The Secrets on Chicory Lane

by Raymond Benson

  I was glad to hear he had stopped his illegal drug use. I had, too, ever since I was married. The seventies was a long time ago.

  Eddie told me about his stint in prison. “It was pretty horrible,” he said, “but I managed to maintain a semblance of self-respect. I wasn’t raped, and I didn’t get involved in fights. There was a white supremacy skinhead gang that protected me, although I didn’t join them. I’m no neo-Nazi, and I like my hair. I think most everyone else was afraid of me because of my reputation as a Satanist. The word got out that if I was harmed, the devil would exact revenge. They nicknamed me ‘The Warlock.’” He smiled at that, almost as if he believed it himself.

  How I managed to stay sitting at the table after hearing all this is a question I continue to ask myself. Red flags were flying. Of all the things to pretend to be, he had to pick a Satanist? It was shocking and strange. But I remained, because, I think, I was fascinated. I knew nothing about the things he was saying. As an author, I ate it up. Yes, I was disturbed by it all, but I was smart and curious enough to want to learn more. Perhaps it was material I could use in a novel.

  He told me about his mother’s stroke—something I hadn’t known before seeing him. “Is that the real reason you haven’t left Limite?” I asked.

  “No, I like it here,” was all he would say. He then suggested I come and “see the old neighborhood” and say hello to her. “She might remember you, but she can’t say hello. I can tell if she’s happy or sad by the expression in her eyes. She can nod and shake her head and grunt, but otherwise, I’m taking care of a living vegetable.”

  His terminology disturbed me, but I answered that I’d like to see her. After we finished the coffee—I offered to pay and Eddie accepted—I followed him to Chicory Lane. It was bizarre seeing that house I knew so well painted black. Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb. No wonder he was ostracized by the neighbors. Across the street, my former home looked the same. When we got out of our cars, I gestured to it. “Who lives in our old place?”

  “Oh, some young couple with a toddler,” he said. “They’re afraid of me.” We went inside. Incongruously, the interior of Eddie’s house appeared unchanged since I was last there. Some furnishings were different, but you’d never know the place was a “warlock’s home” from the inside. It was further indication to me that what Eddie was doing was an act. He had converted one bedroom into an office where he produced the newsletter. He gave me some old issues “for my entertainment,” as he called it. A young man with red shoulder-length hair was busy at a desk, stuffing newsletters into envelopes. Eddie introduced him as Wade and said that he was an employee and fellow Satanist. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Eddie had found like-minded believers to help him. It was difficult to imagine more than one warlock residing in a town as small as Limite.

  That was facetious. Eddie was no warlock. I knew that, even if no one else saw through his facade.

  In the living room, Mrs. Newcott sat slumped in a wheelchair in front of a television. Eddie brought me in and said, “Hey, Ma, look who’s here. It’s Shelby Truman! Remember her, from across the street?”

  Her eyes darted to me and focused, but I didn’t see any recognition in her gaze. I didn’t see anything behind those irises. They say that the eyes are windows to the soul; if that’s the case, then Mrs. Newcott’s soul was dead. Poor woman. It probably hadn’t helped that her son had become a “heathen” and was bringing strange people into the house to help out with his business. I told her it was nice to see her and I was glad Eddie was taking good care of her. No response.

  Next, Eddie took me to the backyard to show me his “sanctuary,” and I braced myself. There was a large padlock on the steel door. He fished a key chain out of his pocket, found the right key, and unlocked the device. I was hesitant to go down into the bomb shelter, but he said, “I still like to sleep here every once in a while, but it’s not my ‘room’ anymore. Come on, you should see what I’ve done to the place.” So I did. Curiosity got the better of me. Those Satanic masses that the media thought went on in his home? They were actually more likely to be conducted in the bomb shelter, which had been decked out in a pretty creepy fashion. The walls, floor, and ceiling had been painted black. The double bed was no longer there; instead six small pews sat on one end of the space, facing a large altar adorned with an upside-down pentagram. A pentagram had also been painted on the floor in front of the altar. An inverted cross hung on the back wall.

