My name is Shannon Riley.  Right now I’m in a coma because I was in a very bad car accident.  I drove my car over the median on the freeway after I accidently strangled Daren in the locker room.  Well did I say accidently?  I mean killed him.  I mean accidently killed him.  I knew that I was strangling him and I knew that you could kill someone if you strangled them, but I don’t know if I meant to kill him.  I did want to hurt him though.   I was just so tired of people like him.  They never stop.  Just take, take, take.  Well, it’s time they paid.  Time for somebody to fix this.  I needed him to know this was the end of the line for people like him.  I was the judge and the jury and his fate had been decided.  I knew he knew it when he felt my hands around his neck.  I could see the fear and recognition in his eyes as he looked at me with that stupid and surprised look.  The chickens had come home to roost and it felt good.  It felt good that somebody was finally paying for what had been done to me and so many other little boys all over the world.  None of us deserved to be violated and betrayed like that.

    Retribution felt wonderful until I felt that pop in his neck under my thumbs and that scared look in his eyes turned to nothing.  His body went limp and then what I had done hit me.  He was dead.  I didn’t mean to kill him.  I just wanted him to suffer for a few minutes, not die.  At least not right at the moment.  It all happened so fast.  I was confused.  Too much had happened in such a short amount of time.  I mean ten minutes changed the whole course of my life.  How does that happen?

    I was fired from my job, next I was a murderer, and then I was in a coma.  How does that happen?  I’m not sure, but I do intend to figure this out, from the beginning.  Maybe if I start from where it all went wrong, I can understand where my path went askew.  I mean what else do I have to do?  I’m laying here unable to move, talk, or open my eyes.  It’s like I’m asleep but I’m awake.  I can hear everything going on around me, which is how I know that I’m in a hospital. I guess this is what they mean when they say your life flashes before you.  God wants you to see it all, I guess but this isn’t like I thought.  It’s not really a flash….this is a movie.

When I was a kid I used the basement in our home as my safe haven.  That’s why I believe that it’s very ironic that all of this happened in the basement at the school.  After Tom told me that he was letting me go from my coaching position at the high school, I was heading downstairs to pack my office and get my things.  I was very upset, to say the least.  No, I was frustrated and mad as hell.  I couldn’t believe that he was letting me go.  I passed up another coaching position to take this one because he promised me that he would be able to get me on tenure.  Now, here we were a year later and he was letting me go, that sorry snake in the grass.

Anyway, as I was saying, as a child I used the basement in our home as my refuge.  I went down there when I was upset and when I was happy.   It was a place where I could go to live my feelings, no matter what they were.  Needless to say that most of the time they were negative feelings.  I went down there to deal with a lot of hurt and wrong.  Confusion, doubt, shame, and guilt were all home to me in that basement as well.  I guess that’s why it felt comfortable when Tom told me that my office would be in the school basement.  It just seemed fitting.  Who knew that the basement would be my beginning and my end?

I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina.  My mother and my two younger sisters were my version of what family is supposed to be.  There was no father and the only thing that we had that resembled a father figure was my mother’s brother and my grandfather when he wasn’t in a drunken stupor.  My grandmother also lived a few blocks away, which is where we were when we weren’t at home. 

We lived in a small house but it was bigger than the rest of the houses on our street because it was the only one that had a basement.  Don’t ask me how that happened.  I just know that it made the rest of the kids in the neighborhood envious because we lived in the big house.  We would use this as a fall back when we needed to show our superiority and to make the other kids feel poor.  You know how mean kids can be.

The basement was the place that I went to when there was nowhere else to go.  I think I remember the day that I discovered this safe haven.  My mother had just come in from work and she had bought my two sisters and I new clothes to wear to school.  She had pretty colorful dresses for the girls, but for me she had jeans and a pair of black Chuck Taylor Converse Sneakers.  While this might have been the ideal outfit for a young man in the 1970s, I was not into wearing this type of get up.  I wanted to wear Puma sneakers and tracksuits.  I now know that this was probably the more affordable way for my mom to keep me into the latest trends and fashions, but at six years old you just want to look like the rest of the cool people that you see on television.

