Mary Bel Garza

The Past

Chapter 1

            It was late at night and for the second time she heard  a knock at the door. She never answered the door in the evening unless she was expecting someone. Her neighborhood was too dark and she was alone with her son. She peeked out the blinds and could not see anyone. Her son slept in the back room, so luckily he had not been woken up. She was afraid but  would never let her son know that. It was 2am when she heard banging again. However this time the banging echoed around the house as if their was someone at every side. She knew now someone was taunting her, someone was playing games.

Chapter 2

            The next day.

It was Sunday afternoon church had long been over and everyone was at Mom’s house for a BBQ. “When is Rona and Gerald getting here?”

“You know Rona, she is always late.”

“Yeah, but this time she’s bringing potato salad, and we're hungry.”

“Is Melvin in town?”

“No, he is still out at sea working.”

Rona‘s answering machine “Please leave a message after the beep.”  Beep.

“Rona it's Mom, where are you? All the food is ready and we’re waiting on you to eat. I’ll try calling your cell.”

 “Thanks for calling Rona Thompson please leave a message.”

“Rona it’s still Mom, waiting on you, please call back.”

            After a couple of hours Rona’s parents started to get really worried.

 “We better go see them, I know she is always late, but she always checks in.”

They arrived at the house and saw her car door open. Mom walked up the drive way to the car and dropped the leftover food plates and screamed in horror.

Chapter 3

            Earlier Sunday morning.

It had been a long night and Melvin had just showered off all the sticky oil from his skin. He felt like a new man, but not new enough to work a second shift. He turned down the overtime today because he was just too tired. He called his home for his usual 6am wake up call to his family.

No one answered the phone he assumed his wife was in the shower so he left a message,

“Good morning beautiful, how was your night? I’ll call back in thirty minutes.”

Melvin decided to eat his breakfast. After thirty minutes he called for the second time and still no answer, he began to wonder, speaking to his family before bed time was his routine and daily serenity. He didn’t leave a message because the line cut off, he knew this meant the supply helicopter was approaching the oil rig.

“Hey Melvin the supplies is landing and we need a third hand to unload.”

 Melvin knew he should have gone to bed, if you were caught awake after your shift, you would be asked to help with something else.

            It was 4pm when Melvin was called into the office, they were still working on off loading the supplies and he felt like he needed a second shower, he thought what could they possibly want now, I just want to sleep.

As he walked into the office his supervisor said, "You have an emergency phone call."

 Instantly he knew something was wrong. He picked up the phone and heard sobbing on the other line, Melvin asked, “What’s happened?”

His mother in- law replied, “I don’t know we just got here, Rona is in her car dead and little Gerald is in his bedroom also dead. Oh Melvin, I don’t know what has happened here, I am so sorry to call and tell you this horrible news. The police are on their way, please come home!”

Melvin dropped the phone.

Chapter 4

            Deana opened her eyes and felt horrible after her experience the night before. She knew she had drunk too much and couldn‘t believe she was here again. Especially since she had just woken from a horrible nightmare that left her shaken. She went to her restroom and couldn’t even bring herself to wash up. She went straight for the tub and soaked for hours. Finally she dragged herself from her bath and went downstairs for food.

As she sat down fixing to bite into her Cocoa Puffs cereal, she saw the screen on her TV and could not believe her eyes. She frantically looked for the remote to turn up the volume.

 The news reporter said, "The neighborhood is shocked by the deaths of a mother and child found dead today by family members. This has never happened in this community before and no one seems to understand the tragic deaths."

Deana knew instantly her nightmare was real. She was scared and shocked and did not know what to do.

She called Josh and said, “What the hell did we do last night?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you seen the news?”

“Do you think I watch the news?”

“Did we really hurt those people?”

“Look, Deana I do not know what you are trying to pull off, but we are not having this conversation over the phone!”

Within minutes Deana was in her car speeding to Josh’s house. As she forced her way through the mess and odor in his home she remembered why she had decided five years before not to hang around this punk anymore.

She barged into his bedroom, “What did we do to those people last night?”

“They deserved it; it got way out of hand - that lady should have never aimed that gun at me!”

Deana sat in a daze, her blood dropped to her feet. This is by far the worst feeling she had ever felt.

Chapter 5

            Melvin was transported by the supplies helicopter to land and took a cab to his home. As he arrived he saw officers, yellow caution tape, and ambulances. He walked into his house and saw his in-laws sitting on the couch sobbing and crying in shock. Melvin just fell to his knees and cried.

He heard a voice at a distance saying, “Mr. Thompson, can you please sit down? We need to talk."

He could not talk he know his wife and son were gone. 

            After hours passed he sat in his living room with a detective and was asked, “Do you know who would want to kill your wife and son?”

“Of course not. My wife and son were very much loved wonderful people, we know all of our neighbors, did anyone see anything?”

 “No sir, the only neighbor you have is three miles away and they heard absolutely nothing.”

“How were they killed?”

“Your wife was shot in her car, it seems she tried to fight, your son was shot in his bedroom.”

“How long had you owned a gun?”

“Did they get killed with our gun?”

 “Yes, Mr. Thompson, I’m so sorry I know this is difficult but we have no leads and need some information.”

“We have had our gun for six years, and have never even fired it. I didn’t even know it still worked.”

“Is it registered?”

 “No, detective, it's not.”

“Again do you know who could have done this.”

“No.”

Chapter 6

            Deana got home and went straight to bed. She just wanted to sleep, wanted to forget everything that had happened. Her parents were starting to suspect she was using drugs and alcohol again and decided to question her.

