by Ronald Kelly
“What kind of music is that?” he asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”
Rusty frowned. “It’s called Big Band. Chuck listens to it all the time.”
“Weird,” said Keith. “It sure isn’t Aerosmith or Guns N’ Roses.”
“And it sure as spit ain’t Hank Williams either,” said Rusty. “But don’t say nothing about it. Chuck can be kinda touchy sometimes.” He reached out and knocked lightly on the door.
There was the click of a boom box being turned off and then a thin, high voice came from the other side of the door. “Yeah? Who is it?”
“Rusty,” he said, then added “Reporting for duty.”
“Enter,” called the boy.
Rusty turned the knob and the two stepped inside.
Chuck Adkins’ room was a lot like Rusty’s except for one distinguishing factor. Where Rusty’s room was decorated entirely in Western memorabilia, Chuck’s walls were covered with pictures and posters having to do with war. Or, more precisely, World War II. On one wall there was even a shelf bearing a German helmet with a bullet hole in the crown, a rusty bayonet, and a couple of hand grenades, hopefully defused. Hanging from the ceiling by transparent fishing line were dozens of plastic models: bomber planes, battleships, and Nazi submarines, all painted to the minutest detail.
After he had gotten an eyeful of the room, Keith turned his attention to the boy who lived there. Chuck Adkins sat at his desk, working on a model of a B-17 bomber. The boy was about their age, overweight, with curly black hair and glasses. It was a moment before Keith realized that Chuck wasn’t sitting in a normal chair.
Now he knew what Rusty’s warning meant. Chuck Adkins was handicapped. He was confined to a wheelchair.
“What’re you looking at?” asked the boy. There was a trace of hostility in his shrill voice.
Keith swallowed nervously and took a sip of his lemonade. “Nothing, man. Nothing at all.”
Chuck pulled his chair away from the desk and turned toward Rusty. “Who is this rude dude?”
“Aw, he’s okay,” said Rusty with a big smile on his freckled face. “This is Keith. He’s my cousin from Atlanta.”
The boy studied Keith for a moment. “Sure didn’t think he was from around here,” he said. “Dig that crazy haircut he’s got.”
“Yeah, it’s a hoot, ain’t it?” laughed Rusty.
Keith ignored the remark and stepped forward. “How’s it going?” he asked, extending his hand.
Chuck stared at his hand, then finally took it. Keith found the boy’s palm soft and moist. “Okay, I reckon. Of course, today’s just like any other day for me.”
“Your mom said you were feeling down,” said Rusty. “How come?”
“Crap!” said the boy. “Why’s everybody fussing over me all the time? Just ‘cause I can’t walk doesn’t mean everybody has to pamper me like some kind of baby.” The anger in his tiny eyes suddenly bled away into sadness. “Well, everybody fusses over me, except my dad, that is.”
Keith could tell that it pained the boy to even talk about his father, although he couldn’t imagine why, unless he was dead or something like that.
Rusty walked over to the desk, as if trying to conjure some other subject to talk about.
“Whatcha putting together here?”
“It’s the Memphis Belle,” said Chuck. “You know, the Flying Fortress that flew all those bombing missions. Mom got it for me at Wal-Mart yesterday.”
“Looks really boss,” said Keith.
Chuck frowned. “What’d he say?”
“Some kinda city lingo, I think,” replied Rusty.
Keith pointed to the shelf of collectibles. “Is that stuff for real?”
Chuck seemed to relax his guard a bit. “Yep. My Grandpa Adkins was in World War II. Stormed Normandy Beach with General Eisenhower’s troops. He brought that stuff back with him. The helmet belonged to a real Nazi soldier that he killed himself.”
“Wild,” said Keith, impressed.
“Got something else of his, too,” said Chuck. He opened one of the desk drawers and brought out a black velvet case. “It’s his medals. A Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.”
When Chuck took out the ribbons and displayed them on the desktop, Keith stared at them reverently. “Man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen real medals before.”
