But I didn’t want to go. I shuffled as far back into the corner as I could, all the time holding out my arms.
He grabbed my wrists. He began pulling me from the corner, but I fought back. I kicked out my legs, I hit out with my arms. He only squeezed my arms tighter. It hurt, but I kept on fighting to get free.
“No! Please!” My mama cried from beside me. “He’s not evil. He’s not—”
But he threw back his hand and caught my mama across the face. “Get back! Get back and see to your other son that’s crying. The son that, God-willing, will not be anything like this one!”
My mama stumbled back, then suddenly, he slapped my face. It hurt so much that I slumped to the floor. He picked me up by the collar of my shirt, and put his face next to mine.
“There’s an evil living inside you boy. An evil I’m gonna make damn sure is exorcized. Make you normal. Make you right. No more looking through me when I talk. No more weirding people out when you walk into the room. Making us fucking embarrassed to have you as a son.”
He dragged me out of the house. I looked for Mama, but she was at the back of the kitchen, nursing my baby brother. She looked to me as I passed, and tears were streaming down her eyes.
She never cried. Why was she crying?
“Mama!” I called out, but on a sob she turned her back.
He strapped me tight in the back seat of the car. I fought against the seatbelt. I didn’t want to go to the church.
My head throbbed. Eventually I stopped moving. I couldn’t get out and he wasn’t letting me go. Because I had evil inside me. Because I had flames flowing in my blood.
Lifting my fingers, I put them on my arms and began to dig in my nails. I thought of fire, of flames. I thought of their colors—orange and yellow. I thought of their heat. But I couldn’t see flames in the veins on my wrist. They looked normal. But they weren’t normal. He said that was why I didn’t understand what people wanted from me. Because of the evil bringing the fire in my blood.
I knew I was different. I knew I didn’t understand what people wanted from me. I knew I didn’t react right to some of the things people said. That was why I didn’t speak to anyone anymore. It was why I had no friends. It was why I didn’t answer people’s questions. Because I knew I wouldn’t do it right. I wouldn’t know what answer to give. And people would get angry with me. They would cry. They would walk away. They would leave me alone, and I wouldn’t understand what I’d done wrong.
And some people would laugh at me—they were the worst. They would point, and laugh and call me a 'retard'.
Then I would feel sad. Their words made me sad. And I wouldn’t sleep. I’d lay awake thinking of their faces, their faces when they laughed.
The more I thought of the people’s reactions to me, the more I dug my nails into my flesh. Glancing down, I saw blood begin to trickle from the vein. I hissed at the sting of pain my nails brought, but then a warm feeling filled my body. Because the invisible flames, Hell’s fire living in my body, was being released.
And he said that with the flames gone, I might be normal. I might be right.
The car came to a halt and I looked out of the window. We were on a quiet country road. At the side of the road was a small white building—our church.
I struggled to breathe, my chest tightening, as I stared at the church. Then the door opened, and Pastor Hughes walked out with Elder Paul. They were big men and they frightened me. They would handle the snakes in the church. They would give people the poison to drink, to test their faith.