Month: February 2015

Cause and Effect, A Fictional Short, Part 5

Chapter 5

June, 1979

I managed to make it through my first year of high school wearing the clothes my parents provided for me, but I desperately wanted to create my own style. I needed a job. Although all of my sisters had previously spent their summers working at the community pool, I didn’t want the income stream to end in August, so I sought something different. With no car available to me, I had to find employment within walking distance of my house. One of my classmates, Janet, worked at Fullmer’s grocery store and had mentioned that Mrs. Fullmer was looking for more part-time help. A week before the end of the school year, I stopped by the store on my way home. My plan: Get the job first. Convince Mom and Dad to let me work there second.

It wasn’t much of an interview. Mrs. Fullmer knew my family and since I knew Janet, she pretty much asked me when I could start, how many hours I could work and how I would get home after dark.

As it turned out, convincing Mom and Dad was much easier than I’d anticipated. They’d seemed pleased I wanted to work and that I’d taken the initiative to find employment at a location other than the public pool. They said they had a lot of respect for Mrs. Fullmer. Dad even offered to pick me up on those nights when I would have to close the store, eliminating any concern for my safety.

I know what you’re thinking. No way. Why would she do that? Why would she put herself in this situation knowing what she knows?

Two answers: 1. There were no other jobs within walking distance of my house. 2. I was drawn there. You decide which one you like better.

My first day. I arrived at the store 15 minutes early as instructed and was greeted at the cash register by a bustling Mrs. Fullmer. “Good morning Tess, come on back here, I’ve got some paperwork for you to complete and a smock for you to try on.”

I followed Mrs. Fullmer to the back of the store where we entered a cramped closet she called her office. The space, just large enough for a desk and two chairs, was so cluttered that I didn’t immediately notice the framed picture of her son, Freddie, hanging above her desk. But when it did catch my eye, an involuntary gasp escaped me.

She noticed of course. “He was a handsome one, that boy of mine.” She said matter-of-fact. “Did you know my Freddie?” She asked.

“No.” I replied awkwardly. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Fullmer.”

“Rule #1 around here Tess: call me June. Everyone calls me June.” She instructed. “And, thank you. My Freddie was a good boy. He’s in a good place now.” Then, handing me a W-4 form, she was back in business mode, “You’ll have to fill this out and return it to me tomorrow.”

As I reached out for the form June noticed my trembling hands. “Oh my, honey, don’t be nervous. We have a lot of fun here. Janet’s coming in this morning and she’ll show you the ropes. You’re a smart girl, so I’m sure you’ll catch on quickly.” She said reassuring me – utterly unaware of the true cause of my jitters.

“Mrs. Fullmer – June, I – –“ I began, but was interrupted by the tinkling of bells. Janet had just come through the front door and was making her way back to June’s office. What was I going to say anyway, I wondered later.

 

 

Cause and Effect, A Fictional Short, Part 4

Chapter 4

August 12, 1978

The daily newspaper was already on the burn pile by the time I woke up and made my way downstairs for breakfast. Mother had decided at 15 I was old enough to make my own breakfast, particularly since I wasn’t out of bed until she had already begun thinking about lunch and dinner. I emptied a carton of 2% milk into my bowl of Cheerios and walked out to the back porch tossing the cardboard container onto the burn stack. That’s when I saw the bold headline: One Year Later: Raymond Johnson Awaits Appeal. My stomach tightened as the haunting photograph of Raymond Johnson jumped off the page. Abruptly, I turned away and hurried back into the kitchen. I took one look at the milk-soaked Cheerios and nearly puked into the bowl. Leaving breakfast on the table, I darted through the living room and up the stairs into my bedroom. Closing the door with a bit too much momentum – damnit, Dad hates that sort of thing – I crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over my head and squeezed my eyes closed. But his face, that ugly, black, druggie, pitiful, innocent face remained on the inside of my eyelids.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen his picture. Despite my parents’ efforts to shield me from this sort of news, they weren’t by my side 24/7. I’d managed to catch a glimpse of him when a commercial for the evening news interrupted “The Love Boat”.  During the past year, I’d easily pieced together the story since everybody in town was talking about it.

