The Angel-Faced Boy

When I was a teenager I knew this guy, just a little older than myself at the time, who seemed to be so very sweet, such a caring guy. He had the looks of an angel, golden locks, reaching down to his shoulders. Such a clear face, downright beautiful with such beautiful, mysterious green eyes. His name was Tom.

He always was in a hurry to get home after school so he could check on his sick mother. A very loving and caring son!

Since his mother was so sick he never liked to invite his friends over, he rather met them at their homes or in the usual hang-outs.

Even his best friend, his name was Mike, had not been invited over for years. Tom did not only have the burden of an ill mother, he also had a father who, in sorrow over his wife’s illness, was constantly drowning his worries in a bottle. Tom often complained about his father being gone bar-hopping for weeks.

To make matters worse, any pet Tom ever had died in a terrible accident.

With all the worries poor Tom had to put up with, it was no surprise that he often could not keep up in school. His very understanding teacher gave him tutoring after school, twice a week, three times if a test was coming up. Mrs. Johnston was really great. She invested a lot of time in the angel-faced boy, we all could see that she liked him a lot and tried to make up for what he was missing out on at home.

One day she called Tom’s mother to tell her what a wonderful son she had and how he was working so hard to keep up in class.

Tom’s mother did not pick up the phone, so Mrs. Johnston got worried, knowing that the poor woman was very sick. In panic she rushed to her car and to Tom’s home. She was very much afraid that something had happened to the mother of her favorite student and wanted to make sure the child would not come home to a terrible tragedy.

When she arrived at Tom’s house nobody answered the door to let her in. Worried sick she peek through the window. In a dark corner, across the room, she saw something so strange that she called the police for help.

They came, followed by an ambulance, and broke down the door. Tom’s mother must have been surprised by a burglar, who bound her to a chair, after she had been viscously beaten.

Barely conscious the woman was rushed to the hospital.

Mrs. Johnston went back to school to inform Tom about his mother’s condition and to encourage him to get his father to meet him at the hospital, where she offered to take the teenager to be with his mother.

Pale and obviously in shock, Tom got in the car with her.

They never arrived at the hospital. Mrs. Johnston was found in her car in the woods, beaten badly, within an inch of her life.

In the hospital it was discovered that Tom’s mother had been beaten by her son for years. Every day before he left for school he tied her to a chair, gagging her to make sure she would not call for help. His alcoholic father never existed. He lived alone with his mother who was receiving a disability check for an injury she had received during the rape that had fathered the child.

In the yard that was behind the house they found the bones of many small animals, tortured to death.

Tom was arrested when he came to the hospital at night in an attempt to kidnap his mother.

The angel-faced boy was a devilish young man with no regard for life and no compassion for his victims.

© R&B Pratcher 2008