“My grandpa was a great guy,” said the handicapped boy. “Told me all kinds of stories about the War when I was little. He died when I was seven.” He looked a little sad. “You know, you guys are lucky you still have your grandfather around.”
“You got that right,” said Rusty.
Keith simply nodded. He didn’t know exactly what to say about a man he hardly even knew.
Abruptly, a streak of green motion shot across the desk. Keith cried out and stepped back, startled. He watched as a green lizard scrambled up Chuck’s arm and perched on his right shoulder. “What the hell is that?” he asked.
Chuck’s stoic expression vanished and he laughed. “This here’s my pet iguana,” he explained. “His name is Churchill.”
“After the fat English dude with the cigar,” said Keith.
The boy was surprised. “Right. You know much about World War II history?”
“Just what I’ve picked up in school. I’m more into stuff like John Dillinger and Al Capone.”
They visited with the boy for a while, then left Chuck to finish his model. Both Rusty and Keith felt as if they had helped lift Chuck’s spirits a little. But, once outside the house, Rusty claimed that it wouldn’t last for long. Soon Chuck would start thinking about his limitations again and his depression would be back in full swing.
They were on their bikes and heading back down Sycamore Road, when Keith asked a question that had been on his mind since meeting Chuck. “Tell me something? What happened to your friend back there? How’d he end up in that wheelchair?”
Rusty thought about it for a second. “He had an accident when he was ten,” he finally said. “Went duck hunting with his daddy over at Willow Lake. They were going to a blind hidden in a clump of trees. Chuck climbed over a bobwire fence. His daddy was carrying a twelve-gauge shotgun when he was swinging over and he lost his balance. The gun went off and the shot hit Chuck in the small of the back.”
Keith grimaced. “No kidding!”
“Yeah,” agreed Rusty. “Scared his poor daddy half to death. He had to walk a couple of miles through the woods with Chuck bleeding all over him. We thought Chuck was going to die for a while. But the folks up at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville did surgery on him and he pulled through. But the gunshot severed his spinal cord. He’s pretty much dead from the waist down.”
“Ain’t that a bitch,” said Keith. “There’s nothing they can do for him?”
“Nope. Ol’ Chuck will be stuck in that damned chair for the rest of his life,” said Rusty. “The worst of it ain’t his injury, though. It’s the way his old man acts toward him now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he just kinda ignores Chuck. Acts like he’s not even there half the time.”
Keith frowned. “How come?”
Rusty shrugged his freckled shoulders. “Who knows?” He glanced over at Keith. “What time have you got on that fancy watch of yours, cuz?”
Keith looked down at his diver’s watch. “About twenty till twelve.”
“If we lay the pedal to the metal, we might just make it home for them tuna sandwiches and that apple pie. I’m hungry enough to eat a Black Angus bull, horns, balls, and all!”
“Well, I’m hungry, but not that hungry,” said Keith with a laugh.
As the two boys sped down the rural road, leaving clouds of powdery clay dust in their wake, Keith thought about Chuck Adkins. He couldn’t imagine how the boy could stand being confined to that wheelchair, unable to do all the things that normal kids could. He pictured the boy sitting in his curtained room, putting together his models, his only constant companion being his pet lizard. No
wonder he was so down all the time. Keith didn’t think he could stand it if he were to ever suffer the same fate.
He thought about it as he strained to keep pace with his cousin. Keith had come to Harmony pissed off at the world and feeling sorry for himself. But now he realized that he had absolutely nothing to complain about. In comparison to what Chuck Adkins had to endure from day to day, he had nothing to complain about at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Allison Walsh opened her eyes.
For a long time she had thought that she was dead. She should have been, considering what she had been through.
Then, slowly, her unconsciousness began to lift. The turbulent darkness of her dreams began to thin and she sensed a source of light to her distant left. Her eyes focused and found that it was a standing lamp in the far corner of the room.
But what room? It certainly wasn’t the one she had come to know so well during her ordeal. The room that had seemed like Hell.
