The Last Jeskey - Chapter 25

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 25

 

(Day 5 – Monday)

 

Freaky

 

Shantel and I watched Lisa walking out the door to go to work.  The minute Lisa left us, Shantel wrapped me up in a big hug and squeezed me as we watched her climb aboard what Shantel called a shuttle bus.  Another new thing for me to see, and another thing that looked weird.

“Oh Baby Doll,” Shantel said.  “I hope she’s going to be alright.  I know she’ll be fine, but I love that girl to death, and I’m already missing her.  But I know she needs this.  It’s just that, I also know that someday she’s gonna move on, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her.  She’s been my rock since I got here.  She’s the one who’s helped hold me together.  How am I gonna manage without her?”

I had no answers to any of that.  We stood there hugging each other until that shuttle bus drove out of sight, then she seemed to sigh.  “Come on,” she said.  “Let’s watch some TV.  I need to get my mind off of things.”

She led me into that big room with all the chairs.  There seemed to be a lot of women in there just then, but not the one with the baby.  Bess.  Shantel and I sat next to each other where she could see the TV.  I was beginning to hate that thing.  I didn’t understand what the people I could see on it were doing.  I couldn’t understand what they were talking about.  I didn’t understand the TV thing itself.  What good was it?

I looked over at Shantel.  She appeared to be watching it, but I could tell she wasn’t paying any attention to it.  I was betting her mind was on Lisa instead.  I barely knew Lisa, and I felt the loss of her not being there, if even only for a little while until she came back from work.  I couldn’t imagine how Shantel must feel.

“Shit!” Shantel muttered as she got up from her seat.  “I gotta go.  I can’t do this.”

She walked away.  Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to watch the TV, I followed behind her.  She turned into the bathroom that was supposed to be for the women who stayed in our bedroom.  I followed her in, and looked around but I didn’t see her.  Very softly, I walked past all the stalls and looked under them.  No feet.

And then I heard the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life.  Singing.  Shantel singing.  And the sound of it held me completely captive.  I’d never heard anything like it, not even coming from one of the cellphones that the guys had.  Shantel was in the rain room, not singing softly, but singing like she was full of the song that she was letting loose.  I briefly peeked into that rain room where I could see her.  She was turned away from me.  Singing at the wall in the far corner.

I backed away where she couldn’t see me, but I couldn’t go far.  I just wanted to listen to that amazing sound.  A sound that seemed to be filled with both joy and sorrow at the same time.  I didn’t understand at all what she was singing about, and I didn’t care.  I just wanted to listen.

“Hi Freaky,” a voice said softly.

I turned and saw Miss Kriss coming into the bathroom.  She didn’t say anything, but she stood next to me for a while, listening with me.  “That girl can sing!” she said at one point.  “She used to sing with her church choir.  She grew up singing in the choir.  Just listening to her, you can tell she misses it.”

“What’s a church choir?” I asked softly.

Miss Kriss sighed.  “Her life!” she whispered back.  “The life where she belongs.  Not that drug induced, dirty, painful, excuse for a life she wound up in.”

We stood there listening as Shantel kept singing, going from one song into something else.  Something similar.  “That girl loves her gospel,” Miss Kriss finally said.

She leaned over toward me.  “I just wanted to let you know that your friend Natalie is coming to see you today.”

Natalie!  I liked Natalie.  I wanted both Shantel and Lisa to meet her.  Then I remembered that Lisa wasn’t there.  “Will Lisa be back by then?” I asked.

“I doubt it.”

Still, at least Shantel would be there.  If she ever came out of that rain room again.

Shantel did come out eventually.  I didn’t mention it to her, but I was still awed by hearing her sing.  I could have stood there and listened to her all day.  I was glad when she didn’t want to go back to that room with the TV thing.  I followed her back to our bedroom instead, where she laid on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.  She didn’t say it, but I got the impression she didn’t want company just then, so I left her.  With nowhere else to go, I went back to the TV room by myself.  I was hoping that Bess would be there again with her baby.  If so, maybe she’d let me at least look at him again…or hold him.

