William Vollmann: Butterfly Stories

For precisely the same reason that they did not subject one of their own to this humiliation, they did not lay hands on the butterfly boy. He was not one of them. His closest kinship was with the bully. He was an untouchable, a prostitute, an eater of dirt. There was thus no need to force him. Because what they demanded of him was disgusting and he was disgusting, he would do it of his own accord. That way there could certainly be no trouble, for if any crime were about to be committed, it was not theirs, but his. - Another point for cleverness.

And weren't they right? No free will, bravery, or self-confidence could be attributed to this creature. He came when they called them.

It was always possible that the end-of-recess bell might strike if he stalled them, but he could not walk too slowly or something worse would be done, so he watched the glossy black tips of his galoshes crunch down upon the white snow with spurious deliberation. With every step, the playground contracted, tightening the ritual bond between himself and the other victim. The crowd of boys had pulled in close. They had been shouting and then they had been quiet and the girl had screamed and had been doing that every day; they appeared to be mingling with the boys most energetically, which was all to the good, the teacher thought, and maybe she was right because when the bell did ring and the pupils came in they bore no wounds more serious than bruises, from which it follows that it had all been in fun. So they captured the big girl and tried to figure out what to do with her. Then they remembered the butterfly boy. - Make him kiss her! a boy shouted.

What they wanted was to degrade and brutalize. The girl would be tortured by being kissed, because it was a universal truth that kissing was disgusting, and because everyone would be watching. The butterfly boy would be likewise raped by the procedure, although it was unfortunately possible that he might rise a little in their esteem by becoming their instrument. All in all, the scheme was as elegant as it was practical. One must admire such cleverness.

For precisely the same reason that they did not subject one of their own to this humiliation, they did not lay hands on the butterfly boy. He was not one of them. His closest kinship was with the bully. He was an untouchable, a prostitute, an eater of dirt. There was thus no need to force him. Because what they demanded of him was disgusting and he was disgusting, he would do it of his own accord. That way there could certainly be no trouble, for if any crime were about to be committed, it was not theirs, but his. - Another point for cleverness.

And weren't they right? No free will, bravery, or self-confidence could be attributed to this creature. He came when they called them.

It was always possible that the end-of-recess bell might strike if he stalled them, but he could not walk too slowly or something worse would be done, so he watched the glossy black tips of his galoshes crunch down upon the white snow with spurious deliberation. With every step, the playground contracted, tightening the ritual bond between himself and the other victim. The crowd of boys had pulled in close. They had been shouting and then they had been quiet and the girl had screamed and then they had shouted again. Now they parted silently to let him through. He did not look into their eyes. He gazed only at the crouching girl, who no longer screamed or struggled. One of the big boys yanked her hair hard.

He was almost upon her now, and had no knowledge of what he was going to do. But it was not up to him to know what to do. His act would rise up red like a pepper, a penis, a pistil of a tropical orchid. Of course he did not think in those terms. He did not think. The world was now no larger than the slanting plane between the toes of his galoshes and her straining face, teeth clenched in fear and hate, neck corded like a tree trunk down to the collar of her sweater; she was jerking and gasping like an animal in the boys' unescapable hands, her nostrils drawn almost flat as she sucked in breath to face him and the butterfly boy took one more step and one more step and now there were no more steps left to take. The boys' hands fell away from her as the circle tightened about them both like an anus. They wanted to see her go mad, no doubt, running about, kicking and scratching and clawing at the butterfly boy (no danger of her escape). Her eyes slammed themselves down to slits. She didn't recognize or remember him. He reached slowly toward her and she stood stock still as he pulled the hood of her parka back up over her head because he knew only that she was shivering, and she glared at him for a moment and shook the hood back down just as a dog shakes itself dry and he embraced her.

He kissed her the only way he knew how, as he would have kissed his mother's cheek or his aunt's cheek or the cheek of any of the nice ladies who came to visit. (The other boys made loud noises of revulsion.) He felt something happening to her but he did not understand what it was. He said: I love you.

Then she was squeezing him back in tight defiance. — I love you, too, she said.

The boys made barely feigned vomiting sounds. They raised their fists in horror.

Teacher's looking! a boy shouted.

Get the bully! Get the bully!

The bully stormed bellowing down from his hillock, and they dropped back to form a line that would protect them from implication but insure that the girl and the butterfly boy could not escape their punishment. What a horrible spectacle it had been to see them enjoying themselves! — Beat 'em up, retard! a boy shrieked, and the bully snorted like an ox and was just about to fall upon them with feet and fists when he recognized the girl who had beaten him, stopped, and slunk away.

Teacher's coming, teacher's coming!

The boys exploded into individual atoms, fleeing everywhere, circling the other girls like maddened sharks (what the girls had been doing the butterfly boy would never know), and the girl and the butterfly boy were by themselves.

Are we going to get married? she said.

This eventuality had not occurred to the butterfly boy before, but now that she had said it, it became the only conceivable choice. He nodded.

For the rest of the school year he considered them engaged, but in the fall he learned that her family also had moved away —

On the morning after what was supposed to be his last night on earth, the boy who wanted to be a journalist dreamed that we were falling toward Jupiter. Other people had no conception of how horrible it was going to be, but he did because he was an expert on atmospheres. First they'd see the Great Red Spot getting huger by the hour, tinting everything red and baleful, driving animals to madness. The oceans would rear into thousand-foot tides, smashing cities with cold dark fishy blows, drowning Asia and Africa, exterminating all but the rich and flabby elite in their mountain bunkers. Their time would run out, too. Gales of methane and mothball-smelling gases would rip the air away so that everyone would die in convulsions of unspeakable pain, kicking like bugs in a killing jar. The boy who wanted to be a journalist decided not to wait. He drank paint stripper and swallowed pain killers. The gentle girl found out and asked why he wanted to worry enough to do that, since he'd die anyway when they got to Jupiter; when he strove to explain, his skeleton overpowered him, and he began to weep in helpless spasms. The gentle girl drew him into her arms. He tried to jerk away, but she held him all the more tightly and he felt better. Instead of crying much harder as he usually did, he vomited poison all over her. She'd saved him.