Her elevated tone and the words all tumbling together indicated she would be primed for histrionics. He dialed her number, hoping to catch her before she drove all the way out to Arlington in late afternoon traffic.
She picked up immediately.
“Christina, do not drive out here. I’ve got to get home, and whatever we need to discuss we can do it over—”
“Some really rough kids came by the house today looking for Brandon, and—”
“What?”
“Tyler, I’m in the parking lot. Would you please come out here and talk to me? Now? Please?” Her voice broke. She was crying.
When they were married, Christina cried all the time. Her hysterics drove him crazy. Ultimately, her bipolar mood swings were too much to take. She wouldn’t stay on medication, and even when she was on it, she had a propensity for violent outbursts—usually directed toward him.
From the door of the building he could already see her short and spiky blonde hair behind the wheel of her blue sedan. He tapped on the window of the car, and she pressed the automatic lock to let him in. Tyler swung into the passenger seat, assaulted by the stale, artificial fragrance of a pine-scented air freshener.
Christina‘s ocean-blue eyes were red-rimmed and watery, the whites shot through with spidery, red trails of emotion. “I’ve been calling you all day,” she croaked, glaring at him with the hatred she’d displayed when they’d been married.
“So you told me. What’s this all about?”
“I don’t know. There’s just a lot of crazy stuff going on. These guys showed up at the house today looking for Brandon. Really scary-looking guys with tattoos and piercings. They said they were friends of his. But I know they’re not.” Christina drew a shredded tissue from her pocket and held it against her crimson-tipped nose. “I was scared to death. I was getting groceries out of my car when they just walked up to me.”
“What did they want?”
“I don’t know. I told them Brandon wasn’t around. I’d dropped him off at school after the appointment with the psychiatrist, and it seemed like they were acting kind of shifty anyway, and…I’m just really, really scared.”
“Did you call the police to report it?”
“No, because that’s the other thing. Last night some detective came by to ask Brandon about some party. I couldn’t follow everything she said. Something about the party being where those sexting photos were taken—the ones circulated all around the school. Some of the photos were on Brandon’s phone. So, apparently, he’s been going to all of these parties? I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”
“I told you not to have Brandon talk to anyone unless I was present.”
“Well, she was at my door. What was I supposed to do?” She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “So was he at the party or not?”
“I’m not following you. What party?”
“I don’t know which party they’re talking about. She said Brandon’s been seen at a lot of parties lately. I would never have let him go to a party like that. That must have been your night with him. You never called me to ask if Brandon could go to a party! You know how fragile he’s been this year! How depressed he’s been. How could you do that?” The annoying, shrill tone, as though she couldn’t control the anger rising up, made her eyes bulge. Her face mottled with malice.
“What night was it? When was the party?”
“I don’t know. Sometime around Homecoming.”
Brandon had never asked about going to a party. But Brandon’s visits had been sporadic lately. He hadn’t been keeping to the regular visitation schedule. Tyler scratched his head. “Look, Christina, I’m sorry. There’s been a lot going on. Lana’s been in California, and—”
“I don’t care about her and what she’s doing,” Christina spat. “I’m talking about our son. Don’t you understand how serious this is?”
“Oh, come on. I can’t even keep track of all the nights Brandon’s supposed to stay over but doesn’t because you have some doctor’s appointment scheduled the next day. I didn’t know that he even wanted to go to a party! He never told me or asked about it. When he’s at our house he just stays in his room all the time.”
“He’s thirteen, Tyler!” she shrieked.
“I know that!”
She paused, taking deep, slow breaths. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “I went to see a lawyer yesterday about Virginia sexting laws. Did you know what Brandon did is considered distribution of pornography? That’s a class six felony. It carries jail time. He could be required to register as a sex offender.”
“They’re not going to prosecute a thirteen-year-old as a sex offender.”
“That’s not what the lawyer told me,” Christina said. “He told me it would probably be prosecuted in juvenile court, and there’s a wide range of possibilities for punishment.”
Tyler couldn’t believe this. These were kids, and they looked at dirty pictures and yeah, they probably passed them around to their other friends. In this age of the Internet, there were new apps and sites the kids used that Tyler didn’t understand or even know about. “This is such a mess.”
“It’s clear that our son has been running around doing whatever he pleases when he stays with you and Lana. Because you two are too wrapped up in your own lives to parent our kids.”
Her words stung. “You’re the one dragging him to this psychiatrist and that psychiatrist.”
“And, obviously, he needs to go! Something is wrong!”
Tyler looked out the windshield, pressing the back of his head against the headrest until his neck ached. The car had grown very cold, and he could see his breath. “Fighting about this isn’t helping. I’ll talk to Brandon when he comes over next.”
“Yeah. I’m sure that’ll do a lot of good.” Christina scoffed. “What’re you gonna talk to him about? How it’s OK to look at porn but not actually send pictures of naked girls to your friends?”
That arrow stung, but he held his tongue.
Christina’s upper lip raised in a sneer. “No doubt he learned about all of this stuff from you anyway.”