Bess was there holding her baby, but the baby was sleeping in her arms just then.  For once, Bess looked content.  As much as I wanted to bother her, I didn’t.  I sat and tried to make sense of what was on TV, but how could I?  I didn’t know enough about what I was looking at or listening to.  Still, I sat there and watched.

It was some time before Miss Kriss called me.  “Freaky.”

I looked up and saw not just her, but Natalie and another woman there.  But Natalie had some kind of cloth hung over her shoulder that looked like it was holding up her arm.  I quickly got out of my seat.  “Natalie!” I called happily as I headed to see her.

“Where’s Shantel?” Miss Kriss asked.

“Laying down,” I told her.  “I think she misses Lisa.”

“Undoubtably.  I heard that in her singing earlier.”

“Hi Freaky,” Natalie said as she moved in and gave me a hug.  I hugged her back.

“What’s that thing on your arm?” I asked.

“A sling,” she told me.  “I…hurt it a bit yesterday.”

“How did you do that?”

“Um…I fell,” she replied.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, concerned.

“Some,” she admitted.  “It’ll get better though.  It just needs a few days.”

“That’s good,” I told her happily.

“Freaky,” she said.  “I wanted to introduce you to Pamela here.  She very much wanted to meet you today.”

I had noticed the woman before.  Now I took the time to study her further.  She was wearing a dress!  Finally, a woman who was dressed properly.  Except…her shoes.  The heels on the back looked like they were high and thin.  Weird.  Really weird.  How did she walk in them?  They looked awfully uncomfortable.

“Hi Freaky,” Pamela said.  “How are you doing in here?”

“Okay,” I told her.  “There’s just too much though that I don’t understand.  I still really want to go home.”

“I hear you’ve made some friends though.”

“Friends?  What’s…friends?”

“People you like, and who like you,” she explained.

“Oh.  Yeah.  And I want you and Natalie to meet them.  Lisa isn’t here right now though, she got a job and is working.”

“That sounds very good,” Pamela replied.

“But Shantel is just lying down.  Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Um…why don’t we just sit somewhere and talk instead,” Pamela suggested.  “Somewhere away from the other women here.”

“Use my office,” Miss Kriss suggested.

Natalie and Miss Kriss led the way to that little room where Miss Kriss usually was.  The new woman, Pamela, walked next to me.  “You’re a very pretty woman,” she told me.  “And you really do have hair long enough to touch the ground.”

As we walked, I pulled out one of my braids that Shantel had put in my hair.  “See,” I showed her.  “Braids.  Shantel did it for me.  I’m learning now how to do it for myself.  It’s hard though.”

“With that much hair, I don’t doubt it,” Pamela said.

We went into the room and sat down.  Pamela leaned toward me and said, “Freaky, I’ve decided that I’m going to be your advocate and look after you.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Someone who looks after your interests,” she explained.

I shook my head.  “What does that mean?  Why do I need someone to do that?”

“Because I’ve been told you can’t understand the intricacies of the legal system.”

“The what?”

I saw her look around.  “I’m a lawyer,” she said.  “Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“Something tells me that trying to explain it fully to you right now would take too long,” she said.  “But here’s the main reason I wanted to talk to you.  I believe there may be a few different avenues where we can get some money for you.  And I believe it could be a lot of money.”

“Money?  That’s men’s business.  I don’t need to know anything about that.  I’m a good girl.”

She looked surprised.  “Freaky, money is important to everyone.  Even you!”

I shook my head.  “Why would it be?  I never needed to know about it before.  Besides what would I do with it?  Leave it to the men, like you and all the other women should be doing.  Hasn’t anyone ever taught you what’s men’s business and what’s women’s business?  Don’t the men get mad at you for messing with things that only they should do?”

“Never!” she said, looking totally shocked.  “Freaky, what do you mean by men’s business and women’s business?”

