It's Called Disturbing

by Buddy Roy Baldry

  “Six bucks?”

  “You know, you go down to Walmart and get this for ten times the price. That’s a good set there, clean and only used a couple times really, and once by accident, so it was put away quickly. Seven dollars.”

  “You folded like that cheap table he had his money on,” his mother said as his father guided their vehicle home.

  Tom’s father sighed. “Don’t ever get married, Tommy,” He said. “When you wake up one morning, lots of mornings, but one morning and say, ‘I have no idea what I am doing with this person’ that’s when it truly is a fate worse than death.” And his mother sniggered a little and punched him in the ribs before he finished saying it. But it was a joke that seemed to have been told before; it was very familiar. Or else so entirely fresh it was funny. A joke is always half a truth anyway and when the laughter was out, there was still the pilot light of the Truth glimmering in his eyes. You saw it. Still, when Tom was in a foul mood, he would take the picture out from the photo album, and the picture itself wasn’t hard to find because it was the only picture Tom ever really looked at, not being a picture-looking-at kind of guy. When he was in these low moods his father’s smile would take on a whole new look for him. It wasn’t the smile of a care-free good old fellow just wanting to be your friend. No, this time it reminded Tom of leering, yearning beyond control. Perverted nearly. Looking for something you could never obtain. Tom could sometimes believe he saw drops of sweat on his father’s forehead, near where the hat tipped so jauntily before. Not evil, but someone who would tell you about their interest in cars when clearly you were not interested. Too friendly, if there was such a thing. And there was. Or someone who would lose the focus in their eyes when they were talking about their dog. Perhaps someone who always mopped the floor and the slightest bit of dirt would make them lose their minds.

  Then there were times when Tom looked at the picture and saw a man who didn’t have a care in the world. Those were relaxing moments, in a way. Tom could see his own lift of an eyebrow in his father’s grin. Sometimes Tom would tip an imaginary hat. These were the light feeling days when he would find that he was not fidgeting so much, or that people around him were smiling at him more. Or he was smiling at them more. Rare days, to be sure, but a reprieve Tom owed to his father’s picture or even his memory. When he thought of his father he did not think of the failure his Uncle sometimes made him out to be. Nor was he confused by the man, as his mother claimed to be. When he thought of his father he felt something close to serenity, if there was such a thing. As though the moment he was in counted more than anything else. And the moment would never end; frozen in time just like his father’s face tilting back a hat that he wasn’t worried would fall from his head and get dirtied on the floor. If it did, there were other hats. A hat was a hat, there was no sentimentality towards a hat.

  There was no real sentimentality over much. There was a house fire when Tom was young. He remembered his father laughing and watching from the street. He rescued the photo albums and clutched them under his arm and made asides to Tommy every few minutes; “Look at those sparks, Tommy.” He said. Smiling at the sky. “It’s getting hot here, Tommy,” he said and nudged Tom on his chest until they were both on the street and then on the neighbour’s lawn, with the neighbors standing looking, offering no sympathy, shocked by the homeowner’s flippancy.

  Tom’s mother, however, ran around the neighborhood shrieking to anyone who would listen about their home going up in flames, and shouting, for whatever reason “I just cleaned the house, I just cleaned the house!”

  Afterwards, at his Uncle’s home, he listened to his mother tell him about all the things that were now gone: an antique desk from her grandfather. “Irreplaceable,” she said. A wooden clock Tom’s father made in the garage, his first endeavor at woodworking. “It wasn’t that great a clock,” his father added. “Irreplaceable,” his mother went on, speaking of things Tom had never even seen; they were so special and precious. Tucked away in the attic or garage, rarely seen by even the owners, but somehow so valuable now that they were gone. His mother cried a bit and Tom’s father massaged his arm until he fell asleep and woke in his Uncle’s spare room, wedged between his mother and father. At once he felt ashamed because he was too old to sleep with his parents, and relieved to know he was safe and not tucked away in an attic or garage waiting to be burned and cried for.