So, I threw a bit of tantrum about the clothes and ran downstairs into the basement.  When I got down there it was very dark and damp, kind of dreary.  I didn’t know what had prompted me to run down there and now that I was down there, I realized that it was also a bit scary.  I couldn’t run back upstairs because that would just make me look like a sissy.  So instead, I decided that I would just look for a light switch.  That should help make it not so scary, right?

I walked around and under the stairs where I found a light switch on the wall.  When the light came on, I was standing in the middle of a dusty unfinished room full of boxes and old furniture.  At first sight it was very creepy, but then I began to see a room full of things that I could get into.  I was curious as to what was in the boxes.  I could build a huge fort with all the furniture.  I had discovered my own personal playground.

In sheer excitement, I ran back up the stairs to tell the rest of my family what I had found.  I grabbed my mother’s hand and began dragging her to the basement door.

“Mommy, mommy, look what I found,” I proclaimed.

“Oh so you’re not mad at me anymore?” She asked.

“No, I want you to see what I found.”

“Okay, I’m coming,” she said.

When we arrived at the basement door, I commenced to pulling her down the stairs.

“It’s a maze, Ma, look,” I said.

“What?” she said as we arrived at the bottom of the stairs.  “I don’t see anything.

“Look,” I whined.  “Look at everything.”

“It’s just a bunch of junk and boxes that your father left down here,” she said matter of factly.

“This was Daddy’s stuff?” I asked in pure amazement.

“Yeah, he was supposed to come back and get it but as you see he never made it.”

“Can I have it?”

“What do you mean, can you have it?”

“If he doesn’t want it, then I’ll keep it.  All of it.”

“I don’t care what you do with it.  You just make sure it stays down here.  Do not bring it upstairs into my house.”

“Yes Ma’am, “ I said running over to where there was a group of dusty boxes.

“You be careful down here, Shannon.  Don’t hurt yourself,” she said as she ascended the stairs.

“I wont,” I yelled back in excitement of what I might discover in the boxes.

“Oh and you’re still wearing those clothes to school tomorrow too,” she yelled down the stairs.

In my excitement about the boxes and the fact that the stuff belonged to my father, the school clothes became a thing of the past.  I had so much cool stuff now, it didn’t make a difference what I wore. 

The excitement of the basement was the most important thing in my life at that moment, but the thrill would be short lived and would soon ware off.   The boxes turned out to be only my father’s old clothes and playboy magazines.  At six years old, women’s naked bodies were not something that was good on the eyes.  I did rearrange the old furniture into a place where I could come and hide or just sit when I wanted to get away from the rest of the world.  So I guess in some odd way, I was preparing myself for the many hardships that were looming ahead.  That basement became the healer of my soul and the place where I absolved all that went wrong in my life in the future.  At that moment, it was the source of all that could be, the beginning of the unknown, and the possibility of new happiness.  I sat down in one of the old chairs that was there disappointed of my find in the boxes and closed my eyes.  I was a bit exhausted after all my hard work.  I just needed to rest for a few a seconds.

“Does he have an I.D. or wallet or something?”

“I’m checking his pockets now.”

I could feel a hand digging through the pockets in my pants and then my wallet was removed from my back pocket.

“Shannon, Shannon Riley,” I heard a voice say.

“Okay, Mr. Riley, can you hear me?” Someone screamed. 

I couldn’t understand why he was screaming.  I could hear him fine.  I mean he was standing right next to me, or should I say kneeling right over me.

“Mr. Riley? Hey Bill, check him for a pulse.”

I felt a few cold fingers on my neck.

“He’s breathing and his pulse is there but light.”

Of course I’m breathing.  I can hear everything your saying.  I thought I was saying that to them but, apparently I was only thinking it.  I tried to open my eyes but nothing happened.  I tried to raise my hand but that was futile too.  Nothing I tried to do with my body worked.  It was like my brain wasn’t sending the messages to my limbs to move.  So instead, I had to lie there and listen to them try to wake me up.

“Hey get those EMS guys over here.  Are there any other people hurt?”

“No, he’s the only one out here.  Thank God.”

“What do you think happened?” I heard one of the guys ask.  It was a great question because I was just as curious.

“I don’t really know but basing on the direction that the car is facing on this side of the freeway, looks like he might have came over the median.”