 “Deana, please wake up and come downstairs.”

“Dad, I am really not in the mood for lectures, please just let me sleep.”

 “It won’t take long, just come downstairs or we will come up here to you.”

She dragged herself out of bed and thought what would her parents think to know she had really over done it this time. She had after five years of being sober, relapsed for one night and really gone too far. This is why she had stopped the abusive behavior, because she was afraid of her own self when she lost control. Having too many blackouts, not remembering what she did. She had been raped more then once and had been hurt too many times to continue her destructive behavior. She feared she would end up dead but never thought she would kill. She went downstairs, scared, crying before her foot hit the last step. It was too much. She could not handle what had happened. It all came back too clear now and she could not hold it in. She sobbed like a child.

Her parents did not know what to think, Deana’s mom held her, and cried with her. After Deana could speak she told her parents the whole truth. Her parents called their lawyer and sadly told him what happened. Deana, her parents, and lawyer went the local police station to confess.

Chapter 7

            Late that evening, Melvin did not want to stay in his house and found himself sitting at his In-laws kitchen table. The detective knocked at the door and asked to speak to him alone.

Melvin replied, “I cannot handle this alone. Please, whatever you have to say can be said in front of my family.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about your past?”

“What past?”

“Mr. Thompson, why did you not tell us of your child molestation conviction?”

“Detective, I am not a convicted child molester!”

“Mr. Thompson we looked up your name on the computer files you are listed as a registered sex offender.”

“When I was eighteen years old, I had sex with my fifteen year old girlfriend. Her parents hated me and pressed charges against me since she was a minor. I was never convicted, I pleaded no contest, and was given deferred adjudication. However since all of these stupid laws have changed I am now expected to register, with perverts that have hurt innocent children. I have fought that but could no longer continue the fight. You cannot beat the state of Texas! What does this have to do with my wife and child being killed?”

“Did your wife know about your past?”

“Yes, she knew, her family knew from the beginning. Especially since I would have to be registering as a sex offender.”

            “You were the one the killers were after. Apparently, it was two men and a women that decided they did not want registered sex offenders living in there neighborhood. They saw your name on the Texas registry along with your address, recognized you by the picture, and were going to your house to scare you. However, as it turns out you weren’t home, but your innocent family was. Your wife pulled the gun to protect herself but it was used on her instead.”

Melvin cried and cried.

After eleven years his past still continued to haunt him. When would it ever end? It was his biggest fear; his innocent family would be hurt by a stupid mistake from his past. 

Revision Account

When our assignments were presented to us I was certain that I wanted to present a fiction story as oppose to a poem. Well after writing my short story I know poetry comes a lot easier to me. Who would have thought? I struggled with a topic. After watching a special on a late night news show I learned more about sex offenders and the requirements for them to have to register. My initial thought was good that is what should be done. However, by the end of the newscast and after some research I am not sure that it is the right thing to do. Some of the offenders required to register were never convicted and each case was a different circumstance that if looked over more closely was not as serious as others. Even though I know this crime is horrible it is also very controversial and I know now why that is. I considered the innocent people that were effected by the requirements the state of Texas imposed on these people, and this is what led to my story.

I was a little nervous about presenting in class because I did not want to stir up emotions on such a touchy subject. The class responded to my story well. I received a lot of great feedback and recommendations, the subject matter was not an issue like I thought. Since I was not very familiar with writing stories, my short story looked more like a report. So the most common comment I received was to break up the dialogue into paragraphs so that it would look like a story. Of course I was given grammar changes, that was automatic, for me. It was also suggested that I change Melvin’s name, because it didn’t sound like a sex offenders name. I’m not sure what kind of name would sound more like a “so called” criminals name but, I am working on it. Maybe Bob or something common like that? I also had trouble staying with either first person or third person. I am not sure that I have fixed that problem yet. The class was confused at times by who was saying what. I did not want to keep repeating, she said, or he said. I was trying to be more subtle about it, but didn’t do a very good job, because it confused the readers. So I did go back and include names on the statements where the class thought is was needed the most, such as in Chapter 4 with the news reporter. The class liked the idea of the story being told or viewed from different characters. I got this idea from my favorite movie, “The Grand Canyon”. The story is suppose to be a short story but I do want to develop the characters emotions more and describe the story from their point of view better. I also want to add more characters. The feedback was positive and extremely helpful. I still plan to make more changes, but the ones that I did make were simply grammar and additional information here and there. I did not develop the story more just yet, because I have not had the time to devote to it and I am not sure how I want to develop it. 

            I must admit that I am surprised by the fact that I want to continue working on this short story. I started out writing the story because I wanted to develop my own thoughts on the subject matter, the injustice if any, on registered sex offenders. However the idea of such a situation, such as in the story, happening is very real and that is what I mostly want to focus on in the future. I believe that in the end my story probably won’t be a short story, but maybe longer. The strengths that the story has is the different characters story lines and how they all tie together at the end. I plan to add more characters and also add more detail to the current characters. I want to work on the setting, as far as the community where the murder happened. I want to develop the suspense with the murder scene and add more inside emotions to the murders, Josh and Deana. The class suggested that I add more on why Josh and Deana commit the murder, besides the fact that they were drunk and high. I was also told to slow down the pace of the story. I definitely want to do. The story was rushed because I ran out of time because I could not come up with a subject to write about. I do plan to slow down the story, think it over, and develop the characters and story line. I also want to do more research on the subject matter to incorporate it into the story, ultimately that is why I wrote the story. 

My short story is definitely a continuous working progress. Thank you for presenting me with the opportunity to do something I would have never done on my own.