School of Two Thousand Smiles–Chapter Fourteen

SAM SUPPORTS DANNY'S CLASS REVELATION

SAM

Helen came to our home for dinner on Sunday evening and met Michelle, three-year-old Barry, and our baby, Michelle. She shared all about her family back in DC with us. I enjoyed our visit, and she said she would keep in touch with us and stay up to date on Danny and his family from her office at the FBI headquarters in Washington. She also said that she was going to look for a K-12 school like Two Thousand Smiles, and if she couldn’t find one, she would start the wheels rolling to establish one. She was very impressed with the warmth, nurturing, and involvement of everyone here in our county.  

As I stood near the Yodelers and glanced at my watch. I thought of Helen, who would be boarding her flight back to DC. It was good to have a friendly face there. I watched Danny walk his older sister to her second-grade classroom and was pleased that they both waved at me as they walked by. Danny looked happy and relaxed and validated the reason I’d given Georgia, our principal, for putting in all this time to help him and his family. I didn’t need permission to support the family; I just needed to keep her informed. When I started teaching about 15 years ago, I almost had to ask for permission to go to the restroom. This new, informal, and truly human way of running a school was far better in every way.

Everyone in my cohort was seated by the time Danny got back from escorting his sister to her room. As soon as Danny was sitting, I addressed the entire group: “I am now able to tell you all more about our newest cohort member, Danny, and even tell you his real last name. He has a fascinating story about why he is at our school. First, because Danny’s story is quite long, is there anyone who has a rather urgent experience they would like to share with us? Ella held up her hand and said, “I just want to tell you, Sam, and all of you, that it was an honor and a pleasure to help Danny and his family move into an apartment here near Two Thousand Smiles.” Both Danny and I smiled and nodded.

“Anyone else?” I looked around, and no one had a hand up, so I nodded to Danny and said, “So, Danny, tell us your story.”

Danny looked around, made eye contact with everyone, and began, “First, I want to thank Ella and Sam for all their help. Sam had contacted an FBI friend in Washington, D.C, and she found three other FBI agents, and they rescued my mom and my two little sisters, who were kinda in prison in the horrible house where our dad had held us captive in the little town of Flowers, Mississippi. To give you some idea of how we all lived there, I’ll tell  you about the first time we tried to escape about a year and a half ago.” He then told us about how they – his mom, two sisters, and he - took the bus to Memphis, and instead of finding a new life, they discovered their awful dad waiting for them in Memphis. When he brought them back home, he beat their mom up and threw her down the stairs, and she had to go to the hospital. He ended that part of his story by saying, “That all happened in early February when dad was at a meeting in Jackson, the state capital. After she got out of the hospital, Dad made me stay home and help Mom. Dad didn’t want anyone outside the family to know how badly Mom was hurt. Also, he didn’t want to pay anyone to help Mom. Anyway, I missed the rest of the school year, and I flunked. That’s why I’m twelve and in the fifth grade. Oh, and that’s okay, cuz I like you all.” Joe Jackson raised both hands above his head like a boxer who just won a match. Joe is really a wonderful kid to have in class, as he helps all of us feel a bit lighter.

Before Danny continued, Joe asked, “Danny, why didn’t you or someone stop your dad?”

“My dad is the law in Flowers – our little town of a few hundred people who are scared to death of him. If anyone does anything he doesn’t like, he throws them in jail. I even saw him kill my very own grandpa.” Everyone in the cohort gasped. Chris uttered out loud, “Oh, my god.” Followed by similar utterances of others. ”Oh, unbelievable,” “Damn,” more “Oh my gods, and on and on; and finally, Ella’s, “My god, Danny, how did you escape and get to San Diego?”

