Training

A prerequisite to a good education is the act of socializing with others. After I had proven myself, my parents decided to register me for school. Instead of moving to the big city as I’d hoped we’d do, they decided to start small. We stayed on the farm and I was enrolled at the local junior high school. My mother had to produce documentation of the home schooling materials she had used to teach me. The school required that I take a battery of test to determine if I was at grade level.

  I was a little nervous about taking a test to determine whether or not I was smart enough to be in the eighth grade. My mother gave me many reassurances that I was on grade level. But the day before I was scheduled to take the test we had a family meeting in which I was instructed to do something against everything they had taught me thus far.

  My mother told me to make several mistakes on the test I was to take the following day. She didn't want me to get all the answers right on the test.

  I didn’t understand her train of thought. So, I questioned her instructions. "Why should I hide my intelligence? Making mistakes would make me score lower," I stated.

  She explained to me that the test ranged from sixth grade level to tenth grade level. They didn’t want me placed in high school just yet. If I scored too high, they would place me in high school. They wanted me to be placed in eighth grade to get my feet wet. This would be my first experience with groups of students and they didn’t want to overload me with too much stimuli.

  I accepted this train of thought and promised not to score too well on the test the following day. The next day came soon enough. My mother took me to the junior high to take the test.

  Once testing was complete, the teacher giving the test, Ms. Thomas, told my mother that she would let her know tomorrow how everything turned out. We thanked Ms. Thomas and went to lunch at McDonald’s.

  When Ms. Thomas called the following day she told my mother that I had scored a little bit above average for my grade level. There were only a few days of summer left before school began so my mom decided to take me shopping for some new school clothes. We were going into the city to one of the larger malls where the selection was greater.

  I was excited because I had never been to the city or to a shopping mall. I had been to the local Wal-Mart and neighborhood stores but never to one as big as the one my mother described.

  We woke early on Wednesday morning and got dressed. I put on my favorite sundress and a pair of matching sandals. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked very pretty in my floral sundress with matching sandals, I grabbed a pair of shades for effect. I left my room to meet my mother in the living room.

  When I arrived in the living room my mother was just coming out of their bedroom. She was wearing a White Sox Baseball Jersey, blue jeans and tennis shoes. Her hair was tucked under the baseball cap instead of hanging from the back in a ponytail. As I looked a little closer, I noticed that her hair was black instead of the strawberry blonde I was used to seeing. She slid a pair of sunglasses on her face to cover her clear green eyes as she walked towards me.

  “Mom, why are you dressed like that? And what happened to your hair?” I asked in mild shock. I had never seen my mother in a pair of jeans. She would wear the occasional jogging pants every now and then but never a pair of jeans. She mainly wore skirts, sundresses, jogging pants, and slacks. I didn’t think my mom owned a pair of jeans up until that moment.

  “How do I look?” She asked twirling around in a circle.

  “Like a totally different person,” I replied while still trying to adjust to the look she had created for herself.

  “That’s all I get is "like a totally different person"? I was hoping for a little bit more, like you look great, fantastic, gorgeous,” she replied.

  “Sorry mom, you just look so different, it seems strange as if your someone else.”

  “I am someone else today. Today, I'm shopping mom, ready to purchase clothes at a single mall.”

  I giggled a little at her antics. I couldn’t help myself, she had struck this ridiculous pose with one arm in the air. She must have found it funny also because she started laughing as well.

  My father came out of their bedroom and asked what was so funny.

  “Shopping mom,” I replied in another fit of laughter. My mom and I could always find the silliest things to make us laugh. Sometimes my father got the joke, other times he would just shake his head and say “only in this household”.

  When we finally stopped laughing my dad looked at me and said, “You’re going shopping in that. You won’t be able to keep up with her in those shoes. Your feet will start to hurt within an hour. You should go put on something a little more comfortable.”

  “But, I am comfortable,” I said.

