by Jon Bassoff
“A simple operation, really. I pull the handle of the instrument as far laterally as the rim of the orbit will permit to sever fibers at the base of the frontal lobe. Now watch as I return the ice pick halfway to its previous position and drive it farther to a depth of approximately seven centimeters from the margin of the upper eyelid…. Please pay attention, because now comes the ticklish part. Arteries are within reach. Careful, careful. Keeping the instrument in the frontal plane, I move it fifteen degrees medially and thirty degrees laterally, return it to the mid-position, and withdraw it with a…twisting movement. But this is crucial! I must exercise considerable pressure of the eyelids to prevent hemorrhage. Watch me, ladies and gentlemen. Almost finished. There. And now the other eye.”
As the ice pick jammed into his eye socket and sliced into his diseased brain, Donald Stanton squeezed his hands into fists, kicked his legs against the restraints, and lolled his tongue in his mouth. There was more bleeding than usual, and Freeman’s face was etched in concern as he used handkerchief after handkerchief to wipe away the blood from Stanton’s face and neck.
But soon the ice pick was removed from the skull and Freeman handed it to Edgar to clean, which he did—smoothing it against his suit pants. Freeman rose and stood over Stanton and nobody knew if he was dead or alive. At the behooving of Freeman, the freaks released the Messiah and he crawled over to Stanton, his own body nearly as battered and bloody as his father’s.
Durango placed his hand on the old man’s cheek, and then the tears rolled down his eyes. “My father, my father!”
“But your father is cured!” Freeman shouted into the megaphone. “The operation was a complete success! The connection between the frontal lobe and the thalamus has been severed. Those agitations, those depressions, those delusions, that once traveled through a neural pathway have been destroyed. You shall see, people, his transformation within minutes! Indeed, once the anesthesia wears off, this man will awaken and all of those past derangements will be ceased forever!”
The crowd got bigger and bigger, and now the promoter of the carnival, a terribly obese man with a crooked mustache and a too-short tie, appeared telling people to disperse, please disperse, and some did, but most stayed, including the freaks who danced and sang and laughed and, in the case of the dwarf know as Tom Thumb, urinated from the stage, causing reputable ladies to duck for cover.
And the amount of time is difficult to determine, but it wasn’t much more than ten or twenty or thirty minutes before Donald Stanton opened his eyes and sat up, gazing at the grotesqueness and madness all around him. Then he saw his son and blinked, once, twice, three times before nodding his head slowly. “My son,” he said. “My son, forever.”
Dirty tears rolled down the boy’s cheeks and his voice was damaged by sobs. “Father, oh, Father. Now you awaken. And whom do you see before you? A Messiah? The King of the Jews? Or just a boy?”
The people got quiet, even the freaks, because his answer would determine if he was cured, his answer would determine the level of madness, if any, that still remained in that soul, now shriveled to the size of a raisin.
The old man licked his lips, coated with dry blood, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet and gentle, a voice Durango hadn’t heard in so many years. “A boy,” he said. “Only a boy.”
Chapter 17
Outside the swallows were chirping, but inside the railroad shack Scent was yanking at her mother’s varicose-veined leg, trying to pull her off the filthy bed. Baby still had some strength left and she managed to grasp a hold of the bedpost and hang on all the while moaning, moaning.
“Time’s up, you haggard old bitch!” she shouted. “Show me where you and the old man hid the money.”
“Oh, please, Scent! Not this way! Don’t treat your mother this way!”
Enough of this, Scent crawled onto the bed, her wild hair flapping over her face, and started peeling her mother’s fingers away from the bedpost, one by one. Take the fingernails off if she could. Baby yelped in pain and Scent called out, “Bitch! Bitch!” Eventually Scent got her to the jagged hardwood floor, Baby crying and crying. She grabbed a handful of hair and started dragging her toward the door.
