RIGHTS AVAILABLE.
Agent: Rachel Dowen
rdowen@talcottnotch.net
Fourteen-year-old Ashley Asher has little more than hope. Hope that her mother will finally do the right thing and leave Charlie. Hope that her abusive step-father will never be able to lay his hands on her again. Hope for a normal life. In one last desperate attempt to escape, Ashley confronts her mother with the painful details of six years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, fully expecting her mother to pack their things and leave Charlie for good. But her mother has other plans. "We're just going to move on now," Cheryl tells Ashley. "Go to your room." But Ashley has decided to help herself if no one else is going to. She confides in her teacher, the only adult she can trust, who convinces Ashley to report the abuse to the police. Within hours, Ashley is on her way to the small town of Patience to live with David, the father who'd left her as an infant, by all accounts a stranger. The only thing Ashley knows about David is that he had an awful temper and liked to break things when he was angry. With nothing but the clothes on her back, Ashley leaves her old life behind in search of a something she vaguely remembers from her early years - happiness. Life with David, his wife Beverly and Bev's son Ben isn't perfect, but to Ashley it feels like home. She slowly learns to trust people and begins to explore the damage that years of abuse have done. She realizes that she can no longer live in fear, as a victim. With the help of the adults who love her, a class full of other troubled teens, and the inspiration found in Chris Crutcher's novel IRONMAN, Ashley Asher finds the courage to love, live, and finally be free to begin the long journey of healing. This touching and inspiring story was written with teens in mind, but it is much more than a YA novel. The emotions and lessons will resonate with adults as well, and the manner in which the subject matter of sexual abuse is dealt with is equally appropriate for both a teen and an adult audience. The content is never graphic or disturbing, showing the emotional devastation caused by such abuse without going into great detail about the physical aspects of the sexual attacks. The themes of abuse, social injustice, racism, peer pressure, bullying, parental responsibility, fear, forgiveness, love, acceptance, and hope will strike a chord in the hearts of readers young and old alike. The author draws on her own experiences as a high school teacher in developing the lesson plan used by the character Beverly to teach her summer English class, one of the students being her own step-daughter Ashley. With encouragement from author Chris Crutcher, Beth Fehlbaum weaves the important messages found in IRONMAN into her own original story. As the students in Beverly's class discuss the characters and plot of IRONMAN, they draw parallels to their own lives, leading each student, Ashley included, down a path of self-discovery.
Accomplishments: M.Ed. in Reading; B.A. in English -emphasis Writing, minor in Secondary Education - emphasis Language Arts.
Who's Who Among American Teachers
Ashley Nicole Asher's life changes forever on the night her mother, Cheryl, meets Charlie Baker. Within a year of Cheryl's marriage to Charlie, typical eight-year-old Ashley's life becomes a nightmare of sexual abuse and emotional neglect.
Bundling her body in blankets and sleeping in her closet to try to avoid Charlie's nighttime assaults, she is driven by rage at age 14 to to tell her mother, in spite of the threats Charlie has used to keep Ashley silent. Believing that telling will make Charlie go away, instead it reveals to Ashley where she lies on her mother's list of priorities.
"We're just going to move on now," Cheryl tells Ashley. "Go to your room." Ashley's psyche splinters into shards of glass, and she desperately tries to figure a way out, while at the same time battling numbness and an inability to remember what happened when she blacked out after Charlie tackled her. She knew that when she awoke her clothes were disheveled and the lower-half of her body was covered in bright red blood-- but she has only a blank spot in the "video" of her memory.
When Ashley's friend, Lisa, sees a note from Cheryl telling Ashley that Charlie would never "do those things to her," and insisting that she apologize for accusing him of molesting her, Lisa forces dazed Ashley to make an outcry to her teacher, Mrs. Chapman.
By the end of the day, Ashley's father, David, who has not seen Ashley since she was three months old, is standing in the offices of Child and Family Services. He brings her home to the small East Texas town of Patience, where he lives with his wife, Beverly, their son, Ben, and works with his brother, Frank. Its neighboring town, Six Shooter City, is so quirky, it's practically on the cusp of an alternate universe; a trip to the Wal-Mart reveals to visitors that "there's either something in the water..or family trees around here don't fork."
Through the summer school English class/ Quest for Truth taught by Beverly, an "outside-the-box" high school English teacher whose passion for teaching comes second only to her insistence upon authenticity, Ashley comes to know Roxanne Blake, a girl scarred outwardly by a horrific auto crash and inwardly by the belief that she is "Dr. Frankenstein's little experiment";
Wilbur "Dub" White, a fast-talking smart mouth whose stepfather is a white supremacist who nearly kills a man while Dub watches from the shadows, forcing Dub to realize that he cannot live with the person that he is, any longer;
Zaquoiah "Z.Z." Freeman, one of the few African-Americans in Patience, whose targeted-for-extinction family inherited the estate of one of Patience's founding families and has been given the charge to "turn this godforsaken town on its head";
Hector "Junior" Alvarez, a father at sixteen whose own father was killed in prison, who works two jobs and is fueled by the determination to "do it right" for his son, "3", and his girlfriend, Moreyma;
T.W. Griffin, whose football-coach father expects him to be Number One at everything, and whose mother naively believes that he is too young to think about sex; and
Kevin Cooper, a not-so-bright football player with a heart of gold, whose mother, Trini, a reporter for the local paper, is instrumental in exposing the ugliness that is censorship.
Every person in the class is confronted with a challenge that they must face head-on. The choices they make will not be easy—but they will be life-altering. With the exception of her mother and step-father, Ashley is surrounded by people who overcome their fear to embrace authenticity and truth-- the only way to freedom. But will Ashley have the inner-fortitude to survive the journey to recovery and the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Will Ashley find her voice, speak up for herself, and break the bondage of her abusive past?
Realizing "she's gonna need a lot more than we have," David and Bev enlist the help of Scott "Dr. Matt" Matthews, an experienced, slightly unconventional therapist who insists that Ashley can and must come out of hiding in the closet in her mind.
The Chris Crutcher novel, Ironman, is taught by Beverly Asher in the summer school class. When T.W.'s overbearing parents read the book, they decide that the book should be censored, and they involve the pastor of Patience's largest, most conservative church to lead the fight through the Purify Patience organization. Its mission is to cleanse Patience of Profanity, Promiscuity, and Parent-Bashing Pedagogy—all complaints the group has about the novel, Ironman. Its hidden agenda, however, is to return Patience to a time when "Patience was 100% white", "women knew their place","everyone had plenty of money", and "Christian values were taught in school."
The censoring, pseudo-Christian, white-supremacist, misogynist organization is exposed for what it is in a courageous move by one of its own (well..his mother threatens to twist his ear off if he doesn't speak up), isolating the pastor and causing most of his "flock" to deny they ever knew him. National and world press attention shine speculation on the dirty little secrets hidden in Patience, and its inhabitants are forced to examine their own values and beliefs.
Alone in the dark, Ashley must face her worst fears in a pivotal scene between her, Charlie, and her mother. Will she finds the strength to advocate for her own right to exist in a world that is free of abuse? Can she, like her friends, find Courage in Patience?
Excerpt
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things matter.”
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
I found out two things from my impromptu run that awful Saturday morning. For one thing, running barefoot on a sizzling asphalt road in the middle of a summer day is a really stupid thing to do. And, as shocking as it is to me on a daily basis, the people I live with now really do care about me, and taking off like that on them was a shitty thing to do.
