My Name Is River Blue (4 page)

It was an hour
or so after we arrived, and I was about twenty yards away from Mr. Abernathy,
when I heard a loud splash come from his direction. I scanned the bank, seeing
his tackle box and cooler first, then his fishing rod on the ground closer to
the water. My eyes swept from the rod to the water where I saw the back of Mr.
Abernathy's tee shirt and jeans. The man was motionless, floating face down in
the pond.

A hot, tingling
sensation spread through me, intensifying until I felt sweaty and sick. I
fought the urge to vomit as I screamed Mr. Abernathy's name and ran towards him.
I waded into the water, which was level with my neck by the time I reached the
unconscious man. I managed to turn him onto his back, keep his head above the
water, and float the upper half of his body onto the bank. I shook him and
yelled at him, but he never responded to anything I did. In our area, cell
phones were not common for the average family in 1993. The only way I could get
help was to run back to the farm, and I ran as if a pack of zombies were
chasing me.

The next few
hours were a nightmare that just wouldn't end.

Mr. Abernathy
never woke up. He had a massive heart attack and was probably dead before the
emergency crew arrived. I was at the hospital when the doctor came into the
waiting room and gave the bad news to Mrs. Abernathy and Tasha. I will never
forget watching Mrs. Abernathy scream and cry, as Tasha held her mother and
shed her own tears. I sat on a hard plastic chair, my feet dangling above the
tile floor. I was excluded from their grief, and I had never hurt as badly as I
did at that moment. I loved Mr. Abernathy, and I was crushed.

What I remember
most from that scene in the emergency room waiting area is something Mrs.
Abernathy said. When she broke her embrace with Tasha, she spoke to her
daughter but looked me directly in the eyes. She said that her husband hadn't
felt like fishing, and she had asked him to stay home, but he refused. According
to her, Mr. Abernathy said, "I promised the boy I would take him, and you
know he's been sad since Marcus left."

I was only a little
boy, but I plainly understood that Mrs. Abernathy was blaming me for her
husband's death. Even though she didn't speak those words, her eyes told me all
I needed to know.

From that
moment, everything was different. When we went home, the house had mysteriously
changed to a cold place where happiness no longer lived. It was silent and
depressingly empty as if no one had ever laughed, hugged, or loved within those
walls.

More than Mr.
Abernathy died that day at the pond because everything I loved about my life with
my foster family died too. Even at my age, I knew that Mr. Abernathy's death had
turned me into an outsider. I was no longer welcome. I was a stranger,
intruding on a family's grief. It took only a few minutes after we arrived home
from the hospital for me to realize that I needed to go to my room and stay out
of the way. I remained there, without ever eating or talking to anyone, until
Marcus arrived that night.

When I saw him,
I burst into tears. I knew he hated me for making his father die.

"Marcus,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I didn't know it would hurt him."

He scooped me up
into his arms. "It's not your fault. Where did you get that?"

Between sobs, I
told him what his mother had said at the hospital.

"River, people
say foolish things when they're hurting. She didn't mean it. Pop wouldn't have
gone fishing if he hadn't wanted to go, and as sick as his heart was, he would have
eventually had a heart attack no matter where he was. He had trouble before you
lived here, and he didn't go to the doctor for checkups when he should have. It
wasn't your fault."

Before I went to
sleep, Marcus brought me a sandwich and watched me while I ate. We didn't talk much
more, but he did let me know that he cared about me and that he was sorry that
I had to witness what I did. He thanked me for being a brave boy and doing my
best to help his father. He added that I should never forget that his father
loved me. After I ate, he placed me in his bed where he held me as I
surrendered to sleep. Marcus was still holding me when I woke up the next
morning.

The day after
the funeral, Marcus was the one who told me.

I didn't cry. I
was expecting it. I knew that nothing would ever be the same in that house. With
Tasha being self-absorbed Tasha and Mrs. Abernathy spending almost every hour
alone in her room, there would be no one to take care of me when Marcus
returned to school. It still hurts when I remember the day Mrs. Glover took me
away because even Marcus couldn't make his mother come out of her room to say
goodbye to me.