“Wow, did he just say over the median?  I didn’t drive over the median.  Did I?  I was just trying to distance myself from what had just happened.  I remember being very angry and very sad.  I didn’t really understand or believe what had just happened or what I had just done.            I have no idea where I was going.  I didn’t know what to do.  Everything was just happening so fast.  I needed to call someone, anyone.  My cell phone was in my pocket.  I remember leaning over to my right so I could fish it out and the next thing I know I’m laying here with these two guys talking over me.  Maybe I did drive across the median.  I don’t remember if I was watching the road or not.  It’s all so hazy.  Hell, it was hazy before this accident.   I couldn’t understand why or how all of this was happening to me.  What the hell was going on?

“Thanks guys, we’ll take it from here,” I heard a new voice say.

“He’s all yours.  We tried to wake him.  We got nothing.  He’s breathing and he does have a pulse but no response otherwise.”

“Thanks, Officer.  You got an I.D.?”

“Yeah, Shannon Riley.”  Here’s his wallet.”

“Okay, Mr. Riley?  Can you hear me?”  The new voice asked.

Somebody else yelling in my face.  Of course I can hear you.  I just can’t tell you that I can hear you for some reason.  If I could hear you, you wouldn’t have to be screaming and yelling like that.

“All right let’s check his injuries,” someone said as they began running their hands up and down my body.  “That arm is definitely broken.” 

“Well have you seen that car?  I’m quite sure there are some more broken parts around here.  Get a splint for the arm.  Let’s get him on a board and get him out of here.”

“Right.  I’m way ahead of you.”

Did he just say my car looked bad?  And if the car looked bad, then what did I look like?  This is not what I had planned for my day when I got up this morning.  I was going to have a great day at work and then I was going to meet Telicia later this evening to talk about maybe working on our relationship.  Tom was not supposed to fire me and I definitely was not supposed to hurt or kill anybody.  Instead I was here, laying in the middle of the freeway with an unresponsive body and no way to help myself.

Speaking of help, what are my mother and sisters going to do when they find out about all of this?  I need to call them.  That’s what I was about to do when I guess I drove my car over the median.  I was reaching for my phone to call my sister Sharon.  She always had a calm word for me.  She could help me think this thing through rationally.  I knew that Sharon would have known what to do.  If I could only get to her now.  She needs to know what’s going on with me first so she can keep the rest of the family calm.  I know that once my mom and baby sister Tatum find out what’s happened they are going to go postal, especially Tatum.  She will someone attribute all that’s happened to me into her own personal problems and it will become a inconvenience to her life.  Don’t get me wrong, Tatum will care about my well being, but she won’t be able to handle how my condition is affecting her life.  My mother will just be confused because none if will make any sense to her.  She always seems to have to have the logical explanation for everything.  Sometimes, there just isn’t anything logical to explain.  So Sharon is the only one that can be called in a situation like this, which is why I have her listed as my next of kin on all my documents.  I had it changed when Telicia and I split up.  Not to mention she is the only one who doesn’t know that we are no longer together.

“Okay, on my count, lift on three,” one of the guys said.  “One, two, three.”

They lifted my body and it felt like a hundred daggers was piercing through every ounce of it.  I had never felt so much pain in my life.  It was excruciating and unbearable.  I wanted to cry out but my vocal cords didn’t work.  Instead, I let my head hang back and decided to just let my body ride that wave of pain until it was no more.  It had just drifted away.

“Shannon?  Shannon?  Boy didn’t you hear me calling you?”

I opened my eyes and looked at mother standing over me.  I was back in the basement, asleep in the chair.

“It’s time to get ready for your bath and get to bed.  School in the morning,” she said.

I looked around the room confused, but not quite sure why I was so confused.  All I know is that I was happy to be in the basement at that moment and happy to be in the presence of my mother.  I sat there staring at her.

“Boy if you don’t get your tail up those stairs and in that bathroom,” she said pulling me from the chair and swatting me on my behind.  I didn’t mind because it didn’t hurt.  I hugged her and ran up the stairs to the bathroom.

Activity.  That’s all that’s going on around me.  Too much activity.  Too many people scrambling about and I am unable to open my eyes to see it all.  I am unable to open my mouth to tell everyone to just calm down and relax.  So much fuss is being made over me right now.  I just want everyone to take a minute and just chill out.

