If These Trees Could Talk

by Brian W. Smith

  Ann Marie grimaced as she struggled to make him loosen his grip. “I’m sorry baby. I just don’t want you to leave me. I love you Dutch. I wouldn’t tell Charity…”

  “I know you won’t. Cuz you know I will fuck you up…don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Convinced he’d gotten his point across, Dutch released her hair. He stood up and finished getting dressed. Ann Marie lay stiff as a board and whimpered.

  Dutch’s demeanor returned to a relaxed post-sex state almost instantly. “I need some money,” he stated, and then glanced at his concubine. “Where is your purse?”

  Ann Marie pointed at her closet. Dutch walked into the closet and took her purse off of a hook and removed her wallet from inside. He removed two hundred dollars from the fake Coach bag she so proudly sported.

  “I’ma get this cash back to you next week.”

  Ann Marie knew she’d never receive a dime from him so she didn’t bother to acknowledge his comment. Besides, the thought of him nearly pulling her hair out again was enough to make her be quiet.

  When her front door closed and she heard him start up his truck, she buried her head into her pillow and cried harder.

  Josh always dreamed of having a sibling—someone he could play with and talk to. Someone whom he could confide in, a person who would appreciate his predicament and maybe help him cope with the pain. Stevie had become that sibling.

  “This is a small house,” Stevie said, looking around Josh’s tiny bedroom.

  Josh was clearly embarrassed. His shoulders slumped and he focused on the bread in his hands. Stevie saw his friend’s reaction so he quickly tried to clean up the inadvertent dis.

  “It’s small, but I still like it,” Stevie added, and smiled at Josh. “That’s a cool chair. It’s much better than the one in my room.”

  “I’ll bet you got a big house huh?”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of big.”

  “How big is it?” asked Josh, eager to live vicariously through his friend.

  “It’s pretty big. We got four bedrooms and three bathrooms. We even got a swimming pool.”

  Josh hung onto Stevie’s every word. He looked mesmerized—like a child having a story read to him by a teacher he had a crush on. The thought of having access to three different bathrooms and a swimming pool blew his mind. “Do you go swimming a lot?”

  “All the time. You wanna come over and go swimming one day?”

  “I can’t swim,” Josh sheepishly replied.

  “You can’t swim?” asked Stevie, who like many kids, assumed every child could swim. As if it was a skill set one was born with. “I can teach you how to swim.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah, it’s easy. I can even swim in the deep end of the pool.” Stevie burped, and then finished eating.

  “I’ll bet you got a lot of video games and stuff huh?”

  Stevie loved to brag about his video games. “Yep, I have a Play Station and X-Box. I have a lot of games to play on both of them too. I got Madden, Tiger Woods game, I got the new Major League baseball game too…you’d probably like that one the most.”

  Josh sat there mesmerized as he lived vicariously through his friend. He hung on to every word that came out of Stevie’s mouth. “What’s your favorite game?” asked Josh, trying to soak up every drop of the discussion so that he could reflect on it and pretend he was playing the video games long after Stevie left.

  “I like to play the boxing game.”

  “You got a boxing game?”

  “Yep. That’s how I learned how to fight so good.”

  Josh wished he could play the boxing game so he could learn a few moves. “If I had that game I’d learn all kinds of moves so I could beat up Milton.”

  “Who is Milton?”

  “This big kid at my school that’s always picking on me.”

  Stevie looked annoyed. The thought of anyone harassing Josh disturbed him. He sucked his teeth and started shadow boxing. “Man, I wish I went to your school. I’d punch that dude in the face.”

  The thought of seeing Milton knocked on the school playground made Josh smile.

  “I like the boxing game, but my favorite game is Halo for the X-Box. I can beat anybody in that game. Can you play Halo?”

  “I ain’t never played it.”

  “You ain’t never played Halo before?” asked Stevie, and then started laughing uncontrollably. “Man, you don’t know how to play nothin’! What kind of video game do you have?”

  “I don’t have one. My mama was gonna put one on lay-away for me, but then Wal-Mart stopped doing lay-away. So, I never got one.”

  Stevie shook his head. “Man, you gon’ have to come over to my house and learn how to play some games.”

  They ate and looked at the baseball cards in front of them. After another satisfying burp, Stevie changed the subject. “So when are we gonna kill’em?”

  Josh shrugged his shoulders. Stevie could sense Josh’s reluctance and desire to avoid the discussion so he went into salesman and project coordinator mode again.

  “We gonna do it tomorrow.”

  “But we only dug one hole…and we didn’t even finish that one.”

  “I’ma finish diggin’ the hole tomorrow.”

  “How you gonna do that? You gotta go to school tomorrow.”

  “I know that. I’ma do it when I come home from school. I should be able to start early. I heard my mama say Bennie wasn’t going to be home.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ma finish the first hole. You just gotta get Dutch to come out there.”

  “How am I gonna do that?”

  “Tell him you found somebody dead in the woods.”

  “What if he calls the police or an ambulance or somethin’?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Stevie hadn’t thought about that. The whole plan would go up in smoke if Dutch didn’t fall for that story and called the police instead. A pensive look came across his face. “So, make up a reason for him to chase you into the woods.”

