Is He Dead? Page 15

  “Do you forgive me? Come on, do you?” he asked, jokingly. Amanda responded with, “Okay, I forgive you.”

  Tom held out his arms and asked for a hug. Amanda stood up and walked over to Tom. She bent down and hugged him putting her arms around his back.

  Tom said, “You know I love you, don’t you Amanda? I just don’t want you doing something stupid like using cocaine.”

  Tom started caressing Amanda’s neck, then massaging her shoulders. He placed his lips against the back of her neck and kissed her, moving very slowly. He stroked his lips up and down her neck onto her shoulders. Amanda sat there and didn’t move. Tom lifted her T-shirt over her head and dropped it on the coffee table. He started massaging her shoulders again and then unhooked her bra. He slowly took her bra off. Her breasts were exposed. Tom caressed her breast and squeezed both of them. “You know Amanda, I love you. You are almost eighteen years old now. We can have a baby, you and me,” Tom whispered into Amanda's ear. “We can leave your Mom and move away together. You know me and your Mom ain’t been having sex lately and you and me, hell, we fit together like two bugs in a rug,” Tom said, trying to be funny.

  He pulled down her shorts and exposed Amanda’s pubic hair. “Oh my God, you are so beautiful,” he said as he ran his fingers through her pubic hair. Tom started grunting and moaning and removed his work pants and boxer underwear. Amanda reached out and grabbed his penis in her hand. Tom immediately got an erection.

  Tom jumped up from the loveseat and went into his bedroom. He returned with a tube of KY jelly and filled his hand with the lubricant. “Lay down baby,” he ordered.

  Amanda laid back and spread her legs as Tom smeared the KY Jelly in and around the outside of her vagina. “I love you baby,” he whispered to Amanda as he mounted and entered her. Tom started out slowly, and then increased the intensity of his thrust. He was kissing Amanda as he pumped. Sweat dripped from Tom’s forehead onto Amanda’s chest.

  Amanda was thinking she had to save his sperm this time to prove he had sex with her.

  As Tom was reaching his climax, he asked Amanda if she, too, was coming. “Yeah!” Amanda lied. Amanda began thrusting her hips as if she was climaxing. Tom finished and laid there with his arm around Amanda. Both of them fell asleep.

  Forty-Five

  Amanda opened her eyes and looked around. Tom was sleeping next to her. “God, he stinks!” Amanda thought to herself. She was completely naked in between Tom and the back of the sofa. Amanda shook Tom and told him to wake up.

  Tom jumped up and began cursing right away. “Damn it, what time is it? The clock didn’t go off, or what?” Tom ran down the hallway to the bathroom. He didn’t bother to put on any clothes.

  He started talking to himself saying, “I was going to quit anyway, maybe I’ll just stay home and say to hell with it. No, that’s not very honorable.”

  He picked up the phone and called his boss. “I’m so sorry, but we must have had a power outage last night. My clock is blinking and my alarm didn’t go off this morning. I ’m headed in right now,” he said.

  Tom was showered and out the door in fifteen minutes. Amanda woke up her mother and told her the alarm didn’t go off. Melissa was still sleeping in her work clothes from the previous day. Amanda woke up Robert and told him that Tom was gone. “What are we going to do?” Robert asked Amanda. She told him they needed to wait until their mother left for work then they could start planning.

  Melissa was leaving at 11:00 a.m. and suddenly stopped in her tracks. She looked back and saw Amanda standing in the living room next to the sofa. “What happened last night?” she asked. Amanda told her, “You don’t want to know.” She was working the first shift at Red Lobster. When she arrived, she told her boss and friend, “I just don’t know, something isn’t right today. I can feel it in my bones”

  Meanwhile, Amanda and Robert removed the gun from under the sofa. “Here, Robert. Hold it. Get the feel of it, so it won’t feel awkward this afternoon. Listen, we have to make a plan. It has to look like self-defense or we will go to jail forever. Hell, we might even get the death penalty,” Amanda said. Robert opened the cylinder, removed the bullets and placed them in his pants pocket.