I sighed.  Why didn’t these people know that?  “Women only need to know how to cook and clean and take care of the men and whatever needs they have.  That’s women’s business.  Everything else needs to be left to the men.”

“She can’t read, and she can’t even count past five,” Miss Kriss told them.  “And when she counts that high, it’s only on her fingers.”

“How do you survive?” Pamela asked me.

I shrugged.  “I didn’t like it when they hung me from the tree, but I survived.  Yeah, I saw some bears, but I was high enough that they couldn’t get to me.  Every time they buried me in the ground I saw more of them though.  I was never so scared in my life as when that happened.  I was so glad when they ran away every time I screamed real loud.  Whenever that happened, I was more scared than at any time in my life, but I survived just fine.  What does everything else have to do with that?  I don’t need to know anything else.  They always dug me out a few days later and I survived.”

For some reason, Pamela looked shocked.  So did Natalie and Miss Kriss.

Pamela looked up at Miss Kriss.  “I really don’t want to do this, but I don’t think I’ve got a choice.  After hearing things like that, there’s got to be some major mental issues that we haven’t even considered yet.  Where’s that mental hospital you told us about?”

I wasn’t given a choice.  Natalie and Pamela took me straight out of that room and out through the door.  The put me into the back of another car.  I didn’t even have the clothes that Natalie had given me, and I didn’t get a chance to introduce them to Shantel.  I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Shantel.  She and Lisa had been so nice to me from the moment I had gotten there.  I was going to miss them.  “Are we going back to the farm now?” I asked.

“No,” Pamela told me.  “Somewhere else.”

“Another shelter?” I asked.

“Kind of,” she told me.  “Hopefully, this place can take better care of you.”

I had no idea what was wrong with the shelter place I had been in.  Now they were taking me to another one.

Every time they took me somewhere, it was to another place that seemed even weirder than the other places they had taken me to.  And it almost seemed like every one of those places was bigger than the last place.  That was how this new place seemed too.  Big…and weird!

“There’s admissions,” I heard Natalie say as we went in through the door.  She and Pamela led me over to a little room with another of those weird tables inside.  There was a woman there.  I figured her name was Admissions.  Admissions looked Natalie, Pamela, and me over and said, “Let me guess, this is the one that Jessica Kriss called about, the one called Freaky.  Another one who can’t pay.”  She didn’t sound happy, and I could tell that Natalie and Pamela didn’t look happy after she had said it.

“Yes,” Pamela replied.  “This is Freaky.”

The woman sighed, then said.  “Okay.”  She pushed a paper across the table to Pamela and said, “Fill this out.”

She was forcing the woman to write something, when women shouldn’t be writing anything!  Admissions picked up something on her table and spoke into it, then she put it down again.  It took a few minutes for Pamela to finish writing and then she handed the paper back to Admissions again just as a man came into the room.

“Ah,” the man said as he immediately started looking me over.  He looked at Natalie and Pamela.  “Is this the woman that Jessica Kriss has been pestering me about for the last two days?”

“This is Freaky,” Pamela told him.

“Ah,” he said as he glanced briefly at me, then back to her.  “I’m Doctor Wilcox.  I’m in charge of this establishment.”

Pamela stuck out her hand.  “I’m Pamela McGregor,” Pamela told him as she shook his hand.  “Freaky’s legal representative and advocate.”  She turned to Natalie.  “And this is Natalie Cobb, the wife of Sheriff Cobb who discovered Freaky just a few days ago.”

Wilcox and Natalie shook hands.  I wondered if I was supposed to shake his hand too, but he never offered.  He didn’t even look at me again.

“Come to my office.  Let’s talk,” Wilcox suggested.

We followed him into another room where there were nice chairs and another of those weird looking tables with stuff all over the top.  Doctor Wilcox sat in one of the chairs and motioned toward the other seats in the room.  Since Natalie and Pamela were sitting down, I did too.

