A look of confusion wrinkled Stanton’s gaunt face. “What have I done to you?”
“You stole my only child. You seduced him. You abused him. You raped him. You broke him.”
“Who is your child? I’ve never met you.”
“Calvin Henderson.”
Stanton’s chest heaved, then tears slowly fell down his face. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry is too late,” Henderson said. “He’s gone. You killed him.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him. He was such a good boy. I just wanted to guide him and help him. He was such a precocious child.”
“He was just that . . . a child. An innocent, loving, gullible little boy. You took advantage of his trust and my wife’s trust. She’s gone too. She died in her sleep exactly a month to the day after they found him hanging in the shower in his apartment. My wife was a healthy, strong woman. Never been in the hospital her entire life. She died of a broken heart. You killed her, too, muthafuckah.”
Stanton shook his head. “I am ashamed of what I did, and the pain I caused you. I was selfish. I didn’t think about the harm I was causing. I never meant for it to go where it went. I was not a well man. Can you forgive me?”
“Why my son?” Henderson said, his voice cracking slightly, his first display of any emotion. “What did he do to deserve that?”
Stanton shook his head and hiked his shoulders as much as the restraints would let him. The peanut butter had begun to harden and was flaking off his bare legs and crotch.
“I need to know,” Henderson said, his voice stronger. “Tell me why you chose him!”
“I don’t know,” Stanton cried.
“Not good enough,” Henderson said, shifting in his chair.
“I . . . he was just there,” Stanton said. “He was so kind and gentle and looking for answers. He was such a perfect child in so many ways.”
“And you just couldn’t help yourself. You were like a wolf let loose in a sheep’s pen. You could have whatever you wanted, so you just went after all of them. Do you even know how many you took?”
Stanton dropped his head and cried harder.
“Do you even know how much pain you caused and how many families you destroyed? Calvin never told me what you did to him, because he was ashamed. And what still makes my blood boil is knowing that right up till he killed himself, he wanted to protect you from me. That’s the kind of gentle heart he had. You abused him and raped him and hurt him, and he still wanted to protect you from me. He knew you were good as dead the second I heard what you had done to him. So all those years he kept it from me.”
Henderson paused for a moment to fight back tears. He clenched his fists and looked away from Stanton to gather his strength.
“You are the lowest of low,” Henderson said. “A coward. A sick predator walking around in the disguise of a religious man. I’ve lost so many nights of sleep seeing the beautiful face of my boy, tortured and hollow, because of what you did to him. All these years, I have asked myself what I could have done to protect him. If only I had even the smallest clue of what was going on at the time. There’s nothing that crushes the heart more than the guilt and regret of not doing enough.”
The two sat there for a moment, staring at each other. Stanton knew his words at this point were useless, so he offered none. Henderson got up from his chair, walked over to Stanton, and stood over him. As Stanton dropped his head, a slight smirk parted Henderson’s stoic face. The gleam of his white teeth flashed against his dark skin.
“Look at you, you little coward,” he said. “You pathetic waste of life.”
Just as Stanton looked up, Henderson released a right blow to the side of his face. The crunching and snapping of bone bounced around the chamber. A squirt of blood flew from Stanton’s mouth, followed by a roar of pain. Henderson spit on him, then turned and walked back to the door.
I stepped in with the cage. The twenty rats weighed more than fifty pounds combined. They squealed and climbed over each other and scratched the bars. I’d made sure they hadn’t eaten in a week so that they were ravenous and would be indiscriminate in their search for anything to keep them alive. They were so desperate they were on the verge of eating each other if they didn’t find food soon. The smell of peanut butter and bacon threw them into a frenzy. I set the cage on the floor.
“For Calvin and all the others who suffered,” Henderson said. “May their faces and cries haunt and chase you into hell.” He lifted the cage door and the rats raced out, squealing and stumbling over each other, their feet pitter-pattering across the concrete floor.
Stanton let out the most dreadful shriek I’ve ever heard in my life. Pure fear and desperation. His face distorted with horror as the rats followed the scent and ran directly toward him, circling and squeaking and hissing as they cautiously assessed the danger that might stand between them and a hearty meal. Rats were extremely intelligent animals, especially sewer rats. Soon, a younger rat would be the first to take a chance, and once Stanton could do nothing to stop him, the rest would follow and feast. I thought about Michael Weiland and those bees so many years ago. The visceral satisfaction I’d felt then had returned. The feeling was like a drug—exhilarating and calming at the same time.
Henderson and I stepped out of the room, locked the door, then sat and watched the monitor on the other side. Henderson took it all in, not once
