The Crookback of New Orleans

Worthless

Worthless.

        That was the word Claude had often heard his caretaker, Apep, mutter under his breath as he brought him food and water. It was a word that Claude had heard since he could comprehend. One he was all too familiar with, not that he disagreed. What could someone like him do to help anyone? More towards the point, something like him. It was a silly thought, Claude realized, when he wished to be anywhere but his kept confines of the office, after all Apep had told him the horrors that awaited him in the outside world. Especially to a monster, a misshapen accident of nature, like he was.

        Claude no longer resented God for what he had made him. He couldn't hate God for whatever sin he'd committed in the life before this to deserve his new form. He also couldn't hate his parents for abandoning him the night he was born. He was hideous and lucky to have lived for the twenty two years he had.

 

        There was a deep appreciation that Claude could never ignore for the man who took him in, loved him as his own, and hid him from the eyes of anyone who wished to cast judgment upon him. Apep. Without the care and time that Apep devoted to raising him - a grotesque, malformed child - he would have been shoved into Foster Care Homes. Apep said those were where some of the truest sins took place. Apep had not only saved his physical life, but his spiritual as well. Men like him were few and far in between, Claude gathered, watching from his high window. Concealed from the normal, beautiful people that were below. Evil lurked behind those masks of beauty though; he knew that from everything Apep told him of human nature.

        Not one person walked this Earth who didn't seek to hurt or destroy someone or something else. Humans killed, stole, lied, cheated, and even committed blasphemy. Claude would never do those things; Apep made sure he was safe from their influence. Locking him away so he never faced the challenge that so many others were presented with: temptation, the one thing that could derail the purest of man and soul. Temptation came in many forms, he learned, but the most callous and cunning temptation lay within a woman. Women were God's ultimate challenge for men, swaying them to do many things a righteous faithful man would never do. Many a man fail this test and are damned because a man who couldn't pass a human task could never surpass the Gates of Heaven.

        Yet another thing Apep protected him from. Claude didn't read or have any access to the outside world; therefore he could never be stolen away from the firm grasps of Apep, or God. Claude held the two on the same level. Apep knew everything of God's will and would never leave him astray; Apep was God.

        "Claude, what are you doing? Get away from the window before you're caught, abomination!" Claude scuttled away from the window with haste unbeknownst to him. Apep scowled at the humanity happening beneath the church's view and Claude worked to quell the bit of wonder that arose in his chest anytime he thought of being down there with them.

That is sin, Claude! Apep has raised you better. Pray or be damned. Pray or be damned. That mantra repeated through Claude's head hundreds of times a day. He never had sinful thoughts intentionally, but he couldn't fight the curiosity that coursed through him when he imagined interacting with the normal people. 'There would be no interaction', Apep once told him, 'they would run from a creature a wretched as you.'

        "Good evening, Father Apep. H-how has your day been?" Claude spoke, limping towards Apep to help him set down dinner. His back was bent into a nearly perfect bow; Apep often spoke of how his back resembled the archways in the church, perhaps one day he could be put to use there. Claude was sure his words weren't there to hurt him, but he couldn't help feeling more of a burden anytime the compliment was spoken.

        "My day was terrible, Claude, we've had this discussion. The only time a day will be good is when there is success, and success only comes when..."

        "When- when all sin is abolished." Claude finished, quite pleased with himself for remembering the words directly from the words of the Bible. A nod of the head came from Apep and Claude felt pride in his chest, yet another sin to add to his collection.

        "How many times today, Claude?" Apep spoke, his words calm and almost scathing, but Claude didn't seem to mind.

        "I-I forgot, Father Apep. I'm sorry. I forgot how many times." Apep stood quickly and Claude took to cowering in an instant. He curled even more into himself, but the pain in his back stopped him from being able to sink in much further. Claude yearned to cry out and express his pain, but that was selfish and, therefore, sin.

        "Are you implying that what I work to do every day- to abolish sin as God's will states- is worthless enough to forget, Claude?! I slave away every day to rid the world of pests that don't appreciate everything that the Lord does for us and come home to yet another nuisance that cannot understand the meaning of his sins!" Apep reached back his hand and whispered softly, "Claude, pray for me while I show you what happens to sinners." Claude did not argue as Apep let his hand fly into Claude's face, another attempt to beat the sin out of him.

        "Dear Lord, please," thwack, "protect and love," Claude cries out, "Father Apep!" He falls to the floor as his legs can no longer support his uneven weight, "God, love him for clearing your world of sin!" Apep stops, but Claude knows it isn't over. His suspicions are confirmed when he feels the wooden paddle, that Apep uses often, fall in a gentle motion across his back.

        "Protect this foolish boy from Hell's fire, Lord. Let the monster into the Gates of Heaven. Please, Lord, do not damn his eternal soul. I've tried, Father, but he sees no error in his sinful ways. Take the sacrifices I've laid before you and spare me. And spare the monster, too." Father Apep prayed, pulling the paddle behind his head before reuniting it with the skin of Claude's back. Both the men cried out and Apep struck again, all the while praying that this could offer them redemption.

        When Father Apep could bear no more of the pain shooting into his arm from teaching the beast the wrongs he had done, he stilled, looking down at the sobbing man at his feet. "Clean yourself, Claude, no dinner tonight. We shall pray together once more once you are properly taken care of. Then, we sleep." Father Apep begrudgingly relented. Sleep was a reprieve and a time for the sin that he had worked so hard to fight, to take over his weak unconscious.

 

        No worries, he assured himself, I shall beat the sin away again at dawn. From me and the savage that has proved to be so worthless.