I scream, but her nails on the inside of my elbow only grip harder, make little impressions of crescent moons. She tugs me along behind her, and I imagine the hollowed out eyes of my sister staring from the kitchen doorway, but she’s at the river finding rocks, smooth and flat to paint on. I wish I could dip my brush into the little jars of paint, red like stop signs, blue like recycling bins, yellow like lemon skin, and make the pictures on the river rocks with my sister. I am sinful, what would my pictures be? Mary, Mary, quite contrary. I barely struggle as Mother pulls me up the stairs. I am bigger than her, only just, but I could lash out and she’d loosen her grip. I could kick her on the flat plateau of her shin, and she’d buckle for bruised skin, and I could run for the door, look for my sister at the riverbank, for my father at work. I am sinful, sinful. Mother wields the mighty sword of punishment, and a flickering promise of forgiveness.
“Faggot,” she calls me. She says it again for every stair I stumble on. “Faggot, Satan’s child, knew it from the start.” The bathroom door looms ahead. I want to take my fists and press them to her eyes, give her some of the same headache feeling I had with my face pressed into the pillow. “Leviticus, Leviticus,” she chants it almost sing-song, and begins to turn the taps on the tub. “If a man lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.” It is hot water. The steam is rising from the tub, and she tears with her fingers at my clothes, trying to pull them away. She continues to chant, “Leviticus, Leviticus, Leviticus,” even as I scream and protest. She takes the scissors from the drawer, and when I hear the first tear of fabric I stop fighting. I lean over the counter as she cuts away my sweater, then my tee shirt underneath. I stare at my face in the mirror, fascinated by my own burning tears. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Mary, Mother of God. The scissors cut the belt from my jeans and she tugs them downward, my underwear too. “Lord have mercy,” Mother whispers, and she cuts away my socks; I can’t move my feet. I smell the sharp, burning chemical scent of bleach, and watch as she fills the cap and pours it into the tub. “You will be cleansed,” she assures me. Naked, I don’t think I have any will left to fight her.
I watch her reflection, moving around beyond my back. She gestures, and I discover that there are tears left, and I let out a heavy sob as she pulls me towards the tub. Steam rises from the water, and I can smell the bleach, burning in my nose and throat. “Faggot!” She cries. “Satan’s child, I knew it, I knew it!” I tense. I don’t want to be cleansed. I want his scent on me forever, marked up in that hotel room with his gravelly voice and an almost painful pleasure. I want to stay filthy, mussed hair, dirt under my fingernails, stained shirt, dirty mouth cussing: Mother Mary! Damn it, fuck you, bull shit. If you spell God backwards it becomes Dog, and a female dog is a bitch, fuck you, faggot, cunt, cocksucker. I was marked in that hotel room, cocksucker, and he used his thumb to open my mouth wider. “Leviticus! Leviticus!”
Mother digs her nails in my arm, pushes and pulls until I am somewhere over the water, every sob choking me with that bleach smell. “You must be cleansed,” she insists. My knees buckle and I fall awkwardly to the tub, catch myself before I crack my head, and Mother pushes with all her might.
The water scalds my skin bright red, and I feel like my entire body is burning like tarmac in summer, only wet and so much worse. Mother begins to scrub, making white scratches that disappear under water and resurface angry and pink. “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord,” I say “Jesus” with her, “And by the spirit of our God.” She scrubs hard for a moment, frowns deeply at my whimpering sobs. “Amen.”
I stay in the bath long after she’s left, trying to swallow my sobs, wondering how long until someone is home. I hear my sister at the door, the clack of her rocks as she sets them down on the floor. I thrash in the water until I no longer want to cry or scream, covering my eyes to shield them from the bleach, and then I pull the plug. My reflection mouths the word, “Faggot,” and then with a gentler expression, “Olive juice”. I take my cut up clothes and bury them in a plastic bag. My favorite shirt in tatters; it doesn’t even matter. I wrap myself in a towel and take the bag with me to my room. I say I have the stomach flu, don’t go to school for a week. Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