  “I don’t know Stevie. I don’t know if I can get him to come out there.”

  “C’mon Josh, stop acting scared. I thought you said you don’t want him to touch you again.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well you gotta do this. Just make him mad or somethin’ and make him come out there. That’s all you have to do. I told you I’ma kill’em. You just gotta kill Bennie for me.”

  Josh sat quietly as he processed his friend’s plan. Even though he was a timid child, he was astute enough to know that there was something sadistic about Stevie’s plan—and the enthusiasm he exuded when discussing it.

  “I can take his beer. I know that will make him mad.”

  “You think that will make him mad enough to chase you?”

  “It would if he saw me pouring it out.”

  “Then pour it out. Just make sure you are far enough away that he can’t catch you. You know you can’t run fast.” Stevie laughed.

  “I can run fast, I just couldn’t run fast with that shovel in my hand. I could have beat you easy if I didn’t have that shovel.”

  “Na-uhn.”

  “Uh-hun.” Josh chuckled.

  “Na-uhn.”

  “Uh-hun.”

  The two boys burst into laughter, seeing the humor in their Neanderthal sounding debate. Josh added to the fun by throwing a few of his baseball cards at his buddy. The laughter got louder and louder. Josh was having so much fun in his own world that he didn’t hear Dutch drive up. His laughter came from his core. The kind of laughter produced by a child who has been allowed to live like a child—free from the pressure and pain that emanates from stained adults.

  Josh laughed so loudly that he didn’t realize how close he was to being busted. Reality set in when he heard the locks on the front door clicking and the door open. Suddenly, he stopped. His ears perked. He sprang to his feet like a Meerkat standing sentry looking for approaching danger. “Did you hear that?”

  “Ye
ah, somebody just came in the house,” Stevie replied.

  “Josh, you in there?” Dutch turned the door knob and banged on the door. “I know you’re in there I can hear you. Who are you talkin’ to?”

  Josh panicked. He looked at the door. “Get under the bed.” Fear gripped his vocal chords making it difficult for him to speak. “I ain’t talkin’ to nobody.”

  “You’re a damn liar! I heard you laughin’ and talkin’ to somebody. Now open this damn door before I break it down!”

  “He’s gonna come in here,” Josh whispered.

  “I’m gonna count to three and then I’ma come in there and beat you and anybody else in there. One!”

  “Stevie you better get outta here.”

  “How?”

  “Go out that window.” Josh ran over and opened his bedroom window. The drop was less than five feet to the ground.

  “Two!”

  Like convicts escaping from a jail cell, the boys allowed adrenaline to be their fuel. “C’mon Josh. You can come to my house.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “He’s gonna kill you. You’d better come with me.”

  American Physiologist, Walter B. Cannon, who coined the phrase “fight-or-flight” theorized that if a person senses danger in the form of a wild animal, then a rush of conflicting emotions will all be generated at once. The outcome is the desire to flee or stand and fight.

  Josh wasn’t being threatened by an animal, but he was being threatened by a predator—the worse kind of predator. The predator he dealt with was even more dangerous than the average animal because it had the ability to think analytically. The ability to cover it’s tracks. The ability to cast dispersions. The ability to know when it’s best to defer an attack until a more suitable moment. Josh’s options were limited. He had to live in that house. To make matters worse, his only protector was his mother—a mother who’d already made her priorities in their household known.

  Paralyzed by his fear of Dutch and the realization that either fleeing or fighting were futile acts, the boy froze—like a dear staring at oncoming headlights.

  “C’mon Josh!”

  “No. No, I can’t leave. You go on. Just go over there behind that shed next to the trees. It’s dark so you might have a hard time finding your way home.”

  “I’ll make it. Meet me in our spot tomorrow around four o’clock, and don’t forget to do what we talked about. Grab his beer.”

  “Three!” Dutch shouted and then rammed the door. It sounded like a S.W.A.T. Team raiding a drug kingpins home. The door flung open with so much force that the door knob punched a hole in the wall when the door smacked against it.

  Josh turned around and looked at his abuser. An image of the devil’s face replaced Dutch’s. He then turned and shouted at Stevie. “Go! Hurry up and…” Dutch’s huge hand wrapped around the back of Josh’s neck; his long fingers wrapped around the boy’s throat like an octopuses tentacles. Josh’s words were trapped in his vocal chords—his sentence left dangling.

  Stevie took off like he was shot out of a cannon.

  Dutch lifted the boy up to the point that he stood on the tips of his toes. He looked like a monster salivating at the sight of his next meal. “Who in the hell are you talkin’ to boy?” Josh was tossed backwards. Dutch stuck his head out the open window and scanned the darkness. “Who’s out there?” His neck protruded more out the window. “Whoever it is out here, you’d better not bring your ass back to this house!”

  Dutch could see something dart across the street and into the field, but it was too dark outside for him to get a description. “I see yo ass! You’d better not come back here again!” Josh prayed he didn’t figure out that Stevie was a black kid. His beating would surely be worse.