The story: On August 12, 1977 at approximately 12:05 a.m. 24 year old Raymond Johnson, a known drug dealer and overall drain on society, stabbed and killed James Martin and Fred Fullmer. Martin 27, an African American allegedly owed Johnson money and Johnson got tired of waiting for repayment. As the prosecution presented it, the two men got into a ruckus in the parking lot at the corner grocery store where Johnson repeatedly stabbed Martin. Returning from his girlfriend’s house, 19 year old Fullmer, pulled his car into the parking lot, encountering the two men fighting. He and his mother lived above the store. Fullmer, an all-state football player, home for the summer from college, exited his vehicle and apparently attempted to run into his house to call the police when Johnson ran up behind him and inflicted multiple fatal stab wounds into his back. Both Martin and Fullmer were pronounced dead at the scene. Police quickly found Johnson hidden behind a dumpster in the rear of the parking lot, covered in blood and partially incoherent. Investigators found the murder weapon in the dumpster with Johnson’s prints on the handle.

This was a slam dunk case for the prosecution. The community was calling for justice. Few people seemed worried about the death of Martin, but Fred Fullmer was the town hero. The son of a single, hardworking mother, Fullmer was both an outstanding student and athlete. He and his mother, the minorities in that area of town, were constantly working to clean up the neighborhood and lend a hand to anyone who needed it.

If my sister Frances had been alive, she and Fred would have been classmates and I’m sure they would have been friends – maybe even boyfriend and girlfriend. He was very handsome and popular.

You get the picture. Raymond Johnson was going to pay for his ghastly crimes. Anything short of the death penalty just wouldn’t do.

The problem: Raymond Johnson was innocent. And I was the only one who seemed to know.

 

Cause and Effect, A Fictional Short, Part 3

Chapter 3

My parents were in the kitchen, Mom standing over the stove lifting the last batch of peaches from the canner and Dad sitting at the table reading aloud from the daily newspaper. It was Saturday morning, two days after my sleepover. Dad stopped reading mid-sentence when I walked in and sat down beside him. Placing the newspaper on the table, he glanced over at me, his face instantly registering the familiar look of disapproval. “What’s that junk on your fingernails?” He asked quietly. He never yelled. He didn’t have to.

I looked down at my freshly painted pink nails then curled my fingers underneath my palms saying nothing.

“Get it off before you go anywhere and don’t let me see it again.” Then turning toward Mother, he scowled silently blaming her for my impropriety.

I sat quietly eating the Cheerios Mom had poured for me trying to catch a glimpse of the front page. Dad caught on, picked up the newspaper and departed for his bedroom. It was just like them – fretting about all of the bad things that might happen to me, yet never letting me hear or read about the awful events actually happening right in our own town.

Later that morning while I was in the bathroom restoring my fingernails to their pure God-given status, I heard the faint sound of the ringing telephone.

“Tess, Cathy’s on the phone for you.” Mom called up the steps.

I walked into my parent’s bedroom. Dad had gone out to check on his garden by then, and I lifted the receiver. “I’ve got it Mom. Thanks.” I yelled down the stairs, not wanting Cathy to start talking until I heard the click of the other receiver. No click. “Mom, I’ve got it.” I said again.

Cathy waited understanding my cue.

Finally the phone clicked. At least I thought it did, but one cannot be too careful. “Hey Cathy, I’m in the middle of something can I call you back in five minutes?” I asked.

“Sure.”

My strategy: never talk on the telephone when a parent has the potential to quietly listen in.

I tinkered for a minute back in the bathroom, cleaning up the nail polish remover and cotton balls; then I proceeded down to the dining room and dialed Cathy’s number.

“Hello.” Cathy answered.

“It’s me.” I said.

“Did you hear?” She asked.

“No.” I knew what she was referring to. It was certainly all we both thought about for the past two days.

“It’s all over the local news.” Cathy whispered excitedly. “We missed a murder by about half an hour. Freaky, isn’t it?”

“What else do you know about it?” I asked, whispering as well.

“It was a double murder. Sickening actually.” She began recounting what she’d seen on the local television news. Obviously her parents didn’t censor. “This druggie killed two guys in the neighborhood. One of them was the son of that lady who owns the small grocery store where we saw the police cars.  You know that cute football player, Freddie Fullmer.” She paused catching her breath.

“When did they catch him?” I asked.

“Right away I guess. They found him crouched behind some garbage cans only a block away.”

