by Paul Preston
“Sav me,” it said.
“When we were alone I tried to get her to talk to me, but she was deathly afraid to tell me what was wrong. We were watched around the clock, so I spied on the social worker who was supposed to cover the night shift until I saw he had fallen asleep on the couch, and then I snuck down the stairs. Snooping around the house I found a trapdoor in the floor that led down into a cold dark underground cellar. I liked to carry a pack of matches around with me at that age, so I got it out of my pocket and lit a match. I saw a blood stained table with wrist and ankle restraints in the front and back of it. Directly over the table there was a light bulb attached to a cord. Before the match went out, I pulled on the cord and saw the rest of the dingy horrible room. Mounted on the walls were layers of shelving. Each shelf contained an assortment of knives with a label in front of each one. On each label a child’s name was written and a date. I looked closely at the knives and their tips were stained with blood. The knives were arranged by the most recent dates. The last was two days before I arrived and the knife had fresh dried blood on the tip. The label in front of the knife had the name Christine written on it…
“I heard footsteps above my head so I quickly turned off the light and hid in the far corner of the cellar under a pile of rags and old musty blood-stained bed sheets. I heard the trap door open and heard footsteps coming down the stairs. When my new foster father turned on the overhead light, I saw he was holding the hand of Christine, who seemed to be very sleepy and resigned to what was about to happen to her. He laid her down on her stomach and the sick fucker strapped her down on the table.”
“Don’t tell anyone now,” Joseph whispered.
“I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” Christine said.
“Just one cut, just one little cut,” the Joseph said.
“He removed his knife from Christine’s shelf and she started quietly whimpering into the padded foam of the table. He held the edge of the knife just an inch above her skin, preparing to make a fresh slice. Before he had the chance to touch her with the knife, I stepped out of the shadows.”
“That’s the coolest collection of knives I’ve ever seen, Mr. Joseph.”
“He appeared startled that someone found his secret place. He quickly recovered his composure and looked over at me.”
“Ahh, Erik Spencer, is it, our new child. You’ve been kicked around, haven’t you, moved from place to place. “He really needs a home,” the agency told me. “Aren’t you a little sneak, hiding down in my cellar without my permission? Very clever of you though. But you really shouldn’t have come down here. I’m very disappointed in you, Erik…”
“Look at that little girl, Mr. Buquet.”
“Call me Joseph.”
“OK, Joseph. Shit, she’s already crying and you haven’t even touched her yet. She’ll wake up the whole house when you cut her again. Hey Joseph, I’ll make a deal with you. If you let her go and leave the other kids in the home alone, I’ll be your boy. You can cut me as deep as you want, I don’t give a shit. I have a very high tolerance for pain. I won’t say a word. Who knows, I might even like it. You can’t be worse than my last foster father. A few days ago he got so pissed at me he smashed my head into the floor, then he cried, took me to church, told me how sorry he was. A few days later I got transferred to your home. I like it way better here, you got a sweet place, right by the ocean. So what do you say? You want to cut me? Everyone else got a knife. Will I get my own special knife too, Joseph?”
“I remember how he stared at me, with cold dead eyes and an expressionless face.”
“You’ll let me cut you deep?” Joseph asked, with a chilling little smile.
“As deep as you want. You’ll get away with it too. No one gives a shit about me. I know no one would even believe me, even if I told them. The agency is just happy to get me placed somewhere. They said this is my last chance or I’ll be living on the street. If you want to cut me a little, I don’t mind. Let her go and you can start right now. Isn’t her whimpering getting on your nerves?”
“I looked around the sparse room as I talked, but there was nothing within arm’s reach I could use as a weapon. Finally, Joseph lifted the knife away from Christine and unstrapped her from the table.”
“OK, Erik. Lie face down on the table.”
“I did exactly what he asked me of me.”
“No…” Bella said, covering her eyes with her hand. “Oh my God, no…”
“Do you want me to stop, Ms. Mauricio?”
“No, I need to hear this. Go on,” she said.