I lay down on my bed for a nap after all of us had lunch. My feet throbbed from what felt like walking on hot coals, and my heart limped in my chest from being broken again. I had survived my first “talking to” from David, and, unlike Charlie’s marathon “You are a worthless piece of shit” speeches directed at the approximation of a human being –me—on the sticky leather seat of doom, I didn’t feel rotten from it. Not because of anything David said, anyway. No, the crappy feeling was all me, not him. I was really mean to Bev.
Even when David found me, he wasn’t angry with me. I was sitting on an old metal kitchen chair I found on the side of the road, balancing on its three good legs and one bent one, looking at the blisters on the bottoms of my feet. I peeled back the skin on one, examining the raw skin beneath, when I heard the sound of a truck and looked up to see his old Ford heading my way. The ladybugs on my toes were too tired to carry me another step; I was so thirsty I had contemplated drinking out of the creek; and I had gotten myself lost but good. When you have no sense of direction, you try to use landmarks. Doesn't help much when a tree is a tree is a tree, and every road you cross has no street sign.
He pulled up beside me, rolled the window down, and said, “Mmm, boy, does the air conditionin’ in this truck feel GOOD. You goin’ my way, by chance?”
I nodded gratefully and hobbled over to the passenger side, where he had already popped the door open for me. “Thanks.”
“Don’tcha want your chair?” he asked me, winking.
“Nah, I think I’ll leave it there for the next lost person,” I sighed.
"So you were lost, not just resting? Really? You got lost?"
I cringed inwardly. My lack of an inner compass was one of Charlie's favorite things to ridicule me about. "Well..I WAS resting, too, but..yeah, I had no idea where I was."
"That's an easy problem to solve," David said, and pulled a piece of paper and pen out of his glove box. He drew me a map right then and there so I could see where I had ended up, in relation to where the house is. Then he drove me home, which was less than a mile away, turns out. I got a huge drink of water and a long cold shower. I was getting dressed when there was a knock on my door, and David told me we were all going to eat lunch together, and he wanted to talk to me about what happened. I felt punched in the gut as memories of sitting on the sticky leather seat of doom came flooding back.
We all sat at the kitchen table and ate lunch. Stephen and Ben begged Bev to let them light up the Black Cats and blow up a few things. “After all,” Stephen said, “The Fourth of July is next week. The fireworks stands are open, Aunt Bev. It’s not like everybody else isn’t blowin’ up stuff with Black Cats right now.”
“NO. You boys pull those firecrackers out of wherever you stashed them, and you can forget about having any fireworks next week. I mean it!” The boys had been nagging Bev about the Black Cats since they heard the unmistakable pop-pop-pop-pop! of them from a neighbor's house, the day before. To say she was beat down with it was an understatement.
“Aw, why not? We’re old enough to know what to do with them,” Ben said, biting into a hot dog.
Exasperated, she said, “I know; that's what scares me. That’s why I want you to have adult supervision when you do light ‘em up. You guys are way too creative thinkers when it comes to making things like mailboxes and wasp nests go BOOM.”
His mouth full of food, Ben said, “Wasp nests! Hey, we hadn’t thought of that , Stephen!” His eyes were glowing, and he watched for his mother’s reaction.
“David! Talk to your son,” Bev said, sighing as she poured herself a glass of cherry Kool-Aid.
David paused, hot dog half-way to his mouth. His face and voice were absolutely solemn as he set the hot dog back down on his plate, cleared his throat, and took a deep breath in, then blew it out. I had learned to read that breathing thing as meaning, David's Trying Not to Lose His Temper. As if I wasn't already nervous enough about David telling me that he wanted to "talk to me about what happened," Ben had to go and get him really pissed off. Thanks a lot, Ben.
“Look, son, there will be no blowing up of wasp nests…they’re not substantial enough to make a big ‘splat’ anyway. Now, your Uncle Frank has an old toilet out behind the shop, and I’m thinkin’…” he explained a detailed plan for sending the toilet skyward.
Bev groaned in exasperation, although she was smiling at the same time. “I’m surrounded by little boys! Ash, I guess you and I will have to be the sensible ones in this house. We women must stick together.”
“I don’t know, Bev; I didn’t use my head too well when I took myself on a road trip,” I said, grimacing as I hobbled to the sink with my plate. I hadn't been able to eat much; there was no room for food, with all the butterflies in my stomach.
“Speakin’ of ,” said David.
Frank took the cue. "Come on, guys. Bev's right, you know-- you shouldn't set those Black Cats off without David or me there.; I mean, come on, don't you think we want to see the show, too? I guarantee you it'll be worth the wait when you see that toilet shoot straight up…but maybe we can practice on some smaller things right now.."
“Hang on, Uncle Frank!” Ben said, and ran to the china cabinet, where he retrieved a raggedy paper sack from the bottom drawer. “Got ‘em!”
“You got matches?” Stephen asked his dad.
“Hell, we don’t need matches, son. I got a blow torch’ll work just fine.”
“You’re kidding, right, Frank? Frank? You’re kidding, right?” Bev asked.
Frank smiled at her and closed the door behind them.
I sighed heavily, trying to stay calm. I hate not knowing what to expect.
“What’s wrong?” David asked, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his long legs before him.
“I—I guess I’m nervous. I've heard you yell at my mom but not at me, and..I wonder if you're going to.. cuss at me as much as you do at her,” I said in a thick voice as I took my seat across the table and caddy-corner from him.
David looked embarrassed. “Well, actually, I’m not a monster... ’cept when it comes to your mother, apparently, but I’m workin’ on gettin' that under control.”
“She makes me feel like screaming, too, if it makes you feel any better." I moved some crumbs around my placemat with my finger and wrote the word "NO" with my finger, again and again.
“Well, let’s just stick to what I need to tell ya. I understand that your feelings are all mixed up as far as your mom goes, Ash, and I don’t blame you for being angry at her. But you punished us- me, Bev, Ben, Frank, and Stephen, by runnin’ off down the road and us havin’ no idea what you were thinkin’ about doin’. We were very worried about you… because you don’t seem to realize yet that.. you’re a person of value.”
I was shocked when he said that. How did he know that I hate myself ? He must have been reading my mind. What he said next convinced me he still was.
“It’s the way you carry yourself, Ashley. Like a whipped dog, afraid to make eye contact and certain that at any moment somebody's gonna take after you with a rolled up newspaper. It looks to me like you’re the only person in this house who does not love you.” Tears spilled down the sides of my nose, and he said, “Now, I’m not tryin’ to make you cry, Ashley; I just want you to know that I’ve been payin’ attention to you, and I was worried to death that you were gonna do somethin’ impulsive to yourself when you took off.
"I want you to promise me that you won't do anything stupid, Ashley-- like hurt yourself-- no matter how rough the road ahead of you is. Dr. Matthews told us it's not going to be easy, and it's going to take a long time. He also said that he has no doubt that you are tough enough to make it, because you are an unusually strong person. Promise me, Ashley," his eyes were full of tears and he looked like he might break down and sob like I already was.
Not at all sure I really meant it, I said, "I promise."
"One more thing," he said, handing me his napkin. I had already used mine and everybody else's left behind on the table, and yet the tears and snot would not stop flowing.
