“The Story of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup” by danielle etienne

Augustus was a chubby lad;

Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had:

And everybody saw with joy

The plump and hearty, healthy boy.

He ate and drank as he was told,

And never let his soup get cold.

But one day, one cold winter’s day,

He screamed out “Take the soup away!

O take the nasty soup away!

I won’t have any soup today.”

Next day, now look, the picture shows

How lank and lean Augustus grows!

Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,

The naughty fellow cries out still

“Not any soup for me, I say:

O take the nasty soup away!

I won’t have any soup today.”

The third day comes: Oh what a sin!

To make himself so pale and thin.

Yet, when the soup is put on table,

He screams, as loud as he is able,

“Not any soup for me, I say:

O take the nasty soup away!

I WON’T have any soup today.”

Look at him, now the fourth day’s come!

He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum;

He’s like a little bit of thread,

And, on the fifth day, he was—dead!

She fed him and she fed him good.  August and his mother lived in a trailer on the outskirts of town, the places in towns where the weeds grow tall and the smell of garbage and dog shit is always present, hovering like spacecrafts over the living quarters of such unfortunates as some tend to be.  August and Mother were loners, hermits who cared nothing for others and aimed to live their lives that way till the Good Lord summoned them for The Rapture.  And it was coming; all things in due time.  Mother had been lecturing and sermonizing on the glorious ever-lasting light of the Pentecost since August was old enough to swallow his first ham hock.  People floating right out of their shoes, ascending to heaven in a procession of multi-colored balloons, chorales of angels and heralding trumpet blasts announcing the occasion. So sweet would it be that you would blink and it would be happening, right in front of your eyes.  Mother never knew exactly when and where the Rapture was going to occur but she had been patiently waiting her whole life and she could stand to wait a little more.  The only thing she knew for absolute certain was that she and August would be the first two selected in this horrible little town to rise.  She had no doubts that they were the most deserving and that entitled them to first flight. Of course they didn’t worship in the traditional sense of belonging to a congregation, but their home worship contained a thousand times the fervor and passion of the local church.  Plus, they needn’t be bothered with heretics and other heathens that so often managed to worm their way into fellowship, corrupting the rest of the good citizens that were only there to love God.

They loved watching mega-church events on the little color television set and thinking about the good days to come, and as their life had always gone since around the time August turned three, most everything in their collective existence revolved around food. August loved hog maws, chitlins, pig feet, even canned Vienna sausages when he could get them.  Mother considered canned foods a delicacy and a devil’s temptation, but for her beloved boy she was willing to make an exception.  She relished in the fact that it made her boy as happy as pig in shit when he could stuff his monstrous hand into the can and pull out 3 or 4 at once, shoveling the tiny-thumblike meatlings into his cavernous mouth like nothing else in the world mattered.  He was also like this with sardines, another delicacy, reserved for special occasions.

In the dull, languid heat of a late summer afternoon, August was celebrating his tenth birthday. Mother had indulged in a classic favorite of his; 10 cans of sardines piled high on his dining tray, and a bowl of mustard on the side which served as an excellent dipping sauce or glaze for the diminutive fish.  Since August had ceased being mobile two years ago, his heaping 400 pound mass of flesh was contained to his bedroom.  Mother brought in all his meals on a tray usually reserved for those that are fevered or when lovers have breakfast in bed, as lovers sometimes do.  She brought him his meals and she ate with him; a green and brown plaid recliner stationed at the foot of the bed served as her throne, and when she had left the room for sleep the moonlight cast its glow between the slats of the window air conditioner.  They ate together, they watched their programs together and they read the scriptures like two scholars; Mother’s fervor igniting August’s interest in a perfectly symbiotic relationship.  Their hovel was their kingdom, and it was important for a king to eat like one.  The bible spoke of rulers and majesty, palaces and exquisite banquet tables adorned with grapes and golden goblets, but Mother preferred a more modest approach for their realm.  As a re-run of “Walker, Texas Ranger” droned on in the background, Mother entered with the dining tray, complete with a single white candle atop the mountain of sardines.

