If These Trees Could Talk

by Brian W. Smith

  Linda’s free hand snaked down the front of Charity’s pants and made its way to her pubic hair. Charity had never encountered a man who could find her clitoris so quickly.

  “Wait, wait,” Charity interrupted. “I don’t want to do this here. Let’s make plans to get together after work. I’m off on Saturday. Let’s get together at your place.”

  Linda was breathing hard. She sounded like she’d just had an orgasm. “You sure?”

  “Umm hmm.”

  “You’re not just teasing me are you?”

  “No. I’ll come over with a bottle of wine and we can pick up where we left off. I gotta get going. My son is at home alone.”

  Linda bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “Okay, Saturday. And don’t wear any panties.”

  “Okay…no panties,” Charity replied, and then stepped backwards. “I gotta get going. Oh yeah, can I ask a favor of you?”

  “What’s up?” asked Linda, staring at Charity’s navel again.

  “Umm, I could sure use a gallon of that cleaning solution for my house.”

  Linda frowned and looked at Charity. “Now you know we can’t let y’all take that stuff out of here.”

  Charity walked over and stuck her tongue in Linda’s wax filled ear. “I’m sure you can make an exception for me. Trust me baby, this pussy is worth a gallon of cleanser.”

  Linda stood up like she was in the army and an officer walked into the room. She nearly pulled a hamstring trying to get to that storage cabinet. “You know I can get into trouble for doing this. You can’t tell a soul I gave this to you.” She walked over to her desk and removed a duffle bag from the bottom drawer. “Here, put it in here. I don’t want anyone to see you leaving here with this stuff.”

  Charity put the cleanser inside the bag and gave Linda a quick peck on the lips. When she turned to walk out, Linda smacked her on the butt. Charity looked back and smiled, but when she turned to leave out of the office she rolled her eyes. Freak. You’ll be waiting a loooong time for me on Saturday.

  The drive back to her house seemed long and arduous. She had to stop at every traffic light. Every police car she saw seemed to be following her. A massive headache was starting to set in. She was a nervous wreck.

  I know Josh is probably awake by now. I gotta hurry up and get home, and make sure he’s okay. And then I gotta start cleaning. I’ll wait until around eight o’clock before I call the hospital and tell Ned I’m not coming in tonight. She saw the Wal-Mart out of the corner of her eye. Shit, I’m talking about cleaning, but I need to get scrub brushes. I don’t want to use anything I already have at home. I need something I can throw away.

  She yanked the steering wheel and swerved into the Wal-Mart parking lot. With a determined look on her face, she hopped out of the car and made her way to the entrance. She ignored the flirts in the parking lot and the little girls standing in front of the door selling Girl Scout cookies.

  As she turned onto the cleaning aisle, she was nearly run over by a small girl. The child had long frizzy auburn colored hair. “Sorry,” the child said innocently.

  “That’s okay,” Charity replied, and then turned her attention to the cleaning supplies on the shelf.

  “Come here Susie!” a woman shouted. “I don’t want you anywhere near that woman.”

  Charity ignored the woman’s original command. It was the typical order spouted by a parent attempting to corral a rambunctious child. But it was the second remark—and the tone—that prompted her to look in the direction of the child’s mother.

  Shit. Of all the people in this town to run into, I would see this bitch. Charity and the child’s mother stared at each other like two gunfighters standing in the middle of the road preparing to shoot it out. The owner of that snide remark was the last person on the planet she wanted to see—Ann Marie.

  Charity’s arch enemy was there in the flesh, accompanied by her biggest crony—Dawn. The contempt Ann Marie held for Charity trumped anything Charity could conjure up. The two of them had been sworn enemies since high school—a feud that became bigger once Dutch entered the picture.

  Ann Marie wasn’t going to let this opportunity to taunt Charity pass. She turned to her friend and started speaking loud enough for Charity to hear. “Oh girl, did I tell you I hooked up with Dee the other day?”

  Dawn glanced over at Charity and replied, “You’re lying. Was it good?”

