The Knowing: Awake in the Dark (15 page)

It was past nine p.m. when there were three loud raps at the front door. My mother opened it to find two officers standing on the porch.

“Good evening, ma’am,” the tall one holding a flashlight said. “We’re responding to a call about a suspicious person with a gas can tonight at this residence. In fact, ma’am, there is an odor of gas around the perimeter of the house and we found a discarded gas can on the east side of your home. Who do you know, that may want to do you harm?”

The officer’s partner was short and stocky with a large nose and barrel chest. His eyes darted suspiciously back and forth, scanning our living room the entire time his partner talked. He reminded me of a bird dog searching for its prey.

“Do you mind if we come in and have a look around?” he asked already stepping through the door, not waiting for a reply.

“I know what fuck stick did this,” my mother fumed. “His name is Aaron Goddard and he is trying to kill my daughter.”

But without witnesses or fingerprints, the police would never prove it.

Goosebumps rushed over my skin.
Shit. It couldn’t be Aaron
. But I
knew
it was. I buried the
knowing
and prepared to defend him in my mind.
Why,
would Aaron endanger his own child? He wouldn’t do that.
No, it had to be a random incident,
I rationalized.

Unbelievably, my mother called my father despite the late hour and their contentious relationship. I had no idea she even had his phone number. I stood in the hallway and did my best to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Dell,” my mother said sternly, “she needs a place to go and you are her goddamn father for Christ sakes. For once, do something to help your daughter.”

Things moved very quickly from that point on. It was decided, without any input from me, I would go immediately to live with my father. Since I was only seventeen, baby or not, it seemed I had no choice in the matter.

He was dubbed “The Sweetheart Rapist” by the media because the couples he attacked were in areas known for lover’s. The man secretly savored the name but he had a family now and was under a lot of pressure. He loved them, but his demon thumped and rubbed beneath the surface and he felt he had no control. He felt weak. He had to go and take back his power and he knew just how to do it.

The couple walked hand in hand in the dark toward their car. It was late but they’d wanted privacy and the caves were off the beaten track and known for lovers. They could fool around and be intimate there without being seen.

The boyfriend dug in his pocket and retrieved his keys, when a man came out of the dark. He was wearing a ski mask and wielding a gun. “Give me your keys,” The man said, holding the gun inches from his head. The man forced the boyfriend into the trunk of the car.

“Get in and shut the fuck up.”

The masked man secured the trunk’s latch so he couldn’t escape.

“Get in the backseat and lie face down.” He directed the woman.  Shaking and numb, she followed directions. Warm, stretchy fabric was pulled over her head. “Oh no, please don’t,” she begged.

The boyfriend lay cramped and sweating in the trunk. Fumes of oily grit filled his airway and soiled his thin t-shirt. He fumbled in the dark, searching for a weapon. He ground his teeth and imagined killing the man with his bare hands, when he got out of this suffocating trunk. He kicked violently with all his might and screamed, “Let me out you cowardly mother fucker! I’m gonna kill you!”

He felt helpless as he heard the whimpers from the woman he loved, being raped with only sheet metal between them,
Oh god, please, let me out so I can kill him
. He prayed, as tears of helpless rage rained down his face.

The Sweetheart rapist took his time and raped the woman repeatedly in the backseat of the car. Afterwards he said, “Give me your driver’s license."

The woman was in shock and moved like a puppet on strings. She retrieved her purse with stone hands. She’d disappeared somewhere inside of herself and escaped from the man and his vile breath. The man studied her identification and handed it back.

“I’ll come and get you if you tell,” the man said. “I know your name and I know where you live.”

But the woman didn’t hear him. She listened in her mind as her mother held her and sang a lullaby.

The woman came home late and found the house completely dark and quiet. She struggled through the doorway, her arms full of groceries. Something felt wrong. Her eyes searched the darkened room. She fumbled with the light switch as unreasonable fear rushed through her. 
What’s the matter with me?
“Hey, honey, are you home?” she called. She walked to the living room, shrouded in darkness. Her blood pounded in her temples. Dread forced a hard jolt in her chest, like an electric shock. “Are you here?” She called again, her voice quivering.

Something was in the middle of the room. Someone was there. Terror lodged itself like a swollen bean in her throat.  She reached with quaking hands and turned the lamp on nearly knocking it to the floor.

“Oh Christ, oh my god,” she breathed. “What are you doing sitting here in the dark? What happened?”

Her body tingled and she felt the weight of something dark and putrid hang in the air. The man smiled and said, “Nothing. Where have you been?”

I’d had no contact with my father since age twelve when he’d delivered me and Maggie on our mother’s doorstep. Anxiety settled in my stomach, and I looked for the light-body but could not detect its presence. I’d come to rely on it as a sign that things would be alright. I wondered if it had abandoned me.

We were running from Aaron and his hateful attempt to harm us. Raine needed to be protected.

Hot, slippery tears stormed down my cheeks as I packed our belongings in a shiny, silver, foot locker. Its tomb-like smell ballooned in the room as I threw back the lid releasing the decaying odor. I kept my head bowed while my mother talked.

“You’re leaving in an hour. You’ll be taken to your father’s in Louisiana,” my mother said, as she folded Raine’s onesies and placed them in a neat, precise pile.

“Isla’s boyfriend has a stepfather who owns a small plane and is willing to fly you and Raine tonight. You can’t stay here, Nita. That scum bag will kill you and then I will have to have him put down, like the animal he is and spend the rest of my life in prison.”