I can't imagine
how difficult that time was for Marcus, who lost his father, and in a way, lost
his mother at the same time. He had the additional burden of telling me that I
couldn't stay with his family in the home I had grown to love. In his kind
voice, Marcus told me again that his father's death was in no way my fault, and
that the best thing for me was to live with another family that could give me the
attention I needed. He promised that we would always be friends, and that he
would come to see me one day.

As people often
do, Marcus meant what he said at the time, but I never heard from him again.
Even so, my feelings for him never changed. I am still grateful to him and his
family for some of the happiest moments of my childhood and for all that they
taught me that became more important as I grew older.

Mrs. Glover took
me back to the Bergeron County Junior Boys Home until she could place me with
another foster family. I was grateful that Sean was still there and that my old
bed in his room was open. After losing the Abernathy family, I needed his
friendship more than ever.

CHAPTER
THREE

Since I had
accepted the fact that most white foster parents wanted only white foster kids,
I was surprised when my caseworker found a white, middle-aged couple who were
willing to take me. They weren't what most people would consider a couple
because it was a man and his sister, and neither of them had ever been married.
Mrs. Glover said they were good Christians who loved children and volunteered
their time as youth leaders at their church. Looking back on it, I suppose it
was odd for the state to approve a brother and sister as foster parents, but at
the time, our state was desperate. It ranked number three in the country for
highest number of foster kids per population.

Sean saw Mr. and
Miss Carver talking to me in the reception lounge where the home held open
house, and when I told him that the people wanted me to live with them, the
news upset him. He was even more protective of me than he was the first time we
roomed together, and he told me that I should be careful.

"Listen,
River. I don't like them people. They coulda chose from all the white kids. So
why would they pick you?"

Sean hurt my
feelings again, and I didn't say anything, but he knew.

He sighed and
sounded impatient. "Stop being so sensitive. I just want you to be careful.
You know you're my little bro."

"Okay."

Sean wrote the phone
number of the boys home on a slip of paper. "Don't lose this. Call me if
anything goes wrong. Hell, call me anyway and tell me how you're doing."

Mr. and Miss Carver
were good to me, and it took very little time for their actions to convince me that
Sean was wrong and that I was again lucky to have a good home. I lived with
them in a modest but clean brick house just inside the city limits of Ackers,
which was less than an hour north of Harper Springs and still within Bergeron
County.

Justin, who was also
nine years old, was their married sister's son. He would often stay overnight
with us when his parents needed a sitter. I had some good times playing
football with Justin in the Carvers' fenced back yard that was covered with the
thickest, greenest grass I had ever seen. When we tackled each other, it was
like rolling around on a foam mattress.

When he stayed
overnight, Justin would sleep with me in my double bed, and we would cut up,
wrestle, and giggle until we knew we were on our last warning from the Carvers.
Justin never mentioned that I was of mixed race or that I was a state kid. We
liked each other and always had fun together.

Mr. Carver often
took me to the park, and he always bought me a chocolate ice cream cone from
the little truck that played music. Sometimes, on our way home for the day, he
would stop at a store and let me pick out some small toy I wanted. There was no
football at his house when I first came to live with them, but when I mentioned
to Mr. Carver that I wished I had a football like Justin's, he drove me to sporting
goods store and bought one for me. It was the first ball of any kind that I had
ever owned.

When Mr. Carver
was home, especially on the weekends, he would spend most of his time with me
while Miss Carver stayed busy with housework or piddling with her flower garden.
The one thing that all three of us did together each week was attend the First
Baptist Church where both of the Carvers were very active church members.

During my stay
with the Carvers, their church held a big revival that lasted six days, and we
attended every single night to sing hymns, hear the guest minister preach, and
see people saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. We sat under the
biggest tent that I had ever seen, but even the huge tent wasn't big enough for
all of the people. Some of the worshipers brought lawn chairs and made new rows
outside the tent while many others had to stand.

Mr. Carver was
disappointed when he was too sick with a stomach bug to go to the last night of
the revival when a famous evangelist, William Henry Franklin, came to preach.
Miss Carver took me, and we had to park far away because of all the people there
to hear Reverend Franklin's message.

