“Look by my closet, mommy,” she pointed.
I GASPED. So hard. It shocked me. When I looked, I thought I was seeing things. It was Crystal’s favorite doll, Molly, at the top. She had a long, white rope around her neck. MOLLY, THE DOLLY, WAS HANGING.
I called on God in my head. Lord, what is this?
I kept looking as if the vision in front of me would change.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t find a space to imagine that this same vision before me hadn’t affected my daughter. I wondered if there might be a way for me to keep away the nightmares that would spring up from her awaking to such a horror.
When Crystal saw how shocked I was, she really started crying. I walked toward her and grabbed her. I held her tight. As we were embracing, I heard William coming up back up the stairs. He reached the top one and could see that I was holding our daughter. I caught his stare in my eye glove.
“WILLIAM,” I tried to slow my anger, “WHAT IS THIS?!”
“What?!” His eyes were bugged out. He seemed defiant and then he started laughing uncontrollably.
Crystal and I froze and marveled at the way William seemed so entertained.
What in the hell is wrong with him?
I looked straight at my husband. “THIS AIN’T FUNNY, BOY!”
He gave a strange look and then stopped and pointed his finger. “YOU GUYS JUST DON’T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR!” He walked back down the stairs as casually as he would go to get the morning paper.
I watched him from behind. I hated him from the front and from the back. It was clear to me that he must have been trying to terrorize our daughter. But why? That very morning, I began making plans to leave William. This was May 1988.
Loser!
27
The Lady Next Door Jumped Out of Her Window…
OUR NEIGHBOR JUMPED OUT THE WINDOW ONE AFTERNOON. She told the police that a man in a ski-mask broke into her house through her back door. He tied her to a chair. The man, who was never identified, threatened our neighbor, telling her that if she screamed, he was coming back to kill her. But our neighbor pushed herself out of a second story window before her attacker could come back. She was hurt, but she survived. The Oakland Police came. They talked to some of the people in our neighborhood, including William. He said he hadn’t heard anything.
I was in Los Angeles on business the day the woman jumped. My daughter, who was supposed to be in school that day, paged me to let me know that her father had kept her out of school and he was not going to work. This was puzzling news because William hardly ever missed work, and Crystal only stayed home when she was sick.
I got some bad vibes and wanted William to come to the telephone so that he could explain what had warranted him keeping Crystal out of school. Crystal called her dad from upstairs. She was in her bedroom. There was no response. Then she remembered that he told her he was going to be downstairs working. He told her to stay in her room.
I kept my daughter on the telephone to see if she could help me understand what was going on. Crystal said that her dad kept coming up and down the stairs that led to our basement. She said she was afraid.
“Of what, baby?” I spoke softly.
“MOMMY, I THINK SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH DADDY.
“Wrong? What do you mean?” I sat still, bracing myself against the headboard in my hotel room. I had showered, but I stopped dressing when my pager beeped.
“Daddy keeps going up and down the stairs and….”
“And what, baby?”
“Mommy…HE HAD A SKI MASK ON.” She gasped before she could get the last word out.
My mind was so quick to make an image of William in the ski mask. His eyebrows and other characteristics of his face were hidden. I tried to push the image out of my head, but it was stubborn. In an instant, I could imagine that my husband was up to no good. He had been acting so strange. What could he be up to? That was my thought as I held my daughter on the telephone. I hoped to get more information from her without scaring her.
When I asked Crystal to call her dad again, she said she didn’t think that he was in the house. Had he left her home alone? I waited for a good ten minutes and then I told Crystal I would call her back later in the evening. I was worried the whole day. I told her to page me with a “911” code if she needed me.
When I called home later that evening, Crystal answered. She was almost out of breath. She managed to tell me that the police had come to our door, and that the ‘lady next door’ had jumped out the window. She was being taken to the hospital as we spoke.
“I’M SCARED MOMMY,” she paused. “I think there’s a robber in our neighborhood.”
“No there’s not, baby. Put your daddy on the phone.” I was almost out of breath myself.
William came to the telephone a few minutes after Crystal called him.
“WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON, WILLIAM?!”
“Nothing.” His voice was shaky.
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?” I tried to be calm.
“Oh, yeah…me and Crystal stayed home today. She was sick.”
“Sick…what?”
“Yeah, I think she had a fever.”
“You think?”
“I just wanted to be sure so I wouldn’t have to leave work to pick her up if the school…”
“WILLIAM, STOP!” I paused to settle my nerves. I knew things weren’t adding up. “Didn’t our neighbor JUMP OUT THE WINDOW?”
There was dead silence. And then I could faintly here William breathing.
“I think so.” He was so calm.
“Did the police come to our door?”
“Oh yeah.” He stopped again. “I told them I hadn’t heard anything.”
I couldn’t believe how calm William seemed. I wondered why he wasn’t more sensitive to the horrible thing that had happened right next door to us. He was always saying that he needed to carry a gun because Oakland was not a safe place. And yet, he was ice cold when talking about the danger that couldn’t have gotten any closer to us.
