Post by Ollie James on Apr 22, 2007 15:32:08 GMT -5
Hi there.
My name is Ollie James.
Angry spirits seem to sing my name...
I’m twenty two.
And I’m a murderer.
My name is Ollie James.
Angry spirits seem to sing my name...
I’m twenty two.
And I’m a murderer.
Is that a surprise for you?
Should I have pretended I was somethin’ else so that you’re skin didn’t crawl?
I know that most people would prefer a pretty lie to the truth I have to tell… but half the fun is watching their face when the discovery of truth is horrifyin’.
I just can’t help myself.
But then again, even if I could I don’t think I’d want to.
But then again, even if I could I don’t think I’d want to.
But silly silly me, I’m not starting at the beginnin’.
The events and moments that led me to this breakin’ point, but where to begin?
I was born on a hot night in July, the kind that makes your skin wet with sweat, the makeup run off of your face before you’ve even left the house.
In a tiny little town just over the Alabama- Georgia state line called Willstown. My momma said that I was born with a sweet smile on my lips under a mischievous moon.
Her name was Bianca Kyne. She bestowed my daddy’s name on me like some kind of wicked curse.
‘As a reminder of my biggest mistake’ she had said when I had asked why, with a salty grin as smoke poured from her lips, the cigarette clutched tight in her other hand, blue eyes distant and clouded with memory.
My momma loved me.
Of that I have no doubt.
If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have run so hard for as long as she did to keep me from the hands of those who meant to harm me.
But she was bitter. Sour with vengeful hate at a man I never met, who had not only left her with a child that she would have to take care of by herself, but had also taken her beauty, leavin’ her body twisted and marked from the painful experience that was my birth.
Now, you may think I’m kiddin’, exaggeratin’, but that’s exactly how she worded it when we fought when I was little. She would remind me what she looked like before I was born, what I had done to her, what she could never forgive me for.
I didn’t really have friends when I was growin’ up, we didn’t stay in one place long enough for me to actually mix in successfully with any of the other children.
My momma was obsessed with normalcy,
She was convinced that I never had friends because I didn’t try hard enough to make people like me.
Or perhaps it was because no one was like me that I couldn’t make friends with them…
Oh well.
My momma was obsessed with normalcy,
She was convinced that I never had friends because I didn’t try hard enough to make people like me.
Or perhaps it was because no one was like me that I couldn’t make friends with them…
Oh well.
I didn’t start school until I was almost a teenager, my momma hadn’t seen the purpose of putting me into a school that I was just goin’ to leave with in the year, that the paperwork would be too difficult to keep up with.
We had moved to Atlanta that year, what was then considered the outskirts,
What is now considered a mini-mall.
What is now considered a mini-mall.
We moved into this tiny little house just after my thirteenth birthday.
It was the first one I had ever lived in.
I wasn’t really ever sure what had changed that summer, why my momma had decided to stop runnin’.
Maybe she thought we were safe.
That enough time had passed. That the memory of us had faded.
That enough time had passed. That the memory of us had faded.
That fall she started bringing home men.
She had never done it before; I thought she was through with them after my daddy.
Truthfully, it disgusted me.
To see her all whored up, craving the need and approval of the opposite sex.
And it only got worse the more she did it.
The men she brought home most of the time were just as drunk as she was,
Some were broad shouldered and dark skinned, some were short, some tall.
None of them liked me.
Probably because they knew I didn’t like any one of them.
A majority of them tried to be my daddy. Probably because they knew I didn’t like any one of them.
And I wouldn’t have it.
And then there was the one that watched me with hungry eyes over my mother’s oblivious head. He didn’t try to play the parent; there was a different role he wanted.
He wanted to bleed my innocence out of me one tender drop at a time.
I was fifteen
I was fifteen
I tried to tell my momma, I remember cryin’, expectin’ her to be outraged, to protect me.
To be horrified.
And she was. So much so that she
Slapped me across the face.
To be horrified.
And she was. So much so that she
Slapped me across the face.
She told me not to tell such lies about her new fiancée.
My new daddy.
My new daddy.
That bastard came from an influential family, my momma told me. The engagement announcement was already in the local news paper.
That he was willing to adopt me, to support us for the rest of our days.
“You just have to ruin this for me, don’t you?” she screamed into my face, the tears still wet on my cheeks.
“You ruin everything!” She screamed.
She slammed my door so hard the mirror on my wall fell off and shattered on my floor.
“You ruin everything!” She screamed.
She slammed my door so hard the mirror on my wall fell off and shattered on my floor.
And it felt like all those shining, gritty pieces were inside me, stuck somewhere in my throat between my tears and my sobs.
It was everything I could do not to grab one and draw it deathly slow across my wrists.
The betrayal cut me deeper than I knew the glass ever could.
She hadn’t protected me.
She wasn’t goin’ to.
She was a god damn fool.
The betrayal cut me deeper than I knew the glass ever could.
She hadn’t protected me.
She wasn’t goin’ to.
She was a god damn fool.
So instead I kept a piece, slid it under my mattress and waited.
Waited for that bastard to sneak in while my momma slept, to try and touch me again.
But I never got the chance.
