Scars, Surviving Molestation (rough draft)

© 2007 Clayton Kinnelon Greiman

 

Cast:

Josh, a young man in his mid-twenties

His uncle Joseph

Josh’s father, age twenty-seven (the age at which he died)

 

Scene:  Nearly bare stage on which a table and three chairs have been placed. 

 

A young man enters; he is in his mid twenties, dressed casually, in jeans.  His hair a bit disheveled. 

 

Josh:  Hi.  I think that’s an appropriate icebreaker when you enter a room full of people you barely know, to whom you are about to relate the most intimate details of your life.  I guess I should start with the basics:  my name is Josh, and I’m twenty-five years of age.

     I have a great deal of hope in the future, both for the world and myself.  But sometimes, it’s hard to hold onto hope; hell, it’s hard to even believe in a future with all that’s occurring in the world.  Planes being crashed into buildings, Matthew Shepard strung to a fence, priests molesting children:  I sometimes don’t want to get out of bed in the morning because I’m afraid of how much worse it’s all going to get. 

     Yet, there is a part of me that believes the world can only delve so far into darkness before it grows sick of its own de-evolution and decides as a collective whole to try and get it right for a change.  For my own sake, I have to believe that the good within each of us can overcome the darkness. 

     You see, I’m real messed up because of what the world has done to me, and I try so hard to do right and to not hurt anyone or myself.  But sometimes, it seems I just can’t help it, no matter how hard I try.            

     To be honest, this is all scaring the hell out of me.  I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to make it through…that I’m going to fall apart before it’s over. 

       But I’ve run from my past long enough, and all that’s left for me is to do this and to try and get on with my life as best I can. 

    

A beat passes as Josh looks down and closes his eyes again, trying to summon an inner strength he isn’t certain he has.  When he lifts his head again, it’s as though he has put on a masque.  His entire demeanor has altered; all the boyish charm has drained from his face; his voice is more somber, and his body is a great deal tenser.

 

     My uncle was buried about a month ago.  People from three counties turned out to mourn for him.  I sat in the back of the church, watching as they each moved in their own turn to the casket.  My uncle’s face was awash with their tears.  All the sins and transgressions of his life were being washed away by a roomful of people who never really knew him, or at least not as I knew him. 

     The preacher said you were a decent man, someone who sat through every Sunday service whether you were sick or full of sorrow.  He said that no matter who was in need in this community, you were always there to help them anyway you could.  I thought maybe I had stumbled into the wrong funeral, that I was at the wake of someone who deserved to be revered with such respect and dignity.

     Uncle Joe, he’s everyman’s hero; he’ s the pillar of this community; he goes to church every Sunday; he’s found salvation and God loves him. 

     I’m sure that’s what they all thought when you said, “Let me be a model Christian and leave my wife’s bed and lie down with my nephew, because his dad just died and he misses him so.”  And they actually fucking let you!  They all consented to it, like they were giving you permission. 

     Fucker, they wept for you, but who the hell ever wept for me?  Who cried over a kid who couldn’t be made happy, who became a teenager who failed in school, who had so much aggression and violence boiling inside of him that he had to be sent to a therapist at the age of 10?  You know, that damn fuck would ask me the same question everyday. ‘Why are you so angry?’ Every goddamn day.  Two hundred dollars an hour, and that was the only original thought that ever emerged from his Harvard-educated brain.

     ‘Because I walk the streets of this town and get called a fag and a queer and get beaten by people whose names I don’t even know, who don’t like me just because I walk a little funny, like I’d been fucked up the ass every night of my life. (uneasy laughter)  Little did they know.  Hell, I should have just told them.   

       Hello, everyone, my name is Joshua Nagle, and my uncle fucked me up the ass from the ages of 9 to fifteen.  Fifteen?  You let it go on that long?  Oh, you must have enjoyed it.  Isn’t that what you’re thinking? 

      But why the fuck am I even justifying myself to any of you?  Why am I in a room full of strangers saying all this shit?  Oh, that’s right…my asinine therapist suggested it.  “Go out there,” he said “and set yourself as an example to others.  Prove there’s nothing to be ashamed of.  Show the world what a survivor of molestation can do with their life.” 

