Part I-Chapter 19: THE FACES AND THE VOICE

 

 

Chapter 19

The Faces and The Voice
(Ó 2007) 

Jared now opened his eyes to see some shadows that were on the ceiling overhead, and to feel the tranquil silence around him He had to be put back to sleep in the ICU because the nurses feared that he had become extremely agitated and they knew, even though with the severity of his injuries, that he had to remain absolutely motionless.

He had been removed from the ICU several hours ago and placed in his own private room. It was somewhat dark in the room, but outside as he glanced to his left and looked out the window he saw the darkness of evening. He then looked to his right where he saw that the door to his room was slightly ajar. There was a hallway there and he could see part of the nurses station. He moved his eyes straight ahead of him where he saw a clock on the wall. I showed that it was 2:15, and it must be in the AM, judging by the darkness, and the quiet of the hospital floor.

He felt nothing, nothing below his shoulders. Then, as his head cleared, the events started to come back to him. The quiet whispering voice from behind him. His demand of “always remember why this happened to you”, kept repeating itself in his head, over and over, and over again.

Then, with his voice repeating his demands, the faces began to invade his memory. The faces of all the boys he had been with, either by their own free will or not. The face of the very first boy ironically came first. The boy he seduced in Brazil when he was there for Carnival. Jared was sixteen then, the boy was half that age. It was then that Jared began to learn the power of money, and how it could buy silence, as well as any other thing that was needed.

Then, all the faces of all the boys that came afterwards. They clicked through his mind like a slide show. First as still images, then the events of his time spent with all those young boys began to fill his head, like film clips in a constant flow of instant replays. 

The most common thing that stood out among every memory of every boy, was that of the expression on their faces when Jared would start to move his hands on their bodies and then underneath their clothing. The minority of them who were not paid for, had no expression of acceptance. All these others had a mixture of surprise and fear. It was these latter boys whose faces filled Jared’s head the most.

Then, reality began to settle in with Jared. He wanted to get up and get out of bed so that he could shake these images out of his mind. His brain made the command to his body that everyone takes for granted, however his body did not respond. He then tried to move his arms to pull the blankets off of him so that he could bring his legs over to the side of the bed. The only thing that happened was that his right hand moved slightly.

Fear began to envelope him. Now he began to remember the events of the previous evening. What he thought mat have been the previous evening because now he realized that he did not know how long he had been unconscious. He remembered the incredible strength of the man, how he had lifted him from the ground. Jared remembered how his toes were just an inch from the ground. He remembered the voice, soft, quiet, all most ghost like. Everything the man had said to him began to replay itself over and over. Now the man’s voice and demands began to mix with the faces of all the boys.

He then suddenly remembered the breaking sound that came when he felt the strike between his shoulder blades. The sudden excruciating pain that came and went as fast as the sound. He then remembered the silence, and how he felt that the man was standing still behind him. How he could not move, and was frightened to do so.

He remembered staring down into the darkness of the ground, his eyes just an inch from the perfectly manicured lawn. He remembered the aroma of the grass, freshly cut for the last time for the year. How some tome later that aroma began to mix with the smell of his urine and excrement.

Jared now tried to make his brain force his body to move, however to no avail. The reality of his situation had now punched its way into his head. The voice, the faces, the demands, the blow between his shoulders. It was all going off like a blender in his head. 

 

Jared realized that he could not move, that his attacker made sure that he never could do so again.

The fear that Jared felt, combined with the voice and the memories, he did feel though the tears filling his eyes, he did feel his breathing start to hitch in what would have been a bought of crying, when suddenly he heard a sound come from his left side. A familiar sound.

Jared tried to turn his head to the left, however he did feel a restriction of some sort. He could feel his neck try to move, but something kept him from doing do. Something around his head and shoulders. So Jared moved his eyes to the left, and he just started to see something. So then Jared strained his eyes as far to his left as he could, and then he saw them.

He saw what he knew were his fathers feet propped up on a chair. Then sound he heard was that of a snort, followed by a slight moan from Mitchell Bartholomew as he slept in a chair next to his son. Jared then stop straining his eyes and neck to then relax and to look straight up to the ceiling. Jared felt the warmth of his tears as they streamed down his face.

Jared then started to remember the rest of the events from the previous evening. The hours that he had lied prone on the lawn to then at last hear the sound of his parents returning home. To when they finally came and found him in the back yard. The sound of his mother screaming and crying. The barking of orders to her from his father to call 9-1-1.

Then Jared remembered the conversation between him and his father while they waited for the ambulance and police. Jared telling him what happened, telling him what that man said and did. 

Of what his father then said to him afterwards.

Jared now felt the involuntary demands from his brain to his body, the simple demand to his hand to wipe the tears from his face. It was not being obeyed. 

So now Jared forced himself to stop crying, to stop the flow of tears down his face and let them dry. It became easy for him to do because he used the anger and hatred he had towards his father to do so.

Jared was a combination of emotion and memory. The voice, the faces, the recollections, the anger, and the hatred. All now flowing from their own faucets.

“Don’t let him see you crying,” Jared thought to himself, so as to bring the stream of his tears to a halt, “don’t let that mother fucking, scum, pig, bastard see you cry.”