Behind the fence, p.1
Behind the Fence, page 1
Behind the Fence
She finds herself taking justice into her own hands. Her best friend raped and murdered, her decision may not be one you agree with...or maybe you do.
Adalynd LaVerne
Copyright © 2020 Adalynd LaVerne
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
To my parents, whose never ending support has always taught me to dream big. Your support and love has created a world for me that I will always be grateful for. I love you
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
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Afterword
About The Author
Introduction
This book is a story. A story about how the journey in life shapes who we are. It is just a simple story. One that I hope will entertain you, make you angry, maybe even keep you up as you dwell on it. I'm okay if it makes you angry, it should. Every person is going to react differently. If you get offended easily, don't read this. I talk about the darkness in people, the violence they have. And I may even touch, for some of you, on some thoughts that linger in your mind. Remember, this is for entertainment purposes only. So please, join me in this journey, and I hope you are entertained.
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The little boy sat on the brown and yellow carpet, with his tear-stained cheeks, wondering when the shouting would stop. He was only three but knew that the angry voices led to bad things. He was oblivious to the fecal matter and cigarette butts on the carpet, or to the piles of dirty clothes that he had arranged so he could sleep. He didn't know that the big stomach on his mother was another brother or sister to add to the house. He knew that he was hungry most of the time and that his food consisted of what his older siblings gave him, or what he could find on the floor. He knew that he itched a lot and that his diaper was always full. He spent his days looking for food or hiding. Some days he was lucky. There would be some french fries or chips left out on the couch that he would stash away to eat. He had no idea what a salad was or that fruit grew on trees. He had never seen a horse and did not know what a dolphin was. He had no toys of his own, just a few faded, broken hand-me-down ones scattered through the yard. He had no friends, his only playmates were the many dogs living with them. His siblings would hit him and push him over a lot, he learned not to cry and to become invisible when they were around. This was the life he knew. He didn't know that it was a bad life, or that there were better ones out there. He just knew this was the one he had. He knew that the shouting in the other room would lead to him getting hit if he was seen. He crawled under some of the clothes, as the cockroaches scurried from their hiding places and the rat droppings fell down. The woman he called "mommy" stormed out of the house, slamming the door and marched down the road to her friend's trailer. Soon the door to the bedroom opened, and the new person whom his mommy was spending time with walked in. The little boy tried to sink into the clothes and become invisible. His mommy might hit him when he was bad, but this new person made him scared. The little boy was lifted out of the clothes and put down on his feet. The new person told him they were going to play a new game, that it was their secret, to tell no one and removed the little boy's diaper. Through the pain, all the little boy could think of was to wonder why didn't his mommy come to save him from this new horror.
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Damaged, or at least that is the best way to explain it. One could say other things, like nightmares, watching your back or a heavy weight on your shoulders. But I like the word damaged. It seems to be the best way to explain my experience. Not damaged in a way that destroys you, but damaged in a way that you will never be the same. Some will not understand this; they will say I overreacted or that I just don't have compassion for others. We call those people "Le Snakes." I'm not sure how we came to call them that, maybe we were just calling them snakes and wanted to fancy it up a bit. Le Snakes are ones who do good stuff but end up hurting a lot of people with their actions. I don't mean the people who have good hearts and do good things. You can forgive the goodhearted people if they mess up, not many could be mad at someone who truly means well. No, Le Snakes are the ones who put on a facade of doing good things, all to make themselves look good. Those are the ones. The Le Snakes are the people who created this path I went down.
Average would be the best description for me. I was your typical suburban girl who grew up in your basic house with your basic yard. We were not rich, but not overly poor either. I lived with my mom but spent a lot of my time with my dad. My folks had divorced when I was young and both had remarried. As these things sometimes go, my mom remarried three more times. My dad was still married to my stepmother. We all got along well. My mom and dad were still friends, not that they spent Thanksgiving together, but they were able to go to my games to support me. I was your average height and weight. My brown hair was kinda thick and fell to my shoulders in a slight wave. Too many years sun tanning gave me a nose filled with freckles. What I liked best about myself were my eyes. They were a funky green-blue color and people always said my soul came out through them.
