FIFTY-FIVE
An eternity passed and Steve wept into his hands. There was no hiding from us the embarrassment he must have felt. When you’re a child and you see one of your own crying and know that he has a good reason for doing so, you feel that little bit of degradation for him and hold it in your heart in silent mourning. You may feel a bit awkward for doing so but you also let that friend ride out his shame until he can get his shit back together.
And, Steve eventually did just that.
He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his small fingers. We knew he was about to abide in us some very difficult truth, something he didn’t really want to tell us, but knew he had to.
When he was ready he said, “This stays here. Right here in this playhouse and it never leaves. You got it?”
We nodded our understanding. And for the record this was never mentioned to another soul by any one of us until now.
He continued.
“I’ve never told anyone this before. The only people who know everything about this are me, Jacob, my mom… and my dad.” He stopped a moment as if remembering he needed to add something else. “And I guess a few people in the legal system. Guys, I’m so embarrassed about what happened but I need to tell you so you’ll understand. I almost told you about it last week at the Tree, but I just couldn’t. I feel like such a pussy when I cry like this.”
He lifted his long bangs to expose his forehead and the gnarled scar on his brow.
“You know who gave me this?” he asked.
When he had broken down days before, at the Tree, he had said something about his father and the scar, but we didn’t know the details. Now, we weren’t sure if we wanted to hear them, but let him go on anyway.
“My father gave me this,” he said and then paused, looking Cory in the eye, “for my seventh birthday. He hadn’t planned to do it that day, I don’t think, but I’m pretty sure I would have gotten it sooner or later. Maybe not on my head but I would have had some sort of reminder from him on my body, I’m sure.
“We used to live in Home Gardens before we moved to Cottonwood. My dad worked at John’s Mansville cutting rolls of fiberglass or something. I know he worked a swing shift and didn’t get off until midnight and then still didn’t come home until after two, after the bar closed.
“Anyway, there was this one night, it was a Saturday, I remember because like I said it was my birthday. Dad had been at work but my mom had cooked me a special pork chop dinner and then we had a chocolate cake that she had baked. Jackie and Jacob helped her too-back when he still liked me. My dad was never there for any of my birthdays. None that I remember anyway. He was always working or ‘Something had come up.’”
Steve was getting back under control by this time. He stared down at his Vans slip-ons as if the story he was telling us was written on them like cue cards.
“That’s one thing about birthdays at our house. It’s always been the rule that you have no bedtime. That one day out of the year we could stay up and watch TV until we zonked out or pretty much do what we wanted. On that night, I remember there being nothing good on TV so I decided to go into my room and listen to my Queen record. After I had finished all the songs I switched over to Cheap Trick, I think. Or maybe it was Ted Nuggent. Anyway, when I was done with that second album I remember checking my clock and it said it was two-fourteen in the morning.
“Two-fourteen,” he repeated and looked at us. “I remember the exact time from almost six years ago because it became the time that my dad began to hate me.”
His eyes had glassed over again when he looked back to us.
“When I was done with the Cheap Trick record, yeah, it was Cheap Trick; I stopped the record player and headed to the bathroom to take a leak before I went to bed.
“And as I was walking down the hall I noticed that the door to Jackie’s room was closed almost all the way, except for just a crack. The light was on in there and I thought, What’s her light doing on? So when I went to check I opened the door real slow so I wouldn’t wake her up and instead I saw my dad sitting on her bed and he had her on his lap.”
He stopped the story for a few seconds. A lone tear ran down his left cheek and jumped to its death. His bottom lip began to tremble. A few sniffs later he managed to go on.
“Her clothes were off. She was awake and her eyes were wide open and her clothes were off. My dad hadn’t heard me open her bedroom door. His back was to me. Jackie didn’t hear me either and I really didn’t know just what it was that he was doing. I thought at first he might be changing her diaper or something because she was naked but she would have been lying on the ground for that. And plus he used to get pissed at my mom if she asked him to change her, said it was woman’s work.
“Well, anyway, I stepped into the room a few feet and saw that he was sort of rocking back and forth and it sounded like he was breathing heavy and stuff. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that Jackie looked up at me and said my name. My dad jumped up and just let her fall to the floor.”
