Things we collected
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Bonnie's stream of consciousness came in half sentences, dribbles that wandered off to Emily. Emily swinging up in a tyre swing, Emily's silver giggles as Bonnie braided her hair, Emily reciting her multiplication table in the shaded porch, Emily running around their kitchen covered in flour and Emily starring up at Bonnie all bright-eyed while she read her the story of the frog prince.
Her sister had been raped. They'd ripped the innocence right off her poor spirit. She'd never be the same again. Those monsters had taken EVERYTHING from her.
The pork hissed and spluttered in the pan and Marcel leaned against the cupboard, arms crossed against his big broad chest. Bonnie bunched in the kitchen chair, knees drawn up against her slight chest with her arms wrapped tightly around them. She listened to the thud of Jamie's boots as he paced the length of the small room, his knife scraping the skin off a ripe red apple.
They were all quiet, waiting silently for that phone call from grams or their father . Bonnie thought this is what it must be like, waiting for Armageddon. She bowed her head into her knees and prayed silently.
Then the phone rang in the hallway and Marcel sprinted for it, leaving Jamie scrambling behind.
"One of 'em Lockwood boys?"
She heard Marcel scream as she turned the meat on the stove and dropping the fork, she bounded for the lit foyer where her brothers were huddled.
"What about 'em Lockwood boys? "she asked as Marcel hung up the phone.
"They raped our sister!" he snapped, punching the wall and belching out a howl so deep that Bonnie could see the dark caverns of his throat. He sprang forward again, clawed a vase from the table and hurled it against the same wall.
"Tried to kill her too, they did leave her out there to die!" he broke, hissing through his teeth.
"No, Marcel…" she gulped hot air, her heart pounding hard against her ribs "not Tyler, he wouldn't-" she shook her head, retreating back toward the couch.
"It's not Tyler, it's that other one, that older one, Mason" he yelled turning on the television and there it was, the story in vibrant colour, Emily's picture and Mason Lockwood's name along with Malachai Laughlin's name running across the bottom of the T.V. screen.
"Turn it off, Marcel" she cried bitterly.
"Tyler's just as bad as his skank of a brother" Jamie
"The whole lot is rotten to the core, damn rednecks"
"Marcel, what'cha ya doin?" she asked as he slipped on his coat "where you off to?"
"I'm goin down to that police station and I'm goin see about a damn redneck"
"What ya mean, see about the redneck?"
"I'm goin 'fix him , that's what I mean" he vowed, his mouth curled in disgust.
"I'm comin wit'cha" Jamie said, skipping off to retrieve his own jacket.
"Where's daddy's rifle?" Bonnie cried looking from one brother to the other.
"Don't do nothin foolish, y'all hear!" she yelled as the boys rushed out of the house in a rustle of coats and hammering boots.
Hesitantly, she switched on the television again and Emily's face was everywhere. She listened as the white woman with a cultured voice and straw-coloured hair said something about a preliminary hearing for Mason Lockwood and his friend. Frantically, she switched to another channel but her sister's face was everywhere. The stations were using her schoolbook picture, the one with her big cherubic cheeks, great glossy eyes and bouncy pigtails. Bonnie promptly switched off the T.V.
The silence seemed to go on forever before she heard the faraway roar of an approaching vehicle. Ragged red light leaped up and flooded the porch and Bonnie broke cover and made for the door. Slowly, she unfastened the rusted old bolts and cracked the screen door open, peering outside. She looked over her shoulder at the empty house before stepping out into the lit porch.
Bonnie glared at the pair of churning lights like a deer caught in headlights. The vehicle bounced, skewering and smacking against the rocks as it surged up the jagged gravel driveway.
It was Tyler Lockwood's battered truck.
Bonnie waited, watching the truck as leaping fireflies rode her sunbaked skin. She watched as Tyler's silhouette moved inside the car and she took tentative steps across the porch. Her eyes followed Tyler's vague shape as he climbed out of the truck, a can of beer in his hand.
