by Drew Sera
“Anthony, let me put your bag on the counter by mine. I have enough toiletries for you to use, but I called the concierge and asked them to send up a toothbrush. Do you need anything else?”
I shook my head and reluctantly let go of my backpack. My hands went back to my stomach and I could feel my dad’s eyes on me.
“I’d like to take a shower. Do I have time before the food gets here?”
“Of course, son. When you’re washing over the spot with the stitches, just suds up a hand and gently pat over the stitches. I have an ointment here for it and we’ll put it on after you get out of the shower.”
I nodded and went to my backpack and pulled out the clothes that the police brought for me. I had a pair of boxers I could wear to bed and one for tomorrow. I pulled out what I recognized as one of my thin undershirts when my dad came over to help.
“Do you want anything hung up?”
I shook my head. I grabbed my shorts and undershirt and headed to the bathroom. I shut and locked the door and turned the shower on. I kept the water on a cold setting. After having been burned with hot water yesterday morning, I wasn’t taking my chances with warm water.
The spray of the water was so harsh on my back and the backs of my legs where I had been beaten with a belt, that it forced me to cry out. I stood back, out of the contact with the water. I couldn’t even take a fucking shower.
My dad knocked on the door and asked if I was okay. I tried not to cry, but I hurt everywhere. Much of my skin that normally hides behind clothes was black and blue. The water spray was particularly brutal on my bruises. I stepped over the edge of the tub and wrapped a towel around my waist and opened the door. My dad was standing right there, looking at me. I could see his eyes moving over me and I had to look away.
“The water…it hurts too much. I can’t…”
“How about a bath?”
“No!”
I fucking hate baths. Bruce used to hold me in hot water in the tub.
“No bath? Ok, calm down.”
I hated how I felt now and backed up into the bathroom again and closed the door.
“I’ll manage.”
“Anthony, son. Don’t take a shower if it hurts,” my dad said through the door.
I turned the water over to a cold setting and took a washcloth with me. I worked a lather onto the cloth, patted it over my skin and did a final rinse under the spray. I felt like my back was torn up. I tried to dry my back off and it was as if the towel was made of glass shards. When I looked at the towel, I saw all of the blood and started to feel sick to my stomach. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to open the bathroom door and face my dad.
He was pacing the length of the hotel room but stopped when he saw me standing there in my boxers holding the towel in one hand and my shirt in another. He took the towel from my hand, noticing the blood, and then he walked behind me to look at my back.
“Sit down, Anthony. Our pharmacy bag has the medicine for the welts.”
“It feels like it’s on fire, Dad.”
“I know it probably feels like your entire back is covered in welts. We’ll keep these medicated.”
While I sat on the edge of the bed, my dad talked to me as he put the medicated cream on my welts and covered some of them with the gauze bandages. He guided me to lie face down on a fluffy pillow and rest until the food arrived.
My dad paced around the small desk as he made a phone call. Each time I looked over at him, he was looking at me.
“One second…” I heard my father say into the phone and then he called my name. “Anthony, what size clothes do you wear?”
“30 in pants. Medium shirts, I think.”
“He’s a 30 in pants…probably a 33 or 34 length…yes, tall and thin…he has my eyes…shirts are a medium. Please get him some extra soft t-shirts…no, he basically has a change of clothes for tomorrow. Nothing else…Yes, get whatever you think, he doesn’t have anything…Anthony, what kind of underwear do you like?”
I had never thought of it. No one had ever asked me that before. I had boxers now, but they were too small. They had shrunk so much over the years. On the baseball team, we were given athletic boxer briefs and I really liked those because they gave me a lot of support. They were nice because I often times hurt down there, and those were the most comfortable.
“Just get a variety for his waist size,” he said into the receiver.
I shut my eyes for a moment. I was so tired.
“Anthony, wake up.”
I jerked awake as he gently shook my shoulder.
“The food is here.”
I nodded and followed him to the table. I was starving and ate my cheeseburger and fries before my dad was halfway through his burger. He tried talking to me some, but I wasn’t in a very talkative mood. So much was going on in my head right now.
“Dad, I just want to go to sleep.”
“Alright, I understand. I’ll dim the lights and you can get settled. I’m just going to finish eating and take a shower before bed. Do you need anything? Do you ache anywhere?”
I ached everywhere.
I nodded. My dad got up from the table and went to a bag we got at the hospital. He put two pills in my hand and I chased them with some water before I flopped into bed.
“Anthony! Come here!”
Fuck.
I eyed my closed door and went back to my math homework. A loud noise coming from the living room caused me to jump and I heard my name being yelled again.
“Anthony!”
I set my pencil and notebook down on the floor next to me and stared at the door. I wish I had a lock. Not that a lock on a flimsy door would stop them.
“Anthony!”
Fuck! I pushed myself up off the floor, stormed down the hall and into the living room. My mom was partially dressed and passed out on the floor and Bruce and Conner were both tipping back bottles of beer.
“There he is. Little baseball star,” Bruce said and threw his bottle at me.
