Perfect Little Angels

by Andrew Neiderman

The sound of his father’s voice made him spin around, but his father wasn’t in the room. From where was his voice coming?

  He looked around. Was that his father on the television set? He remembered now. When he was very young, perhaps no more than three or four, his father used to place him before the television set and then play the video cassette recorder. His father played tapes he had made of himself speaking to him, teaching him things, telling him things. He was forced to sit there for hours, watching his father on the screen, listening to his words.

  He grew up with this. Through the years, when he returned from school, there were messages and lessons waiting for him on the video cassette recorder. He would get a glass of milk and a box of cookies, and turn on the machine to look at his father and listen.

  The toy girl below had evoked one of those video memories. It was a memory that took him back to when he was a teenager, and his father was complaining about the breakdown of values. His head took up the whole screen, and he was glaring out at him with those magnetic eyes so that he couldn’t turn away from the set.

  “Look at the clothes young girls are wearing. Think about it. They are just discovering themselves, and they are pushing too hard and too fast toward maturity. Parents who permit their daughters to wear suggestive, skimpy clothing like bikinis are only contributing toward the degeneration of our moral values.

  “Don’t have anything to do with such girls. Don’t even talk to them. And never, ever bring one home to meet your mother or me.”

  That wasn’t fair, he thought. He liked those girls; he wanted to bring them home. Other boys weren’t forbidden to spend time with them. Why was he?

  Other boys didn’t have a father in the television set, a father who packaged himself and his ideas to be sold to desperate parents looking for easy ways to raise their children. Other boys didn’t have a father who was in the very walls of their homes, shaking his head in disapproval or nodding in approval, judging, watching, studying their every thought and action.

  He erased the tape. He rewound it and pressed record and left it running, so that when his father came home that day, he discovered that the tape had been ruined.

  He pretended it had happened by accident.

  “You have to be more careful with my things, Eugene,” his father said. He was very understanding about it. One thing about his father, he was very understanding because being understanding was his profession.

  He looked down at the girl again. Didn’t she know his father didn’t approve? Hadn’t her parents played the tape? He knew everyone in the development was given copies of the tapes. In houses throughout Elysian Fields, at a specific time in the early evening, families sat in front of their television sets, and fathers turned on the videotape.

  “Here is a gift from Dr. Lawrence,” they announced, and the tapes were begun. They watched, a captive audience in every sense of the word.

  His father was everywhere; his voice echoed throughout the development, and his image haunted everyone’s mind. So why was this girl sitting out there like that?

  Hey, hey, girl! he thought—or did he call out? She sat up again and looked up at him. Had she heard him? He pulled back from the window, back into the shadows of the room. And suddenly, he was shivering. The sun was beating down outside, and he was shivering.

  Why should I be shivering? he wondered, staring down at his feet.

  The floor of his room had become a pool of icy water gradually turning into a sheet of ice. His feet, in fact, were becoming frozen within it. He moved quickly and rushed to the door. Hard, snowy chunks of ice were running down his walls. He could see little puffs of his breath. His room had been turned into a freezer. He pounded on the door. Someone had to hear him; someone better hear him, or he would die in here, he thought. He had had a dream like this many times before. Remember Bobby Bienstock who did get shut up in his father’s butcher shop freezer? They said he died standing up. He pounded the door again.

  She opened it abruptly and glared in at him. He thought she had a meat cleaver in her right hand. Was he to be butchered now? Was that the plan? That was why his room had been turned into a freezer.

  “No, please, don’t…don’t cut me up and cook me.”

  “What the hell is it now?” she demanded. Then she put her right hand on her heavy hip and smirked. “Your father doesn’t realize the residual effects of the pills. It will be days before you become anything like you were, considering the dosages you were taking.”

  What was all this gibberish? Was she speaking another language? Those foreign words again?

  “No hablas en Espanol,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting the meat cleaver at him. “He wants you to take this pad and write your thoughts on it. I’m giving you a ball-point pen, but if you stick it in any part of your body, I’m warning you…” she said, waving a finger at him. Only it wasn’t a finger, it was a long, thick worm. In fact, it was a leech. He cowered. “Take the pad, damn it,” she repeated.

  He reached out and took the meat cleaver carefully so he wouldn’t cut his hand. Then she put the pen in his other hand. He looked down at it.

  I remember this, he thought. He smiled. I remember this. Words came out of it. He would point it down and words would leak out all over the paper.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked her.

  “Write me a story,” she said. “And don’t forget to start with ‘Once upon a time,’” she added and laughed. “Don’t close this door,” she commanded and turned away. He watched her walk down the hall and turn the corner. Then he went to the desk and put the pad down.

  It had become a pad in his hands. He stared at it a moment, then sat down.

  I remember doing this, he told himself. I remember sitting down with…what is it…in my hand and getting the words to leak out on the paper.

  Words that were called poems when they were all together.

  She liked his poems. He would go to her as soon as he had completed one, and she would say, “Wait. Don’t read it until I close my eyes. I want to envision what you say.” He would wait, and after she closed her eyes, he would begin.

  A moth fell asleep on an unlit light bulb.