She groaned and tried to sit up. She was lying in a soft bed covered with white linen and blankets. As she moved her left arm, Allison discovered that something was tugging against her inner forearm. Hazily, she looked down and found that the needle of an IV was anchored beneath her skin midway between wrist and elbow, held firmly into place with surgical tape. Confused, she glanced over and saw a metal stand with a plastic IV bag hanging from its hook. The fluid inside the bag was as clear as water.
“Oh God,” she muttered. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
But she knew what had happened. Abruptly, her mind cleared and the terror came rushing back into her. Adrenalin pumped through her veins as that leering face with the ugly, serpentine eyes leaped into her thoughts. The face of a hitchhiker named Slash.
She opened her mouth and screamed.
The next few moments were full of shrill horror and confusion. She remembered clawing at her face and the material of her hospital, and wrestling with two nurses and a doctor who rushed to her bedside. Then one of the nurses injected something into the IV and Allison felt her terror begin to dissolve. That grinning face she now associated with torment and humiliation slowly began to fade. Eventually, it vanished completely. But she knew it was still there, hiding somewhere in the back of her mind, waiting to emerge again when she least expected it.
The tension drained from her body and, with a whimper, she sagged back against the raised mattress of the hospital bed. She cried softly. Through her tears she saw a tall black man take a handkerchief from the front pocket of his white smock. Tenderly, he dried her eyes.
“Ms. Walsh,” he said quietly. “I’m Doctor Alan Matthews. I’m attending to your case.”
“Where am I?” she asked feebly. She felt as if all the strength was slowly draining from her body. It must have been one strong sedative they had just given her.
“You are at University Medical Center in Rome, Georgia,” he said.
“How did I get here?”
“A couple of kids found you while they were out playing,” said Matthews. “From what I hear, you gave them quite a scare.”
Allison had difficulty focusing her thoughts. “I remember an old house.”
The doctor nodded. “Near Adairsville. That’s where he took you.”
Suddenly, the fear was back. She sat up stiffly. “Where is he now?”
Matthews gently pushed her back to a prone position. “Far from here, I would guess. I just hope the police track down the son of a bitch.” He paused for a moment. “He was a sadistic bastard, wasn’t he?”
Allison didn’t have to concentrate to remember. It all came back to her; the countless rapes, the torture, the beatings. She closed her eyes and saw him standing before her, naked in candlelight. He was sharpening the blade of the folding knife against the gray rectangle of the whetstone. The gold cross pin, still inverted, pierced his left nipple. Allison’s blood marked his face and body like Indian war paint.
She jerked her eyes open and the doctor came back into view, studying her with concern.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “He was.” Her body felt sore and heavy, used up. “Exactly what did he do to me?” she wanted to know.
Matthews hesitated. “I’d prefer to go into that when you’re better rested and a little stronger.”
“No,” she said firmly. “Tell me now.”
The doctor looked at one of the nurses who had remained, then turned uncomfortable eyes back to his patient. “Frankly, you’ve suffered more than any human being should be able to tolerate,” he told her. “You’ve been sexually assaulted multiple times, beaten brutally about the face and abdomen, and subjected to numerous acts of mutilation.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I remember.” She pressed a hand to her chest and found a thick bandage covering her from her collarbone to just below her breasts. “He carved something in my chest. A word.”
The doctor nodded silently. There was rage in his dark eyes.
Do it to me again, bitch! Do it to me good or I’ll make you scream!
Tears began to well in Allison’s eyes. “Now I know.” She shifted her position in the bed and felt a twinge of agony sear her pubic area. “It hurts down there.”
“He burnt you severely,” said Dr. Matthews. “With a cigarette.”
Allison nodded. The tears began to roll down her bruised face, but she uttered no sound.
Matthews patted her gently on the hand. “You rest up and try not to think about what happened. It’s over. It’s time to heal now.”
As the doctor started toward the door, she called out. “What day is this?”
“It’s Monday night,” he replied.
