by David Beers
Sorry, not enough funds.
They went through the airport, grabbed his bags, which his father insisted on carrying. “Trust me, you’ll have enough work to to do once you settle in. Take advantage while you can.”
Conversation filled the car ride back, everyone asking him questions. None of them made the trip to watch his graduation—at his stern request. John felt his family spent enough money already and to put out another three grand was ridiculous. John told them about it on the way home though, talking about the speakers and everything.
They asked questions about which college he was leaning toward. He had, of course, been accepted to nearly every top school in the entire country, every one he applied to, at least.
“I don’t know. Stanford, maybe.”
“They’re giving you a lot of money,” his mother said from the back seat. She had told him to take the front and his dad reminded him to make hay while the sun shone, because he’d lose this advantage shortly, too.
The conversations continued until John didn’t know if he had another word to say, telling them everything (Not everything. Missing out some really important parts, aren’t you?) in detail—all the stories he couldn’t explain while in England.
Even his mother joined in, seeming genuinely interested in everything he had to say. Wanting to know just as much as the rest of them, though she already knew so much more.
John was concerned with her, what she really thought. He knew she was happy he came home, but what about the rest? What about everything they found out about each other?
* * *
The night grew late as the four in the living room watched television. Friday the 13th,so the cable companies showed no shortage of horror movies. Scott cried off when Halloween started and Alicia an hour after that, both heading to bed. That left Lori and John sitting alone, watching a movie about a serial killer.
She felt awkward, no doubt, but changing the channel would be more awkward.
And John had always liked horror movies, hadn’t he? So why change it?
Lori couldn’t be happier that her son was back. Indeed, she had waited for this day with increasing anticipation over the past few months, until it came to a head this morning when she burst through the crowd and grabbed hold of him. All the questions she asked, all the ones the rest of the family asked—she had been dying to know the answers. The entire time he was over there she only worried about problems, and in that worry she lost track of anything positive happening.
Now, though, with the conversation around his experiences spent, she needed to know more.
She needed to know what she had worried so much about.
Because something was different about John. She didn’t know if anyone else noticed, or if they did, what they chalked it up to. Perhaps maturity. He left at sixteen and despite a few breaks, he came back at eighteen. A man, at least legally.
Lori didn’t chalk the change up to maturity though. John had been mature his entire life. This change was deeper than age's natural progression. This change involved … a world view? Consciousness?
“Are you happy, John?” she said, her eyes still watching Michael Meyers ascend stairs at that robotic pace.
“Yeah, I’m glad to be back.”
She looked to him and saw that he still watched the movie.
“Not glad to be back. Are you happy? With how everything turned out over there?”
He stared at the television for a few seconds before breaking his focus and turning to her. He looked at Lori for at least thirty seconds without saying a word.
“John?” Lori asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m not happy with how everything turned out.” His voice was a whisper, and though he looked at her, she didn’t think he actually saw her. He had at first, but now his eyes said his mind was elsewhere.
“Why not, John?”
He blinked a few times, clearing his face of that hazy, lost look. He was here again, in the room.
“Because I found out who I am, and I don’t like it.”
“Were you careful?”
Again that long stare—one he had never used before—suggesting Lori’s existence didn’t matter; the only thing that mattered was what lived inside his own head.
Finally, he nodded. “Yes.”
“Good,” Lori said. She looked back to the television, scared to move the conversation forward. Not scared of her son. John would hurt people; she held no false notions about that, but would he hurt her? No.
Not yet, Lori. But what about Clara? Did she start off by putting a knife in your father’s neck?
Her eyes narrowed at the thought. She pushed it aside; would she ask him more questions? Lori wanted to, but his look told her that she no longer ruled over John—if she ever had. Perhaps no one did.
Still, she didn’t feel he was safe yet. That’s what she needed from this, to understand if anything from England could hurt him.
Lori looked back to him. “What happened?”
John watched Michael Meyers plunge a knife into a teenage boy’s stomach.
“John?”
“Mom, I love you but don’t ask me that. Everything’s fine,” he said, then stood up and left the room.
* * *
Lori knew she shouldn’t return to Vondi’s office. She should have stopped seeing him two years ago when John left, yet she kept going. Whatever plagued her son, Vondi plagued her in a very similar manner. She couldn’t quit him no matter how bad she wished she could.
And she sat in front of him again, two weeks after John’s return. She only saw the doctor once a month now, down markedly from the once a week cadence years before.
“How’s John doing?” Vondi said.
“We’re going straight to him, huh?” Lori said, smiling.
“Well, last time we spoke, you talked about how happy you were he was returning. He’s back, so I figured that’s as good a place as any to start.”
Lori kept the smile on her face, but she recognized he hadn’t offered her a chance to start somewhere else.
She shouldn’t have come.
Yet, she didn’t stand up and leave.
“He’s good. He’s relaxing right now, but I think he’s going to pick up a job for the summer. School starts in a few months for him. He’s going to Stanford.”
