“He told me your boyfriend wasn’t home. He said that he liked being home alone because it was peaceful. I know he’s an only child, so his use of the word peaceful caught my attention.”
“Look Mrs. Thor, Tharp, or whatever your damn name is—Josh is fine. I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, but ain’t nothin’ goin’ on at my house that you need to be concerned about. I’m offended by the fact that you’ve come to my job with this shit. Does your Principal know you do stuff like this?”
“No, Mr. Benjamin doesn’t know that I’m here. This isn’t Josh’s teacher talking to you, I’m coming to you as a concerned parent. We’re both mother’s—that’s what we have in common. I think you need to pay more attention to what’s going on at home with Josh because something—or somebody—is causing that child a lot of pain.”
By this time, everyone in the coffee shop had stopped and was listening to their conversation—including Charity’s co-workers. That fiery spirit that was usually reserved for her arguments with Dutch was unleashed on Elizabeth.
“Let me tell you somethin’ you black bitch, we ain’t got nothin’ in common! And if you ever stop by my house or come to my job again harassing me and makin’ false accusations about me and my boyfriend, I’m gonna call the police! Now get the hell outta here and leave me—and my son—alone!”
Charity’s tirade and threat didn’t scare Elizabeth. In fact, Charity’s response only confirmed her suspicion—Josh was in trouble. She stood up and adjusted her dress. “Ms. Caldwell, I’m sorry you feel like I’m harassing you. I was just trying to help.”
“Well, I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t need your help. But you know what, I’m gonna help you.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, I’m gonna help you become unemployed. I’m callin’ the school board tomorrow morning and let the Superintendant know what you did here today. And I’m gonna make sure I get statements from my co-worker and some of these customers to back it up.”
Little girl, you don’t know how bad I want to shake some sense into your ignorant ass right now. I’m here trying to talk to you about your child, and all you’re concerned about is your damn boyfriend. No wonder that child is all messed up. “Mrs. Caldwell, you do whatever it is you feel you need to do. I stand by my decision to talk to you about this today. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, but my primary concern is for Josh. I believe that child needs help.”
Josh sat there in a trance, his hands, face, and clothes all covered in blood. The knife he used was still lodged into Dutch’s chest cavity. He’d destroyed the person, who’d in many ways, already destroyed him. The sun was starting to set. He and Stevie needed to dispose of the body and get home as soon as possible.
“Josh! Josh, c’mon…we gotta go.”
Josh could hear his friend’s voice, but didn’t respond. He just stared at Stevie and the trees that surrounded them. Is there any righteousness in vigilante justice? Is an abused boy allowed to protect himself by any means necessary? The answers to those questions are debatable, but whether or not they needed to hide Dutch’s body wasn’t.
Stevie pestered Josh until he finally snapped out of his daze. They drug Dutch’s heavy body over to the hole—leaving a thick wide trail in the middle of the two long trails created by Dutch’s heals. They dumped Dutch’s body in the hole and feverishly worked to cover it with dirt.
“You gotta change your clothes,” Stevie insisted. “Put’em in a bag or somethin’ and then burn them.”
Josh didn’t reply. He just looked at his blood stained trembling hands and started to cry.
“C’mon Josh, you can’t cry now. You gotta go change your clothes.”
“I gotta go home,” Josh mumbled.
“Yeah, I know. You need to go home, but you gon’ come back tomorrow right? I helped you with Dutch, you gotta help me with Bennie.” Stevie paused, and looked at his friend. “You got a lot of blood on you. Your mama’s gonna see all that blood and know somethin’ happened. Then she gon’ make you tell her what we did and we both gon’ get in trouble.” Panic was starting to set in. “I’m gon’ go get you some of my clothes, and you can put’em on out here. We can put dem clothes you got on in the hole.”
“I gotta go home,” Josh mumbled again.
“If you go home yo mama gonna see all this blood on your clothes. You gon’ get us both in trouble. If you go home you’d better hide those clothes.”
