Jayden's Revenge: The Tale of an American Family (4 page)

Derrick
is
beginning to feel a pretty good buzz from the pills. The booze he
has
grown quite to
lerant of,
but
he rarely dabbles
with pill
s;
that was Brenda’s deal. He
doesn’t often reminisce
a
bout the Blow and the Crank and
has
stayed pretty well clean since the kids came into the picture
. He chose
to
drink instead,
so
drink he does
.
Having made a choice
to go
into insurance sales when the boy was three and Bren was pregnant with
Jayden
–
h
e
couldn’t afford the kids he had on the wages of a
telemarketer
—he was forced to work with h
is dad
, who
had done insurance
sales Derrick
’
s whole life
, and
had a spot for him on the floor
. T
he appeal was that Derrick could continue to do most of his work over the phone.
Two things you need to know about insurance sales: the job is lucrative, and it will drive you to drink.

The
n
ews announced something to stay tuned for after the break
. H
e
has
completely
lost interest
by the time the Mexican anchor
woman all but shouted that there
was a live report
.

“We have breaking news from Hamilton County tonight
!
H
ere with the update
:
Randal Jackson
.
”

“Thanks
,
Susan, I’m here outsid
e of the Miller Jones Women’s C
orrectional Facility, and as you may be able to tell from the buzz around me
,
they are on high alert. Earlier
today,
three dangerous inmates escaped from custody and fled the grounds. Now
,
they are not releasing names at this time, but a D
epartment of
C
orrections
spokesperson has asked
that we warn citizens that the escaped women
are considered armed and extremely dangerous.
–
”

Derrick
is
in shock from the moment the camera show
s
spotlights racing around the yard and he recognize
s
his wife’s new home on the 6:00 news. A hot coal
strikes
his stomach
somewhere near
the bottom as he remembers
his uneasiness
when entering
the
house this afternoon. He looks
back to the door and there it
is
, bigger than
ever
–
how
the
hell
did I miss that?
–little orange slippers perfectly stacked at the entryway, just to the right of his; just to the right of the shoes he was wearing when he got home. He had stared right at those little orange warning lights and went right on through the intersection.

He leans
forward to position his body weight over his wobbly legs and
begins
to force his
substantial
mas
s from the couch. Just as he does so he sees
a
reflection above
the label of his bottle of Tennessee
sippin
’ whisky. He
starts
a sharp yelp that
is
cut off by the bat in his wife’s hands. The crunch of the hardened
m
aple splitting his scalp
is
deafening. He
sees
it just in time to tense, but
the damage
is
done.
Crashing
to the floor
,
his
hands sprawling for something, anything to catch his fall
,
h
e rises up from his knees and takes
a
clumsily
big
step forward, tripping over the glass table in the cent
er of the room. His body pitches forward.
Blood pours through the remaining hair of his balding head and into his eyes, blinding him
;
his head feels
as if were a yoga ball full of cement.

Another blow
glances off the edge of his crown and slides down the side of his face, nearly detaching his left ear, and
crashe
s
into his shoulde
r, breaking
his collarbone
with
an aud
ible snap
. T
his time he bellows
loud enough to rattle the windows as
he falls
.
The scream sounds distant, alien, as if somehow he is hearing the scream from a different night, a separate tragedy
.
H
e
turns
to face his attacker. He is
not surprised to see Brenda
standing
over him. She swings
once more, striking him squarely
in the back of the skull. He does
not stagger, he
does not buck; Derrick goes completely limp and falls
face forward onto the tile surrounding the fireplace.
Lights out.

Jayden’s heart
is
pounding
as she runs
towards the bushes separating the Bingham’s property
from
thei
r neighbors; adrenaline courses
thr
ough her little body as she flees
the scene of her crime. The rapidity
with which
the fire took hold of the
home
has
taken her aback. It
is
n’t until she
reaches
the neighbor’s yard and
takes
cover to get
a second look that she realizes she has
nothing
but a pair of socks separating her from the cold, wet ground.
Her shoes are inside, where it’s nice and warm (although warm is about to go to
hot
really quickly).

—
I
t’s
a little too late to go back and
say
‘
don’t
mind me
,
just getting my shoes so I can run away from your combusting
home.
’

“This is going to suck,” s
he mumbles to herself
as she
takes to the street in an all
-
out
run to beat whatever crazy her mom is bringing to
dinner.
The Weller
house is
not terribly far away, no big deal on a bike, but bar
efoot on a rainy winter
’
s day is
going to be a little more trying.
I really didn’t think this through
–
,
she
thinks as the balls of her feet
begin
to get sore. Jayden block
s
it all out and
continues to
move forward. Dad
has
always prepared her for the inevitability of pain and struggle. He
is
a pragmatist.

She remembers when she sprained her ankle in school PE class and the coach had wrapped a Ziploc full of ice to her ankle in an
ACE
bandage. The ice hurt so much more than the sprain itself had. She had
Phys
-
Ed as seventh period, strategically
at the end of
the day
in order to prevent having to shower with other girls; she told
C
oach that she
has
yard work after school anyway and that she would be fine to shower after
.
P
ragmatism.
On
that
day,
she couldn’t even make it
to the bus before
the ice was so excruciating that she had stopped near the curb and torn the icepack free from
the wrapping and continue
d
home without it.
Now,
as her feet were beaten into the cement like blocks of hamburger on a hockey rink
she only wishes she had a sprained ankle and an overstuffed icepack.

