Free The Last Election by Kevin Carrigan Page B

same bloodline.
    Clay’s hands trembled. He tried to block the memory that came racing into his mind. This one was the worst of all. He could see his father stumbling in from the garage after yet another drinking binge, steaming with anger because his friends had had the nerve to make howling dog noises while he tried to play and sing. Clay remembered the ominous feeling that shook his nerves when he saw the look in his father’s eyes that night. Clay, who was just a few weeks past his tenth birthday, immediately felt tremendous fear flush throughout his body. He quickly jumped to his feet and went racing down the hall. He screamed to his mother, hoping to warn her as to what was about to come. He only made it halfway down the hall when his father grabbed his shirt collar and threw him backward. Clay hit his head on the wall and fell to the floor. He was in pain, but he had to warn his mother. He cried out for her, but he knew it was too late.
    His enraged father viciously kicked the bedroom door right off the hinges. Clay remembered the look of horror in his mother’s eyes. She wasn’t looking at his father, though — she was looking at him. Clay saw tears streaking down her cheeks. She looked as if she knew that she would never see him again.
    His father grabbed his mother by the hair and dragged her off the bed, kicking her hard in the ribs as she hit the floor. He still had a firm grip on her hair as he pulled her down the hall to the front room. She screamed Clay’s name over and over. Clay could still hear it in his mind. He looked back into the mirror, and he hated what he saw. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
    After a while, Clay pulled himself together and left the restroom. He kept reminding himself that it was his looks that had secured his place on this assignment. He got back into his truck, but paused before he started the engine. As much as he didn’t want to, he looked at himself again in the rear-view mirror. God, he hated looking like his father. He always wished he looked more like his Uncle Matthias, the man who raised him after his mother was killed and his father incarcerated.

Chapter 20
     
    Following his mother’s death, Clay was placed in the Ypsilanti, Michigan, foster care program. John and Denise Parks, the couple that took him in, were fine Christian people. Mr. Parks was a deacon at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church and Mrs. Parks was a part-time nurse at St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital. They were kind to Clay in every way, but all he could remember of that time was crying himself to sleep every night.
    About a month after he had joined his foster family, Mr. Parks told Clay that a man was coming to meet him. He wondered who it was and became frightened, but Mr. Parks assured him it was a person who would help him. That still didn’t shake his feelings of fear.
    On the day of the meeting, Clay was a bundle of nerves. Who is this person and why does he want to meet me? When the doorbell rang, Clay nearly leaped out of his socks. Mr. Parks took him by the hand and led him to the door. Clay could hardly contain his feelings of dread.
    Mr. Parks opened the door, and there stood the largest black man he had ever seen. He was a tall, broad, imposing figure. He had steely eyes and a rock-solid expression on his face. His hands were placed on his hips, and he stood there motionless, looking down on Clay.
    Clay gasped and stepped back as the man leaned down toward him, but the man’s eyes softened. He smiled and gently said, “Hello Clay, I am your Uncle Matthias.”
    “But, but,” Clay stammered, “I don’t have any uncles.”
    “Yes, you do, Clay,” Matthias replied. “I am your mother’s brother.”
    “Please come in Mr. Grant,” said Mr. Parks. “Let’s move to the kitchen, shall we?”      
    Mr. Parks led Matthias and Clay to the kitchen. Clay was still in shock from the news he had just received and could not think of anything to say. Mrs. Parks poured