            I woke up just in time to hear someone say that they were taking me to surgery right now.  Surgery?  For what?  What’s wrong with me?  Why do I need surgery?  I don’t want to go to surgery.  I just want to be left alone.  Oh my God, wait a minute.  The pain, it’s coming back.  It’s horrible.  I can’t handle this.  Somebody needs to do something.  Let’s not go to surgery.  Let’s get some painkillers or something.  Knock me out.  This is ridiculous.  Everything I have hurts and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.  Okay, now that I think about it, maybe surgery isn’t such a bad idea.  They will put me to sleep and I won’t have to feel any of this heat that is coursing through my body.  That’s a great idea.  Let’s get to surgery.  Hurry!

            No, wait.  I need someone to call my sister Sharon first.  Someone needs to tell her that I’m at some hospital, which I assume is East End, since that’s the closest one to the school.  Tell her that I can’t talk or move and that there are apparently some major things wrong with me.  I also need them to tell her that I didn’t mean to kill the boy.  She would understand.  She would know that it’s not in my nature to kill anyone.  Sharon will be able to be the voice in all of this.  Someone just needs to notify her.  I need my sister to come and talk for me.  She has always talked for me, well, in the areas of my life where I’ve allowed her to talk for me.  There are some areas that I never spoken of at all so, she never had the opportunity to be my voice in those instances, but in all the others, she always knew exactly what to say.  Sharon could say what I was thinking before I even knew that I was thinking it.

            But what would she say about all of this?  Would she know what I was thinking when I strangled that boy? Hell, I don’t think I knew what I was thinking.  I was just tired.  I had been hurt some many times.  I couldn’t bare to witness someone else feeling the same hurt.

            As I came down the stairs from Tom’s office, I was highly upset that he could fire me.  He knew what I had been going through with Telicia and the kids.  He knew that she had moved out.  He knew that I was responsible for child support and that I needed my job.  I had been keeping him in the loop on all of it from the very beginning.  I guess that’s why I was so surprised when he told me that he had to make a choice and he chose me.  I mean really?  What kind of inconsiderate bastard does something like that?  I was awestruck.

            When I arrived to the basement, the first thing I heard was crying.  I also heard someone whispering through the crying.  The sound was so familiar to me.  Something inside me instantly identified with the sounds.  I felt like I knew what was going on before my eyes were laid on the scene.  I followed the sounds into the locker room.  While I was surprised by who was in the locker room, I really wasn’t surprised by what was going on.  As I stated, I had already recognized the familiar sounds.  I saw Daren and Peter.  Both boys had their pants and underwear around their ankles.  Daren was penetrating Peter from behind and Peter was crying.  Daren was telling him to be quiet and take.  Take it like a man.  I believe it was those words that set me off.  How can you take being penetrated like a woman, like a man?  I never understood those words.  If this was something that can be taken like a man, then how come men don’t do it?  And why don’t they do it in public?  When men fight and they have to take it like a man, it’s a public spectacle, but this is done in secret.  No one is allowed to know.  No one is allowed to talk about it.  There’s no way to take like a man, it makes me feel less like a man than ever.  It’s just a stupid thing to say to someone in the middle of an excavation of exactly that, manhood.  It is impossible to be a man in a situation that wrings anti-man through every source of your fiber.  The only thing left to do is to cry with shame and defeat.   You take it, but not like a man.  You take it like a numb unimportant peg.  No feelings. 

            “Take it like a man?” I said.  “Peter run.”

            I guess I must have startled them because Daren instantly jumped back and tried to reach for his pants.  Peter did the same and began to head for the door.  It seemed like time had come to a screeching halt at that moment but was also moving very quickly.  While I know it was Peter running to the door, I saw myself.  I saw the little boy that was myself finally getting away from the man that had molested me for over ten years.  Now that he had escaped, I was finally going to get the upper hand in the situation.  He was finally going to get caught by someone who knew what he was doing and he was going to become the victim of the victim.

            I walked over to him with my eyes focused on his throat.  I just wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and watch him suffer.  I wanted him to see what it felt like to be taken advantage of not be able to do a thing about it.  The boy in my hold was not Daren, he was the uncle that had molested me on numerous occasions.  He was the man that people talked about on television that had done this to so many other little innocent boys.  He was the representative of all those evil and cowardly men.