Danny told them about Bubba Wilson and his getting beaten up by Danny’s dad, Robert E. Lee, and that was the crime that allowed the FBI to obtain a warrant to arrest his dad. Danny continued, “And the FBI in Mississippi, this last Friday, went to the house to fetch mom, and they had to taser and tie up two guys who dad had hired to guard mom and the girls to make sure they didn’t try to escape again. Anyway, the guards had called dad, who was at the football game, and told him someone was prowling around the house and to come home. So Ratso, that’s my name for dad, came to the house, and the FBI was waiting for him. When Ratso pulled his gun, they tasered him before he could pull the trigger. He was standing at the top of the stairs, and when he was tasered, he began to fall and fell sideways down those damnable stairs. He must have held up his gun hand because he shot himself in the neck before he fell.”

As Danny told everyone about the horror back in Mississippi, he spoke so clearly that he sounded as if he had been there and seen it firsthand. I’m sure the scene is burned into his young mind. He ended his narration with, “And I’m glad the son-of-bitch is dead.” He looked around the room as if he dared anyone to contradict him or tell him he was bad for thinking that and calling his dad a sob. Everyone sat quietly, crying, and looked like they were holding their breath. I believe he needed to tell this story to such a warm and supportive group. I could never have told a story like this to my elementary school classmates in the bad old days when I was a kid. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to notice that Danny took up nearly the entire first hour. I said, “Okay, it’s almost the end of our first period, so let’s take a break. And Danny, thank you for being so beautifully brave and telling us about you and your family’s story.” After our break, I continued to be amazed at the mature way Danny handled the questions about how he managed to get away from Ratso, talk Bubba into giving him a ride, and then find a place to stay in our county. He sounded like he was at least fifteen or even eighteen rather than twelve. At the end of our session, Ella said. “I’d like to commend Danny for his courage and strength to do all he has done and for saving his mom and sisters.”

49 

Everyone in the class, including me, clapped. I went over to Danny and said, “Please stay a minute, I have some news for you.” I motioned for him to sit down close to me. “Clair Danley just called to tell me that your mom has already been through the necessary surgery to straighten her leg. She was in a great deal of pain, but Clair said she was very cooperative with the doctor and hospital staff. The surgery was necessary to relieve the pain and allow her to walk without pain. They had to give her a general anesthetic because they had to re-break the leg and put a new cast on it. Clair said she is still asleep and will need to stay in the hospital tonight and perhaps another day or two. She said you and the girls should stay here at the school for the entire school day, then visit your mom. Clair will send her assistant in a county car. She said I should tell you because she looks so young, but she is safe to take you and the girls to the hospital. Okay?” Danny nodded and looked very disturbed. I added, “What’s the matter, Danny. You look sad or worried.”

“I’m just angry at myself for not having done a better job of fixing mom’s broken leg before I put all those ace bandages around it.” His face filled with tears, and he rather haltingly said, “Mom started walking in pain and with a limp after we failed to get away that time in Memphis. And I’m sure he beat her again and made it worse after Ratso thought she had something to do with me getting away. After Memphis, Ratso started hitting me when I yelled at him that we needed to take Mom to the hospital. He said, ‘That deceitful little bitch doesn’t deserve a hospital. And you are going to take care of her. Now shut the hell up. And with that, he slapped me so hard my ears rang for a week. I’m so damned sorry I didn’t do better with the leg.” I think my anger at Ratso matched Danny’s.

By three-thirty, Danny’s tears had dried up, and a new-looking SUV with the San Diego County Social Services logo on the door pulled up in front of the school. A perky young woman, who looked to be about Danny’s age, got out. I was standing near the front entrance, and the girl put out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Jan Hastings, and you must be Mr. Sam Collins.” She looked over my little crowd and, with a rather delightful smile, added, “And you must be Danny, Susan, and Jacque Sherman-Lee.” She said, “One of you can sit in front with me if you like. I thought that the little trio increasingly looked relaxed as they began their second evening in their ‘new’ apartment. Jan Hastings seemed to have the right personality to be their babysitter. By the way they all talked, she was the exact opposite of the kind of adults they experienced in Flowers. 

