I do not own Carnivale.

I do not want to.

Ben and The Old Man

Ben and The Old Man

He wanted to tear him apart.

There under the dry, hot, hateful sun.

Smash his wrinkled, fawning face with his cracked, calloused fists.

Punch and punch and hit and hit until there was nothing left but red smears and fleshy pulp in the hateful, dry dust that had killed his mama and killed the land.

Spit into the beaten, bloody mush and kick the miserable, crooked corpse.

You piece of shit.

She's a human, for god's sake.

Instead Ben Hawkins took everything murking inside the poor, feeble girl.

All her dull shame and confusion and pain and misery.

And poured it into the sick, old man.

Every single bit.

Made him feel it.

All of it.

Filled him right up with it.

All the way to the top.

So he would know.

So he would feel.

So he would suffer what she had suffered.

If only for a few full seconds.

What he had been doing to her for over a year.

You maggot.

She's not a thing, you piece of shit.

She's a human being.

A feeling person.

Whether she can say or cain't.

And then, because it made him sick to death to be near him, look at him, touch him, . . .

But this is important, goddammit.

. . . Ben Hawkins let him go.

The old man, the filthy old bastard, whimpered, sniveled.

"I'm sorry."

Yeah, you better be sorry, you dirty old son of a bitch.

How many? How many had this bilious, twisted, old rot turned loose on his innocent, simple granddaughter?

Six?

Ten?

Twenty?

Too many.

Even one had been too many.

The first.

Him.

Her own flesh and blood.

You don't deserve to live.

Foul slick taste sickening his mouth and soul, Ben Hawkins flatted out the two dollar bill the old pig prick had solicited . . .

Buy her food. Feed her proper and good, you piece of shit.

. . . into the old man's shirt pocket.

"Don't do that no more."

Hate and disgust oiling up his insides.

May God have mercy on your soul.

I sure as shit don't.

"No. I won't," the mewling worm whined. "Ever again."

He wanted to smash his face in, beat him into the dust.

But he was about all the girl had in the whole sorry world.

Without him, she would surely starve and die.

And he had opened the man's eye, his inner eye, his heart.

And every man had . . .

I ever find out you started up again . . .

. . . to make his own choices in life.

. . . I'll come back here and beat you to death.

Just like Ben.

I can promise you that.

I hated that old man. I loved Ben. And I wanted to hug that girl and give her a safe, cared-for life.

And I still do.

Thanks for reading.

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