  “Sweetheart, your dad’s right. I thought I told you last night to wear something comfortable,” she said.

  “But this is comfortable to me,” I said again looking at both of my parents.

  “Sweetie, we’re going to an extremely large mall, comfortable would be jeans or jogging pants and tennis shoes. I don’t want your feet to start hurting,” she replied.

  “Alright, I’ll go change,” I said a bit sulkily. I turned around and walked up the stairs to my bedroom. Luckily for me, there was a jogging suit hanging on my door already neatly pressed. I quickly changed clothes, grabbed my tennis shoes from the closet and ran back downstairs to get my mom. My parents weren’t in the living room so I walked over to their bedroom door. I was in the process of knocking when I caught a whiff of their conversation. I stilled my hand just in time and listened.

  “Do you think anyone will recognize me?” asked my mother.

  “I don’t recognize you, so I doubt if anyone else will. Don’t forget to check in every hour so I’ll know everything is okay,” said my father.

  “Okay. We should be back by five o’clock this evening at the latest,” she said.

  “I’m going to get some work done. I’ll see you when you return,” said my father.

  I heard someone walking towards the door. I slid toward the couch in my socks and quickly sat down before I called out, “Mom, I’m ready,” as I put my shoes on. I wondered what that particular conversation was about. Who was my mom concerned about recognizing her? It’s not like she was famous, she’s was just my mom.

  When my mom exited the bedroom she handed me a baseball cap to place over my head. Luckily for me it matched the jogging suit I was wearing. I didn’t get the chance to think much more on the conversation my parents were having because we were off to the mall. My excitement returned once again and all other thoughts fled my mind.

  My dad warned us not to break the bank when we went shopping. He said as a farmer he had to buy supplies all year round. He still had several things to purchase for the upcoming season.

  When we arrived at the mall, all I could do was stare in wonder. It was big, no huge is a more apt word to describe what I saw that day in my mind. There were so many cars in the parking lot I couldn’t believe it. My mom turned down an aisle and found a parking spot close to the door. She parked in the lot close to Sears. She turned off the ignition and turned to me.

  I knew the routine by this point, after two years of constantly having it drilled in my head. Instead of commenting on it, I sat patiently and waited for the inevitable questions.

  “Did you spray on you latex gloves?” she asked.

  “Yes, and I brought the small spray can with me,” I replied. Every since my parents started letting me go into town with them they had been admonishing me to spray on my gloves. They had given me several bottles to place in my room. I also had several miniature bottles to carry with me on my person. It was automatic for me now. Whenever I washed my hands I automatically sprayed them with the latex gloves. They had replaced the labels of the bottles with a Rx label. So now when people saw me spraying my hands they would assume it was medication for my skin and not ask to use it thinking it was bac
terial hand spray.

  “We are not experimenting today. Try to avoid touching people to be on the safe side. You don’t have as much of a tell as you used to. Besides, your reaction to someone touching you is quite different from if you touch someone. Just remember in life people have both light and darkness within them. They can control their actions whether conscious or subconscious. You have not mastered that ability quite yet. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, I’m ready, I said bubbling over in excitement. I jumped out of the car before my mother could ask me anymore questions.

  “I wonder what’s going on today. The mall isn’t normally this crowded on a Tuesday morning,” said my mother getting out of the car. She had noticed all of the cars in the parking lot as well.

  As we walked to the entrance of Sears several women were right behind us and we overheard their conversation.

  “Can you believe this sale the mall's having today?”

  “I thought it was a typo until I called Margie. She works at Marshall Field’s.”

  “Does she know why they're running this particular sale at the mall today?”

  “It’s a new promotion to advertise some of the new stores they have and to drum up some business for the ones already here. I don’t know if we made it in time to get the discount cards, there seems to be a lot of people here already.”

  “Even without the cards we’ll still get some pretty good deals,” said the other woman.

  We listened to their conversation until we entered Sears. I smelled the colognes and perfumes before I saw them. Sales clerks were spraying them on anyone who walked by. My mother adeptly dodged the first two we encountered but the third one caught her.

