of the dead don’t hound me every chance they get, but that’s out of the question. My mother instructed all four of my older brothers to cut me off after I’d drained my fourth drink, and they aren’t exactly men you want to cross. They’re the only four in this place that scare any of the local yokels when they’re sober. I doubt that fear holds up very well when they’re wasted.

I’m fucked.

Someone’s knocking on the bathroom door. The noise alone causes me to stumble, and the possibility of who it could be momentarily terrifies me. I cling to the bathroom stall as if my life depends on it, which is partially true, and close my eyes. I try to visualize the person standing on the opposite side of the door. For a while, all I can see is a shadow of a being shrouded by darkness. Before long, the darkness fades enough for me to catch a glimpse of a wrinkled white apron and thick, dark curls pulled into a messy ponytail. Adrienne. I can’t see her eyes, but everything about her jumpy stance screams that she’s about an inch away from losing it. I dwell too long on the image of her in my mind, and I realize far too late that I’m entering her thoughts.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! she repeats. Unlock the fucking door!

I don’t recall ever locking the door after the gray eyed boy left, and I haven’t moved an inch on my own since he nailed me into the wall, clothed me, and kissed me goodbye. My knees lock at the thought of walking towards the door. It might just be Adrienne waiting behind it, but there’s a hoard of angry barflies swarming behind her. Not even my brothers could protect me from that.

A deafening crash echoing throughout the bar and reverberating on a lesser scale inside my porcelain sanctuary causes me to flinch and I howl out in agony as if I’d been struck. The sounds of crunching wood and metal are unmistakable. The drunks have smashed Jason’s guitar. I hear Adrienne whimpering as they continue to pummel the innocent instrument and cry right along with her. By obliterating that guitar, they have successfully managed to destroy not only Jason’s body, but his soul as well. It’s only a matter of time before his angry spirit comes back to haunt me for allowing such a thing to happen.

“Billie Joe, please, come out! They’re gonna realize where you are soon and break down this door! We gotta leave now!” Adrienne pleads. Her fingernails are scratching at the door as her hysteria peaks. Any minute now she’ll be attempting to pry open the door with her bare hands.

I inch closer to her at a snail’s pace until I’m mirroring her stance by leaning on the door with my hand lifted and pressed to the wood. Resting my forehead against the door, I say, “Adie, I’m scared.”

“I know, love, but you’re gonna get through this. You have to,” she murmurs, desperation hanging thick and heavy from each word.

God, I wish I could get my hands on another drink. I fish around in my pocket and settle for a cigarette instead.

I light one and take a drag before asking, “Why? Why can’t I just waltz right on in there ‘n’ let the bastards have at it? It ain’t like I got shit else to live for these days.”

There’s a long, nearly painful, pause as Adrienne shifts uncomfortably on her side of the door. In a fragile, unrecognizable voice, she whispers, “You’re gonna be a daddy, Billie. Isn’t that enough to live for?”

The shock of her question is swift and unforgiving, and at once I’m all but choking on my cigarette. Sleeping with her was a mistake on more levels than one, but never, not once, did I ever imagine she would get knocked up. I don’t even want kids. Never have. There’s no telling which traits I passed on to the poor bastard cooking inside Adrienne, and I sure as hell hope they don’t include being a faggot and being psychic. No one deserves such a twisted fate, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the kid grew up to resent me for drowning it in the shitty end of my gene pool. Lord knows I’ve secretly resented mine for the same damn thing a time or two.

“You’re pregnant?” I croak. I suddenly feel more trapped by her confession than by being locked in a bathroom hiding from the imminent death that was waiting for me in the bar. This isn’t how I pictured getting out of this place. I used to imagine taking off one day with no warning and fleeing to a place where I could live in peace knowing that I would not be harmed for my sexual preferences. I know now that’ll never happen. I’ll have to marry Adrienne to save her reputation while our child and her silence saves mine. I’ll never be free.

“Yes, and before you even think about asking, yes, the baby is yours. Now will you please come out of there and run away with me?”

