Donnie
Dug was still stiff, his face was slack. “Dug, what the hell?” I asked him. I was breathing hard. I felt like I had ran a marathon.
“That’s the neighboring man. He has Ev,” he told me in monotone. “I know he does. I know he does.”
I found a bench on the sidewalk and led Dug over to sit down. “How do you know, Dug?”
“I felt it, Donnie. I felt his badness. I felt your mother’s goodness on him. I just know,” he told me and started to cry. “I want to help her. She’s hurt.” His shoulders began to shake with his sobs. “She’s scared. She’s hurt bad.” He began to rock back and forth.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Where is he hiding her?”
Dug looked at me with his tear-filled eyes and said: “In the basement.”
“What the fuck?” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. The guy that answered the door looked so “normal”. He was a good-looking guy. He had dark hair, green-blue eyes, and dimples; hell, he looked like a rock star. He could probably get any girl he wanted. Why was he obsessed with my mother? My mother was funny and could be cute. I just couldn’t imagine anyone becoming fixated on her. I sometimes wondered what my Dad had ever seen in her. They were such opposites, it made no sense that they got married, but according to both of them, they were in love at one time, but eventually the differences became too much..
That man had my mother. I believed Dug because he hadn’t been wrong yet. I didn’t understand his gift, but I believed he had it and I knew I had to go back and scope that house out and see if there was any way I could get into the basement. It was a crazy mission, but it had to be done. I needed to see if she was alive. I needed to see if I could find her and be the son she needed. She didn’t have a husband to rescue her or a boyfriend. I was what she had and I had to do right by her, even if it was a crazy idea.
“You shouldn’t cuss,” Dug said to me. “It’s not nice or tidy.”
“Dug, I’m going to walk you home okay?”
He looked at me sadly. “Don’t go back there, Donnie.”
“I have to,” I told him. “I have to see if I can find her.”
Dug shook his head fiercely. “He’s mad. He knows we know and he’s going to be more careful. He’s going to be more tidy.”
I took Dug’s hand. “Dug, I’m afraid he is going to kill her. If I don’t go back, I will never forgive myself. She’s my mother. I may not like her all the time, but I do love her. I have to do right by her.”
“Take me with you.”
I shook my head “no”.
Dug stood up from the bench. His tall frame hovering over me. “I’m going.” He started walking back toward the house of “the neighboring man.”
“Dug, you can’t go. If something happens to you, your Ma will never forgive me,” I told him, as I walked beside him.
“Donnie, it doesn’t matter. We made his life not tidy,” Dug told me. “He will come to us soon. Yes sir and then he will make our lives untidy. Untidy like me peeing my
“You can be look out. Nothing more.”
“I will be your lookout. Nothing more.” He repeated. We walked to the alley behind the man’s house. My stomach was rolling with nerves and my bowels were loose. I was scared of what I would find. I honestly didn’t know what I was looking for. I knew my mother would be well hidden. I glanced around the back of the house and I saw a window. The window was low to the ground. It was a basement window. It was filthy. I squatted to see if I could see through it. I couldn’t. I lay on my stomach in the grass and began to rub the glass with my shirt sleeve, hoping to clean it enough to get a look into the basement. I looked through and saw my mother lying on a bed. She looked pale and thinner than I had ever seen her. I could see that she had a sheet pulled up around her. I wanted to break the glass and let her out. I wanted to be the hero she needed. I knew breaking the glass would only make matters worse. I knew her captor would hear the glass and could rush to kill her. Tears were stinging my eyes. I got to my feet and went to where Dug was. “She’s in there,” I told him. “She’s hurt.”
“I know,” Dug told me. “I wish I was braver.”
“Dug, you are brave and you have a gift. You know things. I don’t know how you do but you do and you are always brave about it,” I told him. “I’m blessed to know you, Dug.”
We kept walking. I had to clear my head. I had think about how to get my mother out of that dungeon she was in. Doug reached over and took my hand in his. His hand swallowed mine.
“I’m scared, Donnie.”
I held his had tightly. “I am too, Dug. I am too.” I didn’t care what anyone thought about us as we walked down the street holding hands. Dug was a part of my mother and me now. He was family. I would do what I had to do to comfort him and protect him and his mom. He was the very heart of what was right in the world. I needed him and he needed me. My mother needed us both.
We walked toward his house and sat down on the steps in front of the door, both of us lost in our thoughts. What were we going to do next? How were we going to get my mom out of the clutches of psycho, good looking rock star man? What the fuck were we going to do?