It happened for the first time when he was four years old. At that time, of course, he didn't know why, all he remembered was that his mother was very angry at him afterwards.
His room was up front, large windows looking over the road past the tree lined pavement In the night the tall trees moving with the wind made eerie shadows on the walls as some ghosts were moving around. When the shadows fell on the closet, he felt very afraid. He always tried to keep his eyes tightly closed. He wanted the windows hung with heavy curtains, which might keep the moving shadows out of his room, but his father never agreed, so he always had to bear with the moving ghostlike shadows and the dark closet with no doors, trying hard to find sleep.
That day, he woke up in the middle of the night, with the room full of shadow ghosts from the trees. He tried to hold his eyelids closed, but couldn't. He started shaking and shivering. He wanted to get up and run to his mother. His father wasn't at home, or he thought so, as he didn't see his father when he went to sleep. Most times his father was out in the region as he was a salesman. All he remembered was his mother carressing his hair, while he fell asleep.
He pulled his pillow and put it over his head, trying to shut out the ghosts. He couldn't. Finally, he got up and ran to his mother's room, pushing the door with a bang.
He couldn't believe his eyes. His Daddy was hurting his Mommy. His Daddy was on top of his Mommy and he had no cloths on. And Mommy was moaning as she was hurting.
“Daddy!” He shouted, “Don't hurt Mommy!”
His mother looked at him past his father's shoulders and her eyes rolled, and he kept on shouting, trying to pull his father away from his mother.
“Daddy, please don't hurt Mommy! Please!”
His father jumped off his mother and gave him a thundering slap, then pulled him by the ear, pushing him out of the room. His father was naked. He didn't even see the look on his Mommy, when his father hit him.
His father didn't say a word, and still without cloths, pushed him to his room, taking a belt on the way in and threw him on the bed. His father lashed out with the belt cutting his back through his pajama top. He started howling loudly, begging his Daddy to stop hurting him.
Then he saw his Mommy at the door, dressed in his Daddy's robe, looking at him. She didn't smile, but kept on looking at him.
Then, all of sudden, his Daddy stopped hitting him, ran to the window and jumped out into the night, breaking the glass.
His Daddy never came home after that. His Mommy left him with his aunt - his mother's sister and left. He never saw her again.
Later, he found out that his father falling out of the window, broke his spine and died in the hospital two days later. His aunt told him that his Mommy blamed him for his Daddy's death and left town leaving him with her.
His aunt was a good caring person, who never shouted at him or hit him.
The second time it happened to him when he refused to go to bed as his aunt demanded. When he kept looking at her, she turned away and left the room without a word. That day he slept on the sofa with the television humming on till morning.
Stan Wilson still didn't know why.
*
Carla Sweeney knew that she had power over others, especially boys, but she didn't know why and how. She was pretty all right for her age - fifteen - she was tall too, but she was not the belle of the school, nor was she in the cheerleader team. She didn't care too much for sports and those heavily built players. What she really wanted to do was study and become a doctor. She knew her parents might not have enough money to send her to college, so she must earn a scholarship.
Studying came to her quite easily -- she practically remembered everything she read and could answer any question the teachers would ask, but learned that it is better to act as she forgot the answer -- the best way to keep harmony with the other kids.
The kids were not bad really, but the cheerleader team and their hangers-on were the worst -- given a chance, they'd attack any kid, pushing them, knocking their books onto the floor and teasing in such a terrible way.
