Is He Dead? Read online

  “What the hell crawled up you and died?” Tom asked Melissa.

  “That ain’t very nice,” Melissa said. “Hell, I eat the same things you do.”

  “Amanda, Robert, come here!” Tom yelled. Amanda and Robert both entered the bathroom. Robert was holding his nose with his fingers to avoid having to smell anything.

  “Amanda, what does it smell like in here?” Tom asked. Amanda and Robert started laughing.

  “It smells like poop,” Robert said.

  “Poop hell,” Tom replied.

  ”It smells like some’un done crawled up inside your Momma and died,” Tom yelled laughingly. Robert and Amanda starting laughing with him, and even Melissa began to laugh.

  Tom then ordered the kids out of the bathroom. He reached into the sink and turned on the hot water and grabbed a bar of lava soap. He was scrubbing his hands when Melissa told him.

  “Tom, Amanda got herself an F on her report card.” Tom looked up at her for a moment and looked back down at his hands.

  “Let me see it!” Tom demanded.

  “Shit, she got good grades except this one subject.”

  “I been after her to study Tom, it ain’t my fault!” Melissa said.

  “Amanda, get your ass in here, girl,” Tom yelled out. Amanda ran into the living room and responded with, “Yes sir?”

  “Amanda, why do you have an F on your report card?” Tom asked. Her response was typical for a kid,

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you been doing your homework?” Amanda looked like an old Mexican Hairless dog, standing there shaking.

  “What are you going to do, Tom?” Amanda asked. Tom looked around the room and then pulled off his belt.

  “I am going to have to whip you, Amanda,” he said. “Now go on into your room and take your clothes off and wait for me.”

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t know about this before it happened,” Tom said to Melissa.

  “I swear I didn’t know, Tom. She was hiding it from me. Us, I mean. I didn’t do nothing wrong, Tom, it was her”

  Tom walked into Amanda’s room holding a leather belt. It was close to two and half inches wide. Amanda was hunched down in the far corner of the bedroom crying. Tom ordered her to get up and come to him.”

  “Take those panties off too,” Tom told her. Amanda slipped her panties off and Tom told her to bend over and grab her ankles. Amanda bent down but couldn’t quite reach her ankles. Tom stared at her backside for a moment, and then drew back his belt. When that belt hit Amanda, it sounded like lightning striking the house. Amanda screamed out in pain and straightened up her body. She tried to break free from Tom by jumping up and down and tugging on his grip. He maintained his grip and swung again, this time striking Amanda just below her shoulder blades. The skin began to welt after the blow. Amanda screamed again and pulled harder to break free of Tom.

  “You know, fighting me is just going to make it worse,” Tom yelled. He drew back the belt and again swung it towards her bottom. The belt made a painfully loud crackling noise each time Tom struck her. Amanda pulled away and Tom dropped the belt. He picked it up and swung it around before getting a good grip. The belt buckle slammed up against Amanda’s lower back. The impact broke the skin and Amanda shrieked in pain. The final torturous swing barely made contact, but the edge of the belt caught Amanda on her right thigh. Tom stopped swinging and said,

  “The next time you get an F, it’s going to be much worse. Now, put your clothes back on,” Tom said.

  Amanda was extremely shaken. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. She backed up to the mirror and saw red stripes and swollen ridges extending from side to side on her back. The welts were the same size as Tom’s belt. Her back was still bleeding. When Amanda opened the medicine cabinet, she saw a razor. She took the razor out of the cabinet and sat down on the floor. She placed the razor against her wrist and had it not been for the thought of her brother Robert being left with Tom, she may very well have taken her own life. She stayed on the floor for a long time. Amanda stood up and placed the razor back into the cabinet. She removed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it over her shoulder over her wounds.

  Nineteen

  One week later Amanda was at school in PE class and a teacher noticed a bruise on her leg.

  “Mr. Bridges (Mr. Bridges was the principal of Riceville Elementary School), I think you need to speak with Amanda Jenkins. She has some pretty bad bruises on her - could be child abuse,” the PE teacher told him. The principal had just recently received a call from a neighbor of the Jenkins’ reporting the children were frequently left alone.