  “I don’t care if I get the death penalty, Amanda. I am willing to take that chance,” he said. “You know, we have no other choice. If we run away from him, he will find us. If we call the police he will pay them off, like last time. He will probably take us to that swamp and cut our heads off,” Robert pondered, shuddering at the thought.

  He pointed the gun at his image in the mirror and pulled the trigger. “I’m ready,” he said. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Amanda sat down with him and said, “We have to do this right. I think we should use the iron and, okay, you will use the, iron and burn my face with it. You will have to hold it to my face,” she explained.

  “We need to throw the iron into the wall afterwards; and, you know, and make a hole,” Robert said.

  Amanda emphasized to Robert that what they were about to do was going to be very dangerous. “If you miss, he will kill us both tonight, here in this apartment and no one will know our story. So you have to shoot him in the head. Shoot him with all six bullets, okay?” Amanda said.

  “Okay, the iron …” started Robert. He was getting confused. Amanda interrupted, “I will write it down for you, okay?” She removed a piece of white stationery from the kitchen drawer and wrote down the following list:

  Burn my face with the iron

  Throw iron into the wall

  Hit Robert in the face with a belt, making welts

  Break the pottery on the coffee table

  Fall back into the wall and make a large hole with my body

  Put the clump of Robert’s hair from last night on to the floor

  in front of the loveseat with the pliers

  They planned the exact location Tom needed to be in order for Robert to shoot him. Amanda walked into the kitchen and stood next to the refrigerator. She surveyed the view from there and told Robert this is where he should hide the gun, “Listen Robert, we have to do this as soon as he comes home. If he finds this gun, we are in a world of shit,” Amanda said.

  She drew a picture of the living room and then added the furniture.

  Robert told her, “I think I should come out of the bathroom and you just get up, get out of the way when I come out. “

  NO!” Amanda was adamant. “He might see you with the gun coming down the hallway! I will sit here,” she said, pointing to the center of the sofa. “I will have him sit next to me and help me with my unemployment papers. He will sit right here and face this direction,” She pointed towards the front door.

  “As soon as you notice him looking down, you walk into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. You take the gun out of the towel and walk towards us. Shoot him in the head. If you don’t, it may not kill him,” Amanda instructed.

  “Okay, everything is set. Let’s practice, okay?”

  Amanda and Robert practiced just how they were going to destroy once and for all the source of their abuse and torture for so many years. They were determined it would all end today. They were not going to endure another night of agony at the hands of Charles Thomas Jenkins.

  Robert went into the bathroom and wrapped the gun in a white hand towel and hid it between the refrigerator and the cabinet.

  Amanda asked Robert if he wanted to go get something to eat. He was so nervous that he said he didn’t think he could eat anything. We need to eat and then get our stories together. We have to give exactly the same story or we are dead,” Amanda explained. Amanda drove them to Burger King and they sat inside and each had a Whopper Meal.

  “This might be our last meal together Amanda,” Robert said. “If we go to jail we may not see each other again.” A big tear ran down Robert’s cheek.

  “I just want you to know that I love you, sis. You have always been the best sister I could ever ask for.” They stood up and hugged each other.

&
nbsp; “I love you too, Robert. I always have, little brother,” she said. “Now let’s go and get ready.”

  They returned to the apartment at 3:30 p.m. and Amanda spread her unemployment papers out on the coffee table. They were both extremely nervous, anticipating what was about to happen.

  “Robert, he has beaten us for nine years. This is the right thing, I promise you,” Amanda said confidently.

  Robert looked at her and said, “I know, but I’m scared, Amanda!” He began to cry. Amanda started crying with him.

  Robert asked, ‘What about Mom, what’s going to happen to her?” “Don’t worry about Mom. She can live again after today,” Amanda responded.

  The phone rang. Amanda rushed to pick it up. “Hello,” she said as she placed the phone to her ear. It was Tom,

  “Hey, Amanda, listen, I called the prison and talked to the warden. We have to go out there tomorrow so you can make a statement.”

  Amanda asked, “Why do I have to do that?”

  Tom explained she needed to write a statement stating the inmate had provided her with cocaine. “The warden said they would lock him down and return him to regular prison, if that’s the case. I want that bastard put away for a long time.”

  Amanda listened and said, “Okay Dad. I’ll sign a statement.”