Josh slowly shook his head in agreement. “I’m gon’ put’em in a bag.”
“Yeah, that’s what you do. Put’em in a bag and burn’em. No, don’t burn’em, bring’em out here tomorrow; cuz we still gotta kill Bennie. I helped you so you promised you was gonna help me. You gotta keep your promise Josh.”
Josh looked at Stevie while he rambled. Stevie’s mouth was moving but Josh couldn’t hear a word he said.
Stevie continued to talk. “I’m gonna make Bennie chase me out here tomorrow evening. I don’t know if we got any beer. I’ll probably get some of his fancy clothes and set’em on fire or somethin’. That’ll make him chase me for sure.”
Josh continued to shake his head while examining his clothes. “Alright,” he mumbled. “I’ma help you.”
“Alright. You gon’ be out here right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’m gon’ go home. You go change your clothes and put’em in a bag. Put the bag on the side of your house or somethin’ and bring it out here tomorrow. We can put the bag in the other hole we dug for Bennie.”
The boys parted ways. Josh peered from behind the rusty shed and scanned the area to make sure no one was loitering around his house. The coast was clear. He dashed across the lot. The sight of the beer cans he’d thrown at Dutch caused him to slow down a little, but he kept running. He ran up the steps and yanked opened the screen door. The front door to the house was wide open. The television was still on. There was an eerie feeling in the place. The specter of death was definitely lurking.
Josh was careful not to touch anything, but traces of Dutch’s blood were left on his door knob. His foot prints left blood stained tracks that went from the front door to his bedroom. The scared child took off his clothes and let them fall to the floor. He walked into the kitchen to retrieve a garbage bag; leaving even more blood stains on the cabinet doors.
Josh returned to his bedroom and put the bloody clothes into the bag. He sat on the edge of his bed wearing nothing but a pair of drawers. Goose pimples formed on his arms. His body trembled. His mind raced. His adrenaline was still pumping. Never before had he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Then again, never before had he felt the complete freedom to do either.
Chapter 7
May 20, 2004
Charity sat in the break room designated for the hospital housekeeping personnel. The scent of pine soil emanated from the five mop buckets that she and her co-workers had been using throughout the night on the various wards. She’d been nursing a cup of coffee for thirty minutes while she sat there deep in thought.
I still can’t believe that woman came to my job and started saying all of those things about my man. All because her gut told her something is wrong. She practically accused Dutch of abusing my boy. First of all, Dutch wouldn’t do that. Secondly, Josh would have told me if something was going on. Josh knows he can talk to me about anything. I think Josh knows he can talk to me. Doesn’t he?
Her thoughts were momentarily interrupted by some of her co-workers getting ready to clock out and go home.
“You just gon’ sit here all morning or are you gon’ clock out?” asked Ned, the night shift supervisor. “I’m not tryin’ to have to answer any questions about people being allowed to get overtime, so you need to get up and clock out on time Charity.”
Charity’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Huh? Oh yeah, I’m comin’ now.” She pushed her mop bucket over to the huge drainage pit and dumped the dirty water into it. After running some water in the bucket to clean it and the mop off, she put up h
er equipment and rushed over to the time clock to get her card punched.
The walk from the rear of the hospital exit to her car was the longest walk ever. She pondered her next move. I wonder if I should go straight to the school and try to catch the principal before classes’ start. Should I go home and ask Dutch if something happened? No, I can’t do that because he’s just gonna get mad at the fact that I questioned him, and then we’re gon’ start fightin’ and all hell is gonna break loose. I can just ask Josh while I’m driving him to school. Either way, I’m gon’ talk to that principal about his nosey ass teacher—whether I do it face-to-face or over the phone—he’s gonna hear from me. She’s gonna pay for coming to my job and embarrassing me.
