“You don’t belong here. You need to go!” I said, my voice trembling.
“Fuck you. I am home,” he said, laughing.
The police cars pulled up, and he collapsed once again onto the porch. “Thas okay, I jus don know where the fuck I’m at.” He was once again the drunk. The neighborhood was filled with red and blue lights. The police officers came to take him away.
I woke up with Michael looking at me with a puzzled look on his face. I had fallen asleep on the couch, and he was playing a video game of some sort. I looked at the screen and I saw zombies with white eyes. “You okay, Dad?” he asked, looking at me with his hands still moving the controller.
“Yeah, I am fine,” I said. The dream had shaken me up some. It was almost a replay of a night when a homeless man had fallen on my porch and hit my door, setting off the alarm. I let the police take him away that night without question. I didn’t bother asking anything. I gave my report, and the trouble was gone.
The trouble was a human being—someone I had not taken the time to learn anything about. He had crossed the line into my world, and in my world, folks did not take a moment to find out about people like him. Out of sight and out of mind. Just as long as we did not have to deal with them, it was just fine that way. I thought about it and I felt the guilt creep into my gut. If there were one person in this world who had the right to haunt my dreams, it would be him, because when he needed someone, I didn’t give a damn. I let him get taken away.
The funny thing is, three years after that incident, I found myself homeless with three children. Thank God I had somewhere to go, but still we had no home of our own. We were homeless. I guess you could call that “the karmic fuck of it all.” What if everyone had turned their backs on us? I could have been just like him. Any of us could. That is something really scary, when you stop and think about it. I could have been just like him and someone could have done the same thing to me. A feeling that could only be described as guilt ripped into my gut as I thought about it.
“Where’s your sister?” I asked Michael, who answered without looking. “She is still on her date with her boyfriend.” I immediately looked at the clock. It was not quite midnight. She had about ten minutes before she was busted. I hated curfews and making the kids abide by them, because the fact of the matter was I hated them when I was their age. But there was this little voice that reminded me of all the trouble I would have gotten into if it had not been for my curfew, or the times I got in trouble when I broke it to do those things that I did not want my kids doing.
A great way for parents to ensure that their children will not come home drunk or stoned ever again is to trap them in conversation when they get home. You talk to them for a very long time when they come in. Now, understand they want nothing more than to run to their rooms, but because they want to totally convince you they have been angels, they will talk to you for however long you want. So my suggestion to you is to have fun. Find many topics of interesting conversation. The whole point of this is they have to endure it. Now, if they are standing, which is my favorite, they will try not to sway or lean heavily or hit the wall with their bodies. This can be a very difficult thing to pull off when you are discussing with them how you make sandwiches. Have them make you a sandwich, or a frozen pizza—that will take even longer—leaving more time for discussion.
The whole point here is that they will think twice before ever coming home in that condition again, and you have avoided having to have the regular, boring parental convo—and you get fed. Beautiful, isn’t it? Works every time. You will only have to do this once or, if the kid is named Matthew, you might be doing this once a month for a while, but you do get fed unless he decides to cut open the pack of hot dogs with a samurai sword. Then there will be blood, and you will be in the ER for a long time.
So there I was, waiting to bust Lydia for curfew. Hoping she would not pick this night, of all nights, to test the curfew waters. I knew it was coming and she was going to do it sooner or later, but tonight I wanted things to go smoothly. Headlights in the driveway, and then I waited for it and waited for it. No car door, which means now I had to be an asshole and turn on the porch light and walk out onto the porch, showing the young man in the car and my daughter my displeasure with the long wait for her to come in. So I do. And as I do, I see a can off to the side of the porch. A can like I had seen before. And like before, there was something sticking out of it. I knew if I went for it now I would be caught, and I did not want the kids to see it. So I did my routine and went back inside. I flipped the light on and off a few times, and thank God I got car-door closure. I heard the sound of the car pulling out of the driveway and leaving as my beautiful daughter stomped up the porch steps and slammed open the front door to indicate she was finally home from her date, and was truly pissed off at me.
“Did you have to do that? I was coming.” She stomped into her bedroom and slammed her door, music on. Home safe, my mission was accomplished. All three children were now inside and secure. My job as their parental figure was complete for the night. Now all I had to deal with was that can as soon as I could get outside without a fuss. All three of them had to sleep at some point. At least I prayed.
I sat on the couch and turned the TV on. The news was its usual depressing self. My mind was on the can outside and wondering what kind of note I was going to find in it this time. “British Houses of Parliament temporarily shut down due to anthrax alert.” I heard this coming over the TV and sighed because it was five years after 9/11 and we were living in a whole, new, frightening world. Sometimes, it was easier to tune out the chatter from the outside world than to deal with the onslaught of what seemed continual fear-mongering, which kept filling our airwaves on a daily basis. Was today a “red” terror day or a “yellow” terror day? It was so easy to get caught up in it all if you allowed yourself to, but something always told me that is exactly what we were supposed to do. Get caught up in it all. When the right hand dictates fear, you are not necessarily paying attention to what the left hand is doing.
