by C. A. Rene
I just nod because right now I can’t seem to find my voice to speak. She loads up the laptop and inserts the USB. It takes a few minutes but the window finally pops up with a list of files.
“Let’s start with this one.” She clicks on a file and a list of names comes up. “These are a group of men who are into the same shit Coach Halbert was.”
“What?” I breathe out and lean forward. “Who?”
She turns the laptop so I can read them myself. Some big names are on this list and a few of them I know very well since they were at my house and in meetings with my father on a regular basis. The ones that stick out the most? Andrew Cox-elementary school principal, Wilson McKay-local fire chief, and Joseph Watkins-local judge. These three men were in my house at least once a week before my father died. The rest of the list I either only know in passing or not at all.
“I know those three," I point out the three I recognize to her, “they spent a lot of time at my house with my father.”
“I figured.” She nods. She closes the list and clicks open the next file. “Here is a list of cops who could be paid to look the other way or even assist in cover ups, for the right price.”
I lean over and look through the list and I see police chief Bill Moore on there, it makes a lot of fucking sense. No wonder Coach Halbert was so fucking brazen in the shit he did and these other people too. If some of the highest officials were turning their cheeks then who was there to fucking help the helpless?
“I paid him off to ‘convince’ the fire chief that Halbert set that fire with his cigarette.” She finger quotes convinced. “It was really easy.”
The sick feeling in my stomach magnifies as I think about all the children that needed help at the hands of these sick fuckers and didn’t receive it. She clicks over to the next file which is named ‘Babies’. When it opens, there are about ten couples on that list but I only recognize one and I feel my heart racing.
“Georgina and Abe Hinton.” I read out loud.
“Is that…?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “That’s Adrianna’s parents. What does this file mean? What’s ‘Babies’?”
“I have no idea about this one.”
“We have to figure it out.” I stress to her as my head begins to pound.
“We will.” She places her hand on my arm, “we have a whole list to work with here.”
“Ember, why would you think I knew about any of this?” I question her.
“Because of this last file.” She clicks open the last file and I feel like I have lost all feeling in my face and my mouth is suddenly very dry.
‘The Whitsborough Rapist’. Something jogs in my memory, it’s dancing just around the edges but I just can’t get a good grasp on it.
“Trav?” I hear Ember’s voice but she sounds so far away.
Today is my thirteenth birthday and I got to celebrate it with Coach and my baseball teammates. We had a game this afternoon and we won, it just added to the happiness of my birthday. I also have a plan to meet up with Adrianna after and go get some milkshakes at The Route. The locker room is deathly quiet because I am the last one here and I always help Coach clear up our equipment.
I strip out of my filthy uniform-I slid into home base three times today-and wrap my towel around my waist. Coach has started to give us more space in the locker rooms due to the guys complaining about privacy. I know he can be a bit much but they just don't understand it like I do. Coach has selected me as his confidant and he tells me everything about how he's training us to become our very best. And he really wants us all to become something and maybe make it out of this town. But I will never get to leave, I will just become my father and take over his business. Whitsborough is my prison forever and my mother and father are the jail keepers.
I turn on the hot water for the shower and step inside the steam. My muscles hurt on my arms and shoulders but it's a good hurt, it reminds me that I can always hurt more, especially at the hands of my father. I lather up and wash away the dirt remnants on my body, watching as the grit runs down into the drain.
I know he's there, I can always feel when he's watching me. I don't say anything because at least he no longer records me. As messed up as it sounds I know he does it because he cares about me. If it weren’t for Coach, there would be a lot of shit I just wouldn't know about myself. Things about my changing body that would've worried me if I didn't have him to ask about it.
I'm not stupid, I know some of the shit we do is wrong but I am loved in a way I have never been and I don't want to lose that. I don't care about touching him, it means nothing to me and I continue to keep the only person that has truly cared about my well being in my life.
I step out of the shower and sure enough I spot him across the locker room standing beside my locker, with his dick in his hand. I know what he wants and I can get it done in under two minutes now because I have learned every little thing this man likes.
"Gotta be quick today, I have somewhere to be." I say as I drop my towel and reach into the locker for my clothes.
He places a hand on my arm to stop me and I turn to look at him, "somewhere to be?" He's still stroking his dick.
"Yeah, I'm having milkshakes with Adri."
"Like a date?' His head cocks to the side.
"I don't know," I shrug. I hope so.
"Have you kissed her yet?" He smiles at me.
"No," I shake my head, "not yet." I really want to though and I plan on doing it today.
"Has your father told you anything about what a woman likes or what to expect?" He asks me. My heart kicks into overdrive and all of a sudden I become nervous. I don't know any of that, what if Adri expects certain things and I just don't know them.
"No," I shake my head. "Expect what things?"
"I'll show you, if you want." He shrugs. Someone needs to show me.
"Sure." I mirror his shrug. How bad can it be?
"Rest your head back against the locker and imagine that I am Adrianna." He says.