Williamson took a deep breath and continued.
“Once I was strapped upon the table, Joseph let Christine go, but she continued to stand by my side.”
“Your time with me is finished, Christine. You may go back up to your room.”
“Before she turned away to leave, Christine gave me this haunted grateful look, like I had just found her favorite doll she had lost. I’ll never forget that haunted kind look she gave me.”
“Run along now Christian,” Buquet said.
“I heard Christine’s footsteps go up and out of the cellar and she was safe.”
Bella Lisa put her hands on Williamson’s cheeks and looked him deep in his eyes.
“That is the single most courageous thing I ever heard. And you were only thirteen years old. You’re going to make me fall in love with you, Mr. Williamson.”
Williamson put his arms around her shoulder and pulled her closer.
“Perhaps we should go to bed now.”
“No, go on. Finish the story.”
“OK…He put a piece of wood between my teeth and I bit down on it as he sliced the shit out of the back of my legs, making crisscrossing marks that left scars you can see to this day. I never uttered a sound as he cut me. He hit the jackpot. The fucker kept me strapped to the table for three straight days, bringing me food and water and finding new spots where he could cut me. After his orgy of blood was over and realizing I had become faint from the loss of blood, he let me go and carried me back to my room. I got a terrible fever and missed school for a week, while he nursed me back to health. I remembered his clueless wife tell him what a great guy he was for caring for me, when no one else in the world did. I wondered if she even realized I was missing during those 3 days her husband was cutting me. I went back to school the next week, though I could hardly walk. At PE, I stole an aluminum softball bat and hid it in my locker. I brought it home after school and hid it under my bed. From the way he was looking at me at dinner, I knew he wanted to cut me again that night. After everyone else had fallen asleep, my bedroom door cracked opened, he came in a few steps and shut the door. Then I heard his voice.”
“Eric, it’s that time. Come with me,” he whispered to me in the dark.
“I got out of bed. As he turned away toward the door, I picked up the baseball bat from under my bed. When he opened the door, the light from the hallway came through the crack to help me see. I aimed for the back of his head just above the right ear, taking my best home run swing. I heard the sickening sound of his skull crack. His knees buckled and he fell over like one of those cartoon characters. I think I laughed when he fell. It was kind of funny how the big man went down; it makes me smile even now. One of the kids in the room heard the sound, saw me holding the bat and he ran downstairs to wake up the social worker. He called an ambulance and they wheeled Joseph away unconscious.
“I never knew whether the agency conducted an investigation of child abuse against him, even though I told them about what happened and how we had the scars and the evidence in the cellar to prove it. They probably just covered the whole thing up. The kids in the home got separated and transferred to other homes and I got sent to a juvenile school for violent children for three years. At least I was safer there. I always wondered if Joseph had survived or if I had killed him that night. Years later I drove by the place, parked in front and watched it. I didn’t see any sign of Joseph or his wife.
“
I got released from the juvenile school when I was fifteen and the state placed me in a broken down foster home in the worst part of Carson run by this elderly half blind black woman, Mrs. Williamson. The authorities at the center told me that if it didn’t work out there, I’d be on my own. I think she was slightly senile and though I introduced myself as Erik Spencer, she never remembered my name. It was a dangerous place, with some real tough kids, usually about 6 to 8 at any one time, going in and out of her home like a revolving door. Luckily I filled out a little more while at up at Juvie, stood almost 6 feet tall by then, weighed 180, had learned how to fight, so I survived. Mrs. Williamson didn’t appear to have any rules, let the kids come and go as they wished, steal money out of her drawers, even do drug deals inside her home. But she always had a table full of food she took hours cooking and every kid had a dresser full of new clothes and new shoes to wear. The kids would leave her a mess after every meal and never say thanks for all the fried chicken and cornbread and fresh vegetables she would serve to them. Every time Mrs. Williamson stood up she appeared to be in a lot of pain, grabbing her knees and grimacing. I felt sorry for her so I started helping her clean up after meals and wash the dishes since she didn’t own a dishwasher, even though the other kids started calling me a fucking faggot. I wasn’t scared of them, even the older kids, because they knew if I wanted to I could kick their ass. The first time Mrs. Williamson saw me trying to help her clean up, she…she called me… a good boy…No one in my life had ever said anything nice to me like that, Ms. Mauricio. Ever.
