Authors: Damien Echols
Her name was Domini, and we later had a child together.
Domini was a transfer student from Illinois, where she had been living with her dad. She came to Arkansas around the middle of the school year and moved in with her mother. This is a pattern she had repeated every year since her parents’ divorce.
I was sitting through some sort of civics class when she came in. Deanna was sitting behind me (we were still together), and two friends, Joey and Jamie, were sitting on my right. The teacher was a bad tempered Italian man who had just finished lecturing us on how we’d have time to finish our homework if we weren’t out riding around and “partying” every night. I pointed an accusing finger at Joey and voiced a loud and agreeing, “That’s right,” only to have him do the same back at me.
Deanna laughed, and the bad tempered Italian said, “Look at Damien, pointing them out.” He gave me a narrow eyed look to let me know his comment had been directed at my crew.
There was a knock on the door and the teacher stepped out into the hallway.
The class erupted, as it always does when there’s no disciplinarian in sight. When he came back in, Domini was with him. He introduced her as Alia, and told everyone she’d be part of the class from now on. Joey shivered as though he found her repulsive. I paid very little attention. She was a red haired girl with green eyes who looked strangely like Axel Rose in the “Welcome to the Jungle”
video. She was dressed in jeans and a denim jacket. I turned back to Jamie and Joey and continued to discuss where we would go that night once Jamie picked us up, much like the Italian teacher had previously accused. I didn’t give Domini another thought for several months.
I encountered her out of school for the first time about a month after Deanna and I had broken up, and I was on one of my Forrest Gump walk-a-thons. Jason
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was with me and we were walking through a store a couple of miles from Lakeshore. Domini was there with another girl. I never did understand why she used the name Alia at school and Domini at home. At school she seemed painfully shy, never talked, and kept to herself. At home she was a little more comfortable and extroverted. The four of us began talking and soon moved over to the nearby apartment complex, where both Domini and the other girl lived.
A guy who lived there seemed to have an open apartment policy, because his front door stood open to let the breeze in, and people seemed to come and go as they pleased. I figured him to be a friend of Domini’s because she wandered in and started talking to him as if she had just left. Jason and I followed. I sat in a chair minding my own business and staring blankly at the television screen while other people talked, drank beer, teased each other, or stood at the door shouting to other people in the pool outside. I didn’t care about any of it, this was not my place and I did not fit in. I could tell Jason was just as uncomfortable. The only people I spoke to were Domini and her friend, who introduced herself as Jenni-fer. I wasn’t there long before getting up to leave. Domini tried to get us to stay, but we said Jason had to check in at home. She wanted us to come back later, and I said I would, even though I had no intention of doing so. As we were walking home Jason asked, “You’re not really going back, are you?” My answer was “of course not.” In the end I didn’t have to, as she came to me.
That night I was alone in my room with the lights off. The radio was on and I was staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t sleep much during the night anymore; that was when the hollow empty feeling was the worst. At night there’s nothing to hold your mind to the earth, and you spend the entire time falling into an abyss.
The only cure is the rising of the sun. I was following my usual routine of waiting for daylight when my mother opened the door and told me someone was here to see me.
When I entered the living room, Domini was looking back at me. She knew people who knew where I lived and took it upon herself to come calling. It was late, and she only stayed for about fifteen minutes, but before she left, I kissed her. I don’t really know why, I guess I felt like it was expected of me. I was still in mourning and felt no desire for her. In hindsight I know I did it for the same reason I walked nonstop—because I didn’t know what else to do, and I’ve always figured doing something was better than doing nothing.
There wasn’t much of a courtship and no scenes of seduction. We started sleeping together two days later. It took my mind off of things and gave me something to do on autopilot. It was something to lose myself in, and we established a routine. Every day Jason and I hung around the apartments where she
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lived, or she would come to Lakeshore. It strikes me now that Jason and I did a great deal of “hanging around,” and must have appeared to be pretty shady characters.
Perhaps Domini saved my life, just because I needed someone to be near me then. I didn’t want to be alone where I had to think. We had some fun moments together, but when I ask myself if there was ever a burning love for her in my heart I must be honest and say “no.” Domini is a good person, straightforward and loyal, and she doesn’t play games. She keeps things simple and never makes life complicated the way so many people love to do. Maybe I praise her so it doesn’t seem so harsh when I say I was never in love with her. She was and still is a friend of mine.
One other thing of interest happened at this time. I heard a piece of information that wasn’t meant for my ears and committed the only act of violence I’ve ever been guilty of. Early one morning I stood talking to a couple that Deanna and I had been close to, Josh and Lisa. Lisa let slip that Deanna had performed sexual favors for another young man while still with me.
If my wounds had started to develop scabs, they had suddenly been ripped off.
This was a whole ‘nother story, to quote Matt. Lisa immediately knew she had made a mistake, and if I weren’t so white she would have probably seen the blood drain from my face. I knew just where this young man would be, so I turned to go find him. I could feel fire in my blood and a gleam in my eye that let me know I was alive. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been dying inside until I felt that flame of life. I had no plan and no idea what I was going to do; I just let the current carry me.
I approached him from behind and saw something I hadn’t planned
on—Deanna was standing with him. This was new. She must have realized I knew by the look on my face. I was hurt and as mad as hell, and perhaps I was broadcasting it on some primitive, animal level, because as I came down the hall many people stopped and turned to watch. I still don’t think my course was unalterable, even at that point. What pushed me over the edge was when I saw her glance nervously at him and say, “He’s behind you.” I felt a world of betrayal come crashing down on me. She didn’t say, “Damien is behind you”—she said,
“He’s behind you.” Like it was something they may have been expecting. I knew the whole story when I heard those words.
“Hey!” I screamed at his back. The moment he turned around, I was on him.