"If you ever feel like you want to take off like that again, please just tell one of us where you're going and when you plan to be back, so we don't worry about you quite as much as we did today. Okay?" Bev, who had been silently sitting in the rocking chair all this time, plopped a big box of tissues on the table, and David and I reached for them at the same time, then laughed at ourselves for doing that.
I never felt like he was yelling at me or that I was worthless. Instead, I felt cared about. I still couldn’t imagine how any of them could love me , not knowing me very well and not yet seeing what a loser I can be. Maybe I was testing them when I yelled at Bev.
Moving to sit across from David, next to me, she asked in a quiet voice, "Are you doing okay as far as things with your mom go? David and Frank told me about what happened this morning. I'm sorry I wasn't here to support you, Ashley. If I had known she was coming, I would have been."
I didn’t have an answer for her. I couldn’t even talk about it; it hurt so badly. I shook my head and stared at the crumbs on the placemat. Still-drying teardrop spots randomly surrounded them. I could have these thoughts: Why don’t I matter to my mother? Why doesn’t she even want to know what Charlie did to me? And how can she expect me to forget everything and move on when it hasn’t been dealt with? But I couldn’t put them into words.
“Maybe that’s something you need to talk to Dr. Matthews about, if you don’t want to talk to us about it,” David said with a sigh.
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about it,” I said, feeling a little cornered and like I might be disappointing David and Bev because I didn’t have words for the hurt. “It’s because.. it feels so big to me in my head, I don’t even know where to start. And it makes me feel like complete and utter shit about myself. So I guess I try not to think about it.”
“That’s the thing about pain, Ash. You can either feel it now or feel it later, but eventually it has to be felt,” Bev said, reaching for my hand.
I yanked my hand out of her reach, feeling a sudden flash of anger and not being sure why. “I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t want to be pressured to think about it, either! LEAVE ME ALONE ABOUT IT!”
She looked surprised, having never “met” this side of me before. The Bo Brewster side. What Bo calls “the monster inside.”
“Okay, it’s fine. No pressure. I’m sorry,” Bev said. I immediately started feeling guilty for snapping at her.
“No, I’m sorry. I am. I feel mixed up inside. And I really.. need to be alone now,” I said, and got up to go to my room.
I lay my head on my pillow, staring at the ceiling fan whirring and trying to make sense of my life. If I just came at it from the correct angle, maybe I would be able to figure out how I have ended up where I am now. The harder I thought, the more confused I became, and I could picture my mind as the ceiling fan. Spinning. I envisioned myself spinning off of my bed and far into outer space, where no one could touch me. Blackness. Cool, soft, blackness.
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"Guys, I told you on the first day of summer school, Chris Crutcher is an author who is unafraid to write the truth. Through our study of the novel, Ironman, we’re exploring the issues of honesty with oneself, anger, respect, fear, and responsibility. Right?” Bev sat on her desk, cross-legged.
The students in Bev’s English II class nodded, wondering what this was leading to.
“Over the past four weeks, you’ve written three essays. Now it’s time for the biggie: your last, most important essay. It will be worth fifty percent of your grade for this course. Any questions so far?”
Nobody raised their hand, and she continued.
“It’s time for you to show me that you have benefited from the numerous discussions we have had in class about the issues, and the way Mr. Crutcher explores them through characterization and plot development. You should be aware by now of what I expect in terms of the basic writing skills and the higher-level thinking I want to see in your work. I have emphasized the importance of being honest with yourself and owning what is true for you— like Bo Brewster learned to do in Ironman. Today I am giving you the essay topics to choose from for your last assignment.”
“’Bout time,” T.W. muttered.
“Ah, yes, T.W., I know you have been chomping at the bit to dazzle me with your brilliance. And here’s your chance!” Bev announced as if she was a game show host. She hopped off her desk, turned on the overhead to display a document, and passed out duplicates of it to us.
......
T.W. frowned at the topics. “Mrs. Asher, how will we know if we’re writing a passing paper?”
“What do you mean, T.W.?” Bev had become accustomed to T.W.'s obsession with grades, although she wished he could see the big picture-- that learning is about more than a subjective number or letter-grade.
“I made B’s on the other essays I turned in. You kept telling me not to worry about it, because I could still make an A in the class. So I haven’t told my dad about the other essays, even though, believe me, he’s been asking me every other day.”
Patiently, she replied, “Okay..T.W., as far as I can remember, B is a passing grade.”
“What do you mean, ‘Okay,’ Mrs. Asher? Don’t you get it? I’m not allowed to make B’s. I can’t make a B. B’s are unacceptable in my house. My dad will go nuts if I bring home anything less than an A. He’ll start telling me I’ll never amount to anything, and I can’t take it. I can’t!” T.W.’s eyes were filling with tears.
Bev pushed her rolling chair around from behind her desk, stopping it in front of T.W. She sat down, leaned forward, placed her palms on his desk, and speaking kindly, though firmly, to him, said, “T.W., the reason you made B’s on your other papers was that you kept telling me what you thought I wanted to hear, instead of what was true for you. Stop pandering to me and be your own person, for God’s sake. Tell me what YOU think, NOT what you think I want to read!”
“But how did you KNOW I wasn’t being myself?” he whispered, trying not to break down completely.
“We have been together in this classroom, four hours a day, four days a week, the past four weeks, T.W. I have listened to your opinions and refereed debates between you and your classmates. When I compare who you are when you think nobody’s watching to who you are when you are trying to suck up and get an ‘A’, it’s like night and day. Decide who you are, T.W., and be that person,” Bev concluded, standing and rolling her chair back behind her desk.
“Oh. And if I do , I’ll get an A?” T.W. : poster child for overachievers everywhere.
“Yesssssss," Bev sighed, falling into her chair and putting her head in her hands.
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The friendship between Dub White and Kevin “Huey” Cooper had not been the same since Kevin told his parents about the spray paint cans he found in the bed of his truck, the orange road paint on Dub’s shoes, and Z.Z.’s accusations about the racial slur painted on her door in orange road paint. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper called the police, and Dub was arrested for suspicion of a hate crime.
The police let him go, though, when his youth pastor confirmed his alibi that he was at a church lock-in on the night of the vandalism. At no time had he been missing.
The night of his arrest was one of the worst Dub had ever lived through. It was even worse than the night his father moved out, when, no matter what he did, he could not make his mother stop crying.
Hours passed slowly as Dub sat in the jail cell, wondering if Billy Ray was really going to let him take the rap for painting “Get Out Niggas” on the Freeman’s front door. It would be different if Billy Ray hadn’t told me he did it, laughing his ass off about it the entire time, he thought. The cops said that painting the door was a hate crime, and the federal government was even looking at getting involved. Dub was scared to death. He didn't know much about the law, but he had watched enough episodes of Law and Order to know that most people got to talk to a lawyer. He was just about to ask about that when the jailer unlocked his cell and told him to go home.
Thank God for Veronica Salazar. If he didn’t have it so bad for her, there was no way he ever would have attended that church lock-in. And it’s not like he had chances outside of the church youth group to see Veronica. Billy Ray hated anyone who wasn’t white—Hispanics included. When Dub thought about what Billy Ray would do if he knew Dub spent the whole night holding hands with a “beaner”—that’s what Billy Ray called Hispanics—well, the man would have a wall-eyed shit fit. But, boy, it had been worth it.
When he was with Veronica, he acted like less of a jerk, and he knew it. He didn’t feel the need to put other people down. Something about the way Veronica saw him made Dub feel so good about himself that there was no need to act like an asshole.