Reverend
Franklin sounded almost angry when he loudly called all of us sinners and promised
that we were going to hell if we didn't live by the words of the bible. By the
end of his sermon, I was scared that he could send me to hell with a mere snap
of his fingers, and I almost disobeyed Miss Carver when she told me to get in
line with the people who were going to the front to speak to the evangelist. She
said that I was to tell him that I accepted Jesus and wanted to dedicate my
life to Him. I wasn't even sure what she meant, but I walked to the front and waited
for my turn to speak to Reverend Franklin.

When my moment
came, I was so nervous that I stuttered as I tried to get the words out of my
mouth, but the man calmed me when he put his hand on my head and asked God to
accept my show of faith. I looked up at Reverend Franklin, who was a very tall
man, and saw him smile for the first time that night. He might have been happy
about the line of people, he might have been trying to soothe my nerves, or he
might have found it amusing that a nine-year old half-Mexican boy had joined a
group of Baptists. In the following years, Reverend Franklin was often in the
news, and I was proud to tell people that I had met him and that he was really a
nice man.

I grew to like
Mr. Carver because he spent a lot of time playing with me, bought me toys that I
had only dreamed of having, and always made me feel important. He praised me
for how well I played football, how fast I could run, completing some little
chore, or bringing home a good note from my teacher. He told me not to believe
any of the mean things other kids at school said to me because of my race or
background. He told me that I was different from other boys and that made me
special.

Each night when
Mr. Carver tucked me in at bedtime, he would hug me and remind me again that I
was a special boy. I loved the attention he gave me, and he really did make me
feel special. He eventually asked me what I thought about him adopting me, and
I was excited about the idea of having a permanent home. He said that we would
take time to think about it and make sure that it was what we both wanted. He
was offering my dream to me, and I knew that I had to try very hard to please
him and his sister. Mr. Carver knew that too.

About four
months after I came to live with the Carvers, my school principal called Miss
Carver at home to tell her that she needed to come to school right away to
discuss my behavior. In the principal's office, I listened to Mr. Cobb tell
Miss Carver that I had bloodied a boy's nose for accidently bumping into me.
The truth was that Rob was a harmless goofball who thought it was funny to
pinch a kid's butt in the lunch line. He had gotten some laughs when he pinched
friends who took it as a joke, but he couldn't have picked a worse target than
I was. I was no one's friend, and I was in no mood to be touched. He was lucky
that our teacher was close enough to restrain me from throwing more punches.

Mr. Cobb added
that I couldn't stay awake in class, my grades were falling, and I had a sullen
attitude with my teacher and him. He was very concerned that I had changed so
much in just the past two weeks. He asked if I was having problems at home, and
Miss Carver responded that she didn't know of any, but she would make sure my
behavior improved.

In our state, it
was up to each school district to decide if corporal punishment was part of
their disciplinary policy, and all of the schools in Bergeron County commonly
used the paddle as an option within strict guidelines. If the rule violation or
behavior warranted more than detention, most principals provided a choice of
either suspension or paddling. Each student's parents or guardians made the
choice for their kid.

Miss Carver had to
choose my punishment, which was either three licks with the principal's paddle
or suspension for three days. Since my grades had slipped so much, Mr. Cobb
advised against the suspension. Miss Carver reluctantly agreed, but then she
turned away rather than watch my punishment.

Mr. Cobb had me
bend over with my hands on his desk while he gave my butt three hard licks with
his paddle. The paddle stung and brought tears to my eyes, but I was angry and
determined not to make the slightest sound. When it was over, Mr. Cobb held out
his hand for me to shake. I gave him a malicious stare, ignored his gesture,
and walked out of his office to the parking lot where I waited by Miss Carver's
car.

Miss Carver
never said a word to me on the drive home. When we got there, she gave me a ham
sandwich along with a glass of milk and then went about her household chores as
if nothing had happened. As I had done every day for two weeks, I went to my
room to take a nap, so I could stay awake that night for as long as I could.

