She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies)

by Adams Irish, Travis

  “Hello, Julia, I’m Doctor Wellsly, your therapist,” the heavy man announces with a fake smile, “this video is here to help you with a technique called repetitive assimilation. I know you’re probably watching this thinking that John is going to be home soon… You probably thought this video was some type of romantic message from him. Let me explain what is happening in your mind, and what has been happening for years… Julia, first, you are a very sweet lady, and you deserve so much warmth and compassion in your life, so please know that- with the things I am about to tell you. Julia… a long time ago, when you were twenty-five-years-old, your sister had you diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic so that she could marry John and leave town with your son… Evelyn arranged for your treatment because she wanted John for herself.”

  The doctor scratches his bald head with his left index finger, displaying a demeanor of shame as he speaks. “Unfortunately… your sister was successful in taking the family away. Since that time, we have found out that your sister is the one with the schizophrenic disorder, but we were unable to warn John. Julia, you were blamed for her actions, and committed to a mental institution for some time… this caused some problems between you and John… and it led to him leaving with Evelyn…”

  Julia stares at the television; her brown eyes appearing black in this lighting as the raw contempt becomes clear within them. She looks down at the carpet beneath her pink shoes as she listens to the rest of the message, unaware that the doctor’s lip movements are not always consistent with the message being played. Julia clenches her hands into tight fists as the story continues, exacerbating an intense rage toward her sister.

  “So the reason why you keep forgetting these things, Julia, is that you have a hard time making new memories since your suicide attempt.” Wellsly remits with a prerecorded affection. “In your mind, you and John made love the night before, and you are waiting for him to come home and cook dinner, but your sister stopped by… and told you about the affair because John was too much of a coward. This triggered your suicide attempt, and it’s created a loop of thoughts and emotions that has been running through your mind ever since. Please call me at 555-333-2444 so that we can talk about this. I am always here to help you! Again, my number is 555-333-2444. I am Doctor Wellsly; a friend who has been helping you for years. Please give me a call, sweet lady, or go to the emergency room if you are in severe need… I’m so sorry, Julia, please call me so that I can help 555-333-2444.”

  The video ends in a black screen with the phone number displayed in white text. Julia glares at the screen for a moment, and then stomps into her bedroom toward the nightstand, reaching for the phone with purpose and dignity.

  The OBDAT – Chicago

  “Who is going to answer that call?” Maxwell asks in confusion, looking at Lorabell with concern. “Don’t you need a male voice to pretend that he is the doctor?”

  “I have a male voice.” Lorabell answers with a smirk, winking playfully at Henri and Maxwell before returning her gaze to the LCD displays.

  “Hello, this is John,” a male voice answers after a few rings, “is this doctor Wellsly?”

  “This is Julia… John, it’s so great to hear your voice!” Julia smiles wide brushing her hair back in a bit of self-conscious embarrassment.

  “Julia, why are you calling from doctor Wellsly’s number?” John asks in voice filled with awkward guilt and remorse. “Can you put doctor Wellsly on the line, sweetie?”

  “I know the truth now, John,” She begins with an excited voice, “Evelyn had me committed so that she could take you and Sammy away from me. That bitch stole my life away and told horrible lies about me!”

  “Doctor Wellsly, are you there?” John asks, pretending not to hear a word Julia has said. “Doctor Wellsly, you are supposed to keep these episodes under control; that’s what Evelyn and I pay you for…”

  “John, Evelyn is not well. She’s dangerous to you and Sammy. Doctor Wellsly told me everything… I got your gift basket, and your card. I am SO EXCITED to see you and Sammy again!”

  “Julia, what the fuck are you talking about?” John asks in a cold, hard tone for the first time. “You tried to commit suicide while our son was in the house. You chased after our neighbor naked, with a kitchen knife. Evelyn and I have been paying for your care for years…”

  “That’s not true!” Julia pleads into the telephone receiver. “Evelyn made all of this happen… The doctor told me… I want to see my Sammy…”

  “Well he doesn’t want to see you,” John responds with more anger, “Sam has a family of his own now, and he doesn’t need his crazy mother scaring his children. Doctor Wellsly, are you there? What the fuck!?”

