Crush (32 page)

He loves me. I know he does. I used to go on and on how if he broke myheart I’d die. If he loses me like this, he won’t get over it. He won’t. It will kill him.

Lloyd’s here.
I’m sorry I never called you Dad, I tell him. I just never wanted to call you what I called that evil man who raped me. I never wanted to associate you with him…in any way.

He stands before me, the only anything I can see in this leafy darkness. He’s healthy again, olive-skinned, shaggy-haired, quietly handsome, the way I remember him best. I know, son.

I never kissed you…at least not that often…I just wasn’t like that, Lloyd…it isn’t because I didn’t love you.
I know, son, he says again, his face calm, peaceful, happy.
You knowI loved you
,
I say
.
I still love you.
I know. And you know, I still love you too. Bet you didn’t know that…When we die, our bodies stop, but we don’t. Our love lives

Tammy?
That boy loves you, Jamie, Lloyd says. I’d like you to stay
with me, of course I would. I miss you.
Oh, I miss you too, Lloyd. I feel like I took you for granted all
these years, and you died so suddenly. I begin to weep. I feel like I
never let you know how much I loved you. I never said it enough.
You saved my life, you gave me a new one…and I don’t know if I
ever said thank you…
You were my sunshine
,
Lloyd smiles. You said thank you by
getting better and becoming the most wonderful son I could ever
have wished for. I wasn’t even worried that you were going to be a
brat or a delinquent. You were my boy. I never thought about
having children, Jamie, but when you came into my life, you were
such a blessing to me…
I feel the same way about you…I should have said thank you
every single minute, I whisper. You were my guardian angel. And you were mine. You always took care of me after I got

^sick.
I didn’t do enough…I should have made you go to the hospital. I should have known that morning…you needed to go in right away.

Jamie, I was a grown man. I was responsible for my health. You couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. Remember?

“Hey! Hey! Sir? Can you hear me?” The voice reverberates in the distance. I can sense without seeing what the man is doing. I cannot feel his hand shaking myshoulder and jostling mypoor rebroken right arm. If I was there instead of up here, I would be squalling in pain. I watch from this height, as a troupe of farm laborers, having stumbled upon me while searching for frost damage, gathers around me, their hands over their mouths. One of them dials his cell phone. I can hear him weeping…

…
another stranger crying for me, Lloyd. What a world we live in, huh?
in, huh?
1-1... kids you grew up with bludgeoning you and leaving you for dead. Oh Jamie…when you get out of here, you do something with this too, just like you did when we got you out of that room they locked you in. Do something with this, son.
I will, I promise him.

“We found a body out here,” the laborer cries. “He’s dead… yeah…we’re in the orange grove off Delta Road…about three miles west of Winters…just off the highwaygoing into Vacaville…I don’t know…no the body is fresh…it hasn’t been long…maybe yesterday…yeah…fuck, it’s a mess…” he sniffles loudly. The other men are crying too.

I love you so much, Lloyd…I’m telling you that right now. Always knowI love you.
I do know, son. I do know. But I don’t want you to leave Tammy behind. I’m worried about him. He won’t stand it if you die.
I know.
Go on back to him, Jamie.

I’m watching, floating someplace above, as policemen in dark blue uniforms kneel and inspect me. I’m still leaning against the orange tree where Rayand the others dumped me. Under the shredded black trash bag Ray half-covered me with, I’m wearing my dark teal scrub top over my white pullover turtleneck, stained dark red. My left arm is folded against my chest. My broken right lays limp, flush, against my thigh. I’m still in a wacky sitting/kneeling position. My legs are twisted beneath me where I tried to stand and fell back. My shoulders are slack, my head slumps forward, myreddened, sticky, spikyhair in myeyes. One of the cops gentlylifts myhead up. “Shit,” he swears into his walkietalkie. “I think it’s the guy from Sommerville alright. He’s dressed like a nurse.”

“I’m prettysure…” He pushes the fabric aside and feels for a pulse in myneck.
He stops cold, his fingers swiping up and down my skin. “Sweating! I’ve got a weak pulse too! Let’s move!”
Two other policemen are talking, indicating the bloody, misshapen towel rod that Ray used to beat me with. Another officer points at the rag theycrammed down mymouth.