I dodged the bottle as it smashed on the wall behind me.
“Connor tells me you are quite an impressive little baseball fuck. Said you made the team with your throwing arm.”
I just stared at him as Connor reminded him it was the varsity team.
“Well, fuck, little Anthony making the big man’s team at only fourteen.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“What the fuck ever. Does anyone give a fuck how old you are?” Bruce grabbed another bottle off the floor and threw it at me again while Connor laughed. “Well, you sure can’t catch worth a shit. Let me show you what happens to the youngest on teams.”
Bruce stood and stumbled as he walked toward me, drunk and out of his mind. He took his belt off and started swinging it at me. I turned my back to him to shield my face and before I knew it, he and Connor we both on me.
I woke up in a sweat and sat up in bed. I looked around the dimly lit hotel room and leaned against the headboard. My shirt was soaked and I felt sick to my stomach. Maybe it was too much medicine. Carefully, I lifted my shirt and ran my finger along the bandage that covered the stitches. I wondered if I’d have a scar from this?
I got up from the bed and went over to my backpack to get my dry shirt. I was unzipping my bag when my dad woke up.
“Anthony?”
“Sorry for the noise, it’s just me.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked and flipped the lights on.
“Nothing, I…”
My dad was standing next to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Anthony, this shirt is soaked.”
He pressed his hand against my forehead and held his other hand on the back of my neck. Fuck, it felt nice. I wanted to shut my eyes and fall asleep like that.
“You’re feverish. Here, get this shirt off and let’s get you in a dry one.”
He tugged on my shirt, but I hadn’t budged. I only had the one shirt left to wear in the morning.
“I only have one clean one left for tomorro
w. I was going to see if I could put on the one I wore yesterday from the hospital.”
“Anthony that one had blood residue and medicine on the inside of it. I have an extra undershirt packed. You can sleep in it, ok?”
I nodded, pulled my shirt off and stood awkwardly, waiting for him to return with the extra shirt. With a dry shirt on, I got back into bed. I had to sleep in the middle part of the bed and turn the pillow over, due to dampness.
I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep though. I had too much on my mind and was nervous about a lot of things. I was trying not to be so inquisitive about everything, but it made me feel better to ask even though he told me not to worry about anything.
Chapter Two
December 1990
“I’m looking for my son. He would have come in a few hours ago. Anthony Graves is his name. I’m his father, Richard Graves,” I said as calmly as possible at the check-in desk of the emergency room.
The man behind the counter was nodding and looking at the screen in front of him, giving me an indication that he knew my son was here.
“May I see your I.D.?” the man behind the counter asked.
I quickly presented my driver’s license.
“Just a moment, Dr. Graves,” the man said and quickly left the front desk.
I paced the floor in front of the counter and quickly returned when the man returned along with an older man wearing a shirt and tie. Being a physician myself, I knew that this wasn’t a doctor. My heart began pounding harder because I feared I’d be taken to another room where they’d tell me he passed away. I could barely stand.
“Dr. Graves, I’m Spencer Weir, the hospital administrator. Come with me, please.”
I followed him down the hall, and a doctor approached us.
“Dr. Graves, this is Dr. Lao, he’s the doctor that worked on your son.”
“Thank you, please…how is Anthony?”
“How long has it been since you last saw him?” Dr. Lao asked me.
“I haven’t seen him since he was eighteen months. His mother preferred I wasn’t in his life.”
We continued walking, and the doctor and hospital administrator stopped in front of a door.
“Anthony was in awful condition when we found him on the sidewalk.”
“Is he alive?” I interrupted.
“He’s alive, Dr. Graves. But I must warn you, your son has suffered greatly. Since you’re also a physician, you’ll understand that we had to report this to the authorities.”
“Of course, I understand. Now, can I please see my son?”
The doctor nodded and let me enter the room. I swear my heart stopped as I stood next to my son’s battered body. From the neck up, he looked like a normal seventeen-year-old. As the doctor pulled back the sheet, exposing cuts, bruises and everything else, I had to sit down.
He was asleep. I took hold of his hand and held it protectively between mine. What had they done to him?
His chest and abdomen were covered in bruises and cuts. On his side, there was a significantly sized bandage covering what I assume was the cut he called me about. He was lying in white boxers that were way too big for him. I knew they had taken the clothes he arrived in and just put him in something to keep him covered.
Dr. Lao and Spencer were still in the room, giving me a moment to adjust. The doctor handed me a file folder that contained pictures of Anthony when he was in the emergency room. I held my hand, with his over my mouth as I examined the photos. His back was completely torn up. It looked like belt marks. His butt was severely bruised, cut and also had strap marks on it. Same with the back of his thighs.
I was sick as I continued looking at the damage.
“Aside from the obvious physical abuse, we’re certain he has been sexually abused,” Dr. Lao quietly mentioned.
I uncovered pictures that told me why they made this assumption. I nodded and handed him back the folder.