Steve had to stop again. His sobbing was coming hard and heavy. It wasn’t outright wailing but that silent, open mouthed crying that kids do when they know they’ve fucked up bad or when they remember something they don’t want to, something bad. And that kind of crying is catching too, because it made us all tear up as well. My hand went to my eyes to rub away leakage.
But still he went on with his story.
In a series of perforated sobs he said, “When he turned around his dick was hanging out of his pants. He was just jerking off. It wasn’t like he was…” Steve fumbled to explain, as if trying to make an excuse for his father or to let us know that his little sister at least had not been raped by him.
“But still,” he whined, “what kind of person does that to their own daughter? She was only three.”
He looked up at the ceiling and pounded his fists on the floor of the playhouse. As if mocking him, thunder bellowed about the dark sky.
“God, I hope she doesn’t remember that,” he said and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.
“When he saw me standing there, staring at him, staring at his thing, he just lost it. He zipped up his fly and rushed me, grabbed me by the throat. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.
“He got right up in my face and I could smell that he’d been drinking. He told me that if I ever said anything to my mom, he’d fucking kill me. And then he just let me go, walked right past me and into the living room.
“Well after I got my breath back I went to Jackie to check on her. She was just lying there, next to her bed, sucking her thumb. She didn’t cry or anything. She’s always been strong.
“I began to wonder if that had been the first time he’d done something like that to her. I thought probably it wasn’t. And it made me feel like I’d never felt before. I can’t even tell you guys how righteously pissed I was at that moment.
“Then I lost it.
“The first thing I wanted to do was to grab a knife and stab him. Make him hurt. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kill him or just hurt him really, really bad.
“I went straight to the kitchen and just as I was about to open the knife drawer, I heard the crack-pop of a beer tab being pulled. And for some reason that sound calmed me down just enough to let me know that I didn’t want to stab my own father. I knew I couldn’t hurt him as much as he’d just hurt me and as much as he had been hurting Jackie.
“I loved him so much. I always wanted to be just like him. I always wanted to impress him and I never could.”
He said this last part while his eyes were away in some far off place chasing lost hopes. Soon enough he snapped back to the present.
“It still pissed me off to think that he could do that to my sister and then just sit down in front of the TV and drink a beer as if nothing had happened.
“But instead of reaching for a knife, I reached for the phone. I wasn’t trying to be loud but at the same time I wasn’t being all that quiet either.
“I put the receiver to
my ear and when I had made sure there was a dial tone I called the operator. It rang twice before a lady answered and asked what my emergency was. I said, ‘I’m calling because…’ and then I just sort of drew a blank, because I didn’t know what to tell her. I was all the sudden afraid to tell her what my father had done. But I tried anyway. I said, ‘I’m calling because my dad was-‘ and that was as far as I got. That’s when the lamp hit me in the face and busted my head clean open. I didn’t really feel any pain right then though. It was kind of like when your leg falls asleep, how it tingles. That’s how my whole face felt. Then I was kind of wobbling around, trying to grab on to something to keep myself up. The last thing I saw was my dad standing in front of me, looking like he wanted to eat me, his beer was still in his hand.
“Then the blood started running in my eyes and it stung like a bitch. It stung so bad that I pissed my pants. I pissed myself because I had never made it to the bathroom. Some dad’s throw a baseball to their kids, my dad threw lamps.”
Tears still fell from his eyes but he gave a small chuckle at this last revelation.
“I don’t remember much after that, not until I woke up in the back of the ambulance. My mom told me later that she and Jacob had woke up when they heard the lamp break. She said she came into the kitchen and found me lying in a pool of my own blood and nearly fainted. She thought I was dead. My dad was back, sitting on the couch with his beer, still watching the tube. She said she was about to ask him what happened when the phone started ringing. I guess if you hang up during an emergency call (which my dad had done), they call you back. But he told her not to answer it. When they called back a second time and still no one answered they sent a patrol car out to check on things.”
Steve no longer cried but his eyes were a puffy, red mess and his cheeks had tracks down them. Looking up at us, he smiled. “The cops ended up taking him away in handcuffs that night. And after that we moved here to Cottonwood.