The smell, that is what strikes you first. It has a faint cleaning hint to it, not bleach but the cheap household cleaner that you find at your discount store. But then you get the full smell. Stale air, air that has been sitting for 100 years surrounded by old bricks and wood. No matter how you open the windows, it lingers. It smells of a century of mold and dust. Then comes the smell that reminds you that you are not in some beautiful old building; it is the smell of body odor, urine and smells that you know are from other bodily functions. These smells are ones that normal, everyday people shouldn't know about. But hey, if you smell this every day, you kinda get used to it. Eventually, you don't even notice it. When someone new mentions it, you kinda look at them and say "What smell?"
The sounds, you begin to hear them before you even enter the fenced area. The high pitched sound of a scream, the slamming of a door, the running of staff. It all lets you know what kind of day you are going to have. That first slamming of the door lets you know it's going to be a busy one, one where you are on the move all day. If, for some wonderful reason, it is quiet, you breathe a sigh of relief and hope that it lasts all day. At least until your shift is over.
As you walk through the locked doors, you already know how it is on the inside. The security guards fill you in on what is happening. So you walk through those doors, put on a brave smile and start your good mornings. The faces that greet you are either glad to see you, angry that you exist, or embarrassed that they got in trouble. Usually then you know who may be having a bad day. This is where evil lives.
But, being a staff member isn't all that bad. Friends that are created in high-stress times have a very strong bond. I have made good friends. They know what goes on. They understand because they go through the same thing every day with me. They complain with me, protect me and share in the jokes and laughter of the day. Of course, some are just rotten co-workers. The ones that seem to just have a chip on their shoulder and seem to wish for the worst for you, the ones who smile and join in your conversations, but you know that they would throw you under the bus the first time they got a chance. There are plenty of those staff to go around. One could say karma will get them, but that just seems to be something to make yourself feel better. These people usually go through life, hurting others, doing it to benefit themselves. These are the ones who get the work benefits, the promotions, the adoration of higher-ups who have no clue. They step on the pile of bodies to climb the proverbial corporate ladder.
Some would say I'm not damaged, just bitter. Okay, I'll play along. Bitter..yup...part of me is. I saw things that shouldn't be seen. I've seen people turn a blind eye to evil and some even condone it. And I've seen some really stupid people make decisions that make all us little people wonder how did they ever get to be a boss. So maybe I am also bitter, bitter for those injustices and wrongs that are done. But mainly bitter because I realized there was nothing I could do to right the wrongs, or make things better. Hard lesson to learn when you have to accept that people will a
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The little boy sat on the cold, hard chair. He knew it was the middle of the night but wasn't sure why this woman took him and his siblings out of his home. He was scared. He knew that the police were at his home, and that meant a bad thing. He didn't understand why this woman picked him up and forced him in a car seat. She shoved a bag of toys and blankets at him as he asked for his mother. She attempted to be nice but was busy talking to the police. He was angry at the woman as she got in the car and drove him away from his home. He wanted his mommy. Why was his mommy letting this stranger take him away? His siblings were also driven away by another woman. Supposedly they had a place to go, but nobody could take him. There was no room. So he sat on the cold, hard chairs in the middle of the night with a bag of strange things, listening to the strange woman make phone calls. "Abused" "Five years old" "Possibly developmentally disabled" "Please." After a while the woman came and told him she had found him a place to stay for the night, but she would be working to find him a more permanent home the next day. He began to cry. He had a home. He had a mommy. Why didn't this woman understand that? She just patted him on the head, slightly irritated and shuffled him into the car. She dropped him off at a house with strangers. He spent the rest of the night scared, alone and crying for the only home he knew.
The next morning he was brought to an office. A woman he didn't know came up and squatted down next to him. She introduced herself as his social worker. She reassured him that he was safe and everything was going to be okay. She took him by the hand and led him to a room with a soft couch and toys. She put a show on the television for him and showed him how to work the remote. She was kind, soft, and made him feel okay. She told him she would be working to find him a place to stay while his mommy got better. That his mommy had some things she needed to work out and that she loved him. He felt better. Finally, someone knew his mommy and he knew he would go home soon. Near the end of the day, she brought him to a nice house. They had a bed for him. Food for him. He didn't want to like it, but he did. He had a bath and put on warm pajamas.