I was lucky all three of the kids were sleeping pretty heavily in no time flat. I took a deep breath as I quietly got up from the couch and headed for the front door. I turned the knob slowly in order to try to open this door with as little sound as possible. I was successful, as the door swung open with little or no noise. I stepped out onto the porch and walked down the stairs toward the can waiting for me. There in the can, like before, was another dildo. Please forgive me, there is no other name for it, and I am almost embarrassed to say the name of it today. But there it was, and around it was wrapped another note. I slowly unrolled the note to see what it had to say.
“I am coming for you and I am coming for your kids.”
I stood there for a moment, in the light of the moon, just staring at the note in my hands. What was I going to do? My first instinct was to call the police. Seemed logical to me; the police are there and they are supposed to protect you in these types of situations. So I snuck back in the house, grabbed my phone, went back out onto the porch, and I dialed the police station directly. I thought this would be better because at the moment, it did not seem like a groundbreaking emergency that would require a 911 call. I asked to speak to an officer, and after a moment an officer came on the line. I explained to him what was going on and he just listened. Then he said, “You’re the guy that lived in that haunted house?” I told him I was, but this, as far as I knew, had nothing to do with that. I again stressed that we were being threatened in a very strange way. The officer’s tone changed with me.
“Well, it is most likely nothing. Just somebody trying to get under your skin and really there is nothing we can do until they make some type of physical move toward you or your children, but I feel that is highly unlikely.” I could not believe what I was hearing. He was not going to help me. “I will make a report that you called . . .” I cut him off before he could finish, and asked, “Would you like the not
e and things for evidence, to go with the report?” He told me that it would not be necessary.
I hung up the phone. That is when it really hit me hard that there was not going to be any help coming. I was not going to have anyone who would care. I was going to have to begin to think how I was going to take care of this on my own. Then I settled into it. I was used to that. Now I knew the rules of the game, and I understood how I needed to play it. I opened the trash bin, and I slammed the can and its contents into the trash. I would kill somebody, if I had to, in order to protect my family.
From inside the house, there was loud banging and I could hear Michael screaming. As I ran into the house, I noticed the banging was coming from the walls, and just as I went to comfort Michael, it stopped. Michael was clearly freaked out. I told him it was nothing, just a tree limb and some wind. He must have believed me, because he rolled over and went back to sleep. Once you explained something to Michael, he was all right. That is just the way he has always been. He was always the quickest child to fall apart, but always the easiest to put back together.
There was no real explanation for the banging and pounding. The noise had stopped right above Michael’s head. I went around the house, making sure all of the windows and doors were secure and locked. I could take no chances at that point. I hate feeling helpless, and I hate not knowing where something is coming from. Give it to me and let me deal with it, and I can handle anything you have to dish out. However, not knowing who or what I was dealing with was going to drive me crazy. Not knowing a motive or reason for it made it all the more terrifying. I guess I am a lot like Michael, in that respect. We can handle anything once we have the explanation. We are both easy to put back together that way. I sat back down on the couch and I flipped the TV back on. I fell asleep as they were saying something about Serbia.
Matthew woke me up the next morning. I had slept the whole night on the couch. “Pops, you have to wake up, she is driving me nuts,” he said, as he made a funny face. Lydia was obviously up to something, because she was in full force “General Patton” mode to get the house cleaned for me. She came into the room, hands on her hips.
”Leave Dad alone and get busy. I told you we are going to get this done and THEN you can do anything you want, but not until this is done.” I wanted to hide my head just a little longer, but I knew the vacuum cleaner was coming and she was going to make a special emphasis on the area of carpet around where I was sleeping. Sure enough, I could hear Jaws power up. My sister and I both had named our vacuum cleaners “Jaws” for the kids. It was just something that stuck, and the cats were terrified of it, so the name seemed fitting. The roar of Jaws came into the room and, just like I predicted, the area around the couch was getting special attention. I rolled over and looked up at her with one eye open. “Oh, Daddy, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, as my sweet, loving daughter. I mumbled something at her as I got up from the couch and headed into the bathroom for a quiet shower.
It is amazing how the simplest things in life can take away just about every thought or problem you have. A hot shower is one of those things. Bathroom door locked, no one can disturb you. God, it can be pure heaven on earth. No kids fighting or asking for something for ten minutes. Then, there was sound of something being inserted into the bathroom door lock, something turned, clicked, and Matthew was in my kingdom. “What are you doing in here?” I asked.
“I had to go, Dad, I couldn’t wait. Besides, she is being a real witch to me today. She wants me to do everything.” He was talking a mile a minute and my solitude was completely gone.
“What is that smell?” I asked.
“Sorry, Dad. I told you I couldn’t wait. That would be my brand,” he said as he went laughing out the door. I could hear her screaming at him from down the hall. I quickly got out and dried off because I could not breathe. I was thinking maybe I should take him to a doctor or something because that smell was not normal.