Vondi nodded, his eyebrows rising. “I’m impressed. Seems like it was a pretty good idea to send him over there after all.”
“He did very well.”
Vondi didn’t look away in the silence that followed and Lori suddenly felt the need to protect John fall on her like a lead vest, so heavy it was tough to breathe. Vondi wasn’t asking out of the kindness of his heart. He had an agenda here, as he always did with John.
“I’d like to start seeing him again, I think. I have some questions that I want to follow up on with him.”
“Follow up? You haven’t spoken to him in two years.”
Again, the nod from Vondi. The nod that said, yes, you’re right, but you’re missing some very important pieces as well. “Some things happened in Europe that you might not be aware of, Lori.”
Lori’s eyes widened. “And why would you know something about Europe that I don’t?”
“Or maybe you do know?” Vondi asked.
Lori breathed in and out a few times before speaking. “What are you getting at?”
“I just want to talk to him a bit. I want to get his thoughts on what he did over there. I’ll only talk to him once, Lori, and then he never has to see me again.”
And in that moment, Lori realized she hated this man. For over a decade she came here and told him her most intimate secrets, things about her son that she told no one else, and now he spoke to her with such arrogance that she wanted to spit in his face. What if he spoke with John? Did Vondi think that somehow he would trip him up with whatever happened in England?
“What are you going to talk to him about?” she said.
“Well …,” he looked away for a second, “I�
��d rather not say to you, right now.”
“Just to John?”
“Yes.”
Now, Lori nodded. “So you think something happened in England and you’re going to talk to him about it. What do you plan on doing after that?”
“I don’t know yet. I want to get his thoughts first.”
Lori smiled. He wanted John and she kept trying to keep her son away. He wanted John and Lori refused to give him up. But if Vondi desired John, this arrogant man who wanted to hurt her boy, why not go ahead and bring John to him? Why not see what Vondi thought of John’s new stare?
Perhaps then he might not want much to do with her son.
“Sure, Dr. Vondi. I’ll let John know and you two can decide the best way to go about setting up an appointment.”
* * *
What had John seen in his mother’s eyes?
Something was there, whether or not you can describe it.
She talked to John and said Dr. Vondi wanted to set up an appointment, that even the good doctor was interested in his trip to the other side of the pond.
“He wants to talk?” John said.
She nodded, her lips pressed together. “He said he wanted to ask you some questions.”
“About what?”
“He wouldn’t tell me,” his mother said.
And that’s when he saw it in her eyes. She sent him to Europe to avoid Vondi, and now she was telling him … what? That he should speak with Vondi. No … she said Vondi wanted to speak with him, but her eyes said something else. Something deeper. Perhaps something truer than her words.
What did they say, John?
He now sat outside Vondi’s office. He took his sweet time setting up the meeting, though his mother came to him at least once a month with Vondi’s question about when he’d set up the appointment. He had one last month before he went away to college, and so finally scheduled the appointment.
Truthfully, he was at least somewhat scared.
He knew what Vondi wanted—knew from the moment his mom started talking about it. Vondi wanted to know what happened to that private investigator, though John still only knew what Harry had said. Vondi was patient, clearly. He would wait until John came to him—as he did now—and then Vondi would ask his questions and make his decision about whether or not to involve the police.
That’s what John feared. He could deal with Vondi’s questions, but what Vondi decided to do afterward—John couldn’t control.
What did your mom’s eyes tell you? What have they been saying since the moment she said to schedule an appointment?
The thought pressed down on him frantically. John saw the difference in his mother months ago, but pushed it aside. Now, though, a few minutes from seeing Vondi for the first time in years, he felt he had to understand what her eyes tried to say.
It’s not hard to figure it out, John. You just didn’t want to see it. But if you remember back, just for a second, you’ll know exactly what she meant.
“Seriously, why are you avoiding it?”
John’s eyes flashed from looking at the floor to the waiting room’s other seat.
Harry’s fat body took up the entire chair, his flabby flesh overflowing its arms.
“Where did you come from?” John said. He felt neither shock nor fear. How long had it been since he spoke with Harry?
Since Cindy.
No funds.
“You know I don’t know the answer to that,” Harry said. “I’m here, though, and I’m thinking there might be a problem with the good doctor. What do you think?”
John looked at Harry; he showed up without warning, without apology for the life he left John, and yet wearing a smile.
That’s what your mom’s eyes said. They spoke of Harry, though they didn’t know the name. They spoke of that smile you’re looking at now.
“Her eyes said maybe it’s okay to be yourself, John, if only this one time.”
And John saw his mother’s eyes reflected in Harry’s. Excitement. Pleasure. Ferocity.
That’s what he’d seen in his mom.
“She’s tired of him,” Harry said. “Tired of his meddling, and to be honest, so am I. We had to clean up his nonsense in Europe and now he’s trying to start more here. She could have told you not to say a word to Vondi; hell, she could have completely ignored his request, but here you are, aren’t you?”