            I wrapped my hands around his neck and commenced to squeeze.  He looked up at me with so much fear in his eyes.  I must admit that the look in his eyes was sure vindication for me.  That look alone was pure ecstasy for me.  I finally got to see fear in the tormentor and I was the perpetrator.  I could look at it forever.  I didn’t want it to end, so I continued to do whatever it took to keep that look on his face.  I continued to squeeze.  I did not realize that the constant pressure was cutting off his air supply and ending his life.  All I was n alignment with was the idea that he was getting to feel what I had been feeling my whole life.  I knew that he did not like it, but what he was experiencing was only a fraction of what I had known as my everyday experience.

            And then it happened, something under my thumbs clicked and instantly that look of fear disappeared from his eyes.  This is when I realized that I was actually strangling him.  When I understood that I had killed him, I was instantly filled with remorse.  Not because I had taken a human life, but because it was the end of my redemptive feelings.   That look was gone.  He was no longer involvement in the feelings of helplessness.  It had ended for him as quickly as it had started, where it had lasted a lifetime for me.  It was unfair.  He wasn’t supposed to die.  I didn’t mean to kill him.  I needed him to suffer just a little while longer.

            I laid his body down on the floor between the bench and the locker.  I stood there staring at it for what seemed like an eternity.  I wanted him to move.  To show me that he was not dead, so I can continue what I or should I say what he had started.  But, he didn’t.  He did not move one inch.  There was no rise and fall of his chest.  No heavy breathing, just a young boy lying on the floor with his underwear and pants down around his ankles.

            The realization of what I was looking at me came to me from somewhere far off in the distance.  It was like someone was talking to me from a mile a way and I could hear the voice getting louder by the second.  When I was able to understand it, I realized what it was saying.

            “What have you done?” I heard it say.  “You killed him.”

            “I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said.

            “Well, he’s dead,” the voice said.

            “No he’s not.  He’s just unconscious,” I said beginning to recognize who was to talking me.

            “Unconscious people still breath.  He’s not breathing.”

            I recognized the voice as my mother’s voice.  She was blaming me, as usual, for this.

            “I didn’t mean to kill.  Maybe I can do something.”

            “Do what?  You’ve done enough.  I’m here to tell you that you’ve messed up again.  Everything you touch turns to,”

            “No, no, no, don’t say it.  I didn’t mean to do it.  You stop saying that.  Don’t tell me anything else.  I don’t need you to tell me anything else,” I cried.

            I placed my hands over my ears and headed to the door.  I just needed to get out of there and away from that voice.  It’s always there to notify me when I’ve messed something up, or when I’ve done something wrong.  It’s that voice that keeps me locked into this scared and nervous state.  I never understood why that voice sounds like my mother because she has never said such negative things to me.  She has always been very supportive.  When she talks to me, she is encouraging and understanding.  Her pseudo voice in my head is mean and condescending and most times I’m unable to control it.

            I ran up the stairs and out of the building.  It was early in the morning before classes started, so lucky for me there was no one else at the school yet.  It was normal for me to be there early because I taught a seven o’clock gym class.  Most days I arrived early to prep.  Tom knew this, which is why he chose this time to talk to me about letting me go.  Once I reached the parking lot, I ran to my car.  It was the quickest way to distance myself from the whole scene and to quiet my mother’s voice.

            Unfortunately, the voice did not go away.  It just kept telling me that I killed him.  Over and over the words swirled around in my head.  It caused my eyes to cloud with tears.  It was hard for me to see anything other than what I had just done.  I backed out of the parking space and recklessly drove out of the school parking lot.  Before I knew it, I was on the freeway.  I knew that calling Sharon, would quiet the voice in my head but I never got to make the call.  I assume that this is where I drove the car over the median.

            So, I assume we are in the operating room because all of the hustle and bustle subsided.  It got extremely quiet, with the exception of the beeping of a few machines.  I can hear people moving about but nothing like a few minutes ago when people were screaming out orders all over the place.  Here it was peaceful and there seemed to be only one person in charge.  I could hear one person telling people what to do and then there was just silence.