Just then Mom walked into the room so I switched topics, “I don’t know if I can go to the pool today. Let me ask.” I said in a normal tone looking questioningly over toward my Mom, knowing she was eavesdropping. Mom nodded her permission.

“Yeah, I can go. I’ll see you at 1 o’clock. OK?”

Cause and Effect, A Fictional Short, Part 2

Chapter 2

1977

First, a quick summary of the domestic landscape. The brace of female ducklings, all grown, flew off to begin independent lives, leaving their youngest sibling (me) to deal with their overly protective parents. The tragic death of sister number five caused an unnatural gap between sisters one through four and sister number six. Thus, number six was now number five, growing up as both the ‘baby of the family’ and practically an only child.

So there I was, turning out not to be an ugly duckling, though it might have been better for Mom and Dad if I had. Their constant fretting that something bad would happen to me or that I would behave badly caused me to become a skilled liar. The less they knew the better. Most of the time, I wasn’t doing anything different than what my friends were doing with their parents’ approval. Some of the time, however, I was up to no good.

By 1977, I was fourteen. I’d already experienced my first cigarette – more than one. I’d already vomited from too much cherry vodka and I’d been to second base with one or two boys. Naturally, I liked boys a lot, as did most of my friends. And liking boys is really what caused this whole mess, so let me get on with it.

I remember the date well because it was in all of the newspapers: August 12, 1977. A few boys I knew decided to camp out in the woods and had invited the clique of popular girls to come hang out with them. As was often the case when other parents didn’t want to fulfill their parental responsibilities, the verdict was left to my parents. If Tess was allowed to go, the others could go too. Since my parents almost always said no, the other parents were off the hook. As a result, none of the girls were permitted to go that night.

Whispering on the telephone with my friend Cathy, we schemed and plotted. The plan: I would sleep over at her house and we would sneak out and walk to the party. My parents granted permission for the sleepover, not for a minute suspicious of our conniving. It never occurred to them we might walk six miles round trip just to see some boys and let them cop a feel for a few sips of beer, but that’s exactly what we had in mind.

Shortly after 11:00 p.m., Cathy’s parents passed out from one too many martinis. Wanting to ensure the backdoor would remain unlocked for our return, I placed a piece of masking tape over the door lock then we slipped out, setting our plan in motion. Dressed in jeans and hooded sweatshirts on a night that was too hot for both, we tiptoed across the pebbled driveway and entered the narrow berm along the river road. Infrequent street lamps lined the eerie highway causing occasional passing drivers to use their blinding high beams. The river on the other side, low from a dry summer, flowed at a lazy pace, in sharp contrast with our rapid gait.

About a mile into the journey, we approached the bowling alley, still buzzing with activity both inside and out in the parking lot. As we approached the well-lit intersection, a patrol car cruised by. The officer focused his attention on the folks leaving the bowling alley giving us a moment to duck behind an 18-wheeler cab parked across the street in the trucking company parking lot.

Crouched behind the truck, wondering if we’d been spotted, we considered abandoning our mission. We’d only been out of the house a little more than 15 minutes so Cathy’s parents were surely still asleep. We wouldn’t get caught if we’d just turn around now. Too bad we didn’t.

Peaking around the side of the truck we spied the taillights of the patrol car as it continued down the street. We’d gone undetected. With renewed bravado, we pressed on.

Finally off the river road, we zigzagged through dark alleys and poorly lit side streets making our way through town. We walked and we walked hardly saying a word to each other, both knowing what would happen if we got caught. Cathy would get a good talking to and I’d be grounded until I was 32.

We reached a section of town unfamiliar to both of us. If our town had a ghetto, this was it. The neighborhood whose streets were lined with rundown duplexes appeared to be sleeping, but just in case anyone was lurking in the shadows we pulled the hoods over our heads and walked arm in arm pretending to be a couple rather than two young vulnerable females. Sweat gathered under my armpits and my shoulder length hair stuck to the back of my neck. Halfway there, we were committed to the plan.

A direct route to the woods would include passing by my house, but I was certain if I came within a few blocks of the place, my parents would sense my presence, so I charted a course to circumvent the area. You might be wondering at this point why we chose to stay at Cathy’s house instead of my own, which was much closer to the party. This is because you don’t fully understand my parents.

