J. Thorpe - Three Little Naughties - Stories About Three Little Naughty Girls

She would send me photos of the baby as it grew. When she was eighteen I asked her to come back and we could be a family but she had a good job and she liked being independent. She wrote that if she ever wanted a second baby, she would come and visit me.

Ashley Elliott and her mother Nora moved into my apartment complex on a Saturday afternoon, four doors down from me.

There were no rental trucks or trailers or a throng of friends and family helping to unload the two women's' material possessions with care. There was simply a mother and a daughter with everything they owned between them stuffed into a beat up station wagon.

Granted, a few days later a truck from one of those big rental furniture companies, that rent things at ungodly high monthly rates, showed up at the Nye residence and dropped off one bed, two tables and a very small sofa. My mind would constantly wonder what kind of life those two ladies were enduring inside that cramped apartment.

Rebecca Nye appeared, at first glance, to be in her late 40's but I would later find out she was over 10 years younger than that. Her weathered face and slumped posture indicated that she had led a very difficult and arduous life to that point. Her daughter, Belinda, also seemed to have the look of a woman that was older than her calendar years. In her case, despite the fact that she was only 13 when she moved in, she could have easily passed for 20. There was an inherent bleakness in Belinda's brown eyes that spoke of great turmoil in her life as well. It appeared that Belinda had seen more in her 13 years than anyone should in a lifetime. She was definitely mature for her age, in more ways than one. Her long brown hair was often pulled back into a pony tail but when she teased it on the rare occasions that she went out and added some makeup, she took on the radiant glow of a young groupie that wouldn't have a problem making it backstage at any concert. On the rare occasion I happened to see Belinda and her Mom go somewhere together, there was a tangible aloofness between the two that spoke of a mountain's worth of festering, unresolved conflict. When I would see each woman on their own with their own friends, both Rebecca and Belinda seemed like complexity different people than they did when Mother and Daughter were hanging out together. As the months wore on, I slowly pieced together some of the tendencies of their relationship and frankly I came to believe that the teenager was keeping better and more stable company than her Mother was. It was an interesting dichotomy.

Children are naturally rebellious and frequently react unpredictably in the face of authority. When no authority is put forth, children can go in one of two directions. It appeared that Belinda Nye had chosen the path of being the responsible one while her Mother went about her merry way, living life in the really fast lane. Still, bound by the mores and laws of society, my 13 year old neighbor was trapped in her predicament and I sensed that she would eventually fall victim to the same vicious patterns her Mother was living out in front of her, unless she could somehow escape from it.

Being a night owl and also someone who finds himself always looking out the window whenever a pair of headlights ease into the apartment complex after midnight, I couldn't help but see a lot of the comings and goings with my neighbors. Not that I really cared either way what any of them were doing but with the occasional burglary in the neighborhood, a person tends to pay more attention to strangers coming around. I immediately started to notice a pattern with Rebecca Nye's late night routines as the weeks went on. Her rickety station wagon would come and go at all times of the night and many times with a wide array of men accompanying her in and out of her apartment. Knowing Belinda was home to experience her Mother's looseness first hand, all I could do was pray that somehow she'd stay immune to her lecherous upbringing. Many of the men I saw come and go from the Nye apartment frankly I wouldn't let walk my dog, and knowing those men were doing God knows what with Rebecca while her Daughter slept under the same roof made my skin crawl. Knowing first hand just how small the apartments were, I knew Belinda was forced to be party to everything socially her Mother did those nights when Rebecca chose to bring men home with her. Another example of Belinda rebelling against her Mother's influence was in the way she dealt with her boyfriends. While Rebecca went through men like pudding through a cat, Belinda appeared to have only two steady boyfriends from the time she was 11, and both those boys seemed to have their acts together much more than the skuzzy things Rebecca Nye brought home.

