Lana Laws Downing - Jon Teel

The Mystery Boy

August heat shimmered in waves above the cracked asphalt path through the cemetery. Julia willed herself to stand tall as perspiration trickled down her back. Her hair was wet under the flowered straw hat she had bought for the occasion, bowing to the fashion dictates of the women of St. Matthew Zion First Bible Church. Her right hand rested on the bony shoulder of Jon Teel. As she patted him gently, he moved closer to her. There is nowhere else on Gods green Earth that I would rather be, she thought.

The small wood frame church on Bayou Bend Road had been packed for the funeral service, but there were few mourners at the cemetery. Reverend Wylie Pritchard was known for his lengthy graveside eulogies. Today, he did not disappoint, his honey-thick baritone extolling the virtues of a woman who had fostered countless children in her tidy home near the old train depot. Jon Teel, standing beside Julia, was one of her most recent charges. His small body shuddered, but Julia saw no tears.

Local fascination with Jon Teel ran high when he first appeared in Bakerville. He had arrived in Lafayette on a Greyhound bus from Houston. A woman was with him from Houston to Beaumont, but when the bus arrived in Lafayette, no passenger could remember what the woman looked like or when she had left the bus. Jon Teel had slept through her departure. The only clue to the boys identity was a note pinned to his shirt that read: My name is Jon Teel. Send me to Auntie Jones, Sycamore Street, Bakerville, LA.

A local television reporter happened to be at the bus station in Lafayette on the Saturday evening when the bus carrying Jon Teel arrived. The reporter was covering the plight of the many homeless, both men and women, who frequently took shelter in the station. As it became apparent that the boy had been abandoned somewhere between Beaumont and Lafayette, the station attendant came to the bus at the direction of the driver. The two removed the sleepy child, and then called police. The television reporter directed the cameraman to film nonstop until the child was whisked away in the police cruiser. The drama was captured in its entirety by the television cameraman. The reporter knew television gold when he saw it happening, and this was it. The privacy of a minor child did not enter his head, or, worse, if it did, it did not concern him.

Because the events unfolded on a weekend, it was Monday by the time the Department of Children and Family Services became aware of the airing of the story and forced the local station to pull the footage. The damage had been done. Airing such footage of a child was against all departmental policies. The weekend crew at the television station was not well-versed on protecting identities of minors. Although the station quickly pulled the story and issued an apology once they were contacted, it was too late. What had been seen could not be unseen. Jon Teels poignant, pinched face and haunted eyes had captured the hearts of Acadiana. The reporter narrated the story of the lost boy, while video depicted the small, wide-eyed child as a police officer helped him into the back of a big cruiser for the ride to Bakerville.

The boy was little help in locating his family when he was delivered to the doctor and the sheriff awaiting him at the Bakerville hospital, replying to questions about his name with the mumbled reply, My name is Jon Teel.

In an examination room at the hospital, Dr. Elias Christian looked across the top of Jon Teels head, raising his eyebrows at the sheriff. The childs back was mottled with scars, apparently from cigarette burns. His wrists and neck were encircled with raised welts. Both the doctor and the sheriff had seen abused children, but Jon Teel was the worst either of the men had witnessed. And they had not yet viewed his X-rays. The sheriff had little hope that the mystery boy would be claimed. No one would come forward to admit to the horrific criminal offenses the child had suffered. On the other hand, thanks to the Lafayette reporter, the story of the boy had been broadcast far and wide, so there was scant hope of keeping his presence in Bakerville a secret should someone come looking for him.

The boy stoically submitted to the doctors examination but offered no answers. Eyes cast down, expressionless, he made himself as unobtrusive as possible.

How did this mark get on your wrist, Jon Teel? The doctor was gentle with his question, but he was required to ask. The boy shrugged his shoulders in reply.

The most mysterious of his injuries was the absence of the little finger on his left hand. It had healed over, obviously without medical attention, leaving a tiny stump covered with scarred flesh. When asked about the injury, he shrugged his shoulders and murmured, Beast, but nothing more. While Jon Teel waited in the examination room, the doctor and sheriff conferred behind closed doors.

Doc, I gotta tell you. I am going to have nightmares for a long time over what I just saw in there, Sheriff Joe Blanchard said.

I must admit, the gentle doctor replied, it is the worst case I have seen in my career. I would like five minutes alone with the monster who did this to that innocent boy.

We know the boy boarded the bus in Houston. I have been in touch with the sheriff in Harris County, Texas. He has some ideas, but he says we have to tread carefully. If what he suspects is true, this ties in with some really bad hombres involved in the Houston drug trade. The unfortunate television coverage is going to make it hard to keep quiet, but at least we have kept Auntie Jones name out of the news. We have to keep the boy safe. I cant imagine anyone showing up to claim him given that they are sure to be arrested on sight, but you never know what some of those drug lords are capable of doing. They think they are above the law. This was a long speech for the normally taciturn sheriff.

You stay on top of keeping the boy out of harms way, and I will tend to his physical injuries free of charge, the doctor replied.

In the meantime, I will take him over to Auntie Jones and see if she has room. This is our only real clue, and it isnt much to go on.

He held out the rumpled note from the boys shirt, safety pin still attached, encased in a clear plastic evidence bag. They had decided to keep everything the boy had with him in evidence: an extra pair of ragged underwear, the note about Auntie Jones, and two very tattered old childrens books, library discards from Harris County, Texas.

I believe I will ask Auntie to keep him at home as much as possible and not to let on that she has him. I want to keep him as safe as we can manage. He will have to be enrolled in school, but we already have a deputy assigned there.

Silver Spoon

Julia Chandler Hancock stood in the back sunroom of her expansive home gazing down at the Bayou Teche, a milk chocolate stream moving sluggishly along the sinuous track that gave it the Chitimacha name for snake. What was it about small southern towns, Julia wondered, that made them stay the same the more they changed? This town was like the bayou: moving slowly, not easily persuaded from its path, shallow in most places but deep in others. And as thoroughly murky as the intricacies of Bakervilles lore and history, both the true and the fabricated.