Maybe I’ll be blamed for the things I’ve done, but you can’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. Listen to my story and walk in my shoes for a spell. When I’m finished, go ahead and judge me. I need her.
Since I can remember, bad things follow me everywhere I go.
My first memory is my mom driving me to preschool and looking out the window. I looked at my reflection and there was an old man sitting next to me. I could only see him in the reflection. I told my mom, but she ignored me. The man in the reflection grabbed my shoulders and slammed my face against the car window.
My first day of preschool was delayed. To this day I have two scars on my forehead from what my parents called, “my first incident”. It started a four year period of my life where everyone thought that I was indulging in self-harm.
My parents were good parents. I loved them very much, but I learned very early that I couldn’t talk of Timms, the old man with the blue skin and rotten cheeks. I talked about him too much when I was little and I was sent away for a while for observation. In the hospital, Timms seemed to be stronger.
He didn’t hurt me while I was there, but he never stopped talking to me. He was trying to make me go crazy. As an adult, I think I was surrounded by apathy in that hospital. I’ll laugh at the irony sometimes. No one there helped, they just gave me pills and made notes on papers that no one would ever care to read.
I knew, even at eight, that I had to ignore Timms if I ever wanted to get back home. I hatched a plan and it worked. The doctors let me go, and as soon as I got back home I did two things. I made sure my parents knew how happy and normal I was and I purposefully fell out of the oak tree in our front yard.
I reasoned with myself that if I could sell everyone on the idea that I was the most spectacular klutz with the worst luck in the world, they would never again think that I was indulging in self harm. Turns out the broken arm from the fall did the trick.
For a long time, life was as good as it could be. Timms hurt me a lot, but I always had a way to explain the injuries to my parents. They did the best they could. They did everything outside of covering the inside of the house with bubble wrap to keep me from getting hurt, but Timms always found a way.
I found another way to help myself from the tortures of Timms. I would have to wait until my parents fell asleep and I would sneak in and sleep on the floor at the foot of their bed. I always managed to slip back out before they woke up in the morning. For a few years I actually slept most nights. Timms didn’t follow me there very much.
In eighth grade, I met a boy named David who was also a bit of an outcast, and for a brief while, I actually had a friend. David was a boy who also had a secret. When you live with something that you have to keep from everyone else, you can see the same thing in others. It’s a sixth sense.
I was perhaps a little too bold, but I told David that I knew his secret. I had to hope I didn’t scare him. I was so tired of scaring people. I promised him that I would never tell anyone his secret. David was so happy that someone knew and we became best friends. For six months, I never saw Timms.
Close to graduation, David told me another secret. He told me that he found a boy he liked and he was pretty sure the boy liked him back. I was so happy for him. For some reason, I thought our friendship was strong enough for me to finally tell him my secret. I told him about Timms.
After that, I lost David as a friend and Timms came back. David had said something about Timms to his parents, and before I knew it, I was back on pills.
Everyone at the school thought I was a freak. No one wanted anything to do with me. I felt more alone than I ever had. School was very hard, and my mother said that I should consider homeschool. School was humiliating and torturous, but I knew if I was always home, Timms would be there with me. So I stayed.
Just out of high school, my parents died in a car crash. Timms told me that he did it before I even got the phone call. Timms always laughs when he talks about it.
For two years, I lived in constant fear. Timms went wild. I ended up in the hospital three times with injuries. I would wake up to him biting me. My whole body would have marks from his teeth. He would bite my neck and face, and I had to wear makeup when I went to work just to keep anyone from asking any questions.
Timms would also show me my parents. I was trying to watch a show one time, and I turned toward this awful noise behind me. Timms had my mothers body sitting on his knee like a ventriloquist dummy and he performed something he called, “The Dead Show”.
Your Mommy’s dead,
Your Daddy’s dead,
Let’s have a party inside your head.
You may have forgotten, our guts are rotten
Our eyes are red, and our toes are blue
Don’t be thinkin’ it’ll soon be you
You’re mine till your old, so let it be told
I’ll never give you rest nor any peace,
Till your bones are dust and your guts are grease.
I’ve heard that song so many times. I thought about ending my own life, but then Stacey moved in next door.
Words can’t do justice to how perfect and heavenly she is, so I won’t even attempt to describe her. She’s beyond any words.
