Letter to Belinda Read online

  “So you didn’t come here to persuade her to come back with you?”

  “Hell no! My patience has run out with her! I just came to bring her the rest of her things, because I don’t want her to have a reason to show up at my doorstep again!

  “Where do you think she’ll end up?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care! I put up with her for too long. All I was to her anyway, was a free meal, and a place to stay! She never really cared for me! I was the only one who would take her in. But I have had enough! I need to move on with my life. I feel like I have wasted the past two years already, trying to turn her around. I know now it can’t be done, because she doesn’t want to change! Don’t judge me for calling it quits, because I put up with her a lot longer than anyone else would have. Longer than anyone should have!”

  “No one is blaming you. If everything you told me is true, then I can’t blame you at all. I don’t think that I would have taken her in.”

  “Thanks for your understanding. I wish her luck, but she was certainly more than I could handle. I never want to go through that emotional roller-coaster again!”

  Janice came to the front door, followed by Penelope, who looked much better cleaned up. She stopped at the front steps, when she saw Vance.

  “I’m not going back with you, Vance! I’m not! I’m not!”

  “Hey, that’s fine! No problem! I’m just here to bring you the rest of your stuff! The stuff you didn’t have time to gather up this morning when you sneaked out!”

  “Come out here and talk to him, Penelope!” Travis said.

  “No! This man kept me doped up and senseless for two years! That’s why I called Janice to come get me! He wouldn’t let me go!”

  “I was just trying to protect you! Hey, you could go any time you wanted! And you stayed doped up all the time because that was your choice, not mine!”

  Janice heard trickling water, and saw pee trickling down her leg, pooling on the top step. She also saw Penelope’s face contorting into an ugly scowl, as she first tried to hold back the anger, and then let it go.

  “You! You think you are such a BIG MAN! You’re just a funny little man, with a funny little dick! The only way you could get sex was to dope me out of my mind so I couldn’t leave! Such a BIG MAN you are!”

  “Hey, you’re not being fair! I had to put up with a hell of a lot of your shit, to try to help you!”

  “Help me? You call that helping me? You’re a tiny little man, with a tiny little dick! He used to say to me, ‘Here, you sexy whore, suck my big dick!’ And I didn’t have any choice, because he had me strung out on drugs and there was nothing else I could do! I wanted to leave, but he said I was never going to leave him, because he needed me to suck his big dick and screw him! Yeah, you are such a BIG MAN! The only way you can get sex is to keep me a prisoner in your bedroom, tied to the bed and naked, stoned out of my skull! Yeah, you are such a BIG MAN! He said if I ever tried to get away, he would kill me, or even worse, turn me back over to my Dad! You are such a LITTLE MAN! And a coward too! What do you have to say to that, you sleazy pile of shit!”

  Vance seemed to shrink smaller and smaller with every word she spat at him, until he looked as though he wished he could find a rock to crawl under.

  Janice was in total shock.

  Travis turned to Vance and said, “Okay, your turn.”

  “All I can say is that I put a roof over her head, and fed her, and yes, when she felt like it, she had sex with me, but it was always with her consent, in fact, it was usually she who initiated it! She never was a captive! She could leave any time she wanted to!”

  “You said you’d kill me! But I realize now that was just an idle threat, because you’re not man enough to kill anyone! But you kept me doped out of my skull, and believing that you’d kill me!”

  “She’s lying! I never said that! Why do you want to lie on me like that, Penelope? You know that’s not true!”

  “Oh yeah, it’s the truth! You kept me on drugs, because you knew I was helpless when I was stoned! I had to go back to drinking, to get off the drugs, but I’m off them now! How ironic is that? I had to drown myself in booze before I could see clearly out of that haze you kept me in! That’s how bad off I am!”

  “She’s lying! I don’t know what she’s talking about! I don’t even allow drugs or alcohol in my home!”

  “You lying son of a bitch! You’ve got drugs stacked up to the ceiling in your back bedroom! You didn’t think I knew that, did you? You thought I was so spaced out that I didn’t know what was going on! Well I do! You’re always selling to Rico and Manuel, and then they take it and re-sell it out on the street!”

  “Okay, your turn.” Travis said to Vance.

  “You know, I don’t have to sit here and be subjugated to this assault on my character, by a bitch who is so drunk she doesn’t even know what day it is! There’s your stuff! I’m leaving!”

  Travis was relieved that this confrontation finally seemed to be over. This was too much drama for one day. But in fact it was just getting started, because as Vance was firing up the V-8 engine in his Yukon, a burgundy colored Ford truck pulled up into the driveway behind him, blocking him in. It was Bob Deason, Penelope’s dad.

  7

  Vance was hysterical with fear. “He’s going to kill me! He said the next time he saw me, he was going to blow my brains out! I’m trapped! He’s going to kill me!”

  “Nobody’s killing anybody!” Travis said. “You stay right here. I’ll talk to Bob.”

