Chapter One .......

This is the first chapter from a book I wrote a few years ago.  I don't like it.  At all. But I wanted to put it out there.......because why not?  The content is very graphic and could be upsetting to some.  Sorry for that, but it is the beginning to a very sad story.


Chapter One -

Shivering.  His body physical turrets.  Huddling near the hot water heater in hopes it might expel enough heat to keep him from death.  His jeans soaked in blood, his white t-shirt dirty from sleeping on the cellar floor.  Stomach empty, but no appetite after having his insides so badly damaged by a grown man.  Punishment for being an unwilling participant.  He used the corner of the empty space to empty his bowels of shit and blood. The smell was vile and he knew he would be troubled for making a mess he could not avoid.  This wasn’t the first time he had been sent to the basement.  Of course, last time it was in August and it was not so cold.  In hindsight August was quite temperate, but this was torture.  It had been three days.  No heat.  No food.  No water.  He was dizzy.  Pain was shooting to his limbs.  Would he be better off sneaking out through the cellar window and running through the snow while he still had some strength or should he wait it out and continue this cycle?  The only object keeping him in the basement was a thin wooden door and fragile sheets of glass.

There were loud noises upstairs.  There were always loud noises.  A crash.  A scream.  A door slamming.  

His body weak, he lifted himself to the cellar window and saw heavy boots compact snow.   The car’s engine took two tries and it started in the cold Massachusetts winter.  The late model Buick jerked in reverse out of the unprotected driveway.  His forearms shaking from exhaustion he lowered himself to the ground and looked around the empty pit of a cell.  In the corner he located some old real estate signs.  He wondered if his captors had inspected the basement prior to purchasing the house and noticed it would be a good holding place for children.  If that was on their minds when they put the sold sign on the house, kissed in the front yard, and he carried her through the front door.  

Behind the signs there was a long metal pole.  It looked like it could have been used for propping up an awning or beating a child.  He picked it up and walked to the cold cellar window.  The window clear, but caked with dirt from years of neglect. The window being two feet long and a foot high.  He put the pole through cobwebs and hit the window gently.  The metal on the glass made a tap and cracked the way old glass does.  The pole pushed the broken pane to the outside of the window and there was an opening.  Cold air filled the basement with a breeze rather than a draft.  The noise hadn’t been loud, but sounds of glass falling are out of the ordinary and could easily attract the attention of the woman upstairs.  She could be equally nasty as the man.  She turned a blind eye to his trips to the basement with children.  Hopefully she would be as negligent to the sounds of glass breaking out of her home.  

He hoist his body up to the window that was about a foot higher than his head.  Shards of glass remained in the sill and upon poking his head into a gust of wind his neck felt the sharp poke that ripped his skin as he transferred himself from a prison to the freedom of Siberian temperatures.  Red streaked from his neck to his lower back where his worn jeans prevented penetration.  His stomach had scrapes from the concrete, his oily hair had cobwebs encasing his hair in a net, and his bare feet felt like needles were poking from the ground.  He ran.  It was not in a direction.  He just ran.  Not to a house.  Not the police.  Not anywhere safe.  Just away.  

Ronnie ran until he could move no farther.  He gave in and sought refuge at a local McDonald’s.  The manager decided to let the “No shoes, No service” sign on the door slide seeing how it was the dead of winter and instead offered him a warm drink, some fries, and a cheeseburger.  She also gave him an oversized McDonald’s work shirt.  His shivers turned to fear.  He didn’t want to go back.  Not to that home.  Not ever again.  Ronnie rose, but with his adrenaline fading the pain from the cut on his back and the three day old rape made movement near impossible.  The manager at the McDonald’s (a mother of two) knew not to ask the young boy drinking hot chocolate with two hands around the cup if she should call his parents.  No decent parent would allow their child to be that dirty, that cold, or that bloody.  She approached his table with a Happy Meal toy and asked him where he was going, who he was, and where his shoes went?  Ronnie didn’t know the answers to any of the questions.  He just sat there eating until everything was gone and the middle aged woman brought him some chicken nuggets.  

When the police arrived Ronnie hid in the bathroom.  It didn’t take a whole lot of detective work for the officers to coax him out of a stall with another cheeseburger.  They officers sat with Ronnie asking him the why.  

“I don’t like it there.”

“Why?”

“They don’t want me there.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t let me upstairs.  The basement is so cold.”

No more why questions after that.  This wasn’t rocket science.  The problem was that it was a Sunday night.  Where do you put a runaway kid at that time?  

Ronnie spent his night in a clean, unlocked jail cell with a warm blanket.  A drunk was locked two cells down.  He must have been at karaoke before getting busted for drunk driving.  He sang "All You Need is Love" over and over.  It was the best sleep he would have until college - seven years later.