Going Under (29 page)

“I got jumped by three guys and they got all the pot.”

I didn’t have to wait long on her response. “Then, it sounds like you owe me some money to the tune of about a hundred and twenty dollars and I bet you won’t be so stupid next time.”

I’m not sure what I expected from her, but this exceeded it all. I went to my bedroom and pulled the money from my hidden stash of cash and went back into the living room where she sat. I threw the money on the coffee table in front of her and walked back to my room.

I got in the shower to wash away the blood covering most of my upper body. When I washed my hair, it burned like hell and I wondered if I was going to need some stitches to the gash I felt. I winced just thinking about how sore I was going to be in the morning.

When I got out of the shower, I used a mirror to look at the back of my head and saw it continuing to bleed quite a bit although areas of it had clotted. Damn. I was going to have to go to the hospital, so I got dressed and grabbed a towel to put over the seat in my truck to save it from being doused with more blood.

It was almost midnight by the time I was released from the emergency room. After I went back to Rita’s, I did my homework, then laid down to get a little sleep before I had to be up for school.

As I suspected, I was sore as all get out when I woke up a few hours later. I stirred in my bed for a minute, dreading the actual movement of getting up, then forced myself up. I walked into the kitchen and took a couple of over the counter pain relievers, then took the hottest shower Rita’s hot water heater would provide.

I got out of the shower and looked at my swollen and bruised face. Claire was not going to like this, but the worst part was explaining how it happened. I thought about telling her a lie, but what was the good in that? She should know I’m involved in stuff like this so she’ll get the picture about moving on.

I looked at the back of my head where the stitches were and man, it looked awful where the doctor had shaved a big patch on the back of my head. I think it would look better to shave the rest off, but I didn’t have any clippers. I wanted to cover it with a cap, but the school didn’t allow hats to be worn. There was no hiding this from Claire, so I decided it was best to get it over with.

She spied me on my way to Calculus and the smile she had for me melted as she stood at her locker dumbfounded with Forbes next to her. Her eyes never left me once she noticed the shape my face was in and I was certain she saw the gash and bald spot on the back of my head when I walked into class.

Her reaction to the way I looked had me dreading second period with her. Payton’s eyes got huge when she walked into Calculus and she sat in front of me as she had become accustomed to doing. I knew I’d never be lucky enough for her to keep her restless lips still and quiet. “You look like crap,” she gawked with huge eyes.

“Thanks, but I wish you’d tell me how you really feel,” I said sarcastically.

“What happened, besides getting the hell beat out of you?” she asked.

I shook my head, letting her know I wasn’t going there with her.

“Has your friend Claire seen you, yet?” she taunted.

“Briefly,” I replied.

“She’s going to go crazy, you know?”

I didn’t answer her, but I knew Payton was right.

“You want me to put a little make-up on that pretty face for you, Kimosabe?” she laughed. I knew she thought I deserved what I got after the way things went down with Claire because she still didn’t know the whole story.

“I’m good, but thanks.”

Calculus went by way too fast and it was time to face Claire before I wanted to, but I didn’t have a choice. She had beat me to class and watched me as I walked and took my seat next to her.

Her face was pale. “What happened, Jessie?” she whispered.

“When I got home, Rita told me I had to go out and sell. I got my ass kicked by three dope heads and stayed in the emergency room until almost midnight getting my head sewed up,” I explained.

“Turn around,” she ordered.

I turned the back of my head to her and she gasped. When I turned back around she said, “You can’t stay there anymore.”

I laughed at her and asked, “What am I supposed to do? Where am I going to go? I have no one! I’m lucky Rita lets me stay with her.”

“It’s not luck. It’s her selfishness and greed letting you stay there so she can force you to deal for her. Living there is dangerous and you have to leave. I don’t know where you’ll go, but we’ll think of something. Your mother almost got you killed and Rita is going to finish the job if we don’t get you out of there.”

“I’m not attached to her by any means, but I have no where to go,” I explained.

She reached her tiny hand across the desk and laid it on top of my much larger one. “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something,”

35 Simple Humanity

Claire

I was not going to let Jessie’s grandmother get him killed. I spent the rest of the day racking my brain, thinking of a way to get him away from Rita’s dangerous hold.

Everything I thought of required monetary resources he didn’t have and, because I was at a total loss for what to do, I resorted to the only choice I had-my parents.

I walked into the house after cheerleading practice with a mission. I was going to get help for Jessie and I would resort to whatever I had to in order to get it.

I found my mom in the kitchen preparing dinner. I walked into the kitchen and stood looking at her. She turned around to look at me and saw the tears in my eyes.

“What’s wrong, Claire?” she said with a concerned look on her face.

“It’s Jessie.”

“Did something happen to him?” she asked as she put her oven mitts on the countertop.

“Mom, Jessie can’t keep living with his grandmother. She forces him to sell drugs in exchange for somewhere to live. He doesn’t want to do it, but he has no where to go. He has no family to take him in. He’s stuck there with her until he finishes school and she’s going to get him killed if he has to continue selling drugs for her. Three guys jumped him last night and beat him up really bad. They busted the back of head open and his face looks like dammit. I don’t even want to see what his body looks like under his clothes because every time he moved today, he looked like he was in so much pain. You were his counselor. Surely, that places some kind of responsibility on you to help him. If not, simple humanity alone places some kind of responsibility on us to help him.”

She bit her lip, then said, “Claire, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to do whatever it is you’re willing to do for him, whatever it is your conscience tells you that you must do,” I pleaded with all of my heart.

