The Aftermath Part 1

Chapter 140

The Aftermath

Part 1

It was almost 8 pm when I got home and everyone was talking over each other on how incredible I and my friends were. I didn’t say anything on the way home. I didn’t know what to say. It seemed everything I knew was a lie. The match was nothing more than two people settling their difference on the knowledge that wasn’t true. We didn’t prove anything, all we proved how angry someone could get and let it fester. It didn’t help to know his parents were driven by the knowledge that I had raped their little boy, when all this time it was Shawn,  and them the whole time. I wondered how many more young boys had Shawn raped and pinned the crime on me?

How could I tell Mom and Dad that? How could I forgive the person for directing their anger on me and my family when it was his and his friend’s choices to do those awful things? Man, I needed Jeff to help me figure out what I should do. Dad said. “We should celebrate your boys win.”

I said. “I much rather take a hot bath and wash this crap off and go to bed.” Dad looked back at me told me I had made him proud. I should be happy that I kicked butt tonight. I sighed. “Bath first I really, really want a nice long bath, I itch like crazy”

Mom said. “You would stick out like a sore thumb and most likely scare everyone.” She giggled as she kissed my head then said. “You taste nasty,” spitting out my hair. There was nothing I could do but put on a happy face as Mom ran the tub for me. I was hoping for a normal bath, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not with Adam or my other friends pulling into the driveway, all wanting the same thing I did. Besides Adam and his family were still homeless; Mom and Dad had made it clear that until then our home was their home. And with my mother and brother here and everyone else all wanting too go out and celebrate I would have been outvoted.

Dad picked up the phone and called in a private reservation for all of us at the Golden Corral Steak House here in American Fork at 9:30. Mom charged the girls to clean us up considering they too had wash off the paint they had on their faces, stomach, and legs. Not that us boys minded much letting them. What boy in their right minds would turn down a naked girl wanting to pleasure you? I sat on the coach as the tub filled listening to the conversation around me. My mother couldn’t stop hugging me telling me over and over how proud she was of me.

Aaron couldn’t stop touching the paint on me telling our mother that he doesn’t think it would ever come off. That perhaps I should keep it. I smiled and reached over and tickled him telling him if he’s not good. He’ll be the one wearing stripes to school in the morning. It made feel a little better because it gave me a chance to see him. Something I didn’t get often enough.

When the bath was ready my mother would have joined me, but being there was too many of us she didn’t. The fact that Aaron was here she couldn’t get away with it anyway, because of her promise to me. Not that it really mattered much considering both Susan and Becky knew that my mother was having sex with anything that had a penis.

She also wasn’t allowed to spend the night with us because they both had school in the morning and Bishop Earl family and weren’t staying either or the Kenly’s.  I watched as Stringum and Dave walked in the door and cringed because I hadn’t quite finished with the work I had as of yet. I stood and shook their hands only to be pulled into a hug. They would have kissed me but I was a mess as I introduced him to my Highland friends they haven’t met like Hank, West, Adam and their sisters. I got right down to business telling him I haven’t finished yet.

He looked at me and I waited for him to fire me on the spot, instead, he said. “Please tell me you haven’t started yet son. With school starting and everything I didn’t think you would have a chance to open a single box.”

I cringed and said. “No sir, I said I wasn’t finished as of yet.” He wanted to see how much I had accomplished. So I shrugged my shoulders and had him follow me into my room. He was about to close the door, for a little one on one only too have Adam come into the room telling me that our bath was ready.

I didn’t have the time and I knew it and so did they, so I said. “Rain check,” leaving Stringum and Dave to look over my work, after opening the boxes and handing Mr. Stringum my accounting books. I saw the hurt in their eyes, but the hurt went away when they watched Adam strip off his shorts and seeing his penis. Dave asked if he was coming with me over Labor Day weekend.

I shrugged my shoulders because I didn’t have an answer. Adam said. “Of course I am. I am sure Mom and Dad would let me because at the moment none of us have a pot to piss in.”

Stringum and Dave smiled Stringum then said. “Then I will expect you and Adam, as well as Greg at my store 9, am sharp Saturday morning.” Adam nodded as he waited for me to strip off my shorts, having the girls come in and get us. Tsking at us and telling me and Adam that we are missing out on stimulating bath. Stringum and Dave licked their lips seeing them naked. Wishing we all had the time to get properly reacquainted. And to think Shawn and Arthur find looking at naked girls boring or having sex with them.