  It was freaky, like something out of a horror movie. “Eddie, are you kidding? This is just an act?”

  “Shelby it’s a fucking show, oh, sorry, pardon my language.”

  “So, what, is this a Satanic church?”

  He laughed. “Oh, I guess you could call it that. I think I might name it ‘The Temple.’ LaVey’s Church of Satan is the model for everything I do. I steal it all from him. You know who he is, right?”

  LaVey was still alive at the time. He was an occultist, writer, and musician in California who had become famous as the founder of a Satanic church. “I’ve heard of him. He’s that devil worshipper in San Francisco, right?”

  “Yeah. But he’s not a devil worshipper. He doesn’t believe in the devil. It’s a common misconception.”

  “And does anyone come here?”

  “Yep, I have congregants. Once a month we have about five to ten people come and ‘worship.’ I’m the high priest.” Eddie continued to explain. “Listen, contrary to popular belief, this isn’t ‘devil worship.’ In Satanism—at least the kind preached by LaVey—each individual is his or her own god. There is no room for any other god, and that includes Satan or Lucifer or whatever other name you might use. I don’t believe in Satan as a deity. He’s a symbol. In that regard, I guess I am a Satanist. I am my own god.”

  “But your, uh, congregants—don’t they come to worship Satan?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. We follow LaVey’s Church of Satan philosophies. Like I said, Satan is more a symbol of a liberating figure. We’re atheists, which means we don’t believe in any deities, God or Satan. The word ‘Satanism’ is often used incorrectly, but it’s generally utilized to describe the various movements that reject God and Christianity. We may use devil imagery, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we believe in a devil.”

  Once we were back outside in the fresh air, Eddie asked if I’d like to get together again that night. Call me crazy—I still felt safe around him, I was still attracted to this mysterious and beautiful man, and I wanted to know more.

  I made a date with a warlock.

  18

  The digital clock in the Livingston Best Western reads 2:35. In the morning. I lie there in bed, sleeping like a salad—constantly tossing. No matter what I do, I can’t fall asleep. Of course, that’s the problem; I am trying to go to sleep. That never works.

  The motion picture in my brain keeps on running. The memories and flashbacks of my times with Eddie are nearing an end, so I figure it’s best to simply let the movie play out. After all, the plan was to go over everything from the past that I can recall; I just didn’t think it would take this long! The anxiety of facing him again is also a contributing factor to my sleeplessness. I wish there was an internal switch we could flip whenever we wanted to go to sleep. I’m often told I should learn to meditate, and I gave it a shot—several times in fact—but it never worked. My mind kept racing!

  If Act One of my life with Eddie was the sixties, and Act Two the seventies and eighties, then Act Three is certainly what happened during the Christmas holidays of 1994. It’s one of the few times in my life when I questioned my own sanity. The fact that I went out with Eddie again that Christmas season and slept with him and almost revitalized our relationship was truly not the act of a sensible woman. Looking back, I realize now that I was very lonely. Despite my newfound fame, success, and fortune, I was still alone. Oh, there were men in my life, that wasn’t the problem. There was David, a cop, whom I often saw back in Chicago. That had been going on for a
few months. His politics differed from mine, which was a bit of a sticking point, but otherwise he was kind and attentive. David was also good in bed, a major factor in his attractiveness. Nevertheless, there was a spark missing, that jolt of electricity I always experienced when I was with Eddie. To this day, I’ve never found another person who possesses that fire, someone who can bring out the fission in me. What can I say? David was good, but Eddie was the most intensely sensual lover I’ve ever known.

  So I went with it. I was home for only two weeks, so I thought, what the hell … And who would know? I wasn’t making any public appearances in Limite. No one knew I was there except my agent (this was before I employed an assistant). I figured that whatever happened, it would remain discreet—and it did. Still, it was a mistake. The consequences nearly pushed Eddie over the edge, and it forced me to seriously distance myself from him. The next time I saw Eddie after Christmas of ’94 was at his trial in 2006, but we didn’t speak. Tomorrow will be the first time we’ve spoken in twenty years. My God.

