Chapter Text
Alastor Boudreaux
13 St. Ann Street
Tremé, New Orleans, Louisiana
The Morning Star
Pandemonium
Dear Mr. Lucifer,
I do not know whether this letter shall ever reach you. Indeed, I do not know whether you exist at all, save in the manner the priests insist you do. Yet I find, this evening, that it matters very little. I have no expectation of a reply, nor have I written with any such hope. Rather, I write because there is no one else to whom I may speak plainly.
A man may confess his sins to a priest, but he cannot confess his doubts. Those are answered before they are heard. I have no desire to be pitied, nor corrected, nor told to kneel until my heart is made right again. If I have chosen to write to you, Mr. Lucifer, it is because I imagine you would have little patience for false comforts.
The world, as I have observed it these past 17 years, has not been ordered according to fairness. Good people suffer with remarkable constancy, while cruel men prosper without apology. If Heaven takes notice of such things, it has kept an admirable silence.
Perhaps, then, there is greater honesty to be found in darkness than in the light.
I am 17 years of age and attend McDonogh No. 35, which opened only this year for colored pupils. The newspapers congratulate themselves upon its existence, calling it a noble experiment, as though education were a kindness bestowed rather than a right long denied. Mother says gratitude costs a man nothing, and so I have tried to be grateful, if only for her sake.
She has always possessed a faith I have admired, though never understood.
I tried, Mr. Lucifer. I truly did.
I knelt beside her at Mass each Sunday. I learned my catechism. I whispered every Hail Mary and every Act of Contrition expected of a dutiful son. I watched the crucifix until my eyes ached, hoping I might feel what everyone else appeared so certain they possessed.
I never did. But I saw only a man in agony, and I wondered what comfort there could be in such suffering if the world remained as it was. Perhaps that thought alone condemns me. If so, then I suppose I have already begun my journey toward your kingdom.
Here is the truth of it: My mother is the finest Christian I have ever known, and yet the L lord has seen fit to burden her more heavily than any woman ought to bear.
She speaks French more readily than English and earns our living as a laundress. Each morning she leaves before sunrise with baskets nearly too heavy for one person to carry, and each evening she returns with hands made raw by lye and hot water. The skin across her knuckles has long since ceased to heal properly. Some nights she can scarcely straighten her fingers.
Yet she smiles. And she is blindingly beautiful when she does. She asks after my lessons before she asks after herself. She tells me that if I continue my studies, I shall become a gentleman, and that no amount of prejudice can take learning from a man once he has earned it. She believes this with all her heart.
She is a remarkable woman, Mr. Lucifer. She is at her brightest until there comes a knock upon our door. He is the monster calls himself my father.
My father is a white man. In this city, that alone grants him privileges neither my mother nor I shall ever possess. He has never been much interested in being a husband, nor, I think, a father. He is a brute who appears when the whiskey runs low and leaves when his anger has spent itself. I have seen him strike my mother. I have seen her flinch at the sound of his footsteps. I have seen her pray afterward, on her knees, asking God to forgive him.
Forgive? Him?
Can you imagine, Mr. Lucifer?
She asks after my lessons while her ribs still ache from his knuckles. She does not ask for escape. She does not ask for retribution. She asks for absolution for the man who leaves her bleeding on the floor. And heaven offers nothing but silence.
If heaven watches, if it truly sees all, then it sees this. It sees the way she prays on splintered knees. It hears her whisper forgiveness for a man who has never once asked for it. And still, nothing. I have made my peace with that. I do not bow to a god who watches and turns away. A god who is either powerless or unwilling. I have no use for such a deity.
But I have use for you, Mr. Lucifer.
I must, because you are the only one who makes sense. You are the one who punishes the wicked. You are the one who takes the men like my father and gives them what they deserve. I have seen the pictures in the church. Of the damned writhing in flames, the demons laughing at their eternal sufferings. And I thought believed that that was justice.
I know that makes me a wicked boy. I know it makes me a sinner. The fools priests would say I am already damned for such thoughts. But I cannot help it. When I think of father that man burning, I feel peace.
Sometimes, when the angry man is drunk and my mother is crying, I imagine killing him. Not in a dream, no, that would be childish. And I do not fantasize about this. I plan it. I think about the knife in the kitchen drawer. I think about the stairs, how easy it would be to trip him. I think about the fire poker by the hearth. I have even measured the weight of it in my hands. It is heavier than I expected, but I think I could swing it. I think I could swing it hard enough to end him.
Does that frighten you, Mr. Lucifer? Does it make you laugh? I do not know which reaction I prefer. I only know that I cannot tell this to anyone else. Not to my mother. Not to the priests. Not to the boys at school who think I am quiet because I am studious. I am quiet because I am afraid of what I might say.
Can you keep a secret, Mr. Lucifer?
There is another matter upon which I have long hesitated to write. It seems almost foolish beside all I have already confessed, and yet it troubles me in ways I scarcely know how to express. The boys at school have lately taken to speaking of young ladies with great enthusiasm. Every walk home becomes an excuse to admire one face or another. They speak as though such feelings arrive upon a man as naturally as the turning of the seasons. They ask me which girls I fancy, and I answer well enough to satisfy them.
I have become rather good at pretending. At times I catch myself observing another boy a moment longer than I ought. There is no explanation I can offer for it. I lower my eyes at once and beg the Lord's forgiveness, though I confess I do not know whether I pray because I am sorry or because I have been taught that I ought to be.
Perhaps there is some defect in me. Perhaps I was fashioned improperly. Or perhaps this is simply another mark against my soul, to accompany all the others.
A colored boy with a white father's blood. A doubter. A poor Christian. A son who cannot reconcile himself to forgiveness. And now a pervert this.
You must think me a curious monster creature indeed, Mr. Lucifer.
I ought to feel ashamed. I have tried often enough to summon shame, but weariness comes more readily. I am weary of smiling for Mother's sake when my thoughts are elsewhere. I am weary of hearing how fortunate we are whenever someone grants us what should never have been withheld. I am weary of bowing my head in gratitude for crumbs while other men sit comfortably at the table. Most of all, I am weary of pretending certainty where I possess none.
That, more than anything else, is why I have written to you. I have nothing with which to bargain in any case. I wished only to speak honestly to someone who, if he exists at all, cannot be scandalized by the truth.
Should you truly exist, and should this letter find you despite every sensible expectation to the contrary, I hope you will think no worse of me for having written it. Whatever else may be said of me, I have tried to be a dutiful son. I shall continue to study diligently. I shall mind my mother, for she deserves better than the life Providence has seen fit to give her. I shall endeavor to become the gentleman she already believes me capable of becoming.
Whether that gentleman truly exists, I cannot say.
Until such time as the truth reveals itself, I shall imagine that somewhere there is at least one listener who does not demand that every difficult question be answered with another prayer. It grows late, and Mother will wonder why my lamp still burns. I have Latin in the morning, and Father Dupré is not known for his patience with sleepy pupils.
Good night, Mr. Lucifer.
Yours in Anticipation,
Alastor Boudreaux