I catch her. I catch her because I know fear.
She hides in the recesses of the classroom, sitting at the back of a row, second from the edge in the darkest part of the room. She covers herself in quiet, obscures herself with meekness when called upon. She does just enough work not to draw attention. She neglects just enough work not to draw attention.
Nothing distinguishes her. Her fall-color clothes hang loosely over an immature frame. Her hair hangs straight to the sides. She wears no make-up. She averts her beacon-blue eyes. But when I catch them, I catch her. Even though they look beyond me, framed by upraised brows and a retreating mouth, they plead. And that’s when I notice.
Fear distinguishes her. She is by no means pale white; but, her tan European skin is dull and ashen. She glances nervously behind her and about the room as if someone or something sinister is hiding here with her. Her thin lips tremble as if muttering. Her pencil shakes in her knobby hands. Allison. I check her name to be sure. Allison. I caught you. “Allison, see me after class,” I call. She looks at me now, incredulous. Then shudders. She knows.
I know fear. I’ve been trained to spot it. All teachers devote a significant part of their brain to teaching. I wrap up my lesson on the underground railroad. Teachers reserve the remainder for watching. I watch Allison gather her books and supplies into her backpack and hunch her shoulder to make a hook for it. The rest of her body curves around the hook like a brushed sea anemone. Retracted, she approaches me. I try to ease her alarm.
“Allison, we haven’t really had the chance to talk much,” I say with a smile.
She confuses me with a nod of a frown.
“Is there anything you want to tell me about,” I offe.
She looks downward. When she eventually lifts her head and catches my eyes, still upon her, she realizes her silence isn’t enough. “No, Ms. Mickley,” she mutters.
“Because I’ve noticed that something seems to be bothering you,” I explain. “And if that’s true, you should talk to someone about it.”
Nothing.
“I’m your teacher. You can talk to me.”
Back to the nod again, and the look downward.
“I wanted to give you the chance to talk to me before I pass it on to your counselor.”
That got her! Her head snaps up. She gives me those eyes, fixed, looking right at me, sparkling with tears, trembling from forced rigidity. There’s the fear. I congratulate myself and settle in like a cop who has just earned a confession.
“Give it to me. What’s going on?” I demand.
It doesn’t come easy. Allison chokes on her words. Her eyes shut as her sobs become heaves, so violent that she begins to buckle.
“Have a seat,” I suggest, pointing a hand at the nearest student desk. “There, there,” I console with the same hand hovering over her left shoulder, close enough to show empathy for her breakdown, but far enough to respect its possible cause.
I suspect abuse. What else could so devastate a child? Poor little kid, innocent victim of...
“A man,” Allison speaks.
I nod in affirmation. Good girl, I project, talking in my head as if she can hear me. Go on.
“There’s a man in my house.”
“Who is he?” I ask with a frown.
“A black man.”
“Okay,” I say with a sigh of apprehension at the details. “Do you know him?”
“No,” Allison cries anew. “He scares me!”
“Has he...hurt you!” I ask with the appropriate hesitancy.
Allison shakes her head. A tear falls to either side.
But I am confused. Who is he? “Why does he scare you?”
Allison composes herself enough to spit through vinegar lips, “Because he’s frightening! He looks like a monster! And he yells sometimes. And he bleeds,” she scowls, “he bleeds on everything!”
My confusion turns to horror. I might have considered disbelief, but her tears are sincere.
“What about your parents!?” I ask with alarm.
“They are scared of him too.”
“So they know about him?”
“Yes.”
“They know his name?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Train. They call him Train.”
“Well, why don’t they get rid of him?” I wonder aloud.
“I don’t know,” Allison echoes. “Why don’t they, Ms. Mickley?”
“We’ll find out,” I announce as I stand away from her and walk towards my desk. “And I’ll make sure that man doesn’t scare you anymore,” I promise heroically as I step towards the phone on the wall.
“NO!” Allison screams more frantically than before. “You can’t tell my parents! You can’t!” She stands at her desk. “They made me promise on my life! Please don’t!”
But why?!, I think to ask. But upon reflection decide, “...because they are scared too.” I press on. “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t planning on calling them anyway. We need to talk to your counselor.”
“NO!” she repeats, just as adamant.
But I am resolute. “You know, I am required by law to report things like this.”
“But you can’t!”
“It’s for your protection.” I turn towards the phone. “I don’t have a choice.”
I hear the girl shuffle behind me, as I pick up the receiver and dial the counselor’s number. By the time I turn around, all that remains of Allison is a slamming door. I lean towards it to run after her, but the lift of the receiver on the other end of the phone line slows me. But in that moment, I am caught between the personal and professional, between talking into the receiver and chasing Allison, between bringing her back in or driving her away.
But I am required by law to report things like this. I place my hand on my desk to stop my forward lean and listen at the receiver. No greeting followed the click. There is continued silence. “Hello? Hello? Is this thing working?” No response.
