Thomas Leonard Smithing

                            Thomas Leonard Smithing


    From the depth of their bowel, they hated him…they wanted his blood on the live part of their knives. They tried, but he fled. They chased him with crusted pitchforks and snagging stakes, and small crosses around their necks. One hunched man had a broom stick and a poor girl had a sewing needle. The angry eyes of fire unfolded their paths as they ripped through the dried vines, the moon light laughing at them all along. They knew that the damned’s heart would run slow soon; so they kept searching for him, but now only twelve young stouts kept on. The rest turned around. Kill ‘em dead fer’ rest the of us-. Git that summa’ evil doer. Stuff ‘em head where it go, wit’ da’ devil! Don’t let that man come back ta’ dis’ town here no more- ya’ hear me!

    He was far too fast, and his body was too smart to die on his land. Each conked out tree root he knew and had jumped before. He’d gotten away, he knew. Clouds stifled the moon’s glow, but didn’t silence the tapping of his foot on the tree bark. He always tapped his foot loudly. If he’d ever die it’d be because someone heard it. It was his taunt to those who chased him, a sound of victory should it pinch their ears.
The stouts stopped and waved their fire in circles, turning with it. They listened for the loud shushing of dieing bushes, their prey. Tall trees looked like rotting stacks of black; leafs seemed to fall one by one. Gentle kicking of the wind made the canopy gently sway, the haze from the fire stakes blinked and dimmed. There was no sound other than crickets chirping and their footsteps crunching. They waited for his noise, nothing. They waited longer, not a man anywhere. Where’d that beast gone to? I told my wife I’d git’ that summa’ thang. MY wife ain’t gonna’ like that we ain’t find ‘em either. He ain’t killin’ ‘nother one of my sons!
   
    Ya’ hear that?
    The men hushed and raised their weapons. Nothing. He done got ‘way ‘gain- I ain’t tellin’ that town that we ain’t get ‘em ‘gain. We don’t got to tell them nothin’. You talkin’ foolish-. No, all we got to do is get some blood on us and say we done kill’ ‘em. What ‘bout when he come and get ‘nother one of our boys? We say it ain’t ‘em and that it must be a bunch of ‘em in the woods.
         
    The leader told the men to make a line. They started tearing holes in their shirts and home-sewn pants. The leader pulled out his knife and started to peal pink from his men. He scraped only their arms and backs and chest. All of them bled. None of them showed any pain, but they all squeezed tight. The leader stabbed himself in the shoulder, and scarred his chest and cheek. Dirt was thrown in the air; wide dust plumes. They tried to imitate a quarrel with the devil. Their wounds stung as the dirt clung to them. They started back home, the leader led from the rear. They watched fearfully for a man dancing through the trees. They knew the town, about two hundred hicks, would be waiting at the outskirt of the town for their return. One of them began to chant and the rest joined.
         
    The Damned is dead! We strangled his head! His body we burned and now we return. He will never kill again. This victory we have earned!
         
    The damned man followed them. He listened. He watched the leader closely, strangely. The sleepy red sky turned to a shy yellow. As they repeated the chant, the town greeted them with thunder. Ya’ git’ that summa’ evil doer! People were smiling and boisterously laughing and hugging and crying in cheer. Fathers swept their daughters up and kissed their wives and patted their sons’ backs. He ain’t comin’ to git no more of us! Yea, that outcast ain’t killin’ us! The glee wrapped the phony warriors tight in its fist and made some of them tell stories about their triumph, especially the leader. No one figured that the stories didn’t come together. They just smiled and gasped happily. What’d ya’ do wit tha’ carkiss’?
         
    The leader, a fulsome fellow, his daughter sitting in his arms, said they burned the body and tossed it in the river. Everyone cheered and threw their fist in the air. The damned watched from a bush, kneeled down. He watched them closely, like when he’d probed the town, picking out the little boys of his past times before. A woman in the crowd seen him, but she didn’t excite, she just stared. Her husband was happy, so she figured that she should not spoil his lie. The damned saw her too and sneered gaily and crept away.          

    The damned man had not always been; he was once called Thomas Leonard Smithing, a strange little boy who spat on the bible. His older bother was favored especially by his father; he was strong, a man. Thomas was frail and knock-kneed. Stringy black hair covered his forehead and ears. Barely taller than a bicycle at ten years, he was a runt. Children slung snot at him and flung jagged stones at his face every noon, his brother did too. He sat with his dead wasp in his hands at school, hid from the teacher. After school at the church, he learned to creep into his barn house. He walked slowly and evenly, never rushing or letting his heel rest too long. He paced. He didn’t want to make noise. He was good at that- stealth. He’d go into his mother’s sewing room, she was never in there, and tapped his finger on the wall insistently for hours. He’d sit his wasp beside him on the floor.

    Thomas’s saved parents didn’t like him, either. Thomas couldn’t do work that demanded strength; his wiry arms folded easily. He loathed his father most. His father and brother, Mathis, laughed at him. Late nights they snuck into Thomas’s cot and violently shook him till he woke and taunted him. Be a man! You caint’ do nothin’ right! We only got ya’ ‘cause nobody else want ya’, boy! Thomas never retaliated. He dreamed of a day when he could control them and make them feel weak; Thomas was weak. One day they stole Thomas’s wasp and crushed it with a boot. Thomas showed emotion, he got even. 
   
