Daddy Love

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I-80 EAST OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA APRIL 14, 2006

  You’re safe with me now, son.

  God has sent me to you. Not a moment too soon!

  She was an impure woman, the female you were entrusted to. She was your way in. But only in.

  Daddy Love is your destiny. Daddy Love will be both Daddy and Mommy to you.

  From this first day and forever. Amen.

  At the first exit after the Libertyville Mall he’d driven to his hiding-place. Daddy Love had scoured the area beforehand and knew exactly which hiding-place was optimum. No one would expect—no ordinary individual would expect—that the child’s audacious abductor would remain within a few miles of the mall; the assumption was that, in his beige van, he was fleeing. Roadblocks would be set up to deter him, flashing lights, sirens. But shrewd Daddy Love was not one of those who would be stopped by police in the next forty-eight hours to be questioned.

  At the hiding-place behind an abandoned Shell station two miles east of the Libertyville Mall he’d parked and secured the terrified child in the Wooden Maiden, as prepared. Again he rejoiced in the child’s lightness—the lightness of his bones. Nostradamus had not ever been so light-boned.

  As planned Daddy Love spray-painted the van a dark metallic purple. Out of the battered beige van a new and more stately vehicle emerged. He took his time, he would not be hurried. There was no need to hurry. Roadblocks were being set in place, law enforcement officers were running their sirens like foolish children in pursuit of—what? No one had seen Daddy Love head-on. Not even the woman he’d run down, in that moment of utmost clarity when the front fender of the minivan had struck her, cast her down and yet not aside but beneath the vehicle, her body to be dragged across the pavement … It had been a bizarre experience. If he’d known beforehand what was going to happen, he’d have enjoyed it perhaps, as a bizarre incident in Daddy Love’s earthly history. But it had happened so quickly, he hadn’t been prepared.

  The higher power had guided him, as usual. He’d managed to swerve, skid, brake and accelerate the van, and the woman’s lifeless body had been cast off, finally. If she is dead, it is her own responsibility.

  He was wearing gloves of course spray-painting the minivan. This was a familiar task—he’d done it several times before, with the Chrysler and with other vans. There was satisfaction here. A sense of accomplishment. Invariably the new paint dramatically improved the appearance of the van.

  Like dyeing his whiskers a dark mahogany hue, darker than the rust-streaked hair. But now powdering the whiskers with a pale-grainy powder, a women’s face-powder, and brushing it well into the bristling hairs.

  And so: he’d added twenty years to his age. Not a trim thirty-nine but a trim early-sixties. Should anyone take note.

  Waiting for the paint to dry, Daddy Love ate supper: takeout from one of the fast-food restaurants in the Libertyville Mall. He had a weakness for cheeseburgers with hot chili sauce, and French fries no matter how cold.

  Inside in the Wooden Maiden the child slept. A rag soaked in chloroform had been sufficient, within a few seconds, for the child was very young, and could not have weighed more than forty pounds.

  Such medical supplies, and other drugs to be injected into the bloodstream, Daddy Love kept in the van, in his cache. In numerous cities and in numerous hospitals and medical centers he had contacts, usually females—nurses’ aides, attendants. Sometimes they were church-contacts who worked in public health care and had access to (controlled) substances. They adored Daddy Love each in her unique way. Each thinking Maybe he is the one! He will love me, protect me. And where female adoration wasn’t enough, of course Daddy Love knew to pay.

  The chloroform he’d acquired from a woman he’d befriended at the Trenton, New Jersey, Church of Abiding Hope who was a worker at a veterinary.

  As long as it isn’t fatal. It’s to quiet a temperamental German shepherd.

  It might have been twenty years ago, when Daddy Love had not yet been fully invisible, and had made some blunders. Those early years and the pilgrimage newly begun.

  He hadn’t been Daddy Love then. He’d been Chet Cash who’d been Chester Czechi. He’d been only just released from the Wayne County Facility for Youthful Offenders, at age twenty-one.

