After a week in the hospital, it was back to the apartment to begin experiencing life at home with a baby. My mother did visit once which was nice. I had no experience at all taking care of a baby so any help and guidance I could get was greatly appreciated. The Hartman’s had returned to Tennessee even before I was released from the hospital.
The weather was warm so I spent some time setting by the pool at the apartment complex. The baby was in a carry around carrier with a canopy you could pull up for shade. The days were peaceful for the most part. It was the nights that were so chaotic.
It had only been a short time since the baby was born. I was on the bed with him when Jesse came storming into the room. For no apparent reason, he reached and grabbed Cameron turned and went out the room. I couldn’t imagine what Jesse was doing and thought maybe he was just going in the living room to sit with the baby.
Jesse grabbed Cameron’s carrier, laid him in it and started towards the door. It had gotten dark outside so I wondered where he was taking the baby at this hour. Jesse’s car was parked right outside the apartment with three guys waiting for him. He handed the baby in the carrier to one of the guy’s in the back seat and then went around and climbed in the driver’s seat and started driving away.
I was just dumbfounded. The only thing I could think of doing was to try and follow him. I grabbed my keys and ran to the van. I knew where most of their hangouts were and the four lane congested highway where we lived had lots of stop lights so he couldn’t get too far away before I could catch him.
Watching his tail lights in the distance, I realized he was heading out of town towards a rural area where a couple of his buddies lived. As soon as we were out of town, I managed to get beside him in the van as we drove down a different more deserted and dark four lane highway. He actually turned the overhead light on in his car so I could see inside. The car was filled with pot smoke. Cameron was laying in his carrier between the two guys in the back seat. And I could see he was crying. Jesse laughed and pulled ahead of me.
About five miles out of town there was a neighborhood I knew they liked to hangout. There were only a couple roads in the neighborhood that had dead ends. Prime spots for them to park and smoke their dope. I drove to one of the dead end circles but wasn’t able to see anything. The area was covered in tall wheatgrass. There were tire tracks in the grass evidently from other vehicles going down onto that property.
The wheatgrass was so tall that it would easily hide a small Honda car. The land gradually sloped downhill but it wasn’t a rocky terrain. I knew Jesse had to have driven into this neighborhood. There was no other place he could have hidden so quickly. I decided to back down those tire tracks into the wheatgrass to see if I could find him.
About 50 foot off the pavement I discovered the backend of Jesse’s car. I knew they saw me. I parked the van, got out and walked over. Jesse immediately got out of the car and grabbed me by the arm. I merely wanted to know what they were going to do with the baby. We struggled but I hadn’t completely healed from the surgery and it wasn’t difficult for him to get me back up to the van.
Standing beside the van, he laid into me and beat me to a pulp. While I was lying on the ground, Jesse went back to his car, got in and turned around heading out. He stopped beside me and again got out but this time had a grass sack in his hand. Opening the driver’s door on the van he pitched the grass sack inside slammed the door and got back in his car driving away.
There I lay on the ground. Jesse was an Alice Cooper fan and had purchased two baby boa constrictors just a few days earlier. Knowing I was afraid of snakes, I felt sure that was what was in the grass sack he tossed in the van.
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