Free Fiction Ebooks: Free ebook sample of "A Monster by Association" by Wendy Coleman

It's simple really. When your child is born, you either make the commitment to love him unconditionally or you don't. Of course you may just blurt out the words but so does every parent. They say they love their child, no matter what and that there's nothing in this world their kids could do that would change that. But just saying it doesn't mean anything.

People don't look at me like I'm human anymore. They haven't seen a human in ten years, only a monster. Why? Because I refuse to break a promise that I made so long ago and I am simply unable to extinguish a love that many think I should.

Let me ask you something, do you love your child? I mean really love him? Do you tell him everyday that you love him more than anything in this world; including yourself and that you'll never stop loving him no matter what? "No matter what" is quite a loaded statement, more than you know. So really think about it for a moment. You've gotta use your imagination to make sure you're not just fooling yourself and saying shit that could someday come back and bite you in the ass. You can't just gaze at that innocent little baby propped up on your lap right now looking at you with blue eyes and pure love. That's too easy. You've got to do better than that. You got to picture him older, all grown up trying to make it in this world, and you got to stop picturing him graduating from medical or law school, all happy and successful and perfect, while smiling and waving his diploma and holding up your equally perfect grandson. You see, that's not reality, that's just your own little fantasy playing out in your mind.

How about this; your kid will go through school like you did. He's not stupid, but not particularly smart, just average. He might be good enough to get into that community college across the street where he'll go for two semesters and then drop out, because life just got in the way. He'll get a dead end job making $11.50 an hour for the rest of his life. Then he’ll get married to an annoying person that you want to think isn't good enough for him, but deep down, you know they're just right for each other. Then that annoying person you call daughter in law will pop out two of his kids and then your son will just start getting old, occasionally calling you in tears asking to borrow money for mortgage. How about that? Still love them? Of course you do. This is reality, right, not some sitcom and you know that. Life is hard. It was hard for you and it isn't going to be any kinder on your offspring but it doesn't matter because he’s your kid and you love him, even though he didn't live up to his full potential, or worse, that he did and this is it.

It's okay though; he's a good person, a good father, whatever. Your children don't have to be mega successful for you to be proud of them and love them. After all, you’re not only down to earth but you've always considered yourself a smart parent. You preached birth control to your children because you knew that teenagers have sex and that abstinence is a joke. You let them have alcohol at your house under age as long as they didn't drive because you're a realist. You went to bed those nights feeling so smart and not like all those other bible waving, head in the clouds, dumb ass parents. Perhaps your son came to you once in tears telling you that he's gay, but your extreme open mindedness trumped any awkwardness or worry, so you hugged him and everything was fine. Again you went to bed that night feeling great about yourself because you're not some close minded redneck, your love is concrete, no matter what. You're different, you're enlightened and you meant what you said when you held him in your arms when he was still gooey from the womb and told him with tear-filled eyes that you would love him forever, but you never truly tested yourself because, to do that you've got to let your mind go places it doesn't' want to go.

I know it's hard, but for a moment, don't picture your child as just another underachiever; they’re a dime a dozen and easy to love. And don't picture him just some "hell raiser" with a couple of misdemeanors on his record because he got bored on a Friday night and took down some mail boxes in your freshly waxed Lincoln town car. You're taking the easy way out. Here, . . .let me help you.

Close your eyes for a moment and picture your child something much worse than just an awkward loser. Imagine him being seemingly normal, happy and healthy. Picture him being all those things you wanted him to be. He loves you and he shows it. He hugs you every time he sees you. He kisses you on the cheek and looks in your eyes with that same baby blue color he did when he was crawling, and he tells you "Dad, I love you. If you need anything. . . .”.and you go about your life proud that your son turned out alright. He turned out to be someone great. He has money and success and it's all because of him but at least partly because of your great parenting, you think.

Then, one day before your sixtieth birthday, you get a knock on the door. It's a police detective and he's here to tell you some bad news. You immediately assume he's there to tell you that your son has been murdered or hurt but that's not it at all. Your son is alive and well, he's ok but before you can enjoy that momentary sigh of relief he has other news. This stranger - this jerk of a cop - is sitting in your living room at 2:00 in the morning trying to tell you that there is another side to your son, a dark, horrible side. You don't believe him of course, but he still tries to convince you that he knows your son better than you. You get so angry that you'd punch him in the face if it weren't for that badge he was wearing, but before you can tell him to leave he's got more news.

This is the part when you might be thinking that I discover my son has killed someone, that, in a fit of rage, he has done something crazy and has ruined his life forever but that's not it. There's more to the story. What my son did had nothing to do with anger or rage; instead it had more to do with desire, a deep unquenchable need to feed this thing inside him, this awful thing that I didn't even know existed and now challenges whether or not loving my son is still morally sound.

