Page 16 - Tank

“We grew up in hell.”

Matt turned away. Felt another tear fall from his cheek. It was stupid to cry. It
didn’t do any good. His tears wouldn’t change the past nor would they help his
friend.
Tank would die soon. It was why Matt was at the hospital. The hospital wanted to
harvest Tank’s organs. They needed his next of kin to sign all the documents once
the big guy died. A ghoulish thing to sit and wait for someone to die so another
could live. Somehow, Matt was sure Tank didn’t mind.
Annabelle waited. It was like she understood what Matt was going to tell her.
"Tank and I found ourselves in the boy’s home about the time we were six,” Matt
began. Told Annabelle all about the physical structure of the home. Explained the
“home” was a three story old fashioned house with a wraparound porch. From the
outside it looked like heaven. Inside was another story.
The house was filled with large rooms converted into dorms. Inside these dorms
were metal military style bunkbeds three bunks high. Matt and the others learned
the state limited the number of boys to a room at nine. Each room held the legal
limit in case of inspections.
However, the owner took in more than he had beds for. Made those who didn’t
have beds sleep on the floors or in closets. It didn’t take a mental genius to
understand the owner was kicking back money to someone in social services to
dummy up the paperwork.
The more kids he had, the more money. It was simple mathematics. As were the
way the rooms were arranged. The owner did it by age. He took them in at six years
old and kicked them out on their eighteenth birthday. An assembly line of terror.
“The owner was someone special,” Matt told Annabelle. Though, in truth he was
talking more to himself now. “Someone who is no longer with us.”
He stopped. He didn’t want to tell Annabelle about what happened inside the
house. How the owner beat you with his belt if you made the slightest infraction.
Didn’t want to tell her how he locked you up in a closet without food. Or when he
shoved you out into the doghouse set up in the back. A doghouse which got so hot
you begged for death.
Nor did he want to tell her about the basement. Matt would take anything over
the basement. The basement was where the owner took you when he needed
something extra from a boy. Something Matt didn’t want to explain to this young
girl. No young girl needed to know about rape and pedophilia or some of the other
things the owner did to young boys down there. Things not even Matt was willing
to remember.
"Did you kill him?” Annabelle asked.
It was strange to hear such a young voice ask such a question. Annabelle spoke in
a matter of fact manner. Asked like she was asking him for the remote.
“Tank did,” Matt answered. “But, it wasn’t like what you think.”