RJ was an ususually large child for his age, and grew to be an exeptionally large adult. His first memories were of perfumed, soft hugs and crooning female voices. He played with his mother's 'friends' and their children, and then his brother Otto grew enough to run and play with him. His mother, a very young woman to have two children already, was the most beautiful woman in the world to him, plus she was a great cook.
An introspective child, he watched everything and everyone with quiet interest and curiosity. He noticed a certain man who seemed to have an interest in his mother, and what caught his attention was the fact he was a clown. A large, blustery, foull-mouthed one.
"RJ, you go next door and play awhile," Eve, his mother, tells him one day. "Take yer brother with you."
"Yeah, me an' yer ma got some things to talk about, heh heh," says the clown, who'd told the boy before his name was Johnny. RJ felt it was a strange name for a clown, but then the man was rather strange. Shrugging, he leads his deformed younger brother Otto outside.
The pair played tag with some of the neighbor kids until some of the older children came along. "Well, if'n it ain't the Giant Twins," sneered one boy. It wasn't that far off the mark if a bit mean-spirited--the brothers were outlandishly oversized. Otto, who some had already taken to calling Tiny, was much ganglier than the older RJ but they both towered over the other children. Otto also had been horribly burned and scarred, giving him a scary, unsettling appearance.
"Whatsamatter, Ogre, got nuthin to say," jeers another pubescent boy. Rufus just scowls but says nothing; he'd never fathomed the animosity his mother's lifestyle created in others.
"His mama's the town slut," says an older girl, twirling her braided pigtails idly. "Ain't that right, whoreson?"
RJ didn't completely understand the whole thing but knew it had something to do with all the guests his mama 'entertained'. Finally, the wheels in his mind having turned a while, he said "I don't see how you can talk, Sue, I saw yer momma doin with the milkman the same thing mine does, but didn't even get no money or cigarrettes for it."
The girl blanched and closed her mouth with an audible snap. "Freaks," she mutters.
Then RJ turned to one of the youngsters who'd taunted him about not having a daddy and snarled, "Yeah, I don' know who my pa is, but you know who yours is. An 'tween the choices I'm glad ta be in my situation."
"You take that back," the boy hollers with fist clenched. Unwisely he stepped toward Rufus, who despite being not quite seven years old was already bigger than the 13-year-old.
Otto put a long arm around RJ's shoulders and shook his head.
"Seems the retard don' want ya ta fight," taunts the boy. "Sons of a dirty whore!" In response the affronted Rufus dove on him like a football player and began pounding his head in the dirt. Patched overalls of both combatants ripped, dust flew and shouts raised.
"Fight! Fight! Fight," chanted the other children.
Eve came running out of the small house hastily throwing a sheer lacy wrap around herself. "RJ," she called to him. "Rufus, stop it!" She pushed the surrounding youngsters aside and grasped her son's already-muscular arm. "That's enough, darlin," she pulls him off the now barely-conscious bully. She glares pointedly at the troublemakers with her piercing eyes who shrank visibly from her steely gaze. Rufus, shaking, buries his dark crew-cut head in his mother's ample bosom. She was sweaty and breathing hard from her exertions with Johnny but still smelled of powder and cheap cosmetics. It was comforting so he allowed Eve to lead him and Otto back in the house.
"Poor RJ," she soothes. "You feel things more than most, don't ya sweetie. Don't you pay those nitwits no mind. "Hey," she says, rubbing his short dark hair. "Yer ma's gonna be a respectable woman soon. I'm a-getting married!"
"M-married," he spoke hopefully.
"Yeah, and you an' Baby Boy will have a daddy."
"Who's gonna be my pa," Rufus asks, bewildered.
"I am, son," chuckles the big clown, entering the room and tucking his shirt in his pants. Most of the greasepaint had worn off, revealing craggy, tanned features and a stubbly beard. "Whut, you think I ain't man enough for yore ma?"
"This is it," declared Eve Johns formerly Wilson, helping her sons out of the truck cab. What greeted them was a vast farmstead, the centerpiece an old three-story farmhouse sprawling like some vast dead creature, surrounded by a wooden picket fence, white paint peeling off it. RJ was happy at the prospect of all that room to roam and play in. He was a bit excited and scared at this major change in his life.