That is when I heard Lydia yell from down the hall, “Take out that trash!” My heart dropped to my feet when I heard those words.
“Oh my God, he is going to find the can.” I had not pushed the last can down into the trash last night. I quickly threw on my clothes and went running. I pushed past Lydia in the hall, who had a shocked look on her face. I opened the front door, stepped out onto the porch, and saw Matthew and Michael standing there. Michael was holding the note. He was reading it while Matthew had the can and its remaining contents in his hands.
Michael looked up at me with a puzzled look. “What is this?”
I did not know where to start. Lydia came charging out the door to yell at all of us and stopped immediately because she could sense she walked in on something. Besides, Matthew did have a dildo in a can in his hands.
“Put all of that back into the trash and let’s go inside. I will tell you.”
Lydia immediately became uneasy. “You are going to tell us what?” She looked at me as Michael handed her the note. “Oh my God, Daddy,” she said with tears in her eyes as she read it.
All I ever wanted to do was live a good, full, and happy life with the three of them. I wanted nothing but happiness and normalcy, because of all of the crazy things we had to deal with my ex-wife before she left. I wanted to put my children back together and I wanted to keep them safe. And then from there, it was supposed to be happily ever after. But the outside world kept getting in and fucking things up. It seemed no matter how hard I tried and how hard I fought, I would still have to break some type of horrible news to my children and see that look in my daughter’s eyes. I remembered, once again, Lydia with her tears streaming and crying, “Oh my God, Daddy.” It breaks my heart still. I cannot go there without it tearing me apart. I looked at other families and I tried my best to give them that sort of life, and what we got in return was nothing but a complete and absolute nightmare. Now I stood there on that day, and I once again had to see that fear in her eyes. The sound of her voice, which will give me bad dreams until the end of my time on this earth. “Oh my God, Daddy.”
“Sit down,” I said, as we went into the living room. “This was the second message like this I have gotten from whoever is sending them.” Michael immediately jumped up, grabbed the phone, and handed it to me.
“Call the police now, Dad,” he said, boldly, which at the moment made me want to smile, but I knew that what I had to say next was not going to go over well.
“Sit down, Michael,” I said, calmly. “The police told me last night, they cannot do anything unless this person makes some sort of physical move against us.” The room got deathly silent.
It seemed like hours before anyone spoke. “You mean we are all alone in this?” Michael finally spoke up. “Yes,” I said, looking at him directly to emphasize to him the seriousness of what I was telling him.
“That is why we need to start doing things a little differently. We need to start checking in with each other more, keeping things locked at all times. Not taking the same routes to wherever we go. I have thought a lot about this. It seems to me, if we never set a pattern of behavior, it would be very hard for someone to follow us.” The boys were both nodding their heads in agreement.
“I don’t know if I can take this, Daddy. This is just too much,” Lydia said with tears still in her eyes.
I went over to her and I knelt down in front of her. “It is going to be okay. I am not going to let anything happen to you. I have always kept you safe. That is not going to change now. I promise.” My promise is something my children know stands true. They understand that once it is given, it is kept. The words “I promise,” once spoken to my children, hold a lot of weight. I forced her to look me in the eyes and I whispered sternly, “I promise.”
Life became different from that moment on. Our already damaged, false sense of security had been broken once more, and this time it was clear we were not going to get it back. All of us were living in the past, even though we did n
ot want to admit it. I think that day, I broke some kind of trust between Lydia and me, which would take years to heal. It was almost as if she felt I was hiding something from her that I shouldn’t have been. And I guess I was keeping it away from them, but there were a few reasons why I was. One of those reasons was the graphic nature of the attack. Who would want to share that sort of thing with their children, especially their daughter? The other reason was I wanted to keep their lives as normal as I could. I hoped I could handle it on my own, without them ever having to know about it. Maybe it was a dumb move—and now I know it was, because it was going to become impossible to hide it from them. I hope it has not caused too much damage, because all we ever had in this world was each other.
[contents]
Chapter 16
September 2006
The phone rang. It was early in the evening, and I was sitting on the couch contemplating what I was going to make for dinner. The thought of going to grab some burgers for the night seemed a likely choice, and the boys were in agreement with me. I picked up the phone, half expecting it to be my mother, but it wasn’t.
“Mr. LaChance?” The voice on the other end was male. I had never heard this voice before and my first thought was it must be some kind of telemarketer. “Yes, this is Mr. LaChance,” I said with a firm voice in order to take control of the call, just in case the sales pitch was coming.
“This is the Steven LaChance who lived in the haunted house in Union, Missouri?” Usually when a phone call started out like this, it was someone either wanting to know where the house was or a paranormal team wanting to know if they could investigate it. I never gave in to these calls or e-mails. My thought was to keep the location of the house as quiet as possible because the new family living there had enough to deal with without the intrusion.
I took a deep breath. “Yes, this is him.” I was waiting for the usual routine to begin, but it quickly became obvious that this call was going to be of a different sort.
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