For the first time since David, I threw caution to the wind and introduced myself. I knew that I never had any chance of wooing a woman so perfect. I decided to try my best to put myself in the friend zone right away, and it worked.
She was single, so I think it made her feel comfortable to have a young man as a neighbor who didn’t want anything from her and was just there to help her with anything she needed. She also had an old dog, Rugby.
He was a white Labrador and he loved me. He also didn’t like Timms. I would spend as much time as I could around Stacey and Rugby.
At night, I had a board that I could remove from the fence to let Rugby come over. He would scare Timms away, and we would play. Eventually though, he always wanted to go back home.
After a week, I started to follow Rugby back through the fence into Stacey’s yard. I never followed him back through the doggy door. I thought that might be a violation of trust between me and Stacey. But I would spend some nights sleeping on her back porch, careful to leave before she woke up. Once again, I was sleeping well.
One day Stacey called me and I went over to her house. Rugby had died in the backyard. Stacey was sobbing and I got to hold her. It’s not fair that the best moment of my life, holding her, was only because that wonderful dog had died in her backyard.
I buried him for her in the backyard and I stayed at her house and watched a movie with her. She didn’t want me to leave until she fell asleep. I wanted to tell her about my secret. I felt so comfortable around her, but I knew that as perfect as she was, she would never understand, and I would be alone.
After she fell asleep, I walked back home and went upstairs. Timms was in my room with Rugby on his knee. Rugby was singing The Dead Show. I rushed back out of the house, and Timms followed me. He started beating me. I fell out the door into my backyard, and Timms was hitting and clawing me. He beat me so badly that I couldn’t walk. I crawled to the fence and I removed the boards while he kept attacking me.
I crawled through the hole and I ended up laying on Rugby’s grave. Timms was watching me through the hole, but he couldn’t come through the fence. I knew what I had to do.
The next day, I waited until Stacy was gone and I dug up Rugby. I was bruised and bandaged and it was very hard work even though the dirt was still fresh. I made sure the grave looked undisturbed and I took Rugby into my basement.
I did my best. I studied on websites for as long as I could, but I knew I had to act quickly because Rugby was already starting to smell. I went to the hardware store and got everything I needed and went to work. By the end of the day, I had preserved him to the best of my limited knowledge.
I put him in my room, and for the first time, I was able to sleep in my own bed without being hurt. I knew Timms was still in the house because I could hear him yelling downstairs, but he wouldn’t come into my room.
As the years went on, Stacey met a man named Robert and they got married. Robert is a nice man and he treated Stacey like the princess she is. He was a bit suspicious of me at first, but the friendship that Stacey and I had was strong. He eventually accepted me, and we’ve been friends ever since. They had two kids, Jackson and Maribelle.
I finally had a family.
Five years after Rugby died, he began to fall apart. I tried to keep it from happening, but I didn’t preserve him well enough. While Stacey and Robert were asleep one night, I buried what was left of Rugby behind the rosemary bushes in their backyard. I couldn’t put him back in his original spot because they would have noticed. I could have buried him in my backyard, but it felt wrong.
Timms came back with a vengeance and I ended up in the hospital. I told the doctors that I had been mugged. They told me that I was lucky to be alive. When I was able to come back home, I started sleeping on Stacey’s back porch again.
A year ago today, Stacey was diagnosed with Stage Four Cancer. I prayed every night for God to spare her while Timms laughed at my pain and prayer. Three months ago, Stacey went to heaven, and that night, I saw her on Timms’ knee singing the chorus of The Dead Show.
I’ve been there for Robert and the kids. They call me Uncle. Robert and I have become very close. He’s a good man. I owe it to Stacey to be there for him, like she was there for me. I still have a family.
The night after we buried her, I brought her back home. I’ve learned from the mistakes I made with Rugby. She’ll always be beautiful. She looks like she’s sleeping. I’ve given her my bed, and as much as I want to just lie next to her, I don’t. I feel like that would be a violation of trust between Stacey and me. She’s my friend.
I sleep like a baby on the floor at the foot of the bed. I haven’t even heard Timms since I brought her home.
For the first time now, I’ve come clean. I’ve changed everyone’s name and I can finally say all these things out loud without fear of repercussion.
You never know what your neighbor might be going through. Be kind. The world has many terrifying and evil things stalking around within it. I did what I had to do to keep my demon at bay.