He stopped reading and thought about their relatively recent conversation about Helen Keller and the way she had related her father in his present condition to Helen Keller’s condition. Then he looked at Lois’s conclusions concerning isolation and behavioral modification.
“It would be possible,” she wrote, “under the most ideal control conditions during isolation to modify an individual’s bodily functions and even command the functioning of involuntary muscles. In effect, behavioral modification might someday be utilized to change man’s inherent nature or change it to fit new environmental conditions. It is even possible to consider that total control of bodily behavior could someday be used to force the body to cure itself of any disease or malfunction.”
“My God,” he muttered, “she’s using her invalid father to prove one of her own theories. She’s made the entire house into her laboratory and her family into guinea pigs.”
16
Dorothy’s eyes snapped open. She blinked quickly and looked around the room. The late summer twilight told her it was around seven thirty. The rim of the disappearing sun threw longer shadows over the walls. The breeze had turned cooler, lifting the cotton curtains away from the opened windows. She rubbed her cheeks vigorously and sat up in bed, listening. Thank God there was no sound of the gong. She heard the sound of passing cars, but other than that, the house was remarkably quiet.
Her head felt so heavy and she experienced such a deep weakness throughout her body that she contemplated lying back again. But her mind was clearing and she fought off the urge to close her eyes. It seemed to take all of her concentration to do so. As she focused in on everything, she became more and more disgusted. The room was just a mess. Her reflection in the mirror above the dresser to her left reported even more frightening news. Could that really be she? She ran her hand through her hair to prove her eyes were right. What was she doing? What the hell was she doing?
She stood up abruptly and caught hold of the bedpost to steady herself. The dizziness did not leave quickly, so she held on and kept her eyes closed. Finally she got her breath back. Now she realized how dry her mouth and her throat were. She looked about for something to drink. There were glasses everywhere. Most were filled with a pale yellow liquid that she recognized as flat soda and booze. The odors turned her stomach. It churned in actual pain. Finally, she found a glass of plain water and sipped it, despite its flat taste. Then she looked down at herself. How long had she been wearing this same nightgown? It was stained by spilled drinks and foods. Had she eaten?
When had she eaten last? She couldn’t remember. In fact, she couldn’t remember when she had come into the room to lie down. It seemed to her she had been in this room for days. Could that be? She looked at the television set on the small end table to the right of the bed. She recalled watching one of her serial programs, but the plot details were confused. It was then that she realized she actually didn’t know what day it was. Could it be the weekend?
This was ridiculous. This was really ridiculous. She would shower and get dressed; she would fix her hair as well as she could; she would put on some makeup. What she needed was some fresh air and a substantial meal. She flipped on the room light and immediately brought her hands over her eyes. Why were they aching so? This had to be the worst hangover ever. She experienced nausea and dizziness again and could only wait for it to pass. As soon as it did, she went to the closet and took out one of her nicer skirt and blouse combinations. She rifled through the dresser drawers, looking for a clean bra and panties. Once she found them, she pulled off the nightgown roughly and threw it on the bed. Everything in this room would have to be washed.
What about herself? She should take a shower first, shouldn’t she? she thought. There was some reason why she didn’t want to, something that prevented her from going into the master bedroom’s bathroom and showering. … It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Greg.
She stood there, naked, holding her undergarments against her body, straining to remember everything. It was as though she had had a series of nightmares and was now trying to distinguish between what was real and what was illusion. Gradually, each thing came back to her.
For the longest time, it seemed (she really didn’t know exactly how long), she hadn’t wanted to leave this room. Greg’s room was painted that disgusting shade of green, and there were those odors. Downstairs, Lois had animals everywhere. There was that thing in the living room—Billy’s box of worms. Ugh. How had she permitted it? She couldn’t even remember the circumstances leading up to it, but she vaguely recalled there were some promises, something had been exchanged.
And the study … all those creatures. The house smelled. And every time she left her room and began to demand that Lois clean out those vermin, something went wrong with something. The last thing she could remember was that business with the fuses. Yes, that was what drove her up here most recently.
She had decided to go downstairs determined to recuperate, to eat a good meal, to straighten herself out and make a serious decision about Greg’s continued stay at the house. Lois knew she was coming down for a showdown. She had told her to prepare for it. When she got up and switched on the bed lamp, however, nothing happened. She imagined it had blown a bulb. Moving carefully in the darkness, she found her robe and slippers. She’d never walk out there barefoot since she had seen those mice eating right by her bedroom door.
It was about eight or nine o’clock. She couldn’t find her watch, but she estimated the time. When she opened her bedroom door, she was angered because no hall light was on above the stairway and no light was on in Greg’s room. She moved along the wall and stopped at the top of the stairs to call down.
“Lois? Lois, is there any reason for no lights? I turned on the switch, but the light doesn’t work up here. Lois? Lois?”
The glow of a single candle cast an enormous distorted shadow over the walls before her. She stepped back in surprise. Billy’s little face, illuminated by the tiny flickering flame just beneath his chin, appeared. His eyes seemed to absorb the light. Dorothy gasped and brought her hands to her neck.