  Tom said he was leaving work right then and would be home around 5:00 p.m.

  “Why don’t you heat up that spaghetti in the refrigerator and put some rolls in the oven and we can eat it when I get home,” Tom said.

  “Sure, Dad, but I need your help with these unemployment papers ‘cause I can’t figure them out, okay?” Amanda told him.

  Tom hung up. He was in a good mood and it sounded like everything was back to normal.

  Robert yelled, “We gotta burn your face and put the holes in the wall!”

  Amanda told him they couldn’t do that until afterwards. "If dad comes in and sees that, he will know something is wrong.”

  “That’s true,” Robert agreed.

  They sat in the kitchen and waited. Both were staring at the wall clock. It was so quiet in the house; they could hear the click of each movement of the secondhand.

  “I can feel my heart beating,” Robert said. Amanda replied that she, too, could feel her heart pounding.

  At five o’clock, Amanda reached out and shook Robert’s hand. Robert stood up and walked into the back of the house. Tom was never late. If he said five he would arrive at five on the dot. Robert was standing in the bathroom listening. He put his hands in his pocket and his heart skipped a beat. “The bullets, the fucking bullets, they’re still in my pocket, oh shit!” he thought. He ran down the hallway into the kitchen. He heard Tom’s truck pull up out front. A neighbor was out front and Tom started talking with him.

  Robert unwrapped the gun and opened the cylinder. His hands were shaking so badly, he couldn’t line up the bullets. He dropped two on the floor. He could hear Tom walking towards the front door. Robert bent over and picked up one of the bullets and kicked the other one under the refrigerator. He managed to get four into the chamber and then Tom opened the front door. Robert closed the cylinder and re-wrapped the gun up in the towel.

  Amanda greeted Tom as he entered the apartment. “Hey Dad.” Robert was having difficulty swallowing. His mouth was like cotton. The artery on his neck was thumping.

  “Hey, here are all the papers I told you about,” Amanda said, pointing to the papers on the coffee table. “Can you help me?”

  Tom walked away from her and headed to his bedroom. He opened the door then went into his master bathroom. He stood at the toilet and urinated. He left the door open and Amanda stood in the doorway, talking to him.

  “I just didn’t realize there was so much paperwork needed to file unemployment,” Amanda said.

  Tom followed her back to the living room and Amanda sat down in the spot she had prepared and motioned for Tom to sit next to her. Tom told her to wait a minute.

  “I need to get me a beer,” he said. He walked towards Robert in the kitchen and Robert said, “I’ll get it for you.” Robert removed a beer from the refrigerator and handed it to Tom.

  Tom walked back and sat next to Amanda. He bent over and started reading a form out loud. Sweat was running down Robert’s pant legs as he reached behind the refrigerator and unwrapped the 38-caliber Chief’s Special. He looked at the gun for a second, swallowed hard, and then turned towards Tom and Amanda. His hands were shaking to the point he could hardly aim the weapon. He remembered he needed to breathe and squeeze.

  Robert looked at his step father’s back and started crying. He lifted the gun up to his line of sight, “Breathe and squeeze,” he told himself. Amanda looked back and saw what he was doing and screamed out, “No, Robert!” Tom looked back and saw Robert standing behind him with the gun and yelled out, “No!”

  Then, with a thunderous explosion, the gun went off. The recoil and noise startled Robert and he fell back. The bullet slammed into Tom’s back thrusting him forward as if he had just been kicked by a horse. As Tom tried to recover, he stood up and picked up a black antique iron from the floor and threw it at Robert. Tom missed and it hit the kitchen wall. Robert leveled the gun at him again.

  “Oh my God, please don’t, son!” Tom screamed out. He turned to run.

  Robert’s eyes were watering, but he still squeezed the trigger and, with another thunderous explosion, sent a second bullet into his father’s left rear shoulder. The force of the second bullet thrust Tom into the wall. He stumbled over a lamp and fell to the floor. Amanda continued screaming for Robert to stop. She was hysterical, yelling and shrieking. Tom staggered towards the door trying to get away from his son. Robert leveled the gun and fired a third time. The bullet shattered the door. Tom tripped and fell once again as he struggled to get through the front door.