  When someone flipped the switch and the bulb lit up,

  The moth thought it had fallen into the sun.

  “I can see that,” she said. “I can see it.” She opened her eyes. “I like it. It’s simple, but it’s beautiful. And it says something.”

  He smiled. She made him want to write another.

  “Leave it, and I’ll show it to your father later,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, don’t be that way. He likes your poetry. Some of it, anyway. He’ll like that one. Leave it, Eugene. Please.”

  He’d left it, but his father had never said anything about it. Some time later, he’d asked him.

  “What moth?” he’d said, looking up from his “official” mail.

  “The one on the light bulb.”

  “What the hell are you talking about now? Listen to me,” his father had said sternly. “I heard today that you have been hanging around with the Fenton boy. That boy’s trouble, the personification of trouble. His parents are both alcoholics. I’ve had sessions with the whole rotten family. Stay away from him, understand?”

  “He likes some of the music I like,” he’d replied.

  “I don’t care. You stay away from him, and never, never bring him to this house.” His father had scowled at him a moment. “Moth…On a light bulb? Go do your homework and forget about moths. And take that pen out of your ear. You look like a stock boy, not a student.”

  A pen. That’s what this was, a pen. And the words didn’t come from it; they came from him, from his mind, down his neck, through his arm, and through his hand and fingers into the pen. Then the pen dropped them on the paper.

  He remembered, and he felt encouraged.

  He started to write.

  “The toy girl like a sponge
soaked up the sun.”

  He liked that. She would like that, too, he thought. He jumped up from his seat and rushed to the door. Nurse had left it open, so he crept out into the hall and turned left.

  She heard him and came after him. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “To show her my new poem,” he said. He rushed into his mother’s room, only she wasn’t there. The bed was stripped. All of her things were gone. The dressers were bare. He looked around stupidly. “What…where is she?” He turned around to face the nurse, who was right behind him. “Huh?”

  “She’s in the ground,” she said. “Where you put her.”

  And suddenly, he wondered why he had a meat cleaver in his hand.

  Justine sat quietly at the dinner table, chewing her food slowly and looking ahead as though she were in deep thought. And yet, she wasn’t in deep thought. Her mind was literally blank. Both her parents ate the same way, staring ahead, chewing slowly. It wasn’t until the phone rang that they all came out of their daze.

  For a moment, no one got up. Then Kevin went to the wall phone. After he said hello, he just listened, cradling the receiver in his hand. Then, he hung up.

  “Who was that?” Elaine asked, smiling when Kevin returned to his seat at the table.

  “Oh, it was Dr. Lawrence inviting us to tonight’s Elysian Field Development Organization meeting at the clubhouse. Seven thirty,” he said.

  “How come you didn’t say anything to him?” Justine asked. “You just listened and hung up.”

  “What do you mean? I thanked him, didn’t I?” He looked to Elaine to confirm it, but she didn’t hear what he said.

  “Wasn’t that nice of him to give us a personal invitation,” Elaine said. Kevin didn’t reply. He continued to eat, lost in his own thoughts. “What should I wear, I wonder.”

  “Wear something blue,” Kevin said, suddenly remembering.

  “Blue? Why blue, honey?” she asked, a slight, inquisitive smile on her face. Kevin paused as if he had forgotten the reason. Then he smiled. Justine thought it was a weird smile, like a little boy.

  “Because Dr. Lawrence said…wear something blue. I’m sure he said that.”

  “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” Elaine said and laughed.

  “What’s that?” Justine asked. Her parents were acting very strange tonight.

  “What you’re supposed to wear on your wedding day.”

  “Well, you’re not getting married to Elysian Fields tonight, are you?” Justine asked. Elaine shook her head.

  “Dear Justine,” she said, reaching across the table and patting her daughter on the top of her hand. “How can a person marry a development?” She looked at Kevin, and they both laughed.

  Confused, Justine tilted her head, then giggled, but she wasn’t really sure why she was laughing. It was as if everything her parents did and felt was contagious. Everyone was just in a silly mood.

  After dinner she helped her mother with the dishes, then went into the den to call Mindy. But when she lifted the receiver and started to dial, she had to stop. She couldn’t remember her best friend’s number. It put her into a panic. She must have called Mindy a thousand times during the last year. How could she forget the number? Struggling to recall, she finally succumbed to defeat and ran upstairs to her room to look it up in her pink leather address book. She found it in her desk drawer. But a strange thing happened when she located Mindy’s number. There was still nothing familiar about it. It was like a brand new sequence of numerals, one she had never used before. How could that be? she wondered.

  Deciding not to think about it anymore, she ran back downstairs to the den, sat behind her father’s dark pine desk in his smooth, black leather swivel chair, and called Mindy.

  “You sound different already,” Mindy said. Justine’s friend had a thin, high-pitched voice, but it had never seemed so annoying as it did at this moment.

  “Why? What’s different?” Justine demanded. She’d never liked criticism, but suddenly she was a great deal more sensitive to it.

  “You sound…stuck up,” Mindy said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Justine replied. She grimaced as if Mindy were there in the room with her. “I’m just bored, that’s all,” she added, slouching back in the chair.

