The 500 Scars

The late, great French director (and star of Stephen Spielberg's 1978 UFO magnum opus Close Encounters of the Third Kind) Francois Truffaut once made a film called The 400 Blows. We propose to call this article, very appropriately as you will see, "The 500 Scars." These, however, are not wounds that were inflicted on the Body of Christ, a Christian martyr, or a heretic in a medieval dungeon. They were, in point of fact, committed against the tragic person of one orphan named Charlie Coats.

I should specify yet again that this material is sourced from the incredible RARE book, Play the Yellow Tape, by Bobbie Lee, self-published in 2007. Understand, I'm not trying to rewrite the whole damn book (it's tempting, but no banana); however, I can't let these obscure stories go. I can't leave these particular ghosts alone. Charlie Coats died a miserable death at the hands of a farmer named Richer.

Play the Yellow Tape states:

"The young boy had more than five hundred scars, bruises, and abrasions that covered his body from head to toe. Chunks of flesh had been bitten off of his body by human teeth, producing more than 150-200 bite marks on his ear lobes, fingertips, toes, lips, and neck. Infected, gaping wounds and a festered burn as large as a fist were on the boy's back; mutilation too hideous to describe appeared in the boy's genital area. The boy's head was beaten so badly, the hair bloodsoaked, that his features were indistinguishable. Although the official cause of death was a blood clot at the base of the head, Charlie Coats had been slowly dying for some time-- The final blow mercifully ending his tortured life."

And who do you think perpetrated these horrors? It was indeed one iron-fisted, hell-born, covetous old demon named Moses Richer, an Amish farmer who had adopted the boy from an orphanage in Cleveland, to take him back to the farm and put him to work. After a year, he had the option of either adopting him outright or sending him back WITH PAY. Of course, today, we call this child labor and there are laws against it, but in the "good ol' days" you could chain an eight-year-old to a factory press or mill, and nobody batted an eyelash. (The Victorian attitude to such unfortunates was that they were somehow responsible for their plight, even if they had just been pulled kicking and screaming from the womb. Which seems very much like today's Republicans.)

Charlie Coats, who must have been damned by God or Fate from before his unfortunate conception, was seen to have HUMAN BITE MARKS on his arm by an anonymous, concerned citizen. Some minor bureaucracy calling itself the "Humane Office" (rather Orwellian, don't you think?) took possession of the boy and hauled him out of Richer's demented grasp, an act that, for some damn reason, caused the sadistic old poop to bring his "Spiritual Minister" with him to beg and plead for the boy's return.

They, unsurprisingly (because the only thing more clueless than an individual is a government office) DID SO. (I mean, what the HELL did he say to convince them? "No, I sure as shit ain't gonna be bitin' that boy's arms no more! Yessiree bob! I'm a-gonna be as kind and protective as a mother hen to that youngin'!")

Of course, once he was back in Richer's uh, "care," Charlie Coats was subjected to the same sort of torture and abuse as always.

Charlie Coats pleaded with the ignoramuses running the orphanage to let him stay. He knew very well what he was in for back at the Richer residence.

He was beaten constantly, and the neighbors could hear it (a rather interesting fact considering how far, in all probability, the neighbors in that rural community were from each other). One young girl begged and pleaded with her father to intervene, but he didn't want to "get involved" in someone else's affairs. Very well, then; apathy sealed the fate of Charlie Coats.

He was tortured by being pushed against a hot stove. To "heal" this burn, Moses Richer applied "turtle oil" and turpentine to the wound--which must have been excruciating, and he knew so, so he did it again while the boy screamed for mercy. When he screamed for mercy, Moses Richer beat him.

He was sent to bed hungry, shivering, and crying every night of his decidedly shortened life.

On his last day on Earth, Charlie Coats, who had "failed" to do some menial task that Richer demanded of him (or at least, failed to do it to the old ogre's satisfaction) was swung about by the legs and his head bashed into the back porch until he stopped breathing. Judith, the wife, tried desperately to intervene but was knocked to the ground. Suddenly wetting his bib overalls in panic, Richer devised a story of the boy being trampled by a cow. So, for some reason, to make it seem "believable" he began to BITE CHUNKS OF CHARLIE'S FLESH OFF.

(Because being trampled by a cow, and being partially devoured, well, NO fucking coroner is going to be able to tell the difference there, right?)

The lawmen didn't buy it. Bobbie Lee tells us even "seasoned physicians" were sickened by the sight of the corpse of Charlie Coats. Moses Richer was hauled into jail, where he assumed they'd slap him on the wrist. (Bobbie Lee comments that he seemed "consumed" with worry over his farm and business. He needn't have worried.)

The Amish community cold-shouldered Judith Richer and whatever family she dragged along in tow. The "Spiritual Minister" tried to convince the flock of his complete lack of any wrongdoing in the matter with some self-exculpatory bullshit sermons, but it didn't convince his flock and Moses Richer didn't convince a jury, and, lo! He was not given the proverbial "slap on the wrist." He was handed an LWOP (LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE). The only farming he would be doing until his heart stopped was possibly bedbugs.

Minutes after the verdict was handed down, the judge informed Mr. Richer (who would put an S.S. officer to shame for sheer barbaric cruelty) that Judith, his beloved wife, had just been granted a divorce. The poor little sadistic shitkicker broke down sobbing. There is no word in the book as to when Richer died, but the sun must have been smiling that day.

Bobbie Lee (wherever she is or if she is even still alive) likes to remind the reader, at the end of every chapter, of the age of the victim. Charlie Coats had endured all of this and died by the age of twelve.

Twelve.

(One final note. Richer whined that it was because the boy couldn't understand the instructions given to him, that Richer abused and murdered him in such a ghastly fashion. It was discovered upon autopsy that the reason the boy might have had such a problem comprehending things was that he had a literal brain defect. Thus, he was abused to death for being mentally disabled.)