As I reached the front door and threw it open, I vaguely heard my mother keening, “Shawn! Shawn!” I stumbled outside, my head still foggy, my thinking blurred, all emotion and no reason. I had no thought where I was going, just that I had to be away from that house.
It was dark outside and the houses on our street, lighted and looking so normal, seemed out of place to me. They appeared to be safe and friendly and warm havens, while what I was running from, my present reality, was turmoil and insanity. It somehow seemed wrong that all these houses could look so ordinary.
I left our front porch and in an emotional fog walked to the sidewalk in front of our house, not thinking what I was doing, where I was going. My heart was beating furiously and I was lightheaded. I turned and moved up the sidewalk and found myself in front of Jed’s house. Without conscious thought, I turned and walked up to his front door, then just stood there, not knocking, not ringing his bell. I was trance-like, frozen and shaking. How long I remained like that, I don’t know, but after a while I began recovering, gradually becoming less dazed. My mind was clearing, my heart slowing down, my breathing improving, and I was getting a little better mental grip on myself.
Eventually, I rang the doorbell.
The door opened, and Mr. Tuckman stood looking at me. I don’t know exactly what he saw, but the expression in his eyes changed dramatically very quickly, and then I found myself in their living room, sitting on their couch without even being sure how I’d got there. Mrs. Tuckman was sitting beside me, her hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes and saying, “Tim, what’s the matter?” Concern and worry were evident in her face and manner.
“I hit Shawn. I ran away,” I muttered. I was still feeing spacey. I was better but getting a firm grasp on things was still miles ahead.
Mr. and Mrs. Tuckman looked at each other, then Mr. Tuckman turned and walked towards the door as Mrs. Tuckman put her arms around me. I melted into her hug. The warm, caring, human comfort, felt indescribably good.
Jed came into the room at that point. He saw me sitting on the couch with his mother holding me, and his eyes widened. He didn’t know what was going on and, truthfully, I’m not sure I did either. All I knew was, my whole life had changed.
“Mom?” What’s happening? Is Tim all right?”
“I don’t know, Jed. Your father went next door to find out what’s going on. He should be back in a minute.”
Jed looked at me, I looked back at him briefly, then dropped my eyes. I felt tears forming. I began shaking again, and I guess Mrs. Tuckman felt that because she held me tighter.
“Can you get a blanket and a pillow, Jed? Tim’s really upset. I think he needs to lie down for a spell.”
Jed quickly left the room. I wasn’t feeling good at all. I think I had way too many emotions in me all at once to deal with, and they were overwhelming me. My mother seemed have gone crazy and now hated me. I’d hit my brother and maybe hurt him badly. My brother was being sexually molested by his minister. My dad had just walked away from me when things were getting ugly and left me to deal with it, and I didn’t seem to know what was what any more. My stability, everything I’d known and trusted, seemed to be disintegrating.
Jed came back and laid the pillow on one end of the couch and handed the blanket to his mother. She stood up, told me to lie back, then draped the blanket over me. I felt silly and embarrassed and scared and like crying. I shut my eyes and just lay there, exhausted and not knowing what to do.
I heard the front door open and close, then Mr. Tuckman was in the room. I didn’t open my eyes.
“What’s going on, Dad?” I heard Jed ask him in a worried voice.
“I don’t know. I knocked on the door, but no one was there. One of their cars is gone. I don’t know what to do. Tim seems all right physically, I guess, just shaken. I think we should wait awhile for Marge or Sam to return. Tim said he hit Shawn. Maybe they took him to the emergency room. That’s the only thing I can think of. Tim didn’t seem in a state of mind to be questioned.”
No one said anything for a few minutes. I guess they were all thinking. I seemed to be drifting. Finally, I heard Mrs. Tuckman say, “Jed, I think we should plan on Tim staying here tonight with you. We’ll let him rest on the couch for now, and maybe when he’s calmer he can go upstairs with you. Why don’t you straighten up your room and put fresh sheets on the bed? Is your homework all done?”
I don’t even remember his answer. Their voices were just wafting over me by now, and soon I wasn’t hearing them at all. I think that was when I fell asleep.
~ ~
The next thing I knew, Dad was shaking me. “Tim, wake up. Tim?”
I opened my eyes, saw he looked worried, and rolled around so I was sitting. Glancing at the clock the Tuckmans had on the mantle, I saw I’d been asleep for probably a little less than an hour. I still felt a little shaken, but I had recovered from the emotional overload I’d been in. I was awfully happy to have my dad there.
“How do you feel, Tim?”
“I’m all right. I’m glad you’re here.”
“What happened, Tim? Robert says you told them you hit Shawn. Why would you do that? And the house is empty. Do you know where they went?”