She advanced toward him, hands buried deep inside the back pockets of her dungaree.
"What devil train rode ya over?" she asked noticing his bloody nose.
"There's a heated mob of black boys tryna hustle us back at the trailer park, "he huffed dabbing gingerly at his nose with his wet cuff.
"You wanna come inside so I can take a look at it?" she asked, reaching out to touch his dripping nose but he flinched back.
"Nah, ya know I caint do tha'"
"Yup, bad idea!" she withdrew her hands, handing them on either side of her hips, fingers itching.
"Y'all know my brother's innocent, don't ya?" Tyler narrowed his eyes down at her "You's fixin to embarrass us, is that it?" he raised his eyebrows, snorting back as he wiped his nose on his plaid sleeve.
"How's my sister gettin raped humiliatin' ya?"
"Cause my brother never touch' her and y'all know it!" he shook his head, waggling a gnarled finger at her "Ya'll wanna see my momma wobblin all over town tryna fix a case for Mason? Ya'll know she aint left the house in years on account of her condition" he breathed heavy, fisting his dark hair.
"Why, cause she fat? Pry her out of the godamn trailer 'en" Bonnie fastened her hands on her hips, her face closing in on his "My sister's gettin her justice, Tyler and there aint nothin y'all can do about it!"
"But y'all know Mason. He used to give y'all piggy back rides from school, remember that?"
"Folks change Tyler, you did. 'Never thought you'd be on my front porch, drunk as a skunk and tellin me my kid sister's a big stinking liar after she'd been hurt like that?"
"Oh ya can huff and puff all you want, I aint budgin!" she screamed, stomping her right foot hard on the ground, the pain shooting up her leg like an adrenaline shot.
"So it's like that then?" he asked squeezing the tears back, jaw muscles bucking to force the waterworks to retract.
"It's like that!" Bonnie exclaimed, chin jutted out and arms crossed firmly against her heaving chest.
xXx
Damon wheeled the ladder swiftly along the glazed black-walnut bookshelves.
He plucked out a ratty copy of Doctor Moreau's island, the anthropologist. He loved the musty smell of the library even though the housekeepers cleaned it diligently; they never seemed to be able to quell the scent of old books and the lingering scent of his grandfather's cigar. The library had always been Damon's favourite place in the house; it was his portal to a myriad of other worlds. As kids, Stefan had always had his art and Damon, his adventures which he'd found in the numberless books.
"What do you think is going to happen now?" Stefan inquired, settling the stolen sherry decanter on the vast table littered with disorganized books.
"They'll rape one of our own" Damon announced, hopping down from the ladder "An eye of an eye, right?" he slurred, diving for the bottle. He opened the flask, lifted it up and took four hefty swallows out of it.
"Don't be silly, Damon" Stefan exclaimed, shaking his head.
"I'm not being silly, I'm being a realist"
"You're starting to sound just like the old coot" he creased his brows, referring to their grandfather, whom had many nicknames thanks to Damon, the giver of monikers.
"The old coot is as crazy as a bat, I simply subscribe to the concept of revenge"
"Revenge?"
"Yes, Stefan. Revenge, a dish best served very cold" he said " many a book have dissected the theory of revenge, idealized the poetry of it. It's a formula I strongly subscribe to"
"This aint about race Damon, you said it yourself, it's about the rape of a minor"
"Did y'all hear the debate in there? This is the south brother. Every damn fight's about race"
"The south brother, " he affirmed," most of them folks have their heads buried so far up their asses, they wouldn't know justice if it smacked them in the face!"
"I don't agree"
"Enough about politics, let's talk…sex!" Damon announced, waggling his dark eyebrows.
"Caroline and I are none of your business" Stefan teased, blood mounting up his cheeks.
"Come now, is this the virgin talkin or has she finally helped you with that?"
"I have a better idea," he simpered, smoothing back his sandy-brown hair "let's discuss Harvard and daddy!"
"How about this?" Damon asked, fingering out a pamphlet from his back pocket. He unfolded the piece of shabby paper and laid it out on the littered table.
