Chapter 33
Joe threw three more logs onto the bonfire, which was encircled by a two foot high brick border.
Flames slipped up into the air.
Thirty faces around it lit orange, eyes glistening. Mary quivered with delight as Joe sat beside her. He propped his legs up on a pile of poles and canopies they had brought just in case of rain.
Hank rose from his seat. This was one of few times he wore a shirt with a collar, and he looked dignified. “Welcome members. We have gathered here tonight to gain support in a world which looks down upon beating children for disciplinary measures. Society has turned its head from the ways of old, hard-won truths.”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
Mary absolutely adored these meetings. They validated everything she believed that made her feel like an outsider in the rest of society. Rejected as a parent by the Department of Children and Family Services, she had been depressed and angry for months.
“… spare the rod and spoil the child …”
This was her twelfth meeting, and she had heard Hank’s introduction many times before, so she tuned him out. She liked the interactive part with other parents the most. She wished her daughter could attend, but they were only for the adults. If Cindy were here, perhaps that would help her understand …
Her eyes drifted to the crackling fire.
She was afraid for her daughter. In the past, Cindy had acted lascivious and lured Joe into sex. Mary was not blind. She had known what was happening. But when Cindy accused her own father of raping her, Mary had to bang sense into Cindy’s damn brain with a hammer. It wasn’t Joe’s fault. Any warm-blooded man would have acted the same way to Cindy’s coy, seductive manners. Cindy had to learn discipline. She could not give in to weaknesses.
Mary was a good mother. She just wanted her daughter to turn out right. Had Cindy whored herself out to anyone else’s man, she would have been beaten worse.
Cindy’s friendship with the cripple had to be undone. It was dangerous to believe weakness had value. The cripple was an abomination. She would bring Cindy down, perhaps causing her to seduce Joe again.
“… and now I’d like to open the group up to experiences anyone would like to share.” Hank pointed to a raised orange hand in the firelight. “Yes.”
“I have a two year old,” said a plump woman as she slowly rose, many beaded necklaces clinking together, “and she can be so feisty. Well, just yesterday, me and my husband, Danny,” Danny waved his hand to everyone, “we were at the fair, and she kept insisting on getting cotton candy. Well, we were in a crowd, and it would have been awkward to beat her there, but I wanted to make a point that it was not okay to be so demanding.”
“Good,” Hank said. The crowd murmured agreement.
“So what can I do in public situations?”
“Excellent example,” Hank said. “It is difficult. So many people don’t know the sacrifice required to train a child. Your girl has to learn early on that she must respect authority.” Hank was shaking his head. “I would say best thing is to take her back to the car where you can do what you need.”
The plump woman complained, “But that wrecks our romantic time. Me and my husband don’t get out often and—”
“We must teach the correct path!” Hank slammed his fist down on the pile of logs between him and Joe. “This behavior cannot be tolerated, and she must know it. Otherwise, when she’s a teen, you’ll have a mess on your hands.” He cleared his throat and straightened his collar. “After the beating, you all could go back to the fair.”
“But we don’t want to interrupt our date because of her. We have a life too, and she spoils it.”
God, this was so life-affirming, thought Mary. After having just peeked through a crack in the wooden box, she felt lost. This meeting helped her find herself again. She didn’t see what was in the box, but she felt it and that was enough.
Hank responded, “A disobedient child spoils your life. That’s why it is so important to start early. Discipline now so your life won’t be ruined later.”
A few people in the crowd murmured, “Amen.”
“I know it can be difficult, but the thing about beatings is they do work, not like sissy time-outs where you expend time and energy to monitor a child, rewarding them with attention …”
Mary breathed deeply. The parenting classes she was forced to take by the county talked about these acceptable, weaker substitutes for beatings. It irritated her that the county believed they knew best for Cindy. They were a bureaucratic mass of fools. They weren’t there when her daughter was fucking her husband. They didn’t have to endure that disgrace.
She wrapped her afghan around herself tighter.