Now the case was in limbo. Not solved, but at least directed away from the Sublett home. Billy Ray had convincingly played the part of the hyper-concerned father who couldn’t possibly do enough to help the police investigate Dub’s connection to the words painted on the Freeman’s door.
He wasn't surprised when they showed up with a search warrant. When the police detective called about Dub's arrest, Billy Ray shot right out to the shed and started scouring it for paint cans. Anticipating their arrival with a search warrant before long, he even made sure to be fully dressed, instead of sitting around in his underwear until noon like he usually did. Wanted to be able to get the door quickly. Didn't want them to get suspicious.
“Now, I don’t think that our Wilbur would do such a thing to those fine people’s home, Officer, but then, you never do know with these young people today, do ya? They get all these wild ideas, watchin’ MTV and all. Would you fellas like a beer? I got long-necks iced down in the cooler on my racin' mower out there.”
"No, thank you, Mr. Sublett; we’ll just let you read over this search warrant while we get started. Mind directin' us to your shed?" The officer was all business. The Patience Police Department was aware that the F.B.I. was closely monitoring the investigation, and they didn't want to embarrass themselves by screwing it up.
Billy Ray did his best to hide his disappointment that the cops were not impressed by the reference to his racing lawnmower, and led them back down the steps and around to the back of the trailer. The police found him to be the very picture of cooperation. No family loyalty here; in fact, he seemed almost too willing to help them convict his step-son of the crime.
Just happened to have the keys to the shed right there in his pocket, in fact. Until they made him step outside the shed so they could conduct a proper search, Billy Ray was right there with them, picking up boxes and relocating piles of mower parts, all in an effort to help the police in their search for evidence.
They asked for Dub's shoes, but they were missing. Billy Ray wondered aloud if the boy had thrown them in the lake, knowing full well that they had burned away to nothing in the trash barrel. He may not have wanted Dub to throw them away when he first saw him tossing them like footballs into the barrel, but he was breathing a sigh of relief as the cops left dust clouds in their wake as they sped away from the old white trailer. His relief turned to fury when he saw that the cops’ burning out of his driveway had covered B.D. in a fine layer of sand. The race in Tyler coming up in two days, and now he had to wash and wax Bubba’s Dream, his ticket to Sponsorship Heaven, all over again. Damn.
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Z.Z., Aurelia, Mr. Walden, and Bev had a meeting about Z.Z. accusing Dub of vandalizing her home. Z.Z. agreed that until the police brought formal charges, she would refrain from accusing anyone of doing the deed.
Not content to leave it at that, Mr. Walden leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his chest. “Now, young lady,” he said, “You can’t just go around accusing innocent folks of paintin’ ugly things on your front door. You aren’t the judge, jury, and executioner, and if I hear tell of you goin’ after anybody else just ‘cause they have orange paint on their shoes, well, then we’re gonna have a problem. Maybe goin' off and bein' all noisy and radical about things is the way you people did it back in Nacogdoches, but it's not the way we do it here in Patience,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘you people’?” Z.Z. asked him, leaning forward in her chair and putting her elbows on his desk. “Do you mean black people, or all the peoples in the town what got ‘Get Out Niggas’ painted on their doors?”
“You.. know what I mean,” Mr. Walden said patronizingly, stroking the ridiculous little puff of beard on his chin. His brows were light brown, but he dyed the goatee jet black.
Z.Z.'s eyes pleading with her, Aurelia spoke up. “No, I’m not sure I do know what you mean, Mr. Walden. Why don’t you tell me what you mean by ‘you people’?” Mr. Walden squirmed, and his shiny head broke out in a sweat. “I simply meant.. people.. from Nacogdoches. Not.. you, er, YOU people, that is, um, your race.. in particular.”
Z.Z. sat back abruptly. “Oh. Hmph. Well, excuse me, then. I guess I’m just wonderin’ why Mr. Dub White isn’t in this meetin’ too, seein’ as how he called me a uppity nigger and all on the same day I said he painted my granny’s door.”
The color in Walden’s face faded slightly and he grasped for a response. “Well. Uh. I think we all know that. .. Dub didn’t mean anything by it . I..I can vouch for his family's excellent character, because I’ve known his parents for years. In fact, I went to school right here with his stepdaddy, Billy Ray Sublett. You can trust me when I tell you that Dub was talkin’ out of school. He’s good people.”
Bev, who symbolically lit a candle at the end of each school year and said a little prayer that Terry Walden would take his lofty aspirations to be a school superintendent right on down the road so that she would not have to put up with him another year, asked, “Are you telling me that as long as you went to high school with a member of the family, it’s acceptable for a student to label another student with a racial slur?” She silently congratulated herself for not grabbing his head and repeatedly slamming it down on his desk. But, oh, it was tempting.
Walden replied with a blank stare. A thought bubble over his head would have read, Oh, shit. I forgot she was in here.
“Because if that's your position as an administrator, Mr. Walden, I am going on record with you right now: I don’t care if Dub’s stepdaddy was one of the twelve apostles. Dub—no one—gets to talk like that to anyone in my classroom. Zaquoiah has as much right as all the other kids to feel safe at school, and it’s perfectly reasonable that she was upset by the things some ignorant rednecks have been doing for kicks. And Dub did have paint on his shoes that matched the paint on her door. He didn’t even try to explain it, he just let fly with the racial epithets.” Bev's heart was racing and she had worked up a sweat.
“This is a matter for the police to investigate, Mrs. Asher, and I don’t have any positions on anything, you know that , I mean, er..” he glanced at his watch and stood up. “I have an interview waiting to come in, and ..I want you all to leave. And..close my door on your way out,” he stammered.
Aurelia, Z.Z., and Bev left his office and walked out into the empty waiting area.
“I am so sorry my principal is such a..” Bev said, trying to think of a word that would fall under the realm of professionalism while still expressing her supreme distaste for what she called the Good Old Boy Network woven through the fabric of Patience. She couldn’t. So she just shrugged and shook her head, hoping that and the sick look on her face would convey what she really wanted to say. She held the front door open for Aurelia and Z.Z. to walk out. All three of them blinked in the sunshine.
Aurelia smiled ruefully, shaking her head. “I know, Ms. Asher. It’s nothing I haven’t lived with for the past 75 years, and I expect it’ll keep on a little longer even after I’m gone.”
“But, Granny, you said we could change things ‘round here with Ms. Mason’s money. You said she charged you with changin’ this place. You said we—our family—could be the ones to make it different for people comin’ after us.” Z.Z. was truly surprised.
“Yes, Sweetbaby, I did, but change takes time. Money helps, but change like Ms. Mason wants, it takes a long time," Aurelia told her, gently stroking the back of Z.Z.'s neck.
“You mean people gonna keep paintin’ ‘Get Out Niggas’ on our door, and tryin’ to kill Buddy, an’ makin’ it so’s Jasper can’t walk down the street no more without bein’ afraid?” Z.Z. was bordering on hysteria.
“They might.”
Z.Z.’s face crumpled and she squatted where she stood in the parking lot, hands over her face and sobbing. Bev knelt next to her and draped her arm over her shoulders.
“Z.Z., your granny’s right. That kind of stuff might continue, but you’ve got to remember that you’re not alone. There are plenty of us who care about you, who will stand up with you against the morons who do that kind of crap .”