~*~
Saturday, December 10
Saturday afternoon, Tyler answered a knock on the front door. Through the beveled glass, he could make out the forms of three boys. In this neighborhood, weekend solicitations were common, and Tyler figured these were probably neighborhood kids selling something for the school band. But these boys were not in the school band.
Three faces stared back at him—one of them partially covered in tattoos. All of them had tattoos of varying sorts—some on their hands and necks—but the one who spoke sported a black dragon climbing up the side of his cheek toward his temple. “Hey. Yeah, we’re looking for Brandon.”
“Brandon’s not here.” Tyler’s mind reeled. What could these guys possibly want with his son?
“You know when he will be?”
The boys stood in a triangular formation and reminded Tyler of birds or a school of fish, especially since all of their dark hair was gelled and molded into fins on the top of their heads. The one who spoke stood in the front, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his dark eyes darting all around. The other two looked past Tyler and into the entryway of his house. His blood chilled even as goose flesh rose on his arms from the cold air outside.
“What do you want with Brandon?” His fingers curled stiffly around the doorjamb.
“We’re friends of his. You know, we just wanted to come by and say hi,” the guy said, and a small laugh punctuated his speech. His eyes shifted from the ground to Tyler to inside the house.
“You look a little old to be friends of my son’s. You go to his school?” An electrical current of fear and anger ran through him. These were the gang members who had been harassing his son.
“Yeah…yeah.” The boy with the black dragon tattoo threw a glance over his shoulder at the guys behind him. They all smiled. “Yeah. We go to school with him.”
“Uh-huh.” There was no way Bran
don was hanging out with these guys—ever. These were probably the same rough-looking guys who’d showed up at Christina’s home. A frisson of unease spiraled in his brain. Micah and Celia were inside. He could hear their voices upstairs. “Well, Brandon’s not here.”
“You know where he is?”
“No.” Tyler jutted out his lower jaw and crossed his arms. “What are your names?”
The three males all exchanged glances and snickered. None of them made eye contact with Tyler.
“Yeah…uh, I’m Fred,” the ring leader said. “And this is Bert and this is Ernie.”
The trio burst into fits of chuckles, obviously amused by their clever leader.
Rage rushed through him as he growled, “Yeah, OK, Fred Flintstone. You and your cronies need to hightail it off of my property before I call the cops. And I’d better never see you around here—and I’d better never see you around my son!”
Coughing and chortling with hilarity, the three made their way down the steps and out to a black truck parked at the corner of the street. As they drove off, they held their hands out of windows with their middle fingers raised high. “We’ll be back!” one of them called out, followed by a string of expletives.
Tyler closed the door and called Josh.
~*~
The sun was sinking as a police cruiser arrived to take Tyler’s statement. Josh and Tyler met them in the driveway. The patrol car’s lights flashed, blending with the Christmas decorations at several of the houses along the street. Various neighbors, including Suzanne, stood out in the freezing cold, hugging themselves and trying to garner some gossip-worthy information.
“What’s going on, Tyler? Josh?” Suzanne called across the street. “Is everything OK?”
“Everything’s fine, Suzanne. Nothing for you to worry about. Get back inside. These are frost-bite-worthy temps out here.”
Tyler gave his statement, mentioning that his ex-wife had also received a visit from the thugs. The young officer said they would be in touch as soon as they knew something. He nodded to Josh before he left. “See you at the gym? Monday morning?”
“Bright and early,” Josh responded.
Josh laid his hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “If these guys show up again, give me a call. If I’m home, I’ll come over in uniform. If not, I’ll make sure another officer gets out here pronto. These guys will not bully you and Brandon, or anyone else in this neighborhood.”
Tyler had never felt so helpless. “Thanks.”
Somehow those guys had known Brandon was supposed to stay at his house that night. He meant to have a long conversation with his son. Laying down the law was the only course of action Tyler knew to help rectify Brandon’s thoughtless—and reckless—behavior.
He went into his son’s room, which smelt faintly of the pungent body spray so many teenage boys wore, mixed with the unmistakable odor of reeky socks. He shifted a box sitting on his chest of drawers and lifted the top to reveal a jumbled mess of video controls, headphones, and a rubber snake. The corners of Tyler’s mouth lifted at the simple boyhood trinket.
Tyler opened Brandon’s closet and shifted his clothes—at least those actually hanging—from side to side. What was he looking for? He wasn’t even sure. Drugs? Some kind of gang propaganda or paraphernalia?
Stepping over the pile of laundry on the floor, he moved to Brandon’s nightstand, opening the drawers and sifting through several cell phone chargers, some loose change, and a few metal badges Brandon had received when he’d been part of the Scouts. Funny. Brandon had once been so proud of those medals, and now they were relegated to the back of a dusty nightstand drawer. One day, they would probably end up in a box full of items to be given or thrown away, just like his own Scout medals.