“Lois is outside, Mommy.” The excitement in his face made him appear even more grotesque and devilish.
“Outside? What is she doing outside? Why are you holding a candle?”
“She’s looking for a fuse box. Nothing works down here. All the lights are off and the refrigerator and—”
“Oh, God, no. What makes her think the fuse box is outside? I don’t think it’s outside.” She descended the stairs carefully. Just as she got to the bottom, Lois appeared, flashlight in hand. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. All our electricity went off. I thought the box was outside, but it’s not. Do you know where it is?”
“I don’t know anything about fuse boxes,” Dorothy said. She rubbed her forehead. There was this continual aching behind her eyes.
“Maybe we should ask Daddy,” Billy said.
“You know, that’s an idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. Here, Mom,” Lois said, handing her the new fuses. “I’ll go up and try to get the correct information from him. Go with Billy and light another candle.”
Dorothy took the fuses reluctantly as Lois went up the stairs. She followed Billy into the kitchen and lit another candle. She started to look about the kitchen for something to eat and then realized she couldn’t cook anything because the stove was electric.
“Mom.”
“Yes.” She looked toward the stairway.
“I’ve got it through the process of elimination. It’s in the cellar right behind the staircase. Just be careful.”
“I never did this before.”
“All you do is screw out the old one and screw in the new one. It’s easy.”
“Why can’t you do it, Lois?”
“Daddy needs bathroom. You want to do his bathroom or do the fuses?”
“Damn this house,” Dorothy said.
“Should I help you?” Billy asked.
“Just stand at the top of the stairs so your candle will throw down some more light,” she said, going to the cellar door. She opened it to pitch darkness. Her candle threw barely enough light to show her the way down. She held on to the banister with her left hand and moved sidewise down the steps, inching on and off each one like an old woman. The odor of dank wood and stone rose to greet her as she approached the bottom.
“Want me to come down now?” Billy asked.
“No, just keep your light where it is.”
She felt for the fuses in her bathrobe pocket and turned to go behind the stairs. When she reached the wall, she moved the candle in small circles to wash the darkness away and find the fuse box. She had just discovered it when she heard the first flapping of wings. They sounded soft and close. She turned with a small smile of surprise and the bat flew right past her head, its wings nearly grazing her cheek.
Screaming, she dropped the fuses and backed against the side of the stairway; Suddenly the basement seemed to be filled with bats. There were wings flapping everywhere. She raised her arms to protect herself, and the abrupt movement blew out the candle. The darkness closed in instantly, bringing with it horrifying images of bat faces with vampire teeth. She flared out wildly, and the sound of flapping wings became louder and more frequent. She flung the candle into the blackness and turned to grope her way back along the staircase to the steps. Now she was sorry she hadn’t had Billy come down farther.
Just before she reached the first step, however, his candle went out and the upstairs door closed. She stood like one confronting her own sentence of death.
“Billy? Billy! Billy, open the cellar door!” She heard nothing but the flapping of bats’ wings.
Totally terrified, she went forward, tripping over the first step and catching herself just before her face smashed down into the second. On her hands and knees, she began to claw her way back up the staircase, whimpering and screaming as she slipped and scraped her knees. She felt a splinter pierce her right palm, but she didn’t stop to pull it out. Just as she reached the next-to-top step, the cellar door opened wide and Lois directed her flashlight into her face.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
“Bats, bats, BATS!” she screamed, frozen on all fours. Lois reached down and took her by the upper right arm, guiding her into a standing position and through the doorway. Billy stood cowering in the hallway, his face full of fear. “Why’d you put out your candle and shut the door?” she screamed. He started to cry.
“He got frightened by your screaming, Mother. Don’t yell at him; he’s terrified enough as it is.”
“He’s terrified? He’s terrified? What do you think I am? I thought we got rid of those bats. I thought we got rid of them.”
“Apparently others found their way in here. They’re harmless, believe me.”
“Oh, God, I feel like I’m going to faint. I’m all banged up. I think my hand is bleeding.” Lois directed the flashlight to it and they found a big splinter still embedded. Lois pulled it out quickly.
“Where are the fuses,, Mother?”
“I don’t know. When that bat flew into me, I dropped them. Somewhere near the box. Oh, my God, my God, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?”
“Just come into the kitchen and sit down. Billy, you stay with her. I’m going down to get the fuses and change them. The lights will come on instantly.” Lois spoke with her usual matter-of-fact, calm tone, and, as usual, the contrast made Dorothy aware of her own hysteria even more. She pressed her hands against her temples and shook her head.
“I can’t live like this. I can’t live like this.”
“Calm down, Mother. As soon as I get the electricity back on, I’ll get you a tranquilizer. Come into the kitchen now, come,” Lois commanded, pulling her forcefully toward the kitchen door.
Billy followed reluctantly. “I wanna go down with you,” he said.
“Just stay with her. It’ll only take me a few seconds.”