He was bigger than me, and I’d never been in a real fight in my life, but he wasn’t expecting the pure, raw fury that came from being hurt the way I had been. It happened so fast that all he could do was try to ward me off. He was backing up,
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trying to escape what must have seemed like a cyclone when he tripped over his own feet and fell. I went down on top of him and about twenty people jumped to pull us apart. As they pulled me off I desperately tried to hang onto him, grabbing at him, and left scratch marks across his face.
There was a rumor started that I tried to pull his eye out, but it wasn’t true. I was just trying to hang onto him. This rumor spread and grew with time, darken-ing my reputation. Or as they say in prison, “casting a shade on my character.” I was suspended from school for three days over this incident.
I regretted it almost as soon as it was over. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, he was just a symptom. I’ve wanted to apologize to him ever since, but haven’t seen him in many years. I truly am sorry though, and I wish I could take it back.
Ah, but talking about such things tends to depress me, and a man in my shoes can’t afford to become depressed. And we are talking, you and I. Just like old friends. Who else would I be telling my life story to? Let us now skip ahead to when things became more cheerful, however briefly.
I had one of the greatest teachers to ever lend his skill to the realm of academic learning. His name was Steve Baca, and he taught physical science. What made him so interesting and effective was that he didn’t stick to a script or enforce note memorization. He made you think. Sometimes he handed us a video camera, assigned a certain scientific principle to us, and then we had to invent and conduct our own experiment, while videotaping the whole thing. Instead of grading us himself, the entire class watched the tapes and graded each other. He showed us movies like
The Manchurian Candidate
and introduced us to the music of Pink Floyd. Sometimes we’d take the day off and play a quick game of baseball. This is a guy that made you want to go to school. He could also tell a joke that appealed to the teenage mind, a task most adults aren’t up to. He was open to any topic you cared to discuss, and he gave advice. You don’t find many teachers like that.
It was in one of his classes that Deanna came back to me. Mr. Baca had sent us out to work on one project or another, and he assigned Deanna and I to the same team, along with three others. It’s one of the times that has fixed itself crystal clear in my mind. We all went into the gym, and one guy was holding the video camera while another guy and girl interviewed the janitor. I was sitting on the stairs and looking out a back door that had been propped open. Summer was just arriving and the sunlight was so bright it dazzled the eyes. There was just the slightest breeze blowing in. Deanna came and sat next to me, and I was scared to
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move or say anything, lest she move like a frightened deer. My throat closed up so I could barely breathe, and I wanted to cry. This was the closest she’d been since she left me.
“Want to talk?” she asked.
“About what?” I managed to croak. I knew damned well what about. My heart beat like it was trying to escape my chest.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, referring to the fight that had taken place almost a month ago by this time. We’d not spoken since. I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what to say. We talked about other things for a while—the guy, who was now her boyfriend, and Domini, who was now my girlfriend, and whether or not I still wanted to be with her.
If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have run for my life. I didn’t know, though. “Yes,” I said, almost hissing the word, hoping she could sense the force and lack of doubt behind it. She nodded her head as if she’d just made a decision, then left me sitting there without another word. What did this mean? Was she coming back to me?
I never even came close to sleep that night. I felt like I was on the cusp of something big. The next morning Jason stopped by and we walked to school together. My nerves were too jangled to be much of a conversationalist.
Deanna was standing there waiting on me when I arrived, and indicated that she wanted to talk to me alone. I told Jason I’d see him later, and followed her over into what used to be “our corner.” She was crackling with happiness as she told me she had dumped the other young gentleman. She said that since she had been the one to mess things up, she wanted to fix them properly. In a very official tone she asked if I would take her back.
I should have run like I was on fire. I should have shaved my head and taken a vow of celibacy. I should have instructed this raven-haired package of pain to go bugger herself. I did none of the above. Instead I crushed her to me, buried my face in the top of her head, and inhaled deeply. Her face was against my chest and she was breathing my scent. When I asked her what she smelled, her response was
“home.”
She asked if I’d broken up with Domini, and I explained that I’d yet to see her, so I hadn’t been able to. She folded her arms across her chest and looked at me through narrowed eyes, but there was no real anger or jealousy, because she knew there was no competition.
Did I seek out Domini that night and tell her that it was over? Indeed I did.
All was right with the world and I cared about nothing else. Domini has earned
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the right to call me an asshole many times over. I could tell her heart was broken and I offered no comfort. I couldn’t get away from her fast enough, because I was living in denial. I wanted to believe the split with Deanna had never happened and the tryst with Domini never taken place. Because I knew that a vase which has been broken, even after it’s glued back together, is never the same.
XX
It was amazing how quickly the hurt stopped. Humpty Dumpty had indeed been put back together again and he was a grinning fool. I sat slouched far down in my desk, lolling lazily as if there wasn’t a bone in my body. Deanna sat directly behind me, tracing the pattern of hair at the back of my neck and laughing low in her throat when I shivered. She leaned forward to whisper, “There’s only three days of school left. I don’t want to lose you again now that I’ve just got you back.” This is something I’d been contemplating but could find no solution to.
We still had no way to see each other outside of school hours. After a few moments she continued, “We can still do what we talked about.”
She meant leaving, of course. We had discussed running away together as a last resort. I hadn’t believed it would come to that, I was certain a solution would present itself, but time was quickly running out. “I’ll be your Huckleberry,” I said, and never have I spoken truer words.
“Bring your things with you on the last day and away we’ll go.” That answer sealed my fate.
We talked about it nonstop, yet had no specific plan. We had no destination or goal in mind. We were going on an adventure, and our excitement was palpa-ble. We settled on the vague notion of “going west.” Neither of us had any idea what the magnitude of our actions would be.