    Thomas gripped stiffly. He fought and bit and scratched and stabbed. His hands were stained. He kept jabbing and jerking. Sweat beaded on his forehead and back, his shirt rapt the crimson rage. His black eyes were wild and ravaged and big. His palms were strong and his puny chest was taut. Something possessed him, revenge maybe. His father couldn’t get away. 
   
    His father didn’t see it coming; he was walking through mid-town, mid-day and Thomas came from behind him. Thomas leapt onto his father’s shoulders and dropped down. Thomas reached up and clawed his father to the dirt road. A lady piercingly screamed. Her voice echoed and sounded line a solid tone. Shops emptied and ran towards Thomas. Thomas seen them and he ran. He ran far into the woods. They followed him for days- The Damned they called him in stories. Thomas got away. The solitude he loved. Being chased he admired. Being ignored he hated. Being forgotten he despised.
Most thought he died.

    Thomas remembered the boys that flung rocks, and after his first drink of vengeance he wanted more. He drank again through young boys who reminded him of his childhood. Thomas would come from the forest at night, around when children were being tucked into bed. Silently, he trespassed in his hometown. The stink of cow was strong. He snuck into a home and pulled the young quarry from his cot. He gagged the boy’s snivel with his palm. Thomas was never seen indoors. He’d drag the boy to the center of town- where he attacked his father seasons ago. He sat on the dry road in the dark, his eyes lurking and cruelly trembling. The boy calmed and he’d sit there stretched out in front of Thomas, his head locked between Thomas’s arms.

    Before sunrise Thomas would be spotted. The town would awake at once- a routine. At that instant, Thomas smashed down on the boy’s chest, suffocating him quickly. The boys usually chomped down and drew blood from Thomas’s palm as they struggled to inhale. Thomas would drop the boy and run away again. He was chased by all, once a season. The town paid a few men to protect them from Thomas, but they always came back in misery to the town’s snarl. The town lived in dread of Thomas’s next show. Thomas loved the attention.

    Thomas had since grown into a robust man. He sat tapping in the tree and he thought about the colorful display by the stouts moments ago. He thought about Mathis who led the crusade. The joy on Mathis’s face excited Thomas, he knew that he could crush his brother’s pride. A hollowed grin appeared. He planned his next venture. Thomas waited sixteen seasons.

Its funny how a lie always catches up, isn’t it?

    The town had grown to about eight hundred townspeople. There are more stores and houses near the woods. Little boys sleep without fear now. Parents don’t worry of their son’s death. They were null. Town still paid Mathis and the stouts to protect them. The damned faded into memories. Only the stouts waited for Thomas’s return. Thomas didn’t come, so they eventually assumed he’d died too. Thomas’s father still raised his chicks and pigs. Mathis still worried and kissed his cross for protection at late hours. He never told a thing.

    Mathis sat alongside his wife before bed. Mathis kissed his wooden cross and laid it on his nightstand.

“Why’d you kill yer’ brother?” she asked, breaking a silence she’d kept since the day he’d returned from the woods.

“Doesn’t matter-” he tried to shut her up.

“Tell me- why’d you kill yer’ brother?”

“I don't’ feel like talkin’ ‘bout that. Don’t ask me nothin’!” he shifted onto his side, away from her. She slanted her eyes at him. She pinched his bottom and he jumped away.

“Tell me!” she demanded.

“Why the hell does it matter to you, woman? What you got to do with ‘em? Ya’ got somethin’ ‘gainst me for it?” his forehead scrunched.

The two sat in silence for a moment.

“He ain’t dead, is he?” she said softly.

“What? Who-? Yea’ we killed ‘em… what,”

She interrupted, “no- you didn’t- I seen a man in the bushes that day, but I didn’t say anything. I knew it was Thomas.”

He sat up rampantly.

“You callin’ me a liar?” he bellowed, “Git the hell out my house!” he raised his hand.

“I’ll tell the whole town that you’re a fake and they’ll chase you away too,” she announced with a crackling voice as she stared him in the eyes, tears gathering in hers as she leaned from his fist. 

“You ain’t got to ‘cause he ain’t comin’ back ‘cause he dead.” 

They calmed.

    He turned over to her and whispered at her neck, “he tried to kill my daddy. You know that. He’s part Satan! We can’t have that ‘round our town,” he paused and let out a breath, “when we was little, daddy used to strike him in the back ‘cause he wasn’t a man like me. I bet he still got lines on his back from it. Father had that comin’.” Mathis’s eyes dripped.

“What you got ‘gainst ‘em,” she asked.

“Nothin’, I s’pose. Just defendin’ this town fer’ money. That’s my job ain’t it?”

“Then why’d you lie? You ain’t supposed to lie under yer’ oath, Mathis,” she said bundling her lips.