She left them both in the darkness—Dorothy sobbing and Billy, still terrified, hugging himself and pressing his body against the kitchen wall. In moments the lights came back on. When Billy saw his mother’s condition, he began to cry even more. The sides of her face were streaked with soot. Her hands were black and her robe was torn at the left pocket. There was a long scrape down the side of her left calf.
“Well, that was easy enough,” Lois said, coming up from the cellar. “I’m afraid you imagined that stuff about bats; Mother.”
“Imagined? What do you mean, ‘imagined’? I heard them. I saw one come right near my face and nearly strike me.”
“That’s highly unlikely. They have a sonar that makes collision impossible. I see no signs of any bats. They would have been revealed instantly when the lights came back on.”
“Don’t tell me there are no bats down there!” she screamed. Her body shook with the effort. Billy moved away, his eyes wide with terror. “I saw them; I saw them!” She pounded the kitchen table with her fist. Lois remained calm, staring at her. She was inscrutable. Dorothy began to gag and cough.
“You’re just working yourself up for nothing. Everything’s under control now.”
“Under control?” She gave a maddening laugh and turned to Billy, who inched away. “Under control? My husband’s a vegetable upstairs; the house is filled with animals; everything’s falling apart; and you say, ‘under control’?” She laughed again and then broke into sobbing.
Lois walked to the cabinet above the sink. Opening it, she revealed an entire bottom shelf covered with various bottles of pills. She took out a bottle on the right and shook a pill into her right hand. Then she filled a glass with water and brought it to her mother. Dorothy looked up hesitantly for a few moments. Lois did not move. Her hand was frozen in front of Dorothy’s face. Her mother took the pill quickly and gulped it down.
“There, now you’ll feel better and get over this.”
Dorothy only shook her head. Lois put the glass into the sink, closed the cabinet door, and helped Dorothy to her feet.
“I wanted to come down and get myself back together again,” she said.
“You will. You will. Take a rest now and you’ll feel better later.”
“What else can go wrong? What else?”
“These things are all minor, Mother. We can handle them.”
“We can’t, we can’t. That’s why I wanted to discuss sending your father back to the hospital. It’s too much, too much.”
Lois continued to move her to the stairs and up to her room again.
“We’ll discuss it as soon as you get back on your feet. In the meantime, I’ll take care of everything.”
“I don’t want to send him back. It’s not something I like doing.”
“Of course not.”
They paused at Greg’s doorway. Dorothy looked in, her face crumpling again.
“Such a nightmare, such a terrible life.”
“For all of us, Mother. For all of us.” She guided her away from Greg’s doorway and into her own bedroom. After she had her covered and in the bed again, she went out and got a washrag and a towel. Then, cleaning her the way she would a small child, she wiped away the soot and dirt. She disinfected her scraped leg but decided it didn’t require any bandaging. All the while, Dorothy lay there with her eyes closed, permitting herself to be turned and twisted like a helpless invalid. Afterward, Lois stepped back.
“Just sleep now, Mother. Rest.”
“We’ve got to do something. It can’t go on,” Dorothy mumbled, her eyes closed.
“We will. We will,” Lois said. She put out the lights and closed the door, leaving her fo a drugged sleep.
Now that she recalled the most recent reason for her retreat to the bedroom, Dorothy hesitated at her door. Her hand actually shook when she touched the knob. She envisioned every part of the house closing in on her. It became a surrealistic hallucination. The stairway buckled and twisted like a big snake; it was just
waiting for her to step onto it. The living room was covered with worms. The furniture was eaten away by maggots. Billy stood submerged in a pool of them, dipping his hands into the rubbery, flesh-colored creatures as though he were splashing in a pool. There were rats everywhere, nibbling on the carpet, burrowing into the walls—little white rats with pink watery eyes, their bodies twitching from the periodic electric shocks Lois sent through their brains. And the bats were at the cellar door, gnawing away at the lock, working their way up and out into the house.
She drew her hand away from the doorknob quickly. Had she felt an electric shock? Did Lois have the entire house wired? The building had become a giant maze. She imagined her daughter peering in at her through some newly drilled hole in the wall or ceiling. She was studying her reactions, waiting to see her decisions and choices. She felt under glass.
Spinning around wildly, she searched the walls, studied the crevices. She felt the floor throbbing under her feet. When she closed her eyes, colors began flashing with lightning jolts behind the lids. All of the hues quickly merged into that sickly green she hated so much, the shade that Lois had painted on the walls of Greg’s bedroom and on the hallway walls.
She seized her own throat; it felt as though it were closing in on itself, choking her. She couldn’t swallow. Maybe there was something in the air, something Lois had released through the door-lock keyhole. If she listened hard, she could hear a slight fizzing—or was that her own brain burning? Her head felt so hot. She needed air, fresh air. She had to get out, escape.
With paranoia gripping her from every direction, she wrapped a soiled towel around her right hand and went to the doorknob again. She turned it slowly and opened the door inch by inch. It was as though she thought the house would come rushing in on her, as though she had opened the door of a packed closet and was about to be covered by little animals, electric wires, vials of chemicals. She actually stepped away from the opened entrance and paused. Satisfied her first step had gone well, she threw the towel to the floor and peered out at the hallway.
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