      Let me ask; am I acting like a survivor should?  Do I get an A+ for coping and handling it well?  Have I convinced you that I’m not a monster?  Anyone out here have a blonde five-year old son I could baby-sit tonight?  Would you trust me?  (Turning to an unseen specter in the wings)  Would I trust myself? Why do you keep asking me such questions?  How about if I asked you one:  Where is this getting me?  When do I start to feel like I’m beginning to heal?  Do we sit here all night?  Perhaps until stigmata appears, and I’m led into grace by the Lord Jesus Christ?  I think the audience will flee well before that point. 

slight beat.  When Josh begins speaking again, it is in a remarkably different tone.  Much more calm, gentle, and soft-spoken.  It’s as though he’s become a completely different person.   

What’s that?  You say I’ve succumbed to my rage, that I’m not thinking clearly anymore.  I should start again?  Yes, I think that’s for the best. (His focus shifts back to the audience)         

      I am told that when I was a kid I used to laugh a lot, but the idea of laughter seems so distant now, that I can’t recall why I would have laughed, or even how.  I think it must have been when my dad was alive, because the memories of my time with him are the only good ones I have of my life.

     He was a good man, my dad.  He said he loved me so often that even to this day I can close my eyes and hear him speaking the words.  He would tussle my hair and say that he was proud of me.  It meant everything that my dad was proud of me.

     I wish he were here to say it now.

    He didn’t have it easy, having to raise me on his own.  My mother struggled with cancer for a number of years, and she finally succumbed to the disease when I was four.  Though he tried not to show it, her death was almost unbearable for him.  

     Every night, I would lie down beside him, and I would collect his tears in my hands.  He only cried at night, when he knew I couldn’t see him, because it’s a terrible thing for a boy to know that his father can cry.  But I did know, and I didn’t want him to be sad anymore; so, I prayed to God and I asked Him to make my dad stop crying. 

     God listened.  

     At twenty-seven years of age, my father was killed in a car wreck.  My grief was unspeakable, and even unto this hour it still is.  It can’t be spoken in words, because it wouldn’t sound human.  I’ve been suppressing the pain for all these years, and it’s formed a hollow, dark place inside my soul.  My therapist says that the day will come when I will have to scream and unleash all the anguish.  He says I’ll never be able to move on with my life until I do.

     I’m terrified though of letting go of the tenuous control I have over myself; I’m afraid if I give in to all that I’ve been holding back that I’ll be torn apart by the release.

      I close my eyes, and I can feel the tide of anger, shame, and rage, each an entity unto itself, growing stronger with each passing day.  The tide has a heartbeat, a pulse, a will, which is independent of my own.  It’s going to consume me some day, and there will be nothing left of the person you see standing before you.   

     It’s gotten so that, most nights, I can’t sleep because I want to hit something, someone.  I’m so afraid that I’m going to hurt myself or someone else that I go out and run to try and calm the rage.  I run for miles, trying to outrun my anger, my grief, my shame.  I run until I’ve fallen on the ground from exhaustion, but even then, when I’m struggling for breath, I can still feel the anger eating away at me.  I know that if I don’t find a way to get past this, I’m going to wake up one day, and there’s going to be nothing left of me.  This vast emptiness will have consumed me.

(Very slight beat as another shift occurs, back to the more chaotic personality)  

     My therapist says the primary origin of my rage is my inability to speak about what was done to me.  But do any of you honestly think I can go home to my family and say, ‘Uncle Joe liked his nine year old nephew to talk dirty to him and that his favorite pastime was getting a little boy to lick cum off his fingers while he whispered that it was candy.  How do you think anyone in this town would look at me if I told them that every time that bastard fucked me, he would grip his hand around the back of my neck, like I was a dog who had pissed on the floor, and he would shove my face into a pillow to stop me from screaming.  And if I were lucky, sometimes I would pass out and not feel anything he did to me.

     That’s my truth, but who the hell is going to believe it? 

     There is a strange pause here, as another personality shift occurs.  Josh looks down for a brief moment, then back up again.  He appears bewildered, confused.  When he speaks, his voice has a different, more innocent tone to it.

      I apologize; I’ve lost my place.  (To the unseen specter in the wings)  Where was I?  Oh, I see.  

     (His focus shifts back to the audience).           

     After I lost my dad, I would call out for him in the middle of the night, but it was my uncle who came instead.  When he got into my bed and put his arms around me, I remembered how my dad used to do that when I was scared…and how safe he made me feel.  “Dad!”  “Dad!”  My uncle told me to be quiet; he said that he was going to watch over and protect me.  But then, he started to…(Josh struggles with the words)…touch me…and I called out for my dad so loudly that I woke everyone in the house.  “Dad!  Dad!”

(shifting again)

      Only no one came running, because they all thought my uncle was being a decent man, watching out for a little boy who had lost his father. 