“I can’t wait anymore,” Scent said. “Not one minute more. You show me where the money is, or else, or else…”
But Baby was stubborn as hell, and she zipped her lips but fast. Scent felt that rage bubbling in her gut, and she visualized the fat man and all that blood, and she had the notion to do the same to her mother, who was nothing to her, a worthless piece of outhouse crap. But no, that wouldn’t do. First the money. Everybody talked, eventually. She wished she had the stomach to torture: the Judas Cradle or Brazen Bull or Iron Maiden. But Scent was too damn kindhearted, so she’d have to be more moderate in her pressure. Moderate but persistent. She let go of her mother’s hair and helped her back to the bed. She could see in her mother’s eyes gratitude, and that made it all the more pathetic. Baby pulled the cover up to her chin, gripped her teddy bear, and sucked her thumb. She eyed her daughter, waiting for the next outburst.
Scent sat down on a rickety metal chair and glared at her mother with her torn wedding dress and her wild hair. A lunatic, pure and simple.
“Don’t you see, Mom? Don’t you see the way we’re living? Cabbage and potatoes for lunch? Spam for dinner?”
“It’s not so bad, Scent.”
“Oh, but it is! Do you know what it’s like allowing a man who smells of pig guts to spill his sex all over me? Do you know what that’s like?”
“You’re a beautiful young woman, dear.”
“I’m a whore! Because of you!”
But Baby only smiled, her teeth cracked and missing. She reached beneath her pillow and pulled out a crumpled photograph. It was a photograph Scent had seen many times. A photograph of her father, looking splendid in a three-piece suit, his eyes twinkling devilishly. Baby lovingly touched the photograph with her index finger and then closed her eyes, placed it against her chest.
“He’s coming, he’s coming,” Baby said.
“No. He’s not.”
“Oh, but Scent. If you had only met him. He was such a gentleman. Always took his hat off inside. Always kept his mustache neat and trimmed. He’d visited France and Portugal. And he loved me so.”
At this Scent shook her head and sighed, air blowing through her nostrils. “Then why’d he leave then? Why’d he leave?”
Baby pulled down the covers a bit, and Scent noticed that a clump of her hair was lathered in blood. From the nails on the floor, probably. But Baby wasn’t bothered by pain, never had been. She was living in her own world of delusion and that was a better world, wasn’t it?
“Why, the authorities were after him. We hid the money and he told me to wait for him. Told me not to spend a single dime. But you know all that, darling.”
Scent slumped into a rusted chair and pulled her tobacco hair from her brandy eyes. When she spoke, her voice had lost its edge and was filled instead with resignation. “He ain’t coming back, Mama. You gotta know that. He’s probably dead or in prison. But that money…”
That evening Scent drank two-dollar bourbon and plenty of it, but she didn’t get drunk. Durango, she thought about Durango, and how love was all she needed, all that really mattered. But she feared that misery would eventually infect the stem of her brain and eventually spread to her soul. Her life wasn’t much, and she’d be willing to take it by blade or gun or pill or leap.
And then later, as the bone moon appeared in that dying sky, Scent heard the pitter-pat of footsteps outside her room. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, she opened the door a crack, and there she saw her mother creeping across the floor, kerosene lantern hanging from her wrist, shadows lengthening and shortening on the walls.
“The hell is that bitch doing?” Scent whispered to her hand and then she gulped down some more bourbon, her throat raw and damaged.
Baby came to the end of the hallway and, placing the lantern on the ground, opened up the close
t door. After rattling through a mess, she pulled out a short ladder. She spread the ladder open, grabbed the lantern, and climbed upward. On the ceiling was an attic door Scent had never before noticed. All these years, and she’d never seen it! With a yank, the door dropped open, becoming three stairs against the wall. Up Baby climbed, up, and then she disappeared into the ceiling. Scent opened the bedroom door and tiptoed to where her mother had ascended, the wooden floor releasing a low groan. She stopped and stared up the flight of rotting stairs. The door was open a crack, and the light was on. She heard a strange thumping sound, followed by a low groan. Scent just stood there, her breath caught in her throat, her eyes unable to blink. Then, not five minutes later, the floor above creaked and Baby descended the stairs, her gray hair falling down the back of her flannel nightgown, looking something like an apparition. A lovely shot of giddiness and revulsion shot through Scent’s veins. Baby glanced behind her shoulders, but Scent was hidden in the shadows. She stopped breathing and her mother didn’t see her. As Baby continued down the stairs, Scent had to suffocate the laughter rising up inside her.