I take another drag from my cigarette and close my eyes, attempting to sense if my exit would pose any danger to either of us. I can feel a hatred pulsating through me as well as a sense of urgency as the local yokels tear the place apart. Though I can’t physically see her, I know my mother is hiding behind the bar to keep the men from noticing her. My brothers are making sure to divert their attention away from her. It won’t be long before the drunks remember that she is the woman who bore the crime against God in her womb for roughly nine months. They’re going to turn on her.

I’ll have to draw them out of the bar myself.

“Adie, listen to me. I want you to run. Wait for me at the park near the river.” I speak fast and low, willing her to leave merely with the determination building in my throat. I can picture her nodding despite the door which blocks our view of each other.

“What if…if you don’t make it?” she stammers.

“Get the hell outta Georgia. Go back home to your momma in Minnesota. She’ll take care o’ you ‘n’ the baby for me ‘til you find yourself someone who deserves you, who’ll treat you right. Someone who ain’t nothin’ like me,” I tell her, voice hitching in my throat as I mention the baby.

She’s sobbing at this point and declares, “I love you, Billie Joe.”

I shake my head. I hate myself for doing this to her. Her infatuation with me was something I thought I could use to me advantage back when I was hiding my true feelings from the rest of the world, but now it has manifested into something I can’t control. Somewhere along the line this girl fell in love with me, and it breaks my heart that I can’t love her back. She’s like a sister to me. Doesn’t the thought of making love to your sister make your skin crawl?

“I know,” I mutter.

“Oh, no. Shit, they’re coming, Billie!” she yelps. Her tiny hand balls itself into a fist and she pounds on the door until she hears me unlock it. Not until I begin to open the door, cigarette dangling from the corner of my mouth, does she stop. I point furiously towards the back exit, and she stares with wide eyes for a moment before springing into action. The apron she wears while working at the bar flutters awkwardly to the side once the fastened strings in the back come undone, and in her haste to leave Falls Inn, she doesn’t notice.

“Lookit what we got here, Saul. We got ourselves the faggot’s bitch,” one of the drunks remarks to another as he notices my stumble from the bathroom into the hallway. None of them see Adie’s mad dash to the back exit. They only see me.

“What makes you think he wasn’t my bitch?” I sneer after taking one last drag from my cigarette. They start to advance on me while I let it fall to the ground so I can put it out with the toe of my shoe. My stomach drops when I notice both my shoes are untied. They weren’t when I entered the bathroom, and there’s no way I’ll escape quickly enough with them falling off my feet.

“You ain’t got the cojones, chico,” one of them jeers in an awful, fake Mexican accent. The rest of them guffaw thickly. None of them are reaching for their guns.

“I betcha he just got fucked by that other boy who came runnin’ out o’ there,” another states, pointing at the bathroom door. “Lookit how sweaty he is!”

The ringleader grins widely, showing off a few yellowed teeth that still remain in his nightmarish smile while a larger number of them are missing in action, before he suggests, “I think we gotta check ‘im out. See if he’s still cummin’ out the ass.”

My heart hammers in my ribcage. This man is suggesting that they should tear the clothing from the bottom half of my body just to check if I’ve recently been penetrated. Obviously, I have been, and they’ll have more than enough evidence to know that as well once they’ve ripped my clothes off. I back away from the crowd of bumbling hicks, and I contemplate making a break for it by following the path Adrienne took moments ago. My plan backfires as I trip over my untied shoes. I land on my stomach, aware of just how vulnerable I am to them in this position, but I don’t begin to scream until I feel an unknown number of hands groping at the seat of my pants.

“Quit screamin’, faggot. I thought you’d enjoy a buncha men dyin’ to get you out o’ your pants!” someone shouts, and the lot of them roar with laughter in response. I kick out at them with both my legs, but that only makes matters worse.

“Pin ‘im down, boys! Get his arms ‘n’ his legs. Make sure he don’t squirm no more!”

They’re on top of me, so many of them, and I can’t breathe. I’m wondering where the fuck my brothers are, why they’re not helping me, but the thought quickly leaves my mind when they finally manage to pull my pants down below my ass and leave them hanging loosely around my knees. I scream again. They don’t stop.