      That’s why they all cried for you, because they believed you were a good man.  You’ve become a saint to anyone who ever knew you, and where the fuck does that leave me?  What do I do now that everyone in this town will be talking unto their last breath about how righteous and good you were?  I’ll go out my fucking mind; that’s what I’ll do.  You went and fucking died, and none of them will ever know what was done to me.            

     I’m standing here, and I’ve got scars that are over a decade old, but they are etched deep inside me where no one can see them.  The thing is though, that I can see them.  They are all dried up and buried beneath layers of scar tissue, which indicates that I am healing from what was done to me.  Only I can’t stand to look at them like that, because it’s a lie.  I’m not healing; the wounds are merely covered. They are a hidden truth from the world.  I have to tear them open so I can see the blood; they have to look raw for me, because that’s how I feel. 

(shifting)

     There are some nights when I wake up, and it’s as though it’s all happened again.  The degrading pain of having been molested tears through me, and I have to clench my teeth to stop from screaming.  Even when I’ve checked to see that the doors are locked five times over, and I know no one can get in to hurt me, I still wake up in the middle of the night, feeling as though I’ve just been raped.  Phantom molestations are what psychologists term the experiences.  I can sum them up in one word, ‘hell’.   

     There is another side effect of my having been molested that’s particularly difficult to talk about.  When my uncle began to molest me, I was nine years old, just on the cusp of puberty.  My molestation continued for six years, traumatizing any normal sexual development I might have known.  An erection became a symbol of shame for me; I took it to mean that on some level I was enjoying the molestation; my uncle even said as much once.  In every intimate encounter I’ve had as an adult, my mind has shut my body down, as I passive form of defense I suppose.

      I feel as though the essence of manhood was taken from me when I was raped, and I don’t know how to reclaim it.

      I have a boyfriend whose name is Jason, and he’s very understanding of my problems.  I don’t know what I’d do without him.  Through everything, he’s stood beside me, though he’s so young, only nineteen, and I wonder sometimes if I’m what’s best for him. 

     (Turning his focus to unseen specter in the wings again) What’s that you say?  I’ve become confused?  Delusional?  Altering truth?  I’ll try to do better; I promise. (His focus returns to the audience)                

     As I said, I’ve been undergoing therapy for all this, but there are some things that just won’t heal.  The phrase ‘irreparable damage’ comes to mind.  There is a part of me that will never be whole again.  The little boy who lived this nightmare is trapped inside of me, and there’s not a lot of hope left for him.  He’s crippled, buried beneath a lot of rubble, still crying out for his dad.

      I talk to him sometimes; I tell him he’s going to be all right, and that I’m going to watch over him and that no one is ever going to hurt him again.  ‘I’ll protect you’, I tell him, but he can’t answer me.  All he can do is cry.  He never stops crying. 

     Sometimes, I take him in my arms, and I hold him, like my dad used to hold me.  I tell him I love him and that he shouldn’t be ashamed…but he is ashamed…he is very ashamed.  I want so much for that boy to be whole again; I want to hear the sound of his laughter; I want him to live and to be happy.  But I don’t know how to breathe life into him any more than I know how to breathe life into myself.  I feel as though the ability to be whole has slipped beyond me.

     I keep thinking that if my dad were still alive that he would know what I should do.  I need him to be here to tell me that I’m going to be all right and for him to say that he’s still proud of me.  (Josh looks down, away from the audience, weighing the consequences of the words he is about to speak).  I can have him with me again.  (Unsteady with the words)  I just close my eyes, open them, and he will be here.  My dad…and he won’t be crying or in pain.  Everything will be right again.  He’ll watch over me, and I’ll be safe…and I’ll watch over him, and he won’t cry anymore.  But it can’t last, can it?    No matter how much I need him to stay with me, the lights are going to go up at some point, and all this is going to be over, and he’s going to be gone.  I’m going to lose my father again, and I don’t know if I can take that a second time. (Long pause)  But I have to do this; I can’t turn back now.          

 

Joshua closes his eyes, and after a few moments of complete stillness, his father enters.  He sees his son, pauses, reacts with telling, silent emotion, and then speaks the name of his son.   Once Joshua hears his father say his name, all the emotion he has been holding down inside of himself begins to pour outward.  He starts to cry, even as his eyes remain closed.  His father moves closer to him and begins to wipe away his tears, at which point Joshua opens his eyes, looks upon his father, and falls into his arms sobbing.  At this point, Joshua has lost control over himself; he finally allows himself to give way to the enormity of his pain and to confront it.  He crumbles to the floor in his father’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.  Joshua’s cries are shattering to hear.  They are the vocalization of all the vast, residual pain of his molestation and the unexpressed grieving over his father’s death.   