I’m with Lloyd again. Howdo I get out of here?! I ask him in a bursting of panic. It’s so dark! I can’t see!
Feel your way, Jamie, he says. Feel your way out. God’ll show you. He’ll get you back home.
Lloyd…I don’t know…I’ve been fighting so long…I’m so cold…I don’t knowif I can keep holding on like this.
You’ve got to hold on, Jamie. You’ve got to…just a little longer…just hold on…
I’m so weak, Lloyd.
I know…but this isn’t your time. Not now. You stay with them. I’m going now.
Don’t go, Lloyd! Don’t leave me!
They’re here now, son. They’re going to get you through this. Just hang on.
I love you. You were my Dad. You were always my Dad. You’re my family. You’re my friend. You’re very important to me, Lloyd. Always knowthat.
Hold on, son. Just hold on.

I’m lingering here, still watching, as they gently position my neck into a brace. They place me on a gurney, load me into the ambulance. I hover above them, watching as theypierce myarms and the fluids begin to dribble into myshriveled veins. Theyshout at me, shake me as gently as they can in their urgency. My left hand falls open a little, and I see myangel keychain, sticking to the center of my palm, glued with my blood.
Oh, shit, it’s gonna fall onto the floor of the ambulance and get kicked around and lost forever. Please, oh, God, please don’t let them lose my angel!

One of the paramedics then takes it from my hand and carefullyslips it into a ziplock baggie.
Please, don’t lose it, please…
Myears begin to ring again…I can’t hear…
“He’s crashing!”
They get the paddles lubed and ready. I recognize that chaotic green electronic zigzag as v-fib. Theyshock me. Zap! I feel it, even up here…painful…my heart lurches…sputters…dies again. Zap! Now I’m in v-tach. Zap! I’m in sinus rhythm, but it’s very tachy, about 170.
I’m back, and I’m displeased. Not onlyam I in the worst pain of my life, but I’m not floating up above myself. I’m no longer free and weightless…I’m strapped to this damn gurney.
I’m enraged.
I’m tied to a bed again.
Lloyd, I think I’d rather have stayed with you…
Then I remember.
Tammy’s waiting.
I have to do this.
It hurts like hell…but I have to...
I have to...

I’m slowly taken apart, dissected, deconstructed, examined, studied, like a frog in biology class is scrutinized by a sadistic teacher and his little pupils.

It was about ten AM when Jamie was found by a bunch of farm workers in an orange grove near Winters, which is about fifteen miles west of Sommerville. At first, he was taken to the hospital in Woodland, but when they deduced that he needed more care than they were equipped to give him, he was hastily flown to U.C. Davis.

It is now about two PM. I’ve been held as a suspect and questioned now for only a little over an hour, but my ordeal has been going on since five-thirty this morning. Nobody will tell me anything, whether he’s alive, dead, or hacked to pieces in the black garbage bag I keep hearing about.

Stacy refuses to leave the station, determined to find out the truth. She also refuses to speak to me, until I ask where Jamie is, then she shrieks at me from her side of the tinted glass, “You’re not going anywhere
near
him, you bastard!”

The cops leave me alone again. They’re gone for almost another hour, and when they return, they regard me with burning hatred. Officer Lord shakes his head at me. “Why would you do that to him? You’re twice as big as he is! If I could
just
get you alone, you piece of shit! You rotten fucking coward!”

“No! I didn’t!” I sob as I pace the interrogation room, wringing my hands, crying, crazy and exhausted, long past the point of a psychotic break. “Please, is he alive? Is he dead? Is he injured? What’s happened?!”

“Whydon’t you tell
us
what happened?” Officer Howard asks icily. “The sooner you fess up, the sooner we’ll be done. I’ll bet you could use some sleep. Let me guess…he got too needy for you? I’ve heard tell you don’t like long term engagements.”