  On that first date of Act Three, we went to dinner at the Red Shack. I suppose we did it for old times’ sake because it reminded us of the Limite we’d known when we were younger. I was surprised it was still in operation. The Baker family, who has run it and other restaurants in Limite for generations, is a class act, and the Red Shack is still as popular today; I may just have to go for a steak this weekend when I’m in town. That night, the food, the wine, the atmosphere … I lost my inhibitions. Eddie still had that power of seduction. He charmed me, even though my inner Jiminy Cricket was pleading with me to recognize the warning signs and use my brain. The Satanist thing freaked me out, sure, but not enough to make me go running. In truth, I wasn’t afraid of Eddie at all. I thought he was eccentric, bizarre, handsome, and brilliant; and despite his violent reputation, I knew he would never harm me.

  I’m sorry I didn’t recognize his depression earlier, and the fact that he suffered from severe emotional problems. Would anything have been different? Doubtful. He was on a predestined course of self-destruction and was oh so very good at hiding it in public.

  That night at the Red Shack, he was the Eddie I remembered. Warm, dark, and mysterious, with a touch of ironic, black humor. He made me laugh, and we reminisced just as we had when he and I got together in 1976—a Christmas break event as well.

  I went home with him after dinner. It felt strange parking Dad’s car in front of Eddie’s house. Looking across the street at our old place gave me the shivers. There were no lights on; the home was dark and soulless. The family with the young child had gone to bed. I wondered if they knew about the house’s history.

  We went inside so that Eddie could check on his mother. She was asleep in bed, so he led me through the back door. The near-full moon was bright in the sky. I followed him, unquestioningly, as he moved directly to the fallout shelter, unlocked the door, and opened it. Once we were underground, he lit some candles and covered the inverted cross with a black drape. Of all the devilish iconography in “The Temple,” that cross creeped me out the most. Once it was hidden, it felt like we were back in the dungeon of lust. That’s what the shelter was to me, a place you went to when you wanted to do something naughty. In 1994, it looked like a Halloween carnival haunted house. What could make it even more taboo?

  Eddie pulled out another bottle of wine, and we drank the entire thing. By then, I was in no shape to drive, so I stayed. There was no bed in the shelter anymore, but there was the altar, which was long and wide enough for a couple of bodies. He placed a mattress and blankets on top, and that’s where we did it, on his goddamned altar. In the moment, it slipped my mind that it was a place of sacrifice and worship that he used in his black masses.

  Before we had sex, Eddie asked, “So there’s no chance you can get pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Why?”

  “I never want to have children.”

  I had no response to that. So we got on with it. The lovemaking was rougher than I remembered it, but intensely satisfying. I swear Eddie turned into a kind of beast; the next day, I found scratches from his fingernails on my forearms and back. He probably had marks on him as well. Later, when I reflected on what we’d done the night before, I was suddenly repulsed. And what was a mattress doing in “The Temple,” anyway? Did he use it often? I didn’t want to continue the thought.

  I woke up in the bomb shelter with a hangover. Because we were underground with no windows, it was difficult to say whether it was day or night. A nightlight was always kept on whenever someone slept in the shelter, otherwise it would be pitch black. My eyes darted around the room and stopped on Eddie’s wristwatch, still on his arm, a few inches away from my face. 9:35. Morning. Eddie was still asleep when I got up to pee in the toilet behind the partition. I was desperately thirsty after drinking so much wine only a few hours prior, and I couldn’t find any water around. I slipped on my clothes, quietly opened the steel door—it still squeaked a little—and emerged from the lower depths. The morning air was chilly. The sliding back door to the house wasn’t locked, so I went in and made my way through the living room to the kitchen. I found a glass, filled it from the tap, and drank up. I found some orange juice in the fridge and drank that as well.

  A noise coming from the back of the house caught my attention. A moan? I put the glass down and gingerly stepped into the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Mrs. Newcott’s door was open. Another moan. I moved forward and knocked. “Mrs. Newcott?” She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at me. “Good morning. Can I get you anything?”