     At least a minute should pass before the lights slowly begin to fade, and Joshua’s sobbing is quieted.   The last image before the lights go down is of Joshua lying in his father’s arms, his head resting against his dad’s shoulder.  His father is drifting his fingers through his son’s hair, silent tears falling from both their eyes.   

 

The stage goes dark with that image.     

 

A brief while passes, the lights begin to lift again, and we see Josh kneeling in the center of the stage.  He is alone.  Residual signs of anguish are still present on his face.  A man enters from behind him (just out of the range of Josh’s peripheral vision).   He stares at Josh for a few moments before approaching him.  He kneels beside Josh and speaks.         

     Uncle:  You always cried so beautifully, Joshua.

     Josh’s face changes dramatically the instant he hears his uncle’s voice; it hardens, becomes like a masque of rage.  He continues to stare outward, not having so much as glanced at his uncle, who is now kneeling only inches away from him.   

     After a moment spent silently staring at Joshua, his uncle extends one of his hands in an attempt to wipe away the young man’s.  Josh reacts violently, shoving him to the stage, and hen getting to his feet to stand over his uncle.  Through the course of the next speech, Josh gives in to all the rage that has been building in him for years. 

     Josh:  Not ever again, you son of a bitch!  For too many years, you demoralized me and made me feel as though I wasn’t worthy of even taking breath.    But this is my little corner of the universe now; a place of my own creation, where I’m safe from everyone and everything that would ever do me harm.  And you’re going to lie there on the ground like a beaten dog and listen to what’s been boiling inside of me for the past decade, of what’s been eating away at my insides and slowly killing me for most of my adult life.  I know that you’re dead, and this whole realm is just a construct of my mind, but my own mind is what has been holding be down me for too damn long, and it’s long past time that I took back my life.  This is the end of all this shit; I’m purging myself of you and all the pain that comes with you once and for all….and then I’m moving on, and no one is going to stand in my way, least of all you. 

     You took a boy who had lost his father and you raped him.  You fucking raped him!  Even when he cried and pleaded with you to stop, when he was calling out to his dead father to protect him, you refused.  And I …I (almost choking on the word) wasn’t strong enough to fight you.

     Uncle:  I’ve seen fifteen year olds fight; perhaps you didn’t want to fight.   

     Josh:  Don’t open your fucking mouth!   A fifteen year old can’t fight when his self-confidence is non-existent, when everyone he had ever loved has died, when his fucking uncle has raped him for six years of his life! (pause as he allows the rage to subside) For so long, I lived with such unspeakable guilt and shame, as though I had brought it all upon myself somehow…and I almost destroyed myself because of what you did to me.  But I’m stronger now, and I want you to look at me and see that you didn’t destroy me, that I’m still standing despite all you did to me.  This is my revenge, in just standing here and being whole after so many years of abuse.  And I just realized through all of this, with you being here, that I am whole.  It’s all dissipating:  the rage, the pain, and the hurt.  There’s no more reason to scream or rail at you; it ‘s over and it’s done, and I’ve survived, and I’ll continue to survive.   You can go now; there’s no point in me wasting anymore of my time with you.  (Uncle starts to rise)  I’m alive and content, and you’re dead, just like all the hurt inside of me is going to be.

 

Josh turns his back on his uncle, who stands for a brief moment in silence.

 

Uncle:  You’ve made wonderful progress tonight, Joshua. 

 

Josh:  Why the fuck do you think I care about what my progress means to you?  What part of ‘This is my realm; it’s time for you to get the hell out’ aren’t you comprehending?  You don’t exist here unless I will it.  And I don’t.  So be gone. 

 

‘Uncle’:  It’s time for you to step back into reality, Joshua.  The exercise is over. 

 

Josh:  What the hell are you talking about, man?  I’m telling you to get the fuck out.

 

Josh’s father re-enters

 

‘Father’:  It’s amazing, doctor, what measures the human psyche will take to protect itself from trauma.

 

Josh: (shifting) Dad?

 

‘Uncle’:  He didn’t idealize you this time.

 

Father:  He accepted me even though I wasn’t dressed as a soldier.

 

Uncle:  Very good progress indeed, Joshua.     

 

Josh: Please, dad, just make him go away.  Don’t let him hurt me anymore. 

 

Father:  No one is going to hurt you, Josh.    