“That’s when Mrs. Williamson and I became friends. When she wasn’t cooking or cleaning or shopping for the house, her favorite thing to do was sit in the living room on this dirty old brown reclining chair, with chunks of white stuffing coming out of the armrests, and watch her business shows on an old TV a few feet away from her that had fuzzy reception. I’d sit next to her on a smelly, stained sofa. Her one extravagance was having cable TV and she was obsessed about the stock market. She really enjoyed watching the stock market symbols run across the bottom of the screen. She could do it for hours. At least once a day, whether the stock was up or down, she’d say the same thing to me, almost word for word.
“That Microsoft. That up again. That a good stock, that Microsoft. They make all that software for computers. When you get yourself some money, Phillipe, you do what ole Mrs. Williamson tells you to do, you go buy some of that there Microsoft.”
“The first few times she called me Phillipe, I corrected her and told her my name was Erik, but she never seemed to hear me, so absorbed she was by the TV. After a while I just let her call me Phillipe, and I kind of liked the new name. After all, I never knew my Dad and Mom who I suppose were the ones who named me Erik and then got rid of me when I was just a child. What right did they have to name me? So, from then on, I went by the name Phillipe, even though all the kids had a big laugh over it, whenever they heard Mrs. Williamson call me that.”
“Hey Phillipe, you gonna suck Mrs. Williamson’s titties a little later? Or do you want to suck my dick instead, Phillipe?”
“Shut the fuck up man!” I remember shouting.
“Now Phillipe, you don’t pay no mind to that boy. Don’t you get in no fight now,” Mrs. Williamson would say to me, completely ignoring the other boys.
“Looking back, I think the other kids were jealous of the bond between Mrs. Williamson and I. Just like me, the other foster kids didn’t have mothers who cared about them. I think it upset them that she only talked to or paid attention to me. I stayed with Mrs. Williamson for almost two years and it was the most stable and happy time in my childhood.
“One day, Mrs. Williamson did not get up to make her pancake breakfast and everyone started to complain. I went upstairs to her bedroom door, knocked on it, but she didn’t answer. For the first time, I went into her bedroom. I noticed a small framed picture of a cute little boy in a photograph next at her bedside table. Mrs. Williamson’s eyes were open, but she looked pretty sick and weak. I went down, made the breakfast, cleaned up, and got some money out of her drawer. I helped her dress and we took a cab to UCLA/Harbor Hospital in Carson to see what was wrong with her. I had heard that hospital would see you even if you didn’t have insurance. A few hours after they examined her and took X-rays, a very nice young lady physician in a white coat sat me down and talked to me. I remember she had very kind eyes and a gentle manner.”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Phillipe. Is Mrs. Williamson going to be alright?”
“Phillipe, do you know if she has any immediate family in the area?”
“No, I don’t know, Doctor.”
“How do you know her?”
“She’s my foster mother.”
“Well, Phillipe, I’m sorry to tell you, your foster mother has late stage cancer that has spread throughout her body. We could admit her, but she’ll never leave the hospital. I’m going to give you a prescription to help with her pain, but the best thing you can do for her is take her back home and make her as comfortable as possible.”
“How long does she…”
“It could be a few days, or a week or two. I’m so sorry, Phillipe.”
“She wrote me a prescription and I took Mrs. Williamson back home. The pills eased her pain somewhat. She called her contact at the Reform School and all the boys were moved out that night, except for me. I told them I wanted to stay to help her, and they allowed it, even though I was still a minor. I dropped out of high school to take care of her.
“A few days later she was able to get out of bed and come down to have breakfast. She had hardly eaten or drank anything in days, and she only took a little nibble of the pancakes I made for her.”