“Happy Birthday my little man.”

He had spooned giant helpings; sometimes swallowing them whole, other times the bone-crunching and jowl licking creating a chorale or glorious melody that set Mother’s eyes to welling; her pride in her son being so immense that she could hardly stand it.  He had stared up at her from underneath his blankets, spittle and fish flesh decorating his chin, with nothing but love and godliness in his beady black eyes.

“I love you mama, I love you so and I never wanna eat nothin again cept them sardines for the rest of my life..You think Jesus’ll let us eat them sardines when he come to take us up into the sky?”

Mother smiled and reassured August that indeed he would, if so be his will.

“For all we know boy he might want us to eat nothin but bread and water up there, and if that’s the case then I aim to do as he sees fit.  Always remember boy that He will do with us as he sees fit, and if it’s bread and water, then its bread and water”

At this August seemed especially perturbed.  He frowned and started to become agitated,

“But that ain’t fair!  That just ain’t fair mama I aint never wanna eat no bread and water as long as I live, even when we up in heaven I ain’t gonna eat it.  I’ll tell Jesus it ain’t fair and we done all we could on this earth to do right and be good, decent people.  It ain’t fair he don’t let us have somethin good to eat-“

The bowl of mustard came flying off of August’s tray and shattered against the wall, spraying yellow and exploding shards of ceramic over the grayish carpet that in another life had once been the color of buttermilk.

In the far corner of the room, next to the microwave and litter box, maggots were ransacking a Hungry Man Salisbury steak that had been left over from last weekend.

Mother tightened her grip around August’s throat, squeezing and wringing his neck fat till his eyes bulged.

“You listen and you listen good little man…You know I ought to punish you more than this for blasphemin and talkin trash like that…I’m a sit here with my delicate little hands around your voice box until I think it’s time to let go.  You hear me boy?  I say when it’s time to let go!  You ain’t need to be questionin  the Lord and his Will, EVER, YOU  HEAR?’

Mother seemed to be riling herself up.  The more she talked the more angry she got.  August had thrown tantrums and questioned the divine plan before, and each time, she administered penalty.  These days his mouth seemed to be getting him into more and more trouble.  He had gotten older and with that age change the tantrums had subsided.  Gone were the days of throwing freshly barbequed rib racks against the wall or shitting himself in bed on purpose.  He always received a good beating for those infractions (Mother liked to use extension cords), but for speaking against Jesus she reserved a specifically cruel kind of torture.  She had been raised by a stern fundamentalist family, her father being the local preacher in the town, and she was no stranger to imaginative and brutal methods of consequence for having disobeyed or offended the almighty.  One of her daddy’s favorite means of reprimand included taking her into the bathroom and instructing her to sit on the tile.  He would then unbuckle his belt and strip naked except for his socks.

“You been a bad girl Maybelle..”

“Yes sir.”

“You know that you defile the very floor you sit on with your filthy talk and unclean behavior.  You act like a dog and I’m a treat you like a dog.”

“Yes sir.”

“A dog exists in his own filth, day in, day out”

“Yes sir”

“You gonna have a little taste of that now”

Daddy would then bunch his briefs into a wad and position himself over the toilet to take a leak, but instead of using the commode, he commenced to piss into the balled up undergarments, soaking them until he could squeeze out no more.  Getting down on one knee in a proposal position, he stuffed the urine-soaked rag in her mouth so violently she thought she might vomit.  He took his index finger and gently pushed in corner pieces to make sure every inch was being utilized. Her eyes welled with tears and humiliation.