 

Josh:  I promise I’ll be good.  (kneeling and starting to unbuckle his father’s belt) I’ll make you proud of me. 

 

Father:  (preventing him/getting Josh to his feet) I am proud of you, Joshua.  We all are.    

 

Josh:  Even Jason?  Is he still proud of me?

 

Uncle:  Why wouldn’t he be? 

 

Josh:  I hurt him, didn’t I? 

 

Uncle:  Make statements of questions to which you already hold an answer.

 

Josh: (shifting) Jason claims I hurt him, doctor.  I remember who you are now, so tonight’s session of ‘mind fuck’ is officially over.  You can lose the erection, daddy dearest.  Getting me on my knees just made you all excited, didn’t it?   

 

Uncle:  Then I take it you didn’t hurt him? 

 

Josh:  Come on, man, how the fuck do you rape your boyfriend?  ‘Rape’ ‘Boyfriend’ The two words just aren’t synonymous with one another. 

 

Uncle:  He said ‘no’; you turned violent, roughed him up a bit, and then forcefully penetrated him.

 

Josh:  And once I got inside, he lay still like a good little boyfriend should, and he enjoyed it.

 

Uncle:  In the police report he stated that you took him by the back of his neck and shoved his face into a pillow until he had fallen unconscious.  That’s what we call being a victim, not a good boyfriend.    

 

Josh:  We role-played in the bedroom.  He liked being submissive.  I just took it a bit far that night.  Fucking pussy passed right out on me. 

 

Father:  Will the circle be unbroken, indeed. 

 

Josh:  Don’t even fucking go there.  You can’t even begin to compare what I did to Jason to what my uncle did to me.    

 

Uncle:  The scenarios sound remarkably similar.  Unconditional love lain to waste by sexual violence.

 

Josh:  What the fuck would someone who looks like you know about either love or sex? 

 

Uncle:  You think you have all the answers.

 

Josh:  I know I have all the answers; it’s the others who don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on.  I should be the one running this show 24/7; it shouldn’t be some goddamn sissy who starts crying every time you mention his dead daddy’s name.           

 

Uncle:  You’re the personality that’s furthest from the pain, and thus furthest from the truth.  I have no doubt that if we introduced you to a bit of undiluted reality you’d all but crumble in the face of it. 

 

Josh:  Go ahead, mother fucker; shoot.

 

Uncle:  What are your thoughts on your father?

 

Josh:  Have no recollection of the man whatsoever.

 

Father:  And why do you think that is? 

 

Josh:  Man’s not a memorable son of a bitch I suppose. 

 

Uncle:  So that means you could imagine him in any light you saw fit.

 

Josh:  I don’t imagine the bastard to be anything; him being dead helps facilitate that quite a bit.

 

Uncle:  Very convenient, don’t you think?  To not remember him at all?

 

Josh:  I’m a grown man.  I don’t need my father for a fucking thing.

Uncle:  I see this line of questioning isn’t getting us anywhere.  Let’s try another approach.  You enjoyed raping Jason, didn’t you?

Josh:  I told you, man, I didn’t rape him; what we had was consensual sex. 

 

Uncle:  Whatever you want to call the act, you enjoyed it nonetheless?

Josh:  Hell yes. 

 

Uncle:   Dominating him made you feel powerful, didn’t it.

 

Josh:  It was a real rush, man. 

 

Father:  What would your father say if he heard you say something like that? 

 

Josh:  What part of ‘car go boom’ aren’t you grasping?

 

Uncle:  I think he’d be very proud of you.  You’re just like him, you know.

 

Josh:  And how would you know anything about my father?

Uncle:  Because we’ve spoken with him.

 

Josh:  Playing with ouija boards are we, doctor?  Your Psych 101 class at Harvard must have been taught by quite the liberal.

 

Father:  We didn’t need to consult with the dead; your father is very much alive.  He’s serving time in a maximum-security prison for being a serial pedophile. 

 

Uncle:  It’s time to face the truth, Joshua. 

 

Josh:  What the hell kind of truth are you talking about?

 

Uncle:  The truth that it was your father, and not your uncle, who molested you.

 

Josh: (shifting) What did you just say?

 

Father:  Your father was…and is…a very sick man, Joshua.

 

Josh:  No, you have the wrong person.  My father is dead. 

 

Uncle:  Joshua, listen to me; this is the one time you can’t delve into self-denial.  You know deep inside why you are here.  If you keep denying there is something wrong, we can’t begin to help you. 