When I asked William to go talk to the police to get more information, he told me that they were gone. That was not true. Crystal came back to the phone after I spoke with her dad. She told me that the police were still outside. I wanted to ask my other neighbors about the incident when I returned from Los Angeles. By then, the incident was only two days old. But as I observed, not even one of my neighbors was forthcoming with news of the crime in our neighborhood. Not one! I knew my neighbors didn’t gossip, but what happened was more than some sensational nonsense. Then, maybe they thought I already knew the facts. I just have to believe that.
I asked William about having a ski mask. He said he had a BEANIE on— not a ski-mask. He claimed he was working in the backyard and didn’t want to get dust and grass in his nose and eyes. When I asked him to show me the beanie, he said he lost it. It didn’t sound right, but with nothing else —except what Crystal could discern from her limited vantage point to help me put the truth together— I just stored William’s explanation in my mind. Way back.
During William’s trial, I learned that he gave a warning to one of his victims; he let her go after raping her. She testified against him. He told her, ‘You’re going to die.’ My skin crawled when I read those words in an article at Recordnet.com, which chronicled William’s rise to monsterdom. This was the website that helped me keep up with the parts of William’s trial that I did not attend. I instantly connected those words to the words that were allegedly spoken to my neighbor by her attacker near the early part of 1988— right next door to us. I only got that much information because Crystal, being as curious as she was, as well as becoming more suspicious of her father’s actions especially when I was not around, had listened from upstairs while her dad talked with the police who were canvassing the neighborhood.
Crystal and I talked about that incident during William’s trial. She remembered a little more. I guess it was painful for her to try to remember things she wanted to forget. Then, we wondered wh
at would have happened if our neighbor hadn’t jumped. And, if in fact William was the unidentified attacker, was it his plan to come back and rape her? Was he going to kill her? It’s painful for me to remember how I could dismiss my own suspicions even if I couldn’t prove their validity. I should have pushed and pushed and pushed for answers.
Perhaps it’s true what they say…that evil works close to what it knows and then it spirals outward. We wondered whether the terror our neighbor experienced was a trial run for the first murder William committed in April 1988.
What are the odds?
Sometimes my mind places our attacked neighbor in the front of me. How? These are images I should not have. I was not there. And yet, I sometimes I see her as she was taking her armless dive out of the window. But my mind doesn’t tell me why she jumped. All I can see is that her legs are crushed. She is bloody from the face down. There is terror in her eyes. And the chair that she is strapped to is still on her back.
I hate that my mind does this to me.
Even though I shared this information about our neighbor with William’s attorney, Lorna Patton Brown, she took me into another room at her law office when I tried to tell it to the forensic psychologist who was working for William’s defense. Apparently, this information could have been discovered by the prosecution. Lorna underestimated me. She did not know how badly I wanted the truth (all of it) to come out. She was NOT MY ATTORNEY. I SHOULD NOT HAVE listened to her.
28
West Oakland, where William Staked His Claim
LINDEN STREET, OUR SECOND HOME, WAS IN FACT A NEW BEGINNING— for William. He had staked a claim on his initial frontier of torture, mayhem, murder and rape.
Why couldn’t I see what was going on right in front of my eyes?
William raped and killed his first victim less than a mile from where he grew up. I saw the pictures when the prosecutor presented his closing arguments.
She was Caucasian.
She was a member of the human race.
She was somebody’s child.
She was a precious life.
I refused to look away as the picture of Victoria Bell’s body was projected on the screen for all to see, including the people who loved her. I knew that when William murdered her, I was probably at home being in denial. I was probably trying to be normal in an abnormal reality.
My head tilted involuntarily as I took in the essence of the pictures.
Nothing made sense.
I scratched my head because it was the first real image I saw of the mayhem William had practiced and perfected in a cruel way. I wondered whether he chose his first victim because she was Caucasian. Was he trying to work up the nerve to kill someone that looked like his mother, me or perhaps any Black woman who had crossed his path and angered him? I wondered if Victoria was a surrogate victim. I wondered if she was one of the spirits whose sadness I felt when I was writing poetry in the very kitchen where her murderer would take his meals.
29
Fine China
WHILE WILLIAM WAS WATCHING PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEOS AND DREAMING ABOUT RAPING and killing women, and while he was building his muscles in our weight room, I was writing very, very, very painful poetry that pursued me so hard I wanted to SCREAM. But I didn’t. I was obedient and I mused about female suffering and female pain whenever the moment moved me to do so. I sat down at the typewriter. I did not have control when these moments moved in on me.
The feelings of dread and suffering kept coming to me and I began throwing fine China up against the wall in our new kitchen of our house on Linden Street. It was to be a place where I thought I would love to cook. But it had turned into my Hell where I would seek to relieve myself of the pain that wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t explain why I felt so heavy with angst. And I was incapable of anchoring this weighty feeling to any one particular thing that was happening in my life. It was excruciatingly painful not to know the source of my pain and my increasing anger.