  The bastards had incarcerated him for nine years! The social-worker woman and her public-defender friend who’d represented him had argued he hadn’t known what he was doing, he’d had no intention of choking to death his own boy-cousin with whom he’d been playing happily, but the bastards, the prosecutor and the Family Court judge had disliked him, and given him the maximum sentence for a juvenile. And he’d learned You must show remorse. Grief, and remorse. Otherwise—you are the fool. You are to blame for your own fate.

  Eight months released from the facility, and he’d seen his parole officer faithfully. By now, he knew. God-damn Chet Czechi knew to play the game.

  Be respectful. Be calm. Smile and say Sir!—Ma’am! Let the assholes think that you give a fuck about them.

  He’d begun his travels then. His pilgrimages.

  Always returning to check with his parole officer. Of course.

  The child had been his first possession. Others had entered his life transiently, and had passed out of it leaving no memory. It was not so much different from eating a meal, having a drink—the sex-act, its explosive outcome.

  But this child, a beautiful little boy of about nine with silky blond hair, long-lashed tawny eyes, had been his first. (For you would not count his little cousin. That had been a true accident.) And his first loss.

  The child’s little heart had just—stopped …

  It wasn’t clear to Chet Czechi what had happened. He had not intended for anything to happen, of this sort. He’d forced the boy to swallow Valium tablets dissolved in Coke and soon after the boy had lapsed into a comatose sleep and soon after he had—died …

  Daddy Love still felt the loss. The beautiful blond child had been meant to be his son.

  His techniques in those days had been crude. He’d had no clearly designated plan. He’d been impulsive, reckless. He’d taken the boy from a thick-thighed female with a snout-face and big jiggly breasts—it had been a necessity of justice to take the child from her.

  This had happened in a roadside rest-area off I-80 west, south of Erie, Pennsylvania. Stopping for a piss Chet Czechi had been ravished with the knowledge that the child in the company of the snout-faced female was meant to be his—yet in the possession of a stranger.

  In a similar way the Dalai Lama was chosen. He thought it was the Dalai Lama—the “reincarnated” spiritual leader of Tibet.

  The Dalai Lama is born to ordinary parents. You might call them surrogate parents. When a reigning Dalai Lama dies, holy Buddhist monks go into the countryside to find the new, reincarnated Dalai Lama. They follow visions, intuition. Or maybe the newly reincarnated Dalai Lama, an infant, or a young child, draws them to him. As the Biblical Mary and Joseph had been surrogate parents, to bring Jesus into the world and to prepare him for his ministry.

  The situations were not identical, but similar. In Daddy Love’s case, a child was born of surrogate parents but destined to be his son. Already when he’d been in his early twenties as Chet Czechi he’d known this in the way that, if you add together two and two, you know the answer is four.

  Invincible as math or geometry, such reasoning. The inner eye awakened, and saw.

  What the asshole media called “abduction”—“kidnapping”—“child-snatching” was in fact a courageous act on the part of Daddy Love. The cowardly way would be to pretend he hadn’t seen.

  He hadn’t intended for either to die. Not the snout-faced female and certainly not the little blond boy with the tawny eyes. Yet, this had happened.

  The ways of God are not our ways. Who can comprehend the ways of God!

  Since that sultry summer evening in a scrubby roadside reststop in Pennsylvania, thousands of miles. A continuous loop of miles interrupted by durations of d
omestic life. But the pilgrimage never ceased for the boy, you could call him the reincarnated son, inevitably grew older—and less desirable.

  Hundreds, thousands of hours. Out of Chet Czechi’s blundering hands had emerged the more steady, practiced hands of Daddy Love.

  And the sedatives more reliable.

  No harm will befall you now, my son. You are saved.

  I am Daddy Love. I am your true daddy and you are my only begotten true son.

  It was my mission ordained by God to save you from the fire.

  There was a great cataclysm, a fireball fell to earth. What was “Ypsilanti” has now been destroyed. It was a preview of the Rapture. The old life has vanished, my son. There is a new life now.

  Such words Daddy Love uttered, that the child in the Wooden Maiden would hear and, in time, understand. In his tireless and kindly voice he so spoke. In his caressing tender voice. In his stern-Daddy voice. In his wise voice. In his somber voice. In his joyous voice. In his grave voice. He understood that the five-year-old terrified and helpless child was not yet receptive to Daddy Love’s words but Daddy Love’s words would have their effect gradually, in time.