  Still his father was the one who was depressed and not quite comfortable in life, as his Uncle put it. For all his calmness and easygoing disposition, he must have had mental problems, his Uncle and his mother reasoned. And when Tom slipped into complacency or relaxed a little too much for his comfort, he felt afraid that perhaps he was like his father. Not comfortable in this world. Not cut out for this life. Or this race, however his Uncle always phrased it.

  “Tell me something about your days in grade school, or early high school.” The doctor snapped Tom into the present and Tom sat stunned for a few seconds. “Did you get along well in school?” the doctor prodded.

  “Well,” Tom said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did you have many friends?”

  “Not really,” Tom admitted.

  “Were you picked on?” the doctor asked.

  “No,” Tom frowned, “They did call me Tommy Titsucker for some reason.”

  “Any reason why?”

  “I don’t know,” Tom said, “I don’t think so. You know how kids are.”

  “You went to college?” the doctor said, “University?”

  “I did, for a while. I dropped out.”

  “Why is that?”

  Tom shrugged. “It was a lot of money. My father died when I started, and I just wasn’t interested.”

  “When you started, what were you interested in doing?”

  “Nothing, really,” Tom said, and felt a chill of sweat run down his back. He shifted in his seat. “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Did your parents drive you toward anything?”

  Did his parents drive him toward anything? His mother, sure, always driving. His Uncle always needling on about this and that: “A man is judged in this world by his ability to earn a living, and his capacity to earn the best living he can.” But his father never really gave any advice of that sort. Tom remembered many talks with the man, but never any practical advice on what to do with his life. “You’ll find something.” His father always smiled and they would drive in silence, with his father describing the countryside, “There used to be a farm there,” he would start and Tom would watch as the old farm passed, his father’s story coming to life in Tom’s mind about neighbors who would help each other out, and cows dying in the spring come calving time. In Tom’s imagination he could hear the hissing of oil lamps at night, and the ticking of old clocks in the silence of the living rooms, silent except for the crackling of a wood stove, which provided the only heat. There would be things to do in the morning for these people, but now there was only the hissing, the ticking, the crackling and the muted shuffling to bed. His father drove him through the country until he could see the stars in the sky through the windshield and the lights of town, the traffic getting heavier and horns shouting at each other.

  And arriving home to his mother ushering him quickly upstairs to his room and admonishing his father for keeping him out so late. “It was a nice drive.” He could hear his father defending himself. “He’s got school,” his mother would shout back. “It’s Friday tomorrow,” his father would reason. It made sense to Tom. Obviously to no one else.

  “I think they just wanted me to be happy,” Tom said, not sure if what he was saying was the truth.

  “Were your parents happy?” the doctor asked.

  “My dad was,” Tom said, and smiled. “My father was a happy man.”

  “Are you a happy man?”

  “Sometimes,” Tom said. “When I’m not doing anything I’m happy.”

  “Explain that, ‘when you’re not doing anything you’re happy’, can yo
u tell me what you mean by that?”

  “I don’t know,” Tom admitted, “I suppose when I feel obligated to do something I get, I don’t know, nervous or something.”

  “At work?”

  “Yes, but not just at work. When I come home to Eddy and...”

  “Eddy is your boyfriend?”

  “Girlfriend.” Tom frowned.

  “I’m sorry, continue.”

  “When I come home to Eddy and... well, if you want the truth, she’s the one you should talk to.”

  “And why do you say that?”

  “...”

  “Tom? Why do you say that?”

  “It’s nothing. Nothing. Forget it.” Tom shifted uncomfortably.

  “Tom, I want to write you a prescription for some anti-depressants. Nothing to be alarmed about...”

  “I’m not alarmed.”

  “...many people take this medication these days. I want you to try this for a few months and make an appointment to see me in, let’s say, a month or two, can you do that?”

  “I suppose...”

  “And there is a book I want you to pick up at a bookstore, one I think will help immensely.” The doctor began writing on a pad. He ripped a page off and handed it to Tom. “Give this to my receptionist and make another appointment. We’ll see how things are going after that.”