  “I’d better notify the officials about this,” he thought.

  “This is Principal Bridges over at Riceville Elementary. I need to report a possible abuse situation,” he said, speaking to someone on the telephone.

  “We’ll get someone over there right away,” the official on the other end of the phone promised.

  Within the hour, an investigator from Human Services arrived. She walked into the main office and asked to see the principal.

  “My name is Mrs. Stringer and I am here to investigate the child abuse complaint.”

  Mr. Bridges led her to his office where Amanda Jenkins was waiting. Amanda stood up when they walked in.

  “Sit down, honey,” Mrs. Stringer told Amanda. “I just need to ask you a few questions about some things, okay?”

  Amanda nodded and said she didn’t mind talking to her.

  “Amanda, I want you to be honest with me, alrighty?” Mrs. Stringer said. “Amanda, I am an investigator for Human Services and I am here to help you.”

  “Tell me, is it true that you and your brother are left alone quite a bit when your mom and stepdad go out drinking?”

  “No, Ma’am!” Amanda replied. “My parents do go out sometimes, but they always take me and Robert with them.”

  Mrs. Stringer asked her again, and she repeated her answer.

  “Amanda, have you had a bad spanking recently?” The investigator asked.

  “ Yes ma’am, I did get a right bad whipping not too long back.”

  “Can I see the mark on your back Amanda?” she asked.

  Amanda obliged and lifted up the back of her shirt. Mrs. Stringer looked over her back and made a note in her notepad that Amanda had a two and half inch mark on her back consistent with being struck with a belt.

  “Mrs. Stringer, you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone about this! Promise me. I deserved the spanking ‘cause I got an F on my report card!” Amanda cried.

  “I am sorry Amanda but I will have to speak with your mother and stepfather,” she told her.

  “When?” Amanda asked. Mrs. Stringer explained to Amanda that she would have to drop by her home later on that day.

  When school was out, Amanda met with Robert and told him what had happened with Mrs. Stringer.

  “You can’t go home Amanda. You can’t never go home again”.

  “I know it, but I don’t know where to go. We got us a real problem here,” she said.

  “Let me think a minute,” Amanda said. “Let’s just get on the bus and we can figure something out.”

  Twenty

  Amanda sat on the bus next to a girlfriend of hers named Donna Renard.

  “What do you think he will do to you when he finds out?” Donna asked.

  “I ain’t sure, but I know it won’t be too perty,” Amanda told Donna.

  “I figure he might just kill me tonight!” Amanda said, crying. Donna told Amanda that both she and Robert could come to her house first.

  “My Mom can help you. She’s real smart about things like this,” Donna said.

  The bus stopped on Layman Road and as Donna, Amanda and Robert were getting off, the bus driver stuck out his arm across the aisle and stopped Robert.

  “Where do you think you’re going, son?” he asked.

  “We got permission to get off here,” Amanda jumped in. The bus driver told h
er he wasn’t aware of any permission, but he allowed the two to get off with Donna.

  At the same time, Mrs. Stringer left the school and drove to the Jenkins’ trailer. When she arrived, Tom and Melissa were home, but Amanda and Robert were not. They hadn’t arrived home yet and they were not on the bus. The neighbors were going door-to-door assisting Melissa and Tom looking for the kids.

  Mrs. Stringer explained why she was there. Tom became extremely upset.

  “No fucking wonder they didn’t come home,” he said.

  “This is your fault. Who the hell do you think you are interfering in our business?” Tom accused Mrs. Stringer.

  “Melissa, why don’t you call the bus driver and see if he saw them this afternoon?” said Tom. Melissa tried for some time, but the phone just rang and rang. When the driver finally picked up the phone, he told Melissa that both Amanda and Robert had been on the bus and they got off at the Renard house on Layman Road.

  Melissa and Tom told Mrs. Stringer they wanted to continue but had to go get the kids. Mrs. Stringer asked if she could wait.