  “Please don’t spray that on me,” she said to the clerk.

  “Ma’am it’s a lovely fragrance that I’m sure you’ll love,” said the clerk advancing on our position.

  My mother snatched a perfume bottle from a nearby counter and pointed it at the sales clerk. “Spray me and I’ll spray you right back,” she told the clerk.

  The clerk stopped dead in her tracks. My mother quickly replaced the perfume on the counter and we made a dash for the clothing section.

  “Mom, that was so cool,” I said giggling a little.

  “There’s always a way to make people change their course of action. You just have to be quick on your feet and think fast,” she said.

  “Are you going to try to get the discount card those ladies were talking about?” I asked thinking about the conversation we had heard earlier.

  “No, we’re not going to worry about the cards. Let’s just shop. Besides, the stores we’ll be going to are still having great sales,” she said stopping to examine a set of colorful sweaters.

  “Those are some pretty colors,” I said admiring the sweaters.

  “You’ll need some sweaters for school this year. What colors do you like the most?”

  I picked out several different colors and we went to the counter to pay for them. Thus began my first and only shopping spree with my mother. We stopped at several shops in the mall and left each one with a bag for the most part.

  My mom called my dad every hour on the hour to check in and I spoke to him as well. By one o’clock I was starving and thankful for my parents’ previous request for me to change into something more comfortable. My senses had received an overload of information and I needed some down time to process all that I had seen, heard and felt that day. We walked over to the food court to find something to eat before heading back home.

  There were several fast food restaurants in the food court to choose from. We decided to go Italian and placed our order for a meat lover’s pizza. The cashier told us it would be at least fifteen minutes before our pizza was ready. We left the counter in search of seats to rest our weary feet and eat our lunch when it became available. When we finally found someplace to sit, that provided us with a view of the Italian restaurant we had ordered our food from, we organized our bags so that we wouldn’t lose any. We placed the smaller bags inside the bigger ones, which made everything easier to carry.

  As we sat, waiting for our order to become ready, I began to observe the people sitting around the food court. I noticed a family of four, mother, father, and two little boys sharing the same pizza we had just ordered. They seemed to be enjoying their lunch and it made my mouth water in anticipation of our upcoming order. I quickly changed my view before my hunger pains got the best of me.

  I next spotted several teenagers hanging out with their friends at the food court. I couldn’t wait until I was able to do this simple act with friends of mine.

  “Honey have you had any flashes,” asked my mother interrupting my examination of the food court patrons.

  “Only a few, but they happened so quickly that it didn’t disrupt my thinking. Two ladies touched me simultaneously so their signals got crossed and I wasn’t able to read either of them,” I replied. Considering the number of people in the mall that day it was amazing I didn’t glimpse more of the people who touched me, accidentally or intentionally.

  We had been sitting and observing people for about fifteen minutes or so when I noticed the cashier waving at me. I told my mom our food was ready and she told me to get our order.

  I quickly picked up our order and went to the napkin counter to get salt, pepper, napkins, and straws. I laid the tray down and reached for some napkins, the gentleman standing next to me reached for napkins at the same time. My fingers brushed his hand and a chill raced up and down my spine. I snatched my hand away so quickly I thought for sure he would be offended by it but his voice didn’t carry any ill will or malice.

  “Excuse me young lady,” he said in a kind and gentle voice.

  It took me a moment to respond to his apology and when I did it was in an overly bright voice. “Excuse me sir.” I reached for the napkins once again and this time he stepped to the side to allow me to get them.

  As I retracted my hand from the napkin counter I intentionally grazed his arm with my fingers. I had to know if what I had sensed was true. I laid aside the thought that this was supposed to be a shopping outing only. Something within me pushed that thought to the side. I just had to know for sure. When I touched him my hand seemed to be on fire. It throbbed with the revelations that were just revealed to me.