  “John, please don’t do this to me! I’ve been waiting a long time for you. I read the beautiful card you sent… It made me feel so good!”

  “What are you talking about, Julia? Take your medicine or call 911. Just don’t ever call here again! I don’t want you in my life, and Sam doesn’t want you in his. It’s OVER!” John finishes this last statement by hanging up the phone, turning twenty years of longing and pain to dead silence.

  After the love of her life utters these words, Julia is consumed with the frigid fist of fate plowing into her chest. She sits on the mattress of her queen-size bed for a few moments, staring out the window. But the psychosis soon kicks in, and with renewed strength displayed on her face, she gets up and steps over to the closet. Julia opens the white, wooden closet doors and the sight of her shotgun inspires a feeling of uncanny power. She reaches in and grips it tightly with her left hand, while her right hand darts high above her head to a shelf where she grabs a box of twelve-gauge shotgun rounds.

  With these two items in hand, she shuffles back to the bed, dumping out the box of bullets onto her comforter as she takes a seat next to them with the shotgun cradled in her lap. With a despondent melancholy, she begins loading the shells into the shotgun; feeling her years of waiting coming to an end as each round is pushed up into the magazine.

  “You rerouted the doctor’s number to John’s cell phone?” Maxwell asks as he continues to watch Julia from his seat in the OBDAT.

  “That’s very clever!” Henri beams with proud eyes, looking sideways at Lorabell like his champion husky, swiveling back and forth in his chair as if he were an excited twelve-year-old boy.

  “Thank you!” Lorabell replies after witnessing the glory of her second subject taking up a gun in an effort to relieve their pain. “John doesn’t know that Doctor Wellsly went missing on a fishing trip several years ago. Julia has been living on state assistant with no psychiatric care since then. We’ll have some agents watching her… You didn’t change very much on the DVD, Maxwell… I thought we were going to go deeper into the details of her sister’s affair with the husband?”

  “Are you kidding me!?” Maxwell asks with outrage. “It took six hours just to make those edits and burn a new DVD. My guy at Langley is good enough to do whatever you want, but this asset in Florida can barely find his dick with both hands.”

  “Guess that makes two of you…” Lorabell says as she rolls her eyes in a snide manner.

  “Bite me!” Maxwell deadpans, raising his middle finger. “I also had to have an agent sneak back into a house where someone is awake half the night, walking around like the living dead.”

  “Children please!” Henri begins with a frustrated gaze turning from side-to-side as he sits between them. “We’ve made some good progress here; now let’s just continue with the next case while we keep Miss Welheim under observation.

  NED LAWHORN

  “So you used to date Ned?” Sally asks uncomfortably, brushing her long red hair back as she begins to fold her panties on top of a commercial-grade dryer.

  “Yeah, that old hound dog!” Mary says with a naughty, shy smile, holding up her delicate red thong underwear above a basket of laundry to Sally’s immediate right.

  Sally glares at the younger woman’s thong, feeling somewhat threatened by this gorgeous,
busty bartender who used to date her boyfriend. Her eyes move toward Mary’s tiny waist and a pair of perky breasts that every man in town has stared at from time to time. The younger woman is wearing traditional cowboy boots with tight fitting jeans and a sports bra that leaves little to the imagination. Sally gazes at her with disgust; feeling like a Barbie Doll is standing next to her with a bottom half that is traditional Texas and a top that screams Satan’s Whorehouse.

  “I don’t usually date guys twice my age,” Mary continues with a smirk, and apparent satisfaction in her blue eyes, as if pounding a stake into a vampire’s heart, “but Ned was just so sweet… He just is a really nice, comfy lover… Like a good country song between your legs.”