I looked down into my lap. Thinking about it, I was embarrassed. I didn’t go around hitting people. In fact, Shawn was the first person I’d ever hit. I’d never been in a fight, and I had pretty good control of myself. I’d always been able to talk my way out of any sort of scrape I was in. This time, I’d let my emotions control me, and I’d never done that before.
“Dad, let’s go home. We can talk there.” I stood up, and turned to look at the Tuckmans.
“Mr. and Mrs. Tuckman, thanks for helping me. I’ve been a lot of trouble for you lately. All I can say is, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, and mostly for being here and supportive when I needed you to be.”
Mrs. Tuckman hugged me again, and said, “Tim, we both love you, and want you here. Come whenever you want to or need to.” And she smiled at me, a mother’s smile.
After a moment, I gently pulled loose from her embrace, even though it felt so good and I needed it so badly, and we left, my dad with me.
When we got home, no one was there. I told my dad just what had happened, told him what had been done, and what had been said. He looked as unhappy as I could ever remember him being.
“I shouldn’t have left, Tim, and I’m sorry, but I thought she’d calm down if she didn’t have me to focus her anger on. I was wrong, and I’m sorry I left you with all that. I didn’t know, but I left you to take her anger. I’m so sorry.”
“She’s the one who should apologize, Dad. She’s the one who got mad, started throwing things, and then telling me I was horrible. She made me part of a prayer that was all about how terrible a person I was. Why does she hate me, Dad? Why has she changed so much? She said such awful, vile things about me. She said I was evil. Does she really think that? It hurt so much, the things she said. I thought she loved me. It felt like I was being whipped when she said those things. Every awful thing she said stung. Why, Dad? Why does she hate me so much?”
Dad just looked at me, saw the tears running down my face, and shook his head. He didn’t even try to reply for a while. I think he wanted to tell me she didn’t hate me, I expected him to deny that, but he didn’t speak. His eyes got a really distant look in them, and then got really moist, although he didn’t cry. I thought he might, from the deeply wounded and sad look on his face, but he didn’t. What he did do was walk over and pull me into his chest. He held me, just held me, and I think I started feeling a little better then. I started to really heal for the first time since Mom had started her vicious verbal attack on me during that time we were supposedly praying. For the first time in what seemed like longer than it really had been, my fear started to go away. The fear, but not the hurt. I somehow knew the memory of those words, and the pain of them, would last a long time, and that I would think back on them again and again. That pain, and that memory, weren’t going to go away any time soon.
It was while we were still standing, holding on to each other, giving each other our support, that we heard Mom’s car pull into the driveway and saw her lights briefly flash across the front window. They had returned.
When they came into the house, the first thing we saw was a large white bandage taped across Shawn’s nose. I winced when I saw it. I felt awful for him.
Then my mother walked in behind him, and immediately went on the attack.
“Tim! Look what you did. You broke Shawn’s nose. You broke his nose! What’s the matter with you? How could you hit him like that? You’re going to be punished for this, and I’ve decided, from now on, you’re coming to church whether you like it or not. Do you hear me, Tim.”
Well, yes, I certainly did hear her, because by now she was yelling, almost screaming, and had turned red.
She took a quick breath of air, and in that short pause, Dad jumped in.
“Marge! Stop it! Haven’t we had enough anger for one night? Look where it’s got us! We have one son with a broken nose and another who was so upset he had to run to someone else for comfort. We need to talk, not yell at each other. We have to sit down and talk like a family. Come into the living room. Tim, come with me. Shawn, are you all right, son? Please come and sit on the couch with me. We have to talk.”
When he said this, I immediately turned away from them and went into the living room. I hated seeing that bandage, and I hated even that Mom was yelling at me again. It cut into me when she did it. I went and sat down in a chair, feeling a little shaky again and hating the feeling.
Everyone followed me into the room. When we were all seated, Mom in a chair and both Shawn and Dad on the couch, Dad asked Mom what happened after I’d left.
She glanced at me angrily, then spoke to Dad. “Shawn was bleeding, bleeding terribly, and crying with his nose all broken. I scooped him up, got him in the car and drove him to the hospital emergency room. I was so worried about him, and he was hurting so much.”
“Were you worried about Tim, too, Marge? When he ran outside, disturbed and scared? Were you worried about him, too?”
“I was worried about Shawn. Tim had attacked him. Viciously. I got him to the hospital, and they saw how bad it was and took him right away. They felt his nose and said it was badly broken. They had to get a doctor to set it. Look at the bandage. Look what’s happened to my precious angel!”
