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Looking over the fence, King Williams eyeballed two boxes that stood about four feet in height. Chirpy noises had alerted him to the field beyond the backyard. Slowly, the boxes lifted, and below, four untied shoes poked. The kids lowered the boxes, playfully, over their small bodies, and stood motionlessly. They hid completely by the cardboard.
King walked to the front of the house. Standing atop the balcony, beside the frontal windows, two people who had purchased the Victorian failed to see the black pedestrian in the baseball hat. Furrowing her brow, the woman in the wool turtleneck bowed her head. Looking overprotective, her husband held her tightly by her narrow shoulders, with his thick arm. His opposite hand held the telephone.
Behind a baseball hat, Williams watched the balcony, but alerted nobody. If asked, he might tell about the kids, but nobody asked yet. Probably, the family had allowed the toddlers to play in the boxes. King never liked to interfere in peoples’ business, like he enjoyed nobody in his business. Throughout his life, he had learned that trouble always arose for people who interfered in business that didn’t concern them. It had happened to him routinely, before he had learned to look, not touch, and never open his mouth. And King wanted no part of jail anymore. He would just walk back home.
Quickly, the police squad blared the sirens, flashed the lamps brightly, and squealed into the path that began at the front and circled backward. It took just moments for the burly policeman to hustle from his cruiser and flash his light around the vast backyard. No movement happened until a squirrel darted into a tree. That alerted the officer, who beamed his flashlight into the branches. He brushed the bushes below the tree. The owners joined him, and slumped, with no humans visible below the tree.
Other officers arrived, and King walked toward his house, about six miles southbound. Surprised, King felt one policeman holding him by the bicep. That officer said, “Now I found the sex criminal.” With a headshake, he said, “King Williams—I remember you fondly. You spent time in jail for sexual abuse. Obviously, you escaped—no jail would release you voluntarily. You shouldn’t hide behind that baseball hat.”
Pulling Williams to the Victorian house, the officer said, “You took kids from that house, touched them inappropriately, killed them, like you did to the kids that landed you in jail initially.” Williams zipped his lips, like always, around policemen. The officer shook King forcefully. “Did you hide their bodies, molest them, like you did before? Did you rape them while they still breathed? Did you wait until you killed them before you touched them inappropriately?” The officer pulled on King’s bicep and squeezed tightly. Williams felt his arm become numb. The black male tried but couldn’t pull away. “Without answers, I will arrest you. Hell—I will arrest you anyhow. Inmates will treat you wonderfully, you child molester, like they did before.” He laughed, sardonically, not humorously. “Now, you will leave jail only in a wood box.” Other officers nodded, like justice had been found finally. Celebrations of joy left Williams, but uniformed officers polished their badges, pumped their fists, and looked to celebrate joyously at the jailhouse, with the molester behind bars eternally.
Only King had knowledge about the toddlers in the cardboard, behind the backyard, inside the field, but arrested before, for molestation, he held his arms for the metal handcuffs. He said, “With my background, I will ride silently to jail, and sit silently in jail, like my Constitutional Rights allow.” Unlike any time before, King will land in jail without powdery-sweaty smells of toddlers on his hands and body. No ideas of illicit sexual behavior with kids surfaced in him anymore. Finally, he believed urges to fondle aggressively had vanished completely. Until now, he had never lived as happily.
