Sick & Tragic Bastard Son

by Rowan Massey

  After my talk with mom, I stood in my bedroom, which was tiny and dark. My bed was just a mattress on the ground because I’d ruined my old bed by getting drunk and pissing on it on two occasions, then a friend had jumped on it and broken the frame. Mom had found the thin, used mattress I was currently stuck with at a charity for free.

  I laid down on my back and tried to calm my brain so I could figure out if I’d fucked my father. If I had, I wished Mr. Intimacy could be him. But I remembered that face well, and it hadn’t been. My thoughts were all over the place, too chaotic for me to decide which strains of thought were worth concern. It took a while to start telling myself accidental incest was unlikely. My dad presented himself like an upstanding citizen and probably dated like a hetero, roses, fancy dinners and all, and didn’t get on hookup apps at three in the morning to fuck twinks.

  But there was still a small possibility. If only I could get the faces and scenes sorted out in my head. I didn’t know how orderly other people’s memories and thoughts were, but I wished I had a way to figure it out just like a jigsaw puzzle—every piece in place until I had a definitive, full picture.

  After twenty minutes of laying there, now and then looking at my phone, trying hard to get distracted by memes, I remembered a face. A real one. I could tell it wasn’t one of my fake memories. Yeah, I could say for sure that one random man in particular had been too thin and gray to be my dad.

  God. Shit. One down and how many to go?

  I turned onto my side and tried not to feel sick. The crowded scattering of thoughts and feelings from earlier were morphing into something much more visceral.

  I saw my hand swing up, stabbing an ice pick into my skull through my eye socket, over and over. My brain refused to die despite the assault. It scraped the back of my brain pan. The intrusive image, which had dominated my vision like an overlay for just a few seconds, ended abruptly, and I tried to relax the tightness in my chest.

  Images like that happened all the time, more and more as I got older. I was going fucking crazy. Because it was there on top of my memory issues and vision problems, it scared me. These were the reasons that at all the wrong times I got so restless that it was hard not to scream and sitting still was impossible. The overwhelming violence of the visions was the catalyst every time I went out and did the shit I did. Drugs, drinking, hookups, that was just the most recent stuff I used to calm myself down a little or prevent a breakdown. As a kid, I’d tried dealing with it by abusing the neighborhood cats, dogs, birds, and squirrels, but when I’d escalated to trying to kill a tabby by drowning it in someone’s backyard goldfish pond, I’d chickened out. In that way, I’d discovered that I didn’t actually like hurting animals. I wasn’t psycho. The whole thing with the animals had been to test myself. Something had given me the idea I was a sociopath—maybe that the other kids treated me like I was going to shoot up the school—and I’d just wanted to find out how evil I was.

  I’m not a sociopath, or a psychopath, or schizophrenic, or any of that. I decided that for myself and I’m not going to change my mind. I’m something else. Who knows what. Nobody has money to put my ass in therapy and find out.

  There was a memory I knew was real. The association to my present situation was obvious, but I’d been pushing it away into the far reaches of my consciousness. It wasn’t a good one to go over because there were fake ones mixed up with it that made it even worse. The memory thing was sometimes like cake batter; once you stir that fucker, it doesn’t unstir, no matter how well you know it’s made of separate things like flour and eggs.

  My mom dated a guy for a short time when I was around thirteen. He hung around the house every evening and spent the night with Mom most nights for a few months. One day, Mom was doing dishes off in the kitchen when a song came on the TV and I got up and danced to it. I danced like the girls on the show. It was a night club scene, and it wasn’t innocent dancing. But I was still a relatively sheltered kid back then and I didn’t understand the the moves were feminine and sexual. I was just an energetic kid who couldn’t even sit still to watch TV before dinner.

  He grabbed my arm so hard it hurt and forced me to sit back down on the sofa next to him.

  “What the fuck was that? Why did you dance like that?” He wasn’t exactly angry. He was concerned.

  I just shrugged at him or turned my face away, I can’t remember anymore what I was thinking.

  “Do you know what you looked like? You don’t want people to think you’re some nasty homo and make fun of you, do you, Lysander? Don’t give people a reason to start saying you’re gay.”

  There was some kind of recognition that the word “gay” had something to do with me, but I wasn’t there yet. I don’t think I responded.

  “Do you know what that word means? ‘Gay’?” he’d gone on. “It means when men touch each other sexually. That’s the kind of boy you look like if you dance like a girl. Just don’t dance at all if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Shame.

  This is the point in the story when I remember experiencing embarrassment over being gay for the first time. I didn’t fully understand how being gay worked, or that I really was gay, not just somehow in danger of being associated with the idea of gays.

  He didn’t stop talking. He just kept going on about it, and I got so uncomfortable that I kept looking toward the kitchen door where my mom was frying quesadillas. I shriveled up into the sofa.

  “You know what I mean by ‘sexually’, right? Putting their dicks together, giving each other blow jobs, and you know…” He made a strange gesture with his hands, one I see now as only a blur of fingers. He leaned in a little closer and said in an urgent whisper, a sickened look on his face, “in the butt!”.

