The Basement Confessional

The Basement Confessional
Josh Burgess

The December winds were threatening a cold winter, hissing through the cracked window pane as Victor and I sat in an unfinished basement. He sat across from me, indian-style, with palms outward. He looked like a Buddha who had lost his white lotus. Eyes glazed, mouth dry, we were both very stoned.
Afternoon sunlight cut the haze as a projector would. I sat fixated, watching the smoke pirouette and dip in and out of its rays. The soft hum of a TV left on a blank channel mixed with the spitting wind, creating an ambient white noise that had shut us both up rather effectively. Not that Victor spoke much anyway. He had always been a quiet kid, speaking only when spoken to, acknowledging only those who acknowledged him. In past eras, he would have been considered polite. These days, he was thought of as anti-social. When Victor did speak, though, he said more than any man I had ever known.
I was sixteen years old the day I met him. He had lived only a few houses from mine, but in a farming community such as ours, that meant miles. A clear summer day prompted my adventure to a broken down pickup that had been left unclaimed for many weeks on a quiet country road. I gathered a handful of rocks from the nearby crick bed, and proceeded back up the bank to rain hell and destruction on my unsuspecting vehicular prey. When the first stone crashed through the windshield, a very sedate and very confused Victor crawled to his feet. He stood facing me from the back of this truck, towering like a colossus protecting a Greek shore. I froze and swore under my breath, suddenly sure that he was the owner and I was fucked. Generations came and went, the sun burnt out in the sky, and I finally grew facial hair in the time we stood like this, eyes locked. Or at least it seemed. Then, without a word, he reared back his foot and smashed it through the glass on the rear of the cab.
From there, Victor became a common element in my life. He was growing pot in a section of field on his family's farm, and quit school when he was only fourteen, living off of his sales. This led to many afternoons such as this, where we sat in my basement smoking ourselves cross-eyed and sitting quietly in a stupor. I had just begun to drift off when Victor started to speak.
He began, "You ever been to confession, Roy?"
"Huh? You know I never been to confession. We're Methodist."
"I know. I was just wonderin'. I've never been to confession either, but there sure are some times I wish I had."
"Vic, I don't want no sob story, now."
"It ain't no sob story. Just, time comes where ya feel you have to tell someone things. Things you can't keep to yourself."
"I don't wanna be your priest, Vic. I'm too blazed to deal with your heavy shit right now."
Vic rustled uncomfortably. His face had drained, leaving his complexion resembling that of a wax statue. He licked his lips and began again.
"This was back when 'fore Dad went away. I was nine. I remember it was the year Dad said we had to leave the fields fallow. I was used to the work that summer brought. The tilling, the sowing, the growing, the harvest ... Every year, same thing. This summer though, Dad was doing carpentry and odd work on other people's farms, and Ma was doing some temp work down at the radio station. I had nothin' to do with my time, just layin' fallow myself. I'd spend my days out in that clutch of willows west of our fields, y'know, down by the stream? Dad said that I shouldn't be out there, that I should be out playin' baseball with other kids. In fact, he told me he'd whup me proper if he found me hangin' out by that stream. Like any nine year old, just made me wanna be there more. So every morning after he'd left for town, I'd climb up this one willow with a pocket knife in my teeth. I'd sit there from early morning until the sun went out, just carvin' designs into the trunk well above where anyone could see 'em from the ground. I'd done this for two months, and the trunk had rings of falcons chasing songbirds, crows cornering owls, foxes in tall grass ... I figured I was done. That tree was mine now, I'd made it that way, different from all those other trees in that grove.
"One day, see, I come out there, and I find some lil' nigra - couldna been more than five - and he's dead. He's dead and he's tied up to my tree."
"What the ... you ain't found any dead kids, Vic, c'mon."
"He's tied up to my tree, around the neck. He's got bruises all up and down his bare chest, and his tongue is all swollen and hangin' outta his mouth. Well I don't know what to do, but I take my pocket knife, and I cut the rope, and he falls all limp to the ground. Now for bein' only nine, I think I handled the whole thing pretty good. I walked back across the field, got a spade outta the barn. I dug a good, deep hole for the kid, and I gave him a right burial, spoke words for him an' everything. It was like buryin' a pet, sorta. When I was done, I washed my hands off in the stream, climbed back up my tree, and carved a picture of the nigra and gave him some wings and a halo."
"You're full of shit. You done no such -"
"Will ya let me finish, Roy?"
I rocked back and sighed, the sun had slipped behind the trees and left the basement thick with darkness. The soft glow of a black TV screen did a poor job of illuminating the room, and the wind slicing across the cracked pane had made it decidedly chilly. Vic coughed, spat and began anew.