"Anthropology?"
"It's an anthropology program in India, that's where I'm goin next year" Damon smirked "if I can get in, that is"
"What about medicine?"
"That'll happen, this is just something I'm tryin out"
Stefan shook his head, Damon was always trying something out. He never actually committed to anything.
"So, how you gonna get in?"
"With a killer thesis"
"Well don't leave me dangling, "Stefan exclaimed "what you writing about?"
"Mystic Falls and its killer tribes" Damon replied, bowing with a flourish.
Stefan shook his head and started tackling the sherry, his face wearing a pained grimace the entire time.
xXx
The rooster woke her up first before her alarm. Bonnie kicked the quilt and wrestled with the tangled sheets.
Tucking her untidy curls inside a baseball cap, she dragged it lower into her face just so only the tip of her nose and quirky, plump lips were showing. Limbs heavy with sleep, she staggered down the hall through the kitchen where her grams was already heating up some grits for breakfast.
"Morning, child"
"Yes, mam" she replied, snatching the egg basket as she sauntered out of the house. The sun was hot on her back, tee-shirt clinging to her shoulders and it wasn't even proper daybreak. Bonnie peeked inside the henhouse before reaching under the hen to grope a big warm egg.
"You're the other Bennett girl, aint ya?"
Her hand, froze over the eggs as she glared at the man. His cigarette wreathed its faint cloud across her face. He stood in the middle of the shrubbery, trees thinning against a pale green sky.
"Get off our property," she sneered, her eyes squinting against the smoke.
"Technically, I'm not on your property, " he said above the clucking of hens, the cigarette dangling between his chapped lips "I'm behind this here fence" he smirked, looping his forefingers around the jigsaw wire, trilling it with a shake.
"You're a reporter?"
"Yes, mam"
"Then git off our property, we don't want' any of y'all here"
Bonnie had seen it before, media harassment. She'd been privy to it when someone leaked Tyler's momma's picture to the press and they came to see the town's heaviest woman. They had viewed her like one might view a bleached whale at an aquarium or a hippopotamus at the zoo. She didn't want any of that for her family or her beloved sister.
Crack! Boom! Crack! Boom! Crack! Boom!
Bonnie whirled around to the noise behind her, a scream in her throat as Marcel fired another shot in the air before corking the rifle again.
"You heard my sister, now git!"
The reporter stalled, palms raised up as he looked from Bonnie to Marcel then back to Bonnie. Clumsily, he began to draw back, trampling the ground and snapping a few twigs. The siblings kept their eyes fixed on him, Marcel's hands firmly around the rifle. When she was sure that he was gone and upon hearing the sound of his bleating automobile, Bonnie exhaled.
"It's goin be like this from now on, aint it?" She asked Marcel as he wound his arm around her shoulder.
"Yup, like buzzards at a mule's funeral" he murmured, resting his chin on her head.
X
The courtroom deputy led the judge to the bench and the crowd's hushed voiced seemed to rise a volume or two in anticipation of the proceedings.
"All rise for the court" the courtroom deputy yelled and everyone muted.
Rudy Hopkins's knees creaked as he rose to his feet with a slight groan and the judge took his seat on the bench. Mason Lockwood and Malachai were ushered into the courtroom, handcuffed and the mob craned their necks backward to get a better look at them. Their handcuffs were removed and they sat next to defending lawyer, anxiously looking around the room at all the black faces.
Bonnie turned her blurry eyes from the two rapists and scanned the opposite side of the courtroom. The deputies watched nervously, hands lingering above their pistols as they scrutinized the sea of black faces.