  “Are you shittin’ me, girl?” Sally asks with jealousy and disbelief, placing both of her hands on the laundry basket in front of her. “What is this all about? Nobody gossips on my boyfriend like that unless she has an axe to grind!”

  “I’m sorry…” Mary replies slowly, putting her head down in shame as she begins to cry. “Did… he… tell you?”

  “Tell me what!?” Sally asks with strained patience, pursing her lips together as she stares into Mary’s deceitful blue eyes.

  “I’ve got the… warts.” Mary says with a whisper. “Ned was the only man willing to be with me… Like a wife…”

  “Are you telling me that you screwed my boyfriend with your diseased little coochy, and now I have to worry about that..? Did he wear a condom!?”

  Mary shakes her head back and forth, a single tear dripping from her left eye after Sally’s cold words. She quickly stuffs her half-folded pile of laundry into the basket and begins to carry it out to her car.

  “Wait!” Sally demands, grabbing the younger woman by her wrist. “Why are you telling me this now? When was the last time you were with him?”

  Mary tries to pull away, but Sally reinforces her grip, showing off the strength of a bonafide farmer’s daughter.

  “When WAS THE LAST TIME!?” Sally half shouts at the young woman, glaring at her pretty, young face like a lioness being tempted by a zebra that is stuck in the mud.

  “I haven’t had an outbreak for a while…” Mary replies, trying to free herself from Sally’s iron grip. “He took me… last week in the back of my car. Now let me the fuck go!”

  “Was he wearing a condom?” Sally asks as she releases her grip and watches Mary stomp toward the door. “WAS HE WEARING A CONDOM!?” She shouts hopelessly as the younger woman leaves the Laundromat.

  Several people are staring at Sally now, and she locks eyes with a woman that is only ten years her senior who is issuing a scalding look and shaking her head. Sally scoops up her basket of laundry and bails out of the small building as if it is on fire. Her heart drops as she realizes that the question of Ned wearing a condom or not is the least painful part of this whole betrayal. Sally tosses the basket of laundry into the passenger seat of her Jeep and takes out her cell phone, feeling an urgent need to consult with her doctor.

  A few miles away, Ned is shaking a bit of red Texas sand through his fingers, standing next to his tractor as he thinks about how retired life sucks. He remembers his days as a stout oil man, working hard on the rigs, pumping thousands of gallons of black gold from beneath God’s green earth. His face blooms to a smile when he remembers all the great times he used to have with his wife Holly and his little Thelma. He closes his light blue eyes, feeling the gentle breeze whipping through his plaid shirt; nearly knocking the large cowboy hat off of his head.

  In response to the wind, Ned pulls the hat down snug onto his head, ensuring that it won’t slip away, as too many things over the years have been taken in this manner. His neck stiffens suddenly as he hears the sound of a vehicle roaring down the road toward his farmhouse. Ned turns around to see a large Dodge truck rumbling across the dirt road that leads to his home, the rear bed of the truck bouncing as it traverses the uneven earth.

  Soon the truck is rolling recklessly across his driveway, the Ned sees the driver looking panicked and honking his horn as he approaches.

  “Whoa, shit! STOP!” Ned cries out as the truck nearly hits him and his tractor. “What the hell are you doing, boy? You damn near killed me!”

  “Sir, I was driving up the road here, and think I… ran over a deer.” The man says as he stumbles out of the truck, using his right hand to steady himself against the door.

  “You’re driving drunk? You piece of goddamn shit! My daughter was killed by a drunk driver.” Ned growls at the bearded stranger, watching him with disturbed rage.

  “I am not drunk, asshole!” The man asserts, raising his chin, and displaying a full beard that has only been growing for a few days. “I came here for a vacation, and this fuckin’ deer ran under the wheel of my truck!”

  “You take a seat right there while I call the police to come and straighten this out!” Ned orders in a threatening tone, pointing with his left index finger at the wooden porch in front of his home.