Something I said spoke to the humanity in her and I felt my heart begin to beat out of my chest when she said, “I need to talk to your dad about this. I can’t make a decision like this without him.”

I ran to her and threw my arms around her, squeezing her tightly. “When will Dad be home?”

“He told me he would be home for dinner, so I suspect within the hour, but you know how an hour can turn into two or three with your dad.”

I spent the next two hours pacing the floor waiting on my dad to come in from work. When he finally walked through the door, I propelled myself on him, wrapping my arms around him. “Well, what have I done to provoke a reception like that?”

I looked up with tears in my eyes and he said, “What is it, Claire?”

My mom called out from the other room, “Claire, let your dad get in the door and we’ll discuss everything over dinner.”

I backed off my dad and let him close the door from the garage. Although I was dying to tell him everything, I didn’t say a word because my mother had told me to wait.

I anxiously helped my mom prepare our plates and we sat down at the dining room table. “Well, the two of you have me a little nervous about what’s going on.”

My mom started, “Claire brought some things about Jessie to my attention today I was unaware of, but I’m going to let her tell you the whole story.”

I started at the beginning and told my dad everything I knew about Jessie since my mother was still bound to not talk about him or his situation. I started with his childhood and the incident that killed his mother along with him almost being killed. I told him about Harley and Ozzy and how wonderful they were thanks to the raising they had by Jessie. I concluded the story of Jessie’s life with his current situation and how he would be dead before graduation if we didn’t do something to help him get away from his grandmother.

My dad looked shocked by the details of Jessie’s horrific life. “Claire, your mother and I need to talk about this without you. Go upstairs and we’ll call you down after we’ve made a decision.

I went to my room and paced the floor. Five minutes turned into twenty and twenty turned into sixty. Before I knew it, I stood in the middle of my bedroom floor ready to have a full blown panic attack when my mom came to my door and said, “You can come down now.”

I inhaled slowly and deeply because I thought I might be ready to pass out, but I followed my mom down the stairs and sat in the chair across from my parents sitting on the couch.

I heard the thudding of my heart in my ears and it almost overpowered the sound of my dad’s voice, but I managed to hear, “This was a hard one for us to make a decision about. Jessie’s life has been an utter tragedy, but we see so much potential in him. He’s highly intelligent and athletically gifted and we have no doubt he will go on to do great things if he is given half an opportunity. Now, here comes the hard part.”

I felt my heart stumble as I waited to hear the part I didn’t want to hear-the part where they told me they couldn’t do anything to help him.

“There is no debate about the need for him to leave the home of his grandmother and it needs to be as soon as possible. The debate comes in on what we do with him once we get him out. Helping him get a place to live by himself doesn’t seem like the right answer because we have some concerns about how passionately you feel about him. We can tell you to not go see him all we want, but in reality, that’s not going to happen because we know you love him. We think putting him in a place with no adult guidance could be setting you both up for a situation you aren’t ready to handle. You’re not adults, even if you think you are, and you’re not ready to make adult decisions about having sex and we know that’s where it would lead if you were given the freedom.

I felt myself turn every shade of red as I listened to my dad talk about Jessie and I making the decision to have sex. This was soooo not what I was expecting to hear from them.

“We’ve debated back and forth about it, but we have both come to the conclusion that Jessie will come here to live on a temporary basis until we can make more permanent arrangements.” I realized I had been holding my breath-for way too long and I gasped as my dad continued, “We can better control the privacy between you by having him here, but there will be conditions, as you would guess. Under no circumstance will there be any hanky panky in this house. This is about helping Jessie be safe, not about moving him in here so you play footsie under the table or even much more than that. If we find out there has been any inappropriate contact between you, he will have to leave immediately.”

I got up and ran to my dad first. I threw my arms around him and said, “I understand.” I looked at my mom and knew what a huge deal this was for her to let go of everything she knew about Jessie. “Thank you, Mom. I will never forget this as long as I live.”

I turned back to my dad and said, “I want to go get him now.”

My dad smiled because he was humored by my urgency, but he didn’t understand the dire straits of Jessie’s situation. “Claire, it’s almost nine o’clock and we need to talk to him about this first. We can’t just show up on his doorstep and tell an eighteen year-old boy to pack his stuff because we’re there to rescue him.”

“Yes, we can. I promise you he will leave tonight because he wants out of there so badly.” I started to cry because I felt the urgent need for Jessie to be out of that dangerous place. “Please, Dad. What if something happened to him tonight? You didn’t see how bad he was beaten last night. It took more than fifty stitches to put his head back together. You know more than all of us how bad it had to be for that many stitches.”

When he looked like he was thinking it over, I struck again with, “Please, Dad. I won’t sleep tonight anyway knowing he’s still in that place.”

My mom nodded, giving her approval and my dad gave in. “Okay, but you’re not going out there by yourself. I’m going with you.”

I was flooded with relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I went to grab my phone as Dad got his keys.

I tried to call Jessie several times as we drove to his house, but couldn’t get him. “I’m not getting an answer. I hope that isn’t a bad sign.”

My dad didn’t say anything and I nervously began to pick at my freshly manicured nails. My dad reached over and grabbed my hand to stop my nervous fidgeting. “It’s going to okay.”

I wouldn’t relax until I saw Jessie safely out of that drug house.

We pulled up and Jessie’s truck was in the yard, so I relaxed a little because I knew I had at least found him. I looked at my Dad before we got out and I couldn’t begin to tell him how grateful I was and what it meant to me for him and Mom to help Jessie like this. It was more than I could ever hope for.