"Fuck! I think we killed him!" came the coarse whisper as the man on Henry's back jumped off, twisted Henry's head towards him, and peered into his face. "No-still breathing," he said with relief.

"This wouldn't kill nobody," one of the others answered. "Just leave 'im a little sore." That got a laugh from all four of them. "Le's see'f we c'n wake him up." With that, the man who had made the joke produced an empty beer bottle he had brought along. He held the bottle in position with his left hand and slammed the heel of his right hand into its base.

The shock to Henry's system (coupled with the fact that his lungs had been working without restriction for fifteen or twenty seconds) brought him abruptly back to consciousness. He started to lift his head and scream involuntarily when his face was slammed into the dirt again, cutting off the sound before it could escape with any volume. The man who had been kneeling on Henry's back laid a hand gently, almost caressingly, on Henry's neck. Then he held the point of a kitchen knife at the back of Henry's jawbone, just below his right ear.

"Be still, now," the knife man whispered, softly, as if to a lover. "Keep them eyes shut tight, an' mebbe I won't hafta cut 'em."

"Don't bust the neck a that bottle off inside," one of the others advised. "That wouldn't be no fun." "Th' ol' monster ain't that tough, you got that right," came the happy reply. He gave the bottle a few more whacks and then tossed it aside, noting with satisfaction that the top half of it was bloody. "Who's first?"

What seemed to Henry Bowman like an eternity was in fact well under an hour. When he realized that he was not going to lose consciousness again, Henry wished that he would die. After the first man finished and the second started in, Henry knew that wish was not going to come to pass, and the thought of living as a blind man filled him with a despair such as he had never imagined.

Soon after that, however, a very strange thing happened. The pain and terror and utter physical helplessness inflicted upon Henry Bowman did not diminish, but his capacity to endure those things increased a tiny bit. It increased just enough that a small part of Henry's mind was able to think of something other than how his insides and his shoulder were screaming as if they were being torn apart. He was able to think of something other than what was being done to him, and something other than how the men might well blind him when they were through.

A small part of Henry Bowman's brain was able to focus on a way to fight back and hurt at least one of these men; hurt him and maybe kill him. A spark glowed, and soon that spark ignited, like pyrite struck against steel in the presence of dry wood shavings. The small flame became a larger flame, and the larger flame turned into a roaring blaze whose heat and light did not eliminate Henry's pain, but dulled it and made it seem as if it were something that he was watching happen to someone else.

Henry Bowman realized that there was one potentially dangerous part of his body over which he still had complete control, and he intended to use it to the fullest extent possible. One of them has to want me to suck him Henry thought. One of them has to. He willed it with every shred of faith he possessed, and as he did so, Henry worked at controlling the jaw muscles that he had been spasmodically clenching in agony.

By thinking of nothing else, Henry found he could open and close his mouth at will. He found he could snap his jaw shut instantly, grind his teeth one side at a time, or slide his jaw sideways with his teeth clenched. For the next twenty-seven minutes, Henry Bowman practiced each of these exercises dozens of times. For twenty-seven minutes, Henry Bowman imagined that he was ignoring his gag reflex, as he did when the doctor stuck a dry tongue depressor down his throat eve ry time he got strep. Only this one won't be dry he told himself over and over. It'll have my blood on it. Come on, you bastards. One of you has to finish that way. It'll only take me a second to do it. I could clip six inches off an axe handle right now. Just one of you, that's all. Please. Just one.

Henry Bowman was still praying for his chance when the high beams of a 1964 Pontiac Catalina seemed to turn night into day. Nineteen-year-old Jimmy Weir had just dropped his sixteen-year-old girlfriend Shelly off at her house in time to squeak her under the midnight curfew her father had imposed. Now he was racing back home before his own father blew a gasket. Jimmy Weir's high beams were on because he had bumped the foot switch while he and Shelly were necking. When the hour had become late and he had started the car to take her home, Jimmy Weir's mind had been filled with powerful thoughts, but none of them involved roadway etiquette.

The big Pontiac had a limited-slip differential, and when Jimmy Weir stabbed the throttle, both rear tires broke loose, slewing the tail of the car to the right. David Webb would have stayed on the throttle, given the wheel a touch of opposite lock, let the tires find traction, and powered out of the skid. David Webb, however, was not driving.

Jimmy Weir stood on the brakes.

The big V-8 stalled, and the Catalina came to rest in the center of the road, pointed about thirty degrees left of the direction it had been traveling. Its headlights illuminated an area near where the gang rape was taking place.

"Fuck! Cops!" one of the four men exclaimed, logically assuming that any car that slewed to a stop near the scene of a crime with its high beams on had to be trouble. Trees prevented a clear view of them and their actions, but the area was no longer pitch dark. All four of them ran.

