SYNOPSIS
Katy's older brother John pays a visit from Cleveland, but Katy is not happy to see him. A concerned Shawn presses Katy for why, but all Katy tells them is that John was responsible for the death of their father, whom Katy never knew.
Shawn and Maya decide to find out exactly what happened, and in so doing are about to uncover a very dark and ugly secret from the Clutterbucket family history...
A knock at the hotel door.
"Be right there!" John's voice called from inside.
A moment or two later, John opens the door and finds Shawn and Maya standing in the hall. For a moment he is a little confused, but quickly figures out in his mind why they're there.
"Hey. C'mon in." said John reservedly. Father and his adopted daughter walk in and sit down.
"Listen, John," said Shawn, "I just wanted to..."
"I already know why you're here, Shawn," interrupted John. "You want to know why Katy is giving me the cold shoulder, right?"
"Well, there's more to it than just that." Shawn replied.
John didn't have to ask him the rest. He already knew.
"You want to know what it was I did that causes her to act the way she does when I'm around."
"Well, we kinda already know, Uncle John." said Maya.
"'Kinda'? What did Katy tell you?"
"She said she never knew your dad," Shawn answered, "and that you're the reason why he's not around anymore."
"That's all we could get out of her." Maya added.
John heaved a sigh as he removed his glasses and looked down at the floor.
"Is it true, John?" asked Shawn. "Are you the reason why your dad is dead?"
It seemed like a long time before John finally answered.
The same old story all over again; the same emotions, the same anguish, the same internal guilt, the same scars. He thought he had put most of it behind him when he joined the Air Force, but he knew one way or another it would have to come out all over again, but he wasn't blaming Shawn and Maya. Inwardly, John steeled himself to the onset of the old recurring pains once again and began to speak.
"Yes," John quietly said, "It's true."
"Well, how did it happen?" Shawn asked, "Was it an accident or what?"
John rubbed his eyes and continued to look down at the floor and slowly shook his head as he answered.
"No. It wasn't an accident. I killed our father."
Shawn and Maya looked at one another in disbelief.
"There's got to be more to this story, John."
John sighed again as he slowly raised his head.
"Yes, Shawn, there is. More than you two realize," he said softly. "A lot more."
He looked for a long time at Shawn and at Maya. "Are you two sure you want to hear this?"
"I think we need to." replied Shawn, with Maya nodding.
John closed his eyes and heaved another sigh. Here we go again, he thought. He nodded as he began his story...
"Our mom and dad were Roy and Angela Clutterbucket," said John, "We lived near Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was born out of wedlock, and my dad demanded Mom give me up for adoption but she wouldn't."
"The marriage went downhill from there on?" Shawn asked.
"From what Mom told me, there never was a high point to it; their marriage was common-law," John replied, "From the time they moved in together Dad never treated Mom very well, and it just kept getting worse. Dad could never hold down a job, and most of the time he didn't even bother looking for one, so Mom got a job waiting tables, which Dad resented. He would always start fights about all sorts of things, mainly money, but he would always accuse her of cheating on him, which she never did.
"And then Dad started spending more and more time away from the house, staying away for days and sometimes even weeks at a stretch," John continued, "But every time he came back again it was the same scene all over again: he'd be drunk or stoned or something and he'd throw things around and beat on Mom with his fists or whatever and scream at her about every petty little thing. You could hear them yelling from anywhere in the house, and I heard it all from my bedroom, but sometimes I'd peer out through the crack in my door watching the whole thing and praying that he wouldn't see me.
"Eventually it got to the point where Mom started calling the police on him, and they'd drag him away and let him cool off in a holding cell until he sobered up. He'd always come back with this look of apology on his face and beg Mom to take him back. He would use the old "I can change" speech, and she'd take him back, but he always went back to his old ways every time. He never changed.
Shawn and Maya were listening intently to John as he continued.
"As the years went by, Dad kept getting Mom pregnant again and again, but she miscarried every time."
"Because of your Dad?" Shawn asked.
John nodded. "Every time she got pregnant the beatings got worse; he would always aim for her abdomen. It was almost as though he was blaming the baby."
"Did he ever beat up on you?" Maya asked.
"Ohh, yeah," John replied, "Many times. A lot of those times Mom would get in front of him to try and protect me, but he would only beat up on her worse for getting in his way."
"So what happened?" asked Shawn.
John took another deep breath before continuing.
"As I grew up," he continued, "I started to realize that maybe I could stand up against Dad, so I began working out on my own, building up my strength and endurance..."
A pause.
"..and then one night, New Years Eve, right before 1982 began," he continued, "Dad got Mom pregnant again."
"With Katy?" asked Shawn.
"With Katy," John echoed, "And this… this fear developed in my mind that it was all going to happen again, that he was going to beat Mom senseless again, and she'd wind up losing the baby again, or worse, wind up dead."
A look of angry determination clouded John's face. "And right then and there, I swore that that was one vicious circle that I would break no matter what, even if it cost me my own life."
"What happened?"
"A couple of months later, when it dawned on Dad that Mom was pregnant again, he started at her to beat her up again, and that's when I got up and stood in front of him…."
With a look of pure hatred in his eyes, Roy started walking toward his occasional wife, fists at the ready, when John stood up and faced him.
"Get outta my way, boy."
"No."
"What the hell do you think you're doin'?" Roy asked.
"You're not going to hit Mom again."
"Oh really? Who's going to stop..."
"I will!" John shouted harshly before Roy could finish the question. He never took his eyes off of his father.