  She said something unintelligible, unable to move her mouth.

  “How can I help you?”

  I went to her, but the woman attempted to form more words. This time I understood her. “Go away.” She gestured with her hand, waving me out of the room.

  I left and went down the hall, and peeked in Eddie’s office. Dark and quiet. My stomach lurched. The sudden intake of water and juice was a shock to my system, and I desperately needed to use the toilet again. There was a bathroom across the hall with a full-size commode, more comfortable than the one in the shelter. As I finished up, I noticed that the medicine cabinet above the sink was ajar. I peeked inside. Besides the usual grooming supplies and various toiletries, there stood some prescription pill bottles. Curiosity got the better of me, so I examined them.

  One medication was Klonopin, or clonazepam, a tranquilizer my mother had taken. It was used for anxiety. The other bottle clued me in to the reality of Eddie’s problems. Zoloft. That was the brand name for an antidepressant, an SSRI, used to treat not only depression but obsessive-compulsive disorders and anxiety.

  If Eddie was taking that stuff, surely it wasn’t good that he chased the medication with alcohol.

  I put everything back, stepped out into the hallway, and listened for Mrs. Newcott. Silence. I made my way back through the living room, out to the backyard, and down into the dungeon of lust. Eddie was awake and staring at the ceiling.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Hey there.”

  “You all right?”

  “Sure. Are you? Where were you?”

  I told him I’d gone up for water and said hello to his mother.

  “Oh.”

  “Do you need to go inside and help her?”

  “Nah, she doesn’t like being bothered this early in the morning. She’s able to get what she needs by herself. Come get back in bed.”

  I removed my clothes and snuggled next to his naked, warm body. He was still very fit, although he’d allowed some of those muscles he’d honed in the army to soften. As for me, my figure was darned fine for a forty-year-old, if I do say so myself. My weight could have been reduced a bit, but that’s because I was a sedentary person by nature. My New Year’s resolution was going to be the same as the previous year’s and the one before that. Exercise more, damn it.

  After Eddie got up to pee, too, we went at it aga
in. An hour later, spent, we both decided that our stomachs could use some protein. First, he returned to the house to check on his mother. Thankfully she was able to go to the bathroom, get in and out of the wheelchair, and more or less dress by herself. Eddie simply had to prepare her meals and make sure she took certain medications. I helped him in the kitchen as we made a Mexican breakfast with eggs, tortilla chips, cheese, salsa, and peppers. Mrs. Newcott joined us in her wheelchair, staring at me the whole time. I smiled at her and said things like, “I don’t think it will be too cold today, do you, Mrs. Newcott?” She didn’t respond—just shot daggers at me with her eyes. I suspected she didn’t approve of me; maybe she was being protective of her son. Perhaps she knew how ill he was and didn’t want me rocking the boat. Who knew.

  I spent the rest of the day with my father, who didn’t say a word until we went out to lunch. “So how’s Eddie?” he asked.

  “Geez, Dad, how did you know?”

  “There aren’t many other people in Limite you would spend the night with. Since I didn’t get a call from the highway patrol about an accident, I figured you were with him.”

  “Sorry I didn’t call you.”

  “Hey, you’re a grown-up now. It was my car I was worried about.” He smiled and I punched his arm.

  I went about the rest of the day in a bit of a daze. Had I really done it? Slept with Eddie again after so many years? One thing was certain—he had rocked my world. It felt as if I had let go of years of stress and pressure from work, and I was totally relaxed. I was no longer Shelby Truman the famous author when I was with him, but simply Shelby the girl who once lived across the street.

  That delusion would be overturned in less than twenty-four hours.

  I hadn’t admitted that it bothered me that Eddie was taking antidepressants. I suppose back then there was something of a stigma attached to the drugs. We know a lot more now about those kinds of mental illnesses than we did back then. However, my concern bubbled up that night when he and I got together again, this time at a new Mexican restaurant in town. A pretty hostess knew him by name and escorted us to the table. The waiter also knew who he was. At some point during the meal, I heard a woman tell her husband at another table, “Look, there’s that devil worshipper!”