  The man looked at me askance before walking away from me.

  With my suspicions validated, I raced back to the seat where my mother was diligently waiting on me to return with our lunch. The tray shook in my hand but I welcomed the coolness that emanated from it. It allayed the throbbing in my hand.

  As I neared the table, my mother could tell the difference in my demeanor before I even spoke. She stopped me before I could get a word out of my mouth.

  “Agnes, keep your voice down. I know you want to tell me something but we don’t want everyone in the food court looking at us. Now take a deep breath and speak in a normal tone of voice. Make sure you smile when you tell me what you want me to know, that man is looking at you strangely.”

  My mother managed to say all of this with a smile plastered on her face.

  I took a long calming breathe and smiled at my mother. It was difficult to say the words that were coming out of my mouth with a smile on my face but I did. “He’s going to kill his wife and children very soon. He’s going to make it look like an accident so that he can be with his other family,” I managed to say in a normal voice while trying to keep a smile plastered on my face and tell my mother someone was going to die very soon.

  “Agnes, don’t think about him or what he is going to do.”

  “Mom, its’ too late I’ve already thought about him,” I whispered.

  “And just what were you thinking?” asked my mother.

  “I thought that the accident he was creating to kill his wife and kids should be the one that kills him instead,” I whispered.

  “How is he going to kill his family?” ask
ed my mother nervously.

  “A gas leak in their home. The house is going to explode. He's been dreaming about doing it for a long time now. He tried once before, but he lost his nerve and stopped it from happening,” I said in a pleading voice.

  “Agnes, you’ve got to be careful what you think. You don’t want to internalize your thoughts and end up dreaming about them at night. I know what you saw and felt wasn't nice but don’t let those ideas get into your subconscious. You remember what happened the last time, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I remember, but they deserved what they got for what they did to Jason,” I said adamantly. Remembering mole mouth and strong man sent a chill down my spine. The events of that night still weren't clear to me. One moment I was in the shaded part of the forest watching them in the barn the next moment I was screaming my head off in my own bed. My mother got my attention with her next statement.

  “We aren’t allowed to be judge, jury and executioner. That’s what the legal system is for in this country.”

  “Mom, he’s been beating his wife for years and now he’s beating on their kids. He should go straight to jail or he should know how it feels to be beaten by someone who is supposed to love and protect him. He gets so much pleasure out of beating them,” I protested.

  “Honey, life isn’t always fair and sometimes its’ downright unjust. We have to work to make the world more fair and just for everyone. Taking matters into our own hands or getting revenge isn't always the best option.”

  “How do I stop myself from instantly thinking evil thoughts about people I consider to be evil? And how do we make the world safe and fair for everyone?” I asked.

  “One person at a time,” she said gathering up the trash from our half-eaten lunch. We'd both lost what appetite we previously had. She walked over to the trash cans and dumped our lunch in one of them. When she returned, I gathered some of our bags and she got the rest. We left the mall to return home.

  I gathered that the conversation was over concerning the man who was going to kill his wife and kids but I couldn't let it go. I had to do something. I sat in the passenger seat and racked my brain for a way to help a mother and two little children I had never met before in my life.

  My mother called my dad on the way home and told him what happened at the mall. From my mother's side of the conversation I could tell that she was trying to talk my father out of becoming involved. It wasn't working. By the time she got off the phone he was already trying to think of a way to save a family from harm.

  The car was silent for half of the ride home after my mother got off the phone. I was reviewing the flashes of the man's life and I tried to focus on certain details. The more I focused on the details, the slower the scenes became for me. I realized that I was making them slow down. I didn't think that I could do that with people's memories. I began to pick out details that would be helpful in stopping the man. When I gathered enough details to assist us in stopping a homicide, I tried to think of a way to breach the subject but didn't know how. I finally got up the courage to break the silence with my next statement.

  “Mom, I know the man’s name and where he lives,” I said in a whisper.