Kneeling, Tyler lifted the edge of the comforter and peered underneath the bed, surprised to find it void of anything except the tennis racquet and can of tennis balls he’d bought Brandon last year. He’d hoped they could take some lessons together. But Tyler had gotten busy with work, and Brandon had gone to summer camp, and just like so many ideas to spend time with his son, that one had gone by the wayside.
Brandon’s computer loomed like a sleeping giant. It was Tyler’s old computer, one he’d retired for his current, more practical laptop. The old, fold-out metal chair creaked as he sat. Tyler’s chest tightened as the desktop illuminated, and a sea-blue wallpaper with photographs of dolphins swimming appeared. Several old games Tyler used to play in his spare time remained on the desktop, ancient, mindless time fillers he no longer used.
Tyler pulled up the Internet browser. It was set to open on Brandon’s e-mail account. Brandon didn’t use his e-mail account very often, except for school. As Tyler scanned down through the contents of his son’s inbox, a hot, tingling sensation disseminated through his chest, up his neck, and into his face. Almost every subject line read something like: Hot Hot Hot, Katya and her friends want to meet you, Asian women looking for husbands, hi I’m looking for someone like you. Many of the subject lines were familiar to him, ones he received in his own inbox. Some spam was unavoidable no matter what sites were visited, but nearly every e-mail in his son’s inbox was pornographic.
Moving the cursor to the address bar, Tyler clicked on the browsing history. His heart sank. The only URL addresses present were XXX pornographic sites. He propelled his weight backward with such force that he nearly upended the chair. Leaning forward once more, his hand swept over his face, resting on his open mouth as he stared at the screen. “What?” he breathed.
When he clicked on one of the sites, intensely graphic, violent, and kinky images materialized on the screen. This went well beyond the sites he frequented. He flipped through a few of the pages. An image so disturbing, vile, and abhorrent caused him to look away. This was what his son was viewing? He grasped the computer cord and yanked it violently from the socket.
~*~
When Brandon arrived home from school, Tyler was waiting in the living room. He’d set up Micah and Celia in the den, watching one of their favorite movies. He didn’t want them to hear the serious conversation he would be having with their older brother. It was past time to have this talk, and he berated himself for letting things get so far out of control.
He’d allowed Christina to take the reins, carting Brandon from one doctor to another, when he should have been manning up as Brandon’s father. Through the living room window, Tyler observed his son as he exited his mother’s car. With clenched jaw and compressed forehead, Brandon pulled his bag from the backseat. Christina said something to him through the open window, and Brandon nodded absently before moving up the front steps.
As Brandon came through the front door he locked eyes with his father.
“Come on in. Sit down. Let’s have a chat,” Tyler said.
Frowning, Brandon threw down his bag and slunk to a chair. His head went down and his fingers knitted at one another.
Tyler stood with his back against the wall. “So…you wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Brandon shrugged.
“Look, Bran. This is all getting very serious. Fights at school. Sexting, pornography. Come on, I saw the pictures on your computer. That’s some messed up stuff. Why are you doing all this?”
Another shrug. More silence.
“What you’re looking at…I mean…that’s some sick, sick stuff.”
“All the kids look at it,” Brandon spoke to his hands.
“Do all the kids have to hire defense lawyers?”
Brandon’s face reddened.
“Do all the kids have gang members showing up at their house looking for them?”
Brandon’s head popped up then, and his eyes widened. “What?”
“Three guys showed up here this afternoon looking for you. I had to call the police. Yeah, Brandon. It’s that bad—it’s that serious. Who are these guys? Do you know these guys?”
The boy shook his head.
Tyler brought his arm back and hammered his fist into the wall. “Bra
ndon! Look at me. There are other people in this house besides you. Micah and Celia. I do not want them exposed to this kind of filth or violence, do you understand?”
“I don’t know those guys.”
“Your mother told me they showed up at her house, too. They said they know you.”
“I don’t know them.”
“Then what do they want with you? Why are they looking for you?”
“I don’t know.” Brandon’s voice shook.
“Tell me about this party then. Your mother said you went to a party one night when you were supposed to be staying with us.”
“I stayed with Jared that night.”
“You stayed with Jared, and you didn’t tell anyone. Your mother thought you were with me, and I thought you were with her. You took advantage of both of us.” Anger burned in Tyler’s chest. “Brandon, let me tell you right now. At the rate you’re going, you’re headed straight to juvie!”
Another shrug. “I guess.”
“Is that where you met these guys. At this party?” Tyler willed his speeding heart to slow.
“I might have seen them there. I mean, they might have been there. I don’t know their names or anything. Look, they asked me if I wanted to be part of their group. That’s all.”
Brandon’s nonchalance stoked Tyler’s irritation—every shrug was a poker pushing against the fiery coals burning in his stomach. “Do you realize how serious this is? Because I don’t think you do.”
“I said I didn’t want to.”
“You’re facing potential criminal charges! And you’ve put us all in danger with these roughnecks you hang out with. And why are they looking for you? What do they want with you if you told them you didn’t want to be part of their gang?”
Suburban Dangers Page 12