For a long time, I thought that if I could put some of my anger and confusion down on paper, I would feel some relief. But it wasn’t enough that my poetry reflected the pain and agony of raped and abused women, though I had no idea they really existed. I was still so tortured in my soul. And I actually compiled a book of poems created during my lengthy period of woe; I had them copyrighted in 1994; the book is titled, Frontrooms, Backrooms and Other Recovery Zones. It took years for me to bring them out; they terrified me so. The one poem that didn’t frighten me was published in Essence Magazine sometime between 1984 and 1985. The poem was titled, “Synch”. Interestingly enough, the poem is about a woman who believes that she and her man live in harmony. But when his habits change, and they are out of synch, she realizes that someone is beating her time. But who? I believe this poem was born out of the distance that grew between me and my husband when he was nurturing his sadistic inclinations or his absolute need to torture women for his sexual pleasure. How could I have known?
30
My Volunteer Experience with BAWAR (Bay Area Women against Rape), 1988
MY DESIRE TO BECOME A RAPE CRISIS HOTLINE COUNSELOR GREW out of the pain I felt because I believed that women were suffering all around me and I wasn’t doing anything about it. It was an inescapable feeling. I tried the poetry; it didn’t work. I needed something more tangible, or something I could say was evidence of my conscientious effort to effect change on some significant level.
Once I got my mandatory training to work on the crisis hotline for BAWAR (Bay Area Women against Rape), I began to feel that some of the pressure of anger and sadness was lifted off me. It didn’t last long because for the first time in my life, I learned how rape and molestation victims were victimized. I learned about the intricacies of their sometimes everlasting suffering. And even though I never knew the faces of the victims on the other end of the telephone, I knew that they had experienced great pain.
William hated it when I carried the pager; I was on-call. He said that I was helping women WHO DIDN’T DESERVE HELP. I didn’t know where that kind of reasoning came from. Now, I know. I was making it my mission to help the very women William was preying on. How could I have known?
How dare her! He must have thought.
Note: [Even though my stepfather molested me when I was a teenager, I knew my pain would never be as great as the women and men I counseled over the hotline. Why? Because the night before my stepfather died in his sleep from a massive stroke, he begged for my forgiveness. I accepted. He helped me recover some of the peace he had stolen from me.] It was a meager blessing, but a blessing nonetheless.
31
Monster’s Home!
Mid-1988. THINGS GOT WORSE.
One night William came home and there was no dinner on the table at the place of “our new beginning” on Linden Street.
“WHAT’S FOR DINNER?” William asked, like I was the private and he, the sergeant with orders to get my ass in line.
“NOTHING!” I paused to look closer at him. “We ate the last of the leftovers.”
Usually, if William was hungry, I would fix him something to eat. No problem. But he was in such a shitty mood; I didn’t want to do anything for his ass. And the quid pro quo implied agreement that had served us both for years was finally breached. I would no longer let him treat me like Hazel the maid just so that he wouldn’t ask me for sex.
“Can you fix me something then?” There was mild tension in his voice.
I turned my back on William. As I was walking away, I asked him if he was serious.
Then—
“ALICE, I —NEED- SOMETHING-TO-EAT!” William’s voice was noisily quiet.
“Well then you need to fix yourself something.” I turned. “I’M GOING TO BED.”
Before I could put my foot on the first stair to go up to my bedroom, William grabbed me by my hair. It was long and straight then. I heard my head snap when he yanked me backwards and towards him. It was so fast that I barely had time to think about what was happening to me. I jus
t knew that I didn’t want him to break my neck.
My eyes closed because of reflex, but my ears were hearing everything and everything was louder than I had ever heard anything in my life. It couldn’t have been louder if a locomotive was going full steam ahead in my brain.
Then he started:
“THIS IS MY GODDAMNED HOUSE I WEAR THE PANTS AROUND HERE I’M SICK OF YOUR DICTATING ASS YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING I JUST BEEN PUTTING UP WITH YOUR SHIT THIS IS MY HOUSE MY MOTHERF**KIN’ HOUSE…WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE???!!! HUH?? IF I ASK YOU TO FIX ME SOMETHING TO EAT YOUR ASS BETTER DO AS I SAY WHO THE F**K DO YOU THINK YOU’RE PLAYING WITH (I) WEAR THE PANTS IN THIS GODDAMNHOUSE …”
I believe that this ranting, swearing, spitting, foaming at the mouth and venting went on for a good ten minutes. It could have been longer. All the while, I did not fight back. Something just told me to go wherever he dragged me. When William turned, I made sure that my whole body went easily where he was dragging it. I knew better than to fight back and maybe it was because of something I heard when I got volunteer counselor training at BAWAR. I’m not sure. I just knew I might make things worse than they were if I fought back. But, what I did know was how strong William was. HE WAS SUPER STRONG. It was all that working out he had been doing. And it makes sense now that he needed to work out because he was planning to snatch, rape, and torture women. He had a master monster plan and he needed a fit body to be able to hoist the dead bodies of his victims over his shoulder so that he could take them to a remote place to dump them like yesterday’s trash.
William stopped screaming like a madman, but I still had the feeling that he wasn’t finished with me. He paused to catch his breath. My head and hair was in his fist. He kept my head down. And then he just held me still and stared at me like…like, yes, like he could KILL ME.
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