Once I had the location of grandfather’s box, I set my aim at finding a weakness in that prison. There were a few options. First and most obvious would be the trapdoor. It was located in the kitchen doorway, about five feet from the wood stove. Typical of trapdoors of its age, it was made of the same two-by-four planks as the floor. The only difference was that it had two strong hinges on one side and a flush mount clasp on the other. I wonder if the carpenter who constructed it ever thought someone would be trying to think of ways to dismantle it from the underside. Maybe—because there was no way to undo the latch from underneath, at least not without causing clearly visible damage to either the hinges or the latch. So, while the trapdoor was an option, it wasn’t a likely one.
Then there was the set of double doors that led to the crawlspace from outside. Their hinge assembly was similar to the trapdoor’s. Heavy steel, each secured with three crude hex bolts. I spent a great deal of time in my nest at night, thinking of ways to defeat either the locks or hinges. I really couldn’t come up with a reasonable solution that would afford me the secrecy I needed to perform either of these tasks. I knew that even if I could get a run at the doors, my scrawny body didn’t carry enough weight to bust through, nor did I have the time or energy to pick away at the aged lumber.
So why didn’t I just wander off while I was out tending to my crops? Well, that’s a fair question. But the reality was, the pair of them watched me closely because, I am sure, they figured I would have to try to escape. Likely, they were both surprised and disappointed I hadn’t yet tried: surprised because they couldn’t understand how I could tolerate so much torture; disappointed because I wouldn’t give them yet another opportunity to pound me physically and emotionally farther into the dirt.
No, simply making my way out of the cabbage patch wasn’t a real option. My father made regular patrols, much like a prison guard, while his father, the warden, ran everything from around the house or the old mill.
“Don’t be picken those ’uns there. They need to ripen up some, ya stupid sonofabitch. I swear you are as dumb as a sack a hammers.”
He’d say these things and stand with his back to the sun, silhouetting himself, blinding me. I never saw the foot that kicked me in the chest or the powerful hand that would slam against my head. One minute I was being berated and the next I was lying in the dust, spitting blood. As much as a punch in the mouth hurt, this pain would go away after a day or two, but a kick to the ribs would stay with me for weeks. I remembered the kick with every breath I took— I only noticed a fat lip when I smiled or tried to eat. I didn’t do much of either growing up.
My father’s fighting technique was typical of most of the brawlers and bullies I have encountered. He’d always start with insults, tearing me down emotionally before he ever laid a hand on me. If I didn’t resist he’d keep it up, calling me names, telling me I was a worthless, stupid, weak piece of shit. This could go on for seconds or minutes—until I either showed some defiance or he perceived defiance in my stance, eyes or expression. Then it really began.
“What?”
Slap across the face. Not hard enough to knock me down. Just enough to shame me, to make me look down, deeper into the dirt.
Walking around me now, eyeing me up and down: “You got somethin’ to say, boy? You think you getting to be the man ’round here?”
Slap to the back of the head. Just enough to send me forward a step or two.
Stopping in front of me, blurry because my eyes are full of tears of shame, hurt and rage. Tears burning my face like acid because I never want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he had actually hurt me.
“I said, you think you a man, boy?” Yelling now, closer, still blurry, like he’s underwater.
Trying not to speak, I nod no. If I speak I can’t prevent the lump in my throat from spilling open, loosening the floodgate on the tears.
“Can’t you talk, dummy?” Push to the chest.
“You too stupid? When I talk to you, you better answer, cause I don’t want no dummies ’round here.” He knows that if I begin to speak I am going to start crying, that he’s won again.
Push to the chest. Louder, blurrier: “You the man now?”
My voice comes as a whisper, desperately trying to contain the lump: “No, sir.”
I’m not sure what he enjoyed more, watching me bleed after the beatings or watching me trying to maintain an ounce of dignity.
“Talk like a man, fer christsakes, not some skinny little sally girl.” The stench of his tobacco-stained teeth and mouth makes me want to puke. Holding in long, deep breaths, I want to turn away, but can’t. I try to look into his eyes to answer.
“No, sir,” a little louder. My eyes glaze over. Cheeks burning, hands clenched into fists, face distorting with the effort of trying to swallow that damn lump.
Open palm, heel of the hand striking my trembling jaw, teeth clamping on the inside of my cheek, blood filling my mouth. Eyes still underwater.
“Jesus Christ, you sure you ain’t a girl? Fuckin’ pansy. You better start talking like a man or I swear to the ever-living Jesus himself I will cut off your head and bury you where you stand.” Louder, nose to nose: “Are you the man?”
“No, sir.”
And then the lump is out. Tears flowing freely down my face, nose blowing bubbles, gasping for air, I don’t even see the first punch or kick that sends me to the ground.
Stage two of the beating begins here. After the humiliation, the distraction, the takedown.
And then it’s always the same—kick the ever-loving shit out of me. Several well-placed boots and I am rolling in the dirt in agony, hugging myself, hoping my sticklike arms can absorb some of the punishment.
“You sure you ain’t no man now, are you?”
At the top of my deflated lungs I say it so loud and clearly it hurts: “No, sir, I ain’t no man.”
