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The Enigma · (02-18-2014)

I was found wandering the streets of downtown Hartford by a man who said he was my redeemer. I did not know this man. I had never met him before, at least, not that I was aware of. But there we stood, a mere 3 feet from each other. Complete strangers, and yet I felt safer with him than anyone I had ever come in contact with before. Trust was not something that came easy to me. I suppose it would be cliché to blame that on my upbringing but that’s exactly what I am going to do.

I had a somewhat typical child hood. My mother was a home maker, my father; an investment banker in New York City made enough money that my mother would never have to work outside of the home a day in her life. Instead she was able to do what she loved, raise my older sister Elizabeth and I. Liz as my parents called her, or Ellie, as I affectionately referred to her was 3 years my elder. She was a lovely girl, extremely pretty, the boys loved to chase her but she never cared for them. In fact, she would go out of her way to actively avoid them. Something I never understood.

That was until shortly after my 11th birthday.

On the surface we were the perfect white collar family. Two story house, white picket fence in the suburbs of N.Y.C. Everything looked so perfect, except for one significant detail. My father was a violent and abusive alcoholic. While he never physically abused me he did slap my mother around, usually not in front of my sister or I but every once in awhile, if he came home really tanked he would slip up and raise a hand to her.

One day when I came home from baseball practice my mother was passed out on the couch, something that had become more and more prevalent as my father’s drunken episodes increased. As I made my way up the steps towards my bedroom I heard a noise coming out of my sister’s room. Like the kid that I was I decided to sneak a peak, because what else is an 11 year old to do? Part of me wishes I had never looked, and another part of me, the overwhelming part of me is thankful that I did. I was never a violent person but apparently it was in me because when I looked through the crack in the door I saw my father abusing my sister. And not the way he did my mother. Sadly that would have been much less detrimental to my sister then what was actually happening. I stood there and watched for a few seconds. Not because of some perverse sexual proclivity but because I was frozen. I did not know what do to. Do I wake my mother? And if I do, what could she possibly do in her state? Do I call the police? What are they going to do? It’s my word against my fathers. So I did what at the time was the only thing I could think of. I pushed the door open and rushed my father. 11 years old and I was running at my father with hatred in my heart that I never knew existed. I did not have a lot of friends, my mother, God rest her soul did everything she could for us but my sister, she was my best friend. And my father was sexually abusing her.

I got to within a few feet of him when my father swatted me away with a backhand that sent me several feet backwards but it was not enough to stop me. I got up and charged again. This time, after my father finished pulling up his trousers he grabbed me by the throat and squeezed, he squeezed so hard that I could hear the snapping of soft tissue. I would come to find out later that what my father had actually done was irreparably damage my larynx, more commonly referred to as my voice box. In addition to that he also was kind enough to give me a black eye and a split lip. I was never under any illusions that my father was perfect but until this moment, I never realized the monster that he was.

Because my father was so well off he was able to afford the best care and technology he could. The result of my damaged voice box required me to speak with the use of a mechanical device called an Electrolarynx. This device was a small black tube approximately 2 inches long and half an inch wide. The device would be placed under my mandible and it would help me to speak almost as clearly as I could before, the difference being that my voice now sounded like that of a robot you would see on television.

The sexual abuse at the hands of my father would continue for a few more years until one day my sister decided to finally end it herself. Unfortunately her way of ending it was not going to the police, or to a teacher at school and telling them what was happening. I wish it had been. Instead my sweet sister decided that in order to escape from the man who was supposed to protect her she would do, in her mind the only thing she could. While my mother was out at her monthly hair cut and I was at school, my sister decided to fake sick so that while the house was empty she could go down to the basement and hang herself.

Sixteen years old and my sister, my best friend, the only person that I cared about, the only person that cared about me was now gone. And if that was not enough, I was the one that found her, hanging from a noose attached to a pull up bar that my father had bolted into the ceiling of the basement for me. On a chair next to my sister was a small envelope with “Eric” written on it. I was Eric, the note, the only thing my sister left was for me. I did not open it right away. Instead I put it in my pocket and ran upstairs and dialed 9-1-1. I was 13 and sadly old enough to know that calling 9-1-1 was not going to fix anything, the damage had already been done.