  “Sure, fine with me,” Tom said. “We’ll be right back.”

  Meanwhile, Donna, Amanda and Robert were just arriving at Donna’s house.

  “Momma, I got Amanda and Robert Jenkins with me. Can they come in?” Donna asked. Her mother responded with a friendly, “Yes honey, of course they can.” Mrs. Renard asked Amanda what she was doing on this side of town.

  “My God, Amanda, what is wrong with you, honey? You’re shaking like a darn leaf, child!” Robert was standing next to Amanda and he, too, was very upset.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No ma’am. We just can’t go home, no more. Me and Robert have to run away, or we may be killed.”

  “Child, there ain't nobody going to kill you two for crying out loud. What kind of story you telling me? Where do you plan on going, Amanda?”

  “We don’t care. Maybe a ditch or something! We just can’t go home,” Amanda replied.

  Amanda was crying and trying to talk at the same time.

  “Mrs. Renard, my stepdad does things to me. He goes all the way with me,” Amanda said.

  “What do you mean, Amanda? Do you mean he has sex with you?”

  “Yes ma’am and with my brother, too!” Amanda exclaimed.

  Mrs. Renard sat down in a rocking chair quietly for moment lost in thought.

  “What can I do? My God this is awful!”

  Amanda looked at her with a very sad face and said, “Ma’am, one time not too long ago, he got mad at me and my brother ‘cause we was making noise in the trailer. He took out a BB gun and put it to my brother’s head. Then, he put it up against my face, right against my eye. He told me if I didn’t get out of the trailer right that minute he was going to shoot out my eye and then shoot my little brother in the head. We’re real scared, I know it sounds crazy and wild and all, but it’s true.”

  “What does your mother do about this, Amanda?” Mrs. Renard asked.

  Robert jumped in, “If our mom tries to stop him, he just beats her, too.”

  “He really beats …” Robert was interrupted by a violent knock at the door. Mrs. Renard opened the door and there stood Melissa Jenkins.

  “Howdy Mrs. Renard, are my young ‘uns over here?”

  When Amanda and Robert heard their mother at the door, Amanda grabbed their coats and book bags and both ran back into Mrs. Renard’s bedroom.

  “Get over here, Robert.” Amanda said, pulling Robert down behind the bed. Mrs. Renard didn’t quite know what to do, so she just nodded and said.

  “Yes, they’re here. Come on in.”

  Tom was sitting in the car waiting. During the ride home he turned on some country music and everyone was quiet. When they arrived Mrs. Stringer was sitting in the living room. Tom said to Amanda.

  “You know this lady Amanda?”

  “Yes,” replied Amanda

  “Do you know why she is here?”

  “I think so,” Amanda responded.

  Tom asked Amanda in a fatherly manner, “Honey, why didn’t you come home from school? You know there ain’t nutt'n we can’t work out.”

  Amanda nodded and said, “I know Dad. I’m sorry for running away like I did.”

  Mrs. Stringer asked about the whipping and Melissa answered, “We did have to whip her, but she doesn’t usually get that bad a spanking. The problem was she brought home an F in spelling on her report card. Robert can tell you he ain’t had no spanking lately, ‘cause he ain’t done nutt’n to warrant one.”

  When Mrs. Stringer asked about leaving the kids alone, Melissa again responded defensively.

  “That’s not true. Amanda did you tell this lady that? “

  Mrs. Stringer told Melissa and Tom she needed to request a physical examination for Amanda and she would like to have her sit with a psychologist. Tom agreed to the physical but said he would not agree to a shrink.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Stringer said. “I will make an appointment for her to see our doctor.”

  Tom said he could not agree to that, “We have our own doctor.”

  “All right, I guess that’s okay,” Mrs. Stringer replied. “Just make sure they send me the results, okay?”

  Twenty-One

  The next morning, Mrs. Renard called the Health and Human Services Department to report what had happened the night before. Mrs. Stringer was dispatched to her residence.