“… another parenting tip is not to hold back on beatings when the crying starts. A part of yourself might want to ease up, but don’t. Being consistent is far more important …”
Mary felt more committed to do right by Cindy. Cindy had been increasingly disobedient and needed training. Mary had been too lenient in the past, and now endured the consequences of those mistakes.
After the meeting, she would teach Cindy to choose strong friends. She would teach Cindy that weak friends like Adriana were worthless and harmful.
A man with long blond hair under a straw hat rose and said, “Burnin’ works. I’ve tried it on my kids. Just the threat gets respect now.”
Hank picked up his coffee mug. “These techniques are used by nature, and so why as parents should we be deprived of them?”
Mary thought to herself that most people here didn’t have the courage to take a child close to death to teach them invaluable lessons. She didn’t understand such cowardice for the good of their offspring.
She looked around the group.
Many of these parents wouldn’t take it as far as killing a reckless child. But Mary, Joe, and Hank knew better. Some children didn’t deserve life. They were freaks of nature, outcasts, like that damn, mistake of God, one-legged bitch in the camper with Cindy right now.
“Another question?” Hank asked.
A woman with tight, black braids raised a flickering orange hand. “I have a teenage daughter. She is skipping school, going out with a boy I don’t approve of. She’s lying—”
Mary suddenly got fevered chills crawling throughout her body—the memory of the box still too fresh. Somehow, even in the strength of this support group, those terrible feelings came back.
“—I used to give her bare butt spankings as a child, but now, is she too old for them?”
Mary stood up, rubbing her legs, her stomach, and her arms, trying to get out the eerie feelings inside.
Hank and Joe looked at her like what the hell was she doing? Other people in the group began turning their heads toward her, evidently thinking she had something to say.
“I’m sorry.” Mary sat back down, embarrassed, straightening her black skirt.
Hank reclaimed the focus of the group: “If she lives under your roof, she needs to follow your rules. Bare butt spankings are fine. In fact, they add humiliation to the offense for older girls …”
The fire was getting low, so Joe picked up a log and threw it in. It banged other logs and red embers danced into the air, twirling up and out. He leaned close to Mary and whispered, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Just jitters.” She didn’t want to worry him with the box again. Really, they had found a good place for it where it would remain safe. They needn’t think about it anymore. Nothing bad would happen. It was safe. She could forget about it. An intense itch broke out on her neck, and she began clawing it with her fingernails.
From the middle-left of the crowd, an orange hand rose.
Hank pointed to it, and the woman began. “I have a seven-year-old daughter who spends six hours a day painting. It makes her so happy that sometimes she cries after she finishes—”
Joe whispered, “Your neck is bleeding.”
Mary held out her hand and saw crimson stains under her fingernails. She put her hand on her neck to apply pressure to the wound.
“—but her painting has grown into an obsession. It gets in the way of her schedule for eating, schoolwork, and chores. And it’s such a messy, expensive hobby. My husband and I have paid carpet cleaners to come into her room over seven times last year. None of her classmates have this problem. How can we get her to be more normal?”
Hank sighed deeply. “It sounds like she’s self-centered. Her focus is all about herself and what she can do. She needs to realize other people are living in the household besides her …”
Mary looked at her hand. The blood seemed to be drying. She grinned as a creative idea for the cripple came to mind.
“… children need limits. It gives them a sense of security, an understanding of what they can and cannot do.”
The husband shifted in his seat next to his wife and raised his head. “But what if she keeps trying to paint, even after the beatings. You see, we’ve done what you’ve said before, but she just sneaks around us to do it.”
“You have to be consistent, continuing to discipline. You ought to throw away all her brushes, paints, and old paintings to show her you’re serious. You can’t let her self-centeredness run your household. You and your wife are the authorities.”
Mary noticed the husband and wife nodding their heads in agreement. Throughout the crowd, other members also nodded. It was nice when people got it. Cindy would get it too. Mary would make sure. She would do everything in her power to the one-legged friend.