The next week he was moved to a different house. The first house couldn't keep him. The next house was loud, and he didn't get noticed. But, still, his social worker would visit him. She cared. Every visit he would ask about his mommy. She would tell him that his mommy was still working on things. One day she told him that she couldn't come to see him anymore. That his case had been transferred to another. She was sorry, but that he would be okay. He was heartbroken. His mommy was gone, and now the nice lady was leaving him. He was moved to a different house as he started acting out. Angry at his mommy, angry at the social worker, just heartbroken that he was left alone in a world of strangers. This new house didn't want him either. The cycle of homes and social workers began in this little five years old's life.
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The day I took the job, my boyfriend Scott begged me not to. He knew enough people to know that, if I worked there, our little world together would cease to exist. No longer would I come home happy, I would be exhausted from either the long hours or the busy day. He knew that our relationship probably wouldn't survive because the long hours, the stress and the not understanding what goes on behind the fence would distance us. Eventually, he knew I would find someone who works there too, someone who understands, someone who I had been working with for 16 hours at a time, someone... He knew all this. I didn't. Naively I reassured him, told him we should be thankful I had a job and have the opportunity to work overtime. I was thinking of the money and the freedom from stressing about bills.
I was young, I had gone to school. Done what was expected of me. I had decent grades, read all the books I was supposed to, watched all the popular shows. I had jobs at juice bars, I was a waitress, I worked in retail. All were fun, but I was just getting by. The last job I lived paycheck to paycheck, which wasn't really a big deal. I made rent and even had a bit left over to have fun. But, as things go, the store I worked at closed. So I was out of a job and didn't know how I was going to pay my bills. I hit the pavement, going store to store asking if they were hiring. Most just said no and handed me a generic application for when they were hiring. Seriously, those applications were ridiculous. What's the point of a resume if you have to fill out the same information? So my days passed trying to sell myself to places for a paycheck. I went through the want ads, scanned the computer, and started slipping into the unemployed mind frame...daytime TV and comfy clothes. But I really did want to work, I was climbing the walls with boredom. I wanted something more than just "Hey, that shirt looks great on you!" or "Are you ready to order?" I wanted to do something meaningful for a career.
I felt proud when I got the call. I wasn't quite sure about the details of the job as I had applied to so many different ones, I didn't really keep track. I was just happy to have a job, excited that I would have the chance to change someone's life, a real career. I had fantasies of people remembering me fondly as the one who guided them to better themselves. I looked at this job as a chance to make a difference. And, don't most of us want to make a positive difference in the world?A group of us went out for drinks that night, toasting to my new job, my success. Alice, she was my best friend. A small-time TV host for the local news, she was always involved in some story. Her expertise was those gory courtroom cases that we all stop at for a moment when we are flipping the channels. We had been through thick and thin together and had gotten into a lot of trouble together as well. I knew she would be my maid of honor, my childs godmother and would be by my side when I gave birth. We were like sisters. I knew we would grow old together and sit on our front porch drinking whiskey and laughing about the old days. Alice was passionate and logical, all wrapped up in a bundle of stress. She had dark brown hair, which was so shiny, I swore she put some kind of high gloss in it all the time. She had perfect skin, and it was always accented by her big gold earrings she always wore. They were kind of her trademark. Tall and lean, I couldn't remember a day where she didn't look awesome in anything she wore. That night Alice bought most of the rounds. She was excited for me, and well, wanted us to all get drunk. We all held our drink pretty well those days. Well, except for Indy. She ended up, as most of us do at some point in our lives, being carried out of the bar, put in a taxi and sent home.
Indy was unique. Her real name was Independence Solstice. Her parents were freedom-loving spiritualists who lived on a self-sustaining plot of land. That is probably the only way to describe them. We got to meet her parents once. They came to the big city to see her. Such nice people, but they did not fit in this world of taxis, sidewalks, and big buildings. They were very proud of their daughter and wished her well in her journey of life. But they were very glad to get back to their little home and garden. Indy was the latest to join our group. One day she just sat down next to us in our booth and has never left. Her laughter and joy of life drew us all to her. Her super curly brown hair seemed to define her perfectly. It was beautiful, bounced, and was all over the place. Whenever she was around, we seemed to have just a little bit more fun. Men loved her, and women wanted to be her best friend. She was the light of our group.
