Letter 10 - Austin Williams

This is the tenth story of the book.

Written in loving memory of Lattie McGee
   (December 19 1982-August 14 1987)



My name is Austin Williams. I am a nineteen-year-old African American man from Detroit, Michigan. I grew up there with my mother Patricia Williams on the third floor of an apartment complex in the Cass-Davenport Historic District, younger brother Adam and younger sisters Kaneesha and Dana. For half of my childhood, mom’s boyfriend middle-aged African American Keith Donohue have been living with us. Some days I enjoyed life with my family. We would play at the park near the apartment and ran around in the yard till dusk as well as have meals together back at home. Despite all the good times with family, there were evil times that couldn't stop getting worse for Adam and I.
            One day at home while Adam was watching cartoons on the television in the living room, he decided to dance to the music that he was hearing. I noticed that Keith was standing at the entrance to the living room watching Adam dancing happily to the music. I was unaware of what Keith was pondering as he viewed Adam. Later, that same week, I watched Adam do his normal day of dancing to the music of his favorite cartoon right after he finished his homework. I always smiled a bright grin on my face as I saw my younger brother having fun. While Adam was dancing, Keith made his move and began to punch his hands and kick his feet as hard as he could. “Hey what are you doing?!! Stop!!” said Adam as he cried for someone to come and save him. I quickly stepped in to help Adam in any way that I could because I loved him a lot more than I loved myself. Protecting Adam made me say, “Leave him alone!!” “What?!! You fool!! You want to protect this gay fool?!! You are an idiot!!” said Keith as he beat me to a bloody pulp before he resumed beating Adam again. Keith beaten Adam a lot worse than he did to me and when he heard keys jingling into the front door, he quit what he was doing and ran straight to the bathroom. “I'm home everyone.” My mother said as she came in carrying bags of groceries. Keith stayed in the bathroom for a good ten minutes and when he was ready, he left the room and went over to my mother who was in the living room looking after us. Keith hid all his confusion at the groceries on the floor and approached his girlfriend and two stepdaughters. “Mommy what's wrong with them?” Kaneesha said. “Yes, Mommy what's wrong?” said Dana. “They're hurt.” My mother said while holding the both of us while shedding a waterfall of tears over us. Seeing mom cry over the situation, Kaneesha and Elie joined in the crying as well. Keith stood in the living room doorway in complete silence as he watched everyone else cry but himself. “Oh my God. What happened?” Keith said as he walked toward the rest of the family. “That's what I'm trying to understand!!” Mom said as she tried to calm down. After calming herself and the little girls down, my mother walked right up to Keith to get the truth about what happened. Keith looked at mom right in the eye and said, “What?” “When it comes to the safety of my children you don't say what. What happened here?” My mother said. “Nothing happened.” Keith said. “If nothing happened here then they wouldn't be like this. What happened here?” My mother said. “They were fighting each other, and it got crazy. Okay? You happy now?!!” Keith said in an enraged voice. I believed that because she wanted Keith to stay and not leave, mom ended the conversation by calling for an ambulance. My mother gave the Emergency Medical Service workers Keith’s story. 
           For the next three months, Keith continued to physically harm both Adam and I whenever Kaneesha and Elie weren't around. We were held from going to school. Adam was hurt up to the point where he was tortured by Keith. He was even malnourished as well. My mother barely even took the liberty to feed us due to the fear of losing her boyfriend. Adam endured so much pain due to all the torture that was inflicted on him. I fought to sacrifice myself to save my younger brother. The enduring for Adam came to a horrible end one day when Patricia was holding onto me with all her might, and I watched Keith tie up Adam and hang him from upside down into the living room closet. The sight of the scene grew even worse as Keith grabbed onto a butcher knife from the kitchen and slowly cut off pieces of poor Adam's flesh and threw them onto the floor. Keith smiled and laughed like a psychopathic maniac as he splattered Adam's blood onto the wall and the carpet beside him. I screamed, begged for Keith to stop but the man wouldn't no matter how loud the pleas were. The torture came to a halt when Adam breathed his last breath and died. Patricia laughed along with Keith and released me from her terrifying grip. I fell onto my, knees approached the body and screamed, “ADAM!!!!!”  
           The next day, the police and paramedics came right over to the apartment because they were called due to all my screaming. As the police officers came into the apartment, they were in complete shock due to sight of the blood on the walls making them say, “What is this?!!!” “That's nothing but splatters of ketchup that the kids liked to throw.” My mother said. “That's too dark to be ketchup.” said one of the officers as they looked around in the apartment for evidence. Within a few seconds, an officer opened the living room closet, and they saw poor Adam's body hanging inside. “Oh my God!!! What is that?!!” said another officer. Another officer walked right up to the closet and said, “What the hell?!! This looks like a human body and that appears to be a child.” “Well, isn't anyone going to do anything for him?” Keith said. The officers cut Adam down from his constriction and began to examine his body. And as they looked at Adam’s body, they noticed all the slash marks. Another police officer felt enraged as she saw the wounds and asked both Mom and Keith, “What the hell is this?!!” The rage even became more intense at the sight of my clothes being filthy like the inside of a dumpster. “Well, he was playing with a pair of scissors. I guess he cut himself with them on his body and thought it was fun.” My mother said. My mother became so enslaved to Keith she did all she could to cover for him. Since the police and paramedics weren't going to believe what Mom said, they arrested both her and her Keith. My two surviving younger sisters and I were taken by Children and Protective Services (CPS) to be looked after. At the CPS facility, I was sat down at a table and remained facing the floor. I was dressed in a clean set of clothes that were given to me by one of the CPS workers. I desperately wanted to see my failure of a mother and her boyfriend pay for what they did to Adam. When I was questioned by case managers and social workers, I told them everything that I witnessed as well as the torture I suffered. They took my testimony and used that story to make a solid case against my mother and Keith. A few days later, in a family courtroom on Woodward Avenue, both my mother and Keith were sentenced to life without parole for the murder of Adam. As I watched the bailiff take my mother away, I smiled brightly knowing that she could never cause harm to anyone else ever again. I felt very disgusted at my mother as I watched her smile about the fact that Adam no longer had the chance to live in this world that many people take for granted. At that very moment on, I vowed to never let anyone abuse me again, even my own family. As I got older, I became a productive member of society because I chose to escape from the awful community, he had to grow up in with the memory of losing my dear younger brother to the hands of my own mother.