But before I tell you what my son did, you have to pretend you don't know yet. Pretend it's your son and someone has come to your door telling you that he's a monster but doesn't have the heart to tell you exactly why. Remember, "no matter what", right? So it wouldn't matter if I told you he killed someone and not only did he kill someone but he didn't stop with that someone. He planned and organized, like he did the first time and, with cold blooded pre meditation, he did it again, . . .and again, . . and again, . . .and again, . . .and well, you get the point. Your baby boy likes taking lives. We're a long ways away from that boring underachiever by now and we're about to get even further, but it doesn't matter to you because, even though your son took some lives in cold blood, you still love him, right? Even though there are now dozens of devastated and broken hearted families in his wake? You don't approve but you stand by him.

Ok, . . .but what if you were to find out he didn't just kill them? What if you were to find out your little angel enjoys and actually gets aroused when he sees someone in pain and I'm not talking dominatrix-get-you-off pain, I'm talking about raping someone after he's cut their throat and the sound of his victims coughing, choking and dying is like a sweet lullaby to his ears, or discovering that burning people with a hot iron and making his victims scream are the only thing that can make him climax. Tough shit to swallow but it gets worse. In fact, what if you were to find out that the only way your son can even sleep soundly at night is by knowing that the trophies he’s kept from each of his victims are close by, safely wrapped in plastic and tucked in various spots in his basement, the same basement you helped him clean out when he moved in years ago.

Hell, it just seems like yesterday that you and your wife took him out to Red Lobster and you ate and laughed and had a great time because you saw that he wasn't depressed or sad, he was happy, he was living his life to the fullest and that made you happy. Little did you know he was happy that night because he went home, went down to his basement and tortured, raped and murdered some innocent victim he had waiting in a home-made cage. The food that you bought him was still in his belly when he killed someone that night, but still, . . .you love him, right?

You'd go visit him in jail, willing to sell everything you own for the best defense attorney in town, but it's too late, there is no defense, he did it. He confessed. His hands begin to shake and he starts crying out loud to you, grabbing and latching onto you like he used to when he was 2 years old. He screams and cries and tells you that he's sorry and that he's sick and needs help and his pain, his fear, they're not fake, they're sincere because you know him, he's your son; you know when he's really faking. But it doesn't matter because everyone else looks at him as a monster because he is a monster. What are you supposed to do? Relatives, very close ones, are all now turning their back on him, and as soon as they hear details of the horrors he administered they cut ties immediately. The very mention of his name makes people cry. He has no one else, he's alone. Even your wife, his own mother can't face him.

So, would you still love him? Love him enough to still pack him treats, cigarettes and food, anything that you can find in the house and mail it to him everyday so he'll have enough shit to trade and bribe his way out of prison beatings. Would you still be committed enough to go every single week for the next ten years to a maximum security prison to hug and kiss and hold your little monster and tell him that there's nothing in the world that he could do that would stop you from loving him?

I made my decision years ago; to stand by son and be with him until the end even if that makes me a monster, too. Would you do the same? Would you still love your son if you found out, like me, that he had killed in cold blood? Would you still call him "son" if he didn't stop with just one? Could you still kiss him and hold him even if you knew he didn't just kill them, but purposely made their last few hours on earth a living hell? Could you still look at him in his eyes and tell him that you forgive him and that you still love him no matter what and that you will continue to keep loving him to the end and beyond? Forever? Even if you knew the worst of the worst; that the oldest of all the victims he killed and tortured in that little basement of his, was only seven years old? Could you? Knowing full well that standing by your child killer wouldn't change who he was, wouldn't repair the pain the he had caused and wouldn't do anything but simply make you a monster, just by association? Because that's what you promised him; that's what you promised yourself and deep down, you know that's what you still owe him because it was you that brought him into this world and right or wrong, it is you who should stand beside him, unconditionally. Can you tell yourself honestly that despite this, you would still love your child, or, will your mind just go in denial and keep repeating the same thing over and over again, “My son would never do that!” Ten years ago I would have said the same thing. No matter what, right? A loaded statement, maybe, . . . but a simple one.

Gary Orefield, a retired physician and father of two, visited his son every single day at the Ohio State Correctional Faculty for eleven years. The death of multi convicted child murderer Steven Orefield was administered by lethal injection on May 2, 1978. His father was the only person to attend the funeral. Gary Orefield died a month later of complications due to acute leukemia but as a final wish was asked to be buried next to his son as a symbol of his unyielding love.

The End

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