“Zaquoiah Freeman, stand up.” Aurelia’s voice was firm and stronger sounding than Bev had ever heard. Z.Z. didn’t rise. “I said, ‘Stand up!’” Her tone alone yanked Z.Z.’s spine straight, brought her to her full height.
“Now look me in the eye, child,” Aurelia commanded.
Z.Z. obeyed.
“Don’t you never let me see you with your back bowed ‘cause of this kind of foolishness, ever again. Hear?” Aurelia looked truly angry. Even outraged.
“Mm-hmm.” Z.Z.'s shoulders temporarily slumped.
“What did you say? I asked you if you heard me tell you to never again let me see you all bent over and broke, because of some fool’s sense of justice. Did you HEAR me? Answer me the way I raised you up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Z.Z. squared her shoulders and replied in a strong voice, an echo of Aurelia’s.
“Good. That’s what I want to hear. You are a strong, proud, powerful black woman, and don’t you never let no foolishness make you cry. And.. that man in there, sittin’ behin’ his desk?” She nodded toward the front office, and, working her neck, declared, “Ain’t no man goin’a be sittin’ behin’ a desk an’ pat you on the head and tell you to 'Go away now, little black girl, and don’ be remindin' me of how far you've come'. Not now, when I’m alive, and not later, when I’m dead!
" I’m not sayin’ you don’t gotta respect people, Z.Z. But I am sayin’ you don’t never have to be ashamed of standin’ up for who you are and what you are—and what you aren’t, neither," she concluded, in a much softer voice than when she started giving Z.Z. an attitude adjustment.
“Yes, ma’am,” Z.Z. said again. Over her granny’s shoulder, she saw Junior Alvarez back his blue Geo Storm into a parking spot.
Junior opened the back passenger door and gently removed 3 from his car seat. Supporting his neck as he lifted him out of the car and into the sunshine, Junior spoke soothing words to his son when Hector Alvarez III, a.k.a. 3, scrunched up his face in reaction to the bright light in his eyes.
He hoisted the infant so the baby’s head was resting against his shoulder, picked up his English folder and shoved it into the diaper bag as he slid the bag over his shoulder, slammed the door with his foot, and walked toward Bev, who was watching Z.Z. and her granny drive away.
“Hey, Junior, how’s it going?” she said, smiling.
“Okay, Miss. This-“ he turned around so that Bev could see his son’s round little face- “is my son, Hector Alvarez III…but we call him 3.”
“Hi, 3,” Bev said in the high voice people automatically adopt when speaking to infants. “He’s beautiful, Junior.”
“Thanks, Miss," Hector radiated pride.
“What’re you up to?" Bev said as she started walking back toward the front door, and smiling again as she gazed at the thick black hair covering 3's head and sticking out every which way.
“I came to turn in the third essay, like we talked about before. And I was hopin’ we could talk about the book now, while I’m here.”
“Sure we can. You know, I really liked your first two essays. You did a great job on them.” She held the door open for Hector to enter.
“Really, Miss? You think so?” he looked truly amazed.
“Absolutely. You’re a very good writer, Junior,” she said, glancing in at the office and seeing Mr. Walden, alone at his secretary's desk, talking on the phone. She caught his eye and he immediately looked away, a sick look on his face. Bev thought, Got ya right where I want you, you worm.
“Thanks, Miss. I had my girlfriend look at it before I turned it in. She’s good at English. She was wonderin’, if she took this class next summer, if she could do like I’ve been doin’ since I have these two jobs and all.” Hector did not notice the shift in the balance of power that had just occurred, as he walked with his teacher to her classroom.
“You mean, reading the book on your own and basically making this an independent study course?” Bev unlocked her classroom door.
“Yeah, I guess it’s what you call it.”
“Well, if she’s in the same sort of time crunch as you are next summer, and if I’m teaching this class, I guess we could talk about it then.” Bev held out her hands for 3, and Hector, grinning from ear-to-ear, handed him to her, then slipped the diaper bag from his shoulder and pulled his English II folder from it. He slid into a desk and watched his teacher make googly eyes at his son for a minute or two before telling her, “I’ve learned a lot about myself from this class. From you. Thank you, Miss.”
Forcing herself to look away from 3's beautiful eyes, she said, “It’s my pleasure, Junior. I admire what you’re working so hard to do, and you do good work, too. You have the ability to make it in college. I know you do. If you need a letter of recommendation for scholarships, I’d be honored if you’d ask me to write one for you.”
3 started fussing a little, and Bev turned him so that he could see his daddy. He stuck a fat little fist in his mouth when he saw Hector, then pulled it out and smiled at him. Junior stared into his son’s eyes and smiled, then looked at Bev. “I’m going to make it, Miss. I’m going to do it the right way. For him.”
“What do you think he wants with me?” Roxanne asked Ashley and Z.Z. The three girls in the English II summer school class had become close friends, and Roxanne had started to come out of her shell not only with the girls, but in class discussions, as well.
“What d’ya mean?” Z.Z. asked.
“I mean, why do you think Kevin asked me to go with him to the fireworks show in Tyler?”
“Well, gee, Rox, maybe he..doesn’t want to go by himself, and thought he might have a good time with you?” Ashley was only half-listening. She had stayed up too late playing Zelda with Ben, the night before. Well..she played the game, while he told her what to do. She was improving steadily. Ben was a patient teacher.
“You’re not hearing me, Ash. What do you think he wants with ME?” She wasn't fishing for compliments. Roxanne had never had a boy pay any attention to her, unless you wanted to consider being the brunt of cruel jokes, "attention." Ever since the accident that killed her parents and disfigured her face, she was highly suspicious of any boy who spoke to her nicely.
There had just been too many "love notes" left in her locker, written by friends of a guy whose name they signed, thinking they were being really funny. After the first time a boy asked her to a dance then never showed up to take her, she told anyone who asked, "Are you going to the dance?" that her church didn't believe in dancing. Not true, seeing as how she didn't go to church, but…it was just safer that way.
“Why you? Or.. is a better question, why not you?” Z.Z. said. In spite of her continuing dislike of Dub, she felt comfortable with Bev and at-home in the class. The result was that she tended to be herself, a fun-loving loud person.
Roxanne threw her hands up in frustration. “Keep your voices down, if you don’t mind, please!” She leaned around Ash to see if Kevin, T.W., or Dub had heard Z.Z.'s question. But the guys were oblivious, talking about the football practice schedule Coach Griffin had posted that morning.
“Okay, I’ll just say it. Okay? Okay,” Roxanne said, inhaling then exhaling slowly and holding her hands like horse blinders as she stared at her desktop.
“Okay,” Ashley and Z.Z. said together.
Hoarsely whispering, Roxanne said, “Look at me. Dub had it right the first day of school, guys. I look like Dr. Frankenstein put me together. I could star in a horror movie and they wouldn’t even have to hire a makeup artist. Okay? I've..never had anybody like Kevin pay attention to me; I mean, EVERY DAY, he's talking to me and wanting to give me a ride home and..acting like he likes me, you know…" she moved her head side to side…"like..you know…That's why I want to know what he REALLY wants with me.”
“Well, look at him,” Z.Z. said, doing the closest thing to a whisper that she was capable of, which wasn't much of one. Working her neck, she assessed Kevin: “His head’s too small for the rest of his body, he already look like he losin’ his hair, and he still carryin’ around all his baby fat.”
