Chapter 25
I was at work when they called and told me that Josh was hurt. I rushed out of the office in a panic, I could hardly see through my tears. The feeling of guilt I was feeling was overwhelming. I had told Josh that I was sure that he was safe going back to school. We had made an appointment to see a therapist to help Josh with what he had been through and I honestly thought the worst was behind us. We had just gotten a call telling us that his test for STD’s had come back negative.
He had been hesitant to back to school because he was worried about people’s reactions. But I had pushed to go back because I felt he had to face his fears. Somehow I guess I was still down playing how bad he had it in the neighborhood and at school. Now he was in the hospital and seriously hurt. What was worse they would not tell me what was wrong over the phone, they just said they needed me to come to hospital. What could have happened to him? I don’t remember how I got to the hospital I was so lost in my thoughts and guilt. But suddenly I was at the ER parking lot. I rushed in and demanded to know where he was. They told me that I could not see him yet as he was prepped for surgery. A nurse brought me a form to sign authorizing them to proceed with the surgery I signed it. Then A social worker and a cop came up as I handed the paperwork back to the nurse.
The middle-aged woman came up to me and said, “My name is Mrs. Cannon and I am a social worker on staff here at the hospital. Please Mrs. Simons let me take you somewhere we can talk, and I will try to answer all of your questions. We will be joined by Josh’s doctor and a police officer they will fill you in on what we know so far.”
We walked about mid way down the corridor and she opened a door marked conference room. She flipped on the lights and motioned me to take a seat.
She said, “Can I get you anything to drink? It will be a couple of minutes till the others get here.”
“No I just want to know what wrong with Josh. What happened?”
She hesitated and then said, “I can’t give you any medical details but I can tell you what we know so far. Josh was found in the woods near your house.
He had been badly beaten. The injuries are not life threatening that much I can tell you.”
I could tell she was holding something back and I said, “What is it that you are not telling me damn it. I am his mother for gods sake!”
“Mrs. Simons please give me a minute the others will be here in just a minute. I honestly cannot answer your questions. They know the details I don’t.”
I grudgingly agreed to wait, as it seemed that I had no choice.
It was only few minutes but it seemed like an eternity till the others joined us. The first to speak was the police officer. She said, “I am Officer Tate and I will be working on your sons case.”
She sat her brief case on the conference and pulled out a folder. While she was getting set up the Dr. introduced himself.
“I am Dr. Mills and I am your sons primary physician while he will be with us. His surgeon is Dr. Powell he will be meeting with you after the surgery. I know you have a lot of questions Mrs. Simons but please let me go through what I need to talk over first then I will answer any questions you might have.”
I nodded and he began, “First let me say that you son is in surgery right now. His injuries are not life threatening.”
I said a silent prayer of thanks as he continued.
“But I can tell you that how well he recovers will be impacted by how you react to what he has been through. I can tell you that he has a broken left arm, 2 broken ribs, and some internal injuries. He is in surgery right now fixing those. He will also need some cosmetic dental work done as he has lost 2 of his front teeth. But that can wait till he has healed from the surgery. Unless they find something more serious while they are in surgery he should be able to go home in about a week. The surgeon will be by to see you after he has finished. He will be able to let you know if there will be any need for further surgery.”
“He is going to be ok?”
“Yes he will heal from his injuries fairly quickly.”
The Detective looked up at me and said, “I know that you must have a lot of questions Mrs. Simons.”
“Yes I do, can you please let me know what happened and why everyone was so reluctant to talk to me.”
He nodded and said, “First before I go over the facts of the case Mrs. Cannon needs to go over a few things.”
She looked up at me and said, “What we are about to tell you is not going to be easy to deal with Mrs. Simons but how you deal with it will have a direct impact on your sons recovery.”
I was getting furious with them beating around the bush but when she said that fear replaced my anger.
“What’s wrong what is it you are not telling me?”
She hesitated and said, “Mrs. Simons you son was sexually assaulted as well as physically assaulted. Some of his internal injuries are related to the sexual assault. I have to stress that the physical injuries will heal relatively fast. But the psychological trauma will take a lot longer to deal with. We will be conducting tests for STD’s and they will have to be repeated every 6 months for a couple of years to be safe.”
I don’t remember anything else till I woke up with the sharp odor of smelling salts.
