The Hypnotist

by Laurence Anholt

  Then I thought about Pip and Hannah, and how I would feel if I heard that they had met ‘Judge Lynch’ while I was sipping cocktails on a plane.

  And I suppose that’s when I started getting angry with myself. All my life I’d been the quiet one. The one the bullies picked on. But things could change, couldn’t they? If an orphan boy could grow into a confident young man, if a mute girl could find a voice, then surely I could find my strength too. I remembered a powerful line my da used to quote from a fellow Irishman named Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

  And I was a good man, wasn’t I? At least, I had always thought myself so. Well, the judgemental moon stared down and I knew my moment had come.

  So I pulled on a few clothes and picked up my briefcase and stepped quietly into that strange silvery world from which all the colour had been bleached, and I walked quickly and quietly past the farmyard and up beside the apple trees, in the direction the ghost-men had driven.

  I’ll admit I half hoped that Pip or Hannah or Amigo would come out and join me. But I’d only send them home. Like it or not, this was my job, and that meant me on my own.

  As I neared the red barn, I became aware of two loud noises: the first was the sound of raised voices on the hilltop, and the second was the WHOOM-WHOOM-WHOOM of my heart, which sounded like a bass drum at some military parade.

  As I was passing the tallest of the twisty apple trees, I tripped and almost fell. Whatever it was that I had stumbled over was caught around my feet. I sat down on the hillside to get my breath back and to untangle whatever it was – and that’s when I found that some antisocial litterbug had left a noose lying about on the path.

  The fear rose like vomit in my gullet, but I fought it down. I knew what I had to do. I ducked behind a bush and tipped the contents of my briefcase out on the ground. It took less than a minute to get myself kitted out for the job.

  To be honest, I hadn’t realized how weird it would feel to be inside the professor’s robe, with the baldric rope tied around my waist and the white hood over my head. Fortunately I had an almost identical build to Walter Cerberus – but in any case, the thing about the Ku Klux Klan outfit is, one size fits all: fat or thin, old or young, anyone can wear it without attracting a second glance. At least, that’s what I was counting on.

  I stretched up and checked the pointy pyramid on top; that seemed fine, but the thing that took a bit of getting used to was the eyeholes. I found that unless I kept my head dead centre, my vision was blinkered. But after a few moments I became accustomed to looking out through twin portholes at the moonlit world.

  Then I dug about in the briefcase and pulled out the last items I had brought with me: the professor’s long white gauntlets. They fitted well enough – like a glove, you might say – but of course there was one extra finger, which flapped about a bit. So I stuffed a rolled-up hanky in the empty digit . . . It’s the details that count.

  I’d like to tell you that I felt like James Bond or one of the fellows in the action films as I dumped the empty briefcase behind a tree and set off up the hillside; but in truth I was almost sobbing with fear and pouring with sweat under that sheet – it was literally running down my neck beneath the hood.

  I took a moment to calm myself. I knew that if this was going to work, it would require absolute confidence; the slightest falter would give me away. So I employed some of the old skills I had taught so many others to empty my mind.

  As I walked, I had to get used to the fabric billowing around my knees like a wedding dress. When I looked down, I gave myself a bit of a fright; you see, the moonlight was reflecting off the fabric so I seemed to be sort of glowing – exactly like a proper ghost should do!

  By then I was just five hundred yards from the red barn and I began to wonder about this courage thing. I mean, we all admire courageous people, but I’ll tell you a little secret – a lot of heroes are none too bright! After all, they’re the first to go charging in to any situation, while the clever person is nowhere to be seen.

  But now it was too late for doubts because I’d reached the top of the hill, where a strong shaft of light spilled from the open barn. I could clearly see six or seven Ku Klux clones, phosphorescent in white robes just like mine, stacking boxes neatly into the two pickup trucks, which were parked on either side of Erwin’s Jeep.

  Keeping to the shadows, I crept round the outside of the vehicles – and here I had to heave my skirt up around my waist so I could crawl on hands and knees, closer and closer to the barn. By now I could actually hear the grunts and the exchange of banter as they heaved the wooden crates onto the cargo area in the back of one of the pickups.