"Looks like a pile o' crap," observed a slight middle-aged man as he scrambled out of the pickup, his salt-and-pepper hair bushed out and stirring in the morning breeze. At the woman's exasperated expression he amended, "At least this character's made an honest woman outta yew. Take ya to the nightclub I performed at, next thing I know yer knocked up. Twice! Bout time you got hitched, ya backwards-ass. Yore supposed to get married then start havin the brats."
"Daddy, watch yore mouth in front o' the younguns," she admonishes. The man scoffs then starts unloading suitcases from the truck.
The new bridegroom hailed them from the porch. "Heyy, Johnny Lee," calls his bride happily, lugging a stuffed bag towards him.
"Rufus Wilson," called the teacher's voice.
"Yes Missus Hinman," answered the boy, snapping to attention.
Sighing, she asks him if he knows the answer to 14 plus 32. "Ahhh...47," he says.
"Close, but incorrect. The answer is 46. Stop daydreaming, Rufus." Mrs. Hinman worked on ignoring the reputation the boy's family had and the town gossip--she just wanted her students to do their schoolwork and learn things that would help them later in life.
Rufus didn't see the point of school other than tormenting children like him. He glanced over at the children in the corner doing the higher-grade studies in the one-room schoolhouse and allowed a small smile of self-satisfaction. Bobby's battered face was heavily contused, plus he had the shame of being beaten by a child half his age.
RJ walked the half mile home, kicking sullenly at the gravel. "RJ, back from school," called his mother. He answered in the affirmative. "How was it," she asked as he entered the spacious kitchen. "What did you learn today?"
"I learned I hate school," the boy replied sourly.
"Ah, surely it wasn't THAT bad," Eve asked while stirring the potatoes in the frying pan. Her thick blonde hair was tied up in a tight bun like the old ladies tended to do, but her thin blouse with no bra (which hid nothing) definately took her out of the little old lady category.
"School is dumb."
Johnny emerged from the back door, having turned the cows into the lower field to pasture. "Johnny, RJ says school is dumb," complains Eve, turning the pork chops.
"Aww, who needs it? I got lotsa interestin books to look at, ones more fun than them borin' ol' textbooks. C'mere." His stepfather leads him to one of his stack of books and tells the wonder-filled RJ he can look through them. They were about deformities, freaks, sexual deviance and serial killers. Much better than arithmetic!
"Johnny Lee, yer just makin things more difficult for me. I ain't gonna be able to teach these boys nuthin," she scolds her husband.
Time passed and the big clown came to love his wife's strange sons as his own, and after some initial hesitation they in turn began to trust him. Eve also grew heavy with another child, on that this time was a product of a legitimate marriage. RJ didn't quite know what the think of this new development. His mother got cranky and tired easily, plus her expanding stomach was disconcerting. He wondered if Johnny would stop caring about him and Baby Boy when the baby got there.
Mrs. Johns was actually dressing like the other ladies in Ruggsville county, having discovered that her negliges and corsets no longer fit her bulging middle. She was knitting in her rocking chair on the porch wearing a cotton dress that hung straight from the shoulders like most dresses of that time. Indeed, she appeared most respectable, and the taunts RJ recieved daily had mostly subsided.
RJ ran outside to find Tiny, who was working on the 'fort' they'd started which was made of planks and scraps of wood. Maybe if the baby is another boy he could help with it when he got big enough.
"Whatchoo younguns up to," Hugo asked them bemusedly.
"We're makin a fort," RJ replied. Otto nodded his head enthusiastically. Both were dressed in heavily patched jeans and threadbare flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up--keeping clothes on the growing giants was a herculean task.
"Now that sounds like fun," the older man says indulgently. No matter how he let on he had real affection for his daughter's bastard offspring.
"Johnny! Daddy," Eve called out suddenly. Hugo rushed to the porch to see her clutching her middle. "I believe it's time," she tells him. When confronted with the news Johnny starts running about all excited.