“He abducted me on Thursday,” she said, stunned.
“What he did to you took several days,” said Matthews. “Even after he left, you were out there by yourself for a while. Now, please, try to put it out of your mind and rest.” He gave her a smile of reassurance, then turned off the light and left her in partial darkness.
Allison laid in the sterile comfort of her bed and cried. The sedative began to take a firmer hold, turning her arms and legs heavy, as well as her eyelids. But she fought against closing her eyes. Every time she did, he came back to haunt her.
Look, Allison. Look at it bleed. Red is my favorite color, you know. And blood is as red as it can get.
“You bastard,” she whispered. “Why did you pick me of all people?”
The face simply grinned cruelly and laughed. She remembered that godawful laugh. She was certain that she would never forget it.
Allison laid there for a time, her body slowly giving in to the sedative. She fought to stay awake, however. There was something else she needed to think about. Something she needed to deal with. Something she had needed to deal with for a very long time… years before she had known a sicko like Slash Jackson even existed.
She closed her eyes again. A face came into view, but it was not that of her most recent tormentor. Rather, it was the face of a devil from thirty years ago. A face she both loved and hated at the same time.
Put it in your mouth, Allie. Do it nice or I’ll kill your mother. I swear to God I will.
The voice was similar to Jackson’s, but it was more familiar; the voice of a loved one. That’s what made it so horrible. So very shameful.
Allison sobbed quietly. She could still feel his hands on the back of her head, pressing her downward. She could still smell him – taste him – just as she could still taste Jackson.
“Oh, Dad,” she whimpered. “Why?”
She had been five years old then. He had done it to her only that once, but that had been enough. She had told no one about what had happened. She had been afraid, both for herself and her mother. She had locked the incident away inside her somewhere, all the pain and anguish and humiliation. When she had become a teenager, Allison had rebelled against her father’s authority, although she never understood why. It wasn’t until Slash Jackson had assaulted her in the very same manner that the wall gave way and it all came floodi
ng back.
Allison laid there and wondered why her father had never attempted to molest her again. Perhaps he was scared to do it a second time. Or perhaps he had just wanted to know how it felt.
Slowly, the sedative won against her tormented thoughts. The images grew fuzzy and distorted. But before she drifted off, Allison promised herself something. Something she wished she had promised herself thirty years ago.
He won’t get away with it this time. I swear to God he won’t.
Then, an instant later, she was completely under. And, fortunately, this time she did not dream.
CHAPTER NINE
The day following their visit to Chuck Adkins’ house, Keith and Rusty worked most of the morning and afternoon on the old Schwinn. They sanded the rust of the frame away with fine-grit emery paper, then painted it a glossy electric blue with spray paint they found on a shelf above the workbench. Next they polished the handlebars and spokes until they gleamed like new chrome. There wasn’t much to be done for the tires and they had no money to buy new ones, so they simply scrubbed them the best they could and applied a generous coat of Armor All to make them shine. Keith christened the bike Blue Fury, then the two set out on the dusty back roads once again.
By three in the afternoon, the heat of the blazing August sun got the better of them. They had brought along a canteen of cherry Kool-Aid this time, but it was gone before they knew it.
“Man, it’s hotter today than it was yesterday,” complained Keith. He pulled at the front of his Braves shirt. It was so drenched with sweat that it clung to his chest and back like a second skin.
Rusty wiped sweat from his forehead with a red bandanna he carried in the hip pocket of his overalls. He looked toward a heavy thicket at the side of the road and grinned. “I know how we can beat it,” he said. “Let’s park our bikes under that maple tree yonder and I’ll show you.”
As they left their bikes next to the shade tree, Keith looked worried. “Aren’t you afraid someone might swipe them?”
Rusty laughed. “Here in Harmony? Folks would just soon jump in front of a tractor-trailer truck than steal another man’s property. And they’d likely be hung up by their thumbs in town square if they were to try. Besides, who in tarnation would want to rip off these old junkers?”