"I ain't lyin' to you. The next day I'm out there, I find the mound of earth I made for the boy all dug up, and he's dragged back outta the hole. He got bite marks on his body like he been chewed up by dogs or somethin'. The stench had me gagging real bad. Well, I take his remains, and I lay 'em neat as I can back in that hole, and push dirt back over him. My hands is all covered with thick black blood, and I go down to the crick to wash 'em off. When I get down there, I see all these heavy round stones, and I have the idea to pile 'em up on the grave to keep any wolves or strays away from his body. When I get finished, I climb back up my tree and carve a dog with the hair on its back raised up, and he's barking at the lil' nigra with wings."
"This is disgusting, Vic. I hope you just makin' this up."
Vic continued as if not hearing me.
"Well, the third day I come back, and all the stones are all pushed off the dirtpile. Far as I can tell, though, nothin' dug him up this time. Just took all them stones away. I figure he got lucky, but I wasn't gonna risk his body's sanctity again. So I tell myself I'll spend the night in my tree with Dad's rifle and kill the dogs or whatever was messin' with this poor lil' dead nigra.
"So night comes, and I'm sittin' in my tree with my knife, carving stones with legs that walk back into a crick, past the dog and underneath the nigra with wings. I get done, and I kill my lantern so as not to scare any grave-violators away. I'd been sittin' in that tree forever, and nothin' was happenin'. I musta fallen asleep, because I didn't hear what was rustlin' up to my tree.
"Not until it started coughin'. Here was this guy, big hat, smokin' a cigarette. He couldn't see me up where I was. I watch this guy, he got a shovel with him, and he start diggin' at that boy's grave, sure enough. Some sick, twisted bastard gonna do bad things to that kid again. Takes a man real fucked up in the head to do that. Well, I figure, any man that do that don't deserve to live no how."
My silence must've broadcasted my disbelief, but Vic continued as if he were a recording of himself.
"He got his back to me, so I figure if there were a time to start movin', it'd be now. I raised Dad's rifle to my shoulder, aim square between the blades of his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. I knocked myself clear outta that tree with the kickback, musta fallen about ten feet to the ground. Got myself knocked out cold. Well, I wake up some hours later, and the sun's threatenin' to break over the horizon. I'm sore as a beat dog, but I get myself up because I know that Dad will be up soon, and I gotta get my ass back in bed if I don't wanna catch a shitstorm for bein' out all night with his rifle. I didn't want anyone askin' questions. So I run the half-mile or so back to the house full tilt, put the gun back on its hook in the shed, and crawl in through my window and into bed. I slept latest I ever slept that day, had dreams of birds fallin' outta the sky dead, like rain. I woke up around two, and I walk out to my kitchen to fix myself somethin' to eat. I'm surprised, though, 'cause Ma is sittin' there cryin' on the phone. She said Dad ain't nowhere to be found. Now, they'd been fightin' their share, and she figured he just run off. Take off and leave everything behind. I ..."
Vic's throat caught, and he cleared it. I was sitting with my jaw suspended two inches lower than the rest of my face. Things were churning in my stomach that I couldn't quite put a name to, but I felt as if I'd be sick. The basement had gone completely dark now, and either we were too stoned or too enthralled to turn on a light. I watched Victor's silhouette bob up and down, and then he began to speak again.
"I wanna think she's right. I never did go back and check. Far as I know, no one ever found that body. Strays or wolves musta taken it, like they dug up that boy. Never really wondered why he was tied to a tree on our property, guess I shoulda though. I like to think I did a good thing either way, but I ain't too sure.
"'Bout four years back, I went to that clutch of willows and there weren't no body. I couldn't find the grave I dug for the boy, but there weren't no holes, so I figure he's still down there somewhere. I climbed back up my tree, all the carvings were faded and chipped then, and I found where I'd made the lil' nigra with wings and the dog with the raised hair. I ran my fingers along the deep lines, and suddenly I was nine again, sittin' in a tree with a rifle starin' down at some man with a cigarette. First time I ever cried over it.
"I took my knife, and next to the dog I carved a man smokin', face half-obscured by this big ol' hat, and write 'I miss you' underneath. Haven't been back since."
For eons we sat in silence, staring at each other through the dark. I could hear Victor's breath, shallow, sliding in and out of the drone from the hissing wind and humming television. The blank screen would flicker, and I would start a bit, scared shitless by Victor's story. The marijuana was starting to wear off, and the growing crispness of my vision did nothing but put hard edges on the tense mood building in the room. Victor broke the silence first.
"You ain't gonna tell no one, right Roy?"
I took a deep breath.
"No, I ain't tellin' anyone. I need a goddamn cigarette, Vic. Let's get the hell outta this basement."

Victor and I both moved to the city a couple years later, got an apartment in a quiet neighborhood. In the back courtyard, there was this big willow, and at times I would catch Vic staring at it through the window. He'd always cough and turn away, as if he hadn't been, but I knew. We never said a word of it to each other again, but it was always there, hanging thick as a midnight fog. Some nights, I'd hear the window in Victor's room scrape open, and through the dark I could make out a man's figure running barefoot through our courtyard to the willow, pocket knife catching the light of the moon. I never did confront him about it, though.
Some things just need to be done.