I climbed into the tub as Fran had me get comfortable placing Adam beside me. Ronda, Samantha, and Christy were busy with my other friends and their brothers. Having Greg sister Cindy and my sister Jody help with us. Each taking a side as they wash the paint off us and stimulated us both orally. Mom walked in telling us we needed to hurry if we were going to make the restaurant on time considering they are staying open just for us.

We all sighed wanting to just to die in the tub, but everyone was waiting on us. I watched as the tub drained staining the tub black with our paint. I wanted to fill it up again and die inside it, not celebrate an unnecessary victory. Yet Mom and Dad said nothing about us coming back home if we could have another bath. And I knew I could talk them into a massage for me and Adam. Just thinking about it made my troubles go away for the moment.

Since Adam didn’t have any of his own clothes as of yet he wore mine as everyone else raided my closet for theirs. I hated the fact that Mom was going to have a busy day washing all our clothes more so because of Adam and his family staying with us. I climbed in next to Adam in the front seat with Mom and Dad as my brothers climbed in the back seat. Shawn and Arthur weren’t invited as I had watch Mom fix some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a paper plate having Dad take them down to them. It was just as well because I knew once I was alone with them they were going to get serious beat down from me personally.

The restaurant was empty including the parking lot with a sign on the door stating it was closed for a private party. Dad waited as the manager opened the door for us asking how many were in our party, Dad said, “hi I think somewhere to 25 to thirty people, but I not sure because the count keeps changing.”  He asked if that was going to be a problem as I watched him palm some green stuff inside his hand as he shook hands with the manager.

The manager quickly put into his pocket and said. “No sir we have set up the banquet hall for you and your guests. Please follow me.”  Back then Golden Coral was just a steak house not like it is now where everything is all a cart buffet. In fact, the only place at the time that was in my neck of the woods was a restaurant in Orem called The Golden Apple. Like everything else that too went out of business when other restaurants started going that way.

Dad told us to order anything we liked, I gasped when I saw the prices the last time I was here was when I won my swim meet and piano solo competition. It didn’t end well as I remembered. Even now I had a very quizzy stomach and prayed for not having another relapse. Mom noticed hearing my stomach rumble and smiled when I ordered a tossed salad with small steak having her change it to the biggest steak they had with all the trimmings and asked if they could cook an extra one for my dog Sparky. Dad added any large bones they might have on hand.

I knew Sparky would be in dog heaven; then again he was spoiled rotten by everyone. I also knew he was going to be mad at me for not taking him with me over Labor Day weekend. Personally, if I had a choice I wouldn’t be going, but Mom and Dad had promised my mother one or two weekends a month and all holidays. Unless it was a family outing, she and Aaron could come if they wanted too, but those were strictly their time and the family’s time to be with me. We no longer needed my caseworker to setup home-visits; she would call or come over and check in on me. Sometimes she would do surprises visits either at my mother's places if I wasn’t with the Rothwell’s or when I was home with my adoptive parents. If my father had a choice I would never come home and Aaron would be in foster care.

Mom sat next too me having my mother sit on other side of me as they take turns cutting up my meat, kissing my cheek or hugging my shoulders. It was like watching two mothers fighting over who could spoil me the most. Aaron smiled as if was the one with all the cream, which mostly was because my mother wasn’t cooking tonight, watching him nearly lick his plate clean. 

It also meant neither of us had to do the dishes. I could only imagine what my father and my sisters were having. I can guarantee it wasn’t steak, mostly likely burnt Mac and Cheese or burnt greasy spaghetti, or worse a can of green beans or a can of something. Considering neither of them knew how to cook, and to think my mother could cook a slightly better than they can; which isn’t saying much.

Mom and Aaron didn’t follow me home as they left for home from the restaurant; I hated to see them go. Yet at the same time, they didn’t belong here, and I really wasn’t in the mood for all the drama. Instead, I said, “I guess I’ll see you after I get out of swim class?”

My mother hugged me so tight I thought she was going to crack my ribs. My mother said. “And don’t you dare be a second late,” wiping her tears away. I gave Aaron a knuckle bump and changed it to a hug having tell me everyone is watching. I didn’t care. He was my brother and everyone knew how I felt about him. He didn’t cry in the open, he just hurried to the car and slammed the car door.