  “Fuck you, dude!” The man roars back with scathing disrespect, slurring his words a bit. “I’m here on vacation and I’m not going to jail over some miniature deer…”

  “Get over here and sit your ass down to sober up!” Ned commands as he strides over to the man and grips his right elbow.

  The younger man looks at the retired oil rig worker with belligerent superiority, then pushes him backwards with his right hand and delivers a powerful haymaker to Ned’s right cheek with his left fist. Ned drops onto his back from the sheer force of the blow, feeling weak after taking a punch from a man in his early twenties. He gets a jolt of pain as his back impacts the ground with unmerciful force. The heat from the punch is radiating through his face as his head hits the ground and his cowboy hat comes off, taken away by the wind.

  As the man stumbles back into the driver seat of his truck, Ned looks up at the right tire to see blood and patches of white and light brown fur on the treads. The truck fires up with a rumble, and the driver hits the accelerator, speeding off before Ned can get to his feet.

  “Chemo!” Ned calls out in a hopeful voice. “Chemo, come here, boy!” Ned stops to listen as he clambers to his feet, feeling a throbbing sting on the right side of his face.

  He turns to look at the license plate, but can’t make out any of the numbers. Ned feels a sudden despair, thinking that the fur on the tires was very similar to that of his collie. The dog had been name Chemo after his wife began chemotherapy for her cancer. He soon became a part of the family, and his affection was known as her other form of ‘Chemo’ therapy.

  “Chemo!” Ned cries out as he begins to run up the driveway toward the dirt road, feeling a panic wash over him as the dog doesn’t respond. While he is running, Ned feels a warm drip coming straight down from his right nostril, realizing that the punch also left him with a bloody nose.

  “Chemo, come on, boy!” Ned continues to call as he jogs up the road, feeling an overwhelming need to be close to his dog.

  The blood continues to trickle down his face, dropping from his chin in a sickly manner, spattering on his light plaid shirt and the dirt road below. Without his cowboy hat, Ned’s white hair whips in the wind, wildly flailing just like his aching heart in this moment. The heat of the sun feels menacing as he makes his way across the rough dirt, jogging for a half-mile before he notices a dreaded trail of blood, followed by a lifeless animal by the side of the road.

  Ned slows his pace; looking at the small body near the bend of the road, knowing it is too small to be a deer.

  “Chemo!” He cries out one last time in helpless desperation, hoping that the dog will come bounding down the road full of life again.

  “Oh dear God! Oh my God; not my dog!” Ned screams into the sky as he rushes up next to the body of his best friend.

  He drops to his knees in the sand, reaching down with a pair of trembling hands to grab his lifeless pet, gazing in terror at the large tire tracks that pushed his body off the side of the road. As he touches the dead collie’s
fur, the full shock of Chemo’s death is upon him. Ned glances at the dog’s crushed legs and mid section, forcing himself to look away the moment he realizes what he is witnessing.

  “That drunk… fuck… killed my dog!” Ned says through a series of small tears pouring from his pure blue eyes. “Piece of shit drunk drivers. Fucking cancer! Fucking drunk drivers. Damn you! Goddamn you…”

  Ned turns away from the dog, clenching his hands into fists, and he begins to pound on the sand, releasing his fury into the earth. After two minutes, his hands are swollen and bleeding, and he is out of breath, feeling ashamed that he couldn’t protect his daughter, or the rest of his family, from the world. Ned looks at the fresh blood on his wounded hands as he gets to his feet, his knuckles filled with stinging heat and pieces of coarse sand. He stumbles helplessly over the uneven ground, making his way back to the farmhouse for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

  His cell phone begins to ring, and he barely notices that it is making a sound. Ned pulls the phone from his pocket, looking at the display and seeing that Sally is calling. He presses the button on the side to ignore the call, thinking only of a shower and a bottle of whiskey.