Cries of Innocence
Roger Dale Watson Jr.
Austin Macauley Publishers
Cries of Innocence
About The Author
Dedication
Copyright Information ©
Acknowledgement
Introduction
Chapter 1Unfolding of the Journey
Chapter 2The Dance
Chapter 3The Wreck
Chapter 4The Finding of the Jacket
Chapter 5Another Loss
Chapter 6Hello from the Past
Chapter 7The Plan
Chapter 8Plan in Motion
Chapter 9The Call for Redemption
About The Author
Roger Dale Watson Jr. is a husband and a father of five children. He spent most of his life as a corrections officer. He enjoys spending time with his family as well as writing; he enjoys entertaining a reader and thanks them for the time they take out of their lives to enjoy his work.
Dedication
I dedicate this to my wife, Carla Watson, and our children: Kayle Babineaux, Christina Buteau, Roger Watson 3rd, Dillon Watson, and Madison Buteau.
Copyright Information ©
Roger Dale Watson Jr. (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Watson Jr., Roger Dale
Cries of Innocence
ISBN 9781643783864 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643783871 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645367659 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019916438
The main category of the book — FICTION / General
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
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New York, NY 10005
USA
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+1 (646) 5125767
Acknowledgement
Thank you God for the talent you have gifted me with—to take the words in my head and put them on paper to entertain people of all ages.
Introduction
This is an intriguing and dramatic story of losses, gains, and the true meaning of sticking together.
It is a story of events that spun out of control.
A tragedy strikes a group of small town girls unexpectedly, causing the death of Hollie’s father. It sends them on a journey that takes four young teens on a path that will not only test their friendship and their ability to stay together as a group but cause them to grow up with the scares of life and the will to fight to stay alive.
Being tested with loyalty, romance, adventure, lies, corruption, death, and the love that kept them together as girls may be the same thing they may have to kill to protect as women or die trying.
Chapter 1
Unfolding of the Journey
The past year of my life hasn’t been as bad as I think. I thought this was a retirement home but it turned out to be quite well. The family property got too much for me to take care of. So I moved into my little room on Ward 26 East Wing, that is where I call home now. It’s a cozy little place and the nurses are very friendly. Although their pill carts get kind of annoying with their squeaky wheels, it’s funny what one can get used to. But I’ve got a few things to look forward to; the food is great, so is the company, and my grandson comes to see me on the first Wednesday of every month and we have lunch, ohhh how I look forward to that! Every lunch with my grandson starts and ends basically the same way or at least that’s what I thought, this particular Wednesday took me back to a time in my life when I was in my prime.
“Hello, my name is Hollie Chapman, and this is my story. Hello life, good morning sunshine, it’s going to be a beautiful day.” The warmth from the sun and the bright of the day reminds me that I didn’t lower my blinds last night.
“Hello, Miss Hollie, you haven’t started talking to yourself, have you, love?”
“No dear, just talking to the day. I forgot to lower my blinds last night and that sun is so bright. Nurse Betty, you snuck up on me with that cart.”
“No, Miss Hollie, it’s the same cart, we just got a new set of wheels (laughing). No more squeaky cart for me.”
“Besides, Miss Hollie, did you forget what day it is? It’s Wednesday, ya’ know its lunch date with that handsome of yours.” As the warm sun crossed my face and the cool water from the sink touched my hands, I remembered what today was. But I didn’t know then, at that one moment in time, that the next 24 hours would be the longest 24 hours of my life.
Just as fast as the conversation started with Nurse Betty, just like that she was gone again. My room grew quiet and I was left with my own thoughts as I stared into the mirror looking at how age had taken over my body. My knees just weren’t what they used to be is what I’m reminded of when I lace up my shoes. My train of thought was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and the voice of my grandson. “Hey, pretty lady, you ready for our lunch date?”
“Oh, Dillon, for a minute you had me thinking I was in the wrong room.”
With a crisp young man’s voice, he replies, “Granny, no matter how old you feel, you’ll always be my best girl. By the way, where do you want to go hangout today?”
“Now you know anywhere with you is a place I wanna be. But if I can pick a place, I wanna go to the old place where you used to go to when you were a lil’ boy, do you remember where that is?”
You would have thought I took his breath away and as he gathered what breath he could, he replayed, “Now, Granny, you know I’ll never forget our tree table and tree swing, those were the best summers of my life at that old house. But what has you wanting to go back there?”
“Oh, just been thinking about life and how it was back then, things were so slow and it was truly a better time.”
