Читать книгу Journey of a Cotton Blossom - Jennifer Crocker-Villegas - Страница 21

14

Mama?

Two years had passed, and Joseph had lost all his charming boyishness. He was like an angry old man, never smiling and always looking vacant and numb. He was miserable but did not know the difference anymore. He didn’t even look like the same person. He should have been a very attractive-looking young man, but there was no glow left to him. He had a darkness suppressing him, and he had been alienated from anyone who could bring light.

The only one that he could have a conversation with was the senator. None of the other workers wanted to speak to him. They feared him. The senator had also prohibited him from speaking with any outsiders. If he was allowed to speak to someone visiting the plantation, it was only in a monitored situation with the senator watching over him like a wolf guarding its kill, pacing back and forth with an intense and sinister glare in his eyes fixated directly on Joseph. It made others so uncomfortable that either they would quickly quit speaking to him or they learned to not engage with Joseph at all.

His conversations and interactions with the senator had drastically changed since Joseph first arrived—if you could call them conversations. The senator’s soft smiles and kind thank-yous, never authentic to begin with, were a thing of the past. Stern glares, vicious words, and the barking of commands were all Joseph received. The senator was cruel and merciless. Joseph had no one else; he was completely isolated. His self-esteem that had once been so abundant was gone. Joseph had once believed he was meant to change the world; now he felt worthless, unable to offer the world anything. The senator had drilled these thoughts so deep into Joseph’s mind that they had become part of his own mental dialogue. The abuser had managed to train the victim to become his own source of abuse and oppression.

Nowadays, the senator was constantly screaming at Joseph that he was not doing an adequate job. It was never good enough, so Joseph continually strived to do and be better in the senator’s eyes. No matter how hard he tried, he would never live up to the senator’s expectations. There was no real bar to reach. It was just a tactic to make sure he failed and remained completely controlled.

The senator would tell Joseph awful things such as, “Boy, you should feel blessed that you have someone as nice as me who allows you to work here, because no one else would put up with your pathetic lack of talent and the level of sloppiness that you continually show me.” The senator would also tell Joseph that he sickened him. He made damn sure Joseph believed that he was so worthless that no one else in the world would take the time to care for him and love him the way that the good senator did.

Joseph now truly believed that he could not go anywhere; he could not escape this prison. No one else would ever love him or put up with his worthlessness. All of that had formed a gray dome of ugliness and self-detestation that was suffocating his spirit.

In turn, Joseph had become harsh and unsympathetic toward others as well as himself. He had brief moments of clarity in which he wanted to unearth his old self, digging deep below to excavate that boy who had once shined so bright. However, as the web was intended to do, it kept him trapped. He feared what the senator might do; he feared where he would go; and he feared who, or what, he had become. All this control, fear, and abuse had festered inside him until it morphed into pure anger.

Joseph began to take out his deep-seated anger and internal turmoil on the workers. No leniency for laziness, as he called it. He now stood in that field like a dictator, holding the whip of dominance strong in his hand. He cracked it often to remind them who was in control, although, ironically, he had an absolute lack of control within himself. He was vacant, chaotic, and cold. He had barely dreamed or thought of his mother in months. The senator had made Joseph into his spiritless puppet, yanking at the strings as he pleased.

Yes, Joseph was angry, but he had never used physical violence. He did not find it necessary; he also did not have the stomach for it. The senator was pushing him further each day to become more vile. He craved to see the escalation of Joseph’s cruelty and anger. It was like a game to him. How cruel could he make one good-natured boy? It was like getting a sweet pup and training it to be a vicious fighter.

One cold and gloomy February morning, just four months before Joseph’s seventeenth birthday, he was patrolling with a watchful eye over the workers slaving out in his field. Joseph had become so tired of the cold gloom cast over Doddsdale and himself. He had grown to loathe himself and what he had become. A tiny light deep inside of him wanted to bleed through, but it was relentlessly being suffocated.

While he was patrolling that morning, his mind swarmed with anger and frustration. Just at the pinnacle of his rage and angst, one of the women in the field caught his attention. She had stopped working and was slightly slumped over. It appeared as if she were exhausted and needed to catch her breath. His first thought was to question if she was all right, but that was quickly overshadowed by irritation that she was not doing as he had instructed. This was the one thing he had control over, and he took it seriously.

“Get back to work!” he demanded. Why was this lady acting up? She was not listening to his clear demands.