  I watched carefully, and as one of the Klansmen put down his box, I seized my moment. I stood up, as calmly as I could, and simply joined the queue of men at the open doors of the barn.

  At any moment I expected to be noticed, but to my amazement it worked! It actually worked! No one even gave me a second glance!

  When it was my turn at the front of the line, I stepped towards the pile of boxes in the centre of the barn and a Klansman handed me a wooden box with rope handles – it was small but quite heavy. I carried it across the forecourt towards the pickup. Of course, I had no idea what was inside – bottles or tools perhaps?

  When I reached the vehicle, I passed my box up to another Klansman, who was standing in the back of the truck arranging everything into a tidy pile.

  Then, suddenly, the thing I had been dreading happened: the man glanced at my right hand on the rope handle and started making conversation. He said, ‘KIGY, Prof. Thought you was outta town . . .’

  I felt the panic surging inside me, but with as much swagger and confidence as I could muster, I dived straight in with my best imitation of Professor Walter Cerberus’s relaxed but educated Southern drawl. ‘KIGY, buddy. Came home a li’l early. Guess I missed y’all too much.’

  To my amazement, the Klansman just chuckled, and I trotted off as quickly as I could to fetch another box from the barn. My heart was performing acrobatics in my chest, but a part of me was whooping with delight – I’d pulled it off! I am Cerberus! I thought as I strode about, exactly as if I had every right to be there in the red barn with my fellow Kluxies.

  Within ten minutes the pile of boxes had been shifted and the Klansmen returned to the barn. I was the last person standing by the two loaded pickups, and I could see the others relaxing inside. It was still stiflingly hot, and when one of them produced a full crate of beer, the men lifted their hoods and began to bite the lids off bottles.

  I listened to the light-hearted chatter in the barn and realized that no one was paying me the slightest attention. That’s when I became overwhelmed with curiosity – I simply had to know what the Klansmen had been loading into those two trucks.

  Looking at the boxes in the two pickups, I noticed something odd: one box in each truck was different. On the lids of those boxes someone had scrawled three letters in white chalk: DET.

  DET . . . What did it mean? Every other box was unmarked, but one box on each of the two trucks was marked with those white letters. I checked again to make sure that no one was watching, then pulled over one of the DET boxes. DETERGENT? No, surely not. DETROIT? Maybe the boxes were headed there.

  I found myself a hiding place between the Jeep and one of the pickups, and studied the box in my hands. It had a sliding top rather than a hinged lid, nicely made with a small thumb dip. With no difficulty at all, I slid open the lid and now, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight, I could plainly see what was inside . . . I couldn’t believe my eyes! Bottles or tools? The boxes were packed with dynamite!

  To be honest, I’d never seen dynamite outside a cinema, but here were the classic red tubes complete with telltale fuses. There were about ten sticks in all, in a neat bundle with strips of black tape wrapped around them.

  And attached to the bundle of dynamite sticks was a round-faced alarm clock with twin bells on top. It sh
ould have been a cheerful little clock that a child might use to get to school on time – but this alarm clock was not cheerful at all. In fact it was the most alarming alarm clock I had ever seen . . . See, there were electrical wires – black and red – coming out of the back, and they were connected to the top of the dynamite bundle. To my absolute horror, I realized that the clock was gently ticking!

  In an instant I realized what DET meant! DET was short for DETONATOR. One wooden box on each truck contained a timed detonator, designed to blow the entire stack to kingdom come. And unless I was very much mistaken, the alarm was set to go off at precisely 10.22 the following morning.

  I forced myself to stay in control. Once you begin to panic, everything is lost. I could hear the men laughing and joking in the barn and I took a few seconds to consider my options: I could set the detonator to go off there and then, but of course everyone would die, including me, which would be a disappointment to my ma if no one else. The second option was to set the alarm to go off in, say, fifteen minutes, which would have given me time to run down the hillside. But wait a minute – that’s a hell of a lot of dynamite . . . Suppose it exploded just as the Klansmen were driving past the farm where Pip and Hannah lay sleeping in their beds?

