The Tuesday boys

Mention of child abuse, physical violence.

The Tuesday boys.

She wore her silence like a yoke, secrets weighing on her shoulders. Through the years she held her tongue, turned her head and pretended not to know, but each Tuesday the bile would rise in her throat.

On those days she couldn’t look people in the eye or face the mirror. Many sleepless nights, the ghosts living among her self-loathing stirred. They crept around corners, seeped through crevasses, and challenged her silence. Fragments of what she had heard and seen clung to their shadows. Using shifting images and distorted sounds, they dared her to speak.

Then she’d part her lips and whisper “No, don’t” while reliving what she knew.

Lisa was twelve when she went into service. She had known this would happen. Only the pretty and rich girls married, the ones left went off to work. Her mother told her that she was lucky, there were so many worse places to work than a parsonage.

She hitched a ride on farmer Green’s hay wagon. It took most of the day to arrive in the small town of Underbridge.

Mrs. Maple, the parson’s housekeeper looked her over and nodded. “You’ll do, I suppose.”

Her tasks were many. Fetching, carrying, cleaning and stoking hearths, sweeping and mopping floors, beating rugs, washing clothes and dishes. Tending the chickens and running errands.

She seldom saw pastor Murthy, who was busy writing sermons, visiting the old, the sick, and infirm and tutoring some of the boys from the village. They would come every Tuesday afternoon.

On those afternoons Mrs. Maple would send Lisa away from the house. Told her to clean the chicken coop or buy a loaf of bread in the village. Maybe borrow a spool of thread from Mrs. Smith or take a book to old Mr. Ferguson. But sometimes she’d see the boys hurry home. She’d see the blood-shot eyes and running noses and she could tell that they were crying.

She was glad she wasn’t in school anymore if learning was so horrible.

One Tuesday, when Mrs. Maple was delayed in town, Lisa opened the door for the two boys. The older one, Gavin, kept his eyes down and did not speak. The younger boy, Patrick, looked scared, lips trembling, eyes darting about, as if looking for an escape route. Gavin pushed him forward, making him knock on the study door.

Curious, she waited in the hallway, listed at the door. But no sounds penetrated through the heavy oak. Not at first. Then cries of protest and pain, pleas for mercy, then silence again.

As soon as she heard Mrs. Maple enter the kitchen, she slipped out the front door and hurried to the shed. Later she asked why that little boy had been so scared. Mrs. Maple told her to mind her own business. To not question the pastor's teaching methods. Her questions remained, however. Why the cries? What had the boy done that required punishment? Were lessons that difficult that it required pain before they were learned?

It wasn’t until her eighth summer in Underbridge that she found some answers. She had seen the pattern. At first the young boy, six or seven would walk to the vicarage, proud to have been chosen, eager to learn, only to leave with a bewildered and haunted look in his eyes. Maybe not the first session, maybe not the second, but by the third week, it was obvious that he was in pain. She followed one of the boys when she had seen blood stains on the back of his shirt and asked why he was crying. What happened in those sessions?

He had shaken his heads, ‘Can’t say. Don’t make me, miss.’

Then one day she saw.

Timmy had turned six the month before. His parents were so proud. He was their only child, born late in their marriage. They boasted that the vicar had selected Timmy to be one of his special students. That it was such an honor to spend each Tuesday afternoon at the parsonage, getting a leg up on schooling. Learning his letters and numbers.

The window of the study was open that warm summer day. Lisa heard Timmy’s muffled cries when she passed with the basket of eggs. Determined to find out what these lessons were about, she crept to the open window. Though the sheer curtains were blowing about, she saw enough.

Dumbstruck, she watched. The small cabinet behind the preacher’s desk was open, showing a switch, a cane, and several objects she didn’t have names for. She heard the parson dictating spelling words, but what she saw did not look like anything she remembered from when she was in a classroom. Lisa had led a sheltered life in the parsonage's kitchen and couldn't begin to comprehend what she was seeing. But she did understand Timmy's cries and tears.

“What is he doing? Why is he hurting little Timmy?” She asked Mrs. Maple.

Mrs. Maple shrugged. “It’s not for us to say. He’s the pastor. He knows best.”

“You know what he’s doing? Have ou seen it? He shouldn't do that, should he?"

Mrs. Maple shrugged again.

“Why don’t you say anything?”

“Who’d believe me? And I’d be out of a job. Then what? I have a mother to support. Best keep this to yourself, young lady. Best go muck out the chicken coop.”

Years passed, every three or four years, when one boy would leave the local school, a new one would come. On Wednesday, Mrs. Maple would do a small wash. But Lisa had seen the blood stains that didn’t come clean anymore. Lisa clenched her fists, ground her teeth. But no one spoke up.

Mrs. Maple retired, leaving Lisa to manage the parsonage.

When the chicken coop out back needed new fencing, Gavin, who was the local handyman, came to do the repair. Keeping a wary eye on the home, he worked rapidly.

Lisa brought a cup of tea and a few biscuits out to him. Grateful, Gavin took the treat. While he drank, she tried to talk to him.

“You know he’s still doing it, don’t you?”

Gavin shrugged and averted his eyes.

“Do you approve?” she pushed.

“Lord no!”

“Then help me stop him. Someone needs to speak out. Find the others. Testify.”

“I couldn’t.” he shook his head.

She nodded with a sigh. “I understand. I’m ashamed for never having spoken up. For turning my back. For never sending any of you away. But I can’t be silent anymore.”

Gavin grunted and turned back to the henhouse and the work before him.

“I will speak up. I hope I can count on you and others. But if not …” Her voice trailed off. She took the empty cup and walked back to the kitchen. He watched her go.

The next Sunday, while Father Murthy spoke of paying for one’s sins and service to the church, Lisa stood up.

“I need to testify.” Her voice echoed through the small church.

“Not now, sister Lisa. You may see me after the service.”

“No, I need to testify now. In front of everybody.” She stepped into the aisle, slowly turned around, making eye contact with several of the young men and boys in the congregation

“I testify to having kept a secret for too many years. I have known of the pain and degradation many of you have endured. I must confess my sin of enabling the devil among us. My sin of turning my back on the ones who could not defend themselves. My sin of silence.”

She turned to face the pulpit and an irate Reverend Murthy

“No more! The abuse cannot continue. We cannot allow the bodies and souls of our youth to be preyed upon.”

A murmur rumbled through the congregation.

“Sister Lisa! I order you to sit and be silent!” The parson's hands gripped the lectern. She did not acknowledge his outburst. Her eyes traveled from Gavin to Tim and Patrick and so many more.

“Sister Lisa!” The preacher bellowed.

Ignoring him she continued. “If those among you who have been marked by this evil cannot speak up, I will speak for you.”

Hesitantly, Gavin stood. “I’ll speak.” His voice trembled but was loud enough to be heard by everyone. After a pause, Cooper stood up, then Tim. The murmurs became a grumble. Frank rose to his feet. Patrick, John, and Frederik. One by one, those men and boys who still lived in the town, stood.

Silently testifying to the horrors of their youth.