“When did Dad move to Louisiana?” I asked in a voice heavy with gloom.

“I’m not sure, but he divorced Milda and is remarried to some other lucky woman. She has a couple of boys, just what your father has always wanted.”

I nodded. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but the new information snaked through my body with a buzz.
What happened to Milda and her son Dickey and who was he married to now?
The questions fired in my mind but I didn’t ask them. I would find out soon enough. Sucking in air, I continued to pack our things. Raine slept peacefully through the entire ordeal.

“Is she ready?” came a man’s voice from the living room.

I raised my forearm and wiped my snotty nose, grabbed an overstuffed diaper bag and slung it over my shoulder. I scooped up my sleeping son and walked numbly down the darkened hallway.

Stepping from the small plane, hot, putrid, air that was Louisiana rose up in greeting drenching my body in sweat.
Oh great. Humidity, that’s just fantastic
. In the distance, I saw my father next to a pickup truck near a small hangar where he’d parked. He hurried toward the small two engine plane and shouted, “Well h-e-l-l-o youngin.”

He reached out and laid his hand on my head and gently squeezed it. I held Raine protectively creating an instant barrier. “Go on and get in the truck,” he continued, “I’ll be there shortly.”

The truck sat idling, blasting cold air into the cab. I heard my father’s voice as he loaded our trunk onto its back bed, “I sure do thank y’all now.  Y’all take care’n have a safe flight back on home,” he chuckled.

My father looked the same, stocky with blond hair and blue eyes his face clean shaven. He exuded a confident and a masculine air. I still believed he could do anything. Words escaped me so we drove in paralyzing silence for the first hour until my father finally spoke.

“So, you gone tell me what-in-the-hell-happened?” He glared, zapping me with laser-like reprimand. His lips were thin and tight, reminding me of a turtle.

Those are Maggie’s lips.
I thought. “Mom thinks Aaron tried to set her house on fire.” I said.

“Well, did he? Is that the son bitch who’s this boy’s daddy? I ain’t heard nothing good ‘bout him from nobody.”

Fuck you. You think you know everything. Who have you been talking to?
I thought to myself.

My father reached for his cigarette pack on the dashboard and lit a new one from the one he was smoking. Smoke hung like napalm around our heads.  He threw the lit butt out the window with an angry flick of his fingers. Judgment glowed on his face like a hot ember.

“He’s not that bad, and we don’t know for sure if he did it or not,” I said defensively.

“Didn’t he just try to kill you, Nita? In a car the week before last or was your mother ly-in to me? Ain’t that enough? When you gone believe?”

“Yeah.” I said exhausted, looking away and staring out the window as the road rushed by.
What does he know? He hasn’t even met Aaron
, I thought as I dozed off.

I awoke with a start to the sound of shells crunching loudly under the truck’s tires. A dingy white clapboard house, sat perched atop sturdy gray cinder blocks, unadorned and dismal. At some distance beyond it I saw a bright orange glow reflected off the water from the sunrise.

The tiny house looked desolate and isolated surrounded only by a chain link fence and tiny broken shells. The repugnant smell of rotting fish accosted my airway and disillusionment throbbed within me.
This can’t be where he lives,
I thought.
Oh please, God, it can’t be.

“Go on in. The doors ain’t locked,” my father grunted lifting our trunk over the tailgate.

Yeah, because who would steal from this shit hole. How can you live here?
I thought belligerently as I opened the door.

The floor was covered in shabby, faded, linoleum tiles, the distinct odor of fried fish saturated the humid air inside. My heart sank at the squalor. The living area opened to a drab kitchen. The sink was filled with dirty dishes and on the counter sat a deep-fat-fryer with an abandoned wire mesh basket, lying on its side over grease-soaked paper towels. In the hallway stood a tall woman with strawberry, blonde hair and on the couch, two boys sat at opposite ends.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi there. Y’all must be tired.” She replied slowly. “I’m Della’ Rae and this here is Harry and Neil, my boys.”

She talked like she was on vacation with no reason to string her words together quickly. Della’Rae was pretty. She was tall and lean with blue eyes and an easy smile. Harry, the oldest boy, had longish, dirty blond hair, blue eyes with sculpted, masculine features. He was very handsome and only slightly younger than me. Neil, the younger, brother, had the same color hair as his mom and was two years younger than his brother. Neither boy spoke. I felt an instant connection with Harry, which helped me relax and not feel so out of place. The new sleeping quarters for Raine and I would be on the fold-out couch in the front room. The first few days were awkward for me and my hostile, adolescent attitude was in full bloom.

I was told that my father owned a tug boat business. I couldn’t understand why he would live in a shabby, little house on cinder blocks at what felt like poverty central, at the edge of the earth. It was depressing and bleak. My mother had no money and we frequently were on welfare, but we never lived like this.

Harry and I bonded right away. We sat on the steps in front of the house later that day, commiserating.

“Want a cigarette?” he offered.

“Definitely, thanks,” I said. “Harry, what is that disgusting smell?” I asked wrinkling my nose.

“Oh, it’s the Pouge plant next door. Little fuckin fish made into cat food and shit. Fuckin, stinks don’t it?”

“It is the most disgusting smell ever. I don’t know how you live here.”

“Yeah, well neither do I. It sure ain’t my choice.  So, yurr Dell’s daughter huh? He don’t never talk about y’all. He’s just an asshole most of the time.”