The date was October 26th, 1999. That was the day that I died.

No one outside of my parents and I knew why my sister did what she did. From the outside it looked like another teenage girl who took her own life because she was bullied at school or could not handle the stresses of being a 16 year old girl in a world where looks were all that mattered. After my sister’s death my mother slipped into a severe bout of my depression but not before she left my father and thankfully took me with her. The problem with that was that my mother never worked and so she had little money to fall back on. Only what she was able to secretly stash away without my father noticing. My father, with all the money he had was able to pay the best lawyers to make sure that my mother and I were left with nothing. We ended up living in a small apartment in Brooklyn, New York that was about the size of my parent’s bedroom in our old house. It was not much but it was home. For the first time in a long time I felt safe. My mother started working as a waitress at the local diner down the block. It was not much but it was enough to get us by.

It was not until my 21st birthday, in a drunken stupor that I worked up the courage to finally read the note my sister had left for me. That note was short but sweet, just like my Ellie.

My sweet Eric.
Run. Run and don’t ever look back.
I love you and I’m sorry.
~Ellie

It had been 7 years since my sister died and not a day had gone by since I thought of her and how sweet and innocent she was. How undeserving she was of my father’s cruelty. Since that time my mother continued working at the diner. The years were not kind to her, her continued battle with alcoholism certainly did not help matters. But she was my mother and at this point she was the only person left in my life.

Remember that man I mentioned previously, my “redeemer”? Well, it was because of my sister and some other factors that the Redeemer and I happened to stumble upon each other on that fateful day. You see, while I never spoke to my father again after my mother and I moved out, I did keep tabs on him. I had heard he was going to be in Hartford for a business meeting at one of the local hotels and so for two days I camped out in the lobby of said hotel waiting to catch a glimpse of the man who ruined so many lives. It was on the second day that I finally saw him. He looked basically the same though his black hair was now a mix of gray and white and he had added probably 10 to 15 pounds. The benefit to where I was seated was that I could see what floor my father would get off at from the elevator. As soon as the elevator doors closed I got up from my seat and walked over to the bank of elevators to watch as the numbers above the elevator begin lighting up in ascending order. When my father finally reached his destination, the 6th floor, I burst through the door to the steps, conveniently located right next to the bank of elevators and raced up 6 floors in hopes of catching my father before he entered his room. And as luck would have it, I was able to do just that. I saw the man in his long black coat step into a room half way down the hallway. Once the door closed I casually walked by the room as if I belonged there so I could catch the room number. “602”.

I had gone over the various scenarios in my head several times. There were so many possibilities, and yet, when it came time to act, I settled for the easiest. I walked up to the door, knocked on it twice while simultaneously saying “Hotel Security”. I could hear the TV on in the background, it was loud enough that it might muffle some of the sounds of what was going to occur. My father came to the door, I don’t know if he utilized the peep hole or not as the door opened almost immediately. When it did my father looked at me and his eyes widened, I don’t know if it was shock or sadness. I did not bother to ask. I had no desire to hear the man speak. Instead I raised my leg and in a swift motion kicked my father back into the room with a well placed boot to the midsection. My father fell backwards to the ground. I reached into my coat and pulled out a black ski mask which I promptly placed over my head. I then reached into the inside breast pocket and pulled out a small black 9 mm hand gun. Before my father could get out a word I put two bullets into his chest and one into his head and just like that he was gone. I dropped the gun on the floor and walked out of the room and then back down the steps, removing the ski mask as I did and out the hotel. And that is where I met him. The man that would become my mentor. As for who that is. You should know him quite well....

You know him as The King of Darkness.

Friday, February, 14, 2014 – 6:25AM EST – The Compound – Old Saybrook, Connecticut

SEBASTIAN DUKE: “Hello Eric.”

ERIC NIGEL MARTIN: “Good morning my Master.”

Fade to darkness.

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