Roxanne's hands flew from her face and slapped the desk, palms down. In her normal voice, she exclaimed, “That's not true, Z.Z.! I don't see Kevin that way, at all!” She looked truly offended. Then absolutely horrified that she had said his name out loud.
The low rumble of the boys' Sports Talk abruptly stopped, and the three girls' faces looked like they'd seen a ghost. Ashley recovered first. "Really, Roxanne? 'Cause.. I think..that guy named Kevin..who wants to beat up Bo Brewster.. isn't a nice person. So, you think he is…a nice person…in the book we're reading..in this class?"
Sports Talk resumed. Roxanne threw herself down on her desk and breathed a sigh of relief. Z.Z. rolled her eyes at Ashley and, shaking her head, said, "Girl, you are NOT a smooth liar."
Ashley ignored Z.Z. “Well, Roxanne, if you can see him differently than Z.Z. sees him, don’t you think he could see you differently than you see yourself?” she asked as she used her finger to trace an invisible outline of a heart on her desktop. She added an invisible arrow right through the center, and looked up at Roxanne.
“Damn straight. And, girlfrien’, stop talkin’ ‘bout my friend Roxy like you was,” Z.Z. said to Roxanne. “We powerful, strong, amazin’ young ladies. We don’t need to be puttin’ ourselves down. The world got enough people gonna be tryin’ to do that . Hear?”
“He’s really sweet, isn’t he?” Roxanne said, looking across the room at Kevin, who had been watching her the entire time.
Z.Z. and Ash looked at each other, smiling. “I do believe somebody’s goin’ to the Fourth of July Fireworks Extravaganza in Tyler, Miss Z.Z.!”
“Miss Ashley Nicole Asher, I do believe you are co-rrect!” They high-fived each other, then Roxanne.
“Aw, you guys,” Roxanne said, blushing at Kevin smiling at her.
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The rodeo arena parking lot overflowed, so people parked on the street and as far away as the high school. Some people set up lawn chairs in the back of their pickups on Main Street, fired up propane grills, and started the Fourth of July parties long before sundown. Liquid refreshment flowed freely, and, in the name of promoting positive civic relations, the police turned a blind eye to public drunkenness, as long as it seemed harmless.
Bev, Aurelia, and Jewel set up a table near the entrance of the street fair that had been going since noon, handing out surveys designed to gauge public interest and support for a community help center, and talking to people who stopped by. Most people were very kind and asked Aurelia how the investigation into the hate crime incidents was going.
Jasper sat nearby, his bruises and scrapes nearly healed. He was decked out in a red, white, and blue basketball jersey and shorts, and wore his wide-brim cap low over his eyes. Aurelia had not allowed him to walk up and down Main Street alone as he had before, and this was the first time since he was nearly run over that he had seen many of the people he considered his friends. He had spent most of his time since what they called “the accident,” stroking his dog Buddy’s soft fur and hoping that if he loved him through it, Buddy would fully recover from his near-fatal poisoning.
Z.Z. stuck close to her grandmother and cousin. She kept telling herself how strong, proud, and powerful she was, but the scowls on some of the faces of the passers-by made her wonder, Are you the one who painted our door? Did you drive the car that nearly killed my cousin?
Ashley had never been to a small-town celebration like the one in Patience. The morning’s parade "floats" featured Cub Scout troops and soccer teams riding on crepe-paper- draped flatbed trailers, grinning and throwing candy to bystanders. Pee Wee cheerleaders looked excited and cute, while the eight-year-old football players they cheered for attempted to appear tough. There was a Classic Car club made up of middle-aged and older men who restored cars dating from their teenage years. The high school drill team started the parade, and the high school band was next to last, coming just before the East Texas Law Enforcement Calvary, an assortment of peace officers from the region who rode horses in formation. Behind them came jail trustees in orange-and-white striped uniforms, carrying large flat-bottomed shovels to clean up after the horses. The order of the parade had been perfected over the years after complaints from band moms about having to try to get horse manure stains out of their kids' white socks.
The show wasn’t only on the trailers, though. Ashley had seen more stretched out tattoos exposed by poorly fitting halter tops than seemed possible to be in one place, in one day. She returned home at mid-day with David and Ben to cool off enough to return in the evening for the fireworks. The heat was relentless at noon and only getting worse. There was no breeze at all, and dark clouds were building on the horizon.
The phone was ringing as David unlocked the front door. “Can you get it , Ash?” he asked, balancing groceries they had picked up on the way home.
“Hello?” Ashley said. She nearly passed out when she heard Charlie’s voice on the other end.
“Well, hello, Ashley Nicole,” said Charlie. He sounded drunk.
“…Hi,” Ashley finally managed.
“Are you..having a nice Fourth of July?” he asked in a very sweet voice.
David placed a jug of milk in the refrigerator, closed the door, and turned to Ashley, his face a question mark. “Who is it?” he mouthed.
Ashley didn’t look at him; her eyes were fixed on the countertop. David mouthed to Ben, “Who is it?” Ben shrugged and tilted his head, watching Ashley just like David was.
“You know, Ashley, you’ve broken your mother’s heart. She’s not the same person. She’ll never be happy again. And it’s all ..your.. fault,” Charlie said in the same low, whispery voice he used to tell Ashley how sexy she was, when she was eleven.
“I’m sorry,” Ashley said, trancelike, in a voice like a very small child’s. David gently lifted the phone from her hand and listened a moment as Charlie continued berating who he thought was Ashley.
“Baker? You motherfucking son-of-a-bitch, don’t you ever call my daughter again. I’ll kill you, you worthless bastard. Do you hear me? I’ll fucking kill you!”
Charlie promptly disconnected, and David started to throw the cordless phone across the room. He reared back his arm and Ben grabbed it, hanging on for dear life. “Dad! Dad! Don’t! Mom will have a fit if you tear up another phone! We just..got this.. one!” Ben bounced around like he was riding a mechanical bull.
David started to shake Ben off his arm but caught himself. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and focused on relaxing his shoulders, slowly lowering Ben to the ground. He opened his eyes and saw Ashley’s terrified gaze, realizing he might have scared her more than Charlie’s phone call had.
“Thanks, Ben,” David sighed. “I owe you one.”
In a voice that sounded like David's when he was correcting Ben, Ben told his father, “Dad, I’ve never seen you like this. My whole life, I’ve never seen you like this. Ever since..she moved in..” Ben glanced at Ash, who looked like a deer in headlights, “..you’ve yelled and screamed more than you ever have. What’s wrong, Dad?” Ben stepped back and folded his arms across his chest, fixing David with Bev's "teacher look."
“I’m sorry, Ben.. Ash, where’re you going?” David said to Ashley’s quickly retreating form.
Ashley, head down, walked quickly to her room, closing the door behind her. David heard the lock turn, and he sat heavily down in the barstool closest to the phone. Loki screeched and zoomed out of the seat, tearing around the corner and out of sight.
“Well, we sure know how to clear a room,” David wryly said to Ben.
“What’s wrong, Dad? Why’re you mad all the time?” Ben asked, his voice a little whiny and closer to how his twelve-year-old self was feeling.
“You really think I’m mad all the time?” he asked his son. David would not look at Ben. How was he supposed to explain this to a twelve-year-old?
“Well, when it comes to Ash or her mom, yeah. And I guess with that guy, Charlie, too.”
“You know what happened to Ashley, right, Ben?” David slowly placed the phone back on the charger.