“I’ve never seen him again and I never want to. I hate him and I hope he’s dead and burning in Hell right now.”
Steve took a deep breath and said, “That’s why Jacob hates me so much. He thinks that it’s all my fault that our dad got arrested. He thinks I made daddy go away.
“See Jacob was his favorite. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because he was the oldest, because he was the first. But Jacob looked up to our dad the same way I did, probably more.
“What’s worse is I think that Jacob is turning into him. My dad, I mean. It was a couple of months ago when almost the same thing happened. I was getting up out of bed to use the bathroom and as I’m walking down the hall I looked in on Jackie. I always have since that night with my father. But this last time, Jacob was in there and he was standing over her bed while she slept. He didn’t have his thing hanging out but he was rubbing the front of his pants while he looked at her. It took me right back to that night six years ago.
“This time I didn’t walk in and say anything to him but I went to the bathroom and turned the light on and closed the door a little louder than I would have normally, loud enough so he’d hear me. And when I was done I looked in Jackie’s room again and he was gone. I slept sitting up next to her bed the rest of that night.
“But you see? I think he wants to do what my dad used to do. I don’t think he’s ever touched Jackie; I think she would have said something to me. But if he hasn’t yet I think he will soon. And guys, I just cannot let that happen. Because after that night I found my dad with my sister and all that shit happened I made a promise to myself; I would never, ever let anything bad happen to my little sister again. Ever.”
We all sat in silence, wiping our eyes as minutes passed, then Steve said, “You see now? Even if that shoeprint turns out to be nothing, okay then, fine. But for some reason, I think that what Ricky saw last night was real. Because he knows it’s real.”
I nodded, solemnly.
“And if it is this Sesame Street Killer coming back for Jackie then I can’t sit around and do nothing. That’s my baby sister.”
Cory said, “Maybe we can just call the cops, have them come by tonight.”
Steve and I shook our heads in unison and he said, “We don’t know what time to call them. What do we say, ‘We think the Sesame Street Killer will be at my house tonight so send a patrol car every fifteen minutes just in case?’ They’d laugh at us and hang up.” Then he looked at me and continued. “Plus, Donald said that wouldn’t work didn’t he. It has to be us.”
“Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts now too, Hanel,” Cory fired.
Steve just shook his head and said, “Maybe not a ghost, maybe… an angel.”
Coming from the only guy in the group that didn’t believe in God, it sounded strange. But it also sounded right.
“Jason?” Steve said. “I know we don’t know for sure what happened to Amber, but I think we can say that the same person that killed those other girls may have taken her too.”
New tears formed in Jason’s eyes and then spilled down his face. He nodded, wiping at them with the back of his hand.
“And there’s something else,” Steve added, “something that I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of days, ever since we met up with Mike in Dead Grove.”
He stopped and looked to Cory, gauging his reaction.
Cory said, “What? You know something about him that we don’t? Is he after me again? Is he after all of us?” Then his eyes sprung open. “Is he-“
Steve shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not going to jump to anything right now. It’s just something he said to you that day and something I saw too.”
We all leaned in, waiting for Steve to disclose what he new, or thought he knew.
Jason said, “Tell us.”
Bobbing his head, Steve said, “When Mike found us in Dead Grove and he started attacking Cory, I remember he said something like, ‘I’m going to do to you what I did to that little bitch last night.’”
We waited, still not getting the whole picture.
“You remember how it looked like there was dried blood on that knife he had? Well on Sunday morning when I went in to Jacob’s room and took his Zippo, I saw his t-shirt lying on the floor, kind of hidden under his pants. Well, when I grabbed it and held it up it had dried blood spots on the front of it too.”
He looked to each of us, seeing if we had made the connection but it was still just out of our grasp.
“Jacob and Mike were together on Saturday night,” Steve explained and then turned to Jason. “Amber went missing on Saturday night.”
Slowly, as if in a dream, Jason said, “Steve? Did your brother and Mike do something to Amber?”
Steve just bowed his head.
“I don’t know.”
Cory said, “If Jacob and Mike did do something to her that means that they could both be Sesame Street Killers, doesn’t it?”