Jimmy Weir was too startled to notice anything that was happening fifteen yards off the roadway. He looked frantically around the car, assuring himself that he had not damaged it in some way before turning the key, restarting the engine, and proceeding home at a much more sedate pace.

Henry Bowman tried to stand and call for help, but before he could get to his feet he heard the car drive away. He hoped that his attackers were gone for good, but he knew that there was no assurance of that. Distance was his only real ally now. Something's wrong with my ankle he realized. Can't use my right arm, either.

Using his knees and his left arm, Henry Bowman started to crawl towards home.

August 15,1971 It took Henry Bowman almost six hours to get back to the house. He pulled himself up to the door of the wood frame building and let himself in. Thank God Mom's out of town he thought for perhaps the tenth time in five hours. He saw that he had dripped some blood on the wooden floor of the narrow hallway. Got to clean that up he told himself.

There was one downstairs bath, and it was at the end of the hall. Henry pulled himself towards it, crawled through the doorway, and turned on the bathtub taps with his left hand. For five hours he had had an overwhelming desire to wash the blood and filth from his body, and he had the irrational fear that he would never be clean again.

Henry took a steel nail file from the vanity and managed to cut off his t-shirt with his left hand. The torn gym shorts that he had tied crudely to his jockstrap came off next. Henry climbed in the tub without making any attempt to remove his shoes or socks, and let the water level slowly rise to cover his battered body. Lying in the cool water was the first thing that had felt even a little bit pleasant in what seemed like an eternity.

While he soaked, Henry focused on how the water felt and tried to ignore the fact that it was starting to exhibit a slight pink tint. He also tried not to think about his shoulder.

Breakfast of champions Henry Bowman thought with an inward chuckle as he noticed that the sun was starting to appear on the horizon. He was naked except for his shoes and socks, and was sitting on two towels so he wouldn't get blood on the kitchen chair.

The liquor cabinet hadn't been opened in at least a year, but Henry had found it well-stocked, mostly with unopened bottles. Henry Bowman had had ample opportunity to drink beer in college, but his first bottle had also been his last. He hated the taste. Henry had also once tried a scotch on the rocks, which was his uncle Max Collins' drink of choice. One sip of that had been enough to convince him that there were some personal preferences that were utterly beyond his comprehension. Looking through the dusty cabinet, he had recalled that gin and Seven-Up was a drink he had heard several people order at a party his mother had given for some of her friends. Henry liked the soft drink, and had decided the mixing it with gin was worth a try.

On the table in front of him was a quart bottle of gin that was now half full, two empty Seven-Up bottles, and a plastic bucket with a few slivers of ice floating in some very cold water. Henry could see his reflection in the black glass of the double-stack oven across the kitchen. His dislocated shoulder was very prominent, and the bottles and ice bucket in front of him made the image surreal. The bartender from Hell Henry thought as he touched his glass to his lips and tipped it up.

The cold liquid coursed down his throat. Straight from Aphrodite's breast. Tastes even better than that first one did. He drained the glass, then poured a slug of straight gin into it and took a swallow. Burns. Need more Seven-Up. He looked over towards the refrigerator. His ankle felt good enough to walk on, a few yards, at least. He stood up, and dizziness swept over him. Better do the other thing first, while I can still function he decided.

With unsteady steps Henry made it over to the wrought iron pot rack which hung by a short length of 1/4" chain from a steel plate in the ceiling. His father had installed it in 1964, and Henry knew that the plate was held in place by two 3/8" lag bolts which went through the plaster and screwed five inches into one of the 2x10 joists that held up the second floor.

Henry smiled as he climbed on the chair. Thanks for building a pot rack you could hook a block and tackle to and use to pull an engine swap, Dad. He reached for the free end of the plastic-coated electrical extension cord he had earlier looped through the chain. The chair creaked under his weight of 190 pounds. If anyone else had done it, damn thing might rip out of the ceiling and fall on my head.

Henry tied the knot in the extension cord as best he could with his left hand. Hope it holds. He pulled on the cord and it bit into his skin. Probably tear it some. No matter. Henry made a last test to see that the cord was taut, and took a deep breath. He had thought it through for several hours now, and there just wasn't any choice. If you got a frog to swaller, best not to look at it too long he thought. Henry Bowman clenched his teeth and fists, and abruptly threw himself off the chair with a twisting motion.

There was a loud crack, and then blackness.

When Henry Bowman regained consciousness, his whole right side was screaming in protest, but it was his right- hand that screamed loudest. When he opened his eyes, the room was blurred and sideways, and his stomach was doing some very unpleasant things. Henry was hanging by his right wrist, connected to the chain in the ceiling by the electrical cord. His knees were almost touching the linoleum floor. With considerable effort, Henry got his left leg under him and managed to stand up. This took all the tension taken off the cord. Henry's right wrist and shoulder still hurt, but not quite as much. He examined his right hand. It was almost the color of eggplant.

