“How did you get here?” I ask just to say something to distract him from his own mind, but I hate the unspoken follow-up question that begs to be asked.
“I was walking home from school,” he says and as he answers his pointer finger draws on the cement. From the other side of the cell, I can’t see what he’s tracing.
“Where do you go to school?”
“I don’t know the name but my teacher is Miss Harrow. She teaches the kindergarteners.”
He’s younger than me. I almost ask him how old he is and what his name is, but the door to the upstairs suddenly opens. My first thought is that they’re sending down the dogs but it’s not. It’s worse. Much worse.
My shoulders slam against the brick wall as I hear a loud clang of a gate followed by a grunt. They’re back. Terrified eyes pierce into mine and with a quick and rushed movement, I gesture for the boy to come over to my side of the cell. His bare feet leave a sound I wish was the only sound I could hear, a pattering of small feet on the damp ground.
But the heavy boots outweigh the pitter-patter and even more so a muffled cry. A small voice that begs for help. The boy trembles next to me, smaller, weighing less and wearing less too. He’s cold, so cold but the shaking is from the same fear that works its way through my bones. My right arm wraps around his small body and I try to stay strong for him, forcing my eyes to stay open as we huddle in the corner farthest away from the iron gate. I watch because he doesn’t, he closes his eyes tight. One of us has to watch. This time it’s me.
“Shhh.” I hush him as his whimpers get louder. They’re almost here. The two men I know in my nightmares. There’s oil on their hands. I think it’s oil; it’s all I can smell when they come. They smell like the garage used to when my father’s car broke down.
The one on the right, the tall one and older one heaves the cell gate opposite ours open. The shorter one who’s heavier tosses the bag into the cell and a vicious crack sounds out followed by a shriek of pain.
Hot tears leak down my face, but I don’t look away. I have to make sure they stay over there, in that cell and not ours. And they do. The gate closes, locking with a click that will haunt me forever, and I watch because someone has to and the boy can’t.
The screams don’t stop for hours.
Delilah
My mother killed my father. The statement is fit for a tragedy, maybe one of Shakespeare’s plays. I hated English Lit in college. I only took the class because I had to. All the while I remember tapping my pencil against the textbook as I did the assigned readings, thinking how unrealistic it was. How outdated and far too dramatic the stories were as they unfolded.
As my mother lies on the edge of the queen bed, I can’t help but to be brought back to that moment, and suddenly I feel foolish. How did this happen?
With trembling hands, I close my eyes and pretend like it’s only a story. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline that kept me from thinking about the reality … but my mother killed my father.
And I’m helping her get away with it.
Knock, knock, knock knock knock … The pattern of five faint knocks on the door to the hotel room draws my eye to the dull white door. A shadow is vaguely seen creeping from under the locked door.
My heart slams against my rib cage as a slip of paper slides under the crack.
Even from where I sit, huddled with my knees pulled into my chest and my eyes burning from lack of sleep and the prick of former tears, I can see the dark scribbles of handwriting.
The second the paper lands on the worn, thin carpet, the shadow disappears and it’s quiet again with the exception of heavy footsteps outside, followed by the creak of the next room’s door opening. I sit there, very much aware that it has to be Marcus who’s next door. It must be him. And more importantly … he must know what happened or that something has happened. How else would he have found me?
How much does he know? The question lingers as my body stays frozen.
Knock, knock. The last two taps of the game I remember from my childhood come through the wall only feet from me.
A shudder runs through me and I can only look back at my mother, still sleeping. Unaware of the fear that keeps me crippled in this chair.
A second passes and then another before the realization sinks in that I’d rather go to him than have him come here. I don’t know how I’m able to move my horrified limbs, but I do, bending down to read the slip of paper with the simple command on it.