A VOID OF SORTS
One day you have a son. And the next day, you don’t. So contemplated Marie as she sat in the corner of the dimly lit room. The shadows were heavy and she felt the weight of them on her shoulders and on her soul. She watched the fading light of the sunset through the cracks in the blinds and wondered exactly how many sunsets her dear boy had experienced in his short time on this planet. She did the math in her head. Two thousand, four hundred and seventy-one. She had always been good with numbers. Numbers had been responsible for her conception in the first place. Twelve – the number of months she tracked the length of her periods. Twenty-seven – the number of days of the shortest cycle. Eighteen – the number of days subtracted from the shortest cycle. Nine – the first likely day of fertility. Thirty – the number of days of the longest cycle. Eleven – the number of days subtracted from the longest cycle. Nineteen – the likely last day of fertility. And so it went. Number after number. Cycle after cycle. Month after month. Year after year.
Not having a mate had made things a bit difficult. Sperm banks were the first obvious choice. But at an average of $400 per insemination and no help from the health insurance, she went through her entire savings account in less than five years. So that left the bars. She’d never known how many bars there were in the city until she started looking for them. She chose a few that were far from her home. At first she wasn’t sure she could do it; wasn’t sure she could debase herself in such a way.
She had walked into the first bar wearing her nicest dress and her dark blue Sunday pumps. If she was nervous before she was even more so now, when she saw how over-dressed she was compared to the other women there, but she forced herself to sit down and order a soda. She wasn’t sure if everyone was watching her because of the way she was dressed, or because of the fact that she was the only African American woman there. There were two Hispanic women playing pool in the back and she smiled at them, hoping for some show of solidarity, but they acted as though she wasn’t there, so she went back to surveying the stock of available men. Several of the men were stealing glances. That wasn’t unusual. She was a pretty woman, about 5’8” with a slim, curvy body that her dress wasn’t completely successful in concealing. Normally she would have seen that as a negative, but tonight it was all right. Tonight she was on a mission, and sacrifices needed to be made.
“Hi, my name is Brad. Can I buy you a drink,” ask the first man that approached her.
She had seen him whispering to another man and nodding his head in her direction, so she wasn’t totally surprised when he appeared beside her. He was tall, well over six feet, with wild blond hair and blue eyes. That was all right. He had wide shoulders, a muscular build and a beautiful smile. That was excellent.
“Thank you, but I’m still working on the drink I have,” she said in response.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Marie. I’ve never been here before.”
“Are you new to the neighborhood?”
“No, I just don’t get out much.”
“Well, I’m glad you chose to get out tonight,” he said, and flashed that beautiful smile again.
She took another sip of her soda, and wondered if she could really do this. She hadn’t told anyone that she was planning something so crazy. Just thinking about all the risks, especially from diseases that could be transmitted to the baby, made her ulcers burn. She looked at Brad over her glass. The roots of his hair were the same golden color as the ends, but there was more curl nearer the scalp. His eyes were like mirrors against an angry sea, which matched perfectly the slight trace of sunburn that appeared on his short, angular nose. His cheekbones were sharp and contrasted against his square jaw, and his lips were wide and full. She wondered if perhaps there was some Black in his family somewhere. That would have made her mother feel a little better, though not much. But right now she couldn’t worry about what her mother would or would not condone.
“What do you do for a living, Brad?”
“Well, right now not much. I graduated from Yale last June, with a law degree, and I’m gearing up to take the bar next month. That’s kind of like a full-time job. And I’ve got a little money in the bank, so I can afford to take some time off. What about you?” he said, taking a swig from his beer.
Yale. So he apparently had brains to match the beauty. She hadn’t expected the first candidate to be such a complete package.
“I’m a travel writer,” she lied. She didn’t really want to tell him that she was a secretary. First, because she wanted to remain as anonymous as possible, and also because ‘travel writer’ sounded so much more exciting than ‘secretary’. And she wanted to seem exciting tonight.
“Oh, really? That’s great. You must love your job. What kinds of places have you traveled to?”
She spent the next hour telling him about all the countries that she had been to – but conveniently leaving out the fact that she had only traveled there in her imagination, courtesy of books, DVDs and the Travel Channel. She spoke of Rome, London and the Eiffel tower. She spoke of Cairo, Marrakech, and safaris in Africa. She spoke of Sydney, Bangkok and the jungles of Indonesia. She was on her third soda and he his fourth beer when he asked if she’d like to get out of there and go somewhere quiet.