“Well, yeah, I mean, Uncle Frank talked to me, and Mom told me, too. She said she didn’t want us to have secrets from each other, that it was important for me to know what was going on.”
“That's true. Do you have any questions about it, Ben?” David forced himself to make eye contact with his son.
“I guess I don’t get it. I mean, Ashley is a kid. And Mom said her stepdad started doing creepy stuff to her when she was like, eight years old. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s right," David said, hating to even think about it.
“Well, it’s gross, Dad. I mean, what kind of a screwed-up person, a man, I mean, what kind of guy’s got it bad for a little kid? I mean, that’s just fucked up, Dad.”
David raised his eyebrows at Ben’s language, but, considering the circumstances and the fact that he couldn’t think of a better way to describe it, he said nothing to him about it. “I couldn’t agree more, Ben. And that’s what makes it bad, what messed Ashley up so much.”
“I don’t get something else,” Ben said, climbing up into the barstool next to David.
“What’s that?” David placed his huge hand on the back of Ben's head, caressing it.
“I don’t get why Ash’s mom didn’t do anything about it when she found out. And that’s another thing I don’t understand, Dad. Why didn’t Ashley tell her mom after it happened the first time? Why did Ashley keep it a secret all those years? Did she like it or something?”
“No, I didn’t like it,” a sarcastic voice said. Ashley had opened her door silently and had been listening to their conversation. She stepped into the hallway, arms ramrod straight and fists in tight balls. “I didn’t like it at all. I hated it. Do you hear me? I HATED IT! I hated him! But he told me he’d leave my mother if I told. He told me my mother would be sad if I told, because he would leave her. Well, guess what, Ben?” The same “monster” that took over for Bo Brewster was at the controls in Ashley’s head at this point. Her rage’s voice was shouting from a mountaintop.
“My mother is sad that I told, but HE DIDN’T LEAVE HER! I told, and SHE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! You know why? Because I DON’T MATTER TO HER! I DON’T MATTER TO HER! She doesn’t care what he did to me; she wants to keep living a lie!” Ashley ran toward them, grabbed a knife off of the kitchen counter, and held its sharp point against her breastbone, right between her breasts. “I want to die! I WANT TO DIE! Please, please, let me die.”
David bolted from the stool. Ben was frozen, a look of shock on his face.
"Stay away! Please. Let me die." As if explaining it for the umpteenth time, Ashley said, "Don't you understand, David? I'M NOT STRONG ENOUGH. I can't do this. It's too hard. Too hard. It hurts too much. I can't take it." She was pleading with him for relief, submitting to the anguish in her mind that had become unrelenting.
She closed her eyes and pushed the knife handle in until the blade made a slight cut in her skin. David lunged for it, grabbing her wrist with one hand and the knife with the other. Ashley collapsed into him, sobbing. David wept as he held her. Ben numbly climbed down from the stool and wrapped his arms around them both. They stood together, a unit of grief, and ignored the phone when it began to ring again.
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Bev hung up the phone. She had hoped that David and the kids might be able to come back to town and help look for Jasper, who was missing. The storm clouds were clearly moving in, and legions of tailgate partiers were clearing the streets and heading for home. The street fair vanished as quickly as it appeared, and, somewhere between taking down the tables and moving them to their cars, Bev, Aurelia, Jewel, and Z.Z. discovered that Jasper was missing. It was beginning to thunder and lightning, and the rain threatened to start at any minute.
“Excuse me, Officer, but could you please help us find a mentally disabled man?” Bev asked the red-haired sheriff’s deputy atop a chestnut horse. She gave him a description of Jasper and what he was wearing.
“I wonder..” he said, pausing to spit snuff juice to the side of the horse opposite from Bev.
“What?” Bev asked, careful to hide her revulsion at the deputy's disgusting habit.
“Well, we found a guy matches your description behind the chutes in the arena. We thought he was drunk—he’s had the shit kicked out of ‘im—but it might be your man.” The deputy radioed his partner and listened to his response. “Yeah, my partner’s got ‘im in the back of his squad. He’s gonna bring ‘im ‘round here so’s you can see if it’s your missing person.” He spat again, and Bev thanked him as she turned on her heel to tell Aurelia the news.
Within minutes, the squad car pulled up, and the women collectively gasped when they saw Jasper’s beaten form in the back seat. “Oh, my Lord,” said Aurelia, and Z.Z. grabbed her grandmother to keep her on her feet.
The deputy opened the back door of the car and helped Jasper to get out. He began to cry like a little boy, when he saw his grandmother. His right eye was swollen shut, and his nose appeared to be broken. His mouth was bloodied, and he was missing two of his front teeth. He clutched his arms close to his body; it was likely his ribs were broken.
“Who did this to you?” Aurelia asked him. “Baby, answer Granny. Who..who did this to you? And..why?” She was trying to sound strong for him and having a hard time doing it. He was so…broken.
Jasper could not answer. But when Bev moved around behind him to help Aurelia move him into her car, to go to the hospital, she saw it. Written across the back of his jersey, in orange highlighter, it said: “GET OUT NIGGAS.”
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In a large saddle and tack area behind the rodeo chutes, Dub White hid behind one of the thick wooden columns under the stands. Veronica Salazar stood in front of him, unsure of why Dub pulled her behind the column when he saw the tall bald man with the beer belly hanging over his belt, walking by with a shorter version of himself. Both men wore orange and white “Team Bubba” t-shirts, and she could smell their drunkenness from where she stood.
“Ssh! ..be quiet, okay?” Dub whispered in her ear, one of his arms on either side of her body.
“Why are we hiding, Dub?” she whispered back, giggling because she thought he was playing with her.
“Just..trust me, okay?” his tone was impatient and she turned abruptly to face him.
“Are you ashamed of me or somethin’?” she asked.
“It’s—I’m not ashamed of you, it’s ..that big guy’s my stepdad, and..he hates..” he looked down, unable to face her. “He hates Mexicans, Veronica.”
Her eyes grew huge, then just as quickly narrowed. “You mean your family doesn’t know about me? Because I’m Mexican?”
He looked at his feet, stammering, “Well..yeah. That’s right. I mean, it's NOT right, it's wrong, but it's-- it's not me. I'm not like that..Veronica, I love y--"
But she was having none of it. She knocked one of his arms aside and stomped away from him, muttering in Spanish and shooting his stepfather a dirty look behind his back for good measure.
Dub stayed in the darkened space behind the pillar with his head pressed against the wood. He decided to stay under the stands until he was sure that Veronica was gone. How could he possibly face her now? It was then that he heard it.
“Where..is..the..basketball..you..told..me..you..have?” Was that the same black guy who was always walking up and down Main Street and waving at everybody—the one who always dresses in NBA jerseys? What was he doing back here?
“I’m tellin’ you, Boy, my friend has a ball signed by the Dallas Mavericks—the whole team. He’s back here..somewhere. Now let’s see, where did he go?” Dub knew the guy—he was one of Billy Ray’s drinking buddies and a supposed member of his “pit crew.”
Jasper hesitated and started to walk back the way the man had brought him. “Well..I need..to..get…back…my…granny…she…gonna…be worryin’…’bout me..I..shoulda…tol’ her…I was…goin’…wit…you.”
“It’s okay, Jasper. I asked your granny if I could take you to get this special basketball. Me and your granny are friends, Jasper.” The chubby man’s brown eyes darted back and forth. Absentmindedly, he reached up and tried to pop a large pimple on his chin. The black man with him looked at him curiously.