            It’s strange to awaken and not be able to open your eyes.  It’s like leaving but not knowing that you were gone until you return.  When I awoke, I could tell that I was no longer in the operating room.  I could feel bandages covering some of my face.  My arm also seemed to be bandaged up and there was a tight wrap around my torso.   The good thing is that there was no more pain.  I still couldn’t move any part of my body, but I was beginning to get used to that.  I don’t know how long I was in surgery or what they operated on for that matter and since I wasn’t in pain anymore, I couldn’t tell if I had any broken bones.  I did know that the paramedic at the accident scene said that one of my arms were broken.  Other than that, I have no clue as to what they extent of my injuries are.   I do believe it has to be pretty bad since I am basically in a coma.

            Laying here without the ability to communicate leaves a lot of time to think.  It leaves plenty of room to get life into perspective.  Reflection becomes a part of the normal happenings of the day’s events.  I appreciate this time and though it happen through many negative events, I thank I need to thank God for the opportunity.  This has been just what I needed to finally understand myself and to take a look at what my life has become.  How I ended up here and what I’m going to do from this point on.

            “Oh my God, Sharon.  I can’t handle this.”

            Is that my sister?  Is that that, Tatum?  Please tell me that they didn’t call the wrong sister.  I needed them to notify Sharon, not Tatum.  I mean, I know they have my wallet, so they should have seen who the next of kin was.  What is Tatum doing here?  Someone please get her out of here.  I can’t deal with her drama right now.  She always brings so much commotion with her.

            “Tatum, calm down.”

            Okay, that sounds like Tatum’s husband, David.  He does a decent job at keep her at bay.  I’m happy that he’s here, but where is Sharon.

            “Shannon, what happened?” I heard Sharon say. 

            I wish I could tell you.  I don’t really know what happened, so I don’t know what I would tell you, if I could talk.  I do wish I could apologize to her and the rest of my family.  I can only imagine what they might be going through watching me here in this bed with no movement.  I have no idea what my body looks like either.  I assume that my face can’t be too pretty since they have these bandages all over it.

            It’s great that they are all here.  It might make this a bit easier to get through.  I mean, I don’t have much of a choice than to go through this alone since I can’t talk or move but, having them here really helps.  Hearing their voices makes this darkness and catatonic stuff a bit more bearable. 

            “What the hell is going on here?”

            Oh no, it’s my mother’s voice again.  Please don’t start again.  I have no way to escape it this time.  I can call anyone to take my mind away from it.

            “Ma, calm down.”

            “Don’t tell me to calm down.  What’s all this mess I been watching on the news?”

            Oh great it not in my head.  It’s really my mother.  She’s here in the room, not in my head.  Not just the voice that makes me feel bad about everything I do, but the real person that stands in my corner and defends me.

            “What mess are you talking about mom?” Sharon asked.

            “There’s some little boy on TV talking about Shannon.   He’s saying some crazy things about rape and murder.”

            “Rape and murder?  What?” They want to talk to you,” David said.

            “I’ll be right back, Ma.”

            “I’m going to,” Tatum said.

            Oh Lord, Tatum is going to speak to the police officer.  That is not a good idea.  I hope Sharon stops here before she gets to him because if not, there is going to be a lot of commotion.  Someone definitely needs to stop her.

            “That stupid damn cop.  He didn’t want to talk to me.  Said that he had Sharon as the next of kin and that she was the only one that he needed to talk to right now.  I don’t give a damn what he thinks, Shannon is my brother too and I have every right to be there for that damn conversation,” Tatum said entering the room.

            “Tatum, sit down somewhere and wait until Sharon gets back.  You’re giving me a headache and I just got here.  I am not in the mood for your mess right now,” my mother said.

            I was grateful that she handled Tatum when she did.  My mother got to her early, so she did not have much time to get wound up.  Once Tatum gets going, it becomes the every body pay attention to Tatum show.  She can turn any situation into her personal misery.  Thank God for small favors.

            With Tatum under control and the rest of my family here at the hospital with me, I think I can get some rest.  I am tired and I believe the surgery is taking its toll on my body.  Nothing I can do about my situation right now, so no need to worry about it.  I can just sleep on it and have a clear head when I wake up.  Maybe I’ll be able to open my eyes as well.