Jesus, how long was I out? Henry wondered. He rotated his shoulder, noting with satisfaction that although it hurt like hell, it seemed to work all right. Then he set to untying the extension cord from his right wrist. It took longer than he expected, for when he had tied the cord, he had had the presence of mind to wrap it tightly several times above the bone so that his makeshift technique would not dislocate his right wrist in the process of fixing his shoulder.

When he was finished unwrapping the cord, Henry was rewarded with the sensation that a thousand tiny needles were being jabbed into his swollen right hand. He flexed his fingers repeatedly, watching them closely. Wouldn't do to lose the use of my trigger finger he thought with a smile. It was the amusement that comes from being either exhausted or drunk, and Henry Bowman was both.

He walked unsteadily back towards his seat at the kitchen table, then remembered he needed Seven-Up to mix with his gin. He retrieved two more bottles from the refrigerator, popped the caps off on a drawer handle, and set them on the table next to the liquor. He filled his glass with ice from the freezer, and set about the serious business of finishing the rest of the alcohol.

The bottle was not quite empty, but Henry Bowman's bladder demanded emptying, and so he staggered to the bathroom. He leaned against the wall and began to relieve himself in the toilet. It was then that he saw the blood in his urine. One end stops and the other starts he thought as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Henry flushed the toilet and then lay down on the bathroom's tile floor, still naked except for shoes and socks. He curled himself into a ball, and soon his body was wracked with violent, uncontrollable sobs. Didn't do anything! he said to himself over and over. He was filled with an immense shame.

To be sure, Henry felt shame for the terrible thing that he had been forced to endure, but there was something else that made it much worse. It was something that Henry Bowman had been trying without success to forget ever since the moment that the car had arrived and the four men had fled.

Henry Bowman knew beyond any doubt whatsoever that the men who had attacked him would do the exact same thing again to someone else. Of this fact he was absolutely certain, just as he knew that winter would arrive in four or five months, and that it would be hot again this time next year.

Those men would do it again, and again after that, and when they did, their next victims might not be able to crawl home. Their next victims might not be left with their eyesight, Henry knew, and he had to fight to keep from vomiting.

And I didn't do anything. Didn't hurt them. Didn't mark a one of them. Didn't even keep my eyes open so I could see what they looked like.

Henry Bowman knew in his heart that he was not the final victim of the four men he had encountered that night, and he was absolutely right about that; more victims followed. There were several other things, however, that Henry did not know, at least not yet.

Henry Bowman did not know, but would eventually come to learn, that men comprised a full ten percent of all rape victims in the United States, and almost a third of the victims of gang rapes.

Henry Bowman did not know that one day he would actually consider himself lucky that what had happened to him that night had occurred in 1971 and not two decades later. By that time, the AIDS virus would guarantee that any homosexual gang rape that caused rectal bleeding was a virtual death sentence for the victim.

Last of all, Henry Bowman did not know that the reason that he had never seen his late father take a drink was not, as he had always assumed, that Walter Bowman had not liked alcoholic beverages. That was not true at all.

The reason that Walter Bowman had shunned liquor all of his life was that the people on his side of the family, particularly the men, had a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism.

November 10,1971 "Henry, your grades have fallen off a cliff compared to what we've come to expect from you. I'm looking at a C-minus average for this semester." James Nelson knew something was wrong. Lots of students had similar grades, particularly those who spent their class hours at war protests. Few, however, had had B-plus averages the entire previous year. Henry Bowman looked at his faculty advisor. There wasn't much he wanted to say.

"I've had some...personal problems this year," Henry said quietly. Like I have nightmares every night, I can't get it up, my girlfriend kissed me off, and I'm sick to death of classes he added silently.

"Is it this double major you're working on?" Nelson asked. "You know, that kind of commitment...it would be much better if you eased off on one or the other, and did a real job on the one that's the most important to you."

Henry smiled sadly and shook his head. "That's not it. It's...other things. Look, I'm in a slump right now, Professor Nelson. That happens to people, doesn't it?" he asked reasonably. "It's not terminal," he added with a grin.

"I suppose you're right," James Nelson said, but he was not at all convinced.

"I'll see you on Thursday," Henry said brightly as he turned to leave the man's office. Got to get some ice from the dining hall he thought. Maybe one of the guys that works there can scare up a lime for me, too. Then I'll hit a couple more cemeteries.

Henry Bowman had never flown with a hangover before, and he didn't like it. It was the first time he could ever remember flying a plane and not enjoying himself. The fact that he had the major part of a ten-hour cross-country ahead of him did not make things any better. Why didn't I ease off last night? he asked himself for the fourth or fifth time since takeoff.