  “Was it good? Girl my leg is still shaking.” Ann Marie’s snide remark was followed by unbridled laughter.

  Charity grabbed a few wire brushes from the shelf and then walked past Ann Marie. She paused long enough to fire a jab back at her. “I hope you enjoyed getting a wet ass because I doubt if it will be happenin’ again.”

  Ann Marie looked at Charity and rolled her eyes. “I doubt that very seriously. He’s been givin’ me “wet asses” for years—he couldn’t stop if he wanted to. As a matter of fact, I got my best wet ass in your bed. Do you still have those tacky red curtains in your bedroom and those ugly pillow cases?” Ann Marie glanced at her friend and then back at Charity and smirked.

  Charity’s heart started to ache. Her hands started shaking. The vein on the side of her forehead, that usually protruded whenever she got a headache, jumped out and started to throb.

  Oh my God. He screwed her in my bed. That son of a bitch had this tramp in my bedroom. How else would she know the color of my curtains and pillows?

  “What did you just say?”

  Rage isn’t a strong enough adjective to describe the look on Charity’s face. “You bitch!”

  When Ann Marie saw Charity’s reaction to her remark, she attacked like a shark that gets a whiff of blood in the water.

  “You should really hire an interior decorator.”

  Suddenly, Charity recalled asking Dutch about the scent of another woman’s perfume on her pillows and bed sheets. In his typical nonchalant manner, Dutch told her that she was imagining things. Ann Marie’s verbal jab was proof that her nose hadn’t betrayed her.

  Charity walked over to Ann Marie. She glanced over at Susie to gauge the child’s distance—her young ears didn’t need to hear what was about to be said.

  “Bitch, if I had the time I’d beat your ass right here in this store.”

  Ann Marie’s mouth was heavy, but her back wasn’t strong. She was one of those people who could talk trash, but had absolutely no desire to back it up. She stood there like a statue, her eyes focused on the finger Charity wagged in her face.

  “Just as I thought,” said Charity, and shook her head as if she pitied her rival. “You talk all that shit, but you ain’t gonna do shit.” Charity shoved Ann Marie’s shoulder, causing her to stumble backwards. Her back brushed against the shelf and knocked a few items on the floor.

  Ann Marie’s friend, who was just as scary as Ann Marie, just watched. Embarrassed by the sudden turn of events, Ann Marie waited until Charity turned to walk away and then lashed out the only way she knew how.

  “That’s why Dutch is the father of my baby!”

  Charity paused when she heard Ann Marie’s remark. She looked over at Susie, and examined the child’s features. She had Dutch’s nose. His high cheek bones. A blind person could see that he was the child’s father.

  Charity didn’t bother to turn around and confront Ann Marie again. She was too embarrassed to turn around. The love that blinded her like the fog that hovers over the San Francisco Bay, was now lifted. Her vision was no longer blurred. The realization that she’d fallen in love with a baby making child molester made her sick to her stomach.

  With vomit threatening to pour out of her mouth, she left Ann Marie standing there in that Wal-Mart aisle. Her desire to help her child dispose of the memory of Dutch was even greater than it was when she entered the store.

  “Mama, where are you taking me?” Curtis asked, looking out the car window, marveling at the poor condition of Josh’s block. “Who lives over here?”

  “One of my students,” Elizabeth replied in a hus
hed tone; driving at a speed limit that was less than five miles an hour.

  Curtis was clearly exasperated. He leaned his forehead against the window and wondered aloud why his mother was risking her career. “Mama, why are you doing this? You are a school teacher—not a social worker. You need to learn when to pull up.”

  Elizabeth stopped the car. She was roughly forty feet away from Charity’s driveway. Curtis could tell from the look on his mother’s face that she was about to erupt. He’d seen that look before. Whenever she was passionate about a subject she wore that passion on her sleeves. Her passion in life were the kids she taught; so he knew questioning her decision would send her on a rant—and rant is what she did.