  Thinking as fast as I could, I settled on a compromise – I had to pull off one of the gloves in order to adjust the dial on the back of the clock, and my shaking fingers didn’t help the operation. Tipping the clock delicately towards the moonlight, I carefully set the timer to go off in exactly thirty minutes – that would be a little after midnight. When that was done, I returned the clock snugly to its resting place on top of the dynamite sticks and slid the lid back in place.

  Pulling the six-fingered glove on again, I carried the box back to the pickup, as carefully as a newborn baby. Again I glanced around, and nestled the box gently into the cargo area of the vehicle.

  Then I moved to the other loaded vehicle. I was about to lift down the second detonator box in order to do the same thing, when suddenly I noticed a change in sound from the barn: the Klansmen were getting up and leaving.

  Groups of them sauntered towards the vehicles. I saw two men lift their robes and take a slash against the side of the barn. Quickly I remembered who I was supposed to be: I was not some petrified Irishman dressed in a sheet, I was Professor Walter Cerberus and I had every right to be there. I strode towards the others, staggering slightly for effect. I even had the presence of mind to grab a half-empty bottle of beer from a pile near the barn door.

  Then Erwin was there, dressed in blood-red robes, two heads higher than the tallest man.

  ‘Listen up,’ he called. ‘C’m on – gather round. I wanna say a few words afore you go. Herman, zat you? Git over here. Y’ too, Casey.’

  The Klansmen wandered across to the loaded pickups and gathered around their leader. I hoped I appeared to be just one amongst the faceless crowd, but I was the only one panicking about that detonator ticking away amongst the dynamite. I wondered if I had miscalculated. I thought we would all be long gone within half an hour, but I hadn’t realized there would be speeches.

  A man with a goatee beard settled on the tailgate beside Erwin, his hood rolled up to his forehead and an unlit cigar in his mouth. He pulled a match from a box. Suddenly Erwin turned and, without warning, lashed out with his huge gloved fist, knocking the matchbox from the Klansman’s hand. With the other crimson fist, he smacked the man across the jaw, so he tumbled to the ground like a sack of garbage. It was this casual violence that came so easily to the fellow.

  ‘Goddamn turnip-head! This boy ’bout to blow y’awl t’ kingdom come. You wanna smoke, you git yo’ ass a maile away ’fore you laight that thang.’

  Everyone laughed as the fellow with the goatee shuffled away to smoke, rubbing his bleeding mouth and brushing the dirt from his robe.

  ‘Git them tarps on,’ ordered Erwin.

  A couple of Klansmen covered the boxes with tarpaulins and lashed the sides with cord.

  ‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘The Klan has had a good month. We blown up so many Negro houses in Birmingham, folks are callin’ it Bombingham!’

  There was a mutter of approving laughter, and although I felt sick to my stomach, I heard myself pretending to chuckle. And all the while I thought anxiously of the minutes ticking away.

  ‘Y’all know the plan – this week we goin’ in fer the keel . . .’

  ‘Keel, keel, keel!’ yelled the men. ‘Kill, kill, kill!’ I heard myself say.

  ‘I wan’ you t’ strike at the very heart o’ the Negro community. Teach ’em a lesson they won’t f’get. Remember what ah tawt yer: Hate, hate, hate!’

  ‘Hate, hate, hate!’ yelled the men. ‘Hate, hate, hate!’ I called in unison.

  ‘Bobby, Thomas, Herman, Robert, you boys raide in this truck. Rest of you in th’ other one. May Gawd guide you. KIGY. Be on yer way, brothers.’

  The Klansman straightened their left arms in salute – as I did too – and then the men climbed into the two pickups, slamming the doors and gunning their engines as they rolled slowly down the hillside.

  And now only one vehicle remained, and that was Erwin’s Jeep. And only two people remained, and they were Erwin and me. A feeling of utter powerless overwhelmed me as I realized how foolish I had been: I had prepared no exit strategy at all.

  Erwin and I stared at each other – he, massive in his blood-red robes, and me, small and white in mine. The sweltering silver world fell very silent indeed. With the migraine pounding in my brain, I simply began to wander away from the barn.

  ‘Where’s your automobile, Prof?’ called Erwin. He had removed the red hood and it dangled from one hand.