  Dutch closed the window and looked at Josh. Fortunately for the child, Dutch didn’t have the energy to sexually abuse him. But, he had enough testosterone coursing through his veins to administer a physical assault.

  Dutch’s belt made a slithering sound as it snaked through the loops and cracked like a whip when it flailed in the air. Taunting remarks were thrown in as a soundtrack to increase the intimidation. Initially, Josh was shaking like a leaf on a tree as his eyes watched Dutch’s belt. Suddenly, an eerie calm washed over him. A calm produced by the realization that receiving a physical beat down would be far less painful than the pain that routinely caused him to bite his pillow.

  Chapter 5

  May 19, 2004

  The next morning was much of the same. Dutch walked around the house wearing a wife beater t-shirt, a cigarette hanging from his lips, and a pair of boxer drawers. Charity followed him, peppering him with questions about his whereabouts the night before. And Josh, lay quietly in his bed in the fetal position with his covers pulled over his head.

  “Where were you yesterday evening?” Charity shouted.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Where were you yesterday evening?”

  “I told you where I was going. I went to help Old Man Kelly fix that motor.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me! You’re a damn liar! I had my girlfriend pass in front of Old Man Kelly’s house and she didn’t see your car.”

  “Well, your friend must be blind because I was there.”

  “Whatever! She didn’t see your car at Old Man Kelly’s house, but she did see a truck that looked like yours over at that bitch Ann Marie’s house!”

  Dutch waived his arms dismissively, and walked into their bedroom. Charity stood and watched him. She wanted to smack him in the back of his head again, but noticed that it was getting close to the time to take Josh to school. “You can walk away, but we’re gonna finish this discussion you bastard!”

  Dutch returned into the living room. His steps were brisk and deliberate. Charity braced herself for a physical battle, but he had something else in mind. He tossed some cash onto the counter top and gave Charity a smug look.

  “If I wasn’t with Old Man Kelly where did I get this $150 bucks?”

  Charity stared at the cash and then back at Dutch. She rolled her eyes and then took the cash and put it inside of her bra. “I don’t know where you got this money from, but I know you’re lying.” She glanced at the clock again. “I’m gonna take Josh to school and we’re gonna finish this when I get back.”

  Dutch chuckled, and then clutched his penis. It was coming to life in his drawers and starting to rise. “When you get back we’re gonna finish alright…you’re gonna finish pleasing this snake.”

  Charity glanced down at his hand and watched him massage his penis. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, shot him the middle finger, and then walked into Josh’s bedroom. When she opened the door she noticed that the lock was damaged. She ran her hand across the splinters that were visible near the knob. “What happened to this door?”

  “I had to break it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I came home last night, your son was in there talking to someone. You know he ain’t supposed to have anyone in this house. On top of that, I could smell cigarette smoke coming from the room.”

  Charity looked shocked. “You’re lying.”

  “No I’m not. Here is the cigarette he was smoking. I left it right here in the ash tray so you can see it. I beat his ass for smoking and for having someone in there with him. I would have beaten the other brat too, but he climbed out of the window before I could get in.”

  “Josh, get up.” Josh didn’t move. Charity walked over and sat on the edge of his bed. “Josh it’s time to get up and go to school.” She gently placed her hand on his right thigh and shook him. Josh flinched. Charity had no way of knowing that her hand was resting on the spot where a huge purple bruise had formed. The remnants of the spanking Dutch had inflicted upon him the night before. “C’mon now—get up.”

  Josh removed the cover from over his head and sat up in the bed. He squinted and yawned, pretending he’d been sound asleep. “Hey mama.
”

  “Get up. I need to ask you something.”

  “Huh?” Josh replied, wiping his eyes and letting out another fake yawn.

  “Is this true what Dutch is saying? Were you really in here smoking? And who did you have in this house?”

  Josh looked at Dutch standing in the doorway. A huge lump formed in the child’s throat—he felt like he’d swallowed a frog. Dutch started making that throat slashing gesture again. Visions of Charity’s head bobbing up and down the river like an apple in a bucket flashed before his eyes.

  “Well, answer me boy. Were you in here smoking a cigarette and did you have someone in my house?”

  His mouth was still, but his eyes were screaming for help. His heart raced as he struggled to make his mouth utter the words that were begging to come out. “Mama,” he said softly.

  “Don’t ‘mama’ me! Were you in this room smoking?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Liar,” Dutch blurted out.

  “Shut up Dutch!” Charity shouted, never taking her eyes off of Josh. “Did you have someone in this house?”

  Josh knew that if he answered ‘yes’, his mother would ask him more questions. He didn’t want to say it was Stevie. He didn’t want his mother to go looking for Stevie’s parents and tell them Stevie was over there late at night. He didn’t want to lose the only friend he had.

  “No ma’am,” he finally mumbled.

  “So you’re saying Dutch is lying?”

  Josh looked down at the sheets. Water filled his eyes. He studied his sheets for a few seconds as if some perfect answer would magically appear and help him out of this predicament. When that answer didn’t appear, he reluctantly looked up at Charity. For weeks she’d been saying he could tell her about the things that were bothering him. Now seemed like the perfect time.