  So the most obdurate rock is eroded by a succession of singular, soft raindrops, in time.

  He’d opened the Wooden Maiden mask, so that the child could see (if only the roof of the minivan close overhead) and hear. A gag in his mouth and duct-tape over the gag so that the child could not scream.

  The child could not cry. The child could not beg for mercy.

  The child could not plead.

  Daddy Love liked pleading children, to a degree. But beyond that, Daddy Love did not like pleading children.

  The Preacher was more tolerant. The Preacher was more forgiving of human weaknesses.

  On the whole, Chet Cash, who was Daddy Love in his “ordinary-guy” guise, did not like craven individuals. Chet did admire the brasher boys who resisted, though their resistance brought them punishment.

  The Wooden Maiden was an ingenious invention of Daddy Love. As Jesus was a carpenter, so too Daddy Love was good with his hands, and found such “handyman” work soothing. He would make of his sons apprentices in such work. A child was never too young to help his father.

  The Wooden Maiden was a more evolved variant of a plainer, less attractive coffin-like box that Daddy Love had utilized years ago. It was still a kind of box, carefully constructed with hinges, locks and bolts for safekeeping, yet made of high-quality cherry-wood. In shape, the Wooden Maiden resembled a casket, child-sized, or rather more it resembled the tomb of a child-pharaoh of ancient Egypt, for its structure was elegant, dignified. In his fantasies Daddy Love enjoyed imagining what law enforcement officers would say, if ever they discovered the Wooden Maiden; if ever they discovered Daddy Love, and drew from him his life-story.

  Daddy Love knew: his life-story was worth millions of dollars. If sold to the highest bidder. A made-for-TV special on one of the fancier cable channels—HBO, Showtime. A best seller simply and tastefully titled Daddy Love: My Story.

  Law enforcement officers would marvel—Never saw anything like this! This man is an artist.

  The Wooden Maiden, designed to contain a child less than twelve years old, was four feet, eight inches long, and twenty-eight inches wide. Daddy Love would not ever have chosen an obese child, certainly!

  The two parts of the Wooden Maiden were relatively independent of each other: the upper, or mask; the lower, which was most of the Wooden Maiden.

  The mask opened and shut on hinges. It was not unlike the design of a casket and inside, as in a casket, Daddy Love had affixed a cushion-like padding. For a child designed as Daddy Love’s son must be treated with care, kindness, love.

  The mask would be kept open, so long as the child was good.

  The remainder of the Wooden Maiden was more like a casket, with a top lid that opened, and locked, on hinges. The Wooden Maiden was so designed that the subject’s arms were pressed against his sides, and held firm. There was no accommodation for the subject to relieve himself—unfortunately. And so the subject, in time, learned to control his bladder and his bowel movements, until such time that Daddy Love released him from the Wooden Maiden for the purpose of using the toilet.

  But Daddy Love was so perceptive in his design, he’d made the foot of the Wooden Maiden several inches higher than the rest, to accommodate the subject’s feet. No sprained, broken, crippled feet for a son of Daddy Love!

  Son, you are safe now. Protected now.

  We will be home soon. Your new—your destined—home.

  You will begin the game of Forget.

  You have already begun the game of Forget.

  In Daddy Love’s rearview mirror he saw: rapidly advancing, red light flashing, siren full-blast, a police cruiser.

  Ohio state troopers. The red light suddenly appearing out of nowhere, nighttime on I-80 east about ten miles from the Pennsylvania border.

  He’d recently made a stop at an interstate filling station/restaurant. He’d filled up the Chrysler’s tank. He’d gone into the restaurant to get a cheeseburger, French fries and coleslaw and giant Diet Coke takeout and was still eating his supper, in the cardboard container in his lap, when the state trooper cruiser appeared. Chewing, Daddy Love yet prayed. He ate, and prayed. Scarcely aware of his silent prayer.

  In the back of the van, the child in the Wooden Maiden was utterly still. No muffled weeping, no sounds of struggle. The Wooden Maiden was a tight embrace and the child would grow into it, in time.