I, on the other hand, did my best to feel numb, but not succeeding. No one teased me about it, because we had been taught that it was ok to cry even Dad cried and he wasn’t ashamed of it. I knew my father and I knew he got even angrier if he found us crying, even when he whipped the living crap out us. He would tell us to shut the hell up or he would give us something to really cry about and smack us across the face until we stopped.

It was ok for my sisters and my mother to cry it was unacceptable if we did. I never once saw my father cry, not even when mother died or when my grandmother or his mother died, at least where we couldn’t see him. The only emotion I have ever seen from him was anger and was when Aaron and I were around him.

Even though it was late when we got home I managed to talk Mom and Dad into a second bath for me and Adam, plus a full massage. We both declined the horny pills stating the fact we were both wiped out. I saw the hurt in their eyes, but they had to agree that had been a very, very long day for Adam and I, giving us both a rain check. Neither of us had homework considering two of the classes would be just seminary and gym class the other two was just reading assignments, and I had already done the questions at the end of the chapter and had typed them up. Letting Adam copy them off me, according to the syllabus considering we weren’t in class that day, because we were busy going through gym hell.

Once again I had a hard time sleeping finding my father standing over the bed, trying to suffocate me. I woke up in a cold sweat and climbed out of bed letting my brother Jared and Adam sleep. Jared was used to me getting up in the middle of the night he only asked if I needed Mom and Dad. When I shook my head that I was fine he turned over and went back to sleep watching me pull out my accounting books and went to work adding the numbers.

I had fallen asleep at the desk when Mom came into my room to wake me. I jerked awake realizing I had forgotten to set the alarm. Mom knew my sleeping habits said when she asked, “bad night son?”

I nodded saying, “My father tried to kill me last night.” She cringed knowing it happened a lot when I was over-stressed or after a match, more so after a kickboxing and wrestling match. She asked I would like to talk about it, closing the door so me her could be alone.

I nodded as she put her arms around me, waiting for me to find the words as she rubbed my back and shoulders. Letting me know she loved me, I told her how I felt and what had happened yesterday during the match. She didn’t say anything when I told her about how Shawn had laid the blame on me for sexually abusing his baby brother; the boy that quit the match last night. I didn’t know him personally and all I knew his name was Jake Olsen. All I knew that he hated me, and used to be one of Shawn’s friends until he found out about his brother. I didn’t know he had stopped being friends with Shawn until that night. I had assumed he still was.

Mom let me get it all out, while she held me in her arms. Mom and Dad like me were unsure how many boys Shawn and they had sexually abused. The fact that he had once again accused me of it didn’t surprise them. It was his trademark always finding ways to get rid of me. Mom said she talk to Dad about it when he comes home, but there was little they could do about it because it had been a little over a year when the event happened. And even if they asked Shawn and Arthur about it they would just deny it, or say big deal.

But Mom was Mom I knew something was going to happen, and it looked like trouble the moment Mom saw them at the table. She would have laid into them, but with company, in the house, she wasn’t about to let the monster out. Not in their presence, nor could she with me knowing how any kind of violence affects me, that could cause an episode. Mom calmly said. “I have too much to do today boys” as she looked at Shawn and Arthur. “I am keeping you home from school.” I watched their faces and they smiled.

Mom would have smacked their grins off their faces, but not while any of us were home. Instead, she told them to change into their shaming robes and she was counting each minute that the clock struck after the first five minutes would earn them a lashing when Dad came home.  Mom and Dad didn’t hide the fact that Dad and she whipped the living tar out of them. They all knew what they had done.

Shawn asked for the reason why. Mom once again held back from smacking him across the face for talking back. Mom calmly said. “Because boys, I have too much too do and you’re the only ones that I have that can do it. Eric and his brothers have school and have been asked to help with the clean up after school;” which was a lie. Because Dad had forbidden me or Adam or my brothers to be anywhere near Adams house, and my friend's house had already been taken care of considering it was a broken window and some yard work.

Mom waited for them to run downstairs and told me she wanted me to go with Adam and her mother as well as his two sisters to do some clothes shopping. She wrote me out a check for 1,000 dollars for all of them, telling me if I see something at the store for me to buy it and said. “You could use a few more new shirts and couple pairs of pants, and possibly a nice Sunday shirt or two.” Stating the fact she wanted me not home until supper time. I knew better when Mom gets scary calm even more so when she said. “Take your brothers with you.”