Roy sized up the young man for a moment, then a smile came over his face as he chuckled.
"Boy, you're somethin' else, y'know that?" said Roy, slowly turning around to face the door, "Yes, sir, you're really somethin' else..."
Roy had turned his back to his son just long enough to ball up his fist, and then suddenly turned around to throw a punch in John's face, but this time he was ready for it. With lightning speed John had held up his hand to catch Roy's flying fist and hold it less than an inch away from his left cheekbone. He never took his eyes off of his violent father as Roy struggled to free his hand, but John refused to let go.
"What's the matter... Daddy?" asked John sarcastically, "Cat got your fist?"
Roy continued to struggle to free his hand, and John harshly pushed his fist away from his face as he finally let go, pushing Roy back a step or two.
"Get out of here. And don't come back." John growled.
Roy took a long glaring look into the eyes of his nearly-grown son, mostly angry, but now with a growing confusion that his son, no longer a boy, but not quite yet a man, whom he took for granted for so long was no longer a target of convenience for him, but standing up for himself and his mother, and even holding his ground against him.
John took a half step toward Roy.
"I said get out!"
Grudgingly, Roy walked out the door, but he knew he would be back.
John knew it too.
"..but it didn't end there." said Maya.
"No, it didn't," said John, "Not quite."
"It got worse." Shawn surmised.
"Yeah," said John, "The next time things came to a head pretty fast."
"He took it to the next level?" Shawn asked.
"I had a feeling he would," John replied, "It wasn't even a week before he showed up again looking for a fight. I saw him walking toward the house from a block or two away, so I called the police..."
"I thought I told you not to come back."
Without a word, Roy continued walking across toward the house, and toward John standing on the front porch.
"Stop!" shouted John.
Out of the corner of his eye, John saw a police cruiser approaching.
Roy's gait became faster as he came close to John. He raised his fist as he got close enough and threw it at John's jaw, but this time John did nothing to defend himself. He fell hard to the ground.
Roy stood over him, oblivious to the approaching cruiser. He nodded and smiled at his fallen son; John remained on the ground holding his jaw.
"Not so tough now, are ya, boy?" Roy grabbed John by the shirt and pulled him back up to his feet. "Now your daddy is gonna teach you a lesson. A good, hard lesson you ain't never gonna forget."
Roy draws back his head and thrusts it hard into John's right eye. He recoils in pain as Roy is about to do it again when…
"All right, hold it!"
Roy quickly looks around in surprise to see two patrolmen approaching. Still holding John's shirt in his fist, Roy turns back to him and, no longer caring what anyone else thought, threw John to the ground and began to choke him. The cops ran up and grabbed Roy, throwing him to the ground and restraining him...
"They arrested him." Shawn deduced.
"Yeah," said John, "He was charged with assault and child abuse."
"Child abuse?" asked Maya.
"I was sixteen, still a minor."
"And you just stood there and took it?"
John nodded. "Yeah, I did. I figured the best thing I could do was just stand there and let him go at it until the cops showed up. Made for proof of his assault, and the cops were witnesses."
Maya nodded in understanding.
"So what happened next?" asked Shawn.
"The D.A. sent it to trial," John answered, "he was found guilty of assault and given six months in jail."
"Just six months? Didn't he have a record?"
"For minor things, yeah: DUIs, stolen property, stuff like that. But this was the first time he had gotten time for assault."
"That's why he only got six months." said Maya.
"Yeah. I remember what he said to me right before they took him out of the courtroom..."
"You better watch your back, boy.. I'm gonna be comin' for you."
"I responded back with..."
"You're gonna find me waiting."
"They dragged him out of the courtroom. He kept his eyes on me the whole time, and I kept mine on his. Mom and I started keeping guns around the house, and I decided to arm myself wherever I went."
"So did Roy serve his whole six months?" Shawn asked.
"Almost."
"He was paroled?"
"No," said John, "He escaped."
Maya softly gasped.
"A couple of weeks after Dad was jailed Mom and I moved into a mobile home park on the other end of town. I was at work when I heard he had escaped, and when I did hear about it I ran straight home."
"But you and Grandma moved," said Maya, You should have been all right."
"No," said John, "I knew he'd track us down; it was just a matter of time. All he had to do was ask some former neighbors a few questions and this and that, and he'd be right at our doorstep. I told the police that I was sure that once he got out of prison he'd be coming after me before he did anything else,"
John's brow furrowed. "But I also knew that if he was going to take me out he'd have to do it fast before he got caught again. So once I heard that he had escaped it was 'all hands on deck'."
"And he picked the worst possible time to show up." Shawn added.
"Yep. He did..."
END OF CHAPTER TWO
NEXT:
John continues telling his story:
From the moment the judge declared him guilty and decided he was better off spending the next six months in jail, Roy Clutterbucket had only one thing on his mind: he wanted to kill his own family for betraying him. Never mind the fact that he brought it on himself with all the abuse his wife and son suffered at his hands. In his own twisted way, he convinced himself that he was the one who had been wronged, and he was going to set things right for himself no matter what. All he had to do was worm his way into the boy's bedroom while he was asleep, and then, "Smile for the obituary, boy. Bang, your dead". And then the same to his cheating mother, and it would be all over.
There was no visible moon, and the only sound was the incessant but sedate chirping of crickets nearby as John slowly wrapped his hand around the doorknob. He was somewhat surprised to find that the door wasn't locked, but he didn't care.
"All the easier for me," Roy thought as he slowly opened the door. He stealthily tiptoed his way into the darkened living room.
But it didn't stay dark for long...
