He was still fourteen when his mother was lost to him. Lost twice. The second time was when she fled him and Ray with a pimp, never to be seen or heard of again. The first time…
Well, that was the only time that counted. For she had ceased to exist for him after that. After that, he blotted her out of his mind, for he could not think of her without vomiting.
He had gone to sleep late on the night in question. Ray and his mother were arguing violently in the adjoining room, making sleep impossible. Finally, their voices died and he dozed off, but not for long. He came awake with a sudden start, a sick chill creeping up his spine at the strange sounds from the other room.
He had never heard anything like them before. Which was natural enough. It was only during the last year or so, during the restless dawning of puberty, that he could stay awake after ten at night. Only during the last year or so, whereas his mother had been whoring for more than two years. And a whore may not be bruised and battered without lessening her income. Ray had managed to restrain himself. Tonight, however, Ray had been pushed too far. He had nothing to lose by beating her, that he could see. The silly bitch had been busy all day. One customer after another. Yet she'd wound up the day with less than she'd had at the outset. Her money given away along with her body. Free ass and money to go with it!
She lay sprawled on the bed on her stomach, scanty gown drawn up over the flaring buttocks which Ray, teeth gritted in his white face, was promising to beat off of her.
He raised his belt high; brought it down with a slashing craack! upon the rounded hummocks of naked flesh. They quivered and squirmed, delicate shivers running through them like things with an existence of their own and distinct from the rest of her body. Ray paused, panting for breath. There was silence, motionlessness for a moment, while the dimmed coal-oil lamp flickeringly limned the scene: a lewd nightmare by a drunken Dore. Then, there was a slight twitching of the undulant sand-colored torso; a small impatient movement. And from the pillows came a muffled sob: querulous, questioning. Prompting.
Ray's eyes blazed. The belt whipped up and down, up and down, furiously raining blows upon the ever-hungering flesh. And, silently, the door to the adjoining room opened, and Critch looked in on them.
He moved instinctively, without a split-second's thought. A simple reaction to Ray's action. Hurling himself between this man and his mother; automatically stopping what had to be stopped, as the blink of an eyelid stops a probing. Because it must. Because there is great loss if it is not.
And then, looking up at Ray, a little frightened by what he had done. Frightened and apologetic. Yet still driven by an inbred urge, he struck feebly at his idol, causing the man to fall back a step.
'Y-you can't do that,' he quavered. 'You don't… y-you can't – mustn't hit a woman.'
The voice was his, but the words, the age-long injunction, at least, were his father's. A she, girl or woman, could not be hit. It might make her titties rot or screw-up her innards (which were plenty screwed-up to begin with, and not like the good guts of a man). _I ever catch you hittin' another gal, boy, I'll yank off your pecker an' flog you t' death with it._ The Apache, Tehapa, Old Ike's oldest and dearest friend, had endorsed the tabu against the hitting of shes, although he had privately added a qualification. It was bad medicine to beat woman (just as it was bad to beat young children, when their peters and pussies were still inside them and might be injured thereby). But there _were_ occasions when it was not only well but necessary to _kill_ a woman. This was so, and all wise men knew it.
And now, Critch looked up at Ray fearfully and apologetically. But stubbornly, with a sense of righteousness. 'You can't, Ray,' he stammered. 'I'm s-sorry, but you mustn't.'
'No?' Ray smiled, cocking a quizzical brow. 'Now, why is that, hmmm?'
'Because!'
'Yes? Why because?'
'You know. Because it's – it's – '
Critch couldn't find the words to explain. Given time, he might have conjured them from the shadows of the past, but he was not given time.
His mother was suddenly behind him, knotting furious fingers in his hair. Giving him a twirling yank that sent him staggering across the room to come up solidly against the wall.
He slid down the wall, sat down on the floor with a small thud. A little dizzily he stared at the hate-filled face of his mother. And words came to him from the mouth of that face, a torrent of filth from the whore's vocabulary.
Mothersuckin' turd, grannygobbler, jismeater, screwing little shit. 'What d'ya mean, huh? Hah? What d'ya mean hittin' Ray? I'll learn you, yuh bastard! Beat the fuckin' piss out of yuh!'
She started toward him, hesitated; sidled an approval-seeking glance at Ray. His face was expressionless, and she humbly lifted his hand and tried to kiss it.