body and held the right hand in an embrace. Slowly, he petted it.
"Come, Mr. Gibb," Rev Boscoe said.
Gibb gulped and stepped forward.
"Allow me to tell you a few things, before we begin," Rev Boscoe said.
Gibb nodded, suddenly very nervous as the moment of his confrontation neared. He didn't mind postponing it a moment or two longer.
"You never asked me how I became this way?"
Gibb had thought about asking, but knew it would have been presumptuous and rude. What must have happened must have been truly horrible.
Rev Boscoe smiled and, without moving his head, glanced up at Gibb. "It was truly horrible; more so because of the betrayal. It was my mother who did this, you see."
Gibb felt his breath hitch.
"You don't have children, but let me promise you, there is nothing more terrible than a mother who hurts her own child. The shattering of the trust alone..." Rev Boscoe's voice trailed off.
Gibb didn't have children. He'd wanted to, but since he'd taken away Stephen Jones' chance to be a father, it hadn't seemed fair.
"We were always poor. She was always high. When she couldn't get hold of morphine or heroin, she'd have to settle. My father painted houses, you see, so there were always a lot of paint cans lying around. He'd collect them until he'd have enough for a full can, then charge the client as if he'd purchased the paint special for them. Not really cheating, just frugal."
Gibb watched Rev Boscoe petting the hand of the comatose medium and tried to imagine the Burned Man as a child. Try as he might, he couldn't.
"Yes. Would you believe I don't even know what I looked like back then either? I was so young, I just don't remember." The Reverend shrugged. "No matter. Like all of us, I am what I've become." He glanced up suddenly, confusion in his eyes. "Where was I?"
"Your father was frugal," Gibb murmured.
"That's right, ever the frugal man. What he didn't know, is how my mother would go into the paint shed when he was gone during the day. She'd take a plastic drop cloth and drape it over her head. That day she hurt me, I watched her through the window as she opened up cans of blue and red and white. I remembered thinking of the flag and wondering if she was going to paint something patriotic." He glanced up and smiled weakly. "Of course, I didn't know the word patriotic until much later."
Gibb matched the smile and nodded.
"Then she began to sing and sway like we were back in church."
"What'd she sing?" Gibb surprised himself by asking.
"Showtunes. She sang showtunes. We had these old records that she'd play. She had all the words memorized. I broke one of the records once and was soundly trounced. I deserved that one." Rev Boscoe stopped petting the hand, and placed the Long Cool Woman's hand over his eyes as he continued.
"Then later after the red, white and blue paint, when I was playing with my trucks in the kitchen, she came inside with a hammer and two ten penny nails. She called me over, and like a good boy, I came. I was so surprised when she nailed my left foot to the floor, I didn't even cry out until she started pounding the other nail home in my right foot."
Gibb brought his hand to his mouth. Although he'd seen horrific things in his fifteen years as a policeman, the matter of fact way the story was being told was almost as shocking as they events they retold.
"Then she began to boil water. She told me I was dirty. She told me I had bugs. She said that she knew how to get them out. She said that she knew how to make me clean. So there I stood, crying and begging my mother to let me go, trying to move my feet, when the first pot came to a boil. Do you know that she smiled when she poured it over my head?"
Gibb shook his head, but it went unnoticed.
"My brain shut down at that point. It took three years before I could think straight again."
Gibb stood, hand to his mouth, eyes wide, staring at the Burned Man. The words ‘when the first pot came to a boil’ reverberated through his mind. Part of him wondered how many pots she'd boiled.
"You were right about something," Rev Boscoe said, abruptly changing the subject. "The soul of the man you killed is still here."