“Um, ok. What did you have in mind?” she replied, even though she already knew.
Going back to her place was out of the question, so she found herself sitting in his living room, starring at a picture on the coffee table of him with his arms wrapped around a stunningly beautiful brunette. A glass of wine and some soothing music and she found those same arms wrapped around her. The taste of wine was soon replaced by the taste of his tongue, which was stale and bitter. He looked heaven sent, but he tasted exactly like the bar she had found him in. She wasn’t sure what she found more repulsive – his obvious arrogance and sure expectation that she would be giving herself to him this night, or the fact that she was giving herself to any man in such a manner. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself somewhere else. On the beaches of Tahiti, teaching her son or daughter about how it became a French colony in the 1800s, or on the sands of Egypt, taking pictures next to the pyramids to send back to their envious schoolmates. But after about fifteen minutes she had taken all she could take, and attempted to push him off of her.
The first punch was heavy and she could literally see stars flashing across the ceiling of the dimly lit room. For a second she wondered if perhaps she was actually outside, lying on the plastic chaise lounge in her back yard, a glass of diet cola with fresh lime on the small table beside her and the perfume of her wild roses filling her head with joy. But then she felt the fingers around her neck and was instantly back on the couch, in a strange room with a strange man. Something in the back of her mind told her not to fight any more, and once she relaxed it was over in less than a minute.
She awoke the next morning in her shower stall, a damp towel wrapped around her body. She remembered that she had followed the man from the bar to his home in her own car, which was now parked in her drive-way, but she had no idea how she had actually gotten from his house back to hers. It was week before she gathered enough courage to go to the police, but five minutes of tough questions that she had no answers to was more than she could bear, and in tears she ran away from the gray rooms and stern voices and back into the safety and anonymity of the morning sunlight. She cursed herself for putting herself in such a vulnerable position with an unknown man in the first place, and vowed to never do anything so silly ever again.
But several months later, with no other prospects, she found herself sitting in another bar. Desperation had gotten the better of caution, and she was throwing herself whole-heartedly back into the lion’s den. Over the next year, there were several more bars and several more men. Eventually the day she had been praying for came. She was pregnant.
A noise – . Marie tried to make herself smaller behind the large chair. Her heart beg
an to pound. She realized that it had gotten dark. Bright headlights splashed across the blinds. Maybe someone had seen her entry and called the police? She heard the car stop and moments later there was a knock at the door. Her pounding heart actually stopped. A second knock. And then a third. Something heavy was dropped outside the door and the footsteps receded, soon followed by the sound of an engine turning over. Whoever had been there was now gone. Her heart followed the cue from her breath and both began to flow again. To give her mind something to focus on she opened her bag for the seventh or eighth time and inventoried its contents again. Pepper spray. Rope. Handcuffs. Small blowtorch. Pliers. Bleach. Battery acid. Rat poison. Hunting knife. Duct tape. Hammer. Garden shears. Rubber gloves. Small flashlight. Large camera flash complete with wireless remote trigger. Everything seemed to be there, just as it was all the previous times she counted. She began to relax. She tried to think back to more pleasant times, like the early part of her pregnancy.
Marie had never known that life could be a wonderful as it was when she first learned she was with child. She found joy in the some of the most insignificant things. The smell of freshly baked sourdough bagels. The gem-like glistening of morning dew as it collected on the windshield of her car. The sound of the local ice cream truck as it rounded the corner, playing the same mindless tune over and over again.
Even the last trimester found her without complaint, in spite of the bleeding, the fear and the dire prognosis she received from every doctor she saw. And everyone was astonished the day that Marie held her new, healthy, baby boy in her arms. Everyone, that is, except Marie. She knew all along that she was destined to be the vehicle that graced the world with this particular new life.
And while nearly everyone would have bet against her son’s safe arrival, no one could resist his charms once he did, indeed, arrive. To be in his presence was to instantly love him. It was unavoidable. His father was Asian, a native of Thailand. Marie couldn’t remember his last name, if she ever even knew it. So Raymond received her last name – Mansfield – but he received his father’s straight, jet-black hair and slanted, hazel-colored eyes. With deep, golden-toned skin and a wide, dimpled smile, he was the most beautiful baby some people had ever seen. Sometimes she wondered if that’s where she went wrong. Maybe he was too beautiful. Maybe if she had found someone less attractive to mate with her son would still be here.