  “Agnes, how do you know this information,” she asked me.

  “I’ve been sitting here concentrating on his life. I’ve slowed down the frames in my mind so that I can see details. I was able to see his address and house when I did it. His name is Marcus Franklin and he lives at 2233 Sherman Rd with his wife Elizabeth and their set of twins Joanna and John.”

  “What do you mean you slowed down the frames?

  “The pictures have always been flashes of a movie in my mind. I’ve been sitting here trying to review scenes in my head. The scenes were going too fast so I tried to focus on particular scenes. The scenes I was trying to focus on suddenly slowed down. I was able to slow down the scenes from him leaving and coming back to his house. When I realized this was his house I started looking for details. That's how I know where he lives. I first began practicing this with the memories from the booth attendant last month. I was able to do it a little, but with Mr. Franklin I was able to really slow down the scenes. I must be getting better at it.”

  “Do you know where the man works?” she asked as she pulled on to the road that lead to our farm.

  “Yes, he works at the Law Firm of Stillian, Josephson and Black. He’s a partner at the law firm. Everyone there thinks he’s a great guy and an even better dad. He has everyone fooled. So when he kills his wife and kids it's going to look like an accident,” I said in a rush, panic ebbing into my being. I couldn’t just sit by and let him kill his wife and those two little children.

  When we pulled onto the farm, my dad came rushing out of the house. He sent me into the house with the majority of the bags while he discussed something with my mother. Several minutes later they came into the house. We sat down on the living room couch and discussed the situation.

  This situation was totally different from Jason. We were directly involved in his situation having found him on our farm. We couldn’t call the police and alert them to Mr. Franklin’s plan because they would wonder where we got our information. In essence our hands were tied. We could try to reach the wife and kids to warn them but would she believe us?

  I personally thought she would and so did my mom. Marcus seemed to beat his wife every chance he got from what I had seen. So why wouldn’t she believe he’d try to kill her next. But my thinking might have been the thinking of a child who sees everything in black and white.

  My dad said that abused women always think it's their fault the abuser beats them. Their dependence on the abuser prevents them from seeing anyway to escape his grasp. He said she’d most likely tell him about the idea of him trying to kill them instead of just running for her life.

  “So what do we do?” asked my mom looking helplessly at my dad. She had finally given in to the idea of helping. I guess thoughts of two little kids dying when she could have helped stop it won over whatever doubts she originally had.

  “Agnes is he going to try to kill them tonight or do we have a little time before he tries to kill them?” asked my dad.

  “I think that it will happen real soon, not tonight but maybe tomorrow night or Thursday night at the latest. He's impatient to get on with his new life,” I replied.

  “Okay, so we should have at least a day to try to do something. But I’d feel better if we checked things out first. Do you two feel like a drive into the city?” he asked.

  “Are we going to the Franklin’s house?” I asked excitedly, hoping my father already had an idea of what he wanted to do.

  “Yes, we’ll see if we can catch the wife outside. It will still be light outside when we get there,” he replied.

  “She always takes the children outside in their backyard to play. She doesn’t let them play with other kids in the neighborhood because she doesn’t want anyone to find out about the bruises they have on their arms and legs,” I told them.

  The vision of two little children all battered and bruised really bothered my mother. I watched her as a slight shiver ran down her spine. I could actually feel her pain for the children.

  “Let’s go,” said my father gathering up keys and walking towards the door, my mother and I following dutifully behind him. I prayed that we would find a way to save Mrs. Franklin and her two children and still be able to send her husband to jail.

  The ride to the Franklin’s took about thirty-five minutes. They lived in a suburb on the outskirts of the city. The houses were all very nice in their neighborhood. They were all Georgian in style with different variations depending on the owners taste.

  I showed my mother the Franklin’s house, it was the last one on the block. It stood somewhat apart from the other houses. I knew Marcus, I just couldn’t call him Mr. Franklin he didn’t deserve that kind of respect, had chosen his method carefully. The explosion to their house wo
uldn’t cause a lot of damage to the other houses because it was set off from the other houses in the neighborhood.