Then, in a deliberate, calm male voice, “Thank you Ms. Mickley. It was the right thing to do.” Click.
What the...? “Hello? Hello? Mr. Giesen?” That wasn’t the counselor’s, Mr. Giesen’s voice. Who was it? And how do they know? I didn’t report anything, did I?
I can’t waste any more time finding out. Allison is gone and, most likely, going for home. And the only person that can get there soon enough to protect her is me. If there’s another call to be made, I can make it from her house, with her under my care. It may not be the professional thing to do. But it’s the right thing to do.
I check her address in my records and I’m out of the door after her. Fortunately, cars are faster than bicycles. I pull into her parents’ driveway just as she drops her bike on the gravel. She turns at the sound of my car. Surprisingly, she doesn’t appear startled. She doesn’t turn to run. She waits for me there. In return, I don’t run to grab her. Once out of the car, I walk across the gravel to her and place an arm over her shoulder. We are both relieved to have found each other.
“You okay?” I check.
“Better now,” she confirms.
“Me too.” I smile. “Were you going in?”
“I don’t want to. But I have to.”
“Would you rather go back to school?”
“No!” she says with a look that warns: don’t you dare. “I need to be home before mom and dad get home or I’m in trouble.” After a pause, she drops her head and adds, “If I bring you in, I’m in trouble.”
“Going in there alone sounds like more serious trouble.”
Allison becomes silent. She turns her head to the side, looking further away from me. She shudders, then seems to droop further. Finally, she brings a hand up and chews at the tip of her thumb while slowly shaking her head.
“I’ve been scared before,” she concludes. “Mom says to ignore them. They don’t stay long.”
I pull her around so that I have a shoulder in each hand and bend my knees to catch her beacon-blue eyes. I gather my brow in surprise. “Them?” I whisper with dread. “What are you talking about?”
“I have to go now,” Allison states.
“No,” I say weakly.
“You need to leave now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I try to be firm. It makes no difference.
Allison twists herself free and crunches gravel underfoot to the path then past the porch to her house. She unlocks, opens, enters and closes the door before I even stand from my crouch.
And there I stand dumbfounded and afraid, as she steps into the window to glare at me, defiantly. Her eyes stare into mine as if they form a connection, between our minds, and she can will me away. I look back with softer but equally unyielding eyes that ask “why?”
Hers turn away first, to check the darkness of the house behind her. Each successive glance chips at her facade of fear of breaking her parents’ trust, exposing the greater fear of the man called Train, and her yearning will for me to stay, to come to her, to protect her.
When her eyes yield to mine, I step across the gravel towards her house. She bolts from the window to come to the door, to open it for me. She pulls me into a hurried hug. The poor girl is trembling.
“My parents will kill me.”
“No one’s going to hurt you now, Allison,” I promise.
Then the door just behind me booms to a close. With Allison in my arms, I jump away from it, and turn to find nobody there.
“Ms. Mickley, Ms. Mickley...”Allison cries.
Standing near the middle of the living room, circled by its furniture, I dart my head all around searching for the culprit. We are alone. And the hallway to my right and the kitchen before me are empty black.
“It’s Train,” Allison whispers.
I keep hold of her and side-step towards the front door.
“Uhh...ohh,” a tortured moan echoes from deeper parts of the house.
I try the handle frantically turning it either way. But it does not give, even after I flip the lock on the inside!
“Open the door!” Allison commands.
“I can’t!”
“Let me try.” Allison takes over, to no avail. “We’re trapped,” she states.
“The hell we are,” I disagree. I grab a footstool below a drawing table near the front door and step into the room to toss it with all my strength back towards the house’s front window. I cover Allison with one arm and my own face with the other in anticipation of the forthcoming smash. It doesn’t come. The stool deflects to the ground as if it hit an invisible barrier just inside the window pane.
“We’re trapped,” I concur, drawing Allison close to me again. I step back against the front door and slide down along it to the floor. Allison sits in front of me.
“Ohhh,” the moan returns from the hall.
Allison begins to whimper. I might have joined her if I thought it might do any good. Instead, I keep eyes on the hallway, its opening just above the couch and matching white lounge chairs near the center of the room, looking for any sign of the man called Train, with a hand on the leg of the drawing table, ready to lift and swing it should he show himself.
It is not long before he does, but the drawing table turns out to be of little use. Just near the couch, on the floor, appears a red imprint, oblong in shape, but smeared towards us. I peer at it, until another appears closer to us, better approximating the shape of a foot, stamped in blood! I grab onto Allison and inch back as tightly against the door as I can! A partial handprint of blood forms on the crest of the back of the couch. Another smear of a footprint and partial handprint follow along it, turning away from us. I would sigh in relief at its change in direction, were the creature not still in the room. The trail of blood makes its way around the couch with uneven impressions as if from a limp or a dragged broken limb or a monstrous swagger. It stops at one of the matching lounge chairs at the end of the couch. And then nothing, for long terrifying moments, until an impression in blood appears in the white back of the chair: criss-crosses of red, like long flat x’s. And then the moans begin anew, softer this time, but longer.