"Dammit, ain't nothin ta shit yore britches about--she's done this twice already," growls Hugo, who didn't see what all the fuss is about. He herds the expectant parents upstairs. The two brothers, forgotten for the time being, wait at the bottom of the stairs until their grampa returns to tell them he's fetching the midwife. He was in the pickup then gone, leaving Eve breathing and groaning, Johnny anxiously beside her.
After a while Rufus grew tired of waiting and went to peer at his stepfather's books. Hugo soon returned with midwife in tow, an elderly spinster named Marnie Watkins. Wasting no time and with practiced ease she headed directly to the woman in childbirth.
"No I ain't leavin," Johnny could be heard saying from downstairs. "My seed's gonna be comin outta there soon an' I wanna see!"
All this made Rufus nervous who restlessly went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. Tiny followed him, silent as ever. He was used to his giant brother's mute condition. He could usually tell what he was thinking so it didn't matter anyway. Rufus was also teaching him how to read and write since he couldn't go to regular school.
RJ was stealing cookies out of the jar like he knew he wasn't supposed to when a lusty infant's cry rang out, cutting through the air. Rufus dashed upstairs, his curiosity killing him. Marnie was tying off the umbilical cord as the father observed, entranced and speechless. The midwife cleaned the baby up and handed the squirming bundle to Eve. She wore an exhausted but content expression, a blissful smile spreading across her beautiful face. She noticed RJ and Otto in the room and beckoned them to come closer. The coppery smell of blood and sweat permeated the air as he approached. Otto stayed behind him. He leaned over and beheld a round head topped with a fluff of near-white hair.
"Why, she looks just like you," marvelled Johnny. A girl, thought RJ, a bit disappointed.
"That means she's lucky," came the midwife's snide comment.
"Nobody asked you or yer broken old box any damn thing," retorted the man.
"Johnny," Eve warned.
"What're you gonna name her," he asked then.
"Vera-Ellen. Our baby girl," she cooed.
Many months and soiled diapers later they all grew used to having the little high-pitched wailer in the house. RJ peered down at the infant girl in her crib gurgling and moving her arms and legs, intelligent eyes focusing on him. She smiled in recognition, causing an involuntary smile from her older half-brother. Hmmph. Maybe it won't be so bad when she grows some, he thought. He won't be helping dress her dolls though--he drew the line at that.
Man, he was bored. He wondered what his mother and Johnny was up to. "Ma," he spoke, checking her room. Empty. Maybe they were downstairs with the clown's growing collection of oddities. The boy clopped down the stairs till he reached the bottom level and halted when he heard raised voices through the door.
"Get on the fuckin mattress," Johnny's voice bellowed.
"Goody-goody bitch, you gonna eat my pussy," he could hear his mother saying.
Rufus pushed the door open and what greeted him was a shock beyond anything he could've imagined. Eve was standing in an open robe with nothing on under it, her near-naked husband besider her. Kneeling before thme covered with cuts and bruisews was a girl he recognized--Amy, a teenager who worked at the burger joint in town. Her and her mother were always talking shit about his family and trying to start trouble. Well, now it seemed trouble had found Amy Standish. Johnny was holding a long knife against her throat and she was nude but for a pair of panties. He hands were tied behind her back, young round breasts jutting out before her.
RJ was horrified and entranced. He'd always wished for the huss to come to a bad end but this rather disturbed him.
"Oh, RJ," his mother sighed.
"I thought you was playin outside," growled the clown. Amy moaned behind her gag, her terrified eyes pleading. RJ recalled the awful things she said to him and his brother, and getting in cars with this boy and that boy yet acting holier-than-thou and hardened his heart. "Are yew gonna kill her," he asked.
"Rufus, sweetie, go back outside," suggested Eve, stepping towards him.
"No! I wanna watch," he pleaded. "I hate her. She deserves to die." He didn't know the word hypocrite yet, but he would've used it if he did. The girl vigorously shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
He stood there and took it all in--his mother and stepfather sexually abused Miss Standish and then stabbed her until she moved no more. All RJ could think was, maybe there is justice in the world after all. He helped roll her battered corpse into the pond on their property. He loved and trusted his mother and stepfather implicitly.
He felt like he'd been initiated. Like he'd achieved enlightenment.