Bonnie held her gram's hand, her gram's lace glove coarse against Bonnie's moist palm. With her left hand, Bonnie laced her fingers with her father's wiry, calloused fingers. His hands were hardened, the palms faded into yellow like an over washed cloth. He was a carpenter; he'd been building things ever since Bonnie could remember. Her father had even erected Marcel's shabby cottage outback behind the house so he could have a little privacy now that he was a senior. Rudy was sitting perfectly still, hunched over and staring blankly at his shoes. Bonnie had managed to iron his flannel shirt for him which made him seem virile, manly and unflinching although he didn't look it. Rudy Hopkins looked defeated.
xXx
When the hum of voices in the courtroom began to buzz like bees trapped in a mason jar, Damon tore his gaze away from the Bennett family. He snapped his head toward the direction of the noise, the immensely obese Mrs Lockwood was slowly making her way down the aisle with her younger son, Tyler Lockwood.
He heard the low-toned comments of bewilderment and awe behind him. The stunned crowd watched with disgusted amusement as the elephant in a shingled red dress shuffled down the walkway with a slouched gait. Every so often she'd pause, mammoth chest heaving and lean against a flushed Tyler then proceed with her scuffle.
Mystic Falls had always seemed like Doctor Moreau's island to him, filled with unnatural beasts and inhuman monsters. It was swarming with creatures that deemed themselves cultured simply because they followed the old laws set by their forefathers, an even more outrageous beast. Nothing had evolved in the town, he thought as his eyes roved the muggy courtroom. The whites were on one side and the blacks on the other, even though the hearing was about the grotesque rape of a ten year old girl. The simple matter was and would always be the fact that she was black, it didn't matter that the year was two thousand and three.
Damon scowled into the sunlight as clumps of people crawled outside into the blazing heat of the swarming streets.
The camera crews, T.V broadcasting vans and reporters were all blocking his sight from his new obsession. He weaved around the chanting crowd, his ears slaughtered by the roar of their shouting and clapping. He dropped his head as he dipped past their flailing giant posters, his fingers combing through his thick dark curls. A deputy officer was holding a loudspeaker ordering the crowd to stand back away from the court.
"No bail, no bail!" the crowd chanted, taunting the nervous police. Damon swerved right toward the parking to find his car and there they were, the Bennett family.
The girl kept tugging at the hem of her sleek black dress, tight enough for her buttocks to jerk from side to side as she took small steps behind her brothers. She had removed her chunky shoes and was carrying them in her hands. Glancing backwards at him, her green met his eyes. Damon licked his dry lips, thinking of something to say and she tucked back a strand of hair licking her damp forehead. Somehow this made him focus on her eyes a little bit more. They glared at him through a curtain of long eyelashes and they were green, as green the sprightly grasshoppers him and Stefan used to chase after during their long summer holidays with their momma.
Damon caught the biggest breath of his life, so deep that one might have though he was preparing to dive into the damn Mississippi.
xXx
Bonnie's feet were aching badly; she was damn near walking along the hot pavement with two bludgeoned steaks for feet. Everyone was walking too darn fast and there were reporters everywhere and the crowds, the swarming crowds that made it look like another million men march. She had resolved to take the shoes off cause she couldn't take the shooting pain anymore but somehow, her feet seemed worse off.
She tugged at her Sunday dress, trying to duck her head from the flashing cameras and then she noticed him. He was strange white boy, leaning against a vintage model Rolls Royce with its black hood gleaming in the searing July sun. He teased his wild dark hair with one hand, face flushed red from the heat and lips poised into what appeared to be a smile but was recklessly bordering into a grimace. His eyes were as blue as that artificial fly down at Luke's bait shop, the one no one ever bought cause it only worked with fly fishing. Her daddy had told her once that the hand tied artificial flies were used to lure fish out of fresh water, provoked them to strike.
Fly fishing had no place in Georgia, just like his blue eyes had no right looking at her the way they were looking at her at that very moment.
"What'cha gawkin at?" Bonnie yelled at him, fists balled up at her side.
"C'mere, Let's git" Marcel snapped, winding his fingers around her arm with one hand, the other clamped on her shoulder.
Bonnie's family ran toward their parked vehicles, her hands firmly wrapped around her brother's hand as the crowd swelled. The mob grew, swarming the tarred roads and rocking moving vehicles in all that sweltering heat. They were chanting, shouting, police dogs barking and then someone fired teargas.