The small bones of her feet
are
throbbing with every step. E
ach wet slap on the blacktop dri
ve
s
a spike through her shins. She realizes that she is holding her breath and biting her lips so hard that she begins to taste that copper
fl
avor
of blood.
Just think about the fireplace and marshmallows
,
she tells herself
,
trying to conjure up any thought that will keep her focus away from her surely ruined toes. They are completely numb and lifeless
.

The road back to her home is mostly two
-
lane blacktop, with very few houses along the way. There is a low shoulder and a ditch
filled with rocks and discarded, broken beer bottles and a stream of near
-
freezing runoff
. She
prays to see
Potter’s
F
ield.
Shouldn’t it be close? Where is the
damned
field?
She and Sam
,
in Jayden’s more innocent days
,
would race to this field when they were younger.
Potter’s, they determined, was
the midway point between their houses, so they would hang up the phone with one another
and
hurriedly make their way to the field.
A
s many times as she had raced to this location, this
is
the only
time the
race
has
held consequence
s
for her
and forced her to dig deep
.
S
he
is praying for
softer ground
,
and Potter
’
s F
ield
is
her only hope
.

Derrick was sloshed drunk when he came home the night of his son’s death. He had left work early to celebrate bringing on
a new client. He could have go
n
e
straight to the house, picked up a movie and some
pizza;
he could have prevented his son’s murder.

Brenda had sent him a text that the kids were booted from school that day.
That’s
what it took to finally get him off the barstool. Jayden and Philip were going th
r
ough some rebellious phase and he
was
at his wits
’
end with the both of them.

As he was getting out of his car and walking to the trunk to get his computer bag, which held his laptop and some quotes he was working on, a scream pierced through the summer rain
, echoing
like a grenade in a library
. He turned and ran up the three steps to the front door
as
the screaming continued, grew louder, and suddenly stopped. Fumbling for the key
,
he yell
ed
to Brenda,
“Bren’
! What’s going on?”

Nothing.

It
felt
like an eternity before the key
was
secured between his meaty thumb and forefinger, and slid home into the deadbolt. He
swung
the door wide and cross
ed
into the den
–
,
not
bothering to remove his muddy shoes
. There
was
a socked foot hanging into the hallway from
the first door on the left
:
Philips
room. There
was
blood on the sock. His heart
drop
ped
,
and
he
took
long strides toward the sock. It belong
ed
to his son.

The hardwood floors
were
pooled with blood. There
were
smears on the
d
oorjamb and the sheets of the bed. Philip
was
face down in a puddle of blood
,
lifeless. Derrick
knelt
down and reache
d
for his son, turn
ing
the boy onto his back. There
was
a jagged gash across his throat,
and
Derrick jump
ed
back in terror
, only then seeing
Brenda slumped over the foot of the bed. One of his fishing knives
was
in her grip.

He suddenly realize
d
that he ha
d
been shouting “NO!
—NO!—NO!
” over and over since he
first
saw the sock. He now scream
ed
to Brenda, “What did you do? You psycho
,
what did you do now
!
?
!
”

Hot tears
were
burning down his face as he rushe
d
over and grab
bed
her by the throat. She
was
limp in his fists. There
was
a large cut above her left eye and a lump growing under the skin.

What the hell is going on here?

“Jayden?”
He
could
barely get the words from his mouth. His throat is hoarse from yelling.

NO!—NO!—NO!

Is his whole family dead? What happened here tonight?

“JAAAYDENN!?” he manage
d
a much louder shout in spite of his weakened voice.

He
hears a whimper
ing
“
D
ad” emerge
from under the boxed springs.

She
was
clutching the poker from the fireplace. Derrick
reache
d
under the bed and slid his daughter free, pick
ed
her up into his arms and
covered
her eyes
by burying her face into the crook of his neck
.
He
was
careful not to step on his son’s body as he walk
ed
into the kitchen to dial 911
.

The fire trucks arrived first. The police took a statement
,
and then
t
he coroner took his son
away in the back of a van
. The ambulance
that held his
comatose wife
pulled away from the curb next, heading to the same hospital
. He
and Jayden spent the next week at
the Radisson
.

Brenda claimed she was innocent
, c
laimed that she had been arguing with her son and sent him to his room for punishment. She then stated that she went to her medicine cabinet to fetch a Xanax. She testified that when
she returned to the bedroom her son
and daughter attacked her and she was knocked unconscious.

Jayden testified that her mother
ha
d
killed
Philip
and that she had struck her mother in the head with the fireplace poker. The blood on Jayden’s clothing had come from the carpet when she had clambered under the bed.

There were scratches on Philips face and the skin was under Brenda’s fingernails. There was some of his hair in between the fingers of her opposite hand.
Given Brenda’s history and mental state
,
coupled with the DNA evidence,
police
supported Jayden’s account and her mother
was
sentenced to
Miller Jones’ Women’s Facility
,
where she remained
…
until tonight.