  Closer, ever closer the cruiser came—then, as Daddy Love had known it must, the cruiser passed him, at about eighty miles an hour.

  Not a glance at him. The assholes were hot on the trail of—who?

  Daddy Love was sweating, in his armpits and crotch. But Daddy Love had to laugh.

  Always you feel a rush of dread, in such situations. Daddy Love had rarely succumbed to panic, but he’d frequently felt dread. But then the dread turned into excitement, as adrenaline rushed through his veins. Better (almost!) than sex.

  And the excitement turned into laughter.

  It was amusing, listening to the radio. Daddy Love kept the volume low so that the child a few feet behind him could not hear. The latest news: Ypsilanti-child-abduction still laughably touted as “breaking news.”

  Daddy Love was curious—coolly curious—if the woman had survived? Or maybe died?

  If she survived, she’d (maybe) had a look at him, through the windshield, and (maybe) could describe him. But maybe (he halfway hoped) she’d died, which would ratchet the charges against the unidentified child-abductor up to murder, but make things safer for him.

  God would make that decision. If the cigarette-addicted female lived or died—that was up to God to decide.

  On the 11 P.M. news as Daddy Love crossed into Pennsylvania on a mostly deserted interstate he heard that a “suspect” had been taken into custody by Ypsilanti police.

  Witnesses had “identified”—who?

  Daddy Love laughed, laughed.

  In a way, this was the best part of it. This triumph, and this laughter. The child was but the means to this.

  9

  I-80 EAST PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY APRIL 15–16, 2006

  Slept in the van, upright in the driver’s seat. Often in daylight and never for more than an hour.

  In the back of the van, he assumed the child slept, too.

  Much of the time, in this early stage, the child slept.

  Several times since they’d left Detroit, Michigan, to head east on the interstate Daddy Love had stopped in deserted rest-areas to look after the child. He had to clean him, and he had to feed him. These were necessary tasks. Especially the cleaning, the child-piss and watery excrement he wished a female might take care of, but Daddy Love was a responsible daddy and did not shirk his duties. In a Detroit used-clothes shop on Labrosse he’d purchased several articles of clothing for a child including pajamas and socks. The clothes in which the child had been abducted
were now very soiled and would be discarded soon.

  Always there was the dread—a half-pleasurable shiver of dread!—that, when Daddy Love opened the mask, the child’s face would be slack, bloodless and lifeless: not a child but a child’s corpse.

  For the first time since he’d taken him, Daddy Love removed the duct-tape and the gag inside the child’s mouth.

  The gag he would need to replace, for it was soaked with spittle and nasty.

  The child gasped for breath. The child’s eyes rolled in his head. Daddy Love leaned above him smiling, speaking in his soft caressing assuring voice.

  “Hello, Gideon! I am your new daddy—Daddy Love.”

  The child rapidly blinked. His eyes appeared to be all pupil. Though he was of mixed race, his skin was chalky white. He did not respond at all to Daddy Love but stared at him with the blank-terror of a trapped and paralyzed animal.

  “You are Gideon, son. ‘Gideon’ is an ancient Hebrew name, of the Bible—‘brave warrior.’”

  The child’s former name had been Robbie Whitcomb. But no more.

  Daddy Love brought a morsel of food to the child’s mouth, to feed him. But the child seemed not to know what the food was, and it fell from his mouth, into the space behind his head.

  “Gideon. You are hungry, and you are thirsty. You will obey me.”

  He’d had to open the larger lid, and pull the child into a sitting position. Powerfully the child stank, and had to be cleaned; then, with infinite patience, Daddy Love tried again to feed him, morsels of the cheeseburger, and sips of the Coke.

  He had mixed a tranquilizer into the Coke, which would help to calm the child, and ease him into sleep once they began their journey again. As if he sensed this, the child refused to drink.

  It was as if the child’s mouth had locked. His jaw-muscles had locked. His spinal cord, his limbs had locked. Daddy Love would be required to coax the child out of this panic-paralysis, but not just yet, for they’d stopped at a deserted rest-stop, and intruders might pull into the parking lot at any time.