“Yea, Granny, it was even for me. And if that’s what you want, for sure we can go there.” And just like that we were off, I knew I only had checked out a pass for just a few hours but who would miss a simple old lady anyway. So we were off on the way to the open road and only stopped to fuel up and get a drink for the road. I know my grandson always has a lot to say but when he climbed in, I told him as long as he drove, I would talk, and boy did I have a lot to say. For years I was heartbroken and was asked a lot of questions about my past by my son and even my grandson and today I felt like telling him the things I’d been staying away from for a long time.
So with the window down and the wind in my face, we took off. “Granny, since you are in such a talking mood, how ’bout telling me about who I am and who we are, I mean not as a person but as a family. To some we are law enforcement and to some we are below thugs.”
As I heard him talk, I realized that he had lived through my past and my present as well as his father and my closest three friends as well. We talked, him and I, as we hadn’t done in a long time. He drove as I rambled about how I grew up in our neighborhood hanging out in our little group. We were four young
girls who were far from any gang in reality, but in our own head we were a tight-knit group all the same. I told him of our past like it was an action movie and how we were out late riding bikes all day for what felt like hours away from home and only being a few blocks away at any given time. Our local park was our hideout spot between sleepovers and summer nights. Carla Ann, she was our brainiac and most of the time the glue that held us together. She was of a calm nature and could settle down any spat we had. Now Kayle on the other hand, she was the hot-blooded one. She was a ‘in your face’ and a ‘tell it like it was’ kinda girl (laughing). She was the bravest girl I’d ever known. And the same bravery that would protect us is usually what got us in trouble.
From the elders screaming (get off their lawn) to the neighborhood boys trying to kick us off the town’s baseball field on a Saturday morning. But the most humorous of it all was how she stood up to the bullies. She wasn’t scared of anything. Now Madison on the other hand, she was the chicken (chuckling), she was the nervous one and I kinda felt closer to her maybe because we both shared the loss of our mother at such an early age. Like her it was just my dad and I as far back as I can remember. I never really knew my mom as she passed giving birth to me. She got to know her mom but just briefly as she was very ill and passed in her sleep when she was just five. She remembers the feel of a mother’s hand that I never felt, the smell after a hug during the day that I never got, the pat on the back for a job well done, or a kiss goodnight; all I never got, so I found myself living my own memories in her stories about her and her own mom.
Now my father and I were okay being alone. I guess being alone was all we ever knew. Dad traveled a lot being in politics, he was here today and gone tomorrow, so I spent a lot of my youth with Carla and her family. We spent our every available moment together. I loved my dad so much, he was my everything, my whole world. My dad and I did everything together, I never felt out of place standing in the bait store with all the dads and their sons getting supplies to start a day of fishing. And I never knew where or how he got the answers to all my thousand girl questions but he would sit and listen to my every problem whether it was a spat between our group or why does this boy pick on me and all the wheres and whys I could come up with. He would just sit and be so supportive of me. Oh how I still love and miss him.
He hired a nanny and that was when I came into womanhood, I guess that was too much for him to handle (laughing). He never ran from any problem and he led by example, he never asked more from me than he himself was willing to give and never lost his temper with me when I couldn’t catch on right away. He would just simply say, “Now, Button, that’s it for tonight, let’s hit it in the A.M.” Each of us brought our own uniqueness to our group. And seemed to be just the glue to hold it together, we all had emotional gaps from our childhood to our early teens. We all had hardworking dads so we shared the only two moms in our group. They stepped up and looked after us and helped us through some really hard times. My dad would be gone for weeks at a time and he took his work very seriously. And when we were together, he took that time just as serious, we were very close, he was my best friend.
Chapter 2
The Dance
I know about traditions and I know how deep they can run in a small town, there was a tradition in our town that I will never forget. It was something that I had seen families attend for as long as I can remember. It was our daddy-daughter dance at our high school. It was a time the whole town looked forward to, stores closed early, dads took off work, and if you were the young girl that was able to attend, it was a time you were no longer seen as a child. To outsiders it was just a school dance but to our little town it was a tribute to fathers and daughters and a passage from childhood into the first stage of being noticed as a young woman. It was the start of being able to be left alone, babysitting jobs, and the local super market owner would hire you to work after school and on weekends. It was a ninth grade dance held at the high school gym and it was something the school had done for years. Kinda like a prom for dads and their daughters to dress up at and a time for the daughters to see in their dads the kind of man he wished for her, and for her to seek the love in a man’s heart that she could see in her dad’s eyes.