Dad looked at her, then, not speaking to her or commenting on her account, turned to Shawn and asked him, softly and gently, “Shawn, are you all right, son? Are you hurting? Did they give you any painkillers? Do you need some aspirin or did they give you a prescription? Tell me how you’re feeling, Shawn?”
“It hurt, Dad, it really hurt. I’ve never felt anything like that before. Tim hit me right in the nose, and I just fell to the floor. It felt like my face was on fire. Mom rescued me, she took care of me.”
I shriveled up in my chair. I felt awful.
“We’re going to have to work this out. All of us. Tim was upset, and I know he didn’t intend to hurt you. He told me so, he told me he was just striking out at all of the emotion he was feeling, at the things that had been said. He couldn’t handle it and struck back. But he didn’t want to, or mean to, break your nose, Shawn. Tim? Do you want to say something to him?”
I hadn’t even thought about that, about apologizing or anything. Now I did think about it, and at first, I didn’t want to apologize, thinking back to what had happened and how I’d been feeling. But then, I thought about Shawn hurting and realized I was actually sorry I’d hurt him. And I knew I could say that honestly.
“Yeah, Dad, I do. Shawn, I am sorry I hit you like that. I didn’t mean to break your nose. I was really upset, you were holding on to me, trying to pull me back into the room, and I just blindly swung my fist. But I wasn’t mad at you, and I’m sorry I hurt you so badly.”
Shawn just looked at me. I couldn’t read anything in his eyes. They showed no emotion, nothing. He was a mystery to me.
My mother took the silence as an opportunity and jumped into it. Her voice was different now, with an undertone I’d never heard before.
“Sam, while I was there, in the hospital, while we had a doctor there, I thought about all the things that have been happening, everything that has been said. I had spoken to Shawn about those things on the drive to the emergency room. I thought of the awful lies Tim had been telling. It’s terrible, all the trouble he’s causing. He’s getting good people in trouble. All this damage and hurt! So, while the doctor was there, I thought I might have him check Shawn for myself, like you did. I thought I might check what Shawn had told me and get the truth this time, not Tim’s lies. So, I had the doctor look at Shawn, and he told me that Shawn’s anus showed signs of sexual penetration. That confirmed what Shawn had told me. Shawn has indeed been having intercourse.”
She paused as if to gather herself, then plunged on, her voice hard and determined. “That will stop from this point on. From now on, Tim will no longer force himself on Shawn. Not any more.”
“What?” I jerked my head up and looked at first her, then Shawn, then her again. I knew I’d heard her, but the words didn’t make any sense. No more than her words when she was saying how horrible I was.
Dad was looking at her with total shock on his face.
“Marge. . . ” he began, but she cut him off, her anger easily overwhelming his surprise.
“We’re going to have to do something about Tim. That’s why I said he’s going to have to go to church. Reverend Ellison has a program for youth sex deviants, and we’ll keep it as private as we can, but Tim is sick and needs help, and we must protect Shawn. Shawn has been terribly hurt by this, you can see it in him. He’s been affected by this in ways that it may take a long time to heal, but if we work with both boys, if Reverend Ellison works with both of them, privately of course, they can both be healed. I’ve already spoken to Reverend Ellison. I called him from the hospital. He says he’s worked with lustful, sex-addicted boys before and he has ways to cure them. He can cure Tim, working alone with him. He says if he’s allowed to have complete charge of Tim, night and day for however long it takes, he can work miracles. I’ve agreed and thanked him. This will start tomorrow.”
Dad and I looked at her with our eyes as wide open as they could get. I looked at him briefly, wanting to see his reaction, but his eyes were fastened onto her. She was going to go on, but he jumped to his feet, lashing out at her, finally as angry as she was, and his intensity filled the room.
“What the hell are you talking about, Marge?” he shouted. “Tim hasn’t been having sex with Shawn, and Shawn never told you that! It’s obvious what you’re up to here. You’re trying to protect your Reverend Ellison, but, but you’re willing to sacrifice your own son to do that? Marge! What the hell has happened to you? You’ve gone crazy! And even you know you can’t get away with this, because your other son, bless his heart, will eventually admit that Reverend Ellison has been fucking him for two years now. Not Tim! How can you even dream of trying this?! You’re sick, Marge. You’re honest to God sick! And what you’re doing here is sick, too! Your fucking, perverted Reverend has been screwing your son, and you’re going to give him your other son, too? Marge!”
Which was when Shawn said, in a clear and strong singsong voice, his eyes not focused on anything. “Tim has been doing sex with me. It wasn’t Reverend Ellison. Tim has been putting his penis in me. He’s been forcing me to do it with him. I didn’t ever want to but he made me do it. I’m going to tell the police tomorrow. Mom says I should. I’m going to tell them. It was Tim.”
END OF PART 2