Authors: Damien Echols
My grandmother and grandfather on my father’s side of the family moved to West Memphis, and I began to spend time at their house. I kept my grandmother company while my grandfather was at work. I dearly love my paternal grandparents. No matter how old I get I always feel like a kid around them. To have that feeling around anyone else would be irritating, but I didn’t mind it at all around them. It made life seem clean and simple. You can’t stay in a black mood when visiting my grandmother; it’s impossible. Jason usually went with me because he knew there was always food there. As soon as we walked in she began preparing huge bowls of chili for us, or bacon and eggs with toast, sometimes pork chops or fried chicken. Dessert was always Dolly Madison cakes and ice-cold cans of Coke.
My grandmother is a saint.
One day while visiting her, my mother called. My grandmother told her that I was there visiting and then handed me the phone. I talked to my mother and father who were both still in Oregon. It wasn’t unpleasant; they mostly asked what I was doing, where I was staying, how Domini and Jason were, etc. I had my reservations, but didn’t mind talking to them. It became a routine that when I was at my grandmother’s house I’d speak to them on the phone. We were getting along, but I remained wary of them to a certain degree, like a dog that had bitten me in the past.
Domini now skipped school more often than not, and stayed with me while Jack was at work. We never had a burning romance, but we kept each other company. I had no desire to get into another situation where I risked the sort of trauma that I had experienced with Deanna, and Domini was safe. We were friends who had sex, and that’s the only type of relationship I was willing to have then. Perhaps that makes me sound selfish, but I will be nothing if not truthful.
My worst fear in the world was having my heart broken. When she called me one day and said to come over I already knew what was happening.
I knew exactly what she was going to say once I got there, but curiously I felt nothing. I knew my life was about to change forever, yet I was strangely detached.
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I wasn’t especially happy, nor was there sadness to speak of. There was neither excitement nor dread. I was Zen master for a day.
When I arrived Domini was smiling, glowing. She had an assortment of papers scattered across the kitchen table and her mother was with her. The papers were medical pamphlets. I sat in a chair; she sat on my lap and put her arms around my neck. She said the exact thing I knew she was going to. She told me she was pregnant.
XXV
My eighteenth birthday came and went on silent feet. There was no cake, no celebration, no well-wishers. Jack didn’t even remember it, or if he did made no mention. I’m certain his hatred of me equaled my disgust with him by this point.
Having me in his house was a reminder of his failed relationship and disgrace. At least I was now officially an adult, and out of Jerry Driver’s realm of manipula-tion. He was a juvenile officer, which meant he was only allowed to harass children.
Domini’s aunt and uncle had decided to move, and were leaving her and her mother behind. Domini’s mother was in extremely poor health. She was diabetic and needed insulin injections, not to mention the fact that the left side of her body was almost completely paralyzed due to a stroke. It took her ten minutes to walk the length of a room, and she often needed help getting dressed. Needless to say, the doors of opportunity weren’t exactly banging open for her.
After searching for a place to stay, they located a rapidly disintegrating trailer in Lakeshore. They had procured a van to move their things, but a 100 pound pregnant girl and a half paralyzed woman proved to be less than adept at the moving process. In the end most of the loading and unloading fell to me, but I really didn’t mind. It gave me a chance to look at all the interesting things they had accumulated, and there were quite a few. They were more than a little worried about how they were going to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, pressures continued to mount with Jack. He constantly accused me of things I hadn’t done, such as having parties and letting people go into his room while he was at work. I didn’t know enough people to put together a party, and there was nothing in his room worth going in there for. He ranted and raved, screaming at me, pressing his face right into mine, but he drew the line at hitting me. I could tell he sometimes wanted to, but he never did.
Late one night I could take it no more. He was bellowing at me as usual when I simply got up and left. I walked out while he was in mid-tirade.
It was dark, cold, and drizzling as I walked up and down the streets of Lakeshore. It seems it’s always cold, dark, and drizzling when I go through momentous emotional changes. I used to wear an old, black slouch hat, and I liked to 106
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watch the rain drip off the brim. It made me feel like a character in a spaghetti western. That’s what I did for a couple of hours before finally going to Domini’s, where I slept that night.
I went and got my things the next day while Jack was at work and brought them back. Between my “crazy check” and the money Domini got from her father, we managed to pay rent and survive. We even started buying a few items for the baby we would soon have. We couldn’t afford a car, so a decent job remained beyond my grasp. I was certain that if I just had a way to get across the bridge to Memphis every day I could find something good.
Domini quit high school because of the pregnancy, and we spent the days together. We went on walks, watched television, fed the ducks who came to the lake, or kept her mom company while listening to music. We passed the days in this fashion for several months. We talked about what we should do once the baby was born and agreed that we should get married, although we never laid solid plans.
I continued talking to my parents on the phone, and not long after I told them Domini was pregnant, they told me they were moving back to Arkansas. It seems that things weren’t going so well for them in Oregon. I wasn’t certain how I felt about this, because I knew it meant they’d be back in my life. Could be good, could be bad. Time would tell. They would be here in about a week or so.
I told them our address so they could come see us once they were in town.
These calm, quiet, uneventful months with Domini was one of the times I allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security and fell prey to the belief that things would never change. It wasn’t that I wanted things to remain that way forever, it just seemed that I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I was wasting away. Ever since I was a child, I’d felt like I was doing nothing but waiting for my special place in life to be revealed to me. Often I was frightened that I’d miss it when it did. I felt that the stagnant life I was living was not what I was destined for, but had no idea what to do about it. All I could do was wait, wait, wait. I knew I wasn’t meant to live and die in a trailer park the rest of the world had never even heard of.
