갈가마귀 전조 by 성자 토성

TRIGGER WARNING: self-harm, references to sexual abuse, demonic possession, and queerphobic violence throughout; additional content warnings for consensual sexual activity, bodily fluids, references to substance abuse, and Nazism. This is semi-autobiographical so tread lightly, I don't hold back, but there are moments of beauty and resolution in the end.

***

A new state, again. Another new city. At least, that's what the sign says when you drive past Main Street: "Welcome to the /City/ of Venetia" ...but it's nothing like the glittering valley of Las Vegas. You were just starting to feel at home there, too. This full-of-itself farm town reeks of chuds and cow pies. Since you moved in a month ago, already one of your neighbor's houses has gone up in flames when the meth lab in their basement blew up. When you drove past the smoldering remains of the house, you could've sworn you saw someone standing inside -- naked, covered in soot, with glowing eyes.

Your mother is putting you into Catholic school, like she always dreamed of doing. You still haven't spoken much since the incident with Father...you struggle to even summon his last name to mind without a pounding heart. No. So you call him Father Incident. You still haven't spoken much since the congregation in Vegas excommunicated you. The 15-year-old, they treated you like the predator. Made you an unmentionable, and mourned the loss of their beloved parish leader, blaming you for his sudden and tragic transfer to a new archdiocese in Philadelphia. So your family packed up and headed for Oregon. And your mother ignored you the entire drive, and at the two motels you stayed in before reaching your new home on those secluded, swampy 6 acres in the nearby unincorporated township of Elvira. Ignored you because you embarrassed her, because she knew you were different. You knew it, too. It's been weeks of tense silence. The two of you look out opposite windows as your father drives slowly toward your new school.

It's been one week that you've been enrolled at St. Thomas Didymus Roman Catholic Academy for Boys and Girls. Each morning you pass through the iron gate way, topped with an iron raven, the school's mascot. Each morning, it appears as an omen. In those first five days, they shaved your too-long hair, made you tuck in your shirt, wear a tie, and do twenty push-ups if you forgot to wear your black belt, and opted for a brown one instead. In those five days, you also got to meet everyone. And everyone's cousin. Everyone's aunt and uncle. Everyone's adopted children. Everyone's related here, somehow -- through marriage, blood, or law. All 90-whatever of them.

You've met the priests, too. There are four of them who live on the school grounds out here, in the backwoods of Venetia, Oregon. One of them, Father Hunger, has a bloated throat like a toad, and he smokes cigars -- it's his "Thing." One of them, Father Daniels, is hairy like a chimpanzee, and the way he smiles at you reminds you of Father Incident, from Las Vegas. One of them, Father DeVito, spends all of his money on new gadgets from The Sharper Image, just like your biological father, and his eyes bulge in different directions, like Pope Alexander VI. One of them, Father Brandy, might be the only person you actually look up to, after those five days. He walks with a cane and speaks with a slur, after surviving a major stroke. You play chess with him sometimes, when the other kids ignore you at lunch or after Mass or during gym class.

One of the other kids, Zachariah, approaches you in the locker room, and the attention triggers your freeze reflex, and you think to yourself, that's the worst oxymoron. When the priests are gone, he towers over you, bearded and musky at 16, and he tells you, "My mom says not to trust you because you went to public school. She says you've got the Devil in you. But I just think you're a faggot." But he doesn't hit you. Doesn't touch you at all. Just stands too close, and the other boys are watching, waiting for the blood to flow. You take your clothes into the stall and change there from now on. You start to think, maybe both statements are true...

~*~*we're all a liminal place*~*~

北京_93 & 성자 토성

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