“You knew they was goin’ to frown at me ‘gain ‘cause we ain’t catch ‘em. I was tired of people treatin’ us like we some fools. And they was gonna’ stop payin’ me- you like they money too-”

“Don’t this make you look more foolish, Mathis?” she said sternly, “you need to tell the town what you did before Thomas comes back. You hear me?”

    It was a calm evening when autumn was yawning and winter was opening its eyes. Thomas was ready. He made himself a brown, brimmed hat from some cloths, wired with bending twigs and wrapping twines. The sun was drifting asleep. fireflies were blinking and rising and dropping. The town was growing tired and children were heading inside from their mud puddles for supper. Thomas walked into the town. He walked slowly and evenly, never rushing or letting his heel rest too long. He paced. He didn’t care if he made noise, unlike before. People seen him, but assumed that he was a commoner or a tradesman from the south. He smelled of moist wood. He walked to Mathis’s home, a small shanty in mid-town. He twisted the door knob. The door opened and he stepped in. He glanced around, circularly. No one was home. He went to the bedroom and waited for their return. He sat on the bed, terribly still, except for the bouncing of his foot on the wood at a constant slow rhythm like a sleeping heart. Each tap, a memory of being awakened in the middle of the night; the embarrassment of cleaning his own urine from his cot those early mornings. Gritted teeth, twitching eye lid, a tap.
     
    Mathis, his wife and daughter walked home from a town meeting at the church.

“You should’ve told ‘em then.”

“I’m not tellin’ nobody; ya’ hear? And you ain’t tellin’ either. He ain’t here no more so get over it and be happy we got that money ‘cause of ‘em!” he tried to keep his daughter from hearing as she hugged the ragged doll, walking in front of them, “you got to leave it ‘lone, woman-”

“I ain’t use none of that money! Give it back to ‘em then, if it means that much to ya’!”

“No, ain’t no need- we need it and ya’ know it!”

Their daughter turned around and looked, then continued play again.

    They walked into their home. The two of them went into the kitchen while the little girl went to her bedroom. As she played with her doll, she turned as she crossed the doorway and there was a man tapping his foot, sitting on her cot. Before she could run, Thomas snatched her up- her teeth clicked when he did- and stuffed his palm in her face. He glided imperceptibly through the hallway and out of the front door with her. The streets had not emptied. People saw and shouted. They flooded into the streets, Mathis and his wife too. Git ‘em! I thought he was burnin’ in the river!

“I won’t hurt ‘er if ya’ wait!” Thomas yelled and his voice seemed to punch the townspeople in the breast.

“Stop!” howled Mathis. The town halted. 
         
    Thomas stood, surrounded by a flattened auditorium of rampant townspeople, the ones who had beaten him and spat on him; cursed his name, chased and forgotten about him all the same. He held the girl tight under his arm. Some of them had knives and pitchforks and crosses and death charms. The day was calmly slipping into darkness and the crumbs of light that bounced seemed to catch only Thomas and the girl. People were erecting fire stakes. Children watched from behind their parents’ legs and wives stared from behind their husbands’ shoulders.
         
    “Ya’ thought I was dead, ain’t ya’?” Thomas asked sarcastically as he faced Mathis.
         
“My girl ain’t got nothin’ to do with this, give’er here.”
         
“Why’d ya’ kill me, Mathis. I’m ya’ only brother, I did nothin’ to ya’. Why I’m dead?” Thomas’s voice was dreadfully flat and ill of emotion. He snickered.
         
    The town focused in on Mathis and realized that his triumph as a fraud, repugnance in their eyes.
         
“Mathis, ya’ know why I tri’d ta’ kill ‘em,” Thomas gestured with his head at his father to the left.
         
“Jus’ put my lil’ girl down.”
         
“Or what- or what, Mathis? Are ya’ goin’ ta’ kill me… ‘gain?”
         
“What ya’ want wit’ us here, Thomas?” yelled Mathis and he took a few steps forward into the auditorium.
         
“I want for ya’ saved bastards ta’ stop hatin’. Yall’s evil is disgustin’! Who’s yer’ God? Ya’ lie and ya’ kill!” he paused, “well, tri’d ta’ kill…” He snickered again, but louder. Thomas seemed to stare them all in the eyes, “yall shall learn by the death of ya’ town, ya’ do it anymore.”
         
The townspeople’s eyes shot open as Thomas’s voice tossed truths. 
         
“I’ll be back if ya’ don’t listen. I can see ya’ anywhere. Ya’ caint’ git’ ‘way, ‘er kill me… I’ll rip each of ya’.”
         
“Jus’ give me ma’ daughter and I’ll be sure of yer’ words, Thomas.”
         
“I’ll trust ya’ Mathis,” he released the girl from his clamp, “ya’ foolish, but ya’ ain’t no fool.”

    Thomas removed his hat and sat it on the ground. He reached into his shoe and placed a feather in the hat and pulled a dead wasp from his pocket and placed it on the hat’s brim. It was his way of showing that he couldn’t be bullied again. He had control. He walked away. He walked slowly and evenly, never rushing or letting his heel rest too long. He paced. He didn’t care if he made noise, unlike before.