After I gathered myself again Mrs. Cannon said, “Mrs. Simons I need to stress that you will need to be strong for Josh. He has been assaulted and raped. There will be long-term issues to deal with. He will need you to be there and support him. He will be down on himself and probably blame himself for what happened. Don’t get me wrong he is in no way to blame. Feelings of guilt are very common in rape cases. He will need you to acknowledge that he is hurt. But help him look forward. Let him know there is going to be help available for him. That you will not abandon him or think less of him because of what has happened. This will be critical for his recovery.”
“It goes even further than what happened today.”
“What do you mean Mrs. Simons?”
“My son just reported several older boys for sexual abusing him. They were forcing him to perform oral sex on them. They threatened to hurt me as well if he told. All this just came out on Friday. The police have been looking for the boys involved. They are all 17 and 18 years old and the abuse apparently went on for over 8 months. He was so afraid and ashamed that he did not report it till Friday, when he broke down at a youth support meeting. There was a consular there on duty. His name is Dr. Tucker you can get the details from him. I have his number here somewhere in my purse.”
I dug around in my purse till I found the number and gave it to the officer. She thanked me and jotted the number in her notebook and handed the card back to me. I put the card back in my purse and continued. “Josh was scheduled on tomorrow to start seeing a consular to help him deal with all that he had been through. The boys who did this had threatened to hurt both of us if he told. I guess they followed through on that threat. I don’t understand how this could have happened. They should have been picked up already.
I could hardly get the words out but I forced myself. “He did not want to go to school today but I insisted that he go, and I was not there for him. Now he is lying in the hospital and it’s my fault. How could I have let him down like this? I thought I was doing the right thing helping him face his fears. How could I have been so stupid!”
Mrs. Cannon said, “Now Mrs. Simons blaming yourself for other peoples actions will not help Josh. You need to focus on what can be done to help him recover. Not on what went wrong in the past.”
“I am sorry to come to you with news like this Mrs. Simons.”
Officer Tate said, “Mrs. Simons do you know the names of the boys who abused Josh?”
“Yes, at least I know their first names. Josh did not know their last names. They names and ages are “Mitch 18 almost 19, Sam 17, and Kevin 16. The lead detective who talked with us was Detective James Webster. I don’t recall his partners name right now, I’m sorry.”
Officer Tate said, “Don’t worry Mrs. Simons I will contact Detective Webster and get the information. You have been a big help.
She turned to Dr. Mills and said, “How long before I can speak with Josh?”
“He should be out of surgery within an hour. It will be several hours after that before he will be alert enough to answer your questions. But I would recommend that you wait till tomorrow morning to interview him.
Mrs. Cannon nodded and said, “Please remember to go easy on him. It will not be easy for him to talk about what has happened to him.
“Don’t worry I just want to see if he can add any details that might help us solve this. We also need to confirm that it was the same 3 boys that did this.
If you will excuse me I need to go make some calls. I promise you that we will catch the people responsible for this.”
Officer Tate thanked me and left and I turned to Mrs. Conner and asked her, “When can I see Josh?”
“I am not sure when he will get out of surgery. But I will take you up to the surgery waiting room. That way you can talk to the surgeon when he comes out of the operating room.”
“Thanks Mrs. Cannon.”
“Your welcome.
Your son has had a lot happen to him over the last year and in particular the last few days. We will have to watch him for signs of depression. I will go over some of the warning signs with you. You will need to be on the alert but don’t smother him either.”
We left the conference room and headed down the corridor to the elevators. She took me to the 3rd floor to the waiting area. There were the usual well-worn magazines and a bible scattered across the 2 end tables. The only sound in the waiting room was the muffled sound of the hospital PA system paging different doctors. With the door to the room shut it was just background noise. Before she left Mrs. Connor went and got me a cup of coffee. I took the occasional sip as I waited. My stomach was so upset that I could not force myself to finish it. None of the magazines held my attention and I was reduced to staring at the clock waiting for the surgeon to come and talk to me.
It was actually just over an hour before he appeared at the door. He was an older man I would guess around 55 or 60 years old. His eyes gave away how exhausted he was. But he came in and said, “Mrs. Simons?”
“Yes I am?”