  “Curtis, I don’t need you to remind me that I’m a school teacher and not a social worker! But, what you don’t seem to understand—although I thought I taught you—is sometimes in life you have to think about something or someone other than yourself.

  “I have been a school teacher for 23 years—your entire life. During that time I’ve taught over four hundred kids. I spent the first ten years of my career “minding my business”; only focusing on what happens inside my classroom. Turning a blind eye to obvious signs of neglect and abuse. During my first ten years as a teacher, I lost two students to some form of domestic violence. Domestic violence I may have been able to report and stop had I been more involved.”

  “Mama, mama, I hear you. Hell, I respect your concern for these kids. But, you can’t save the world. There are processes in place to report your concerns.”

  “Bullshit! Those processes are only as good as the people you are reporting to. I told my boss about my concerns, and he doesn’t give a shit. The only thing that Negro is concerned about is protecting his pension. All he wants to know is whether there are signs of abuse.”

  “That’s what he should be concerned about mama.”

  “That’s fine, but in the real world, a lot of abuse doesn’t leave visible scars. I see kids coming to school every morning looking like they live out of garbage bags; clothes looking like they haven’t been ironed in months. They eat breakfast like they never get fed. Some of them use language that the soldiers you work with would never use.” Her eyes begin to fill with water. “Then you have the ones that don’t say anything—the kids like Josh. Those are the ones that scare me the most because you know there is something going on that the child is incapable of dealing with. Those are the kids that cause me to drive by their houses when school is out.”

  Curtis wiped the tear dangling from his mother’s eye lid. He’d inherited his mother compassion for people; therefore, he empathized with her—even if he didn’t completely agree with her.

  “So, you really think this child is being abused?”

  “Yes.”

  “Verbal or physical?”

  “Both.”

  “Have you seen any signs of either?”

  “No. But my instincts are telling me something is terribly wrong with this child.”

  “Your instincts,” Curtis repeated as he shook his head and stared out the window at Josh’s house. “Okay mama, I said I had your back, so I guess I have to support you. Go ahead and do whatever snooping you feel you have to do—Inspector Gadget.”

  Elizabeth wiped her eyes, looked over at her son, placed her hand on top of his and mouthed the words, thank you.

  She parked behind Dutch and Charity’s vehicles. Curtis describing her as Inspector Gadget was apropos. Her eyes examined the entrance. This place is a mess. If she allows her house to look like this on the outside I can only imagine how nasty it is inside. “Well, here goes nothing,” she said, and then glanced at Curtis.

  Elizabeth exited her car, took one last deep breath, and then marched towards the front porch. Before she placed her foot on the first step, she noticed a foot print traced in blood in the spot she was about to place her foot. Tension started to form in her shoulders as she started to wonder if the situation was direr than she expected.

  She knocked on the door and waited for a response. “Hello!” Elizabeth thought she heard movement inside before she knocked, but the movement stopped once she started knocking. “Hello, Ms. Caldwell. It’s me—Elizabeth Tharp…Josh’s teacher.”

  Sure that she’d heard someone inside, Elizabeth moved over to the front window and looked inside. The house appeared to be empty. What she couldn’t see was Charity standing on the other side of Josh’s bedroom door, stiff as a board, with her hand covering his mouth. Her annoyance grew. Both cars were parked outside, but no one would come and answer the door. Elizabeth was about to walk away from the window when she noticed a burning cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table.

  I know y’all are in this damn house. She went back to the door and knocked harder. She migrated from using her knuckles to banging with her fist. Still, no one came to the door. She was about to kick the door with her feet, but was stopped by the honking of her car horn.

  Curtis leaned his head out of the car window and shouted, “Mama come on! If no one has answered yet, either they aren’t home or they don’t want to be bothered.”

  Elizabeth looked at Curtis and then back at the front door. She so desperately wanted to kick it in, but she knew that was both impractical and illegal. Maybe she should call the police. That blood on the steps was certainly enough to justify doing that. “Something’s wrong,” she stated as she walked towards the car.

