Thieves in the Temple: A Prequel to Purple Rain

CH. 29 It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday- G.C. Cameron

Juanita had to go to the the liquor store to ask Monty what street Morris lived on. She had only been to the Day-Brake house once so she could not remember. Maybe she should have gotten to know Sunny Day better since Kid spent so much time at her house, but it did not matter now. She speed down the street honking at everyone in front of her, swerving around a motorcyclist. She had to get to Kid before anybody else did. This devastating news should not come from anyone other than her. The evening news showed Mr. Jessen, a teacher at J. Edgar Hoover Junior High School being arrested in front of his house. It was Mona. She had to get to Kid first. 

As soon as Juanita yanked the steering wheel sharp around the corner, she saw Kid bolting down the street with Morris and Jesse trailing behind him. It was too late.She threw the gear to park and leaped out of the car in the middle of the road. She side stepped to head him off.

"I'll find her!" Kid yelled nearly knocking Juanita over. "I'll go get Mona!" he screamed to the sky. Juanita clutched his neck and pulled him down to the hot asphalt. "I'll help her now!" he screeched as his mother fought him down until he finally relented, rolling into her chest. "You gotta let me go help her!" he sobbed. Juanita had no words for him. She held him as tight as she could. Morris and Jesse caught up, tears streaming down their faces. Blood stained Morris' nose and shirt. No one remembered how that happened. They were simply relieved Kid was in the safest arms he knew. Honking cars arced around Juanita's cock-parked car. It didn't matter. Nothing really did.

    Juanita made Kid eat chicken pazole soup. He vomited it. He drank all of the liquid from Junaita's cognac spiked peach preserves. He vomited that. The bed became his grave, smothering him with piles of thick, sweat dampened blankets. All he could see in his dreams was Mona talking to the ladybug on the end of her finger. Her face was fuzzy through beams of sun. He could not hear clearly what she was saying. He asked her, "Why are you talking to that ladybug? She can't understand you."

"Why do you think he's a she?" she asked.

Kid sprung up to his elbows gasping in a cold sweat. The drenched bed sheets stuck to his chest. His pillow was soaked with tears. Why didn't I ever go see for myself? I could have stopped that asshole!I could have saved her.

The news reports revealed that Jessen had violated Mona repeatedly over the course of the summer. She chronicled it in her journal. He strangled her with a belt until she was unconscious and sodomized her. On his last session with her, he choked her to death with the belt and buried her in a shallow grave in his back yard. The body was found by the neighbor's exterminator who was looking for groundhogs the same day. She had only been buried for an hour.

Kid wretched every time he thought about Mona's desperate voice on the phone,"Just tell me you love me so I can go to sleep, please," she whined.

"Okay, I love you. Now hang up already," Kid recalled snapping at her. How could he have been so callous toward her? So mean. She didn't deserve that kind of treatment. 

Kid held his pillow firm to his face. He opened his mouth wide and bit the biggest plug he could get inside but it could not stop the abysmal yowl that rose from the pit of his stomach. Juanita tip toed down the stairs to the basement. She placed her hand on his bony shoulder. He could not feel her. He could not feel air. He only felt pain ping-ponging through his bones from his head to his knees and back again. His throat hurt from acidic bile gurgling up, retreating down and returning again. His skin blistered red from hives, his nose raw from constant running and wiping.

For the first time in a long time, a very long time, Juanita prayed a rosary. She prayed Hail Marys, the Apostles' Creed and Lord's Prayers on her knees at Kid's bedside as he wailed into the the pillow. Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary. "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." After three hours, after a thousand Hail Marys, after the length of a mother's love seemed too short, Kid finally fell asleep. "Thank you, Mary," Juanita whispered.

Kid stayed in bed for two weeks. He did not go to Mona's funeral. He did not go to school or rehearsals or entertain guests although Morris and Jesse did stop by to see about him. Juanita stayed home from work and kept Francis upstairs as long as she could. But finally, Francis had to do something. He clomped down the stairs loudly. It's not right to enter another man's room unannounced. But Francis still felt he could go anywhere he wanted in his own house.

Kid sat on the bed in a wife beater and drawers with is knees clutched to his chest staring at the wall where Mona had painted butterflies and harlequins. Francis sat on the edge of the bed waiting for Kid to acknowledge him. Kid knew better than to ignore his father so he looked up at him.

"I don't know what to say to you, Kid. I won't pretend to know how you feel," Francis said taking his cigarette pack out of his shirt pocket. "I just know right from wrong. You have to go to her parents and offer condolences. You have to," Francis said looking Kid directly in the eye. This was not a suggestion, it was an order.  "I'll take you over there first thing in the morning."