Hate him, hate him, wish him dead. Hope he’s hurting so bad he wants to die right away but it takes a long, long time. He’s so mean he deserves it and I’m glad I’m here to watch. Wish I could kick him or poke out his eyes so he can’t see when the monsters come for him. Wish I could light him on fire and watch while he burned up but not all the way, just enough so that it would hurt even worse.
I try to spit on him but can’t spit, try to hit him over and over but he don’t feel nothin’ I do. He don’t even look at me and I’m right there in his face. I know he knows I’m here. He’s just tryin’ to make me mad, ignoring me like Uncle Bobby used to. And that lady on the other side of the room gives me the creeps. I don’t like the way she looks at me but somethin’s not right about her so I don’t dare say nothin’ about it. I bet she can see somethin’s not right about me too and that’s why she sometimes looks at me real sad like and other times yells at me to leave him alone, that he ain’t never done nothin’. So I’ll just pretend I can’t see or hear her and hope she just goes away.
At the same time, though, I wish I knew what she sees. Sometimes I feel like I’m two different people. Like I’m here in this little room but also out there somewhere just wanderin’ around. I hear dogs barkin’ and smell smoke and feel like I’m walkin’ but I ain’t doing nothin’ but just standin’ still. And the dogs and smoke seem like they ain’t quite real, like I just woke up from a dream or somethin’ and parts of it followed me out into the real world.
I even see things, trees and fields of grass and all these people around me who are kinda blurry. But it’s almost like the shows I used to watch on TV where people would be doin’ one thing and then it would kinda blend in with other people doin’ different things. And there would be a coupla seconds where you could see all the people but you could also see through ’em at the same time. When this happens I hafta think real hard about Mr. Carl and this room to make it go away but even then it comes back after a bit and I have to do the whole thing all over again, which isn’t fair.
None of this is fair and it’s all his fault. I miss my mommy so much that it makes my belly feel all funny cause I know I ain’t never gonna see her no more. I miss Pepper and Mister Boots and all I wanna do is go back home. I want my bedroom back with my video games and all my toys and I don’t wanna be hungry or cold no more and I want Mrs. Peters to tell me how good I draw and that I might grow up to be an artist if I try real hard. But he took all that away and I hate him ’cause of it.
I remember when I used to get scared at night and Mommy would come in my room and tell me how monsters weren’t real. She said there weren’t nothin’ in my closet or under my bed to be afraid of and that big boys didn’t believe in things like that. But then the monsters really did come and they looked kinda like the people from my neighborhood only all messed up and stuff.
And I also always thought monsters would be all noisy and growly but they didn’t hardly make no sound at all. They broke out our windows and I heard Mommy screaming and when I ran into the room they were all grabbin’ at her and she had a piece of glass in her hand that she was stabbin’ with over and over. She had blood on her hand but I think maybe it was cause the glass was cuttin’ her too; but it didn’t matter how many times she stabbed the monsters, they just kept right on comin’.
I started cryin’ and didn’t know what to do and all of a sudden Mommy was there, scoopin’ me up in her arms. Hide your face, baby, she said and I pressed my face into her shoulder and I could feel us runnin’ through the house. Behind us I heard stuff breakin’ and fallin’ over and I knew the monsters were still after us and my Mommy held me so tight I couldn’t even move my head to see how close they were or nothin’.
Next thing I know we’re in the car and the tires are squealin’ just like on the cop shows and Mommy’s telling me to lay down in the floor and not to look out the windows. She’s got the radio on and they keep tellin’ people to stay calm, not to panic but that only made me cry harder so Mommy turned it off and started singin’. Only her voice wasn’t the same as when she usually sings to me and it sounded like she was about to start cryin’ herself which probably scared me more than anything else.
All around us I could hear sirens and loud crashes and people screamin’ and car horns. Then Mommy stopped singing and just kept saying over and over, please God, please God, please….
After that, I really don’t remember much. It was like I fell asleep without really tryin’. One minute I’m in the floor of the car trying to hang on and next thing I know Mommy’s got me in her arms and she’s shakin’ me and saying, “Come on, baby, wake up, please wake up, baby.”
I opened my eyes and there were trees all ’round us and our car was sittin’ halfway in a ditch and it smelled like gasoline. The car was kinda hissin’ and makin’ this ticking noise almost like a clock but other than that everything seemed really quiet.
When Mommy saw I was awake, she hugged me so tight and started rockin’ back and forth. I was lookin’ over her shoulder and could see big clouds of smoke way off in the distance.
“Come on, baby.” she says to me. “We gotta keep movin’.”
Then we were runnin’ through the woods cause she said we needed to get away from the major highways and she carried me for as long as she could but after a while she started fallin’ a lot and asked me if I thought I could run real quick on my own. I told her Mr. Washington said I was the fastest boy in gym class and she pinched my nose and said she bet I was too.
That night Mommy found this little cave that she said would make a good place for us to hide. We crawled inside and snuggled in real close together and she tried to tell me it was like an adventure, that plenty of pirates and ninjas slept in caves so I was kinda like them. I didn’t say nothin’ but I didn’t want to be a pirate or a ninja right then. All I wanted was my nice warm bed with Pepper curled up down by my feet.
Halfway through the night I had to pee real bad but Mommy said I needed to do my best to hold it until morning and asked if I thought I could do that. I told her I thought I could but ended up peeing in my pants after all. But Mommy said it was okay, that sometimes even the biggest boys can’t hold it and we would find a stream to wash in the next day.
And we did too. I was standin’ in the stream splashin’ water on my pants when he came bustin’ through the woods. He saw me and Mommy and stopped in his tracks. Then he lifted his gun and pointed it right us and I still remember word for word what he said.
“I swear t’ God if you don’t say somethin’ in the next three seconds I’m puttin’ a bullet right in your head.”
Mommy always told me that hate was a strong word and that I shouldn’t hate. But I really hate him and I can’t help it. And I really think that in this case Mommy would understand.