After the Rape, The Overdose By Jane Gilgun

Yukee stood in the kitchen door and watched Merle hand his mother some money. Everything started adding up. He walked into the kitchen. Isabel ignored him. He waited for his mother to ask about the groceries. She didnt. She didnt ask what took them so long. Instead, Isabel kept right on jiving with Merle. Her actions told him what Merle had said was true. His mother didnt love him. She really did rent him to Merle so Merle could rape him. Yukee wandered in the back yard. His behind hurt. He followed the trail to the still. Amos wasnt there. Yukee took the wine thief and inserted it into a jug of wine. He sucked some up. It didnt taste good at first. Then the wine warmed his throat and head. He replaced the wine he drank with water so Amos couldnt tell any was missing. He sucked up some more. Yukee couldnt understand why his mother took money so Merle could rape him. She must thinking renting out her kid to Merle is just part of the business. He wasnt even her kid. Someone dropped him off one night at the bar. Mama and Daddy probably didnt really want him. They wanted to raise him to be a servant boy and then to make money by letting men do nasty things to him. He must be a bad boy. He had to be a bad boy. Otherwise, Mama wouldnt take money from Merle to let him do what he did.

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If she loved him, she wouldnt make him work so hard at the bar, change the sheets, mop the floors, clear the tables, serve the drinks, fetch a new jug of shine, do this, do that, not good enough. Whats the matter with you? Cant you do anything right? Hurry up. Whats taking you so long? They only want to make money off him. Dont they have enough money yet? How much is enough? Daddy makes him work in the still. Throw those apples in the vat. Turn the air conditioner on. Turn it off. Fetch that demijohn. Go out back and check the temperature on the new brew. Sometimes Yukee talks when Amoss eyes are open, and hes breathing but he doesnt move. He sits there, humming, puffing on his pipe. Yukee taps him on the knee, and he still doesnt move, not a twitch, nothing. He just sits there and hums and doesnt see Yukee. Yukee even make faces at him, and he doesnt move. Maybe one day Yukee will give him a good kick in the shins. Daddy never sticks up for him. Mama is mean sometimes and Daddy just says, Do it, son. Amos and Isabel are not his family. He doesnt have a family. He wanted to howl and scream and jump up and down and set fire to the still and the pile of mash sitting out in the mangroves. Rage came over him, and he was stabbing Mama in the throat, shooting her in the face, kicking her teeth in. He could picture a hole between her eyes that a bullet made. He could see himself dancing on her grave or peeing on it. The bright spots in his life were Jack and Miss Maggie. Through the fog that closed in on him, the two of them penetrated. Miss Maggie talked nice to him. He was going to see her every week. Ill take you out of your free

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period. Ill be your social worker, she said. Maybe theyd play games in her room. He didnt want to talk. She said he didnt have to. She liked him. Jack was showing him how to play the piano, told him he was good at it. Jack took him for long walks in the swamps. He showed him all kinds of things like gator bones. Sometimes Jack put his hand on his back and asked what was bothering him but he didnt say. Yukee didnt know what to do about Merle. Hed never be alone with him again. If Merle ever called him over and wanted him to sit on his lap, Yukee would say no. Maybe Daddy would say hes getting too big for that. Maybe for once Daddy would stick up for him. Maybe Momma would let him go with Amos to the still the next time Merle wanted to take him somewhere. He didnt want any more presents from Merle. He ached so much he thought he would break in two. He thought he would throw up all over the Everglades and pollute half the water in Florida for ten years. The world Yukee loved, warmed by the hot Florida son, full of air plants, and tiny fish swimming in inch-deep water, none of that could touch him. The world was gray, like the fog off the Gulf of Mexico. The heavy feeling wouldnt leave him. He saw himself hanging at the end of rope his tongue hanging out, his fly open, clothing torn where white people took souvenirs. He had images of himself floating face up in swamp water, dead, buzzards picking out his eyes, dead, dead, dead. Yukee was tired. He fell asleep.

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Amos pushed the door of the still open. He smelled something sour. Dont tell me Ive got a bad batch, he said out loud. He saw Yukee curled up on the floor, covered with vomit, skin clammy, breathing slowly. Amos shook him. No response. Amos cleaned out his throat. He grabbed Yukee by the ankles and shook the rest of the vomit out. He scooped him up and carried him to the car screaming Isabels name. She ran out the back door and shrieked, Im calling the rescue. No. By the time they get here, Yukee could be dead. He could die on the way to the hospital. Naples a hundred miles away. Then call. Ask how long it will take them to get here. Tell them Im heading out to the Tamiami Trail trying to get to acute care just south of Cedar Hammock. He wont make it all the way to Naples. Ill pull over when I see them coming up behind me. Ill wait till you call. Isabel came right back. Theyll catch up to you on the Trail. They said, if he stops breathing, give him CPR. Get going.

Early the next morning heard Isabel talking. Dont you give him any sympathy. That will just encourage him to do it again. You be stern with him, you hear? That boy needs to get himself together and not do anything this foolish again. Yukee opened his eyes. Isabel stood over him. She didnt say a word but he could tell she wanted to scream at him. Amos stood behind her. He chewed on the stem of his unlit pipe.

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Whats wrong with you, boy? You went and did this. Dont expect any sympathy from us. You got to get off your pity pot. That was it. No asking him what happened. No saying something mustve happened. Youve never done this before. Just the yelling and the screaming, which meant to Yukee that he was right all along. They dont love him and he is a bad boy. There was nobody there for him, nobody around who can really understand what his troubles might be. A nurse called Isabel to the side. Amos peered at his son and said, Is it something I did? Yukee shook his head. His humming, pipe-smoking daddy would never understand.