“Now we gon sit here until I say so.  I ain’t leavin, and I’m gonna make sure you suck on that thing for awhile.  Think about what you done”

He made her sit like this for hours.  Reading his bible on the toilet seat, looking up every once in a while to make sure she wasn’t trying anything sneaky.  Maybelle focused on the tiles and let her mind wander into places of dreams and castles, fields that were filled with poppies and wildflowers; or her mother’s hands braiding her hair. When he thought she’d had enough, he clapped he closed the bible violently so it snapped, and the two of them descended the stairs together for dinner, Daddy wiping the sweat off of her neck and dropping the underwear in the laundry shoot to be washed and dried for another day.

August was out of breath.  His lips were turning a little gray and Mother relaxed her grip, dusting her hands off and leaning back into her chair.  She was pleased with herself, but she was ready for more.  August coughed and shuddered.

“Momma I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-“ He managed to choke out a sincere, tearful apology despite his pain.  He was a sweet and honest boy.  He was certainly prone to back-talk and insolence but he was a boy with a kind heart.  Lying awake at night he thought of ways to make his mother love him more and how much happier the world would be if everyone owned a kitten to snuggle with at night.

“August, dearest heart, you know what comes next.”

August gulped and looked at Mother with pleading eyes.  He hated what was about to happen and struggled to reconcile in his half-wit mind how he deserved it.  How did he ever deserve any of this.

He remembered dreams and visions of running in a pack of wolves, being in the open forest and feeling the dirt get under his fingernails and catch between his toes.  In these kinds of dreams he was able to move; normal.  Mother had never wanted anything else for him but there was once a time when he had.  The wolf dreams kept him happy in his little corner of the room, alone on his island bed.  When she started to remove his blankets and pull up his sweatshirt he thought about the forest. Little sparrows and owls, chipmunks and ground squirrels scurrying into their hideaways before the storm came.  An elk trotted by wearing a silver crown, covered in rubies and emeralds from far away places.  The thunder motioned, complaining off in the distance while the sun winked and laughed, not ready to give up just yet.  Rabbits and lizards were playing ring-around-the-rosie while a carnival barker flipped wooden nickels into the canopy, showering the inhabitants in a sunburst of confetti and rainbow-colored strawberries; the carnival barker’s helper monkey wearing a Shriner’s fez and playing dominoes with a neighboring badger.  The rain clouds danced a slow ballet across the sky, moving in closer and closer.  The animals could feel them and began to worry; the monkey furrowed his brow and called the game for another day.  The badger conceded and went to find a hole.  A small parade of carpenter ants traveled across a moss-covered log, sheltering their slender bodies with a palm frond umbrella.  The carnival barker collected his monkey and flipped his top hat onto his head with an elegant turn of the wrist, a professional in all things.  They trotted out of the forest scene and off into the storm, leaving August to imagine the downpour devoid of all living things, great and small.  It always started raining in these daydreams, sooner or later.

Mother took her time removing his shirt.  It was painstaking for her, the body heavy and immovable; trying to dislodge a giant boulder from an Egyptian tomb.  August was crying and his tiny tears formed dribbling estuaries in the sunlight careening through the trailer window.

“Arms up”

“Yes, mama…”

The pink abscess exposed a rancid smell when unsheathed.  It had started as an ingrown hair or boil or sorts, located under August’s left breast, but with the lack of air and constant breeding of bacteria from sweat and sheets swimming in fecal matter, the sore had taken on a new life.  The wound seemed to pulsate and a pale green pus gathered in pools around the edges.  At first glance, one might have thought the small white material contained near the center to be simply nothing more than flesh or scab material, however upon further inspection, the gash revealed a cluster of three small maggots who were now using August’s decaying tissue as a feeding ground.  He was terrified of them.  He hated the fact that these abominations were eating him inside out.  He never removed his shirts or sweaters for fear of catching a glimpse of their bulbous anatomies, but when Mother had to change him or administer one of these punishments, he was forced to acknowledge them.  They laughed at him and he knew it.  It was only a matter of time before colonies would be popping up all over his body, eating him like raw hamburger.

Mother took out a Q-tip and went to town.