People look at me strange when I tell them I have an 18-year-old son. I’m 33. When James and I go out we often raise eyebrows. Wouldn’t be a stretch for strangers to mistake him for my sibling, or even believe I’d just crossed my teen years, same as him. Life’s tossed a slew of curveballs our way over the past 18 years. Yet, looking back, I reckon I tackled them as well as any man could.
See, during my freshman year in high school, my girlfriend found herself pregnant. Her parents were ready to hand the child up for adoption. But my mom, a pillar of strength she was, stepped right up, guiding me to secure my boy.
Today? James is the epitome of diligence - straight A’s etched on his report card, master of the court in the school’s basketball games. Every penny I could save went to a modest car for him.
He was everything in his vibrant youth that I wasn’t. When I was his age, I had a two-year-old son, a GED, and a job at the local McDonald’s.
Our shared space is a two-bedroom apartment duplex, a stone’s throw from James’ High school. The kid’s diligent, hardly needs a nudge to do his schoolwork. Evenings often find him with pals or outdoing me in our spirited Call of Duty face-offs.
For a time, a thought played at the back of my mind: “Could my boy be gay?” Not that it mattered, but his absence of a girl by his side was peculiar. I broached the topic. He shot me this grin, “Nah, Dad, I’m straight. Just holding out a bit longer, y’know? Last thing you need is grandkids while you’re still in your thirties.”
That was our sex talk. between the internet and the sex ed classes I had to sign a permission slip, I was pretty sure he was clued in on the facts of life.
A while back, he informed me he’d be out late. “What’s the occasion?” I inquired. “A date,” was his reply. No need for details I thought, slipping him a hundred-dollar bill, with the simple instruction for him to be back for lunch.
James was good to his word. After that, it became somewhat of a routine. He’d give me the heads up on Friday, and come Saturday, he’d be back, joystick in hand, playing video games before I could rub the sleep from my eyes.
As for the women he was seeing, I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting any of them, but I reckoned he liked his privacy. Trust wasn’t in short supply between us. James had always been level-headed, giving me no cause for suspicion.
I’m more of a digital guy, getting my daily dose of headlines via Facebook and Twitter, rather than the age-old TV news. But for some odd reason, I found myself sitting Infront of my television at 5 in the afternoon, and figured, why not see what the talking heads had to say? Regret settled in shortly after.
The screen shifted from some product jingle to the solemn visage of the News anchor.
The News: Later tonight,” the news lady began, her tone grave, “there’s been a disturbing development: several women from our town are missing. Authorities are piecing together whether there’s a connection.”
Our town was the quiet sort, and this revelation had a chill racing down my spine. The thought of my son being out and about while danger lurked scared me a bit too much.
I approached him, my concerns laid bare. He waved them off, reminding me of his towering height - just a hair shy of 7 feet. But height’s not armor, especially not against bullets, I argued. I know, having been a sizable target myself.
In the dark folds of the night, a protective streak got the best of me. Unbeknownst to James, I sneaked his phone and slipped in a tracking app, just for peace of mind. With memories of my own invulnerable teen days, this felt like the least I could do. Hidden and set, I returned the device, and my concern quickly tucked away.
I figured that if I ever got worried while he was out, a quick glance at my phone would show me his whereabouts. It was a safety net.
As I indulged in the latest binge-worthy show on Netflix, the unsettling case of the vanishing women however, had me obsessively scrolling online. In a span of ten weeks, six women, all different in age and looks, had disappeared. No bodies turned up, but the cops were convinced something sinister was going on.
The seventh name that cropped up froze my blood. Rochelle. She’d reappeared a decade back, attempting to Mother James, a role she was wholly unequipped for. A string of broken pledges and missed dates later, I had her undergo a drug test. Her failure led to the court severing her ties with James, and I thought it was best if he wasn’t exposed to her decline.
It was a Saturday dawn, and unease twisted in my gut. Rochelle wasn’t a regular topic between James and me. After James, she plummeted into the abyss of substance abuse, aging rapidly, with signs etched on her frail body. Seeing her was a stark reminder of the toll drugs taken; it amazed me she had lived this long, let alone long enough to vanish into thin air.
Taking a deep breath, I stood before James, breaking the news about his mother. He paused his game, met my eyes, waiting. “Rochelle’s missing,” I muttered, “police say there were signs of a struggle at her trailer.”
He stared blankly at the screen, unpausing his game, and with a note of resignation remarked, “Well, it’s not really breaking news, then, is it?”
James and I treaded lightly around the subject of his mother, mostly because he didn’t like talking about his mother. My involvement with the legal system was, in large part, due to one distressing incident during her custodial visit.
She’d taken him away to her apartment, where, unbeknownst to me, she was conducting her prostitution business. The sobering realization that his first genuine interaction with his mother had him bearing witness to addicts lining up, cash in hand, for her “services” was nothing short of horrifying.
The day’s ordeal ended with a man James referred to as Stephen dropping him back off at our doorstep. He’d spent hours outside, shivering in the cold, jacket-less. I rushed home to find him, and all he’d say was that his mother didn’t want to see him anymore.
Out of all the awful outcomes that could’ve ensued, his experience, though deeply unsettling, seemed almost merciful in comparison to what could have happened.