Winter flying was normally smooth, but there was a fair amount of turbulence in the air, and that irritated Henry also. Since when do bumpy conditions bother an aero pilot, huh, dipshit? He glanced at the altimeter and saw that his altitude was almost 100 above his intended level of 8500 feet, and he shook his head in disgust. Thank God my father isn't alive to see me right now he thought as he eased the stick forward a millimeter and put the Piper into a slight descent.

Feeling much better Henry thought with a smile as the city of Pittsburgh slowly disappeared behind him. He pulled the six new birth certificates out of his pocket and looked at them once more. Henry had no idea what he was going to do with the documents, but it had been an adventure getting them, along with social security numbers and other attendant proofs of legitimacy.

Henry had spent much of the last two months on his 'spy project', as he thought of it. Occasionally during that time he worried that because of what had happened to him the previous summer, he had developed an unhealthy fixation on trying to take absolute control of his future. He knew, intellectually at least, that no person could insulate himself entirely from random events.

The fact was, though, that in the fall of 1971, Henry Bowman had lost interest in almost all things in his life except drinking gin and pursuing the secret project he had undertaken. And the alternative-ID scheme was fun. It occupied Henry's mind and stimulated his creativity at a time when everything else seemed excruciatingly boring.

After the unexpected success of acquiring the first birth certificate, Henry had decided to get others, of slightly different ages, from other areas. The game metamorphosed into one where Henry Bowman imagined himself with a lissome female companion, and that led to getting birth certificates for three dead girls in addition to the ones of the deceased boys.

The three boys had been born in 1949, 1952, and 1956, and had all died between 1950 and 1958. Two of the three girls had been born in 1955, and died that same year. The third had died at the age of two days in 1961. The birth certificates had been sent to six different addresses in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia, which was not inconvenient for a young man who had an airplane that carried a 10-speed bike with quick-detachable hubs.

Henry glanced at his fuel gauges. About half since the last fuel stop. He looked over his shoulder to make sure nothing was lying in the back of the plane. Henry Bowman's classmates had been very amused by the fact that Henry had sent his clothes home ahead of him via UPS so he could fly home for Christmas break in an empty plane.

Good reason for that Henry thought as he made a few clearing turns, then lowered the nose and watched as the airspeed built to 150 miles per hour. Henry abruptly gave the engine full throttle and pulled the stick back in his lap, releasing backpressure when the plane was exactly vertical. Henry took quick glances at the horizon and the airspeed indicator while keeping the plane on the exact path with tiny movements of the stick and rudder. When his airspeed was almost zero, he gave the airplane full left rudder, executing a hammerhead turn. The clipwing Cub pivoted on the axis described by Henry's spine, and pointed straight at the ground. Henry then chopped the throttle to idle, pulled the stick back in his lap again, and gave the Cub full right rudder. This stalled the right wing, putting the plane into a vertical snap roll. After one full revolution, Henry reversed the rudder pedals and shoved the stick forward, breaking the plane out of the snap roll after 1 1/2 turns. He let the speed build for two more seconds, then pulled the stick smoothly back into his lap and pulled out of the vertical dive on his original heading.

Not bad Henry told himself with a smile. He avoided thinking about how the same maneuver would have made him feel four hours earlier.

Henry also avoided thinking about the dismal performance he had turned in on three of his final exams for the semester.

"Hello."

"Dick...that you? Joe Hammond. How are your holidays going?"

"Uh, yeah, real good, Mr. Hammond. Let me go get Mom."

"No, hold up-she's probably busy, and I've only got a minute. It's you I called to talk to." "Oh...?" Dick Gaines said warily into the phone.

"Yeah," Hammond said expansively. He had several drinks in him. "Thought I'd see if you were interested in an internship for the first half of this coming summer. Congressman Sloan said he could use another good man the last couple of months before the end of the session, when things get kind of wild."

"Congressman Sloan in-in Washington?" Dick Gaines asked in amazement.

"That's the one. Actually what he needs is a couple more bodies on the payroll to help cove r his tracks on the dough he's been stealing, but you don't need to know about that," Hammond added.

"YES!" Gaines exclaimed. "Yes yes yes!" Then his face fell. "I don't know if Mom and Dad will let me, though."

"I already squared it with them for you. Merry Christmas, Dick, a few days late." Dick Gaines was speechless.

"That's wonderful, Mr. Hammond," he said finally. "Thank you."

"No trouble at all. Give your mother my love. 'Bye."

'"Bye," Gaines said softly as he heard the line disconnect. Congressman Sloan! The thought thrilled him. Then he frowned. Now I got to make sure I pass algebra next semester, so I don't have to take any summer school classes again.

"Henry, you're an alcoholic."

"What the hell are you talking about?" The accusation had taken him entirely by surprise, and it made him very angry.