  ‘Blowout,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Kinda weird y’ bein’ here, Prof.’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘More ‘n weird, seein’ as ah jes got offa th’ telephone to y’ in North Carolina!’

  I froze. My overwhelming desire was to break into a run and tear down the hillside, but Erwin was blocking my route. Instead, I went the other way – up the hill towards the fields. As I walked, I felt Erwin’s gaze burn into my back like radiation. He tossed his bottle on the ground and followed me . . . slowly . . . slowly up the hill.

  Now we were above the barn in the newly-cut wheat fields, where sharp stubble scraped my ankles. My pace increased, but in that vast illuminated landscape I felt horribly vulnerable and exposed. Downhill lay my bed and my plane ticket home. Uphill lay emptiness and death. This was not the direction I would choose.

  Erwin barked like a bloodhound, ‘Klansman, hold it thar! Tha’s an order, y’ hear?’

  I looked around for refuge. Far away, along the horizon, I saw a black line of pine trees, but I knew I would never make it. Half walking, half running, I set off towards the only shelter in that barren place – the first in the line of high-voltage towers, gleaming like monumental skeletons against the sky.

  In great slow-motion strides, I heard Erwin coming after me, grunting like a beast as his robes swished through the stubble.

  I pushed myself onwards, gasping for breath, until at last I reached the base of the colossal structure where the four vast feet were rooted like steel trees.

  Now where? There was nowhere to go.

  Erwin’s voice came booming across the landscape: ‘KLANSMAN! STOP RAIGHT THAR! Y’ HEAR ME? Y’ STOP NOW OR AH’LL KEEL YOU!’

  In my foolish dress I stood waist-deep in the weeds at the base of the tower. Beside that soaring moon-scraper I felt as small as a grain of rice.

  That man-beast was a slow-mover, but he got there in the end. I heard him breathing and cursing. I felt the cool girder against my back, and suddenly Erwin dived through the air like a crimson vulture and seized my throat in his great fingers, forcing me back against the metal column. And then, with his huge tombstone face just inches from my mask, he hissed, ‘Klansman, remove yer hood!’

  I felt his mighty hands tighten around my neck and the steel leg of the tower crush into
my spine. The pressure behind my eyeballs was unbearable. How could I compete with this killing machine?

  For a moment in the stark moonlight everything seemed hyper-real – I noticed the wide gaps between his yellow teeth and long hairs protruding from his small ears.

  ‘Ah seed, remove yer hood!’

  Obediently I took the tip of my mask in my silly six-fingered glove and peeled it slowly upwards to reveal my strictly non-Klan face.

  Blinking like a fish, he glared at me in disbelief.

  I said, ‘It’s me, Erwin. You remember me? I live across the track from Dead River Farm. My name is Jack – Dr Jack Morrow, to use my—’

  ‘Oh, ah ’member you well ’nuff. Yer th’ freak with th’ ahs.’

  ‘Look, the thing is, I work with Professor Cerberus at the university, and as a matter of fact he invited me to join the Klan. I thought I would sort of drop in and see how I liked it—’

  ‘Y’ know wha’ kaind a violation it is t’ put on Klan robes? Tha’s a craime! Tha’s a capital o-ffence!’

  ‘I didn’t know that – but, look, it’s late now and we’re both ready for bed . . . You’re looking awfully tired, did you know that?’

  My attempt at hypnosis was laughably ineffective. He prodded the underside of my chin with one finger. ‘Y’ hear me, an’ y’ hear me good – ah ain’t taired. Ah ain’t taired at awl. But you . . . you’re deed!’

  In an almost workmanlike way, his hands wrapped around my throat and he began methodically squeezing out my life, exactly like a fellow wringing water from a rag. And the final thing I saw before I passed out was two tiny pinpricks of hate in those evil eyes.

  Perhaps you’ve heard about near-death experiences. Perhaps you’ve heard about patients who look down at themselves on the operating table. I swear to you, as Erwin squeezed out my lifeforce, my consciousness rose from my body. I looked down as if from a great height at that primeval creature with his fingers around the neck of a foolish Irishman in a white frock. And I pitied the little fellow. Apart from a thin cord of life connecting my spirit to my body, I felt totally detached from what was happening.