She lay in her bed, on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the lovely smell of money. She’d wait until she was sure the old bitch was asleep and then she’d sneak into the attic and find where she’d hidden that cash. Then she’d tiptoe into Baby’s room and press a pillow against her face, because she couldn’t bear to see her mother’s expression. A girl killing her own mother! And then the crazy bitch could meet her old man. In hell.
The only sound was the wind howling and a dog dying. Time ticked forward too slowly, and when it was past two o’clock, Scent sat up in bed. She saw her reflection in the mirror and wondered how many people were inside of her skin. The last swig of bourbon, and she rose to her feet and walked across the darkened room, black clouds shielding the moonlight.
Down the hallway she walked, and then she twisted the handle of her mother’s room and slowly pushed open the door. The door moaned, but Baby didn’t stir, her breath loud and rhythmic. She gripped her teddy bear tightly. Her eyes were open, but she always slept with her eyes open, irises darting back and forth across her skull.
Five, ten minutes Scent stood there watching her mother sleep, making sure she didn’t stir, making sure she didn’t rise. Satisfied, she left the room and walked back down the hallway, her vision obscured by murder and money.
As her mother had done, Scent opened the closet door and removed the ladder. She placed it against the wall and climbed, her body trembling with excitement. She grabbed the handle and yanked and the stairs fell flat against the wall. Her feet filthy with the day’s dirt, Scent pulled herself up the stairs and into the attic.
She turned on her penlight, dust swirling in the narrow beam. The attic was stuffed full with junk from another time. A mannequin, a bowling ball, a sewing machine. Wigs, magazines, dresses. A mouse scurried across the floor and disappeared beneath a rocking chair. The floor creaking beneath her feet, Scent took steps slowly, waving her penlight around, until she saw the form of a big black chest. She got down on her knees and touched the chest. It couldn’t be opened, though. Not with the padlock secured on the latch. Scent cursed and bit her lip. She yanked on the padlock but there was no point. She needed the key.
And she knew where it was.
Back in her mother’s room and she hadn’t moved an inch. Her eyes remained open, though, and that was disconcerting. Beneath the neckline of her nightgown she could see the cross glimmering, and right next to that the key.
Wait till tomorrow, she thought, but she knew she wouldn’t.
“Mother,” Scent whispered, just to test the depth of her slumber. No movement. Hands trembling, she placed her thumb and forefinger on the chain, searching for a clasp. Baby groaned and then smacked her mouth as if she was thirsty. Scent remained frozen, her fingers touching the chain, but too scared to move.
Seconds ticked away and Baby didn’t wake. Gaining courage, Scent fingered the chain until she found the clasp. She brought her other hand forward and tried unlatching the necklace, but her hands were shaking too much. A few deep breaths and a whispered prayer, and she managed to pull the necklace apart. Slowly, a millimeter at a time, Scent pulled the key toward the end of the necklace. Baby’s breathing became irregular and she began whispering. “Henry, Henry. Oh, my sweet Henry.”
Talking in her sleep, that was all. Scent finally got the key off the silver chain and grasped it between her fingers. But as she moved to reattach the necklace, she felt her mother’s bony fingers gripping her wrist.
In horror, she gazed into her mother’s eyes, but they looked the same as before: dead to the world. Scent reached across her body and peeled her mother’s fingers from her wrist. With adrenaline coursing through her veins, she exited the room and made her way back to the attic…
At first the key didn’t fit and Scent had to jiggle it around to get the trunk open. She realized that she wasn’t breathing and exhaled quickly. That money, that kind of money…
She aimed the penlight inside the trunk, her eyes widening. The trunk was filled with envelopes, a hundred of them at least. Perhaps each of them was filled with twenties, or maybe hundreds.
