“I could hear the rocks crackling outside when her car pulled up. I remember gettin’ so excited I nearly wet myself. A little urine did come out, but I held it. When she came in the house I could hear her callin’ his name. Not my name, his name.” Josh paused again, and asked Elizabeth, “Shouldn’t a mother call out her child’s name first before she calls out her man’s name?” He may have been looking at Elizabeth, but he wasn’t really looking for an answer. His question was more rhetorical than anything else—sort of a sidebar remark. “Old Dutch was a piece of work—I tell you; could lie his way outta anything. That bastard told my mama that he fell asleep on my floor while talkin’ to me about my baseball cards. And she believed him! She actually believed him,” his voice waning as he wrestled with the memory.
Josh slapped the dashboard so hard it left a hand print. “What good mother would believe some shit like that?” he started chuckling again. His chuckles weren’t the kind that were the byproduct of something humorous, they were the kind of chuckles one uses to mask the emotional scars left from years of abuse. “You ain’t gonna believe how he explained away the blood stains in my bed. He told her he fell asleep in my bed and he had a nose bleed in the middle of the night. That’s why he got on the floor—so he wouldn’t mess up my bed sheets. Can you believe that? He didn’t wanna mess up my bed sheets. And she believed that shit!
“My mother. The woman who gave birth to me. The woman who was supposed to take care of me. Let some man she hadn’t even known for three months rape the innocence away from her only child. I was a fuckin’ kid Mrs. Tharp!”
“How did he explain the fact that his pants were unbuckled?” Elizabeth asked, shaking her head.
“It’s funny you should ask,” Josh replied, and then flicked his cigarette out of the window. “They left out of my bedroom and closed the door. I could hear them in the living room arguing. I remember hearing her ask him about his pants, and trying to get him to explain why they were damn near down to his knees. I remember that question well because when she asked him I sat up in my bed. Even at seven years old I knew there was no way in hell he was gonna be able to explain that. But, he did. He told her he went to use the bathroom, and came back in the room afterwards, but he didn’t button his pants. He said they must have slid down his legs during the night when he moved from the bed to the floor.
“When I heard him tell her that bullshit I can remember thinking, ‘My mama ain’t gon’ never believe that lie. She ‘bout to bust you in your lie, and put you out the house.’ I just knew his ass was busted at that point.” Josh glanced out the window again. His pause turned into more than a minute worth of silence.
Elizabeth was so engrossed that she almost felt guilt for wanting to hear the rest of such a painful story. But as much as Josh’s account of events made her sick to her stomach, she felt deprived when he simply quit talking without telling her the outcome. “What happened?” she asked, with so much emotion in her voice that she could barely manage a whisper.
Josh shook his head with revulsion. He turned slowly and looked at Elizabeth. “You really wanna know what happened?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes.”
“She believed him,” Josh replied, no longer holding back his tears. “She believed him. And then you know what else happened?”
“What?” she asked, terrified of what she might hear.
“They started having sex. A few minutes after he told her that lie, I could hear them in the living room having sex. You know what pisses me off even more than that?”
Elizabeth shook her head. Her face was so wet with tears it looked as if someone had squirted her in the face with a water pistol. “Go ahead…finish.”
“What pisses me off even more than the fact that she believed that lie is the fact that to this day, my mama—the woman who was supposed to protect me—still has never asked me what happened that night she let him babysit me for the first time.”
Elizabeth sobbed openly. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. For so long, she wanted to give Charity the benefit of the doubt. She reasoned that any mother could be fooled. But Josh’s first hand account changed her perspective.
A tear trickled down Josh’s cheek. Elizabeth picked up her purse and grabbed some more tissue. “Here, wipe your face.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you been seeing Stevie lately?”
Josh shook his head. “No.”
“So you’ve been taking your medicine like the doctor prescribed? No more imaginary friends?”
Josh shook his head again. “Yep.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead,” Josh replied and then blew his nose.
“Why do you think you created Stevie in your mind? And why do you think you made him a little black boy?”
Josh shrugged his shoulders. “The shrink said something about me creating Stevie in the image of everything I wanted to be at the time. I wanted to be free from my situation. I wanted to have fancy clothes. A better house—everything. Hell, the thing I wanted most was to be Barry Bonds’ son.” Josh chuckled, this time it was a chuckle born from something humorous. He looked at Elizabeth and said, “I wanted to be like Barry Bonds so much I guess I imagined I was his black son.”
Elizabeth smiled and giggled along with him. “As much as you were in those trees I’m surprised you didn’t turn black from all the dirt you were hiding in.”
“I know,” Josh replied, and reflected. “Those trees were my second home.”
“You know the city council voted last week to cut down those trees,” said Elizabeth, looking at Josh, searching his face for some type of reaction. “They’re going to build a bridge to cross that old creek that sits behind it. They’re going to cut down those trees on the other side of the creek too. They’re making room for a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot. The Wal-Mart parking lot is going to be where your old house used to be.”
