“Freak by Night 12: Trapped in the Closet”
My son Savion and I had been close since he was a toddler; however, when his mother and I divorced and he came to live with me full-time at age fourteen, our bond became strained. My ex-wife was in the military and she had to move around the world multiple times due to her military duties; therefore, we both came to the conclusion that Savion should stay with me in Silver Spring, Maryland. Savion wasn’t acting out or getting into trouble in school but he did begin to disrespect me and he stopped talking to me about things going on in his life. By the time he was eighteen and a senior in high school, we were barely saying two words to each other every day. And his behavior was becoming stranger and stranger.
I guess I let a lot of his behavior slide because I understood why he was upset. His parents had divorced and he only got to see his mother every now and then. It didn’t help when she got engaged to another man and became pregnant by him. Savion rarely spent time at home and when he did, it was always in his room. The thought of him being on drugs crossed my mind a few times and led me to do what I eventually ended up doing. One weekend, I decided to fake going out of town overnight on business so that I could install a camera in his room to see what he’d been up to.
“He thinks I’m out of town until tomorrow,” I said to my friend Larry over the phone. “I parked my car at the city park a few blocks away and walked here. I’m gonna know every single thing he does by watching him on the camera feed. If that boy is on drugs, he’s getting out of my house.”
“I doubt it’s drugs, Solomon,” Larry said on the other end. “Did you make sure to hide the camera?”
“Yeah. It’s hidden in between some of his coats hanging up in the closet. See, his closet has a two-way mirror. Outside of the closet, it’s a standard mirror. But from inside, you can see all of his room through the glass. All of the bedroom closets in this house are like that.”
Larry laughed and said, “Damn. That’s convenient.”
“I know. But I’ll talk to you later, man. I gotta head down to the basement before he gets here and knows I lied about being out of town.”
“Alright. Later, man.”
“Later.” I ended the call and then turned off the lights in Savion’s room before stepping out of it. I was about to go downstairs but suddenly remembered that I’d left my other phone—the one I was going to use to watch the camera feed—in the hall bathroom. I’d been using my work phone to talk to my friend Larry with. So, I hurried inside the bathroom to grab my personal cell phone.
Me (Solomon Armstrong)
When I stepped back out of the bathroom, I heard the sound of the front door opening and closing downstairs. Savion had gotten home before I could hide in the basement! Not knowing what to do, I quickly turned off the bathroom and hallway lights and went back into his room as he was coming up the stairs. I closed his door and made my way through the dark to his closet. I hid inside without a second to spare before he walked into the room.
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