And then he appears, forming in the area inside the chair, as if the shadows about the room reach in and gather there. The white of the chair blackens into the torso of a semi-clothed man, with taut black muscled arms, smeared with blood. His knotty hands hold his head, crested with the clumps or a dirty tangled afro. The rest of his body below his waist does not form. But blood begins to run along the part of the chair where his left leg would be. The moans come from inside those hands, hideous howls of pain and anger. Blood seeps between those fingers too, fingers that dislodge and lower as the head rises into view. I can’t help but gasp at what I see revealed there: a bludgeoned face, slashed and swollen, rises in clumps around two sallow eyes.
Allison screams. And I begin to whimper. Despite my revulsion and horror, I cannot move my eyes from the hideous visage. I am trapped there by the greater fear that the man might move closer to us. Allison, on the other hand, has broken her eyes away, and curled herself into me again, as if I can protect her.
Fortunately, I am not put in the position. The creature stays there, its torso floating in the chair. It moans and looks at me. It moves its misshapen lips as if to speak. And as if I can hear its inaudible words, or perhaps because I find an expression hidden there amongst the damage done to its face, I know that I need not protect Allison from it. Despite its pain and rage, it has no intention of moving. It is afraid. I know fear, and the man is terrified!
Then, as if in reaction to my revelation, Train begins to fade. First the hands return to the face. Then the body disperses back into shadow. Finally, the blood dims and disappears. Lastly, the moans seem to recede back into the house.
“Is he gone?” I ask.
Allison stays limp and quiet in my lap. I reach up to try the door handle. It does not give. There’s my answer. For whatever reason, we are still held captive. We wait for what seems an eternity, as the light outside dims.
Allison remains still until, all at once, she looks up at me with tearful eyes and asks, “Where are my parents?”
I have even less of an answer than she might provide. I shrug and keep my eyes out for Train. But her comment gives me an idea.
“Where’s the phone?”
“In the kitchen,” Allison murmurs.
“I’m going to go for it. Do you want to come with me?”
Allison nods, but doesn’t move. I push against the floor and then lift my back against the door to stand, carrying Allison up into my arms. With eyes aquiver, I tip-toe through the living room into the door arch to the kitchen. I peer around its refrigerator to check the empty room before whispering to Allison, “I’ve got to put you down.” She lets her legs drop next to the stool that sits at a raised kitchen table. She looks fearfully at me as we separate so I can search for a light switch. I find and flip it. It doesn’t work.
“Where are my parents?” Allison whines.
“Where’s the phone?” I counter.
“Over there,” she points at a confluence of counters. I hurry there and lift the receiver. Nothing. Just the slight buzz of an active line. I click the button that turns the line on and off. The same. Until the same male voice speaks, “Thank you, Ms. Mickley, it was the right thing to do.” Click. The phone is dead. I look at the phone as I had looked at Train, as if it too is a ghost, bleeding in my hand. Until a light coming through the windows draws me away.
“Mom? Dad?” Allison asks the light.
No, these are not headlights. Headlights do not flicker. I step to the window to look out onto the yard and the path and the gravel driveway. Everywhere, in all directions come people, dead people, white people, of all ages, dressed in clothes I have seen in pictures, in the textbooks from which I teach, first photographs from pioneer days. They glow dull in the flickering light of the lanterns and torches some carry before the mob. One man, with a wide brim hat that hides his face, except for his eyes which reflect the flickering torchlight, even though he walks before them all, carries a noose in a stiff upraised arm.
I turn to Allison with alarm. “Train!” I exclaim to myself. “What about the others?!” I ask Allison. “What were their names?!”
“My parents called them all Train. Where are my parents?”
“I think I know what’s going on,” I offer.
In a familiar male voice that seems to whistle with the wind, I hear, “Come outta there, nigger!”
I shudder as if chilled.
“What’s going on?” Allison asks.
“Come on,” I answer as I grab her and pull her towards the living room. We freeze in its doorway when we find Train floating at the front door, holding its handle tight, looking at us in fear. We scream as flames lick at the window sill beyond him.
“Come on,” I call anew as I direct Allison into the house. We run into a back room, a bedroom, led by the light from its window. I twist the window’s lock and lift from its bottom. It gives and we tumble into the night, and stagger into the bushes and make our way around the back to the gravel driveway, where I glance back past my car at the mob pulling Train through the door of the burning house and leading him to a tree and affixing the noose to his neck.
“Where are my parents?” Allison repeats before asking, “They’re not coming, are they?”
I will not answer her, except indirectly, as we run for the road, away from the rising inferno. “I shouldn’t have called,” I spit between breaths. “You shouldn’t have told. God help us, we did the wrong thing.”