  “Listen, I hate to get involved in things like this, but those children are in a great deal of danger,” Mrs. Renard exclaimed. She told Mrs. Stringer exactly what Amanda had told her regarding sexual and physical abuse. Mrs. Stringer thanked her for calling and assured her she had done the right thing.

  Mrs. Stringer returned to Niceville Elementary school only to be told that both Amanda and Robert had been withdrawn and transferred to Westside Elementary School. When asked why they were switched, the principal said all he was told was that the kids were moving in with their grandmother.

  Mrs. Stringer called Mr. Fletcher, the principal at Westside, and verified that Amanda and Robert had been transferred. He said they were just enrolled that morning. Mrs. Stringer requested the school to follow-up on Mrs. Renard’s report. She had Amanda report to the principal’s office.

  “Amanda, how are you doing today?” Mrs. Stringer asked.

  “Good,” Amanda answered.

  “Listen, Amanda. I need to know if your stepfather has ever sexually molested you.”

  “What?” Amanda exclaimed acting very shocked.

  “What are you talking about? No! Never! My stepdad is a great man and he is good to me and Robert.”

  “Amanda, do you remember what you told Mrs. Renard?” Mrs. Stringer asked. Amanda responded by denying everything Mrs. Renard had told the investigator.

  “Now, why would Mrs. Renard lie to me Amanda?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s not true!” Amanda replied.

  "Amanda, why did you and Robert move to this school?”

  “My mom and dad sold the trailer and we moved in with my grandmother,” Amanda answered

  Mrs. Stringer asked to see Robert while she was there. “Robert, have you ever been beaten or sexually molested by your stepfather?” Mrs. Stringer asked. Robert’s response was one of shock. He told her that Tom was a great stepfather and he had always treated him and Amanda very well.

  Three days later, Mrs. Mona Jones and her daughter Anne Jones drove down to Health and Human Services. They asked to see Mrs. Stringer. They were told she was out of the office, but she would return within the hour. Mona and her daughter Anne sat in the lobby and waited.

  “Mrs. Jones, I’m Mrs. Stringer how can I help you?”

  “Hi, this is my daughter Anne and we gotta talk to you about Tom Jenkins and what he’s done to these children, my daughter included,” Mona said. “We just want you to know that the situation at the Jenkins house is bad, it’s real bad. We have been neighbors of theirs for quite some time.”

  “Do yo
u know if they sold their trailer and moved out?” asked Mrs. Stringer.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Do you know if their trailer is for sale?”

  “My uncle manages the trailer park where we live in and he hasn’t told me anything about it. As far as I know they are still living there. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” Mrs. Stringer responded. “So why have the two of you come here today?”

  “Anne here has told me some very disturbing things about Amanda, Robert and their parents. I have been meaning to call you for some time, but now I have to tell someone and get some help for those two kids. Mr. Jenkins has sexually molested Amanda almost every weekend for the past three years. She said sometimes Mr. Jenkins takes Amanda into the bedroom and leaves Melissa and Robert in the living room. He has sex with that child!” She stopped to catch her breath before continuing.

  “The boy is forced to have sick oral sex with that man and his mother, Mrs. Stringer!”

  Mona went on to explain that Amanda and Robert are routinely left alone for extended periods of time, sometimes for an entire weekend. Then she added that Amanda had confided in her daughter that Tom puts that stuff in me.”

  “My God, what the hell does that mean?” Mona asked. “Not too long ago, Robert accidentally broke a dang lamp. His mother whipped him, but Tom didn’t think it was enough punishment, so he whipped that poor child again.”

  “You know what? I don’t think those two are really married either,” she added as if she suddenly remembered.

  “Why do you think Amanda would deny all these allegations?” asked Mrs. Stringer.

  “Hell, that’s easy, she’s frightened to death. She’s afraid Mr. Jenkins will kill her and her brother.”

  Mrs. Stringer told Mona Jones and Anne that she didn’t think Amanda would tell the truth if she had that much fear...

  To this Anne responded thoughtfully, “You know, me and Amanda are good friends, and she told me all that stuff and I believe her. If you want her to be honest with you I think you might need me with you when you ask her again.”