An Echo of a Man

Daddy said he came when the earth was barren in winter and left only when he determined that Spring had come in his own world. Mr. Helman was a strange man for the simple folks of Brook's Creek. He was often seen peeping out his window into the small park filled with children who squeals seemed to always call him like a siren. He placed a tension among the community, one so thick even the black smith's prime axe couldn't cut through.

He never really got along with his neighbors, Daddy said it was because they could sense the aura he gave out whenever the men were around with their little sons. His eyes would fill with an unknown sort of greed and his lips would smack as watched the boys play in his yard. One by one the fathers of the neighbor hood figured him out slowly.

He tried inviting the fathers over one by one every week and they would tell others of the insides of his home. It was frilly and some could spot dresses and heels despite knowing he didn't come with a partner and every single woman in the town lived with their family until marriage. I overheard from one of the neighbors Daddy had over of how he was came onto.

Mr. Helman caressed him tenderly like a woman seducing a man. Giggled so loudly it was obviously fake and no joke was present. The slight lipstick he wore and eye shadow make-up. His smile crooked and teeth a dull almost brown stain that has been left out in the sun far too many times. It was such a odd visit that he ran from the home crying to his wife who was suddenly overwhelmed as to what to do.

Mr. Helman showed no interest in women and for the life of the small boy eavesdropping on his Daddy's conversation couldn't understand why.

It took place over a series of outings the people of Brook's Creek had. A little potluck season that ran every week of summer. He had been caught talking to one too many boys that week and he was silently not invited the next year and the coming years after that. Daddy said even though he didn't try anything with any of the boys or the adult men you could see he had intent of breaking that line they had created.

It all came to a sudden crash when they could hear screams of a little boy who was being dragged away from their playmates in the park. Even though their was no evidence of the kidnapping linking Mr. Helman to it, it was obvious the neighborhood thought otherwise. The family wailed and attacked his home begging for their little boy back.

It was the first crime committed since the inception of Brook's Creek.

He remained adamant that he had no idea about the kidnapping, that he wasn't involved but Daddy said you could see he took pleasure in being slandered like a whore. What was a whore I asked.

"You'll know when you're older," Was daddy's reply.

As for me, I watched him from afar when I walked the streets of Brook's Creek and he saw me. I glared at him curling my tiny fists at the audacity of the smirk he wore. Even looking back on it now in my elder years after he had fled to wherever he had to go I knew I was his next target. But Daddy was no fool, our family wasn't social to begin with and I was identified as an introvert. I didn't fuss or complain at being hauled up at home.

It was for my own good, Mr. Helman was a predator.

Sadly he wasn't the only drifter I laid eyes on in my time growing up in Brook's Creek.

The next fresh face was a teacher sent from the State who was sent to revamp the school's teaching practices. He was my homeroom teacher for my time in high school and admittedly I guess I fell into this one by being careless. He was eccentric and had no clue of personal space.

I doubted that but he didn't seem to realize and apologized whenever he did cross boundaries and someone spoke up. He was inventive, always had the business aspect of himself going full throttle and our class was hosting a number of events that garnered the school money.

He was an asset which made the complaints that were coming in fall on deaf ears. Besides what could they do, they were just a forgotten school in a backwater part of the State in a unknown town. Nobody will believe the 'hill bills' as they said. It made him angry and when it came his turn to be a victim he didn't fight it.

"Stay quiet or I'll have to gag you," The teacher whispered.

In the end he was another drifter nobody really knew, he was merely a forgotten face soon enough after 3 years. He never told his Dad about it and now in adult years, sitting in therapy with his father's corpse in the cold earth he laments that he should've done so the minute the torture had been over.

But such is life, you never really get dealt a fair hand. Between Mr. Helman and the teacher's whose name and face is lost in the sand pit that is his mind he's encountered enough trauma. Brook's Creek morphed into a somewhat haven for criminals looking to dodge jail time or escape from the high functioning city life that would have cameras at every turn.

No more were they known for a not having a single crime committed. The long standing members who had been there for generations gathered their possessions and moved away for what must be the first time in a century. They were now faces, faces of people who were bound to trample what had been a peaceful town. A town who knew everything about their neighbors. They were now mysterious figures lurking and not knowing their intentions made everyone run.