A Guardian of Innocents (3 page)

Anyways, they usually get the young boys to deliver the Sacrament which is distributed in clear tiny plastic cups, two to a person. One cup contained a smidgen of bread, while the other held a small sip of water.

One of the boys approached us with a tray of those golf ball size cups and for the first time I saw in real life the face of the child in Jack’s dreams. He was about six, maybe seven, with blonde hair slicked back but parted to the left, wearing a little suit and tie.

I immediately saw what it was about him that aroused Jack’s sick desires. It was that look of absolute innocence on the boy’s face. He seemed to glow with an inner light, like a child portrayed in a Rembrandt painting.

And I’ve noticed that in almost all the pictures I’ve seen of children abducted by sex offenders, they all have that look. That bright-eyed, happy, nothing-in-this-world-will-ever-hurt-me look. They all seem to have it. I think the evil that infects child molesters craves the destruction of that innocence, to tear it apart in the most horrifying way possible. And that’s what makes a child like him such a target.

As the boy leaned over and handed the Sacrament to each of us, I began to get pictures from Jack’s mind, but not much sound.

Jack was sitting in his idling Nova trying to talk the boy into getting in his car, although Jack wasn’t sure how he would do it yet, “Your parents asked me to come get you. Why you remember me from church, don’t you? Something’s happened! There’s been a (some kind of emergency, car wreck, heart attack, something). Just get in my car, and I’ll take you to your mom and dad.”   

Then there were images of them driving out to the country, images of the boy trying to open the door to get out, and jack grabbing a handful of his straight blonde hair and bashing his head into the dashboard a couple of times to knock him unconscious.

And images of Jack burying his remains in a heavily wooded area out in east Texas where no one would ever find him.

At that moment there was no doubt in my mind that Jack fully intended to rape and kill the boy that was now handing me little plastic cups of bread and water.

I felt sick, like I could vomit any second now if I let myself. I knew then I had two options to choose from: I could let Jack murder that innocent child, or I could murder Jack to save that child’s life. But I really had no choice in the matter. . . something powerful dictated to me that I could not let Jack harm that boy.

Iwon’tletyouIswearto
GOD
I won’t let you!!!
   

It was then. In a church. On Easter Sunday. That I decided to commit murder for the first time.

*          *          *

I knew I had very little time to decide how I was going to kill my adoptive father. Jack was building up more nerve everyday to initiate his plan; he was even beginning not to care if he got caught anymore. I estimated there were only a few days left before he tried something.

I thought about nothing except how I could possibly kill him and get away with it. I did
not
want to spend the rest of my life in prison. I am a five-foot-ten, blonde-haired, fair-skinned, little pretty boy, and I knew that what would happen to me in a state penitentiary would make my life with Jack and Doris look like a trip to Disneyworld.

There were a couple of times I thought about killing Jack and then myself immediately afterwards. But I wanted to live, despite all the shit I’d been through I knew I still wanted to live. I wanted to know what it really felt like to be free. Free of him forever.

And so. . . I thought about poison, I thought about buying a gun from a guy at school I knew, well,
knew of
anyway. I thought about several different methods, but in each method, I always ended up thinking of a way the police could name me as a suspect, and I did not want to even be remotely suspected, not even in a passing, perfunctory way.

Finally, I decided on a plan. The first step: acquire a gun.

*          *          *

I knew Mark only on an acquaintance basis. He sat next to me in English class, and every once in a while we’d talk, but not very often. I’d overheard a few jumbled bits of conversation while trolling through the halls of Pierce High School over the past few months with people saying that if you wanted a gun, Mark was the guy that could ‘hook you up.’

So after English, I followed Mark to his locker and in a lowered voice asked him, “Say, man, uhhh. . . You wouldn’t know where I could buy a. . . a gun, would you?”

I was nervous as hell. My inner boy-scout was crying out in disbelief. I never did any drugs, never smoked, never even once touched alcohol, and here I am trying to buy a gun off the black market.

“Now what the hell would you need a gun for?” Mark asked back without even looking up at me, his eyes staring straight ahead into his open locker while he sorted through his books.

I didn’t know how to answer him. Should I make up some story about some guys threatening to jump me after school, or should I. . .

“Do you really care?” I asked suddenly. I didn’t even know I was going to say that until the words fell out of my mouth. I stood amazed at myself. My God, I actually said something that sounded halfway cool.

He laughed, “No. . . No, I really don’t. What kind are you looking for?”

“Something small and inexpensive,” I answered.

“Got plenty of those,” he whispered, shaking his head in subtle disbelief, “I never would have pegged you as a potential customer. My car’s parked in the west lot, in front of the auditorium. Meet me there after school. Just pull up in your car and follow me.”

“Alright, cool.”

*          *          *

Mark’s trailer was on the outskirts of town, right on the border of city and country. We pulled into the gravel driveway, and Mark walked me into the house to introduce me to his dad.

When we had approached this decrepit trailer park earlier, I couldn’t help but think,
So this is what they mean by “trailer-trash.”
  I mentally reprimanded myself for thinking something so mean, but the thought was still there,
This is where the poor whites live.

I walked into the mobile home and stood aghast at how disheveled and trashed out the place looked. There were cigarette butts on the floor along with scattered remnants of fast-food wrappings and other assorted junk. I think I spotted four or five large roaches scavenging among the dirty dishes piled along the kitchen sink and counters. There were empty beer and soda cans sitting on the various coffee tables and nightstands, some of them overturned on their sides. And the walls had a sickly yellow hue that told of twenty years worth of cigarette smoke absorption.