  “Be careful! He always carries a pistol in his pocket! Look! He’s got his hand in his pocket on his gun! Oh God, he’s going to kill us all!”

  “Calm down. I’m going to talk to him.” Travis said, as he walked toward Bob’s truck. Bob stood beside his truck with both hands shoved down in the deep pockets of his blue denim coveralls. He slowly chewed on his tobacco, and wasn’t smiling.

  “Hello Bob!”

  “Travis.”

  “Long time no see!”

  “About ten years.”

  “What brings you here today, of all days?”

  “I’ll get right to the point.” He spit tobacco juice on the driveway, and smeared it into the dust with his worn leather boot. “Herbert called and told me that Penelope tried to come back to his house, but Jessica turned her away. Jessica said that it was your wife what brung her there. So I thought she might still be here.”

  “Yes, she’s here.”

  “I know she’s needing a place to stay, so I’ve come to take her home.”

  “She’s in the house. I’ll send for her.”

  “Is that her boyfriend there, in that new truck?”

  “Yes, that’s Vance.”

  “That boy’s no good! You know how he can afford to buy those fancy new vehicles, don’t you? He’s a dope dealer! He’s one of those city slickers that’s moved out to the country to keep from getting caught! I know that for a fact, and that he has a crystal meth lab in a shed in his back yard! I’d blow his brains out, if he was on my property! But you can do what you want to do.”

  “Speaking of guns, Bob, he’s scared to death! He thinks you have a pistol in your pocket. Do you have a gun in your pocket, or are you just playing with yourself?”

  “I’m playing with myself. Why, is that a crime?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Maybe I did tell him that I had a gun in my pocket, but I didn’t say what kind of gun!” He grinned at Travis. Travis just shook his head.

  “So is he here to get Penelope, to take her back with him? Because if he is, he’s going to have a fight on his hands! I love my daughter a great deal, and it really hurt me to see her doped up and living with him all this time. Go tell her that I want to take her back home with me and take care of her. Go ahead and tell her, Travis. I’ll wait.
”

  Travis turned and yelled to Janice, who was on the front porch. “Janice, tell Penelope that her Dad wants to talk to her.” As if in reply, they heard an almost primordial scream from inside the house. Apparently Penelope heard his request.

  “Well, while we’re waiting here, let me ask you a few questions, Bob. Are you still growing pot in the woods around your farm?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to pretend with me. I know what goes on around my property. I know that you only grow it for your own use, or else I would have busted you years ago. I don’t tolerate a drug dealer in the neighborhood, not with six kids under my roof.”

  “Thanks for sparing me!” Bob said sarcastically.

  “You remember that 19 year old kid that stayed with his granddad, out Pilgrim Road? I think Scott was his name.”

  “Yeah, I remember him?” Bob said.

  “He was a drug dealer.”

  “Yeah, he tried to sell me some weed one time.”

  “But you didn’t need it because you grow your own?”

  “And mine’s better than his.”

  “Seen him lately?”

  “Not seen him in years.”

  “Do you know why? Because I don’t tolerate drug dealers in my neighborhood.”

  “So you killed him?”

  “I didn’t have to. I beat the crap out of him, and pointed him down the road. I haven’t seen him around here since. I talked to his granddad about a year ago. He said Scott is in Prison in Huntsville, Texas, and they’d just found out that he possibly has AIDS. He got it from his ‘friends’ in prison. So I guess we won’t be seeing him around here anymore. The bottom line is, I don’t put up with drug dealers in my neighborhood. Now from what I’ve heard from you and Penelope, this guy right here, who is presently watching us through his rear-view mirror, is a pretty big dealer in Arlington. If so, I’m going to bust his bubble too, he just doesn’t know it yet. Are you sure about what you told me?”

  “Oh yeah! I reported him to the Arlington City Police, but that was a mistake. He pays off the City Police. They are more corrupt than he is!”

  “What about the Arlington County Sheriff? Think they’re paid off too?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, but who knows?”

  “I went to school with some of the Deputies who patrol out this way. I’ll mention it to them.”

  “I don’t see Penelope coming yet. Maybe you should go get her?”

  “Janice delivered the message. If she doesn’t want to come out, I’m not going to make her.”

  “I guess she’s been telling you all kinds of lies and deceitful things about me, hasn’t she?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard a few nasty things about you, but not all from Penelope. Some of it from Vance here.”

  “You can’t believe anything that lyin’ little twerp says!”

  “What about your own daughter?”

  “It’s those drugs he has her on! She believes anything when she’s on those drugs! I am appalled at what kinds of things she says to people about me! She knows they ain’t true! She knows that I love her, and just want what’s best for her! And that goes for my granddaughter, Jessica too! She has turned my own granddaughter against me with her bodacious lies! That’s what really hurts! And I’ll tell you something else, just between you and me and the trees, I think there is something a little fishy going on between Jessica and her step-dad!”