That night I woke up to screaming, my momma screaming and the sound of breaking wood. I could hear the bastard swearing loudly, and then the growl of something that sounded like a dog, a big dog. I thought they were fightin’ again, maybe this time over me. I lay in my bed, terrified; convinced it was all just a bad dream that would go away if I hid under my covers.
But it didn’t.
The screaming got louder and more frantic, married with the sound of breaking furniture that made my whole bed tremble, it was like someone was trying to rip down our house with their bare hands. “It will all go away, it will all go away” I remember whispering to myself over and over again.
That’s when it happened. When I knew I had missed my chance to avenge myself. In the midst of all the sounds that I could already hear, the bastard’s voice rang out higher and clearer than anything else. He screamed, long and loud, ragged and coughing, and then as suddenly as it had started, it ended with a blood curdling ‘crunch’ that seemed to echo.
I sat straight up in my bed, my eyes wide open. I felt like a cup being filled with scolding hot liquid; my rage; I could feel it bubble and slosh with in me as I reached under my bed and retrieved the shard of mirror. I held it so tightly I could feel it biting into the flesh of my hand and then the hot drip of my blood as it ran down my curled fingers in thick lines.
I had just gotten to my feet when my bedroom door splintered inward, pushed completely off of its hinges. I’m proud to say I didn’t even jump when it smashed into the wall and then clattered to the floor. I turned calm eyes to the large, bulky figure that darkened the door way. His shoulders were so broad I couldn’t even see their edge where he stood; he had to turn and duck his head down just to get through the opening.
He was a great beast of a man, bigger than any I had seen my momma bring home. The massive swell of his shoulders and chest continued down his arms and up his neck in thick ropey muscles. He wore a tight fitting white muscle shirt and cargo pants that ended in boots. I know because I looked at him for what felt like a very long time. His skin was the color of dark cocoa powder; save for shiny pale scars that decorated the flesh of his shoulders and the left side of his face. His head was shaved, his face set into a hard glare.
As I looked him over, he did the same to me. His dark eyes stopped at the piece of mirror I held like a weapon. A burning ache had started in my fingers, making my palm feel numb. “Drop it, Kid” He instructed plainly. His voice lacked the sweet southern drawl that I had come to know, but the threat in his tone was as plain as day.
Sadly for me though, as a child I wasn’t so well tuned into unspoken threats.
I shook my head No, not taking my eyes off of him.
“If you want it, Come and get it” I instructed right back at him.
I shook my head No, not taking my eyes off of him.
“If you want it, Come and get it” I instructed right back at him.
It was an Idle threat, I thought he – like the men my momma had introduced me to over the years, was going to try and reason me down, to convince me to drop the shard and then move in for the punishment.
But he didn’t.
We skipped that talking part and jumped right to the punishment.
He seemed to think about what I had said for a second, and then he raised his shoulders in a shrug as he gave a quick nod of his head, as if saying
“I accept these terms of the duel”
“I accept these terms of the duel”
He closed the distance between us in a hot second, I had just enough time to raise the shard enough to strike, but as my hit came down, his hand wrapped around my wrist, holding it immobilized in the air. His hand was so big, so warm, when I raised my eyes to his face; I had just enough time to watch him draw his other hand across my face in an open hand slap. White stars erupted in my eyes before a wave of darkness washed over my vision. I could feel myself falling, but I never hit the ground.
Now my darlin’s, I’m not going to tell you all of the sticky details. They aren’t really mine to tell. But I do want you to know, to realize, to see it in your mind’s eye, darlin’ what happened.
I had woken up tied to a tree; above me was a cool, dark moonless sky.
The bark was rough against the bare back of my upper body.
My vision was filled with a great roaring fire that cast dancing shadows over the figures that sat around it.
The bark was rough against the bare back of my upper body.
My vision was filled with a great roaring fire that cast dancing shadows over the figures that sat around it.
I didn’t have time to scream or question, to worry or wonder about my momma even.
I
watched one of those figures raise to its feet. At its side it held a long metal branding rod, its tip red hot.
Someone was speaking to me, a scrapping low male voice whose words seemed to boom and echo. At his words, more turned from the fires light, more stepped away from its heat, the same red hot irons held by their sides.I looked down for a moment, trying to justify in my own mind what was happenin’,
When I looked up they were right there, right in front of me.
Most of the crowd was male, their faces seemed hollow,
Like the lights were on but no one was home to talk to.
To reason with.
Like the lights were on but no one was home to talk to.
To reason with.
The metal kissed my skin, and it felt like it was going to burn right threw me.
Over and over and over again.
They were killing me, my mind decided as I screamed as fast as I could draw breath.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, in the middle of all that pain, something growled deep inside of me.
It filled me more completely than my rage, more solidly than any love I had ever felt.
It grew and grew until it was all I could hear, until it fell from my own lips.
“We’ve set you free”
Someone whispered very close to my ear as I felt my bones start to snap, crackle and pop.
Ripping themselves apart to form something new.
Something satisfyingly terrifying.
Someone whispered very close to my ear as I felt my bones start to snap, crackle and pop.
Ripping themselves apart to form something new.
Something satisfyingly terrifying.