Page 308 - What They Did to the Kid
P. 308
296 Jack Fritscher
prize, British, imported, from the bins of textured cardboard paint-
ings sold at Barbara’s Book Store in Old Town.
“Actually,” I said, “I’m, uh, trying to be honest.”
“As an artist,” she said, “I’m interested in faces, portraits, films
cast from life, faces, not actors, real people, and real writing, per-
sonal, reflexive.”
At Misery, I could have projected her, Jocelyn Jennings herself,
face and body, from real dreams. I had known her apartment, if not
her, already far back, distracted by Plato in Misery’s chapel, dream-
ing about a Greenwich Village garret. I was not disappointed she
was so literary, so bohemian, so free, so pretentiously beyond the
pretenders preening in the Misery opera and chant society.
“I was in the seminary longer than most murderers are in prison,
but don’t get me wrong, as fub duck...”
“Fub duck?”
“...fucked up as it was, it was one of the most positive experiences
of my life.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They never did anything to me.”
“They never touched you?”
“They never touched me.”
“Maybe not your body.”
“I tried, really, to be creative, find myself, get the most out of it.”
“Hasn’t every boy in a seminary, everyone thinks, presumes they,
you...”
“No.”
“Perhaps, not you.”
“Not me. Definitely.”
“And you’re jealous ha ha ha that they didn’t do...you, choose...
you.”
“Ha ha ha. One day I discovered I’d milked the experience dry.
I’d learned, taken, everything they had to give, and shined it back at
them. The priests had no more to offer me. I had to leave, and fast,
or watch my creativity,” I wanted to say, my very self, my soul, my
life, “curl up and die. As simple as that.”
“But what did they do to you?”
“They gave me drugs.”
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