Josh wasn’t aware of the city’s plans to excavate that area. Mixed emotions swirled inside. That house he lived in could have been swept away by a tornado and he wouldn’t have missed it—in fact, he would have prayed to God and requested a second tornado to come through and sweep through the area just to make sure the foundation was destroyed too. But, the trees were different.
Elizabeth leaned over and hugged Josh. He could feel the difference in her hug. She held him a few seconds longer than she usually held him. It was the kind of hug a person gives when the odds of being reunited are slim. If Josh had misread the hug, the look on Elizabeth’s face told him all he needed to know. She wasn’t coming around again. Josh’s account of the first time Dutch molested him highlighted a flaw in Charity’s judgment that was simply too much for Elizabeth to take. There was no way she would ever be able to look at Charity with sympathy in her heart again.
There is an old parable that states that people come into your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you are then supposed to know what to do. Josh never questioned whether God had sent Elizabeth for a season, reason, or a lifetime. He always assumed her job was to fulfill all of the above.
For years, Elizabeth had protected Josh from harm; provided for his needs; treated him—a little white boy—like he was her own child; and even helped him hide his darkest secret from the world. As they sat in her car, a weak summer breeze oozing through the car windows, time seemed to stand still. This odd couple, the white aloof student and the black over protective school teacher, had formed a bond that seemed unbreakable.
Elizabeth was scheduled to work one more year before retiring. Her days of stressing about the wellbeing of other people’s kids were going to be over. But when she and Josh locked gazes, it became crystal clear to him that the one person whom he’d come to rely on the most, had in fact already retired—from him.
That next morning came fast. Josh got up, put on his clothes, shoved some more of his clothes in his duffle bag, and was out the front door of his tiny one bedroom apartment before
the clock struck eight o’clock. He maneuvered in and out of traffic on the same scooter that once belonged to Curtis. After lecturing him on the importance of upholding Baby Girl’s legacy, Curtis had given him as a gift for his fifteenth birthday. But far more memorable to Josh were the years of self-defense lessons and confidence boosters Curtis had given him, along with a proclamation that they would be brothers forever.
Although it was early in the morning, the sun was on full display, shooting heated rays that propelled the temperature into the high eighties. The heat from his helmet caused sweat beads to form and dance on his forehead.
As he turned down the gravel road that led to his old house, Josh was overcome with sadness. His organs felt like a pit of snakes squirming. His palms became clammy. The saliva in his mouth evaporated. This was the last place on earth he wanted to be, but he’d convinced himself that it was the one place he needed to be.
Josh drove up to the steps that he once pounced on every day. The house was one strong breeze away from crumbling. The front screen door was partially barely hanging on to the top hinge. Josh looked at the place and shook his head, wondering how he ever lived there.
His first step through the front door brought back a memory of Dutch laying on the sofa watching television and playing with himself while laughing uncontrollably at an episode of the Jerry Springer show. His second step brought back the memories of his mother standing in the kitchen smoking a cigarette while frying bologna in a skillet.
His old bedroom door was closed. Upon closer examination of the door knob he could still see blood stains on the knob and door. Josh used the bottom of his shirt to turn the knob and enter. The first thing he saw was the twin bed. The bed used to be a part of a bunk bed set. His mother purchased it at a garage sale for twenty dollars. Each post on the bed had a hole in it—the place where the spools from the top bunk bed stuck out and secured the two beds together. Josh smirked as he recalled getting his finger stuck in the hole once.
He slowly surveyed the contents of the room. Everything was the same as he remembered. Some of his under clothes were still in the top drawer—a reminder of how little time he had to pack his clothes once the judge ordered him removed from his mother’s custody and placed into the foster care system. He would have been stuck in the foster care system if his former school teacher, Elizabeth Tharp, hadn’t petitioned the courts and eventually got custody of him.
Glum didn’t come close to describing the way Josh felt at that very moment. He was about to walk out of the room when he looked over at his bed one last time. He stared at the bed with its covers. There was a lump underneath the covers. Josh took one step towards the bed and then stopped. He wasn’t sure what was under the covers, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He walked over towards the window and grabbed the old lamp that once kept his room dimly lit so many dark lonely nights.
Josh walked over to the bed and used the base of the lamp to nudge the lump under the covers. Was it a rat? Was it old clothes? Whatever it was it didn’t move. A second nudge created a raspy sound. Realizing that the lump was no threat, Josh put the lamp down and then yanked the covers back. What he saw nearly made him fall to his knees. The mysterious lump was a shoe box—the shoe box that held all of his old baseball cards.
Josh picked up the box and ran his fingers through the pile of cards. He picked up a few of the cards and examined the stats on the back of them. His rummaging through the crisp sharp edged cards stopped once he saw the card he valued the most. It was the most wrinkled card in the box—his Barry Bonds baseball card. The card he often clinched tightly just before another abusive session started. The card was the only thing he had to hold on to. It took him to places that Dutch couldn’t reach.