  “Something is wrong because no one is answering the door?” Curtis asked sarcastically.

  “Curtis something is wrong here. Both cars are here, there is a cigarette burning in an ashtray, and there is blood on the steps.”

  Curtis opened the car door and walked towards the steps to investigate. When he saw the blood track for himself he became nervous. For the first time since hearing his mother’s claim, he started to wonder if in fact she was right. Maybe she wasn’t overreacting and Josh really was in some type of trouble.

  Elizabeth walked and stood beside him. “Now you see what I’m saying?”

  Curtis shook his head, “Yeah, this does look suspicious. What do you think we should do?”

  “I’m thinking about calling the police,” Elizabeth replied, looking around to see if anyone else was looking at them.

  Suddenly, the front door opened and Charity appeared. “Why are the two of you standing outside of my house?” Charity asked.

  Elizabeth and Curtis looked at each other. Neither had a good response to Charity’s question. Finally, Elizabeth attempted to speak up.

  “Ms. Caldwell, I came here to…”

  “My mother came here to check on Josh.”

  “Who are you?” Charity asked.

  “Umm, I’m Curtis Tharp. I’m Mrs. Tharp’s son,” he said, while pointing at his mother.

  Charity was visibly disturbed by their presence. She looked at both of them for a few seconds and then replied, “Josh is fine.”

  “I noticed he didn’t come to school today,” Elizabeth said, and then took a step forward.

  “And?” Charity asked, her subtle way of telling both of them to mind their own business, and stay out of hers.

  “And…I was just coming by to check on him. You know, to see if he was alright. See if there was anything I could do.”

  “Josh is fine Mrs. Tharp!” Charity insisted. “Do you go around making house calls every time one of your students misses a day of class?”

  “No. I just…well you see, our little altercation the other day hasn’t set well with me. I wanted to check on Josh, but I also wanted to apologize to you.”

  “Well, Josh is fine and I accept your apology. Now y’all can leave.”

  “What happened?” asked Curtis, pointing at the traces of blood on the step.

  “Oh, that’s blood from…that’s blood from…a dead rat. A rat got a hold of some poison we laid down and died right out there. Josh musta stepped in the blood or somethin’.”

  “Damn, that musta been a big rat,” Curtis replied, and looked at Chari
ty.

  “Yes…it was,” Charity fired back.

  “Can I see Josh?” Elizabeth asked. “I just want to talk to him about the class work he missed.”

  “Lady, I told you Josh ain’t here.” Charity couldn’t hide her anxiety. She wanted them to leave immediately, but there was no way to say that without drawing even more suspicion to the situation.

  “Okay, well let him know my mom came by.”

  “Will he be in class tomorrow?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yeah, he would have been there today, but I overslept.”

  “You overslept?” Elizabeth asked, making no attempt to disguise the disbelief in her tone.

  Curtis looked at his mother and saw the look on her face. She was about to get ghetto. He quickly interjected to keep things from escalating. “Okay. Well we’re gonna get outta here.” Curtis gently touched his mother’s elbow signaling it was time to leave.

  “One second,” Elizabeth said, and then walked briskly to her car. She opened the door and then started sifting though her purse. She returned with a business card. Elizabeth walked up the stairs and extended her hand with the card in it. She looked like a person trying to feed an angry pit bull without getting too close. “Ms. Caldwell I know you probably aren’t interested in receiving any help from me, but I really care about your child. If he’s having trouble with school work or if you need anything—I mean if he needs anything, call me. My number is on this card.”

  Charity allowed Elizabeth’s arm to dangle for a moment before she took the card from her. Elizabeth and Curtis retreated to the car without asking any other questions. Charity stood on the porch and watched them turn the car around and drive away.

  When they got to the end of the street and was about to turn, Elizabeth turned to Curtis. “Now do you believe me?”

  “Yeah…something is definitely going on,” Curtis replied. “If he doesn’t show up for class tomorrow, call the police.”