 

Josh:  I want to go home; please, just let me go home. 

 

Father:  Joshua…

 

Josh:  I won’t hurt anybody again, I swear.  Haven’t I been through enough?  Please, I just want to go home. 

 

Uncle:  Josh, I want you to think about Jason for just a minute.   You love Jason don’t you?

Josh:  Yes.

 

Uncle:  And you never want to hurt him again, do you?

Josh:  No. 

 

Uncle:   Then you have to allow us to help you get well.  I need for you to say something for me, Joshua.  I need for you to say, “My father molested me.”

 

Josh:  I can’t; it’s not true.  My father protected me; he would never let anyone hurt me.  He was a good man, my dad, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you speak these lies about him.  

 

Uncle:  Joshua…

 

Josh:  Don’t you understand?  I was all he had after my mother died.  He cried every night for her; I felt his tears on my hands.

 

Father:  It was your uncle who was crying over you, Josh; they were his tears you felt running down your face.

 

Josh:  No…he got into my bed at night; he put his arms around me….

 

Father:  And he cried for what his brother had done to you.    

 

Josh: (not listening) And then he started to touch me.

 

Father:  No, Josh. 

 

Josh:  And I cried out for my dad, because I wanted him to come back to me.

(Suddenly turning to the younger doctor who had been acting out the role of his father in the earlier therapy session).  Why did you leave me?  Why did you let them take you away from me?

Father:  Josh, I’m not…

 

Uncle:  No, you must let him believe it.

 

Josh:  I loved you so much.  You were all I had in this world.  Why did you leave me?  Didn’t I make you proud of me?  Please, don’t leave me again; I promise I’ll make you proud of me this time.

 

Uncle:  Show him, Joshua, how you’ll make him proud. 

 

He once again kneels down and begins to unbuckle the young doctor’s belt.  Once this is done, he starts to unzip the young doctor’s pants, but suddenly stops.  The memories of his molestation by his father are taking hold of him for the first time in his adult life. 

 

Uncle:  Go ahead, Joshua, make him proud just like when you were a little boy.   

 

Josh: (realizing the truth) Oh God. He breaks down and begins to sob uncontrollably.

 

Uncle:  Josh, I know this is difficult, but you have to focus. 

 

Josh:  My father raped me.  

 

Uncle:  This isn’t the first time we have been here in this moment; you have learned of this before, innumerable times.  You keep dissociating from it, suppressing the truth, burying yourself deeper away from the pain.  (taking Josh by the shoulders) Listen to me, Joshua, you’re slowly killing yourself; if you don’t focus now in this moment, we’re going to lose you forever.  One of the others is growing stronger; he’s becoming the dominant personality.

 

Josh:  Please, just let me go.

 

Uncle:  God damn it, boy, fight!

 

Father:  Think of Jason and how much he wants for you to be well again. 

 

Josh:  Jason?  Where is he?  Why isn’t he here?  He left me, didn’t he?  He never loved me. 

 

Uncle:  Joshua, stop; turn away from that path.  Jason wasn’t the one at fault.  He was the one person who loved you…but in the end you gave up on yourself; you let something loose from inside of you, and that thing raped and assaulted him.

 

Josh:  No.

 

Uncle:  Stop hiding from these truths.  You’ve become an addict; you close your eyes and surrender whenever reality becomes uncomfortable for you.   If you’ve become unwilling to fight this thing inside of you, then I’m going to give up on you as well.  It can have you for all I care.  Josh, you have been in this institution for two years, and we’ve waged this battle time and time again.  If you don’t make an effort to take back your life in this instance, then this fight for integration is at its end.

 

Beat passes as Joshua looks the elder doctor in the eye.

 

Josh: (having shifted, his voice icily calm) Have you ever stopped to consider the reason for your persistent lack of progress in my case is that you are trying to make a secondary alter the dominant personality?

 

Father:  It’s too late; we’ve lost him again.

 

Josh:  No, actually you’ve found him.  The top dog.  The leader of the pack.  The king of the jungle.  So many animal analogies, so little time.

 

Uncle:  (standing) We’re done here; If you don’t want to help yourself, I’m not going to intervene on your behalf.  Come on, doctor.  He and the younger doctor start to exit.

 

Josh:  My father raped me.

 

The doctors turn back with the speaking of this line.