John heard the door open and turned his head to see Dr. Vondi standing at it. “Hey, John. It’s been a long while. How are you?”
John stood, seeing in Vondi’s face that he hadn’t expected the four inches of growth in John’s stature. “I’m doing well. How are you, Dr. Vondi?”
“Still plugging along. Come on back.”
He held the door open for John and both went back to the office that John had once thought he’d never see again. He made his way to the couch and sat down.
“My mom said you wanted to talk to me?”
Vondi smiled and crossed one leg over the other. “Getting right to it, eh? I actually asked to see you four or five months ago. Did she tell you back then?”
“She did; I’ve just been busy. I leave for school next month.”
“That’s what your mom told me. Congratulations, John, that is a serious accomplishment. Stanford.”
John and Vondi locked eyes, and despite his words, John saw no pride in the doctor.
“Thanks.”
“Do you know why I want to see you, John?”
“My mother said you wouldn’t tell her.”
“That’s right,” Vondi said. “I wouldn’t, but I still think you might know why.”
Harry opened the door to the room, closing it quietly behind him. John didn’t glance at him and Harry kept his eyes on the doctor, too.
“I don’t,” John said. “The last time we spoke, if I can be frank, you seemed a bit obsessed with me. My mother and I didn’t like it and so I stopped coming. I’m a bit surprised you asked to see me again.”
Vondi smiled. “Obsessed. That’s an interesting word. For a while I thought that might be true; I really did worry about it. I don’t anymore, though, John. I stopped worrying about obsession a little over a year ago. Do you want to know why?”
“Here it comes,” Harry said.
“Why?” John asked. He ignored Harry, looking at Vondi as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. John saw an insect before him. He had never looked at a human as he did this creature. In all the time John suffered with his affliction, he saw those around him as people very much like himself—he was just missing a key ingredient that made him different.
This person, though, was nothing like the rest. Perhaps they had been innocent (Harry might argue against that notion), but this man wasn’t anywhere near innocent. He was after John. He knew nothing of what went on inside John’s head, only thought he knew the actions which came after John’s inner turmoil. And now, what? He wanted to judge John? He wanted to alert the police?
“Because when that private investigator disappeared, I realized I didn’t have to think about you anymore. I recognized that I knew everything I would ever need to.”
“Is that right?” John said. He heard Vondi’s words, but they didn’t matter. John was thinking back to the energy in his mother’s eyes. She wanted him to hear this. She wanted him to feel this disgust. “What do you think you know, Dr. Vondi?”
John obviously couldn't see them, but his eyes were focused pinpoints, and they stared straight through Vondi.
“You killed him, didn’t you? I don’t know how. They never found his body. Apparently they never found any notes he made about you, either, because the investigation effectively ended after a few days. But you did it. You somehow found out he was looking at you and you got rid of him. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Dr. Vondi, you waited over a year to ask me whether or not I killed someone you sent to stalk me, and yet, you’re not worried about obsession. To me, that seems a bit off.”
“I waited because I wanted to h
ear you say it, John. I could have gone to the police a year ago. I could have gone yesterday. I want to hear the truth from you, though, so I waited.”
“And what do you expect me to say? That I killed a private investigator? Do you really think I’m going to admit to something so insane?” John asked.
“It doesn’t matter, I suppose. I can’t let you continue. You can lie to me but the police will find out the truth.” Vondi paused, no smile on his face as he spoke the next words. “I like you, John. I always have. I don’t know what made you who you are, whether it was your mother’s constant thoughts or your grandmother’s genes really transferred, but I didn’t want to believe it for a long time. Because I liked you. I still like you, though I can tell you’ve changed. Just tell me you did it, John, and I promise I’ll help you through whatever comes next. You’re going to need someone like me when the police come.”
“This motherfucker is blackmailing you,” Harry said from the door. “He’s going to tell the cops regardless and if you don’t give him the information he wants, he’ll refuse to help. Can you believe this shit?”
John leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You need help, Dr. Vondi. If you contact me again, I’m going to have a restraining order put on you.” John stood and went to the door, pulling it open and then pausing for a second. He turned around and looked at the back of Vondi’s head. “I never liked you, Dr. Vondi. You’ve always been something small and now I see why.”
* * *
Harry sat in the corner of John’s room.
He was silent for once. He simply sat there staring at John, but even in his stare, he didn’t push. Perhaps he saw where John’s mind was going and knew he didn’t have to push this time. He would get what he wanted without having to say a word.
The light burned overhead and the fan turned at full speed. John lay on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling.
John wanted to hurt Vondi. Normally, John wanted to hurt people because of how the act made him feel, but this time, he wanted to do it because of how the act would make Vondi feel.
He wanted Vondi to suffer.
Not just hurt.
Vondi was going to the police; John knew that. He thought, though, that Vondi was an idiot for alerting them so long after it happened. What were they going to do? Come ask John whether he killed someone in England?