School of Two Thousand Smiles–Chapter Thirteen

DANNY HUGS HIS MOM AND SISTERS

DANNY

I embarrassed myself by yelling, "Mommy!" When I saw her step off the train behind a well-dressed and attractive young woman, I guessed it was Helen. Mom was so surprisingly well-dressed. If her face weren't so bruised and beaten-up-looking, she would look like someone I'd never seen before. She had on new tan slacks, a rose-colored blouse, and an attractive little hat. Helen helped her down from the last step as if Mom were a crippled old lady. She was a crippled young lady, and I felt sure she was still recovering from a severe beating from Ratso for letting me run away. She reached back to help Jacque down the steps while still holding Helen's hand. Helen let go of Mom's hand, picked Jacque up, and placed her on the tarmac.

Susan looked perky and very alive as she stood on the last step. She spied me and yelled, "Danny!" I rushed over and picked her up, and we hugged. It was then that Mom and Jacque saw me and came over, joining us in the hug. We stayed as if glued together for I don't know how long, and it felt soooo good. The girls were dressed in wonderfully pretty girl clothes. The last time I saw them dressed so nicely was at Susan's kindergarten graduation. I had been holding both girls as we hugged, and I set them down and introduced them to Clair and Sam.

Helen had climbed back on the train to pick up two medium-sized suitcases, and when she stepped down from the train car, I introduced her to Sam and Clair. Clair said, "We've talked so much on the phone, I feel we already know one another, and you know Sam from way back to graduate school, is that right?" I felt a bit stupid for not knowing that, but then how could I have—I needed to learn how to be around ordinary people, especially adults. 

I heard Helen tell Sam, "I volunteered to accompany this family to California so I could see you again after all these years. I think everyone who was with me in the rescue would have been willing to do it." She looked around, and I could see that they were a bit of a distance from us, but I could hear her as she whispered, "They are a very brutalized little group. The mother is still limping from the beating she took for letting Danny run away. Oh, and she also 'fell' down the stairs."

I knew it: the cruel bastard "punished" Mom for not being like him. I heard Clair ask Helen something about the hospital, and Helen said, "Not right away." Clair wanted to know if Mom should be taken to the hospital right then. Sam said, "I'm hungry, and I'm guessing all of you travelers are too, right?" Susan and Jacque nodded, and Mom frowned and muttered something about being too much trouble. Sam responded, "No, Marge." When Sam saw Mom's startled look, he added, "Danny gave me your name. And I want you to know that I don't think you were much trouble then, and believe me, you are NOT in a lot of trouble now, nor will you be in the future. Welcome to California. I want you to know there is a very nice restaurant just a few blocks away. Would that be okay?"

Susan was surprisingly forward, "Anything, I'm starved. Can we have fish?"

"I was just going to ask if a seafood restaurant was okay. Fishes are seafood, aren't they?" Sam turned to Jacque, who just shrugged her shoulders and hid behind Mom. Susan smiled a little and looked up at him and muttered, "You're funnin' us, ain't you?" Sam nodded and tried to touch her on the shoulder, and she backed away. Both Sam and Clair brought cars to the train station. Since it had been over a month since I had seen Mom and the girls, I chose to ride with them in the same car.  We climbed into Clair's car – Mom and the girls in the back seat, and I got in the front with Clair.

When we got to Seaport Village, I guessed that Susan had become the spokesperson for the threesome, and she asked Clair, "Who are you, and why are you and Mr. Sam helping us?

Before she could answer, Sam said, "Susan, you can just call me Sam. I like that better than Mr. Sam, but if it makes you feel better, that's okay too. I'm doing it because I like your brother, Danny, and I'm one of his teachers at the school he goes to— the same one I hope you'll go to too. I teach a small group class called human development. The group is called a cohort, and I'm called a Tatar – that's short for facilitator." Susan crinkled her face when she heard 'Tatar' and 'facilitator', and Sam added, 'I lead that small fifth-grade class.' You'll have a cohort, or group, in your grade as well. I know your Tatar, and she's really nice." 