  My father drove to the side of the house and parked. We could hear children playing in the backyard. We sat in that position for about ten minutes before my dad pulled off once again.

  “We just might have a chance to save their lives,” said my father excitedly.

  “How?” asked my mother.

  “She knows about the other woman. She’s gone through this before but this time it’s much worse. The beatings have increased into daily events and he's gotten worse with hitting the children as well. She wants to leave but she doesn’t know how to. He’s got her so brain washed she figures he’ll find them within a day. But I think with just a little push she’d be willing to try to leave him. She might not have access to the bank account but she does know the combination to the safe. He keeps a lot of money and jewelry in it,” he said.

  I looked at my father in wonder. He must have been reading the mother's mind as we sat in the car.

  “So what do we need to do?” I asked.

  “Agnes should be the one to do it. As a mother, if a child makes an observation about my child it brings it into harsh reality rather quickly,” said my mother.

  My father agreed with my mother and we drove back to the Franklin’s house. My father parked on the side of the house and I got out of the car. I could hear the twins’ suppressed laughter. It was brittle as if they were afraid to laugh too loudly. I walked over to the gate not sure of what I was going to say. John, the older of the set of twins, kicked the ball over the fence and I caught it by reflex. Had I not caught it, I would have gotten a kickball to the face.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said John in a frantic voice. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “It’s okay, accidents happen,” I replied trying to hand him the ball over the fence.

  He slowly walked over and reached up to take the ball. The sleeves on his too big t-shirt slid down exposing the purple bruises along his arms. I was horrified at what his father had done. I realized it was totally different knowing about abuse and actually seeing it firsthand. I could feel my anger rising as an image of the father being beaten with a hose surfaced in my mind. I could see him as clear as day, laid out on the kitchen floor with welt marks on his arms and back.

  Mrs. Franklin eventually noticed me looking so intently at her son and the look of horror on my face. Once she realized what I had seen she rushed over to him, calling his name. “John, John, come away from the fence,” she said reaching out to him.

  Seeing evidence of the abuse undid me. I looked at Mrs. Franklin and said, “Children are a special gift that should be taken care of. God granted moms the ability to nurture and protect their young. How could you let this happen to him?” the pain I was feeling was evident in my voice.

  “What do you know about taking care of a family, raising children or providing for their every need. You’re nothing but a child yourself,” said Mrs. Franklin.

  “I know that children only need to be loved and taken care of, not beaten and abused. My parents protect me, they don’t harm me. It’s their job to protect me,” I said ending in a whisper as tears filled my eyes. “No mother would allow a man to harm their child over and over again. You might as well be the one abusing them since you won’t stop him from abusing them,” I said turning and running back to our car, unable to bare the sight of little John all battered and bruised.

  “Agnes, are you okay?” asked my mother as I stumbled blindly into the car. The tears were falling freely from my eyes at this point.

  “Mom, how could she let him do that to the twins,” I said trying to control my shaking.

  My father pulled away from the Franklin’s house looking at Mrs. Franklin through the rearview mirror. He had been listening to her inner dialogue. She kept going back and forth for a couple of seconds, then she made her decision. He watched her grab the twins and head for the house.

  She won’t let it happen again Agnes, she’s leaving,” said my father.

  “My mother looked at him with hope in her eyes, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, we’ll pull over here. We can see the car she drives leaving the neighborhood. Something Agnes said to her really struck a chord and she realized that she’s as bad as her husband for allowing him to harm her children. Agnes, you made her realize that she had to do something to protect her children,” said my father as he pulled over at a little mom and pop neighborhood store. Fifteen minutes later, we saw Mrs. Franklin speeding by us heading for the highway. My father trailed behind her for ten minutes to make sure she didn’t turn back around and return to the house. Once he was sure she was leaving her husband we headed home.