Innocent by Gene Wolfe

You promise not to throw that stuff on me again, Father? Really promise?

Okay. It burns, but if you promise, you can come on in. What I wanted to tell you last time was that I didn’t do anything they say. None of it is true. One of the cops said I was the kind who hangs around school yards, so that part’s true. I did. Sit down on the other bunk and I’ll explain.

It isn’t that I want to make love with little girls like they say. I never, ever wanted that. I will tell you the truth, and if you want me to swear on that prayer book I’ll do it. I have never wanted sex with anybody I’ve ever seen. Not little girls, or boys either. And not women, or not very much. Not with men. Just thinking about it makes me sick.

I was sick a lot when I was a kid. I had a delicate stomach is what the doctor and everybody said. Everything I ate made me sick. It tasted awful, too. There was this nice girl next door. Her name was Nancy. She felt sorry for me, so she gave me a little piece of her chocolate bar one time. She said how good it was and how much I’d like it.

Well, I wanted to make her happy, so I made myself eat it. It smelled horrible and tasted the same way, and you know what chocolate looks like. But I got it down just the same and told her how good it was. I was still puking that night a long time after Bradley went to bed.

Him? Oh, he was my foster father back then. I grew up in foster homes. There were three or four, maybe five, because nobody really wanted me ever, and I guess I ought to have told you.

No, I never knew my real mom, or my dad either. Some garbage man found me in a trash can-

Sorry my laugh bothers you, Father, but I can’t help laughing every time I think about it. It is just so funny. I’ve seen the old TV news. The library helped me look them up. They are nice like that.

No, not even that old. I was premature, and my mother just threw me away, whoever she was. They never did find her, only a policeman-this was another policeman, an old guy-told me one time that they thought it was this one girl who’d hung herself a couple days before they found me. That’s what they thought because her body looked like she’d just had a kid, only the doctors said I couldn’t have lived that long without being fed and kept warm.

Only I’m never cold. Are you, Father? How does it feel?

I’ve picked up pieces of ice and even put them in my shirt in the winter. It doesn’t bother me. You know what does, Father? Wearing a shirt. Wearing anything. Can I take mine off?

Thanks. Yes, I’m hairy, and I suppose that helps.

Oh, yes. I hate hot weather. You know what I really like? I like winter nights, those cold, clear nights when the stars shine and shine, and there’s frost everywhere.

Or snow. Snow is good. That’s when I pray.

Sure I believe in God, Father. For me, God is the moon.

Wait!

I know all that. He’s not really the moon, and it’s just a sort of island up in the sky. People have been up there. You know that crucifix you’re holding up is just wood and metal, but it means God to you. That’s how the moon is to me. God hung the moon, and since I can’t see Him I pray to Him there.

Sure. Ask me anything you want. What do you want to ask me about?

Here? In jail? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t eat anything much, which I guess is why they told you I was on a hunger strike.

No way! I am not. Give me something that won’t make me sick and just watch me eat! Only the food in here is like what they had in the cafeteria at school. It’s just garbage. Some of it might have been good meat when they got it, but they ruin it on purpose.

So what I would do back then was go to a little café I knew about where they’d bring me what I asked for. It was pretty bad, sure, but I could eat it and not puke it up. That way I did not starve. When I was older and had more money, I would just buy meat at the butcher’s and eat it. Sometimes I was so hungry I would open the package there in the store. He didn’t like it, but I was a good customer. Later I used to snack on the job. You get a nibble here and a nibble there, and if you keep it up all day it’s enough.

Do you want to hear about this, Father? About what I really like?

Okay, let me tell you how I found out. I was down at this one dump with this guy Paul. We were climbing over the junk looking for something we might like and looking for rats, too. We looked for the rats because they would bite you if you didn’t see them first. We had sticks, and we would whack rats with them any time we could. Mostly we missed. You probably know how that is. They run fast, and they’re always getting under something.

Paul got a rat, a big one. He knocked it over toward me, knocked it off its feet, you know, and I whacked it with my stick, too. After that, Paul killed it, or thought he had. He whacked it two or three times and it lay there like it was dead. Then he picked it up, and it bit him…

I should not be telling you all this, Father. Bending your ear like this is what I mean. I know you don’t care about all this. The thing is, I’m just so lonesome. Hungry and lonesome, like a lost dog. I know it seems pretty funny for me to be lonesome in a place as noisy as this, with doors slamming and people yelling all the time, but I’ve got nobody to talk to. No visitors, either.

No, I’m not in solitary, Father. Or I’m not supposed to be. Who told you that?

Well, I’m not. It’s all a big lie. They would have told me, wouldn’t they? Besides, I haven’t done anything, really. I mean since I have been in here. If you get put in solitary, it is just about always because you hit one of the screws. I have never done that, or bit one either.

You want to know the worst thing I’ve ever done in here? They won’t let me go out to where the others eat, they just pass my tray in with their stinking garbage on it. So a couple of times I have thrown all their garbage on the floor and walked on it.

Why? I just wanted to show them what I thought of it. That’s all. Besides, I wanted them to have to talk to me. Which they did, and brought me a bucket and a mop and made me clean it up. It gave me something to do. Two of them tried to twist my arms the first time, and it scared them. That was the most fun I’ve had since I got stuck in here.

Oh, I’m strong, real strong. Take my hand, Father, and I’ll show you.

All right, but I would not have hurt you bad. I had this cellmate. His name was Paul, only I do not remember his last name. Really I have had eight or maybe ten. Can I tell you what they do here? How they use me?

Well, suppose they want to put somebody in solitary, but they know he has this good lawyer. He’s got money, right? So if they do, that lawyer will go to a judge and try to get him out. Well, what they do is put him in here with me. In a couple of days he will be begging them for solitary.

Oh. Yeah. I guess I think of all these guys as Paul because Paul was the first, the kid the rat bit. He was bleeding pretty good and naturally it made me hungry, so I said don’t you know rats are poison? I got to suck out the poison or you’ll die.

He let me. I got it in my mouth, and it was the best thing I had ever tasted. Man, it was so good! So I kept drinking and drinking until Paul said you never spit the poison out. I said yes I did. That was a mistake, because he knew I hadn’t. He got mad and jerked his hand away, and I bit his neck.

That was where I started learning about meat, right there in the dump. Meat doesn’t really go bad as fast as people think. It depends on a lot of things, like can the sun hit it. I didn’t know about that then, but I knew that if I left my meat there in the dump, the rats would get at it and it would be no use coming back for some the next time I got hungry.

Well, Father, there was this old factory near there where nobody worked anymore. It was supposed to be locked up, only Paul and me had found a way to get inside. We thought there would be a lot of rats in there, but there wasn’t because there was nothing in there for them to eat.