“Shame Vigilantes” by Mark Benedict

Shame Vigilantes

Cara smiles tentatively and tells me our task is a cosmic righting of wrongs. She reads fantasy novels and often talks like them. We’re seated on a bench across from the school where Brother Timothy works and where Cara and I first met twenty years ago. “It’s almost time, Jim,” she says now. “We should cross soon.” We’re sipping eight-dollar coffees we bought from a pissed-off barista. That’s the city for you: huge cost, crap service. The coffee is good, though. Cara takes my arm, and we cross the street. Her touch is a surprise and a thrill and means nothing. I try to remember a time when I didn’t feel cursed. The air stinks of garbage and swarms with grit. We are red-bellied piranhas returning to a sea of great white sharks. If the school had been a kind place, who knows? We might be dropping by with a flower bouquet instead of brass knuckles.
#
I actually liked the school at first. The classrooms were clean and festively decorated. I met Cara, another scholarship kid, right away. She talked about minotaurs and ate trail mix for lunch. The grey school uniforms vaporized individuality but also, on the plus side, economic status. The staff sure knew who was poor, though. Sister Margaret, the reading teacher — face framed in her white habit, breath sour as musty pickles — despised me on sight. She said I looked like a budding degenerate. Confusion swallowed me. I’d never been the object of a stranger’s disgust before.
#
Whoever said forgiveness is the best revenge didn’t get their hair yanked so hard the roots bled. They weren’t made to repeat nasty, shameful, not-true things about themselves like a memory drill. Trust the fucking language. If revenge were something else, it wouldn’t be called revenge.
#
Cara and I hover outside the school. Through a window, we see Brother Timothy — formerly a math teacher, now the principal — working in his office. Sister Margaret, we’ve heard, has been demoted from teacher to cafeteria worker. That’s the church for you: elevating all of humanity, except women. When the bell rings and kids pour out, we enter, walk to the back hall, then stop.
Cara smiles wanly. “Let me accompany thee, Jim,” she says. I shake my head. Unlike me, she has things to lose. A good job, a good husband, a desire to live. As a kid, I fantasized about heroically saving the world from poverty, whereas now I fantasize about being a normal adult, capable of making it through a regular day without praying to die. After my divorce, all the fearsome school memories came shrieking back. I work part-time and don’t date. I’m a lone wolf in a world of fuck-happy rabbits. Reconnecting with Cara for this mission has given me a boost of embarrassing proportions. How rancid can a man be? Cara hands me ten blank notebook pages. A security guard eyes us suspiciously. Pretending to be lost, Cara goes over and asks him to escort her to an exit. I scram to Brother Timothy’s office, fitting on the brass knuckles as I go.
#
Sister Margaret took me to the basement every week. Brother Timothy, wearing a black cassock, his body odor like rotten meat, would already be there. One time he yanked my hair so high that my feet left the floor. Another time he made me repeat “I’m a vile sinner” so many times that it pinged in my head for days. Cara only got taken to the basement once but puked for hours after.
#
I’ve never understood nostalgia. Who has untainted good memories? The best night of my life, a walk with Cara on a lake dock, was bookended by a crappy, hair-yanked day at school and a late-night hollerfest with my foster parents. Good memories are like bright daisies that attract scuzzy dark bees. I can’t recall a good time for more than a second before it’s smothered by bad times.
#
Brother Timothy, seated at his desk, knows what’s up as soon as he sees the brass knuckles. His office is hideously bright and reeks of applesauce. A framed picture of Sister Margaret sits on his desk. His face pulses with fear. That’s abusers for you: total fucking cowards. I smack the blank pages onto his desk. “No, wait,” he pleads softly, “I’m not who you think.” It’s not true in the way he means, but, in another way, it is. Time is a trickster. When you’re finally old enough to take on your abusers, time has already done a number on them. That’s how they get away with it. Only a heartless bastard would terrorize an old man. But I qualify. A poisonous thrill fills me.
I scream in his face. He whimpers. If he had any hair, I’d yank it to see how the fuck he likes it, but all he has are white wisps. Improvising, I punch the Sister Margaret picture with my brass hand. Shards fly. “Take back your shame!” I scream. “It’s yours, not mine.” I point at the blank pages and tell him to list all the bad things he’s ever done to kids. Trembling, he picks up a pen. Distant footsteps, maybe that security guard’s, echo in the hall. My body tenses. Whoever said dig two graves is probably right. Suddenly, weirdly, serenity flows. The dock night returns, with no smothering stains. Cara is wearing a gorgon t-shirt. Her silky hair shines in the moonlight. Meanwhile, in the now, Brother Timothy sadly scribbles. The footsteps are closer now, scarier. But the moonlit past is supremely present. I’m telling Cara why I admire her. Great talker, great listener, silky hair. She giggles. The past is pungence. Sheer elixir! Maybe I’m blessed after all.

Mark Benedict

Mark Benedict is a graduate of the MFA Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College. He has previously published in Columbia Journal, Hobart, Maudlin House, Rue Morgue, and Reactor. His publications include short stories, author interviews, and book and movie reviews. You can read more of his writing at markbenedict.net.

Headshot: Alicia Schaeffer

Photo Credit: Staff