XXVI
My parents arrived in Arkansas early on a week day morning. Domini and I were still in bed sleeping when my mother and sister knocked at our door and Domini’s mom let them in. I could hear them talking in the living room and figured I’d better get up. If anything, my mother’s southern accent seemed to have deepened while she was away. It was very odd hearing her voice in person again; it made the day seem special somehow, like a holiday.
I deliberately took my time getting dressed and brushing my hair before going into the living room, mostly because I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea how to behave in this situation. When I finally entered the room, I saw my mother and sister in chairs, my sister was wide-eyed but silent. My father wasn’t there. I wondered to myself if that meant anything. My mother turned to see me looking at her, then quickly bustled over to hug me. The first thing that struck me was how much I’d grown. I now stood a full head taller than her. While my mother theatrically shed the few requisite tears I hugged my sister and asked where my father was. He was at their new place, unloading their things. My little brother was with him. He met us at my paternal grandmother’s house for breakfast.
Domini and I both went with them and listened to tales of their adventures in Oregon on the way. They seemed to be well rested and cheerful despite their weeklong drive. When I first laid eyes on my father he was transparent, I could read him quite easily. I could see something like doubt in his face, as if he were much like myself in not knowing what to do. He was nervous and uncertain.
Not having a clue what to say, I hugged him. Domini did the same. That seemed to put him at ease, the awkwardness faded away, and he began behaving like his normal self. The single most familiar thing about my father to me is his cough. He coughs a great deal because of his life long smoking habit, and hearing him cough put me at ease for some reason. It softened my heart towards both of them. Perhaps because it reminded me that they were both only human, subject to the same failings as everyone else. My mother had gotten pregnant at the age of fifteen, they were both high school dropouts and had never known any other life.
At least I was capable of knowing there was some other kind of life possible, even if I was having trouble achieving it. They believed that the way they were 108
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living is the only kind of life that existed. They had no imagination to envision anything else, and no desire to reach it. I felt sorry for them. I still do sometimes, although that doesn’t mean their constant idiocy isn’t capable of driving me to the brink of madness. They never have learned from their mistakes. It would probably be easier on everyone if I stopped expecting them to.
After they had settled into their new place I began spending time with them. I alternated between the place with Domini and my parents’ place. Sometimes Domini did too, and Jason was known to stay over. One day he laughingly called me a nomad after we made stops at both places, then traveled to my grandmother’s to see what tasty dishes she would serve. Once he mentioned it, I did feel like a bit of a gypsy. I didn’t quarrel with my parents after that, maybe due to the fact that I could always escape them.
XXVII
I was now legally an adult, an expectant father, and in a relationship I was certain would end in marriage. I would never have abandoned Domini, as I take my responsibilities seriously and feel disgust for those who don’t. Sometimes I think that comes from sheer determination not to make the same mistakes my father did. Still, I was not in love. I still thought of Deanna pretty frequently, wondering what had happened. I never feel that I can move on in life unless I have closure for the previous stage. It never comes in the form I expect and often leaves me feeling empty.
Through sheer coincidence (I use that word but don’t believe there’s any such thing) I found out where Deanna’s family had started attending church. The possibility of seeing her again plagued me. I couldn’t drive it out of my head. I constantly wondered what would happen, how she would react, what I would see in her eyes, and a plethora of other questions I needed answers to. I couldn’t understand how she had so thoroughly and completely severed our connection. I needed an explanation. I knew there was no chance of talking to her, but I couldn’t help but feel that I could learn something just by seeing her eyes, her face. I needed that ever-elusive sense of closure.
Sunday morning found me preparing to descend into the hellish realm of fundamentalism. From the outside the church looked like a Kentucky Fried Chicken shack with a steeple. I knew I didn’t belong there, but I had to do it or I would get no rest. Slinking inside I took a seat on the very back bench and watched the activity. People obnoxiously called out greetings, shook hands, and slapped one another on the back as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. I saw people glance at me from the corner of their eyes, but no one approached me. No one smiled at me, shook my hand, or slapped me on the back. No one even said “hello.”
Scanning the rows, I saw Deanna sitting in the dead center of the room. Her entire family was alongside her. I hadn’t seen her in a year, but she hadn’t changed at all. I’m not sure what it was that I felt, but my heart was in my throat.
I couldn’t breathe. She looked at me, and looked away. I didn’t even see a flicker of recognition. What did that mean? I had been expecting something, anything—but her eyes passed over me as if I were not even there. I sat through the 110
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entire hour and a half of the red-faced preacher bellowing and beating his fist against the podium, but never heard a word of it. I stared at Deanna’s back, willing her to turn around and give me some sort of reaction, but she never did.
When it was over, I walked outside and stood on the sidewalk. I was trying to figure out what this meant as I watched her family get in their car and drive away.
I turned to leave and heard someone call out, “Hey! I want to talk to you for a minute!” he was staring at me without blinking as he approached.
He stood before me with crossed arms, not offering to shake my hand.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a pin on my jacket. It was the iron cross from the cover of the Guns-N-Roses
Appetite for Destruction
album. “That some sort of Satanic thing?”
I told him it most certainly was not, but he still looked dubious. “I don’t want you coming here making people uncomfortable.” He looked like he was working himself up into a state of anger. “Don’t worry, I won’t be back.” I walked away still trying to figure out what it all meant.
XXVIII
I’ve nearly come to the end of my tales as a free man. This last section of the story has already been chronicled by two documentaries, two books, hundreds of newspaper articles, a few short stories, and will soon be the focus of a movie. All of those views come from the outside of the looking glass, so I’ll attempt to describe what it was like from this side.