  I was thirteen and boners happened all the time. He’d made me picture those scenes vaguely in my head, and there was a familiar warning in my crotch. Instinctively, I grabbed the couch pillow behind me and hugged it onto my lap.

  Instead of hiding my reaction, the pillow drew attention to it. The sight of him drawing away from me in horror and disgust isn’t something I’ll ever forget or mix up, but this is where the fake memories intrude. I don’t know what he actually did or said after that moment, but I know that I later remembered him darting a large hand out, batting the pillow away, and grabbing my crotch, causing me to scream in terror. Now I know the extreme ending to the memory was a fake—maybe a bad dream I’d had soon after the event—but it still makes me flinch to think about it. It leads to all kinds of other intrusive images, like him trying to kiss me or leaning close to my ear to tell me explicit details about gay sex.

  Fuck all of those memories, real or fake.

  The urge to stab myself in the eye and the crawling in my gut built up into an urge to run and scream, to find something I could stab myself with. I grabbed my pillow and tore at it, screamed into it. Pillows don’t muffle screaming enough to keep others from hearing. You have to strangle the sound in your throat, then you can scream all you want. Nobody will hear you.

  It would serve the bastard right.

  A weird rush of clarity and bright calm came over me. That was just it. My dad deserved to deal with the horror of having fucked me. If it had already happened, it was his fault because he’d never seen his own son even once and couldn’t recognize me any more than I could recognize him. It would be a perfect punishment for the man I’d hated all my life. Perfect.

  Fuck, fuck, I hated him. I hated his daughter. I wanted to fuck her too, just to traumatize the whole family. Add in his boyfriend or husband if he had one. I wanted to infiltrate his life and fuck everyone he cared about. Then, I’d tell him what I’d done and laugh for days. I would laugh so hard and long, I’d laugh myself straight into the loony bin.

  The front door slammed. It had to be slammed or it didn’t shut right and couldn’t be locked. My bedroom window had served as a more discreet nighttime exit for a long time. Mom had gone for her shift at the mall. Her working there on holidays meant al
l the difference financially. In another year, I’d be working like that. The thought of it sucked at my soul like the event horizon of a black hole.

  I got to my feet and hurried into the kitchen. My throat was trying to pinch shut, and my breath came in and out in little screeches.

  A knife.

  I want to be Killy again.

  No, no, I couldn’t let myself near a blade. But I wanted a long slice up my arm from wrist to shoulder. The scar would be nice to look at for the rest of my life. I imagined myself at forty— around my dad’s age—smiling down at the nice, long line, remembering a day of being painfully alive.

  That was part of why I didn’t want my insanity to stop, not really, not when I thought about it. In the end, I wanted to keep going the way I was—excruciatingly alive at all times. I loved to feel.

  No, that was backwards. I was a dead thing. A rotting zombie. I was headed for oblivion, and after that, another life, and that was what I’d always desired most; reincarnation into something much better.

  But I managed to take over my actions and retreat back down the hall and into the bathroom where I had preparations for my worst days. I opened the cabinet under the sink and grabbed two handfuls of what I knew I really needed.

  Chains.

  ◆◆◆

  The keys were in the dry bathtub. I’d sent each of them flying and clinking in that direction after locking the little padlocks, chaining myself up. The chains had come from a hardware store years back and were only just thick enough to hold me and not cut into my skin too much. I hadn’t had money for heavy, dramatic links. The locks were at each of my wrists, then one for my ankles, which I’d bound tightly together. Three locks total. I’d looped the chains through the pipes behind the toilet.

  As soon as the last key went flipping through the air, something in me had burst out. The monster knew when it was safe to break free. First went screaming, kicking, pulling at the chains, not to free myself, but to bruise and damage my skin. The world had turned white around the edges. My head had cracked against the wall. My fists had beaten against the inert porcelain of the toilet.

  That had been over in less than ten minutes, then I was left gazing at the dirty floor, detecting spots of urine on the linoleum, and wishing I could come up with a better location for losing my shit. This was only the third time I’d done the whole thing with the chains and locks. It had been the better part of a year since it last happened. I’d been hoping I was getting better.

  Luckily, I had my phone in my pocket, and it was easily reachable. I sat there, ass getting unbearably numb, playing around on Reddit until the battery died. There was nobody to text or call about my situation. I just needed the entertainment.

  Mom usually had eight or nine hour shifts.

  When my battery died, I sang to myself, but that didn’t kill much time. Fiddling with the locks was the only thing left to me. I sucked on them, enjoying the metallic taste and cold, smooth texture on my tongue. I licked the inflamed skin around and under the links.

  It must have been around four hours of sitting there in the silence when my mind launched into a beautiful fantasy. I started planning. The details came to me, one after the other, and I was beyond frustrated that I had no way to write everything down or Google stuff. My arms acted on their own now and then, jerking against the restraints in frustration, making my bruises that much worse. Instead of helping me with my insanity, the chains were starting to trigger it. Being so restricted and in pain made me tense enough that I reached another crescendo, letting myself scream for real while I pounded my head against the wall until the drywall cracked.

