Amen's Boy. William Maltese

on>

      BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY WILLIAM MALTESE

      Amen’s Boy: A Fictionalized Autobiography (with Jacob Campbell)

      Anal Cousins: Case Studies in Variant Sexual Practices

      Back of the Boat Gourmet Cooking (with Bonnie Clark)

      Blood-Red Resolution: An Adventure Novel

      Catalytic Quotes (Some Heard Through a Time Warp)

      Dinner with Cecile and William (with Cecile Charles)

      Draqualian Silk: A Collector’s & Bibliographical Guide to the Books of William Maltese, 1969-2010

      Emerald-Silk Intrigue: A Romance

      Even Gourmands Have to Diet (with Bonnie Clark)

      The Fag Is Not for Burning: A Mystery Novel

      From This Beloved Hour: A Romance

      Fyrea’s Cauldron: A Romance Novel

      Gerun, the Heretic: A Science Fiction Novel

      The Gluten-Free Way: My Way (with Adrienne Z. Milligan)

      The Gomorrha Conjurations: An Adventure Novel

      The “Happy” Hustler

      Heart on Fire: A Romance

      In Search of the Perfect Pinot G! (with A. B. Gayle)

      Incident at Aberlene: An Espionage Novel (Spies & Lies #1)

      Incident at Brimzinsky: An Espionage Novel (Spies & Lies #2)

      Jungle Quest Intrigue: A Romance

      Love’s Emerald Flame: A Romance

      Love’s Golden Spell: A Romance

      Matador, Mi Amor: A Novel of Romance

      Moon-Stone Intrigue: A Romance

      Moonstone Murders: The Movie Script

      Schism on Antheer-D: Science Fiction (Gods & Frauds #1)

      Schism on Bnth: Science Fiction (Gods & Frauds #2)

      Slaves

      A Slip to Die for: A Stud Draqual Mystery

      Summer Sweat: An Erotic Anthology

      SS & M: Being Excerpts from the Nazi Death-Head Files

      Total Meltdown: An Adventure Novel (with Raymond Gaynor)

      When Summer Comes

      William Maltese’s Wine Taster Diary: Spokane & Pullman, WA

      Young Cruisers

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2012 by Jacob Campbell and William Maltese

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      To Benny

      and

      To the memory of Jean Genet, whose Mettray Reformatory — in his novel THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSE — provides literary echoes that astute readers will recognize as reverberating within our Mettray Seminary, found here.

      CHAPTER ONE

      BLUEBERRY HILL BAYOU

      Deep, forest nighttime quiet covered us all eventually in a blanket of forgetfulness, but the early evening of this second pre-seminary camping trip had become a nightmare for me. I feared that I would be harmed by the other seminarians, and Father Terry’s drunkenness made him seem strange to me—monstrous, uncaring, insensitive—unlike he usually was in his car when we were together alone, or at the rectory when I went for private confession.

      I noticed the effect that the whiskey and cigarettes was having on me after only a few drinks, and after two cigarettes I felt dizzy and nauseated. I had only had whiskey before on our last camping trip, and my parents would have killed me if they knew about me smoking and drinking at eleven years old.

      I began smoking a year before we formed the group of altar boys who would go to the seminary. I found a carton of Kent cigarettes lying on the ground one day when I was riding my bicycle in the park on the bike trails. That carton lasted Paul and me a year almost. We didn’t like smoking too much, and usually shared just one cigarette, and we didn’t do that every day. Since everyone we knew smoked, in real life and in the movies, we wanted to learn how, but we had some sick days when we tried too hard to smoke like adults.

      Now, at the camp, Father Terry secretly gave us bourbon to mix with our cokes.

      Paul wasn’t allowed to come with us. Paul was my best buddy and friend, and although he was planning to attend Mettray Seminary in the fall, I think his mother did not want him to be in such a rustic place as Blueberry Hill, and at Brucie’s daddy’s open-air style camp. It was a huge building with a corrugated tin roof, no ceiling beneath the rafters made of massive foot square hewn beams twenty feet long—four of them rising from each corner of the building and meeting in a peak. Wooden lats where nailed to the beams and then covered with corrugated tin. A foot square central column held the peak of the roof up about twenty feet at the top.

      In a way, it was so spacious it seemed like we were really outdoors. From the rafters were just some wires hanging down on which hung ceiling fans, each with a single light bulb. The sleeping porches had additional big poultry fans that could blow a cyclonic mist to cool sleepers in the heat of the Southern summers, and a ceiling fan hung above each cubicle that made up the four bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen. Every sound in the whole building was amplified by the roof structure. The side porch was on all four sides of the building and was set out with a total of twelve camp beds. The camp could sleep twelve kids on the porch and eight adults inside, but when we came, Rebel, Brucie, Vellas, and I were going to sleep on the “veranda” cooled by the ceiling fans, but things turned sour.

      Rebel was drunk on whiskey, and he and Brucie and Vellas were playing poker with Father Terry, and since I didn’t play cards, I watched and sat behind Father’s back watching him play his hand. I sipped my bourbon and coke, but wanted to go to bed. I felt drugged sleep coming on. The others were not sleepy, however, and they were rowdy and had begun cussing saying “damn” and “shit” and Rebel even saying, “Fuck it.” I wondered why Father didn’t say anything to correct them.

      It was hot. Rebel and Vellas both were in their underwear. Brucie only had on an oversized T-shirt and his swimming trunks that he seemed to never take off. Father was in his T- shirt, barefooted, and wearing his black pants. I alone was still fully dressed. All together they made a tableau that looked like gangsters from the thirties. Cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, palming cards and holding them cautiously away from each other’s sight. Tensions grew.

      I knew Vellas was cheating, because I’d seen him put a card under the flesh of his right leg. I didn’t know what card he hid there but I figured it was a high card.

      Suddenly, the game collapsed in one big noisy sound of misery and disgust as Father Terry took the pot and beat them all at once. Rebel got up in his white briefs and stood on the chair shouting at Father that he was cheating, and Vellas laughed and showed his hidden card. This had the oddest effect, really surprising me, because Brucie got angry then, and since he was the biggest, he came after me to get the whiskey. It was pure chance that I was holding the bottle.

      “Come here you skinny beanpole!” he shouted at me. “Come over between my bed and Rebel’s bed and lay on the floor, you hold that damn bottle so we can have it anytime we want during the night. I want to reach out and you hand that bottle to me.”

      I didn’t believe my ears. Then Rebel shouted too, “Yeah, get on the floor between our beds you faggot! Kneel down and hold that bottle for me when I’m ready for a drink!”

      The hideous laughter sent me into panic and alarm. I’d been so conditioned to expect total devastation