Elizabeth walked into the school at the same time she normally did – seven o’clock. She had to be there early to monitor the children that usually started arriving around seven-thirty to eat breakfast. Most days she used those thirty minutes to take care of miscellaneous paperwork she wasn’t able to get to the previous day, but this day was different. Doing paperwork was the furthest thing from her mind. Instead, she planned to use those thirty minutes to present her case to Mr. Benjamin. She was almost certain Charity would be calling him early in the morning to try to catch him before the school day started.
Before meeting with him, she gave herself a little pep talk and rehearsed her speech. Okay Elizabeth, you need to speak clearly and confidently. State the facts of what happened. You went in to the Starbucks to get some coffee, and noticed Ms. Caldwell in there working behind the counter. You didn’t go there with the intentions of getting into an argument with her. Let him know that the conversation started out fine, but Ms. Caldwell’s attitude changed when I mentioned Josh’s behavior. She got all defensive of her boyfriend and refused to listen to anything I had to say. The only person who got loud in there was her.
“Hello Mrs. Tharp,” said Otis, the custodian.
“Hi Mr. Otis,” she replied.
Elizabeth was one of the few faculty members who addressed Otis with the respect and reverence his age deserved. A gesture he certainly noticed and appreciated. In return, he went out of his way for her. Her classroom always got cleaned first. When it was time to wax the school’s wooden floors, her classroom was the first to get the special treatment. Any rumors affecting the teachers, Otis made sure Elizabeth got the full scoop. “Hey Mr. Otis, have you seen Mr. Benjamin this morning?”
Otis always looked like a character out of the Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence movie Life. Regardless of the temperature in the building he always had that moisture around his neck. He walked around bent over like his back was killing him. If it wasn’t for his constant whistling, a person would have thought he was about to keel over at any moment. The only thing that kept him from looking like an old prison inmate was the fact that he didn’t wear the big black and white stripped prison issued uniform.
Otis stopped pushing the large push broom across the hallway floor. He took a deep sigh, and then pulled out his old tattered handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “Yes ma’am, I saw him go in his office. Musta been ‘bout thirty minutes ago.”
“Thanks Mr. Otis.”
“Lookie here, you be careful walkin’ down there. I don’t know what he’s dealin’ with, but he’s on the phone and he don’t sound happy. I peeked in there and saw him pacing back and forth on that floor—look like he was fixin’ to burn a hole in the wood with his feet.”
Awwh shit! She’s already got in his ear. “Thanks for the heads up Mr. Otis.”
“Anything for you Mrs. Tharp,” as he watched her curvaceous hips switch as she walked away. With yo fine ass. Booooy if I was about twenty years younger, booooy lookie here. I woulda, I woulda, shiiit…they jus’ don’t know ‘bout old O.G. Otis.
Elizabeth stood outside Mr. Benjamin’s office and listened to his conversation before knocking on the door. She had no idea who he was speaking to, but based on his comments, the conversation was definitely about a little boy.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Mr. Benjamin’s tone was nervous. “I need you to calm down. Look, I hear what you’re saying, but is that all you have? Is that what you’re basing your feelings on?”
Elizabeth could actually hear the caller talking. She couldn’t make out the words seeping from the receiver—they sounded like the adult voices in the Peanuts cartoon whenever Charlie Brown and his friends were speaking to their elders.
“I don’t know what to say, I’m shocked that you feel this way. I mean….I…I’m not telling you, you shouldn’t feel this way—he’s your son. But, all I’m tryin’ to say is that you need to be careful before you start throwing those accusations around.”
Listening through the door, to a conversation that could very well be the prelude to the end of her teaching career, was not the way Elizabeth envisioned herself going out. She was a fighter. Someone who believed in standing up for herself and what she felt was right.
“Oh hell no,” she mumbled. “That heifer is not about to throw me under the bus.” Elizabeth barged into the office.
Clearly surprised by her intrusion, Mr. Benjamin looked like he’d just been caught masturbating. “Hold one second please,” he spoke into the phone. “Mrs. Tharp, what are you doing?”
“I need you to hear my side of the story before you just take her side and run with it.”
“What are you talkin’ bout Mrs. Tharp?”