I woke up later
to the sounds of the Carvers arguing in loud, angry voices. I couldn't
understand all that they were saying, but I heard enough to believe that Mr.
Carver hit his sister. When they called me to dinner, I saw Miss Carver's red,
puffy cheek. No one said anything to me during the meal, but I looked up from
my plate several times to see Mr. Carver staring at me. When I left the table
to go to my room, I was scared that Mr. Carver thought I had told on him. I
reasoned that if he would hit his sister, he would do even worse to me. I was
afraid that he might make good on his threat.

I never went to
sleep that night, and no one ever came to my room. At two o'clock in the
morning, I dressed in warm clothes and crept quietly through the dark house.
With every step I took, my heart thundered in my ears. I was terrified that Mr.
Carver would catch me trying to escape, and I barely breathed until I was
standing on the sidewalk in front of the house.

Since we passed
the police station each time we went to the park, I knew where it was, and I knew
I had to walk alone in the cold, dark November night for two miles to reach it.
I had never walked that far in the dark, and the night sounds scared me. I
imagined monsters behind every tree and bush, but none of them frightened me as
much as the monster at the Carvers' house.

My face and
hands were numb with cold by the time I saw the Ackers police station. I was
shaking, but I would have been shaking even with the warmth of a summer night. It
took all the courage a nine year-old boy could muster to walk into the station
and tell them why I ran away. After I told my story, I sat alone, crying and
trembling, on a metal chair in a cold room. I had given the police Mrs.
Glover's name, and they promised to contact her so that she could take me back
to the boys home where I would be safe.

When Sergeant
Smith returned to the room with Mr. Carver, I was temporarily too afraid to
move or speak, but as Mr. Carver smiled warmly at me and apologized to the
officer for the trouble I caused, I jumped out of the chair and stood with the
metal table between my foster father and me. The police had betrayed me. They
were sending me back home with Mr. Carver, and I knew that if he hadn't already
planned to kill me, that he would surely get rid of me for what I told the
police.

During that
visit to the police station, I discovered that state boys, especially minority
kids, had a reputation for lying, stealing, and causing trouble for the small
town police officers who were often uneducated in recognizing the signs of
child abuse. Since Mr. Carver was a deacon and a youth leader at Sergeant
Smith's church, the cop believed his story that I had threatened to tell lies
about him if he punished me for my poor behavior at school.

The men forced
me to leave the room with Mr. Carver's hand gripping the back of my neck. He firmly
guided me towards the front door that would lead out of the station and to the
street where he had parked his car. Sergeant Smith stopped at the door and said
goodnight, leaving me alone to walk with Mr. Carver. Before we took the first of
six concrete steps downward, his angry grip tightened painfully around my neck.
Chill bumps spread over my skin, and I thought I might wet my pants.

My mind flashed
back to the night when Mr. Carver caught me trying to call Sean and made me hang
up before anyone at the home answered. He knew I was lying when I volunteered a
phony reason for the call without being asked and that's when he promised that
I would be sorry if I told anyone. I believed that if Mr. Carver got me inside
his car, no one would ever see me again, and I was determined not to be a
willing victim. Thinking of Sean gave me an idea.

During my last
stay at the boys home, Sean had spent hours teaching me how to fight and
showing me sure ways to hurt a bigger guy. Mr. Carver and I were halfway down
the steps when I tried one of the moves. I suddenly dropped my weight low and
away, so I could have the right angle and distance. When Mr. Carver's grip
loosened, I sprang towards him, launching my right fist squarely into his
crotch. He screamed a profanity, folded like a cheap tent, and fell the rest of
the way down the concrete steps. I was three strides up the sidewalk before he
tumbled to a stop.

With a final look
over my shoulder, I ran with a speed only fear for my life could have generated.
There was no way that man was catching me after I did what Sean called
"shining his jewels." I ran away from the main drag with its many
light poles, neon signs, and lighted store fronts, and when I stopped to catch
my breath, I looked back to see that the police station was out of sight. I was
in an unfamiliar neighborhood of neat little houses shaded by old oak trees. It
was much darker than the area around the station and easy to jump away from the
occasional streetlight to hide in someone's shrubbery.