 

Josh:  Isn’t that the truth for which you were searching?  Well, you see, I’ve known it all along.  I’ve just been playing with your minds these past couple of years.  You wouldn’t believe how bored a guy gets in a padded cell with no lube of any kind.  Fucking with your heads was the best masturbation exercise I could invent.  But I’ve been holding back, waiting for just the right moment to blow my load right into your mother fucking, disbelieving faces.  So, my father raped me, yes I know, for the Bible tells me so.  And let me tell you something else; I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Yes, that’s right; I was an active participant in my own ‘molestation’. 

     There we were, the two of us having the best sex of our lives, when daddy dearest gets greedy and commences to bang some of the other neighborhood kids.  Tragic thing is, he didn’t even invite me along for any threesomes.  But I digress.  To make a long story short, daddy got caught by the po-po and was shipped off to the state pen.  Shortly thereafter, my saintly uncle Joe took me in as his ward. 

     Now, being brothers and all, dad and Joe looked a lot alike…and I was mighty lonely without dear old dad around to pleasure me.  So, I thought what had been good for him would be good for Uncle Joe as well. 

     He worked a graveyard shift and got home around nine each morning.  Completely exhausted, he went into the bedroom, took off his pants and shirt, and fell asleep atop the blankets, on his back, his legs spread wide in a fashion that I took to be an invitation. 

     One fateful day, I feigned sick and stayed home from school.  Once my aunt’s homely ass had left the house, I got up and quietly opened the door to my uncle’s bedroom.  I crept over to his bedside and began to fondle him.  When he started to get hard, he woke up bolt upright, like no one had ever touched him before in his life.   His eyes met mine, and I’ll never forget the look he gave me.  It was full of such shame and incomprehension that I immediately began to cry.  “You should be ashamed of yourself.  Get out of this room!” is what he screamed at me.

     Fear was coursing through me so strongly that I was literally shaking from it.  All I could think to do was to leap from the bed and to crawl beneath it.  I remember saying out loud, “This is just a dream; go back to sleep.” Over and over I repeated those words, as though my speaking them could somehow alter reality and make my uncle forget what I had done.   

      I remained beneath the bed for a long while as an immense tide of warring emotion washed over me.  The shame of having touched my uncle doubled in upon itself and merged with the memories of the intimacy I had shared with my father.  I had loved my dad so very much, and I hadn’t realized there was any wrong in what we had shared. 

     But in a split second my uncle had altered that mindset; he had filled my thoughts with an unspeakable shame.  The trauma of that shame caused an irrevocable shift in my psyche.  In some great cosmic act of revenge, a part of my mind locked onto the untruth that it was my uncle and not my father who had molested me  

     At that point in time, I hated my life.  My father had been taken from me, and I felt trapped.  So, I closed my eyes and I just let go.  A frightened and confused child took over; never really stable that one, a real crier.  He didn’t last long; a kid caught beneath a ton of rubble can only breathe so long.  Another, more stable personality soon emerged, basically the one you’ve been trying to make dominant these past few years, but he was still under the delusion that his uncle molested him.  He could never grasp hold of his dear old dad being anything other than a soldier who lost his life in a car wreck at an early age. 

      A real dreamer to be sure.  What an imagination.  Strong fucker too.  I could only break through to reclaim my life on a few occasions, just long enough to mess up his life a little bit.  He had a temper he could never understand; that was me, trying to claw my way through his flesh and take back what was rightfully mine.  He tried so hard to be decent, even got himself a little blonde-haired boyfriend named Jason.  I hated the son of a bitch.  He was all moody and shit; got on my last goddamn nerve.  But he was a damn good lay, a real whore that one.  He made it easy for me to climb to the surface; you see, he liked rough sex, and the other just couldn’t give it to him.  The man he had fallen in love with was a romantic mass of idiocy and pretty words, but I was what that goddamned boy hungered for. 

       One night, the two of them are making out when that blonde-haired fucker tells his fey boyfriend to get rough and to fuck him hard.  And sweet, innocent, Josh, who could barely even get an erection, loses it and starts to cry.  The man he’s in love with has basically just confessed to wanting the part of him that he rages against on a daily basis.  I took advantage of this unforeseen development and punched through to the surface.  And what I did next is the stuff of sadomasochist legend. 

     I gave that blonde-haired fucker just what he had asked for, the roughest, most brutal fuck of his life.  Of course, after it was over, and he had regained consciousness, I told him exactly what I thought of him.  You know, the standard post-coital stuff, calling him a mother-fucking whore, a nicely pre-packaged AIDS victim, and I perhaps mentioned that he should just blow his fucking brains out because there wasn’t really any point to his existence that justified his taking breath.  I guess a little bit of me went a long way, because in his resulting anger, the bastard went to the police and claimed I had raped him. 