Sucking dust and sand into my bloody mouth, I can barely open my eyes. He looks over me in disgust, lights a cigarette and spits on me before he walks away.
This, my son, is the way it was. It would never be like the movies: your father, running through a field to imaginary freedom while soundtrack escape music swells in the background. The only soundtrack for me would have been a shotgun blast—slugs whizzing past my head, if I was lucky enough to hear them.
My escape had to go undetected for hours, ideally days.
The storm doors seemed more and more likely. My guardians would be less likely to notice tampering there because they were rarely used, and they faced away from the mill. In a perfect world, for them, they would have—but fortunately they weren’t consulted when my makeshift jail was built. My ancestors had designed their cold storage only to hold the type of vegetable that does not plan on leaving on its own two feet.
SUMMER TURNED INTO FALL, inevitably. The crawlspace was almost filled to capacity with vegetables with what I’d harvested, and one thing that could not be seen: hope.
Fall is a funny time of year, my little man. The air goes from warm and comforting to damp, foreboding. And that’s it. Trees, overnight, seem to lose their summer beauty and become ugly, black skeletons, waiting to grab a hold of you. I’m sure that’s why Halloween is in the fall. There’s no more miserable, frightening season. The trees creak and groan as the wind rushes, stirring fallen leaves, becoming deafening, terrifying you, giving the illusion that someone is always around, coming at you from somewhere, everywhere.
I wondered if this time of year could also be an ally. Could I become that someone in the wind, running anywhere and everywhere? I believed that the season could actually become camouflage and abet my escape.
Though I did not completely trust it, I knew I would have to form an alliance with the defender of the harvest moon. Fleeing any other time made little sense. I would never survive the winter cold. Tracks in the snow would lead them right to me. Spring’s rain raised the same specter. In summer, while I was tending the crops, I’d be missed much too quickly.
/> I determined I’d have to try just after the crops were harvested, around the first frost. Hard, nearly frozen ground meant they would have a tough time tracking me.
The other key to success would be whatever or whoever captivated them down at the mill.
I will never forgive myself for making this part of my escape and I know I will suffer for eternity for my cowardice, but the fate of whoever was in the pickup when it returned to the farm was sealed. Mine was not. Am I reconciling, tonight? Only God can judge the decisions I have made; only He can wash the blood from my hands.
And worse, son, while it was not a certainty that he would return with a victim—I hoped that he would. Finally opening up and releasing these secrets. . . . More therapy? Confession is more likely.
It took me time to put all this together. I was getting stronger by late summer, and began to notice the old man eying me up, a little too closely. If I was too strong, too healthy, a beating would always come. If it was severe enough this time, my fall escape would become impossible. The tension in the house escalated. Was it the heat, poor crops, lack of rain or, I shudder to think, the lack of a playmate in the mill?
Whatever it was, they began to natter—not just at me, but also at each other. I knew from experience that once this started one of us—me—was going to end up lying in a pool of his own blood.
Regardless of the problem, I was always the cause.
Not enough rain; beat the boy.
Grubs in the cabbage; beat the boy.
Lightning took down a tree; beat the boy.
If the impending beating (and it was surely coming) came too early, I would inevitably get another just before my escape opened. If it came too late, I might not recover enough to flee. And so I had to plan my own suffering. It wasn’t just about the timing, but the severity as well. Too light? I may get another for no reason other than to show me what a real beating was like. Too harsh and I may not survive.
With adolescence, I suspect, I was growing stronger, not just physically, but mentally as well. I prepared for the lashing with all the precision of a mission control engineer at NASA. There could be no clouds forecast on the day of my launch; no rain delays or dates for me.
My developing mind began to analyze and explore options. I calculated from my past just how much inventory the old man needed prior to scheduling a trip. I also calculated the length of time his libido would hold until he was ready to boil over, anticipating a new plaything for the mill.
When I believed the time was right I began to act out. It wasn’t total defiance, just simple incompetence. I’d completed a chart in my head of my most recent beatings and the injuries I sustained:
Unlit fire: broken ribs
Burned dinner: broken nose
Broken dish: black eye, maybe eyes, broken nose; not likely ribs or legs
And not only did I need to manipulate the timing, and the severity of the assault, I also had to make them think it took place on their terms, not mine.
Every day in every city in America people spend hour after hour learning how to manipulate others in order to get what they want, whether it’s to win a contract, a court battle or an argument with a spouse. I suppose you could say it’s my natural calling. Others manipulate to try to improve their lives. I was doing it to stay alive. Or, more accurately, to become alive.
I’m not sure that I could have done it as well in the business world. I can’t imagine being in some meeting, nodding while some leather-faced, golf-addicted, martini-swilling hypocrite expounded on corporate policy, the stock market or whatever the hell else he felt he was an expert on. But I guess this is something each of us must come to terms with. People, on the whole, are hypocrites. They very rarely say what they mean or mean what they say. I’ll give my father and grandfather one thing: they weren’t hypocrites. If they said “it” was coming, “it” was coming—and watch out when “it” finally arrived.