“Jessica Kriss sent me several reports about Freaky here,” Wilcox said, “and I agreed to allow her in despite her lack of funding because I believe her persecution fantasies may be severe enough that they could cause further problems in the future.  Possibly leading to violent outbursts that could hurt other people.  If we can quickly…”

“Stop!” Pamela said quickly.  “What are you talking about, persecution fantasies?”

“According to Jessica, she’s told some of the women at the shelter that she was hung upside down and also buried alive, for days at a time.  If any such thing really happened, I have no doubt that someone would have put a stop to it.  Fantasies…”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Natalie shouted as she stood up.  “Have you any idea who she’s been living with all her life?”

The doctor looked like he had no idea what was going on.  “What do you mean?”

“My husband is the county sheriff up where we live, and I can tell you for a fact that for as long as I can remember, the biggest criminal in the area has been a psychopath named Bo Jeskey.  Bo, and his four sons.  We know now that Freaky here was kidnapped when she was barely four years old by those men, right after they murdered her father and mother, probably right in front of her.  She’s been hidden away by those men and forced to live the most ridiculous life possible, as a slave, ever since.  And because she’s been kept out of sight, nobody had any idea she was there.  She’s been kept so isolated that she has no idea of what the real world is actually like.  All she knows is the truly warped and sadistic ideas that Bo and his boys have implanted in her.  Her existence only came to light a few days ago when Bo was murdered, along with two of his sons.  Doctor, don’t make the mistake of thinking that anything she says is any kind of fantasy at all.  As I said, everyone considered Bo Jeskey to be a sadistic psychopath and his sons as well.  And Bo was a very smart psychopath.  My husband knows for a fact that he’s killed a lot of people, but nobody has ever been able to find even one of those dead bodies yet so my husband can convict him.  Bo Jeskey and his sons are so deranged that if Freaky here says she was buried alive, I suggest you believe her!  I do.  After what I’ve seen of her so far, I have no doubt about it at all.”

The doctor looked like he didn’t know what to think.  I didn’t know what to think either.  She had said a lot of things there that I didn’t understand.  I was going to have to get her to explain them to me, if I could remember what those things were.

It was a moment before the doctor could speak.  “If what you’re saying is true, maybe she needs the help of our psychologists more than I thought.”

“I believe that’s the reason Jessica Kriss sent her here,” Pamela replied.

“Yes,” Wilcox said as he stared right at me.  For the first time, he really seemed to look at me, but he turned back to Pamela and Natalie.  He held up the papers in his hand.  “I have Jessica’s notes here concerning her.  There’s too much to sit and discuss all of it right now.  Let us study this and have a few little chats with Freaky before we talk again.  I’ll call you when I think we’ve got a better handle as to what’s going on.”

“Good!” Pamela said as she stood up.

Natalie stood up too, so I stood as well.  When they started to walk out, so did I, but Pamela suddenly stopped and turned back to Wilcox.  “Doctor,” she said.  “I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but one thing Natalie has noticed about her, and I agree, is that we believe Freaky’s hair has become something of a personal security blanket for her.  I think it also may be possible that it serves as something of her identity as well.  Possibly the only bit of real identity she actually has.  So if you see her hugging it quite a bit, we believe that’s what’s going on.”

“She’s so attached to it,” Natalie added, “that she wouldn’t let the hairdresser cut it at all when we were trying to straighten it out some.  Before that, all that hair she had was a total…mess!”

“I see,” Wilcox said.  “It’s possible that you’re right, and I have no doubt that she may find her hair to be something comforting to hang on to.  No doubt, it may also be something that she could be quite proud of.  I image it’s quite an achievement to grow your hair for that long.”

“Yes,” Pamela said.  “It was just something Natalie noticed about her.”

“Thank you,” Wilcox told them.

Natalie turned and hugged me.  “You stay here now Freaky,” she told me.  “We’ll check back in a few days.”

I stood there as the two of them left me behind in another weird place.  Why couldn’t they just let me go home…forever!

“Right!” Doctor Wilcox said.  “Come along Freaky.  Let’s get you processed.”