“Get off me! Yes, he fucked me! I was his bitch, just like you said! Please, get off me!” I beg. They erupt into laughter once more.

“He ain’t lyin’, lookit! Cummin’ right out the ass!”

They turn me over to my side, and one was bold enough to reach right out and squeeze my dick. Tears of shame roll freely down my cheeks as he touches me because I don’t want this. How can my body even think I do?

“He’s stiffer’n a board!” the man who’d groped me exclaims. He grabs me again, only this time by the balls. He squeezes harder than before, and I howl in pain. “Fuckin’ fairy’s actually enjoyin’ this!”

They flip me so that I’m on my back with all of their greasy, unshaven faces leering down at me from every angle. I squeeze my eyes shut and silently sob, assuming it’s only a matter of time before they find something to rape me with. Mistake. A hand darts out to strike me across the cheek and continues to do so until I open my eyes again. They’re all smirking at me. I see a familiar flash of metal and notice the guns hanging at their hips, one of those guns practically brushing against my fingertips. If I can just wiggle it out of its holster, maybe I can fire the fucking thing just to scare the sick bastards off of me…

My luck changes. The man holding my right arm removes his grip on me to dig his nails into my aching member in some sort of awful torture. I groaned in agony, though the noise escaping my throat could easily be confused with a moan. Both the men clamping down on my cock and balls squeeze tighter still. I fear they might just pop them right off at the rate they’re going, but I try to ignore the pain. I try to focus on the gun rubbing against my fingertips. With one swift motion, I have it in my hand, cock it, and am firing it before its owner even notices I’d nicked it. The drunks scatter from my body instantly, ducking as the bullet ricochets off a wall. Unfortunately, the bullet doesn’t strike any of them.

“The hell’re you doin’, boy?! Quit wavin’ that thing ‘round!” one of them hollers, but I neglect to heed his request.

“No. My daddy was the best shot in all o’ Georgia, ‘n’ he taught me how to shoot long ‘fore I was outta diapers. Now if ya’ll wanna live ‘til mornin’, I suggest you get the hell outta my momma’s bar right now,” I growl, attempting to pull up and fasten my pants with one hand while the other is aiming the gun at various barflies. They’re all frozen in shock and fear.

“You ain’t seen the last o’ us, faggot. You’re dead!” a man shouts before scrambling to get out of the bar. The rest follow suit, all eyeballing me with identical expressions of insurmountable rage. I’m not afraid. I’m the one holding the gun this time.

While the last of drunks trickle out of the bar, I see two of my brothers seated on barstools, clutching glasses of beer so tightly in their hands that their knuckles are white. One of them is shaking with fury, but they both refuse to look me in the eye as I approach them. Even as I pocket the gun, they won’t look at me.

“Dave and Alan took Momma upstairs,” Rich tells me, referring to our apartment above the bar. His voice is emotionless. “She done passed out when you told them hicks that boy fucked you.”

I swallow a lump from my throat before I ask, “Do they need any help with ‘er?”

“No. Keep your filthy hands off o’ ‘er, you’ve done enough,” Danny snaps, spilling his beer all over the counter. Rich attempts to calm Danny down, but it’s too late. The damage has been done.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t kn-n-now it’d go down like…like this,” I stutter.

“You better leave, B-Joe. They’re gonna be back,” Rich advises me.

“But-”

“Just go!”

I didn’t need to be told again. I sprint up and into my bedroom without a word to Dave or Alan, stuff every penny of the tip money Jason and I had earned over the last year into my guitar case along with the guitar that goes in it, and run downstairs into the bar. Danny’s yelling something like, How dare he mention our father like that! If Daddy knew he was queer, he woulda shot that boy ‘imself! as I’m running out. Rich counters with, That boy is our brother!, but Danny just sneers.

“He ain’t my brother no more, ‘n’ he ain’t yours neither. Just forget ‘im.”

I’m in such a rush to leave that I forget to grab the shoes that had been forcefully removed from my feet during the attack, and by the time I meet Adrienne in the park, my socks are soaked with blood.

My God, do I need a drink.