I Know My First Name Is Steven by Echols Mike

Author:Echols, Mike [Echols, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Ten Talents Press
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Nightfall, March 1, 1980

"Is my dad still alive?"

The sun set a little past six that Saturday. Because of the typical, rainy, wintery coastal weather, it was the first sunset that Dennis and Timmy had seen since Timmy's kidnapping on Valentine's Day. With the rainclouds gone, the dark pavement in front of the cramped old cabin reflected the glistening twilight, and with his dad almost ready to leave for work, Dennis was thinking of his plan to finally get Timmy back home.

The boys' dad, Ken, usually slept from late afternoon until nine at night, but today he had gone to sleep just after lunch and was up before sunset. For seven months he had been the graveyard shift desk clerk at The Palace Hotel in Ukiah, but tonight he would start his new position as the hotel's security guard. A punctual man, Ken was going to make certain that he arrived early enough to review his duties with the evening manager.

As was his habit, as soon as Ken awoke, he had a cup of instant coffee Dennis had fixed him with superheated water from the kitchen tap. Now, several cups and chain-smoked Camels later, the boys' dad was ready to leave. Characteristically saying little to his sons, Kenneth Parnell went out the front door, climbed into his seven-year-old white-over-purple Ford Maverick, and drove off east and into the gathering dusk for his hour-long commute over the winding, twisting county road toward the Anderson Valley, Boonville, and Mendocino's county seat.

Outwardly, Dennis was tranquil as he peered through the cabin window and saw his dad depart. But for several minutes he continued to stare contemplatively at the now-deserted road, lost in thought. . . thought about his own family in Merced, about the hell he had been through over the past seven years, about his determination that the same fate would not befall Timmy, about his fears of what lay ahead for him that night, and about his anger at his dad for the attention he had begun to give his new little brother.

Turning his attention to Timmy, Dennis watched as the grubby little boy sat cross-legged in the middle of Parnell's bed, "reading" his comic books. In some ways the teenager had begun to like the slight, now-brunet five-year-old and to care about his safety. Dennis was reasonably sure that Parnell had yet to make a sexual move on Timmy, but just the thought of it made the teenager shudder visibly.

Abruptly Dennis turned away from the approaching dark outside and went to the kitchen counter and made bologna sandwiches for their supper. He laid out the meal on the small kitchen table, along with bananas and milk, and called Timmy to come and eat. Silently the two consumed what they knew without speaking would be their last meal at the remote one-room cabin they called home.

As he got up from the table, Dennis told Timmy to put on his gray-green jacket against the damp, chill breezes from the coast, and the teenager donned his dirty gray hooded sweatshirt.

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