The senator, as usual, was not too far away and was witnessing this event. He screamed to Joseph as if Satan was spewing from his mouth. “Are you going to let that nigger get away with that?”

Something snapped in Joseph. His eyes turned cold and lifeless. A beast had taken over his soul and was raging to get out. He stomped over to the woman while she was slumped over and grabbed her tightly by her arm, cutting off circulation. He jerked her toward him, flinging her body. He dragged her through the field as she stumbled and lost her footing along the way, dragging her toes behind her in the dirt.

All the while, the senator watched in delight. Joseph and the woman went into the barn behind the house. He threw her onto her knees in the dirt. He forced her on all fours like an animal and told her to keep her head down. He pulled her shirt over her head and then stood there, motionless.

By now, the senator was standing in the doorway of the barn with demented gratification dancing in his eyes as he said, “Do it, boy! Don’t let that mongrel control you.”

Joseph was not sure if he was equipped to do what was expected of him, but then he heard the voice of the senator continually echoing in his head. “There is no room for weakness here. Are you a coward or are you a real man, boy?” With that, Joseph reared back and began to strike her with his whip, his symbol of dominance.

It began mildly. Then it was as if something very dark seized him. He felt this intense heat over his entire body; he was blank. Joseph was gone, and the fury from all his past, everything he had been through, came out screaming through that whip. It shot out like an electric current of pure rage. It flowed from his body through the whip onto her stripped back, over and over again. Everything that had ever happened to him was projected out onto the tender flesh of this helpless woman.

As the woman screamed out in sheer pain, Joseph felt the release of all his emotions departing through her mouth as cries of agony. He had never felt so exhilarated and sickened all at the same time. He stopped himself just short of pure insanity while her blood dripped off of his hands and arms.

The senator walked off with a grin full of pure evil.

The woman was weak, with blood dripping off her sides and forming bloody streams in the sand. Then, with anger, feelings of betrayal, and bravery, she turned her head, looking over her left shoulder and up at Joseph. Her eyes were soaked from tears and laced with pure disgust. “Didn’t your mama teach you any better?” she said in a frail voice.

It was in that moment that the light shattered through, and it all rushed back to him in an instant. It exposed the memories of why he had left the Kingsleys’ house, why he had come here in the first place, and how that beating from Richard Kingsley had given him the courage to try and change it all. He was supposed to be helping himself and others, not turning into this monster he had become.

As the woman stared at him with disgust and hurt in her eyes, he saw a familiar glimmer, and he felt something strange. As quickly as the rage had come, it dispersed, and his knees gave out as he almost fainted. He fell to the ground with his body shaking uncontrollably. All the while, the little boy inside of him screamed with fury and wrath because of what he had done. He grabbed his face and started to cry in agony, smearing her blood all over him. He thrust himself forward so that he, too, was on all fours. He dry heaved and vomited; each splash of sickness sprayed dust and a spatter of her blood back in his face. He looked up at her with tears rushing down his cheeks. They left streaks where they had washed away the dust and blood. Snot was streaming out of his nose and pouring off his upper lip onto the sandy floor. Vomit-filled saliva dangled out of his mouth from his pouting bottom lip. He looked at her with defeat in his eyes and uttered, “Mama?”

Joseph was in sheer shock, disgust, and horror of what he had done. With tears, vomit, and his mother’s blood covering his face, he began to punch himself brutally. It was one blow after another on his cheekbone, which was beginning to collapse. His mother reached up to grab his arm.

“No, son! Stop it! Stop it!”

Joseph again fell to his knees and screamed. It was a scream that shook the ground and bellowed all his raw emotions. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, Mama! How could I do this to my own mama? I deserve to die!”

Joseph began to punch himself again. He knew it was what he deserved. Claudia was crying as she reached for Joseph’s arm.

“Son, please don’t hurt yourself. You don’t deserve this.”

“Yes, I do. I don’t deserve to live.”

“Son, please, you got to forgive yourself. I forgive you.”

Claudia reached over to him with her arms open, and Joseph crumbled into them.

When Claudia realized this was her son, she forgave him instantly. She knew this was not his real character, and she believed he had been misled and brainwashed by the depraved senator. The son she had been longing for, year after year, was finally in front of her. She had wished better for him, but she was nonetheless ecstatic to finally be with him. Joseph was happy, too, even if he couldn’t enjoy it at that moment.