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Max Thompson Jr.: A Man Named Boy

In the darkness of his cell he hears footsteps approaching. He hears laughter and gossip. His father with others. He's not sure who he's with. He puts his ear to the door and hears a laugh, a deep guttural laugh. He feels his skin crawl and his stomach twist in knots. It can only be Chief. He hates Chief, especially when he's with his Pa. They make him do all kinds of things for fun and laughs. His Pa brags about his 'killing tool' as he often calls him. More laughter. Other voices. Chief brought some deputies to enjoy the show. He wants to smash them all to bits just to make them stop laughing. Everyone laughs at him. The whole world laughs at him. He grinds his teeth with frustration. They ain't supposed to laugh. They're supposed to protect him and he knows it. He's seen it on his TV, the only thing that calms him and keeps him company when he's done his work. TV is something special... the friend and parent he never had... But Chief... Chief ain't like those on TV. He's another kind of Chief of Police. The kind that works with Pa to clean money. He doesn't even know what that means but he overheard them by the pigpen talking about cleaning a whole load of money and sharing that load with a judge and other men of the law. They clean money together. That's why Chief lets Pa and Ma do whatever they want to him. "Chief is crooked", his Pa always says. Crooked like his boy's face. The laughter grows louder. They approach his brick dungeon and he shivers at the thought of more slaughter. He's tired of killing to make a few deputies laugh. Real tired. He feels his blood boiling, feels it rising through his neck, feels it pushing up his face like it wants to burst through his skull. A sudden high-pitched whistling noise fills his ears. He hits his head over and over again until the whining stops. Silence returns, for a moment, just a moment, and then a chain rattles. Bolts snap loudly as he loses balance and falls back to his haunches. The door opens, filling his brick cell with blinding sunlight. He covers his eyes with his arm. His Pa steps inside, grabs him, and yanks him to his feet. "Come on, Boy! Let's show these deputies your worth!"

In the sweltering barn, he stares at the blood dripping from his hammer, feeling as though he were in a dream. Strange. Weird. Unhinged. No. Not a dream. More like... like he's living in a TV show... watching himself from a distance. Slaughtered cows thick and wet all around him. Seven or eight of them writhing helplessly in warm, coagulating blood. Heads cracked open. Brain and gore spilling out. Flies buzzing around him, buzzing in his face, buzzing in his ears, telling him this slaughter is who he is. This senseless slaughter is his worth... his only worth. "Kill. That's what they love to watch you do. Kill. Kill. Kill." The flies are laughing at him. Laughing with Chief and his deputies, telling him he's so useless, he don't even have a name. "Boy! What kind of name is that!" His Pa shoves him towards another cow. "You ain't done yet!" Boy raises his hammer and shakes blood from his eyes. He feels strange. Weird. Unhinged. Fed up. He's had enough of this life, the cell, shovelling manure, slaughter, endless slaughter, and taking care of those pigs. Those prised pigs — pigs given more love by his parents than he ever got. The flies circle his face and laugh at him. The high-pitched whining returns. "The pigs got names and you didn't! Duke and Donny." He swats at the flies. Pa nudges him. "Come on, Boy, show'em you can do more with that hammer!" Boy... That's what Pa calls him. Boy... That's what Ma calls him. They think he's too dumb to know he doesn't have a name. A real name. He knows. All his life he knew. He knew and imagined himself as Max... Max Thompson. Imagined his Pa was so proud of him that he gave him his name. How he dreamed to have his father's name... how he dreamed... Pa shoves him. "Come on! Show'em! Show'em now!" Boy feels his face fill with blood. His veins swell with fury. His temples throb maddeningly. The next moments are a blur. Blood and screams everywhere! Not bovine... human... the whining begins again and he's confused, searching for his Pa but not finding him. The whining stops and everything is muffled. He turns to see Chief charging at him. "What have you done!?" Boy doesn't really hear him. It's like when Ma held his head in a bucket of water to teach him not to call or cry for her when he was a child. Everything's muffled, distorted, surreal. Chief tackles him and grabs the gory hammer out of his hand. "You killed'em! Your Pa! Jim! Don! Ray! My men! My fuckin' men!" Boy pushes Chief off and tumbles out of the barn, drenched in blood, heading towards the main house, screaming for his Ma in the growing dusk.