Mark’s dad sat on the couch with his elbows resting on his knees, a lit cigarette dangling limply from one hand above an overflowing ashtray. An old re-run of
AirWolf
was playing on the TV.

“You got a customer, Dad,” Mark announced as he walked to his room at the other end of the single-wide and closed the door behind him.

His dad looked up at me. He was wearing only a pair of cut-off denim shorts. His bare chest and shoulders looked strong enough, but that sagging gut made you want to cry out,
Put a damn shirt on for the love of God!
With dirty brown hair and a thick moustache, he had the look of a guy who appreciated classic rock and motorcycles.

He looked me in the eye and said, “Strip.”

“What?” I asked, going from nervous to scared.

“Need to make sure you ain’t got nuthin’ on you. Strip.”

I scanned his mind and quickly learned he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t wearing a wire. He didn’t really believe I had one, but he was practicing caution nonetheless.

So I did as I was told. Fortunately, it didn’t take very long. As I took off each article of clothing he would look through the pockets and turn the clothes inside out, and then back again. He did this with a disinterested look on his face, like this was just routine for him.

I was fully dressed and lacing my tennis shoes when the father called his son in, “Alright, Mark, bring ‘em out!”

Mark then dragged a heavy-looking suitcase out of his room and set it down in front of me. He unzipped it and revealed somewhere between fifty to seventy small handguns.

“Look through ‘em,” his dad said as he lit up another cigarette from the one he just finished, “And then tell me which one you like, there’s no set price. We can haggle. Don’t worry, none of ‘em are loaded.”

Some of them looked high-tech, sleek and shiny. Others looked ancient and tarnished. As I picked up each gun and looked it over, I got a sense of the price range Mark’s father was willing to go down to: Ruger .22 -- $250, Smith & Wesson .38 -- $325, etc.

“What about this one?” I inquired as I held up what was probably going to be the only gun I could afford.

The dad chuckled, “Son, that gun’s more of a toy than a weapon. Are you sure that’s the one you want?” His chiding tone, more than his thoughts, showed he was just trying to upsell me into something more expensive.                      

“Yeah, this’ll do. I’ll give you a hundred and fifty for it. . .  and I’ll toss in another twenty if you’ll give me some bullets and if someone cleans it for me, or at least shows me how to do it myself.”

The dad thought it over for a few seconds, pondering if he could squeeze another fifty or so out of me, then said, “Deal.”

And so, that was how I purchased my first firearm, a little six-shooter revolver. Older than Grandpappy Methuselah, but powerful enough to do what I needed it to do.

Mark gave me a small, orange plastic box filled with fifty bullets and showed me how all that was needed to clean it was a bristle rod, some oil and a rag.

*          *          *

Next step: buy some clothes from the Salvation Army, cheap clothes, something a homeless kid would wear.

I drove to the one in Dallas, deliberately going thirty minutes out of my way in case the cops asked around at any of the locations in the mid-cities or Fort Worth area after Jack’s body was found. I didn’t know exactly where I was going to kill him, but I knew it would be somewhere in that area of the metroplex.

I found a gray t-shirt with a small hole in the tail on the back, a pair of faded jeans with a blue ink-stain on the inside of the right leg and one missing belt loop. While I was at it, I bought a worn-out pull-over hat, a black and white checkered flannel shirt, figuring I could wear it like a jacket like so many of the headbanger/stoner kids did at school.

After only five minutes, I had everything I needed. I wanted to breeze in and out, talk to no one. I didn’t want to be remembered. But of course when I got to the check-out counter, someone noticed me.

She was working the register, a pretty girl of about seventeen or eighteen with light brown hair pulled back in a pony tail. She looked bored and tired with the customer in front of me, but as soon as I approached the counter, her whole body language changed.

“Hi!” she said as she took the clothes from me, “So what brings you here?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I was feeling a little too jumpy, and she picked up on it. I had to remind myself I was just here buying clothes.

But then a voice from somewhere down below the gutters of my conscience said,
Yeah, and they just happen to be the clothes you’ll be wearing when you put a bullet in the back of your father’s head.

“I’m sorry,” she continued, “it’s just—you don’t look poor, and you don’t look like the kind of guy who normally shops here.”

I’d invented a story on the drive out to Dallas and realized now would be a good time to put it to use.

“It’s just for a costume. I’m playing a homeless guy in a play at school.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, genuinely enthusiastic, “I’m in Drama too. What school do you go to?”

Think of a Dallas high school. Quick.

“Lake Highlands,” I answered after a brief pause.

“Really? My friend, Alan, goes there. He does Drama there too. You know him?”

Shit Shit Shit

I probed her mind as hard as I could and got a clear mental picture of her friend. Red hair, with even redder freckles peppering his face. Twerpy looking. Has a dorky laugh that irritates the fuck outta her.

“Yeah, I tease him about those freckles all the time.”

“Ahh,” she cooed with sympathy. “He’s real sensitive about that!”

“Nah, he laughs with me. You know. . . Heeheehee—HEEEEEE!!!  Heeheehee—HEEEEEE!!!”

She squealed with laughter, but covered her mouth with her hand as if ashamed of it. Another customer came up behind me, forcing the girl to add up the prices on each of the tags of the items I had picked out.

Remember why you are here,
the voice from the gutters demanded again.

“That’s $8.50”

I gave her cash in exact change, said, “Thanks,” and was on my way towards the door when she called out to me.

“Oh, wait! Let me give you your receipt!”

She tore the paper from the register and scribbled something on the back with a pen. She stuffed it into a plastic bag along with the clothes I had stupidly left sitting on the counter in my rush to get out.