We arrived at Seaport Village, a pier on San Diego Bay with several restaurants. Because it was Sunday, Clair said that it was busier than usual. The receptionist gave Sam a little pancake-shaped thing with a light in the middle. It was supposed to ring and light up when they had a big table for us. We walked around the restaurant on a bridge-like walkway. It was the first time I had been there, and I was as amazed as Suzan was. Jacque and Mom stayed back from the railing for fear of falling into the bay or something. There was a humongous ship across the bay, and Sam told us it was an aircraft carrier. I had read about navy ships in a book back in Flowers, but I never thought I'd ever see any of them. The bay was a fantastic place. Sam's little pancake gadget went off, and we stumbled into the restaurant. Clair very kindly described the various seafood dishes to us. The only one that we knew anything about was catfish, so all four of us ordered catfish and French fries.

After eating, we were joined by Gary, Ella's dad, and headed out to the 'new' apartment. Gary told Mom and us kids we could stay with his family for the first night in California if they preferred. Mom looked at me, and I said, "I'm sure we will be okay in the apartment. Clair said that she and her friend had purchased silverware, dishes, sheets, blankets, and everything they thought they would need to set up housekeeping. But thank you very much." Gary nodded, okay. Ella said she would get off the tram at our stop and walk with us in the morning.

Mom seemed to get weaker as the day went on. Clair urged her to go with her to the doctor in the morning, and Mom reluctantly muttered that she would. After we went into the apartment, and Mom saw the new widescreen TV, she showed more emotion than she had since she first arrived and seen me. She seemed to be okay with sharing the bedroom with me, and we all went to bed early. I felt more relaxed than at any time since I left Flowers, or maybe ever. 

In the morning, after breakfast, I called Bubba Watson in San Antonio. I told him about what happened to Ratso, and he said, "Just what the bastard deserved. Damn him." I told him about how the FBI had handled the raid on the house in Flowers, and he replied, "That's the best damn thing I've ever heard about that bunch." I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was a lot better and that his daughter in Denver had invited him to stay with her family for a while. That lifted his spirits, he said.

Ella and her five-year-old sister, Angie, came to the apartment at the same time Clair arrived to take Mom to an urgent care clinic. That was helpful because Jacque said she had to stay with her mommy, and Clair kindly insisted that Mom needed to see the doctor alone, and she would take good care of her mommy. Mom kept unconvincingly insisting that Jacque go to school.  I think Jacque was intrigued to find Angie, her exact same size, also going to school with us. Susan, three years older, was a bit scared but was glad that Ella was going with us. Ella took Angie's hand, Gary took Susan's, and I took Jacque's. Seeing Ella's dad joining in the celebration made me think of Ratso. He would condemn Gary as a homo sissy. I didn't have any idea what a 'homo' was, but I knew it was someone horrible.  Both girls seemed puzzled by the humongous, mixed-age, mixed-ethnicity group gathered at the playground. Susan softly said to me, "This is the school, isn't it? It is so weird." 

The pleasant girl's voice began to address them on the loudspeaker, "Welcome, all you wonderful imagineers, to our second week of classes. This week, our music will be provided by the Sophomore class's Yodelers. We were serenaded with some hip-hop music I'd never heard before, and everyone, including Ella's dad, started jumping and singing. I took Susan's hand, and she took Jacque's, and Jacque took Ella's. I was so glad to see both girls, especially Jacque, begin to enjoy themselves and emerge from their cocoons. I'd have to tell Ella how helpful it was to me to hear that we all needed to be like the butterfly that emerges from a cocoon.

When the singing and dancing stopped, Gary and Angie took Jacque's hands and headed to the kindergarten room. I was surprised that Jacque let them and even smiled a little. Ella and I took Susan's hand, and she gave us a big smile. We were joined by another second-grade girl who would be her guide for the week, as Ella had been my guide last week. Susan said to me, "Wow, Danny, this sure is different from Flowers, and I already like it a hundred times better. Even Jacque began to like the new school. Ella and her family were really helpful. I couldn't think of any family in Flowers that we had gotten to know well enough to ask for help.