“We gave him something for the pain, which knocked him out. As you can see by the numbers on his chart, he’s very underweight for his age and height. I would suggest that when you get him home, you have him looked at closely. We treated the knife wound and stitched him up. We also cleaned the welts and open wounds on his back,” Dr. Lao added.
“Of course. I’ll have him fully examined and cared for.”
Now that Anthony has been discharged and was in my care, I was beginning to relax a little. My heart is broken. All of these years he’s been struggling to survive. I thought back to all of our phone calls…I would never have guessed this was going on.
He was nervous, as any child would be in this situation. He was scared to be touched or even stand near me. He was so cautious of anyone seeing his body in the hospital and made little eye contact with anyone. Sadly, he didn’t want a report to be filed. Of course, it had to be done, but his reluctance made it even more obvious that he was scared about what would happen. He was trying to protect them so he wouldn’t be hurt.
The police collected some clothes for him, and when they arrived, they pulled me to the side and informed me that they only grabbed a few pairs of Anthony’s underwear because the bands all had atrocious, hideous things written in a permanent marker. They took some pictures and showed me. In disgust, I stared at what his stepfather and mother had done.
This was going to be very hard for him. Seventeen years of knowing nothing but severe abuse does a lot of damage. Now he’s been uprooted, his body exposed and now he’s trying to move on. I’ve been trying to think of what he needs the most right now because there are so many things. Number one though is security.
I’ve watched him hold his hands over his stomach a lot, or he holds his backpack against his chest and stomach. He needs something to hold to feel safe. And my stomach hurts knowing the reason behind this.
As I sat at the small table in our hotel room, I watched him sleep. He was curled up, hugging a pillow, buried under blankets. I focused on the copy of the medical file I was given and read through the descriptions of wounds caused by the physical and sexual abuse my son endured. I went to bed with a heavy heart and an ache in the pit of my gut.
Chapter Three
December 1990
“Are you hungry?” my dad asked me when we sat down at the gate for our plane at the airport.
I shook my head.
“Thirsty?”
“No, I’m ok.”
My knees bounced nervously as I tugged my backpack closer to my chest and stomach.
“How is your side feeling?”
“It’s ok.”
“Anthony, it’s ok to say if you’re not ok. Or if you need something.”
“I don’t need anything. I’m fine.”
My dad left me alone for a few minutes and then tugged on my long sleeved shirt.
“Is this keeping you warm enough?”
I nodded. Honestly, it was very thin and had also shrunk up on me. Most of the clothes that I have, or had, were like this. My only jacket was the sweatshirt material one that I was wearing when I went to the hospital.
I didn’t have anything other than what I was wearing or what I had shoved in my backpack. I was like a homeless person with everything in my life in a bag.
“Anthony, we’re boarding soon. If you need to use the bathroom or get something to drink, now’s the time.”
I nodded and stood. My dad held his hand out to take my backpack from me. I let go of it and pulled down the hem of my shirt. Even though each step I took hurt, I still hurried. I looked at the digital clock display on my way to the bathroom; 11:15 a.m. I’d be in school right now. Or dead. If I had gone home the other day instead of going to the hospital, I probably would be dead.
I rejoined my dad, and he handed me my tattered backpack.
“Ready? We can board now.”
I nodded and followed my dad down the walkway that led to the plane. I’d never flown before, so this was all new to me and kind of neat. I just wished I had been feeling better so that I’d been able to enjoy it
more.
There were only two seats in our row, and he let me pick which one I wanted. I took the window seat and eagerly began looking outside.
“Have you ever flown before?” he asked me.
“No.”
“This is one of the nicer planes. It’s an easy flight home. It’s only about an hour and twenty minutes. As soon as we’re in the air, they’ll bring around snacks and drinks.”
“Ok.”
Only a few minutes passed before he started talking again.
“A few of the ladies at my office are going shopping for me today. I spoke to my office manager last night and let her know you needed some clothes. Where do you usually get your clothes at?”
I stared at him and tried to think. I had never been clothes shopping before. Clothes just appeared in a drawer for me or a closet. I never went out and picked out anything. I felt the back of the neckline on the thermal shirt I had on and grabbed the tag, pulling it over my shoulder to read it. Hanes.
“These. This is the brand of my shirts.”
“All of your shirts?”
“I think so. Mom would get me packaged shirts. They come in a package with a few. And my jacket was this brand too.” He nodded at me and helped adjust the tag so it fell back inside my shirt. “Dad, the hospital kept my jacket. Is it cold in California?”
“It’s cool there. You’ll get a new jacket, son.”
“Oh, and my socks and underwear are all the same brand.”
“Don’t worry about clothes, son. The ladies are going to pick some things out for you, and whatever you don’t like, we’ll exchange.”
I was excited to be going home with my dad. I think living with him will be very different.
“What about school?”
“Anthony, there’s only a week left before Christmas break. Next week I’ll go down to the school that you’re zoned for, and I’ll get you enrolled to start after the holiday break. I want you to relax and recover before going back to school.”