“No…it was nothing like that. I love him.”
“I have a scenario…and I want you to tell me if I’m close,” Howard says. “You got sick of him being clingy and jealous and needy, so you told him you needed to talk to him alone, somewhere private…”
“We talked at his house,” I say, and Howard shushes me, “Whoa…whoa, wait, let me just finish this first. And you had him follow you out to Winters, to a nice, quiet, private road where nobodywould bother you. Maybe you two talked, maybe you didn’t, but I think you sucker-punched him and knocked him into the backseat of his car. His nose bled, and he cried and asked you to stop. You really gave him a good one too, I must say.” Howard scowls at me. “His lip was split…probably why we found drool all over the seat.”
“You’re wrong!” I sob, spraying tears and spittle all over myself and them.
“Then you grabbed him and dragged him into the orchard… and you beat him with that towel bar!”
“The towel bar?!” I shriek.
“We found it when we found him. I’m surprised you didn’t stab him with the sharp end!” snarls Howard. “Oh well, I suppose you did plentyof damage. I’ve never seen a more brutal beating in mylife!”
I lunge, at nothing, set free my anguished screams. “Jamie! Jamie! Jamie! JAMIE!”
Howard and Lord stare at each other as I sink to my knees and dryheave. “Is he dead?!” I beg between retches. “Please, just tell me! I can’t take anymore! Please tell me if he’s dead!”
Officer Lord puts his hands on his hips. “He’s alive, Mr. Mattheis…They had him out at County in Woodland, but they had to fly him to Davis…He was a John Doe…nobody knew who he was, till we got there…he’s in surgery. They’re not sure he’s going to pull through.And I’ll tell you this, myfriend,” he adds, “if he dies within a year of this beating, you’ll be charged with murder.”
I begin to hyperventilate. “G-G-G-G-God help-p-p-p m-m-mm-me! P-p-pl-pl-please! Pl-pl-pl-please, G-G-G-God!” I weakly beat myfists onto the dirtyfloor. “Did-did-did theyr-r-r-r-rape him?”
Theystare at me with something funnyin their eyes, like they never expected me to behave like this. “No, Mr. Mattheis,” sighs Howard. “He was not sexuallyassaulted.”
Relief avalanches onto me, the one relief I can glean from this madness.
They beat him, almost to death, but thank God, they didn’t rape him…
And no, it’s not the kind of sickening, possessive crap you hear about with boyfriends, husbands. That
someone else inside my wife
shit. I’m thinking about Jamie, how atrocious it would be for him to relive being raped
and
beaten. It was awful enough they beat him. Theydidn’t rape him…theyspared him that...
“Come on, sit down,” Lord says calmly. “Tell us about the towel bar.” He offers me a paper bag to put over myface.
It takes a few minutes for my breathing to normalize. “Jamie pulled it off the wall,” I tell them. “He was upset…angry…and he ripped it off the wall.”
“Did he threaten you with it?”
“No!” I bluster incredulously.
“Then…why…”
“He just tore it off…he wasn’t really thinking about it, he was talking to me while he was doing it. He was upset, like I said.”
“How about that mark on your face?”
My hand flies to cover the small red bruise on my left cheek. “Jamie slapped me.”
“So you
were
fighting.”
“No…I didn’t hit him back. He was upset…like I said.”
“Yes, you told us…hitting you…that’s…uh…that’s pretty serious.”
Last night was probably the only time I’ll ever see Jamie possess enough physical strength, to prya towel rack from a wall, to hit me hard enough to leave a bruise. He’s not a violent person. It was the insanity of having to relive his childhood, of having to deal with the fact that I had just watched his parents raping and abusing him.
“What exactly were you two talking, fighting, discussing, whatever-ing about?”
Now comes the hard part. I sigh, “Okay…it’s a very long, complicated story.”
“And we need to hear it,” Howard nods at me.
“We were at The End. Jamie sings karaoke there with Stacy.”
“Miss Pendleton tells us that Jamie was angry at you…you hadn’t called him all dayyesterday, she says. He thought you were planning to break up with him. Do you see where we’re coming from, Mr. Mattheis? About him being needy?”
“He’s not needy, and I wasn’t going to break up with him! It was nothing like that! Something…happened…I was upset yesterday…not at Jamie…but…”
“But what?” prompts Lord.
“This…this is so hard…” I see Jamie in the video. I can’t believe I watched that thing. I didn’t
need
to know how it ended! What, did I think maybe they’d all smile and have a group hug and say, “Just kidding?”
Did I think Jamie would live happilyever after?!
“We’re waiting.” Lord is doing a poor job masking his impatience.
“Somebody sent me a video,” I say hoarsely, still holding down my nausea. “It was a video of Jamie. He was very young… about seven or eight…and he was being sexuallyabused.”
The room becomes deathly silent, then Lord clears his throat. “Continue…”
“His parents…his own parents,” I say wretchedly. “They forced him to make pornographic videos with them. They made him perform oral sex. They raped him, they also used foreign objects. His mother beat him, and burned him with cigarettes. They did it for years and years. And not only that, they starved him and kept him chained in his room…Don’t you remember? Officer Tafford and Officer Bloom found him in his room. His parents were dead…murder/suicide. He was nothing but a skeleton. He almost died!”
“Yes, I remember that,” Howard says thoughtfully. “Now, how