Prologue ~ Blinded by rainbows
 | The Singer Not the Song |
- Prologue ~ Blinded by rainbows
Gavelston, Tx 1978
Charlie hated rainbows. The decent into Hell began with a rainbow. First with an aura of multicolored light that formed around everything he looked at, and no one else could see. Then would come the blinding headaches, more brutal in their pain and intensity than any beating. Finally, when the pain made it impossible to sit up, much less move, would come the nausea. Almost anything could set it off, but tonight he knew, beyond all certainty, that it had been that smell. It was a smell unique to hospital emergency rooms everywhere, a mixture of chemicals, antiseptics, blood, desperation and fear. Charlie knew that smell would cling to his memory as tenaciously as it now clung to clothing, skin and hair.
He pressed his thin frame against the sun baked adobe wall, using its stored warmth to help focus his mind on keeping the pain at bay. He knew he could do what he needed to do in spite of the rainbow, in spite of the vise-like grip of the pain that threatened to crush his skull. But he also knew he couldn’t if he let it win, if he gave into it. Charlie ground his knuckles into his swollen eyes and waited.
Just as he had waited for hours on the hard plastic chair that stood, along with its’ comrads, in soldier straight rows in the barren emergency room. The wait had seemed an eternity, an eternity of people coming and going, doctors, patients, nurses, young, old, all of them largely ignoring the ten year old boy who sat with near inhuman stillness. An eternity permeated with the ever present evil stench of sickness and death.
The nurse at the front desk had tried to talk to him. She had asked if he were hungry or thirsty. Charlie hadn’t trusted himself to answer, although her eyes were kind. He knew all too well what she saw in his because she pulled back quickly and retreated to her station. When the first policeman arrived she had called to him and the two of them had whispered intently, their eyes always on Charlie. When the cop asked him where they could find his mother, he knew it was bad. He had known before of course, but that single question asked in that certain tone of voice, had made everything crystal clear.
He could have told the cop to check their own lockup first, then to look in his mother’s favorite ‘spot’, the stretch of trash littered pavement between Battery and Second Street. Charlene, his mother, was there most nights, waiting for the next ‘John’. It had been like that for as long as he could remember. Well, except for the two and a half years she had spent with Ben Tinnerman, the man Charlie had come to call ‘Dad’. He had known that kind of ‘normallity’ would not last, but for a while it had felt the way he imagined having a real family would feel, real meals, his mother waiting when he came in from school. Ok, so he hadn’t been crazy about the school part, but the rest of it had been wonderful, even when Ben was off on a trucking run. Too wonderful to last.
That night, when the cops came to the door, it hadn’t been to arrest his mother, but to tell her that her husband, Ben, had been killed transporting a load of frozen vegetables from El Paso to Dallas. Charlie had known then that the good times were over, and he had been right. Within weeks Charlene was back on the streets doing the only thing she knew how to do, hooking, while leaving Charlie to care for Beth, his eighteen month old half sister.
Well, she said ‘Uncle Ted’, her newest leech of a ‘boyfriend’, was supposed to be watching them both, but that was a laugh. The only thing ‘Uncle Ted’ watched was the tiny television in the corner of their trailer and the dwindling supply of cheap beer in the refrigerator. His daily routine consisted of eating, watching, smoking, drinking and taking half of everything Charlie brought in. That, and beating Beth and, especially, Charlie everytime he had a chance.
But Charlie hadn’t told the police any of that, let them find it out for themselves. He had just shrugged and continued to stare at the dingy tile floor in an effort to will away the headache that was even then beginning to narrow his field of vision. The cop continued waiting and watching as people came and went. No one spoke to Charlie again.
Finally, a well dressed woman carrying a briefcase entered and talked with the cop for a few minutes. Charlie knew who she was, not her name of course, but he knew she was from the welfare place and he knew why she was there. They hadn’t found his mother, now they would take him and Beth and put them in a foster home until the courts could figure out what to do with them. Charlie didn’t really care, one place was as good as another, as long as he and Beth were together. As far as he was concerned, Beth was his only family. She depended on him and she was all he had. Maybe the foster care place wouldn’t beat on Beth and him. Or at least not as bad as ‘Uncle Ted’ did.
But none of that mattered now. Charlie scrunched tighter against the wall and peered at the entrance to the shabby trailer park across the street. When Ben Tinnerman was killed, his mother had just walked away from the neat little house they had shared.
For what? For the run down trailer she now shared with ‘Uncle Ted’? For the ripped screens on the windows and peeling paint and the plumbing that didn’t work? Charlie didn’t understand, bit at least the rainbow was beginning to fade. He had beaten it this time, through sheer will and patience. Ben Tinnerman had taught him well those few times they had gone hunting. He had become infinitely patient.
Charlie hoped he hadn’t gotten the welfare lady in trouble. She had only been trying to help. He knew she was just doing her job, but nothing said she had to be so nice while doing it. She had said her name was Anna, he had forgotten the last name, and that she was taking him to a place he could stay. Once they were in her car, he had asked if Beth would be coming too. When she said they would talk about it later, he hadn’t been surprised. He knew he would never see Beth again. There had been so much blood. He hadn’t realized a little girl could hold so much blood. Anna had seen the awareness in his eyes and pulled to the side of the road to comfort him. Charlie had been out the car and over the nearest fence before she realized what was happening.
At last he saw it, that all too familiar faded blue pickup truck. He had known that ‘Uncle Ted’ wouldn’t stay in jail long. He had probably called Charlene to come bail him out and she had, despite the fact that he had just beaten her baby daughter to death. He watched as ‘Uncle Ted’ climbed out and ran a hand through his thinning dishwater blonde hair. Charlene wasn’t with him. She was probably back on her ‘spot’, trying to make enough to buy a couple of six packs of beer and some of the poison she injected into her arm every night. Charlie waited. He waited until the sun went down and the breeze from the coast sucked all of the heat from the adobe. Then he waited some more. Charlie had learned to be very good at waiting. Finally, he crossed the road, went to the rear of the trailer and crawled through a small window . It was his private entrance, the one he used when he needed to escape ‘Uncle Ted’s’ notice. He could hear static from the television set and knew that ‘Uncle Ted’ was probably either asleep or unconscious in front of it, which was just as well. Charlie put a few of his clothes, the ones that were in the best condition, in a paper bag and looked around the tiny room that he and Beth had shared. Finally, he found what he needed. Then he tiptoed into the narrow hallway and down to the living area. ‘Uncle Ted’ was asleep in the tattered recliner, a burned out cigarette dangled between two fingers of his left hand and his right wrapped around a half full can of beer. He had probably done as he did every night, fallen asleep while watching the baseball game and drinking. From the pile of empty cans at his feet, he had gone through a full twelve pack tonight. Charlie liked baseball too, but he would never watch it with ‘Uncle Ted”. If the game went the wrong way, he didn’t want to be within swinging distance. Charlie put down the paper bag and looked at the man who had killed his little sister. But he wasn’t seeing the slack featured face of the sleeping drunk, he was seeing the hateful sneer on the twisted lips and the raging anger in the faded blue eyes and most of all the closed fist and fell again and again and again….. Charlie picked up his baseball bat and swung for the bleachers.