  Tom took the slip of paper. After he booked a second visit and left, he unfolded the paper to read what the doctor had written. The top half of the paper was an illegible prescription. The bottom half was the title of a book: Choose Your Own Reality by Travis Bunk. He already owned the book and he felt like throwing the doctor’s paper away. Yet, as he walked down the street and watched others pass him with their hands deep in their pockets and their eyes on the ground, he clutched the advice in his fingers and tried to blend in with the crowd.

  Chapter 12

  Tom decided to park a block away from Joe Williams’s home. The house was mostly dark; the only lights were shining through what must have been the kitchen window. Tom approached cautiously, nearly tripping in the fresh hole where the lawn gnome once sat. He wore a toque over his face with two eyeholes cut roughly in the wool. He clawed at the mask continuously, knowing he should have bought a balaclava, but settling on what he found in his closet. The eye holes were not matched properly, and he could only truly see out of one, the other offering unnecessary exposure to his left cheek or eyebrow, depending on how he managed it. His breath came in rapid succession, which immediately condensed inside the mask, making the wool cling to his face. His tongue flicked compulsively at what he hoped was only spit.

  He held the tire iron tight in his hands as if it were a railing guiding him along a treacherous route in the dark. He knew he would have to enter through the back door, and he would have to move fast. He would have to move like the night itself, dark and dangerous...

  “Hello.”

  “Holy shit!” Tom hissed and fell backward. He sat down hard on the concrete and reflexively searched for the tire-iron while fumbling with his mask. He tilted his head back to see who was speaking. It was one of Joe’s twins, his blonde hair gleaming in the dark. Tom used the crowbar to lift himself unsteadily to his feet.

  “Are you cold?” the child asked, “Is that why you have a hood?”

  Tom nodded slowly and looked around for an adult as much as his mask would allow. “Is your mommy home?” he asked.

  “She’s at wait and see.”

  “Wait and see?”

  “No,” the child frowned. “Wait and watch.”

  “Weight Watchers?” Tom said.

  “Yes.” The child’s face broke into a smile. Two front teeth gone. He looked like a sick little version of his parents. Tom felt a chill.

  “Do you remember me?” Tom asked. The child shook his head no. Good. “Do you think I could talk to your daddy for a second?”

  “OK.” The child turned, and Tom followed him to the back door. He opened the screen door and waited until he was inside, then he slipped along the side of the house just out of sight.

  “Dad!” He heard from inside the house. “A guy with one eye wants to talk to you!”

  From further inside the house: “What the hell are you doing out of bed? Get up there and I don’t want to see your face again until morning, do you understand?” Tom heard a smack and then a prolonged wailing, which faded away as the child presumably stumbled up the stairs. He stepped back into the shadows and felt his feet slip into the flowerbeds that lined the house. Nearly losing his balance, he used the tire-iron to steady himself against the house. Then he thought about the absurdity of his plan. He had no contingency plan at all. And really, what was he planning to do? He thought he could lure Joe out of the house somehow and then crack, right on the head. That was the extent of his planning. What if Joe was to meet him face to face as he was about to now? Could he really smack a fellow right in the head with a tire iron, all the while looking into his eyes? He couldn’t even hurt the second mouse he and Eddy caught in their apartment one day. They had set a trap and when he found the mouse still alive and twitching in pain he threw up, causing Eddy to curse him and kill the mouse herself. Maybe he should have brought her. How would he explain his logic, though? He could hear the words coming out of his mouth: I am going to kidnap a man so that his family will become afraid and buy life insurance from me. It sounded so reasonable in his head when he sat beneath the image of Rebecca on the billboard.

  “Hello?” Tom heard Joe coming toward the door. “Who the hell is out there?”

  Tom saw Joe’s bald, red face protrude from the door while the man held the screen door open. He looked first left, toward the porch light and before he could turn Tom’s way, Tom placed the end of the tire iron against the folds of the man’s neck. “Don’t move,” Tom said and heard his voice take on a decidedly Clint Eastwood vibe, straight from the Good the Bad and the Ugly. He felt a surge of excitement in his chest as he felt time stop for a second and electricity surround them both. “Don’t do anything stupid, now.” He wanted to say: ‘do you feel lucky, punk?’ but it was the wrong genre. He had already discarded using the Clint Eastwood.