I immediately enrolled James into therapy. With time, the vibrancy returned to his eyes, and the therapist’s sessions grew less and less frequent. Up until that night he had asked me about his mother about once every couple of months. In the time since, I think he may have only brought her name up once.
James informed me of another impending date the subsequent week. My unease took root that evening, compelling me to check the app. It showed him driving to a nondescript address, then to an isolated location, someplace in the middle of nowhere.
The app’s features had eluded my prior notice, and I was taken aback to discover that the app had tracked his every move. To my alarm, it revealed recurrent visits to that very desolate spot over the last month and a half.
A chill ran down my spine when the app showed that my son went to Rochelle’s trailer - the very night she went missing. Skepticism clawed at me, but my heart, blinded by parental love, refused to entertain the bleak whispers of my mind.
Were it any other child, I would’ve faced the glaring truth head-on. In a swirl of denial, I through my phone on the bed and drank whiskey till I passed out. I woke up with a heavy head the next day. I went into James room and saw him playing Call of Duty, I took that time to entertain my curiosity, the need for clarity, I found myself behind the wheel, and drove to that isolated location where James had been taking his dates to. There’s a part of me that wishes I’d remained ignorant. Man, I just wish I didn’t go there.
The GPS led my car down a gravel road, which soon went into a clearing. Trees, thick and tall on both sides of the road were the only things I could see, but now, a pond came into view. I parked, noticing faint remnants of a recent campfire. On drawing closer, its warmth still lingered. An involuntary sigh of relief escaped my lips. Perhaps this was just a clandestine romantic spot James had chanced upon, where he’d bring his dates to.
However, the tranquility of the scene was marred when my eyes landed on tracks leading to the pond, looked as if something heavy had been dragged. A growing unease settled within me as I noticed splashes of blood on the grass.
I waded into the water and about ten feet out, my worst fears were confirmed. I stepped on something hard, reaching down, my fingers grasped a coarse chain tethered to a sodden, blanket-wrapped form. The cloth revealed a face distorted by water and decay - unmistakably, Rochelle.
Shock propelled me back to my car, I sped back home and found myself paralyzed in the driveway, my heart’s frantic beats competed with the deluge of tears, and a torrent of denials and theories to somehow make James seem innocent.
The dark silhouette of James obstructed my peripheral vision, he was standing near my driver side window, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin. Hesitantly, I got out of the car and was met with James wrapping his arms around me. His embrace was firm, warm, grounding. “We’ll get through this, Dad. Just tell me,’’ He whispered.
I walked in the house, and after putting on some dry clothes, I sank into an armchair across from James. The silence was loud, tension thick. Finally, as my eyes are fixed on the ground, I uttered, “I found your mother.”
He responded, “Oh.”
I didn’t know what I expected him to say, but his response hit me hard. It wasn’t surprise or even anger; it was that same flat effect he showed me on the rare occasions I’d caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to do.
I looked right at him and said, “Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid, son.” He looked off to the side and said, “Define ‘stupid’.”
I raised my voice a little. “God damn it, James, did you kill your mother?!” He laughed and said, “That whore was dead a long time before I clocked her on the head and dragged her to my car. Any whore that would try to sell her son for dope has been dead for a long time.”
I couldn’t speak. I had always wondered about that night, but James never talked about it.
James continued, “You know, the asshole that gave me a ride home and told me never to go back to my mother. I guess it could have been a lot worse. But really, that was the day I snapped. I understood how meaningless life really was. Of course, I killed her. That whore deserves to die six times over.”
A chilling silence gripped the room as my son, with an unsettling calm, began a chilling confession, admitting to over 15 murders. I sat there, paralyzed, absorbing every graphic detail he recounted, a tapestry of horror no young man should’ve been capable of.
Once the heavy words stopped pouring from his mouth, I was trapped in a daze. My flesh and blood had just laid bare his monstrous deeds, and my mind raced, trying to find a way to save him from the bleak future that awaited.
I mustered up the courage to speak, “James, we need to get you some help. This… this isn’t a path you should tread.” He was quick to interrupt, “No therapist can fix me, Dad. Let’s not kid ourselves. My eighteenth birthday is around the corner. Soon, I’ll be out of your life, besides, I have my own plans.”
I just stared at him, grappling with the enigma he’d become.
Seventeen years of raising him, and not once had I suspected this within him. Days blurred into one another. By the time he his eighteenth birthday came, I’d quit my job, spiraling into a haze of alcohol, numbing the pain of the revelation.
True to his word, the morning after his birthday, James vanished. A sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, he’d find redemption, was crushed when the police discovered his mother’s corpse in the pond. My son was long gone.
A postcard landed on my doorstep a while later. On the back was a picture of a sunlit beach. Flipping it over, a simple message read: “Hey Dad, just letting you know I’m fine.”
I left it by the door, returning to the solace of my bottle. There’s a nagging thought, urging me to go to the police. Tracking him down wouldn’t be too hard. But the thought of sending my own son to death row didn’t sit right with me in the slightest. That’s a cross I’m not prepared to bear.
The weight of my guilt expands daily. But for now, all I cling to is hope. Hope that somewhere, he’s found peace, that he’s ceased his killing spree. He’s always had charisma, a towering presence. If only he’d harnessed it for good, he could truly shine. He was a good boy, after all.