Preachers can stand at pulpit and speak about virtue and how we must model ourselves after men of the cloth. These followers of Jesus . . . goddamned hypocrites. Minutes after a mass they’re fondling an altar boy or choir girl. But what about you and me, virtue’s victims? What of that young girl I saw being led into the mill? Where is she?
In heaven, with full halo and wings, playing the harp? Walking some restless purgatory, covered in blood, with my grandfather’s skin still blackening her broken fingernails?
Or is she simply dead?
Son, we may find out soon, or we may never know.
When that first shovel breaks the ground, her blanket for all of these years, will her liberators stare at those empty eye sockets and understand what a beauty she once was? Likely not.
When she finally is discovered, and she will be, she will be work for someone. A small piece in the macabre jigsaw puzzle that that will reconstruct the events of today, yesterday and, hell, the past thirty-five years.
It is all just a jigsaw puzzle, my little man. But you’ll never know what the picture is until that last piece is finally placed.
THE DAYS GREW SHORTER and the nights cooler. The crawlspace had just about reached capacity. With each piece of fruit and every vegetable I stacked time was running out. My dungeon was beginning to shrink around me; even the air became scarcer—at least that’s how it seemed as I lay there at night, panicked.
It was as though I was drowning in a sea of vegetables. The acid of the tomatoes, the silky sweetness of the corn, the must of the potatoes— not only were they mocking me, telling me my opportunity would soon pass, but they made getting around the crawlspace all but impossible. It was something I hadn’t anticipated, and I was close to the point of giving up. I still had no clear way of getting out, and strangely had not yet received a beating. I needed both. Immediately.
Son, there are those who do not believe in fate—and I am not sure I’m not one of them—but just as I was about to submit to those bastards for one more year, something happened that changed everything.
My grandfather was readying his truck for a trip to town, repairing something under one of the wheels, when somehow the truck slipped off the jack. The weight of the rear quarter panel wasn’t enough to kill him, but it was heavy and painful enough that he had to call my father—who in turn had to call for my help. His tone of voice ensured that I ran immediately. When I got to them I saw my grandpa’s legs trapped under the truck. The old man was writhing in pain. I was breathless—only partly from the run.
“Git yer ass to that mill, boy, and grab that big ol’ beam jack.”
“Beam jack, sir?” I couldn’t take my eyes off my grandpa.
“Yeah, you stupid sonofabitch. The one we used last year to prop up the house.”
I knew what he wanted; I just wasn’t ready to leave the scene. Seeing my grandfather in such obvious pain may very well have the most enjoyable moment of my short life. My father’s glare, however, compelled me towards the mill.
I had seen the place many times from the outside, but never before crossed the threshold. That, I believed, meant certain death. Naturally, I suppose, terrified, I paused at the door. Would there be others inside? What would I say? Would they hate me because of who I was? Because of who they were? Would they think that I knew what was going on? That I had the power to stop it? That I even cared? All of these thoughts raced through my mind as I stood at the threshold. I suppose I was both disappointed and relieved when the heavy wooden door gave way: there was nothing inside the open room, only silence.
It was as dark and filthy as I imagined, a dirt floor covered in sawdust. Large timber columns supported larger timber beams, which in turn supported more timber supporting trusses, themselves supporting a wood plank roof.
The wind rushed in with me, stirring up dust and ghosts as I entered. I could feel them around me. The dust particles danced in the slats of light created by the ill-fitting boards. It was as though the light was magnetic, as though the only place in the room that the dust could exist was in the light. It was suspended,
held in place, until finally it became exhausted and fell to its proper place on the dirt floor.
I scanned the room, looking for the beam jack. I couldn’t find it and had to enter deeper. My feet made no sound, but in my mind it was like I was walking on sunburned grass. With each step I heard a crash, my feet burning, repulsed, eyes not wanting to see, skin desperate not to feel. I moved forward a few feet and saw the beam jack leaning against a column in the center of the room. Then I noticed, just above the jack, a chain attached to a pair of metal cuffs. The cuffs hung just about as high off the ground as I could reach. If my hands were inside those iron rings my feet would barely touch the ground. I froze and studied the column. It and the ground below were stained a horrible brownish red. Long strands of hair sat at the base of the column. It was then that I first realized: I had merely been beaten and tormented; I had never been tortured. I wanted to turn and run—run and never stop. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to carry the heavy jack back to my father. My knees were weak and I wanted more than anything to vomit. And then I spotted it.
The brown, flowery printed rag was sitting on the workbench. I walked over to confirm what I already knew.
The dress of the only other human I had ever seen had been discarded, much like you or I would throw away an old paint rag. I picked it up. It was soft, and as pretty as I had dreamed so many times. I wanted to take it with me, to keep me comfort in the dark. If I had it with me, I fantasized, I would never be cold again.
And then my enraged father’s voice intruded: “Get yer ass up here with that fuckin’ jack.”
I put the cloth back with much more care than when it was first discarded—right next to what I realized was my way out. I had seen my grandpa work on his truck enough to know that I was staring at an adjustable wrench. With this simple tool I could loosen the bolts on the crawlspace door hinges and gain my freedom. Without any thought at all I pocketed the wrench, grabbed the beam jack and never looked back.
Hope Burned Page 4