  “Whoa, buddy, what the hell?” Joe was holding the screen door tight and Tom could sense the man tensing.

  “I mean it, I will blow your head off,” Tom growled. He hoped he growled. “Just step outside and keep looking the other way. Don’t you look at me.” But that wasn’t right. That was Dennis Hopper. No matter, it still sounded intimidating in his own ears, so how would it sound to a man with a gun/tire-iron stuck in his neck?

  “Don’t hurt my kids.” Joe said in a low voice.

  “If I wanted to hurt your kids I would have already,” Tom hissed. “Why the hell aren’t they in bed? It’s like ten o’clock.”

  “I sent them to bed. The little buggers won’t stay there.”

  “Do you read to them, motherfucker?” Tom jabbed the barrel/tire-iron forcing Joe’s head to the side. “You have to read to kids.”

  “Sometimes I do...”

  “Shut up!” Tom shouted. “Keep your head still.”

  “Dad?” A muffled call from the upstairs window. One of the twins was still awake; the shouting must have aroused him. Tom pushed the iron further into Joe’s neck; a ‘you know what to do’ gesture.

  “It’s all right, son,” Joe called out. “I’ll be right up to read you a story.”

  “What the fuck, man!” Tom said, feeling his bladder threaten to lose control.

  “Well, you said...”

  “You’re not going to be right up! You are being kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped?” Joe tried to turn his head and stopped short. “What the hell for?”

  “Just shut up.” Tom fumbled with his mask with one hand until he had it off, and then fumbled again with one hand until he had it backwards on Joe’s head so the eyeholes bulged with red hair and Joe’s eyes were covered with wool. “Move,” he said and guided Joe down the walk and onto the pavement. Joe was
gagging. “It’s all wet and gross,” Tom heard him say through the toque.

  Doot doot. Tom opened the trunk of his car with the key remote. “Hold still,” he instructed his prisoner. He pulled a green sleeping bag from the trunk and stretched it out on the sidewalk. Overhead, the streetlights gleamed on the polyester fabric. Why didn’t I park in the alley, Tom thought too late. What if someone sees? Idiot. “Ok. Lay down in there.”

  “In where?” Joe said through the fabric, his breath coming ragged and wet. Tom knew he would never wear the toque again.

  “Ok, wait.” Tom laid the sleeping bag open in the bottom of the trunk and then guided Joe in, all the while keeping the gun/tire-iron on Joe’s neck. Joe obliged as best as a large man could getting into the trunk of a Cobalt. “Feel around,” Tom said. “You feel that sleeping bag?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get in it.”

  Tom watched the man struggle blindly until he was decently engulfed in green polyester. He reached in and zipped the remaining bag over Joe’s body.

  “Jesus Chri...”

  Tom slammed the trunk. He looked up and down the street at the dark houses. Everyone would be in bed except for Joe’s kids, Tom thought. There were no cars to be seen and the only movement was the trees letting their yellow leaves sway gently in the night breeze. Calm. A light rain began to fall and there was not even the expected struggle coming from the trunk. Ok, Tom thought. This is it.

  Each turn of a corner must be accompanied with, and well in advance, a turn signal. The appropriate wait at a four way stop. Not rushing, not forcing another driver to accelerate and stop, unsure of him/her self. In fact, sometimes even waving people through when it was clearly not their turn. Tom slowed and stopped at each traffic light with the utmost respect. Never too quickly through a yellow light, but neither too quick to stop, after all, he was not in a hurry to get anywhere, but neither was he in a hurry to make it look too obvious that he was trying to look like he was not in a hurry to get anywhere.

  Painfully slow, the lights of town gradually lessened in their frequency. Soon Tom was on the road he had driven that morning in preparation. It was perfect because it ran around the outskirts into a swampy area, and he could see the billboard through the trees as he drove. It was almost like a sign. It was a sign, really, a sign with Rebecca’s face. Yet more than that, it was like it was Meant To Be. Karma, or something. Ordained. If he believed in that sort of thing.