But Steve only shrugged and answered, “I don’t know, Cory. But I can’t really see why Jacob would go into our backyard and look through Jackie’s window when he could look at her from the inside of the house. And like I said before, he doesn’t wear the kind of boots that made that print in the mud.” Silence for a second, then: “But Mike does.”
This new information shocked the daylights out of us. Now there were two more people to add to our list of potential killers.
I got off my butt and squatted down and asked, “Well, if we’re going to do something, what do you think it is we should do?”
“Donald didn’t tell you what we were supposed to do?” Cory said sarcastically. “Listen guys, I think we should just call the police and tell them what’s going on. Or maybe tell our parents and have them deal with it, you know?”
The day had grown hotter still even though dark thunder clouds hid the sun. The air in the playhouse was stifling and our clothes had matted to our skin, our hair stuck to our brows.
I stood up to stretch my legs and peered out of one window. Frisbee lay on Cory’s back lawn in his sp
hinx position, staring up at us, waiting for us to finish.
“It won’t work that way,” Steve chided. “We’re not even going to consider that an option. I will understand if you guys don’t want to help deal with this situation with me, but I’m going to do something tonight. I’ll stay up all night waiting if I have to. If my sister’s in trouble then I’ll do whatever it takes to help her. And remember, Cory, you have a sister too. It could have been yours.” Then he pointed to Jason and me. “Or yours.”
The silence that followed lasted far too long and was broken only by the occasional wrecking ball sound of thunder.
Finally, after heavy contemplation, Jason said, “I’ll help. I’ll do whatever I can. I don’t care what it is. You guys know I liked Amber and I think she deserves this at least. I’ll help, for her… and for Jackie.”
I dipped my head in agreement as well. If Jason could do something, I could too and there was always strength in numbers.
We then looked to Cory and Steve said, “Come on, Dayborne. I bet we’ll be heroes.”
This made him raise his head and grin. “Heroes? Okay, what the hell. I didn’t have anything to do tonight anyway.”
I turned back to Steve and asked, “What are you thinking? You’ve got something planned already, don’t you?”
And for the first time since we’d entered the playhouse he smiled, his eyes now free of tears. He looked almost rejuvenated. “I think so. But before I tell you, I want us to all promise to each other that no matter what happens, even if things go bad, we will always be friends until the end.”
Jason shot a hand out between us and said,” Always.”
Cory and I, at the same time, laid our hands on top of his and repeated, “Always.”
And even though he had started it, Steve was the last one in on the oath. “Always.”
We pumped our hands twice and broke the hold and Steve said, “Jason, Ricky, do you think your mom and dad will let you spend the night here at Cory’s tonight?”
Jason and I nodded that we thought this would probably be okay. We could talk them into it.
“Cory,” he went on, “do you think you can ask your dad to pitch that tent of yours in your backyard and tell him we’re going to watch the lightening storm tonight?”
“There’s going to be a lightening storm tonight?” I asked.
“That’s what it says in the paper,” he said and then pointed out one of the small windows. “Besides, I think it’s already started.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’ll do that for us,” Cory told Steve.
“Good,” Steve said. “Now listen close guys. There’s a lot of things we’re going to need to do to prepare for this. I think I may know a way to trap the killer. And once we do that then we can call the police to take over.”
“What do you mean trap?” I asked. “Where? How?”
Steve looked at me and said, “The where, is going to be at the abandoned house up on Fullerton. The how… well, that’s what we’re going to talk about right now. Ricky, you can run pretty fast, right?”
And so we sat in Cory’s playhouse for the next few hours devising a plan on how to catch a serial killer. We were so young and stupid and we didn’t even know it. But at that moment our adrenaline was rushing, burning through our bodies, at least mine was. And what kid didn’t want to become a hero? We would be the talk of the town, maybe even the talk of the state. Hell, why not the country for that matter?
But little did I know, I was about to be used by the best friends I’d ever known to make Steve’s plan work. I can say that I was used for the right reasons and I would be able to forgive them for it later (we were doing this to protect Jackie after all), but it would come close to costing me my life.
Frisbee Page 63