Dads would get a special ring, present it to his daughter, and place it on her ring finger and lock that spot in hopes that they make a promise to each other that she treasure her body and her heart as much as her dad does and not allow a man to come between that promise unless he could show her he loved her as much as her dad did. It was a symbol of love and trust that was worn like a shield to remind her about the vow between her and her dad if she was ever in a position with a boy that was full of summer love or boyfriend romance. It was a ring that young girls talked about all through middle school, it was as sought after as much as a class ring was. It was a time that a dad would accept the talk of boys and boys calling the house to talk to his daughter. Looking back know, I can see that it was such a strong tradition because it may have made it easier for a dad to see his little princess grow up and it set the bar for dads of sons to raise their sons with respect so when the time was right they could seek the hand of a middle school sweetheart or approach that beautiful girl who gives him butterflies or makes him nervous when she is around.
Dads looked forward to raising boys the same as dads did raising daughters. It was a time that dads could see that they raised them to be young and decent men and it would show because those were the boys that were sought out. And those were the boys who were hired by the feed store and by the big sawmill and both were highly paid jobs for any high school boy who would want to go out on a Friday night or take a girl to a movie on a date. It was something that people in this town did over and over for years and it had families who moved here stay in this town because of its strong ties to family values. Families who were here stayed and families who heard of this would move here for that same benefit. And this was something my dad and I had both looked forward to my whole life. Not having a mom, my dad and I were already close but this was a time Dad could ease up on me and let me be more help to him and me. I could be left alone now, I could get an after-school job, and it was a time Dad could see I was getting older and all the time he had sacrificed on me he could get back for himself.
I remember of times I would ask my dad can I work, can I sleep over, can I stay out late, can I have a boyfriend, and always to every question was the same answer, ‘wait till you’re older, wait till the dance.’ It was like a subtle way for him to say not yet without saying no. No was something my dad had trouble saying to me, not to say he wouldn’t or he didn’t because he said no a lot. It was just I could see he didn’t like saying it, I already didn’t have a mom and with him working and being gone so much, there were times he felt I was alone and I know that bothered him much. This was so special for my dad and me. We would go to our pizza place and get two large pizzas and a pitcher of drink and gorge out and talk of the day, we would dance my youth away. We would laugh and talk, only stopping for the occasional belch from the super loaded pizza and the pitcher of drink we were having. Oh the good old days where a dad could enjoy his princess showing her tomboy side before womanhood robbed her memory of how much fun dad was when he could belch louder and deeper than her and how a high five was like a first place trophy and replaced her memory with properness and manners.
He knew I would go from a girl who could burp her full name to a lady who would not be caught doing it at all, let alone in public, and the worse part about it was I didn’t know until I was older just how important those moments were to him and just how much he was losing as a dad by me turning into a lady. He knew he was once a man who was my hero, he was once the strongest man I knew and he was the one who ruled over the box of tools that had the wrenches that could fix a bike, tighten a chain, or repair a hole in a tree house and turn into the man who I would want to drop me off outside places and not walk me in and be the man who I wouldn’t share secrets with and who wouldn’t have
someone to play booger finger with anymore. I was gaining a lot and my dad was losing just as much. What kept him going was he kept trying to change with the time clock that was facing him every day the dance got closer.
I can appreciate the man he is by remembering the man he was. All of us in our little group were so excited, we spent every minute of our free time working on the plans at school and on our dresses.
We would look at all the dresses in every store window and in every new catalog that came out, trying to top the girls before us. Trying to be more beautiful than all the girls before us. We did more chores and more side jobs that summer than ever before. More yards got racked, cars were washed, and gutters were cleaned out on our street. The dance was in the middle of my ninth grade year, and I never knew until going through some of his old things that dad was waiting on that day since the day I was born. He had written me a letter every birthday of every year telling me how special I was and how exciting it was that year being my dad. He was secretly trying to lose some weight by never finishing junk food when we would eat out saying ‘oh I’m full or oh I don’t feel well’ and while on work trips, he would eat healthy like a salad and something baked instead of pizza and a cold drink or something fried as we would do. He was also taking dancing lessons on nights I would have sleepovers or if a school project took up my evening. And tell me he was running errands.
I never really got to know just what all my dad went through and gave up for me let alone what he did for that dance. All I can do is wonder and appreciate what I knew he did because that was enough and that was what I did see him do and I love him dearly for that. We as young women, we gave our all and put it into that moment we would be free and never knew that growing up took so much out of the people who loved and raised us. Like I said, we shopped and shopped till our feet hurt. I had a white ball gown that was to some a little mature for my age but it was my night to be a woman and beside my dad I felt so safe and could be as beautiful as my imagination would allow me to be. Ohh how it sparkled, it was a one shoulder, thin strapped dress with diamonds across the waist, now I know by the price I got it for that it was no way near real diamonds but in that dress you could not tell me anything. (Gasping) It came tight down my waist showing what hips I did have and was cut just below the hipline exposing my whole right leg. And no dress is a dress no matter how awesome without a pair of matching heels and man I had them too.
Cries of Innocence Page 1