Skin itching to the bone, she picked up one of the envelopes. On the front in voluminous handwriting: For Baby.
Outside the wind blew, knocking tin cans to the pavement. The moment upon her, Scent slid a finger beneath the flap and pulled the envelope open. But there was no money. Just a piece of stationery paper, folded into fourths. Frowning, she unfolded the paper and read the letter:
Baby,
Since I’ve gone, don’t you know that minutes seem like hours and hours seem like days? But don’t worry, don’t worry. It won’t be long now. One day you’ll be sitting in your parlor and you’ll hear a knocking on that front door, and when you answer, it will be me. And we’ll stay in each other’s arms forever. Oh, Baby, I miss you so. Each night I stare into the black sky and I see that China moon and I know your blue eyes are staring at the same thing…
They’ve hurt me bad, Baby, but they won’t prevent me from coming home and taking you away. Those days in the hole—no light, no food, no sound—the only way I kept my sanity, the only way I didn’t explode into a million pieces, was to visualize your beautiful face.
Wait for me.
Wait for me.
Wait for me.
Henry
Her lower lip trembling, her fingers suddenly gnarled, Scent reached into the trunk and picked out another envelope. The same handwriting. And inside, another letter. Another love letter. Droplets of rage, and she opened another envelope and then another. All the same. Sickening love letters. No cash. She wanted to scream, she wanted to howl at the moon. But most of all, she wanted to strangle her mother, that crazy old bitch.
Because the handwriting wasn’t her father’s. The handwriting was Baby’s.
Chapter 18
After the surgery, Donald Stanton took to sitting in the forest, staring straight ahead, drool covering his chin. Hygiene wasn’t a concern, and Stanton would sit in his own piss and shit until Durango would finally clean him.
On one occasion Durango went to the motel and pounded on the door, shouting that his father was badly damaged, but Freeman merely peeked through the chained door and repeated, “He is cured, he is cured, and soon the world will be cured.”
And perhaps he was cured. Because now there was no more talk of his son the Messiah. There was no more preaching at the carnival. In fact, after Stanton had uttered the phrase “Only a boy,” he hadn’t spoken another word, not a single one.
Durango wouldn’t abandon his father, though. He sat by his side and fed him berries he’d picked and canned food he’d stolen. He’d found a book in a gutter—Moby Dick—and he did his best to read that to his father despite the occasional stutter, despite the words he couldn’t read at all. When he was tired of reading, he told his father about Scent and how she was a beautiful girl and how the
y were going to get married, maybe. The old man looked at him with that empty expression and opened his mouth a crack, lips trembling, but, again, no words.
It was strange talking to somebody who was there, but not really. And because he knew the old man wouldn’t/couldn’t answer, he started asking him about his mother. Because he missed her terribly, even though he’d barely known her. There were so many questions about her life, and so many more about her death. Now, he thought, he was old enough to understand. Whenever he mentioned her name, there was a flicker of life in his father’s eyes, unresolved pain in his facial muscles. “Tell me about her, Dad. Was she pretty? Did she love me? Did she love you? Describe her laughter, her tears. Describe her death. Did she feel terrible pain?”
No answers, no answers, so Durango went into the tent and slept, while his father remained outside, sitting cross-legged on the dirt, staring at the inside of his own skull.
That night, Durango dreamed terrible dreams of death and destruction and damnation. Jagged screams and tortuous fires. And in one dream he came face-to-face with the devil, but instead of a pitchfork he carried an ice pick, and his father whispered in his ear, “I told you, boy. I told you, boy. I told you, boy.” Durango’s eyes opened, but the voice remained. He wasn’t dreaming anymore. On his hands and knees, he crawled out of the tent and back into the blackened forest.
And Stanton stood on a slanted boulder, motionless, eyes gazing into the darkened mist. His shirt was removed and his chest and arms were covered with welts, a possible self-flagellation. His lips moved rapidly, as if he were reciting a prayer. Durango watched him from a distance, frightened. Soon the old man’s eyes shut and Stanton raised a fist toward the rusted sky. And then he spoke, his first words in such a long time…