Sure, sounds easy enough. I do as he says and lean my head back. I see Adrianna and her long brown hair that waves slightly towards the ends, her tanned golden skin, and the deep brown of her pretty eyes. She's grown a lot this year and the top of her head has finally reached my shoulders.
I stiffen as soon as I feel his hand reach and touch my lower stomach, "shhhh." He says and I relax and imagine it's Adri's soft fingers and not Coach's rough ones. His hand gradually glides lower and he touches my dick. My eyes fly open and I begin to move. He hasn't done this before, I only have to touch him and not the other way around.
"Uh, Coach?”
"Do you want to learn or not?" He asks with his hand still pressed against my privates. I do want to learn. So, I rest back against the locker and imagine Adri and her soft pink smile, her one dimple that comes out when she smiles on her left cheek and her wet tongue as it licks my dick.
Whoa!
I steal a glance and see Coach licking me and sucking me into his mouth, this is what girls like to do? Holy shit that feels really good. I have started to touch myself this year with my hands and that feels good, but this? Oh my God this is amazing. I bring up Adri in my mind and imagine it's her and she's loving having me in her mouth. With that thought, I finish quickly.
When I open my eyes again Coach is jerking off his dick in his hand and moaning, I'm feeling too relaxed to move, so I let him watch me as he does it. Finally, when he finishes I turn around and start to get dressed.
"Did you like that, Sport?"
I nod because I can't really find the words about how I'm feeling. Yeah, it felt good but that was only because I imagined Adri was doing it. Now, when I see Coach doing it, my stomach tightens up and I feel a wash of shame fill my body. Nobody can ever find out this shit happens because I know it's wrong and I may lose Adrianna forever.
"Needless to say," he mutters as he lights a cigarette. "This stays between us."
"Yeah."
<
br /> "I have a lot of shit on your father, Travis." He puffs out, "wouldn't want that to get leaked to the press, would we?"
"Like what?" I turn to look at him as I pull my shirt on.
"Real bad things, Sport." He shakes his head with a look of pity on his face. "You know the things you and I do?" I nod. "You know if you told me you didn't want to, I would just leave your life right?" I nod again, I didn't want Coach to ever leave my life. "Well, your father does that to girls and women, but they don't like it. They cry and scream and he forces them to do it."
My face screws up into confusion, "what?" That doesn't make sense. My father was not the type of man to be that cruel. Was he? He was mean to me and Mother, sure but... I close my eyes and deep inside I know he could be that cruel. Besides, why would Coach ever lie to me? He has only ever told me the truth.
"He's a bad man." He nods to me, "and I am always protecting you."
"Yeah well, you don't have to threaten me with him," I slam my locker shut and pull my baseball bag over my shoulder, "I'm not going to say shit, and I don't want to hear this again." I storm by him and leave. I don't care what my father does as long as he leaves me alone.
"Travis!" I pull back out of my memory and look Ember in the eye. My face crumbles and my breath hitches in my chest.
"Yeah," I nod, "Coach had mentioned some shit on my thirteenth birthday. I don't know if I just didn't believe it or if I didn't care. I just didn't want anything to do with my father."
She nods and runs her hand down my cheek, "you were young..."
"No," I shake my head, cutting her off, "I understood what Coach told me and I knew there was a very good possibility that he was doing it. My father was cruel and he hated us."
"Doesn't matter, Travis." She shakes her head, "what could you have done anyways?"
"Gone to the police!"
"Oh yeah?" She turns the laptop towards me and points at the list of dirty cops and the chief himself. "Like these ones? The ones that were under your father's pay? Then he'd find out and kill you or worse?"
"There's always worse." I mutter.
"Yeah," she agrees, "there is."
"I think my mother knew about it, too." I whisper. Talking about this is bringing back a lot of repressed memories. "The day I found out about my father from Coach, I went home after hanging out with Adri so that I could have a talk with my mother. As much as she hated me around, I still loved her and didn't want anything to happen to her."
"Of course," Ember wipes a tear from her cheek.
"I had a plan, too. I would run her a bath that evening because that's when she'd be so tired after a whole day of crying and screaming. I learned a few years later that my mother was bi-polar and my father would refuse her the medication she needed." I shake my head, "at that time though, I didn't know that, I just thought she hated being in that house with us. Anyways, I drew her a bath and brought her up a bottle of wine from downstairs. I poured her a glass and set it in front of her and then I asked her if it was true." I scrub my hand down my face, "she laughed at me. Fucking laughed! Then she slapped me so hard, I saw stars. She grabbed my face, pressing my cheeks together, and she said, ‘One day, you will be bringing them to him, too.' That's how I knew she was somehow involved." I take a deep breath, "I was always fearful of my parents, but after that I was downright petrified. So, I minded my own business and stayed out of their way."
"As a kid, you did the right thing." She runs her fingers into my hair, "now we can do a few things differently." The grin that lights her face is the one I like to refer to as her murder face.
"Like what? You already killed my father."
"But look at all these corrupt names, it still looks like people need to be taught a lesson and I need to add another name to this list." She pulls up the list with my father's name and adds my mother's beside it. "I think it's time we paid your mother a visit."