School of Two Thousand Smiles–Chapter Nine

SAM PLANS A RESCUE WITH FBI

SAM

After Danny left our Zoom connection, I asked Clair what she was thinking about that could help Danny’s family. She told me what he had told her when she first talked to him, and the very idea of talking to that man again gave her shivers. “I’ll get in touch with my FBI friend and ask her what she and Marty Barnes had come up with, and maybe have another Zoom conference. Oh, and I’ll ask her to have her research team look into finding that Bubba W fellow online. 

I told them what Danny said about Ratso whor’n around on Saturday nights and getting drunk. They all got a bit of a chuckle when I told them that Danny said he didn’t know what whor’n around meant, but that it was just what his mom told him about what Ratso was doing.  

I was surprised that Helen called only minutes after we had hung up. It was great that our ‘team’ was already becoming a team. “I told her what Danny said about the idea of an out-of-town couple nosing around the little town of Flowers and the probability of his deputy sheriff dad putting them in jail. Marty Barnes was on the phone with her and wondered if it would be possible to incapacitate the dad somehow and grab the mom and girls and get them out of town as quickly as possible?” He asked how they might figure out when Ratso would be drunk enough to be knocked out of commission.

Helen asked, “Could we get into the house and take mom and the girls just because we think they are in danger? What do you think, Marty? After all, we only know he is a dangerous criminal bastard, because Danny says he is. I believe Danny, but we need something that will hold up in court. That Robert E. Lee fellow is evil, and he is clever, and he seems to have covered up things and intimidated everyone in that dinky little county.” 

Marty suggested that they do more digging before taking any overt actions. “Let’s see if we can find Bubba, the truck driver. I’ll check on Bubba, and Helen, why don’t you see if there is anyone in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, who has a file on our ‘friendly’ sheriff.” 

I agreed that we wouldn’t do anything until we could get Ratso arrested when we took action to rescue Danny’s mom and sisters. I told Helen and Marty that I’d do my best to keep Danny safe and as emotionally level as possible. I saw Danny right before our morning pep rally and told him we were working on it and that I hoped he would have a good day.

Helen said there was a large file on Robert E. Lee in Jackson. Still, every entry stated that there were reports of spousal abuse. During his twenty-three-year career as a Deputy Sheriff, there were no serious reports that warranted sending a state police detective to Flowers to follow up on the incidents. As far as the state was concerned, Flowers was a serene and peaceful little town. 

Helen and Marty called late in the afternoon. Helen reported her disappointment about Ratso’s non-record at the state level. Marty had better luck finding information, but it was horrible news about Bubba, the truck driver. Marty had tracked Bubba down and found him in the hospital in San Antonio. It seems that the poor man was found unconscious in the parking area at a huge truck stop there. He had been robbed and beaten nearly to death the previous Saturday, there in San Antonio. He had needed several surgeries and was currently at a rehab facility near the hospital. He did not have any visitors and was conscious and cussing up a storm about the ‘sombitch’ that had beaten him up. He didn’t know him, but the nurse, Marty had spoken with, said she thought he might know more than he was letting on.

Marty concluded, “I think that Helen and I should fly to San Antonio and talk to Bubba Wilson. So, Danny was right, it was a ‘W’ something last name. I think the poor man will talk more easily if a woman is with me, don’t you?” Helen imperiously tilted her head back and looked down her nose at the two men. They smiled.

I said, “Yes, I do. And, I’m like you, Marty, I don’t believe in coincidences, and I’m sure Ratso perpetrated the assault.“ I paused and then added, “The name ‘Ratso’ has really caught on for us, and we’ll need to be cautious about using it. I hope Bubba has not lost his memory after the attack. How far is San Antonio?”

“About five hundred miles from New Orleans, I’ll get tickets for tomorrow. Is that okay with you, Helen?”

She nodded, “Yes. And I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to take Danny with us?”

I immediately said, “No, for two reasons. One, we are not absolutely sure Ratso is the one who assaulted Bubba, and more importantly, Danny has already been through a lot, and I don’t want to add to his trauma. So, let’s talk when you get back tomorrow, okay?” They both nodded and hung up.