Sweet Sara

"The man and woman are my Papa and Mama. That picture was taken on my ninth birthday.  Papa took us to the big city called New Orleans.  We stayed in a hotel and we eat in a restaurant.  He took Mama and me to a place he called a theater where all these people played music.  Mama loved music.  My Papa was a swamper.  He was the best around here. That was long before the town and all the people.  Back then only the bravest would dare live in this cradle of darkness.  Mama's whole life was Papa and me.  Every night she would teach me to read from this book, the book of God.

Mama died that next summer of the fever.  I never saw Papa cry before but he did that night.  Mama knew she was on her way to heaven and she prepared me for the pain. Telling me, she will be waiting for Papa and me in the most wonderful place.  She made me promise that I would take care of Papa and read to him from God's book every night.  Papa did not know how to read.  She told me by my doing this he will be able understand his loss.

Papa wanted to send me away to a school; he saw my love for wanting to understand everything around me.  I did not want to leave him alone, but he saved all his skins for two years.  Papa worked his trap lines for days at a time.  He finally had enough for me to go for two years to Miss Mabels in Gulf Port, a school that would have all the books to learn from and teach me the ways of a genteel life.  But it was not to be, for the devil sent his messenger to take all that was good in life.

When I was a child, the only ones who lived hereabouts was the Mellincamps, us and Pierre Cantrell.  We all survived by trapping the critters for their furs.  The market was good and Papas hope was to take us from here one day to live in a town in a fancy house.  Every month or so the men would get together, they would play cards and partake in the drink.  Mama didn't like it but she knew that men had their wild side.  I liked the company because Jon Mellincamp would bring his son Tad and the twins. His woman died of the fever two years before Mama.  After Mama died, Pierre would come by all the time, for he had no family.

Pierre was always trying to talk Papa and Mr. Melincamp into putting all their furs together and buying boats and trucks for the crabs that fill these waters.  He said the people in the towns and cities loved crabmeat and we would all become rich.

Papa and Mr.Mellincamp would always tell him the same thing.  They were trappers, not crabbers. They knew nothing about shipping, trucks and business.

Yet Pierre was obsessed.  More and more he would come around with his moonshine and talk.  It won't take long before Papa would get mad and run him off, but he would always come back.

One night he did come back.  The sky filled with the flash of lighting and rumbling thunder.  It warned us of a storm but also the end of God's good grace.  It was late when he came that night. I was already up in the loft asleep.  The noise woke me up.  He was drunk.  I watched silently from the edge of the loft as he sat with my Papa filling his cup to the brim with the drink of temptation.

He was telling Papa how he just came from New Orleans.  He talked with men there that were willing to buy all the crabs we could send them.  He needed more money than he had and he told Papa that he had to put in with him.  I knew when he told Papa that he had to do something that the night would soon end.  For all of Papa's kindness he was very independent, and being told he had to do something never sat right with him.  Papa by now was full of the drink.  Instead of cutting him off and throwing him out he tried to tell Mr. Cantrell that he couldn't go into business with him.  He was going to use the money to send me to school.

Mr. Cantrell seemed like he just went crazy.  He just could not accept that a school and a little girl stood between him and riches enough to quench even his greed.  He called Papa a fool and demanded that he give him our furs.

Good night, Mr. Cantrell I said to myself.  I knew my Papa and no matter how much drink, Mr. Cantrell just went too far.  Papa stood up and with a no fooling look on his face, he told Mr. Cantrell to get out right now or he will throw him out.  Mr. Cantrell stood up, his face red with anger.  I'll leave all right and with me goes your furs, he said, while pulling his knife.  In what was just an instant he plunged it handle deep into Papa's chest. I can still see Papa's face.  The look was not pain, more like bewilderment. Papa looked up at the loft and when he saw me, his face filled with worry and he stared at me with "I'll miss you" eyes.  Mr.Cantrell pulled the knife from Papa's chest and Papa fell back into the corner.  I still can see him sitting there with tears streaming from his lightless eyes.

The sound of Mr. Cantrell's voice sounded like it was coming from inside hell itself.  Little Sara, your Papa's dead and now Pierre wants you, he said coming up the ladder, the knife still dripping with my Papa's heart. I jumped from the loft, landing on the table that broke and sent me crashing to the floor.  He was there in a second pulling me up by my hair.  The look in his eyes and on his face scared me, scared me deep.  Tonight you will learn about lust and pleasure.  I Pierre am your master, he said while trying to kiss me.  My revulsion at his kiss made me struggle to escape.  He slapped me and slapped me, I fell over the chair and on the floor.  He jumped on top of me and tore my nightshirt off leaving me completely naked and ashamed.  Again he pulled me up by my hair and pushed me in the chair.  He stood there staring at my nakedness with eyes red with lust, his mouth wet and drooling with anticipation.  When I tried to cover myself, he slapped me so hard that my ear and the side of my face felt like they were on fire.  Relax, little Sara, you will enjoy Pierre, he said, taking a drink from the bottle of shine. Drink, he said, pulling my head back with his fingers in my tangled hair.  I took long deep swallows.  I remember Papa telling me it made you feel foggy and numb.  I figured anything that could take the sharp edge of agony from this night would be a gift.  Even if the taste was as vile as Satan himself.

An uncontrollable trembling took over my body as I watched him slowly undress.  I did not beg, for the look of glee on his face told me this pig man had no soul.  For the rest of the night he took me, he slapped me, punched me, pulled my hair, banged my head on the floor, bit me on my breasts, legs and arms, he made me do the unspeakable.  My poor Papa propped up in the corner as if witnessing his little Sara being dragged into the pit of depravity.  I knew Papa was now with Mama.  Still I prayed to the sweet Lord that they did not know what was happening to their little girl, for it would cause them great pain and there is no place for that in heaven.

Then just before the sun came up, he stopped.  It was as if he knew the light would expose his godless soul.  He sat me in the chair.  I could not sit up without him holding me.  He was almost tender as he stood over me.  He told me how good I was, how much he enjoyed me.  When he asked me if I liked it, I refused to answer the absurd.

He went and got one of Papa's traps.  He came back to me with it held high above his head.  I was not surprised for I know that the Beast will always try to cover his tracks, for he only fears being exposed.  I remember him hitting me the first time then again and again.  I lived surrounded by the brutality of the lesser world, but I was incapable of understanding this evil.  My last thought was he just wasted my life on his journey to damnation."