Elizabeth could tell from his reaction and the look on his face that he had no idea what she was talking about. She looked busted; like a pastor getting caught watching porn by the First Lady. “Umm, I was walking past your office and I overheard your conversation. I thought…”
“You were walking down the hall and you could hear me in here talking to my wife?” Mr. Benjamin asked sarcastically, looking like he wanted to fire her right there on the spot as he stood there with the telephone pressed against his stomach so that the caller couldn’t hear him.
Elizabeth was about to speak, but he held up his hand suggesting she should stop. If looks could kill, Elizabeth would have been standing there in her own blood. He raised the phone back up to his ear. “Baby, I’m gonna have to call you back. You need to hear my version of what happened, but I can’t get into it right now. We will talk when I get home.”
If she’d had the ability to click her heels and disappear, Elizabeth would have done so. She bit her bottom lip and stood there while her boss looked at her with disdain. “Mr. Benjamin, I’m sorry I just came in here unannounced, but I thought something was wrong.”
Clearly fed up with her explanation, he held his hand up and signaled her to stop talking. “Mrs. Tharp, I’m not stupid, you came in here because you thought that conversation was about you.” Elizabeth looked like a scorned child as she shook her head in agreement. “So, would you like to tell me what you’ve done this time? Whatever it is, it must be bad enough for someone to call and complain or else you wouldn’t be lurking around my door.”
Hell no! If you don’t know, I damn sure ain’t gonna incriminate myself. “No sir. There’s nothing to tell,” she mumbled.
“Good. Honestly, I don’t feel like hearing anything right now—I got my own problems.”
“Anything I can help you with?” Elizabeth asked, attempting to suck up to him one last time before he threw her out of his office.
With a distant look in his eyes, and frown lines etched into his forehead, the intense educator looked out his office window and replied sarcastically, “Yeah, a good divorce attorney.”
While his attention was clearly elsewhere, Elizabeth wisely backed out of the office. She closed the door behind her—careful not to make any moves or sounds that might cause him to refocus on her.
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Not even the possibility that the peeling paint on the walls might end up in her hair was enough to distract her from thanking God for sparing her job—at least for that moment. Mr. Otis’ decrepit lips allowed a chuckle to escape as he walked past. “Ha
, ha. You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Elizabeth didn’t reply. She just stood there for a few more seconds before walking away. A quick stop into the teacher’s lounge to get in front of a mirror and a cup of water was all it took for her to get herself together, and back into her original frame of mind.
Mr. Benjamin was clearly pre-occupied. She’d dodged a bullet—at least for that moment. Elizabeth wasn’t sure what Charity would say when she finally called, but she was sure of one thing—she was going to get the physical evidence she needed or a confession from Josh when he came to school that day. Even if it meant she had to shake it out of him.
As the kids started to arrive, Elizabeth stood in her regular spot waiting for the first sight of Charity’s car. The bell signaling the start of the day rang. A concerned look dominated Elizabeth’s face once she realized Josh wasn’t coming.
“Josh!” Charity shouted as she walked inside her house. “Dutch! You in here?” No response from either of them.
Charity looked inside of Josh’s bedroom. She even searched his closet, but he wasn’t in there. As she turned to leave his room she noticed the garbage bag with Josh’s clothes inside. She opened the bag and pulled out his clothes. Blood was now on her hands. She stumbled backwards and bumped into his dresser. Her blood covered hand now covered her mouth as she wondered what had happened to her child.
“Dutch!” she shouted. Still, no answer. “Dutch, what have you done to my boy?” she asked. Dutch wasn’t there to hear the question, but her mind insisted that the question be asked. Charity noticed blood stains on Josh’s door knob and door. Suddenly, Elizabeth’s comments didn’t seem so rude and offensive.
Charity left the room holding Josh’s shirt in her hand. She started walking slowly towards the bathroom. “Josh,” she called out, but this time in a more somber tone. She was terrified of what she might find when she opened the bathroom door.
If These Trees Could Talk Page 8
