The Ripple Effect of Charlie.

The ripple effect of Charlie.

Isn’t it funny how much damage a parent can do to their child?

If we’re lucky, we are able to identify where our parents messed us up, we’re all human just trying to make it out alive.

Some of us aren’t so lucky.

James grew up in fear, fear of his father and what mood he was going to be in when he came back from the bar with his friends.

His mother and him would grow increasingly more anxious as it came closer to 11pm every Thursday.

James would hide under his covers, stiff as a board waiting for the dreaded sound of the keys unlocking the front door.

It was the same every week, the keys would jingle, front door slam shut, silence, followed by more silence.

James dreaded the silence more than what came next, shouting followed by smashing and his mother screaming and pleading. James would cover his ears and cry just wishing he didn’t exist.

Once James grew into a teenager, he had become numb to the screams, now almost intolerant of the noise emitting from his mother’s desperate cries, now several times a week.

James no longer hid under the covers, but instead would gaze out of the window and talk to the only friend he had, for years every time James dad came home drunk a night owl would appear in the tree outside of James bedroom window. James took comfort in this, believing it was some form of spiritual guide there to protect him from his father.

Until now, James’s dad had never entered James’s room when he was drunk, that all changed one evening when James was 16.

James came home from school one day, relieved for the day to be over. James did not have any friends and felt like an outsider, so school was just more torture he faced on a daily basis.

James came home, he noticed his mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway, he didn’t think much of it, maybe she’s nipped out to the shops?

Time went on, still no sign of James’s mother… James decided to get off his computer and check his mum’s room.

James felt like a rock had torn through his stomach, her side of the closet- empty.

Her jewellery, gone, side drawer- empty.

Before James could begin to panic, James’s dad pulled into the driveway.

James ran back into his room and sat at his computer, shaking with fear as he was going to have to deal with what is to come next.

James heard his dad call his name. James pretended not to hear and hoped that he wouldn’t call again.

But he did, this time he called his name louder, more aggression in the tone.

James made his way downstairs slowly, acting like he did not know why dad is calling him.

There, stood James’s dad wide eyed, red in the face with rage.

“Where is your mother?”

James cracked in a millisecond “Her stuffs gone; I came home she’s gone”

James’s dad pushed him out of the way, charging up the stairs checking all the rooms in a fit of rage.

That was the first time James’s dad ever laid a finger on James.

For the next year James would be his fathers punching bag several times a week, replacing his now absent mother.

Every time James dad would come into his room and beat him, James would detach himself and fantasise about his mother returning, only James would be the one beating his mother for leaving him like this.

The whole time, keeping his eyes fixed on the night owl.

James would leave food on his window ledge for his friend the night owl, nothing much- bread crusts, biscuits or any other scraps from the dinner he would make himself.

This would turn out to be a major turning point in James’s life, for one evening James’s dad would notice the bread crusts on the window ledge.

In a slurring voice, James’s dad would ask “what is that?”

James looked down and avoided the question

He repeated, this time louder “What is that doing there?”

James kept to his guns and did not answer.

His dad scanned the tree’s and sure enough, there was the night owl watching.

James’s dad got in his face and gritted through his teeth “is this your pet?”

James denied understanding what his dad was talking about, but his dad was able to see through his stuttering.

His dad grew enraged, “You are a pathetic little freak, just like your mother!”

“You think you’re some kind of Dr Doolittle, you little freak??!”

His dad laughed and walked out of the room, James was finally able to take a breath of relief, but that was to be short lived.

James heard the front door slam shut; curious James looked out of his window to see his dad holding a shot gun pointed in the owl’s direction.

James screamed and ran downstairs, missing most of the stairs and smashing into the front door, when he heard the shotgun.

James rushed through the front door to see the night owl laying on the ground and his dads face smiling, with these dead black eyes back at him.

James dropped to the ground, holding on to the owl. At that moment, James felt no more anger, nor pain, there was just nothing.

James decided he was going to start leaving the house every night, no longer burdened by the fear of being alone outside at night and knowing he could not face the smell of liquor on his dads breathe anymore.

James began walking into the city every night, it was about a 2-hour walk, which was perfect as it meant it got him out of the house longer.

James got accustomed to the local sex workers on the street, who propositioned him every night, he ignored them.

One woman did catch his attention though, she was around 50, bobbed brunette hair with pointed features, she clearly had a drug problem from the sunken in face and stone like skin she had.

James hated her. She had a similar build, hair and features to his mother.

James got bored of walking the streets alone, and before long was following this woman through-out the night, just keeping enough distance so that she did not notice him in her drug fuelled state.

James got to know her movements, where she stopped, who she spoke too, what time she started work. James got so confident that he no longer hid, instead it was automatic, like driving he just was there like a shadow in sync with every move she made.

One smouldering hot summers night, James would get noticed. He got too close for too long, too comfortable that he wasn’t vigilant.

“Hey kid, are you following me? You looking for a good time sweety?”

James ignored her and turned around and walked all the way back home.

In bed, James lay awake growing angrier and angrier on how she had spoken to him, “how dare she try and proposition me like that, that filthy whore”

James returned the next night, with the same rage inside himself that fills his father.

James knew that this woman would be right in the alley way at the back of the takeaway store at about 3.30AM, she had a regular who worked in the takeaway store who she paid a visit to every night around closing time.

James patiently waited, imagining this woman is his mother. Fists clenched and teeth gritted together the anger now fuelled his body like rocket fuel.

3.33AM, the man from the takeaway returns into the takeaway store through the back kitchen door.

James put his head down as he walks past the front of the takeaway and up the alley.

The woman sees and recognises James “Hey kid”

Before she could finish her sentence, James hit her in the jaw so hard she hit the floor and was unconscious. James then brutally carried out the same beating that his mother would face from his father.

Only difference is, James did not stop.

The news would only make a mockery of this woman’s existence, not labelling her a woman who needed help in her death, but instead “A prostitute” so no one would bat an eyelid to the loss of a life for someone who had clearly faced trauma in their own life.

For the next year, James sought out woman in the same situations around the city. He carefully looked for women who looked like his mother. Repeating the same cycle.

James grew confident that no one cared, for they were only “prostitutes” which somehow society disregarded their basic empathy for these women for the jobs they had to take to survive.

James grew so confident, he got brazen with his methods. He began snatching women off the street, in view of anyone who might be around in these hours of the night.

It wasn’t long until finally, the police were taking note and had built a profile on who they were looking for, one night James took the bait… an undercover officer.

The police had obviously been doing their homework and assigned an officer with all the desired features that James desired.

James laughed with relief when he knew he was caught, being pinned to the floor with gravel in his mouth, bleeding he smiled and laughed.

In James’s confession he would talk about his hatred for his mother, but never mentioned his father.

As authorities pushed further with their questioning, they asked “who’s your father”

“Charlie”

“Can you tell us about him?”

James shrugged coldly, almost confused by the question.

Authorities teased James, to get more out of him, calling him a loner with no friends when James had the sad realisation that his only friend he had ever had, the night owl his father had killed in cold blood out of spite.

James laughed to himself, thinking about the ripple effect that Charlie had by killing the night owl.

James was sentenced to death. He sat alone for 5 years and 22 days, just days off his 26th birthday, when he met his execution date. As he sat strapped into the chair looking at his spectators, he saw a familiar face.

There, in the corner of the room, looking at him was the night owl, the only friend he had ever known, had never left his side.