“I…don’..’member seeing…you…wit…my..granny. How..you..know..my..name?”
Billy Ray stepped out from his hiding place, where he had crouched behind a bronc saddle on a stand. He was holding a baseball bat. “Well, ever’body knows your name, you uppity nigger. That’s your name, ain’t it, Boy? Uppity Nigger?”
Jasper started to back out of the tack room. “I..got.. to get back to my granny..now. I..I don’t think..y’all got no basketball here…I..I..gotta go..now.”
Billy Ray swung the bat and Dub closed his eyes, wincing at the sound of the first blow. Jasper cried and begged him to stop, but Billy Ray was ruthless. Dub knew what he needed to do—he needed to show himself and at least try to save the helpless man from being beaten to death. But he didn’t. He just stood there, frozen in place behind the column. He was too frightened to move.
Billy Ray’s vertically-challenged pit crew member, Gabe Brown, was the one who finally made him stop. “Hey, man! You’re goin’ too far! You said we was gonna shake ‘im up, not kill ‘im! Hey! Ya hear me? I..I don’t want to be no part of no killin’, B.R. My mom’ll kill me--” He grabbed onto the baseball bat and threw it away from Billy Ray, then rammed his squatty body at Billy Ray's mid-section to force him away from Jasper. His effort barely made Billy Ray stumble, but Gabe made his point.
“Alright, alright, I’ll stop. But..there’s just one more little message I wanna send with him. Roll ‘im over, Gabe.”
Gabe knelt and rolled Jasper, who was completely unconscious by then, onto his stomach, then watched as Billy Ray got down on one knee, withdrew an orange highlighter from his jeans pocket, and wrote the three words in big awkward letters across the back of the numbers on Jasper’s jersey.
“You done now, B.R.? Can we get outta here before we get caught?” Gabe was getting nervous, but Billy Ray was calm and businesslike. “Yeah, Gabe. I think this’ll get it through their heads.”
The men dragged Jasper, face down, through the dirt, manure, and hay, out of the center of the tack and saddle room. They rolled him over roughly and shoved him to a sitting position, so that he was left leaning crookedly against the half-wall behind the chutes.
"Jasper… Jasper…your granny's lookin' for you! Where are ya?" Several voices sounded like they were getting closer, and Gabe grabbed Billy's shirtsleeve like a little boy grabs his mama's pants leg in a crowd.
"Get yer hands off me, what are ya, some kinda queer?" Billy Ray popped Gabe on the side of the head with a backhanded slap, causing his pimply-faced, newly-bald accomplice to squeal like a girl. The razor nicks on Gabe's head only added to his skin's already rugged terrain.
"Jasper….What'd you say?....Okay, thanks….Hey, somebody says they saw him comin' back here with some guy in an orange t-shirt---" a woman sounded like she was almost upon them. Like roaches running for cover when the kitchen light comes on, Billy Ray and Gabe ran for the doorway at the same time, temporarily becoming stuck. Billy Ray elbowed Gabe in the face, and took off under the stands. Gabe rose in a cloud of dust, his hand over his nose, and staggered off in the opposite direction.
"Did you find him?...Hang on, I can't hear you….I'll come to you…." the woman's voice said. She never came into the darkened tack room, and Dub just started to come out from behind the thick post when Billy Ray skidded into the room, a look of panic on his face. Without even glancing at Jasper, he dug through the hay on the ground where the beating took place. "Got it!" Billy Ray muttered, holding up the bloodied baseball bat that Gabe had forced away from him during the attack.
"Thought you'd outsmarted me, didn't ya? Goddamned Uppity Nigger.." Billy Ray said to Jasper's slumped-over form. He savagely kicked him in the ribs, and smiled in satisfaction at the sound of cracking bone. He snatched Jasper's wide-brim cap from the ground nearby and used it to clean the bat of as much blood as he could. "Well, looky at your hat, Boy. I'd think you'd take better care of a nice hat like that. You must not appreciate the finer things in life."
Dub gasped at the look of pure hatred on Billy Ray's face. It was..evil. He saw his stepfather roughly pull Jasper's head forward, shove the cap down on his head, and snap his head back so hard that it bounced off the wall of the chute. "Now you look like the Uppity Nigger we all know you are," he sneered. He stopped then and appeared to be listening for the sound of footsteps on the walkway. Hearing none, he shoved the bat down the leg of his faded Levis and took off as quickly as he could, limping into the semi-darkness under the stands.
Lightning struck nearby, cutting the power to the rodeo arena. The resulting clap of thunder shook the rafters, all the way down into the column where Dub had pressed his face, lifting it only when he was sure Billy Ray wasn't coming back. He felt his way over to Jasper and patted his hands over Jasper's body until he found his neck. Relief flooded Dub's body when he could feel a pulse, and the only thing that felt better than that was when he could feel Jasper's chest rising and falling under his palm.
"I'm…I'm sorry. Sir," he choked out to Jasper, horrified at Billy Ray's capacity for evil and disgusted with his own cowardice. He felt his way along the wall until he found the doorway, then made his way out of the arena as quickly as he could.
High noon looked more like late evening as he emerged from the riders’ entrance in the back of the arena and into the crowd of people who were scurrying away to escape the intensifying storm.
He slowed his walk until he could breathe more normally, then, casually approaching the uniformed sheriff’s deputy who was directing traffic, he said, “Hey, y’all might wanna check out this black guy in the saddle and tack area behind the chutes. He’s all dressed up in a basketball outfit..and.. I think he’s drunk or passed out or somethin’. He don’t…look too good.” Then, before the officer could ask him for any more details, Dub chose to go against the tide of people fleeing the street fair. He could think of only one place to go. He headed straight into the storm.
Reader Reviews for "Courage in Patience"
Reviewed by C Wolf Forrest 10/1/2007
Courage in Patience (Texas) is a compelling and stark story by Author Beth Fehlbaum of the horrific effects of child abuse, religious dogma / idiocy not only on its main character Ashley Archer, but also on the population of those small backwater hamlets of Texas. But they could be anywhere. The tribulations of this innocent child growing into a young woman makes one cringe with its inflicted descriptive brutalities. In reading this book, one cannot help but experience a visceral reaction, which seems to call for violence to oppose not only the sick-minded pedophile-'fathers,' but also the sick-minded 'mothers' who tolerate such behavior in the name of their own 'security.'
But it is also a story of hope for young adults, should they seek and find the many decent people who abhor abuse and vicious criminal actions of any kind. It is made quite clear in this book that one of the main obstacles to finding such help for abuse victims resides in the fact that the victims have been so traumatized that they no longer believe such decency exists within their communities. Thus, it is even more devastating when mothers, the so-called protectors of the young, ignore the facts and choose to believe the evil among them simply does not exist, or make some self-serving excuses.
Courage in Patience, however, finds a way out and reaffirms basic decency for Ashley Archer to find. And find it she does, notwithstanding the very obstacles she faces for her life to come. In the process, bigotry and brutality are confronted and finally, the villain gets his just deserts. (Just in time, before I hired a tank, found Patience, TX on the map, and blew that turkey away (the pedophile, not the town) - sorry, I get riled up with injustice).
In the final analysis, it is a book of hope for young adults who may, perhaps, have encountered such overwhelming evil. Highly recommended.
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