The last quarter mile of the journey was the most physically challenging. The hill just before the woods felt like Kilimanjaro. My jeans rubbed at my skinny, damp inner thighs and my feet hurt. We panted as we reached the peak and started back downhill anticipating the merriment ahead.

Finally, we made it to the appointed spot – the street at the edge of the woods where the boys said they would be.

“Pssst Pssst. It’s us. Tess and Cathy.” I called out in a loud whisper.
One of the boys whose name I probably shouldn’t mention emerged from the woods. Surprised we’d actually followed through with the crazy plan, he led us back to their camp. Literally – and I’m not exaggerating about this – the minute we were at the camp greeting the other boys, police sirens began blaring in the distance.

We all froze. Cathy and I looked at each other, eyes bulging, hearts racing. We’d been caught. We knew it. Her parents must have awakened, discovered our empty beds and called my parents who called the police. We were dead meat. Shit! Shit! Shit! The boys were thinking the same thing. They wanted us gone just as much as we wanted to be gone.

We retraced our path exactly the way we had come. Up and down the hill. Even faster this time. Once again we circumvented my house, though tempted for a moment to sneak by to see if any lights were on. Then, we started through the ghetto. Almost running now. And that’s when it happened. That’s when we knew we hadn’t been caught.

The previously sleepy neighborhood was ablaze with flashing lights from four police cars converged in the parking lot of the small neighborhood grocery store. I halted abruptly, lifting my arm, blocking Cathy from advancing into the chaos. We looked at each other and I placed my finger over my lips, “Shhh.” Slowly and quietly, on tiptoes we backed up and turned around. Retracing our steps, we turned into an alley paralleling the commotion-filled area. To our right, the houses and trees were flickering silhouettes created by the unsynchronized cruiser lights two blocks over. Residents now awake, emerged onto their back porches, curious about the hubbub. Arm in arm once again, hoods back over our heads, we acted as though we too, were nosy onlookers. All the while making our way out of the ghetto.

We were breathing easier, first because we were sure the sirens were not for us and second because we’d skirted through the chaos without drawing attention to ourselves. We were close to home now with only about a mile to go.

The bowling alley was no longer a flurry of activity, having closed at midnight. Cutting through the empty parking lot, we crossed into the trucking company lot closing in on the same truck that had provided us cover earlier that night. As we approached the 18- wheeler cab, I heard a shuffling sound, stones on sneakers, coming from the other side of the truck. Again, I threw my arm in front of Cathy’s body stopping her from forward motion. We looked at each other, listening intently with knitted eyebrows and expanded chests, holding our breath. Slowly hunching over, I peered under the cab. The space between the tires was empty. Whoever was behind that truck, and I was positive someone was there, must have been crouched behind the tires. I straightened up and looked at Cathy, who appeared ready to vomit.

I had to think fast. It was a stand off. I knew that he knew we were on the other side. But he didn’t know that we were two young girls. And he wasn’t moving. Did he intend to jump us as we passed or was he actually trying to avoid us? I couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t seem to matter since we only had one option. I grabbed Cathy’s hand and raised my other hand into a fist. Slowly and deliberately I lifted one finger, than another. One. Two. On three we bolted past the truck and onto the river road.

Several yards beyond the truck, I couldn’t help myself. I turned to see if we were being pursued. That’s when I saw him clear as day. Standing in the place where I’d pictured him moments earlier. Leaning against the large cab tires, illuminated by the streetlight above, he looked relieved. That is, he looked relieved until our eyes locked. For a split second, a flash in time, a frozen moment, I saw him plain as day. And I saw something else too. His shirt was ripped and there were dark stains down the front. Abruptly, I skidded to a halt causing Cathy, who was still gripping my hand, to stumble. She quickly regained her balance, grabbed the corner of my sweatshirt and pulled me back into a sprint. The man didn’t move.

We made it back to Cathy’s driveway at record speed. At least it felt that way. The house remained completely dark. Avoiding the stones covering the driveway, we tiptoed through the grass, and up to the unlocked backdoor. A single floorboard creaked as we crept up the stairs to her bedroom.

Safely in her bed, stripped down to t-shirts, too wound up to sleep I asked, “Did you see him?”

“No.” She replied, “Did you?”

“No.” I lied.