      So, to sum up this run-on soliloquy, I have spent the last two years of my life imprisoned here for the crime of fulfilling the sexual fantasy of a horny, sadomasochistic nineteen year old.                      

 

Uncle:  No, you are here, Joshua, because you are mentally ill, and are in need of rehabilitation.

 

Josh:  No, I was here because I was mentally ill, and I was in need of rehabilitation.  Notice my use of the word ‘was’, as in past tense, three times over.  Congratulations, doc, you’ve done it; you’ve cured me.    I’m integrated.  I’m a whole man now, no more warring voices inside my head.  You’ve driven them out like a modern day exorcist.  Come on, doc, I could be your poster boy.   You and I could travel the country with pretty boy Pete, who’s standing over there in shock, like a frat boy who’s woken up after a drunken night only to find a dick up his ass and another guy’s load sticking to his teeth.  We could call it the “I was nuts, but now I’m not” tour. 

 

Uncle:  I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, Joshua.  I don’t foresee you being released from this facility in the near future.

 

Josh:  What the hell do you mean?  I’m cured; you’ve integrated me.  I’m not a threat to society anymore.

 

Uncle:  I beg to differ.  You are a convicted rapist.  We can’t just release you of your own recognizance.

 

Josh:  I told you I just gave the bastard what he wanted.

 

Uncle:  You pleaded no contest to the charge.

 

Josh:  No, you got it wrong, that wasn’t me.  That was some guilt-ridden alter who confessed.  Poor bastard was traumatized; he didn’t know what he was saying.  

 

Uncle:  Regardless of that, should it indeed be true, it is quite obvious you are not yet fit to be a productive member of society. 

 

Josh:  And you’re to be the judge of my being fit?  Must be a real fucking power trip, holding the power over another individual’s liberty.  Will you go home and jack off to thoughts of confining me in this hellhole?

 

Uncle:  What you deem a ‘hellhole’, I refer to as a psychiatric rehabilitation facility. 

 

Josh:  And I haven’t been ‘rehabilitated’ to your standards, correct?

 

Uncle:  You have a very long road ahead of you, Joshua. 

 

Josh:  But my road would have just about ended tonight had I come out the way you imagined I should?

 

Uncle:  I’m certain I don’t know what you mean. 

 

Josh:  You and I both know damn well what it is I mean.  I emerged from your two-year mind fuck session as the antithesis of who you imagined I should be.  I shattered your god complex tonight when I spoke the first of many four-letter words.  A hell-raising son of a bitch slipped out of the imaginary cunt in front of you, when all you were hoping for was the birth of a saint.  You tried to breathe life into some unnatural fragment of my personality, and it all came back to bite you in the ass. 

 

Uncle:  I only want what is best for you, Joshua.

 

Josh:  So says the molester to the molested.  So said my father the first time he slipped his cock up my ass without lube. 

 

Uncle:  By your own admission, you rather enjoyed the experience.

 

Father:  Doctor…

 

Josh:  No, ‘dad’, don’t interject; let the bastard show his true nature.  I got to admit, Doc, that stung a bit.  A real low blow, that one.  It’s going to take some getting used to, this whole having a soul deal.  And if it’s one thing I know right now, it’s that I’ve got one, and it’s shaping up to be a whole lot more decent than the shriveled piece you’re packing.  I’ve been through a hell of a lot in my life, but your attempt to spiritually sanitize me just about tops the list of all the shit I’ve encountered.  But you want to know something, you sick bastard?  I’m still standing.  And I’m going to keep standing.  Fucks like you have been trying to hold me down my whole life, and not one of you has gotten the better of me yet. 

 

Uncle:  I wouldn’t have it any other way, Joshua.  The longer you stand, the longer I can continue to help you. 

 

Josh:  How?  By having me kneel between the good doctor’s legs and undoing his pants for two more years?  (to father) Let me ask you a question, pretty boy Pete, did you feel comfortable engaging in that line of therapy?

 

Father:  It’s not my place to evaluate…

 

Josh:  Never mind, I momentarily forget free will isn’t permitted in this place.  Let me answer for you.  You see, now that I’m integrated, I can look back through the eyes of that scared young man who was down on his knees in front of another man, namely you, whom he believed to be his father.  And I’m staring up while I’m unbuckling your belt, and I’m seeing a look of apprehension on your face.  It’s a look of  “How far is the good doctor going to let this progress?  Will this fag who’s kneeling on the ground, actually get my cock in his mouth before the sup