She remembered the first time she had taken him to daycare. How the ladies there had fawned over him. And all too soon, little girls that were too young to be interested in boys were interested in her Raymond. You’d think the other boys might have been jealous, but Raymond exuded such happiness and joy that they all just wanted to be his friend. No one was immune. Marie was sure that if she could just have gotten her family to spend a few minutes in his presence, that all the painful accusations and tears would have been forgotten, and she would have been welcomed back into the fold. Lord knows she tried, by phone and in person, but she never got beyond the dial tones and slammed doors. Some thought it a heavy price to pay, but it wasn’t. Not for Raymond. No price was too high.
Her first scare had come when he was only three years old. She had just gotten fired from one of her three jobs, for bad attendance. She had thought that she could handle the three jobs, and it really helped her be able to afford to buy him the mountain of toys and educational games that were stacking up in his room, but at night she often found it impossible to tear herself away from him and go to work. So she was now down to two jobs and able to spend much more time with her beloved son. On this particular day, they were at a nearby park, one of Raymond’s favorite places. Raymond was doing one of his favorite activities in the whole wide world – sliding full speed down the big red slide. As always, she had checked the area upon their arrival for any dangerous debris or litter. But the broken bottle had been buried in the sand, and an hour later it revealed itself, embedded deeply in Raymond’s thigh. The artery was severed, and the amount of blood seemed oceanic. Raymond appeared unfazed by it all and did not even cry. Marie’s wail was heard throughout the neighborhood and talked about for weeks. She donated blood three times and spent all twenty-four hours of the next twelve days in the hospital with her son. She lost another job. But he survived, and that was all that was important.
The next couple of years were fairly uneventful. There was the flu, measles, ear infections and the odd bump or abrasion that is par-for-the-course for any such young, rambunctious boy. Then there was his first day of elementary school. First grade. He was so excited. It was shortly thereafter that ‘It’ happened. The police theorized that the suspect might have been watching him for several weeks. The school, of course, was trying to place the blame on the teacher to avoid a lawsuit. The teacher was reported to have had a nervous breakdown after her termination, and was supposedly institutionalized somewhere upstate. Marie wasn’t interested in suing anyone and couldn’t have cared less about the teacher. All she wanted was her boy back.
One day you have a son. And the next day, you don’t. That was her opening statement to the jury at the trial of the man that the police suspected of kidnapping her son from the school playground, sexually molesting him, killing him and throwing the torn and ravaged body in the local landfill, after first setting it on fire to destroy any evidence.
A car door slammed –. It was as dark outside as it was inside now, but Marie’s eyes were adjusted and she could see the room very clearly. Her heart started to pound again, but she forced herself to move. Quietly and stealthily, like a cat tracking a bird through tall grass, she moved from the behind the large, overstuffed chair to a place behind the front door. She heard the keys jingling in the door for what seemed like an eternity. It squeaked slowly when it was opened, and she could hear the light switch begin flipped up and down by an unseen hand.
“God damn light bulb…” muttered a deep, male voice. A large figure stepped into the room carrying a large grocery bag and kicked the door shut behind it. Marie shut her eyes tight and put one of her hands over them. When she heard the click of the door actually closing, she hit the button of the remote, and the flash she had set up on the other side of the room fired.
“What the hell!” said the man in surprise. Blinded, he dropped the bag and stumbled over its contents as she quietly ran up behind him and swung the hammer against the side of his head.
When he finally came to several minutes later, he was handcuffed and his torso and legs tied to a wooden chair in the center of the kitchen. Duct tape was stretched over his mouth. When he recognized Marie, his eyes grew wide with rage as he squirmed against his restraints. When he realized how futile that was, the anger in his eyes were replaced with humbled pleading. It was the same eyes and the same humbled pleading that Marie and the jury had born witness to during the trial. Right from the beginning this man had attempted to deny any responsibility for his crimes.
“Your Honor, and ladies and gentleman of the jury,” began the attorney, “we are here today to avert a grave miscarriage of justice. I plan to prove to you that my client, Mr. Harold Allen Burkett, has been falsely accused of these heinous crimes, crimes that it was impossible for him to have committed.”
The trial painfully dragged on, day after day, week after week. There was DNA evidence, condemning hair fibers and even eyewitnesses placing the man at the scene. But Marie only half listened to most of what was said. She had known from the moment that she saw this man that he was the one. The police had requested that she come down to the station a week after Raymond’s disappearance, to view a line-up of potential suspects, just to see if anyone looked familiar. She picked him out as soon as she saw him.