  I’d never hatched a plot against someone before—nothing big anyway—and I’d had no idea the activity could be so immersive. My fantasies of getting revenge against Clay Corden were addictive. It was like I’d discovered a riveting video game I could play completely in my head. The whole thing was an awesome adventure land, which I felt I was really fucking good at exploring. My heart thrilled every time I figured out another component. I savored every grandiose scene that played out in my mind’s eye.

  When I heard the muffled sound of the front door cracking inward, I was shocked. I knew Mom was supposed to be gone eight hours at least. Had she come home early, or had time flown by so easily?

  I faintly heard the slap of her purse against the kitchen counter, the clink clink of coffee mugs. She would get her coffee and go out for a couple cigarettes. I would stay put and let her have that bit of relaxation before she had to discover me.

  Minutes later, the glass sliding door to the back patio grumbled open and snapped shut.

  I was grateful towards her for the first time in my life because I was falling in love with the possibility of playing god with my father’s life. What if I’d been raised lovingly and was well adjusted, never a reason to experience the wonderful fantasy that was colorizing my mind? The whole thing made me hot and lightheaded. I felt endlessly thankful to Mom that I’d ended up with certain dark options.

  And she’d been right about the timing. Pulling things off wouldn’t have been feasible a year ago, or when I was a kid. The big plan that had sprouted out of her decisions was giving me a sense of purpose. It was no lifetime goal, no life purpose, but it was something that would take a lot of effort to put into action, and I was excited to put my ideas to the test. Brand new talents were unfolding themselves, revealing all sorts of things I didn’t know about who I was. I was downright cheerful over it. I wasn’t sure how far I could push myself, but maybe I would take my scheme to its ultimate climax.

  I couldn’t help remembering the cat I’d tried to drown. Her claws and teeth had scratched my arms and hands until I’d bled in multiple spots. Her twisting and thrashing had frothed the water. I’d watched her wide, unblinking eyes and brought her a little closer to the surface so I could see them clearly. Goldfish swam around frantically at the opposite side of the pond, so scared they seemed ready to jump out onto the lawn.

  But I’d stopped. I couldn’t end a life. Would it be that way when I tried to…

  Footsteps on the hall carpet. Mom pushed the door open and her arm snaked in to turn the light off. She did a double take when she saw me. We gave each other expectant looks until the surprise melted out of her expression, leaving a blank. This was just more of the same. Her son was her son was her son. Another day, another bit of insanity.

  I nodded my head toward the bathtub and she spotted the keys. She moved slowly to fetch them out, moaning when she had to bend over. Instead of unlocking the padlocks herself, she reached toward me and dropped them into my cupped hands without touching me. I felt like I had leprosy.

  I dropped the keys between my knees, taking one between my fingers. There was enough space between my wrists that it wasn’t hard to release myself. She walked away, probably off to bed.

  As soon as I got my feet loose, I stood and took a piss. Good thing I’d been distracted because being thirsty and hungry was one thing, but needing to piss was another.

  After grabbing a fist full of cheap chocolate pound cake from the kitchen and satiating my thirst with a cupped hand at the dirty sink, I fast-walked to my room and plugged my phone into the wall next to my mattress. I shuffled around in my junk on the floor and found a spiral homework notebook. I needed a book of notes to study so that my lies didn’t fall apart. It would be a challenge with my mind the scrambled mess it was. Jesus Christ, how did people lie about big things, anyway? I had to Google how people got away with lies. Should I write it down in steps, or categories, or both? Whatever. A pen was dug out of my backpack, and I sat cross-legged on my rumpled sheets and started scribbling ideas. If I got it all down while it was fresh, I could organize it in a new notebook later. I hadn’t had a laptop in a few years, but I could take pictures of my organized notes and keep it all on hand to memorize. Once the real life lies got going, I couldn’t let myself forget a single detail. Not for a single second.

  And I would need to practice lying to someone oth
er than my father. My heart skipped a beat at just the thought of meeting him—being just a couple feet away from him, his eyes on me, him seeing me for the first time. What would his expression tell me? What would his voice be like? What would he smell like? Maybe I could find video of him online that would help me with the anxiety of all these little details that I couldn’t help obsessing over.

  Three pages into writing things down and I was getting giddy. I wasn’t sure I’d sleep, not that it mattered. There was no school for another day because of the holiday. I’d Googled a little and copied some techniques off the internet. Next, I wanted to read about some people who pulled off big hoaxes and scams, so I Googled things like “famous liars”, “amazing hoaxes”, and “con men”. Mostly from top ten lists and lists on Wikipedia, I discovered that a ton of famous people had been notorious liars. Benjamin Franklin had created fake news, Frida Kahlo lied about her father’s ancestry, and some old Pope had fathered a bunch of kids. It seemed if you were famous, you could get away with a lot. That wasn’t helpful, since I wasn’t famous and was depending not on fooling most of a crowd, but fooling one person face-to-face. Then, of course, there was the problem that all these stories—all the way from Greek ancients to Hollywood assholes—were about people who had lied but hadn’t pulled it off. Everyone found out, and not because they planned to be caught. I needed a controlled unveiling. Part of my whole plan was to have a big reveal and basically tell on myself, but that couldn’t be allowed to happen until I was prepared for it.