Chapter 28
Time
Isolation from the world makes time feel unforgiving and long. The light had died during when we both fell asleep. I laughed, waking as my eyes adjust to the darkness. There was some light that seeps through the cracks as the boiler lights. I thought I could hear movement above and sometimes I could hear a loud truck. It seemed like days since our father came to check on us, but finding two more jugs of water and a flashlight near the door gave me pause. I looked around the room; I didn't need eyes to see or feel Jeff's presence. I knew he was here with us. He told me he could contact Ma in Arizona and she and Pa were on their way back. It would be hours still before they reached the farm or what's left of it. But Ma had made phone calls to the police about our disappearance and anyone that would listen.
Jeff was bad about giving directions that would have helped considerably in the all-out search. He could only provide them with the information that I was locked in a closed-off basement in a large building. I tried to get him to look outside to see where I was located. But it never worked, or he refused to make my life any easier, stating that he had already broken a major rule by informing Ma and some rules were meant to be broken. Apparently, it only mattered if I lay dying on the side of a road. Not locked in the basement held against my will. We argued back and forth as I yelled. I was as in much danger now as I was lying on the side of the road, bleeding out. Apparently, he disagreed, not happy considering I had a sturdy roof over my head, a warm sleeping bag, and food and water.
I asked about the extra water and it startled me to hear that my mother was the one who left it and the flashlight in case the bulb went out while my brother and I slept. My question was why? And what did she want in return? After all, she was the one that drugged us. I wanted nothing more to do with her or her guilt for helping my father put us down here. Jeff said something about her having second thoughts about what she and my father were doing. But my father wouldn't see reason. That's a first for me that my mother could feel anything but anger towards me, but it did give me pause.
Jeff was right even though I didn't want to admit it. We had the basics. Not good basics, but some. We had plenty of army rations even though some of it tasted like we were eating stale cardboard. And the water stayed cool enough even though we had to ration it between the two of us. They threatened us back with the cattle prod as they instructed us to leave our waste by the door, so our so-called father or mother could remove it. I tried it while they were gone to see if the electric fence or wall was real or merely a threat to scare us. It only took once, as I got zapped with a simple touch. Thinking I could kick the wall or door down.
I even tried putting the mattress against the cinderblock wall and kicking it, finding it was more than solid. Several times we tried yelling in hopes someone would hear us, but something on the other side seemed to muffle our sound. I even tried to bust out as soon as my father opened the door, learning soon after as we both got beat to a bloody pulp for trying it. Like I said "Time" is different here. It could have been hours or it could have been days. I never saw the light of day and my father, or my mother would say nothing, and when asked, you earned a beating. So, I don't know how long it was before they took my brother away; dragging and screaming as he tried to hold on to me. I endured several hits with the cattle prod before they made me release him. I remember crying for what seemed hours as Jeff informed me Pa and Ma had been and are still searching for me.
It had to be at least two more days before my father came as he tied my hands and dragged me up the stairs as I stumbled blindly into the sun and into the church house, to the shower room at the end of the building. He made me strip and shower and shoving clothes I had brought with me in my backpack except for my shoes. After that, they brought me to another location inside the church on the second floor. There, they secured me in a small closet room, tying me up and gagging me for hours.
They drugged me more frequently as they left me in that room in total darkness. It was very hot, and the air was thin. Sometimes I felt I was suffocating. I could hear voices calling my name. But nobody could hear me through the gag. Someone opened the door and ran a flashlight in my direction. Nobody saw me behind the fake wall; I didn't understand how they couldn't at least smell me. It made me angry that no one saw Jeff standing in the room shouting. I smelled of piss and shit since it had been a long time since I could use the bathroom, which seemed like days. It seemed longer still when my father came to beat the crap out of me because people were looking for me. It bothered him more that they were tearing the place apart to find me, as he tried to convince them I wasn't here.
I was happy that they hadn't given up; Ma was doing her best to find me. Jeff would break the rules and give direction where to find me. But my father kept moving me from place to place. It got so bad they moved me to an isolated campground close to the one they had been using. They did everything to keep them from finding me. But Pa and Ma wouldn't give up the search until they found me either dead or alive.
Jeff was gone days at a time it seemed and would report that Ma and Pa were close. He had led her to the very spot my father had left me drugged out of my mind. It had seemed like hours since Jeff had led her right to me. Shivering with a high fever and dehydrated, I couldn't walk. I could barely see out of my swollen eyes from all the beatings. I had tied a split of wood around my right leg to keep it in place. It also kept me from going far.
The act of tying me up resulted in swelling in my hands and fingers. But my father left me to die in the woods down an enormous cliff looking over a ravine. Hoping the drugs would make it impossible for me to escape except by falling further to my death; but what he didn't plan on was Jeff making sure that would not happen, keeping me braced to the side of the cliff. Yet, for all intents and purposes, it was to look like I had run away while camping.
My clothes torn to shreds, the many cuts and bruises, and it felt like I had a busted leg from falling; not from a push off the cliff by my father; I was too out of it to say differently and the tale sound so fantastic that no one accepts the Downings believed me and Mr. Stringham. Yes, I had very few people in my corner; they thought exactly what my parents intended them to think. It didn't matter what my 10-year-old brother said when your parents made it look like we were the ones lying.
I remember little as the days passed lying in the hospital room. Ma and Pa never left my side until the law dragged them out. They labeled me as a criminal and a liar, and then handcuffed me to the bed. No one could see me. They took down the wall in the basement and stacked furniture back in its place to give the appearance that nothing had happened. I wish back then we had CSI to find evidence to contradict the lies. It was a month before I was well enough to leave the hospital. I was lucky for not having broken my leg and walking away with a minor fracture, but by then it was too late. The damage was done.
My parents won, and then they took me out of the Downings home and placed me in a home for boys. However, they kept me in a holding cell to stop me from running away until they could make other arrangements. They sent Aaron to his second foster home, while they sent the girls to relatives instead of their aunts, despite denying my grandmother's request, until Family Court could determine the best outcome for all of us.
Nothing I said could change the court's minds, proof or no proof made little difference. For the Judge was no longer willing to listen to mine and the Downing's pleas. They claimed I was untrustworthy in either home since I had run away. Even though it was a lie, but my father was right.
No one would believe me since I was capable of it in the past. I was a problem child and a child that no one wanted. The Downings did everything they could in their power to persuade them and my parents to let me return to them. They fought tooth and nail to adopt me, but neither side would prevail. They set up new guidelines that prevented either party from having a say in who received what. I wanted to die that day as I clung to Ma and Pa as they ripped me from their arms.
My parents grinning from ear to ear my father saying "goodbye you murdering bastard," watching Ma slap my father hard enough it echoed across the room. It was the last time I would ever see the Downings. I still hope even today that they would find me and take me in their arms and never let me go. But time is cruel and was not through with me. I cried for days until there were no tears left and I would somehow find some more and cry.