Tarnished
An introduction to a Beni Teeter fiction
It was the wet, copper spot that drew me. Crouched in front of the box on my doorstep, it stood nearly as tall as me. Then again, I just turned six and I’m petite for my age. The box would not have commanded my attention had it not been for the discoloration on the bottom right corner.
It was my birthday, so a box on the stoop was not entirely out of the question. Daddy liked funny games of that nature.
However, it was the penny-sized blotch that foretold there would be no fixing this. This was no gift. It was a challenge. Tag, you’re it.
I reached for the stain without actually touching it and knew at once there would be no healing the injuries inflicted once I looked inside. I stared at the boring cardboard container, aware of the change it signified — a separation of sorts. My stomach squeezed, but the chocolate cake I ate earlier stayed down.
Most may expect a child harboring such peculiarities as I would possess a significantly more stalwart disposition. This is not the case. Rather I am rendered more sensitive by the gifts and feel acutely the suffering and pain of others — particularly animals.
It was such suffering I felt now, as it came off the box in waves. I plopped down on my bottom in front of the box and pulled it to my chest in an embrace, instinctively avoiding the discoloration. Overwhelming helplessness and frustration grappled with my self-control. Nothing in my six years or in my unique qualities, prepared me for the likes of the three boys.
I couldn’t bear to see the contents, yet I was driven to do exactly that. Morbid fascination? No. The change is necessary — imperative.
I thought of Momma reading from Corinthians: ‘For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.’
Certainly, a hurt of this intensity would produce physical scars across one’s heart. I began to cry. Softly at first, then turning to great hiccupping sobs as the depth of my frustration fully registered. Anger loomed as I adjusted to the unfamiliar sensation of helplessness.
Momma and Daddy heard my cries, and I could feel the vibration of their hurried footsteps heading for the front door.
Strong arms lifted me from the stoop and held me tight. Daddy’s head rested gently against my sodden cheek, and Momma gently caressed my back. Neither of my parents acknowledged the brown box at their feet. Perhaps they surmised the obscene nature of the contents and made no move to investigate.
Behind my tears, something shifted — and the inner light I was accustomed to, dimmed. Energy glittered, and the tears slowly gave way to this unfamiliar, tenebrous notion.
This sensation was new to me, and I looked down at the discoloration on the box and felt it flare in response — a flame meeting gasoline fumes for the first time.
The tears stopped, and Daddy set me down. Concern washed the colour from his cheeks, and he knelt before me.
Momma scooped up the box and carried it to the porch swing. My eyes followed the discoloration that told me all I needed to know. With her back to us, she opened the lid. She closed it quickly and stood erect, her slender shoulders taut, and she stared straight ahead for several moments.
She turned back to us and blinked rapidly, the tendons of her neck stood out, and her lips formed a thin line.
It was a look that rarely darkened Momma’s pretty face.
“Did you look, Beni?”
“No Ma’am.”
“Then how — “ She stopped and shook her head, catching her error. “Of course.” She came back across the stoop and hugged me hard. “Gerald, you’ll need to — “
“No,” I wailed. “Please.”
Bernhard wasn’t my dog, he was Arden’s pet — therefore, he was also a friend. I walked to the box. Arden had suffered immeasurable losses at the hands of Sean Smythe, Todd Jenkins, and Scotty Ripley. This was one more heaped onto the horrors they had already rested upon her. In saving Bernhard from the heathen trio’s first attack, one he endured as a result of trying to protect her, I had sealed his fate.
I stepped closer and opened the lid. This was my fault.
“Beni, no,” Momma said. She stepped forward and slammed the lid shut. “I forbid it.”
“They watched me bring him back that day by the river, but this time they made sure I couldn’t help him,” I cried.
I tried to keep my composure and show mastery of my emotions, but my chin quivered, and my voice cracked. I looked at the discoloration.
Tentacles of anger slithered and coiled. Was this something from within or the rage Bernhard felt in his final moments, I turned my eyes to the horizon looking for peace. The exact spot where the clear blue sky met the endless golden fields. This serene image always calmed me — until now.
Now I recognized how terrible people could be. The change was happening.
I sat that way for several long moments as clouds gathered in the expanse of clear blue. Today the big sky only detailed the contrast between tranquil nature and the envenomed actions of the three Godless fiends.
They thought my healing Bernhard was unnatural. Yet, the healing game I played was borne of nature — beautiful and restoring — a recalibration of balance. It was their conduct that was unnatural. They were abominations, and the earth must be freed of their sort in the same manner a blight must be eradicated from the orchard.