“Do you want to watch the business show, Mrs. Williamson?”
“You know what Phillipe. I’ve lived here in Carson fifty years, and I ain’t never seen the beach.”
“We could take a ride out to Seaside City or Redondo Beach, if you feel up to it.”
“Which one is closer, Phillipe?”
“Redondo Beach.”
“Then why don’t we take a ride out to Redondo Beach and look at the water?”
“OK, Mrs. Williamson.”
“I called a cab and we got off at the Redondo Beach Pier. I helped her out. It was a really nice bright day I remember, the sun was sparkling in a magical way off the water. We walked slowly, my arm around her waist holding her, down the boardwalk and rested together in the sand on a quiet little section of beach near a rock jetty. The waves were very gentle that day. To the left we saw the cliffs of Palos Verdes and the multimillion dollar homes and to the right the pier stretched out on the Pacific. There were several beautiful sailboats directly in front of us, gliding by on the ocean’s surface.”
“Thank you, Erik.”
“I looked at her in surprise. It was the first time she had called me that.”
“I know that’s your name, son.”
“Mrs. Williamson reached over and pulled my face to hers and kissed me on the cheek. Her cheek was the softest thing I think I had ever felt and she had on a pleasant sweet-smelling perfume that masked the scent of death. She held me there against her cheek and started crying. Soon my face was wet with her tears and she whispered her secret to me.”
“He was playing with a bouncy ball in the front yard, bouncing it on the sidewalk. I took my eye off him for just one second and he followed that bouncy ball out on Carson St… and…and he got hit and killed… my little boy… It were my fault…I weren’t paying proper attention. So you’re my Phillipe now, you hear. You my boy, Phillipe.”
“At that moment I decided to have my name legally changed to Phillipe Williamson, to honor my foster mother and the son she lost… Ms. Mauricio, though I was a hard-hearted boy and never one to cry, I found myself weeping along with Mrs. Williamson, holding my foster mother… my mother, the only Mother I ever had, in my arms, as she was dying.”
Williamson could feel Bella Lisa’s tears on the
side of his face and neck, as he held her close to him.
“With a great deal of effort, Mrs. Williamson removed something she had wrapped around her waist under her coat, a long billfold. She had cashed all the checks she got from the government for caring for me, but had never spent the money. It amounted to close to four thousand dollars.”
“Take this, Phillipe. You go right now, son. You buy that Microsoft, damn I forget that symbol, but they’ll tell you and you go become a rich man and you forget about whoever it was that gave you those cuts I saw. You a good boy, Phillipe.”
“I had never seen so much money. It was a fortune to me.”
“Mrs. Williamson…this is so much money, how can I ever thank you…”
“Oh you a nice boy, Phillipe. You always were a nice boy. Now you go, boy, you go make yourself rich…”
“But Mrs. Williamson—”
“No, Phillipe. This is where I want to have my rest. It peaceful here, watching the boats. Thank you for bringing me here, but now my time be over and yours be just beginning. I’m OK. I’ll rest here. You go, Phillipe. I love you, boy.”
“I love you too…Mom…”
“That’s right, son. I am your Mom. Now. I be tired, son. I’m going to lie down for a spell. You go on and yourself have a nice life.”
“Then Mrs. Williamson laid down in the sand and smiled, listening to the surf. I sat with her for about an hour after she had stopped breathing. I wrapped the billfold around my waist and left the beach. On the walk back up to Torrance Ave., I saw a policeman and pointed out the body of Mrs. Williamson to him and before he could question me further I disappeared into a crowd. I wish I could have used the money to give my mom a proper burial, but I was still a minor, I would’ve been arrested carrying around her money, probably earning me a trip back to Juvie. I hated to leave her, but I had no other choice… I guess the rest you know from the article. I got a job at Merrill Lynch telemarketing and worked my way up from there.”
“I think I understand you so much better now, thank you for sharing that story with me,” Bella Lisa said.