While we’re driving in E’s car to my house, my stomach is a swirl of nerves and nausea. Ember is radiating some intense anger and I can almost taste it. When she's like this, it's not hard to imagine her taking out grown men like they are nothing.
"Look through these," she throws an envelope onto my lap. "I found them in Halbert's office."
I open up the brown envelope and pull out a stack of photos. I slowly go through them, I recognize most of the baseball team as we got older in various stages of dress. There are quite a few of me and Kevin, probably about the same amount and I see the pain so similar to mine in his eyes. I will have to talk to him next week at school. Coach also took pictures of some of the girls that ran on the track team. I knew he had shit like this and I'm sure he had videos as well but Ember probably burned them down with the house.
"They start to get older the farther you get into it." She mutters, "to when he was in high school."
She's right and I start to see Coach as a teenager in a baseball uniform and standing next to a bunch of jocks. One of which really boils my blood, my father. I don't recognize too many others but I do see Adri's dad there too. Then a few photos later it shows a picture of a few girls sitting out on the track and they look to be drinking water. I recognize Debby and Sharla but the third I do not know.
"My mother." Ember says quietly.
I should've known that because even though the photo is a bit blurry and old I can still see the scowl on her face, much like Ember and Emmett's.
"Why did he have these?" I ask.
"Because I think he also farmed girls for your father."
"What?" I look at her shocked.
"Yeah," she nods, "I read that list your coach made of your father’s known victims and my mother along with Sharla are on that list."
"Sharla?" I question, "but they were together and they had Vin. That doesn't make sense." I shake my head.
"You're right, it doesn't but that's why I told Vin everything and he's going to figure out how to talk to her about it." Vin, I didn't even think about how this would be affecting him. He probably didn't see it as much of a surprise considering the man treated him and his mother like dirt.
After I learned about my mother and father the summer going into my grade eight year, Vin came back. He came back with a vengeance and he was out to get me at every corner, and he made sure I found out that he was my half-brother too that year. The beatings I took from him and the way his face looked while he did it, reminded me of my father. The look in his green eyes-an exact match to our father-and the set of his jaw as he punched me repeatedly whenever he felt like it, was too much like our father. I took it every time because I felt like I deserved that punishment for the shit I knew was going on and didn't stop.
We pull into my driveway and again the gates are fucking open. Ember looks at me with her brow raised and I just shrug, I really don't know what's been going on here since I have left. Sonja hasn't called so I have just assumed she's been dealing with it. The familiar weight of guilt settles over me and I realize I should have just called myself.
"Looks empty." Ember says as she puts the car in park. “The lights are all off.”
“She likes the dark and quiet when she’s severely hungover.”
“Well, let’s go turn on all the lights and ask her some questions, really loudly.” Ember smirks at me.
I lead her up to the house and use the number pad on the front door to open it. The light blinks red, letting me know I used the wrong number. I try to punch it in again but that same red light comes on.
“She changed the code.” I mutter and kick at the door.
“Hmm,” E looks around and then up. “Think you could climb to that?” She points to my room’s balcony.
“That will be a last resort. Let’s check the back doors first.”
I lead Ember around to the back of the house and into our backyard, I point up to the various cameras and look back at her, “I don’t think they are on.”
“And your pool looks pretty fucking gross, too.” I look over and
see that the pool is a dark green colour and the pumps aren’t even on.
I get to the door and thankfully it opens inward when I turn the knob, “I was hoping she would forget this in her drunken state.” I shrug.
“Hey, wait.” She says as I start to walk inside, “you realize what will happen here today right?”
“Yeah.” I nod because I do know. My mother’s last hours on this Earth are winding down fast.
“Okay.” She nods for me to continue.
The kitchen is a filthy mess of dishes and old rotting food everywhere. The fridge door has been left open and the smell of sour milk reaches us.
“Holy fuck,” E says into her sleeve. “What the hell happened here?”
Now I'm worried, not about my mother but about Sonja. She would've definitely cleaned this up if she was here. Did she finally see that this family just isn't worth her time? No, I can't see her just up and leaving, she would call me first.
"Dude, how long has it been since you were home?" E asks around a gag.
"Like a week? I brought Emmett with me and my mother asked if he was my boyfriend and called me a faggot." I shrug.
"What? Were you two making out or something?"
I snap my head back and look at her, "no!"
"I'm just playing." She starts to laugh.
"Jesus Christ." I breathe through my heart palpitations and lead her into the foyer and to the stairs.
There are two empty bottles of vodka on the stairs and what looks to be a few spots of blood. It's not a lot, just a few spots but I feel my blood pressure soar and my heartbeat is thumping in my ears. We get to the top of the stairs and I see my bedroom door has a huge hole in it and there's some blood around it. That's probably where those spots of blood came from. She must've attempted to punch a hole through it.
Her bedroom door is shut, "this is her room." I say to Ember and turn the knob. It's locked.
"Kick it in." Ember says. "If she's already dead then that makes our job easier."
"True." I should probably have a bit more tact when talking about my mother but she's never earned that from me.