Gang Mom Read Free Page B

fallen asleep on the couch. Which happened a lot.
    Janyce got up and went into the living room. Her first thought was “Oh, my God, it’s dark!” Then, as her sleep-shrouded mind cleared, she heard the plaintive cries again. “Somebody come and help us! Somebody come and help us!”
    Janyce’s adrenaline began to pump and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she ran through the living room and the kitchen into the garage area, to Aaron’s room. The door was open a crack and she just bashed right in.
    Carrie’s mouth froze in fear when she saw her. I scared the heck out of her , Janyce thought, seeing the pale, frightened expression on the young girl’s face.
    “Oh, God, it’s you!” said Carrie.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Carrie muttered. For a moment, Carrie’s sad face and eyes looked even sadder, making her seem older than her twenty-two years. Janyce looked over at Aaron and suddenly, everything was blocked out. She heard nothing, saw nothing but the bloody picture in front of her.
    Her first-born son lay prone on the bed, a gash on the top of his head, on the upper part of the right eye. Oh, my God, somebody has bashed Aaron in the head , Janyce thought.
    “Carrie, call 911.”
    Carrie ran out to the living room where the phone was, just as a commotion began. Janyce’s teenage daughter Tina came running into the bedroom.
    Seeing her brother, Tina asked anxiously, “What happened?”
    “Somebody has bashed Aaron on the head,” Janyce answered grimly and looked down. “You’re going to be okay, Aaron, you’re as strong as they come,” she said to the unconscious boy.
    Janyce glanced into the living room. Carrie stood motionless at the phone. She had gone into shock and couldn’t even dial 911.
    “Tina, go get me your phone,” Janyce ordered.
    Tina’s phone had a fifty-foot cord on it. She went back to her bedroom to drag it in. Janyce’s eyes trailed Tina down the hallway. Her other three kids were all standing at the back of the hallway screaming, talking, wondering what was happening.
    “Tina, get the damn phone!” Janyce shouted over and over until finally, Tina came back with it. “Get me some towels, get me some towels,” Janyce screamed.
    Though there wasn’t a lot of blood on Aaron’s face, she wanted to use the towels to put pressure on the head wound.
    “Hello, this is 911.”
    “Yes, I need, ugh, help, an ambulance,” Janyce shouted, continuing to apply pressure to the wound. She cradled Aaron in her arms with one hand, while trying to support him with the other. It was a struggle just to keep his 230-pound, six-foot-five body from sagging to the floor.
    The 911 operator, working out of Public Safety’s Central Lane County Communication Center, listened as Janyce described the head injury, then ordered Janyce to “get him on his back.” Aaron was on his side. Janyce’s hands were still preoccupied stemming the blood flow, so she used her legs to flip her son over. That’s when she saw the wound on the other side of his head. That made two, front and back, where someone smashed his head in, Janyce thought.
    “Keep the kids out of here! Keep them out of here!” she screamed at Tina. It was a strange scene, everyone running around wildly like Europeans at a soccer match, Aaron lying on the floor with a serious expression on his unblemished face while a pool of blood formed around his head in a sort of halo that seeped out farther and farther until it reached the vestibule of the doorway. Janyce picked up the phone. The 911 operator was still there.
    “Where are you?” the operator asked calmly.
    “We’re in a panhandle, we’re in a panhandle!” she kept repeating into the phone, and then gave the address. “You can’t see our house from the street, you know, but the address is out there,” Janyce continued, growing hysterical.
    Aaron’s head lolled to the side and Janyce picked it back up, trying to keep his airway open. Putting