  Tom stumbled out of the doorway, pleading for someone to hear him.

  “Help me! Amanda! Help me!” he begged. He was alone. No one was there to even hear his pleas. He clutched his chest, gasping for each breath. He fell again, this time on to a concrete planter just outside the front door of their apartment. He was unable to use his hands to cushion his fall. His right ear slammed into the corner of the planter base. The pain was as intense as the fiery hot bullets slamming into his back and chest. Somehow he managed to stand up once again. Blood oozed from his back and ran at a steady pace down his shirt. His ear was torn and blood trickled onto his shoulder.

  “Oh my God, Oh my God!” Tom repeated. He walked, hunched over, through the parking lot and on to the grass lawn. He turned his head back towards his apartment, looking for Robert. He yelled out Amanda’s name, but no sound came out of his mouth. He turned and walked towards the street and fell face first onto the grass.

  Robert ran as fast as he could to the Red Lobster Restaurant where his Mother was working. He burst through the entranceway and yelled, Mom! Mom!” Melissa was waiting on a customer, she was holding a plate in her hand and dropped it to the floor when she heard Robert’s cry.

  “Mom I did it. I shot him, I shot him three times, but I don’t think he’s dead. He’s going to kill me, I know it!” Robert screamed. Melissa said, “You did what? Wait a minute,” Melissa said. “I’ll get you a ride to Patricia’s house. You stay there until I call you, okay?”

  Robert was breathing hard to the point of hyperventilating. Melissa hugged him and sent him on his way. Melissa asked a co-worker to drive him to Patricia Langley’s house on Crawford Drive, the very same house that he and Amanda had stolen the gun from.

  When Robert arrived, Bridget Edwards, Patricia’s daughter and Amanda’s friend, was home. He told her he had just shot his father. “Can you take me down the river in your canoe to somewhere I can hide?” Robert asked. “If he finds me, he will kill me!”

  Bridget took Robert into her backyard. They pushed the canoe in the creek. The water was dark and dismal. It was a popular hangout for alligators. Bridget paddled south for five or ten minutes until
they came to a small dock in front of a mobile home. Robert jumped up and pointed to a clump of bushes. “I will stay right there. Can you bring me a blanket?” he asked. Bridget replied she would try, but might not be able to come back out. Robert walked over to the bushes and Bridget pushed the canoe back out into the creek. “Good luck!” She called out to him.

  “I can’t stay here,” Robert thought to himself, as he started walking deeper into the woods. The sound of frogs croaking along the bank frightened him. The next step he took, he sank into mud, and when he lifted his foot up, he lost his shoe. It was dark at that point and he could barely see where his shoe had lodged into the mud. When he retrieved the shoe, it was filled with wet, runny mud and it stunk. “Phew!” he said out loud. He backed up and banged the shoe against a cypress stump and then put it back on.

  He turned around and headed in what he thought was the same direction he had just come. He could hear people talking. “Oh shit, that’s Dad!” he thought as he knelt down to conceal himself. He listened for a minute and was able to discern that the voices he heard did not include his father’s. He continued walking and found a clearing. It was a railroad track. He decided to walk down the track but he was now totally disoriented. When he came out to the road it was half a block from his house. He saw headlights coming his way. The car sounded like a Z-28 so he ran for cover. Robert hid behind a pine tree until the car passed.

  He decided he needed to go to a friend’s house, but wasn’t sure exactly how to find it. He followed the railroad track and walked for about two miles until he recognized the area. He ran through several yards, jumping over fences, until he arrived at his friend’s house. He knocked on the door and his friend Sidney answered, “Robert, what the…,” Robert quickly interrupted him. “I shot my ole man and he’s after me. Do you know anywhere I can hide?” His friend Sidney took him to a special place he knew in the woods where Robert remained until the next day. Robert climbed up a huge oak tree and stayed sitting on a large limb wide-awake until the next morning. When the sun came up, Robert walked into a convenience store and bought a honeybun. He used a pay phone to call his house, but there was no answer. His arms were itching and covered in mosquito bites. He decided it was too dangerous to hang around the store, so he went back into the woods.