“That one! Number three! I recognize him. I can’t remember where or when I’ve seen him, but I know it was somewhere around the school. That’s the man! That’s the man that took my boy!”
Two officers had to forcibly escort her from the station to get her to leave. And it was another 9 days of calling the captain several times a day befor
e she was told that the D.A. believed they had enough evidence to take the man she identified to trial. His girlfriend had tried to lie for him, saying that they were together on a camping trip several hundred miles away on the day Raymond disappeared. Yet they could find no witnesses to support that. And they claimed they paid for everything cash. No credit card receipts. No hotel registers. Not even a gasoline receipt. Marie could see it in the eyes of every juror in the courtroom. They knew that he was guilty just as she did. They were all just letting the process happen so that they could vote him guilty and get back to their lives as quickly as possible.
The last day of the trial was upon them. The man and his girlfriend had both shed tears on the stand, professing innocence, claiming disbelief that this could be happening to them. They were engaged to be married. The date was in early September. It seemed certain that their plans were going to have to be changed.
Then disaster. It was like a movie. A young woman runs into the courtroom. The judge slams his gavel against the sound block. She begs his pardon. There’s a hushed huddle with the defense team. A five minute recess? Reluctantly agreed to. And then they are back. The video tape. Convenience store security footage. A somewhat dark but still vaguely recognizable image. This man, one and the same? Buying cigarettes 600 miles from Raymond’s school? Within minutes of the time Raymond was abducted? The prosecutors objected – footage inconclusive. Motion denied. Four hours without breathing. Door swing open. Twelve peers enter. Verdict rendered. Not guilty. Gavel drops. Thank you jury. Court adjourned.
Marie felt the exact same way she had the morning after she had met Brad at the bar. She doesn’t remember how she got from the courtroom to her home. Instead of waking up in the shower, she found herself sitting in a chair made for a child, in the empty, darkened room that used to be where her loving son slept before some monster grabbed him and vandalized his body and soul. She called the detectives every day for the next month. There were no new suspects, no breaks in the case. She knew there would not be. Harold Allen Burkett had committed the ultimate crime and gotten away with it. Gotten away with her son. Gotten away with her Raymond. Gotten away with her life. One day you have a son. And the next day, you don’t.
She tried to fight through the appropriate channels. Petitioned the court for a new trial. Took out a second mortgage on her home to pay for a private eye. Followed him hoping to catch him in the act again. But all she got in return was denials, restraining orders, and an empty bank account.
Maybe she went a little mad for a moment. Attacking him in the parking lot of his job was probably not the best way to go. But spending two weeks in jail gave her time to think. And time to plan. And time to talk to real criminals that were full of bitter rage and ideas on how to vent some of that rage upon especially worthy men in the most painful and creative of ways.
Upon release it was straight to the library. She buried her head inside books on anatomy and biology, medieval torture and locking picking, knot tying and toxicology. By the time she finished, she was exhausted. But now she knew some things. She knew the location of every major artery on the human body. She knew how much rat poison a human could consume without dying. She knew the short term effect of pepper spray on the respiratory system of an average sized male. She knew how much blood the human body typically loses with the amputation of an ear, a finger, a scrotum. She knew how many pounds of pressure a typically hammer swing generated, and how many pounds of pressure a standard human femur could withstand before shattering. She knew how many levels of human skin liquid bleach or battery acid would penetrate before their damage began to slow. She knew the amount of pain generated by first, second and third degree burns and how much pain a typical person could be expected to endure before passing out. Yes, now she knew some things.
Harold Allen Burkett tried to scream through the duct tape that covered his mouth, but it was useless. The ropes were tied brilliantly, and the more he struggled, the tighter they got. Sweat began to stream down his face and into his eyes, but he couldn’t bear not seeing what this woman was doing, so his forced himself to keep his eyes open, in spite of how they stung. She seemed eerily calm as she opened her satchel and spread its contents on the floor before him. Satisfied that everything was ready, she grabbed the first item, a small, red blowtorch. In the quiet of the room, the strike of the wooden match against the box sounded electric, the lighting of the torch resembling thunder. As the man began to quiver with fear, the woman put her face very close to his.
“One day,” she began, “you have a son. The next day, you don’t.”