  “You mean Herbert?”

  “Yes! He keeps her hid away in that house all the time. She don’t want nothin’ to do with her mother and me! She’s 18, and she don’t date any boys! Now, you show me an 18 year old girl who don’t date yet, and I’ll show you a girl that has got something very troubling going on in her life!”

  “Oh. So you’re saying that Herbert won’t let Jessica out to have a normal life? That he’s trying to protect her from the outside world, in the same way that you protected Penelope from the outside world?”

  Bob started to answer, not grasping what Travis was getting at, but then stopped. He didn’t know for sure how much Travis knew. How much had they told him? The uncomfortable silence spoke volumes. He was completely unaware of what his right hand was doing. But Travis noticed.

  “Bob, if you don’t mind, could you wait until later to play with yourself? I find it offensive.”

  He stopped immediately, his face flushed red with embarrassment, but did not remove his hands from his pockets. “I have a nervous condition. My right hand shakes sometimes.”

  “That wasn’t shaking, it was stroking. And if it was a nervous condition, you couldn’t control it like you just did.”

  Again, Bob seemed at a loss for words.

  “Of course, what a man does in the privacy of his own pocket is his own business. What he does in the privacy of his own home with his daughter, or his mother, or both, is his business too. Unless, you know, like if the daughter, or granddaughter, or step-daughter is under age. Then it might be something of interest to the prosecutor’s office. Incest among consenting adults might be against established taboo, but I don’t think it’s illegal. But if one party is under age, then it is called statutory rape.”

  Bob’s face went from red with embarrassment, to totally drained of its color.

  “Are you okay, Bob? You don’t look so good.”

  “Every accusation against me is a lie! Nothing you just accused me of can be proved in a court of law!”

  “I did not specifically accuse you of anything, Bob! I was just speaking hypothetically! But I guess if the shoe fits, then wear it!”

  It was at this point that Janice walked out to join her husband, as he talked to Bob.

  “I don’t have to stand here and take this! Tell Penelope that if she needs a place to stay, that my door is open to her. Hello Mrs. Lee.”

  “Hello. I came out here to tell you that I tried to get Penelope to come out here to talk to you, but she wouldn’t do it. She is terrified of you! She peed in her pants again and won’t come out of the house!”

  Travis shook his head. “Every time something scares her, she lets go of her bladder! She has peed all over our house since she’s been here! I don’t want her staying here if she can’t be house broken!”

  “Travis, that’s an ugly thing to say!”

  “But it’s the truth! I’m ready to run all of you clowns off my property!”

  “Then I won’t burden you with my presence any longer!” Bob angrily spit tobacco juice on the ground, then opened his truck door to get in.

  “Don’t leave mad, Bob! Just leave! And have a nice day!” That was when he and Janice both saw the brown car slowly coming up the driveway. It was an Arlington County Sheriff’s Deputy car.

  “We’ve got company, Bob!”

  He looked in his rear-view mirror and became alarmed. “You called the cops on me?”

  “No, we didn’t call them.” Travis said. “I’ll go see what they want.”

  The Sheriff’s car pulled in far enough that he prevented Bob from backing out. Two officers got out of the car wearing their ‘smoky’ hats, and removed their sunglasses as they assessed the situation. The senior officer approached Travis, as Travis approached him.

  “Is this the Travis Lee residence?”

  “Yes sir. I am Travis Lee. What brings you out, officer?”

  “We got a 911 call from your home phone. We were told that there was trouble, and that someone could get killed. The woman who called, identified herself as Janice Lee.”

  “That’s my wife!”

  “May we speak to her?”

  “She’s right here. Janice!”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you call 911?”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “The officers say that a Janice Lee called them from
our phone . . .”

  “Penelope! It had to be her!”

  “Who is Penelope?” The Deputy asked.

  “She is a neighbor,” Janice explained. “This is her Dad here in this red truck. And her boyfriend is in the gray truck. We’ve been having, I guess what you would call a family dispute.”

  “This Penelope, what is her last name?”

  “Jones.”

  “We need to speak to her. By law, when we receive a 911 call, we must speak to the person who made the call. Where is she?”

  “In the house.”

  “Then let’s go speak to her.”

  Bob spoke up. “Excuse me, officer, but you seem to have me blocked in. Can you let me out before you go into the house?”

  “There has been a 911 call from this residence, and no one is to leave this scene before I have determined what is going on. Deputy Hill, stay here with the car, and make sure these two men do not leave!”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Bob looked sick, and Vance slumped down even lower in the driver’s seat of his truck.

  Travis and Janice led the Deputy into their home to talk to Penelope, but she was not in the living room. Janice went back to the bedrooms and called out to them, “Here she is!” They went to the back bedroom, where they found Penelope hiding behind a bed, curled up in the fetal position. Janice was still angry about her name being used to call 911, immediately confronted her about it. Weeping and rocking back and forth, she admitted it.