I considered that and remained mesmerized by the cloud formation growing at an alarming rate on the horizon.
I thought of Bernhard’s doggy smile directed at Arden as they walked the main together, his beautiful tail wagging. I considered Arden’s suffering when she learned of Bernhard’s fate. Distant thunder heralded a low warning.
I saw from my peripheral vision that Momma and Daddy turned to the horizon and exchanged looks of alarm.
“Beni, maybe we should — “
“He tried to save her,” I said.
Black clouds now roiled angrily in the sky above — no longer on the horizon — but overhead and lit from within with angry flashes.
“Beni, we need — “
I touched the box at the discoloration. As though having touched a metaphysical live wire, Bernhard’s pain flashed through me, releasing an agonizing howl. A sound unrecognizable as human filled the air.
The flame touched the gas fumes and roared to life, igniting everything in its path — an inferno with no place to go. The pressure rose.
The inhuman howl mingled with a crack of thunder that rattled the house on its foundation. A jagged flash of lightning cleaved the blackened sky. Then another. Then another, each more violent than the last and each fork ending abruptly above the Ripley homestead as though each strike a celestial finger pointing out blame.
Another thunderous crash shook the earth on the heels of the three successive forks. Three bolts in total, each jagged, sizzling slash eerily identical to the one before, all lit up the sky above the ramshackle farm and the unholy cretins that took refuge there.
The top of the Ripley homestead was hidden behind trees, and it was impossible to tell if the house had been struck. We three stood huddled together on our covered stoop, too stunned to go inside.
Now, still and silent, the phenomena appeared to have passed.
As a testament to the freakish celestial rampage, a single jagged outline where the three strikes had ignited dust and debris hung in the still air — not three, but an impossible one.
There was only one route taken from the heavens to the earth that day.
Ozone filled the air.
At once, I felt spent and wretched. Exhausted by emotions too intense for one so young to reconcile, I felt stained. Daddy picked me up, and we watched the clouds begin to separate and disperse — having spent their fury on three cataclysmic strikes.
Momma looked up at Daddy. There was no mistaking the concern in her clear blue eyes. The warm, soft wind from earlier in the day kicked up again, pushing more clouds away, and the day grew lighter.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why would they do this? Is it because I told on them for what they did to Arden? Because they saw me fix Bernhard at the river?”
“As I’ve said to you, Beni, some are bad seeds,” Momma said, wiping my tears.
“But while those three boys are bad seeds, gifts such as yours mean we must live by a certain standard,” Daddy added, his eyes still fixed on the receding storm. “Who sets those standards, Sweet One?”
“God and nature, Daddy,” I replied. He was right. I knew the drill.
“That’s right, Sweet One. God and nature. And do we make use of nature without consideration for its laws or the laws of man?”
I stared at the floor, unable to meet his eyes. “No, we don’t, Sir.”
“How do you play the healing game, Beni?” Momma asked.
“I ask,” I said.
“And,” Momma prodded.
“And I organize the energy.”
“And the energy comes from where, Beni?”
“Nature and God.”
“Yes. Bernhard’s time was cut short.” She held up an index finger when my expression darkened at his name. “But where is he now, Dear?”
“With God, Momma.”
“You mustn’t focus on his final moments, Beni. We’ve just witnessed what that can lead to.” Her eyes shifted to the sky and back to my face. “Rather we must focus on his current lodgings and the beauty of his resting place. He was a very good dog, yes?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“We can choose our thoughts and, therefore, our projections, yes?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“You are very good at it, yes?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” I noticed the tremor in Momma’s voice and in her hands.
We all looked up at the dissipating clouds. Nothing hinted at the unfathomable force of just moments before.
More relieving to me was the absence of rage — an improvement.
A mind improved, albeit changed by the filth visited upon it. Somewhere within me, a window was still cracked. It permitted an icy breeze that carried with it an unwholesome scent.
Daddy carried me inside, remnants of the storm visible over his shoulder. The storm door protested loudly before banging shut behind us.
With no proof but the certainty of a six-year-old, Sheriff Ripley would do nothing. In much the same way that nothing had been done about the rape and beating of Arden Conrad.
The questions circled in my head, what more would Sheriff Ripley’s son do to hide his sins? How far would he and his friends go to make people listen? Thus far, their words sounded like insane ramblings as they described what they saw me do at the river? I continue to watch the clouds, almost gone now. Regardless of what the future brought, I had one question.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Sweet One?”
The last few clouds left, leaving the same serene, blue expanse as fifteen minutes previous. Although, the blue was not quite as clear. The newly minted penny was tarnished.
“Am I a bad seed?”