Josh fought back tears as he kissed it and shoved it in his back pocket. He tossed the box on the bed and ran out of the house. He leaped off of the porch, determined to get as far away from that den of inequity as possible. Josh started up his scooter and then backed up. He was about to twist the throttle and leave skid marks, but something caught his attention. It was the trees. Those trees listened to him. Protected him and provided refuge from the demons that waited patiently for him to return home.
Josh drove his scooter across the large grassy field and parked it next to the old shed that served as his launch point into the woods. It had been years since he’d entered the tree line; therefore, he struggled to find the spot where he used to enter. He grabbed a stick to knock the six foot tall weeds and dove in.
He felt like a bushman whacking down weeds while trudging through the Amazon forest. Eventually he approached the huge tree that helped him find his old rendezvous spot. Thick bushes surrounded the base of the tree, but the branches of the trees still stretched west—pointing him in the right direction.
A few minutes later Josh happened upon the clearing that used to be his sanctuary. He was amazed at how the area looked. Seven years had passed and several of the objects he once sat on were still in the same spot. The old car seat. The old table. Though they were covered in dirt and spider webs, and far more dilapidated than when he had originally lugged them there, most of the things were as he had left them.
Eventually his eyes found the area where his old nemesis once rested. Small pieces of crime scene tape were dangling from the bushes surrounding the area where Dutch’s personalized hole was. Josh didn’t venture into that area, opting to examine it from afar.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come back,” said a familiar voice. It was the voice of the only friend he ever had, Stevie. “I was starting to wonder if you were going to ever come back out here.”
“I just came to see the place before…”
“Before what?” Stevie interrupted. “Hey, if you wait here I can go get some cookies so we can eat them and talk like we used to. I’ll get some Snicker bars too.”
Josh shook his head violently. “No, I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“Why? Because that doctor they made you go see said we can’t be friends anymore? Or was it that school teacher Mrs. Tharp?”
Josh put his hands over his ears. “I gotta move on. I can’t talk to you anymore. You’re not real. You’re just my imagination. You need to go away.”
“C’mon man, stop actin’ like a little punk. We still gotta kill Bennie—remember?”
“There ain’t no Bennie!” Josh shouted. “You ain’t even real.”
“I am real Josh. I live in Free Town—just on the other side of these trees.”
Josh started to tremble. “There ain’t no damn Free Town! That was just somethin’ I made up in my mind. I wanted to be free from all the stuff I was dealin’ with. Ain’t nothin’ on the other side of those trees but an old dried up creek. And you ain’t real either. You were just somebody I created in my mind to help me cope with Dutch.”
Josh looked over at Stevie who stood just a few feet away. He seemed so real. He sounded so real. But Josh noticed that Stevie hadn’t changed physically in all of those years. His mannerisms were the same. His tone and attitude were the same. His height was the same. Josh even noticed that his clothes were the same.
“Josh, why are you trippin’? C’mon man, let’s hang out like we used to.”
“I’m leavin’ this place,” Josh replied.
“Where are you goin’?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m just gon’ get a map and ride.” Josh looked over at Stevie. “Why do you care where I’m goin’? You ain’t comin’—you ain’t even real.”
Stevie laughed. “If I ain’t real, why are you standin’ here talkin’ to me Josh?”
Josh stared at Stevie and pondered the question. He surveyed the place he used to long to retreat to as a child. The area hadn’t changed, but he had. He looked at the trees. The annoying mating noises of cicada bugs echoed in his ears as he gazed up at the branches that seemed to stretch as high as the clouds.
With his head tilted upwards and his eyes looking towards the heavens, Josh spoke in a calm tone. “T
hen I guess I won’t be talkin’ to you again.”
The normally vocal Stevie didn’t reply. When Josh looked back in Stevie’s direction his alter ego was walking away. Stevie vanished as he reached the tree line—the very spot where Josh often sat and waited patiently for him to appear. Josh’s eyes watered. The only friend he ever had was gone—no longer needed.
Josh tossed the stick he held in his hand to the ground, and then turned and walked out of the woods for the last time. As he emerged from the trees he felt like he was being reborn. Never before had he felt so liberated. Free to do as he pleased without fear of being scolded or worse—abused.
With the morning breeze in his face, and Iron Side at his back, Josh sped away on his scooter and never looked back. His eyes were on his future as he set out on his journey to find a place to start over. A place where he could live without having to deal with people staring and whispering whenever he walked past. A place where he could be free once and for all. Josh was in search of his real Free Town.
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This is a work of fiction, and names, characters, places, and incidents are strictly the product of the author’s imagination. Any and all resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 Brian W. Smith
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If These Trees Could Talk Page 15