One Saturday afternoon last April, I was on my back underneath my car changing the oil when I got to witness Belinda Nye's then relationship with her 15 year old boyfriend hit the rocks. If my memory serves, Belinda was about two months away from her 14th birthday at the time. Hidden underneath my Ford Farlaine, I could hear Belinda and her boyfriend George arguing intensely as they parked in front of the Cantrell apartment. Before they had even opened the doors to get out, the whole neighborhood was filling with the sounds of cursing, yelling and threats. When Belinda and George finally did emerge from the car, everything else around the apartment complex slowed to a halt. I momentarily quit what I was doing with the oil pan and watched the two fights from the privacy of my secluded hiding place. I couldn't make out the entire gist of the heated discussion but the snippets I could understand seemed to revolve around Belinda's Mom, Rebecca. “You're gonna grow up and be just like her,” I heard George say accusingly. “That ought to make you happy you son of a bitch…after all George…you are fucking her…she must be good enough for something!” Belinda said this not caring in the least that a dozen or so of her neighbors were voyeuristically hanging on every word. “I got to get it from somewhere…you sure as hell don't want to ever do anything…I got news for you, bitch…that pussy of yours isn't made out of gold!”

George shot back. “Fuck you!” the 17 year old girl yelled bitterly. After about three minutes of back and forth, George simply gave up and got back into his car, slamming the door loudly before speeding away. Belinda was left all alone on the front stoop of her apartment with the gaze of every curious eye in the neighborhood on her as her world caved in. I continued laying there on my back for a few seconds waiting to see if Belinda would turn and walk inside her apartment but she simply stood there with her head in her hands as if her feet were secured in concrete. An overwhelming sense of discomfort washed over me as I laid there fidgeting under my car. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the 13 year old girl that was bawling her eyes out less than 100 feet from me. I could look between my driver's side rear and front tires to see several of the other neighbors milling about, getting back to their lazy weekend routines after the brief interlude of watching two teenagers fight like cats and dogs. Looking up at the slow drip of dirty oil as it drained from my engine, I grabbed a rag to wipe my hands with as I pushed myself out from underneath my car. Why I felt the need or obligation to take myself away from what I was doing and butt my nose into someone else's business, I still don't know, but at the time I genuinely thought I was doing the right thing. The moment Belinda sensed me rising out from underneath my car, she instantly recoiled as if she had seen a ghost. The sound of her quick gasp of surprise was peppered with the ricocheting sounds of gravel skidding across the driveway as I stopped cold in my tracks. Understanding her shock in seeing my rise out of nowhere, like a satanic and oil-covered jack in the box, I froze there for a moment and waited for her to gain her bearings. Once I was comfortable that Belinda recognized me, I proceeded a few steps forward, wiping what grease I could off of my hands and arms. It seemed extremely awkward in one sense as I eased up to Belinda, a man of no relation to her that was exactly twice her age going to help her in a time of need. On the other hand, I felt the part of my brain that regulated charity telling me that if I had an ounce of concern for a fellow human being in a tough spot, I had to offer whatever support I could. I could feel an intangible aura immersing us both as I closed the distance between our bodies to about 10 feet. Stopping there so I wouldn't invade her comfort zone, I waited patiently for her to make the next move. Standing that close, I could see Belinda's clear white tears seep down the side of her face almost as if an internal faucet was minting a freshly made tear every few seconds. I could feel Belinda's body posture open towards me slightly as the soft foreboding taste of anticipation resonated on my tongue. A moment later, before I could even prepare myself, I was paralyzed for an instant as my life took a sharp and unexpected turn. In a blinding furious flash, something base and instinctual inside of Belinda Nye's mind must have snapped and her need to be held and comforted switched on. She ran like a charging bull straight towards me. The air inside of my lungs rushed out with a brutal, blunt whoosh as Belinda's 140 pound frame crushed into me. I had to take one step backwards to balance myself from the impact and raised both arms into the air as the 13 year old wrapped her arms around me in a tear jerking bear hug. Part of me said all I had to do for a few moments was to just stand there like a lamp post, giving Belinda something to hold on to until she was stable enough to move on. Another part of me however was extremely uncomfortable.