  “No good-looking boys?” Mindy inquired hopefully.

  “Yes, there are a lot of good-looking boys here,” she snapped, then thought, why did I say that?

  “Good. But you better not be lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying. It’s nice here, very nice. The pool’s beautiful, and the grounds are very pretty.”

  “Is it nicer than the city?” Mindy asked sadly. It was as though Justine were betraying her.

  “Yes, in many ways.”

  “You’re stuck up,” Mindy concluded.

  “I am not. Don’t be silly. Have you seen Marty?” she asked, happy she had remembered to ask about him.

  “Yes, I saw him,” Mindy replied quickly. This gave her opportunity to strike back. “And he keeps asking about you. He wants to see you very much.”

  “Maybe he’ll come out here with you,” Justine said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to visit you there,” Mindy said petulantly. “I hate stuck-up kids, and that’s probably what they all are.”

  “No, honest. Please come out,” Justine cried, leaning forward on the desk. “You said you would. My parents aren’t going to let me go into the city. Please,” she pleaded.

  “I’ll see,” Mindy said, deliberately still sounding reluctant. “But Marty probably won’t want to come along. He’s already looking at Dede with desire,” Mindy added, exaggerating her pronunciation of “desire.”

  “But he would like it here,” she said, her voice filled with unexpected enthusiasm. “It’s really beautiful.”

  “You told me that. Jesus.”

  “Well, it is. I can’t help it. I can’t help saying it,” Justine added, as if just realizing it herself.

  “You’re right,” Mindy said. “You must be bored. Look, I gotta go. I’m meeting Colleen and Nancy at Donnie’s house.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’re goin’ to have a good time.”

  “You’ll have a good time here,” Justine said. “It’s very…”

  “I know. It’s very beautiful. Good-bye, Justine. Jesus,” Mindy said and hung up before Justine could reply.

  “But it is very beautiful,” she repeated into the dead receiver. Then she cradled the phone and sat back in her father’s desk chair, staring ahead blankly until her mother appeared in the doorway.

  “How do I look?” Elaine asked. She was wearing a light blue sleeveless cotton dress with a white belt. She had her hair brushed back neatly and pinned. She wore only a touch of lipstick, and no eye shadow or any other makeup.

  “Very nice.”

  “Your father’s wearing a pair of dark blue slacks, a light blue shirt, and his sea blue sports jacket, with his blue Pierre Cardin shoes,” she said, sounding like someone describing a fashion show. “And here he is,” Elaine announced, turning around. Justine’s father appeared at her side. “Doesn’t he look dapper?”

  “Yes, he does,” Justine said. “Mom, do you think I might be able to go into the city to see my friends this weekend? Please?” she said quickly.

  “We’ll talk about it when we return from the meeting,” Elaine said.

  “I’ll take the bus in the morning and come back before supper,” Justine said. “Please?”

  “Kevin?”

  “Well, we might arrange something,” he said. “Let’s talk about it when we come back. Okay, princess?”

  “Okay,” Justine said, recognizing the familiar signals of agreement in her father’s voice. If he didn’t reject something outright, he was susceptible to her pleas. It never failed. “Have a good time.”

  “How can the two best-looking people fail to have a good time?” Kevin said, and Elaine laughed.

/>   Justine watched her parents leave the house. She stood in the doorway until their car disappeared around the corner of Long Street.

  It was easy to see clearly up and down the street, because the powerfully bright streetlights held the darkness at bay. The network of streetlamps created walls of light and, for a moment, she had the sense of being within the walls of a castle or fortress.

  She embraced herself and tried to see beyond the streets, deeper into the heart of the development, but the brightness of the lights made it difficult to see beyond them. She held her hand over her eyes and peered to the right, and then to the left.

  The darkness turned into an oozing black liquid trying to penetrate the shield of light. As the wind moved tree limbs, their shadows slid over the ground toward the wall of light, only to be driven back by the illumination. She waited a moment and listened for some sound of other people, other voices, but there was only the monotonous hum coming from those bright streetlights.

  Bored, she closed the front door and wandered aimlessly through the house. They still hadn’t gotten their television hooked up, so that was out. She thought about going up to listen to her music, but the usual enthusiasm just wasn’t there. She thought about her conversation with Mindy and put all her hope into the possibility of her parents permitting her to go to the city. She was confident now that if they returned from their meeting in a good mood, she could continue to pursue the idea and get them to agree.

  She went to the rear of the house, to her mother’s art studio. The canvas on the easel held the beginnings of a painting. She stared at it a moment, then went to the window and looked out. Her mother was painting a landscape of the grounds behind the house, but she had also included the house on the hill. In her drawing, it loomed much larger than it really was. Justine was surprised at the minute details her mother had included, especially details of the house. The painting looked more like a photograph.

  She moved on, passing through the kitchen to go back to the living room. She flopped in her blue, cushioned chair and stared out the picture window until she saw the figure of a girl approaching the house. Happy for some company, she got up quickly and went to the door before the girl even had a chance to press the buzzer. It was Lois Wilson.