“I’m Dr. Powell and I am your son’s surgeon. I just wanted to fill you in on how things went. He is doing well. He came through the surgery just fine. All of his vitals are good and I expect he will make a full recovery. There is a chance that we will have to go back in again. It all depends on how his body deals with the trauma. Josh will be on a liquid diet for a while. That is to allow his lower intestine to heal. He will be on antibiotics for the next week to help keep down the risk of infection.”
I closed my eyes for a second and said, “Thank you so much Dr. Powell I can’t begin to thank you.”
“Your welcome Mrs. Simons but there is no need to thank me I was just doing my job.”
“When can I see him?”
“If all goes well he will be in post op for about an hour. Then he will be transferred to a private room. As soon as I know what his room number will be I will have a nurse take you there so you can be there when he wakes up.”
“Thank you Dr.”
He nodded and said, “Well I have to go and check on my patients. Take care Mrs. Simons. Dr. Mills will be handling the rest of Josh’s care.”
He turned and walked out shutting the door as he went.
About an hour later a nurse came and got me. She took me past the automatic double doors as we walked past each room I could hear the repetitive beep of the heart monitors. Finally we stopped at room 15A. My poor little baby was still unconscious. There were multiple displays going at the same time. I recognized some of them but others were completely foreign to me.
The nurse, saw the look in my eye and said, “Would you like me to explain what all of these things are doing?”
I nodded and she said, “Well he is hooked up to a EKG that is what all the wires to his chest are for. The one on his finger keeps an eye on his oxygen levels. This system also checks his blood pressure every 10 minutes. We are monitoring all of this from the nurse’s station. If any of the values get out of safe ranges an alarm will sound. Don’t be alarmed if it happens. Most of the time it is nothing. If he just rolls on his side it will set off the alarm. We are watching like I said so don’t be alarmed if it happens.”
She smiled reassuringly at me and said, “Don’t worry Mrs. Simons he is really doing well. I will be back in to check things every 15 minutes during my shift. If you need anything or have any questions just come to the nurses station. He should be coming around soon. Don’t be alarmed if he gets sick when he does. It is a common reaction to the anesthesia. We will be able to tell when he is coming around and will come in to make sure he is ok.”
As she turned to go I thanked her. She smiled at me and said, “I will be back in about 15 minutes to check on him.”
I nodded through my tears, as I looked down at me son. His face was bruised and his arm was in a cast. I don’t think I have ever felt so helpless as I did right then. My son lay unconscious in front of me. He had been brutally beaten and assaulted just because some bastard was bigger and stronger and thought that gave him the right to. How typical, pick on the small and weak, people like that were cowards they preyed on those who could not fight back.
They had targeted him because he small for his age and was gay. Like that gave them some license.
My poor little Josh looked so small and innocent lying there. He was trying so hard to grow up and would be upset with me if he heard me call him small or little. All his life he had been looked on as different and picked on. He was a premature baby and had always been small for his age. Others seemed to sense that he was a gentle child and pick on him for it.
Josh thought that he had surprised me when he told me that he was gay. But I had known for a while that he might be. All his life he had been picked on because he was not interested in sports or other manly things.
There had been so many times when he had come home and gone to his room and cried. He did not think I knew but I did. But even in my worse nightmares I had not thought it was as bad as it had been. Those bastards had been beating him and using him sexually. They were going to pay if it was the last thing I did.
I was still fighting a battle with myself to calm down. The last thing he needed was to wake up to a hysterical mother. He would need me to be calm and reassuring.
I had let him down, in the back of my mind I had thought that he needed to find a way to deal with what he was going through. When I had asked other people I trusted about what I should do, they had said it will get better, and he will resent it if you try and protect him. Now I knew how foolish that advice had been. He had almost died because of my inaction.
I leaned over and gently brushed his hair out of his eyes. He had always liked it longer. Josh’s complexion was so fair that the bruises showed up even more than they would have otherwise. His strawberry blond was hair was matted and dirty. I leaned over and said, “I love you son, please forgive me, I won’t let you down again.”
Over and over I berated myself for missing the signs. I had been sure that he would make some friends and things would get better. I had been told over and over that it was just part of growing up. He had been really brave to tell Dr. Turner what had happened.
It was a few minutes later that he began to come to.
© Joseph Men 2005