Compulsion

by Keith Ablow

  "If you really want to thank me," I said, "you'll worry with me."

  "Worry about what?" he said.

  "About yourself. The stealing, hurting animals, setting fires-it can't go on."

  "That's past history," he said. "I'm not gonna screw up."

  "Past is future, as long as you run from it," I said. "Losing your parents, leaving Russia, living with Darwin-I promise you every shortcut you take to avoid facing those things leads back here. I've seen it happen. Dozens of times. Kids with hearts every bit as good as yours."

  He glowed with that last phrase. "Will you help me?" he said.

  "I will if you want me to," I said.

  "I really do," he said.

  Treating a sociopath is much harder than treating someone with depression, or even psychosis. The trouble is that sociopaths don't think they're sick. Everyone else is the problem. If the world would just get off their backs, cough up what they've got coming to them, everything would be fine. "We'll give it a try," I said.

  He held out his hand. We shook on it. "So where are we going?" he said.

  The way Billy asked that question made it plain he remembered my promise that I'd consider letting him live with me. I remembered, too. It was easy to deliver on it, at least temporarily, because I had been staying with Julia and Garret at Julia's mother's West Tisbury house on Martha's Vineyard. Julia had been released from Mass General just three days before and was still feeling unsteady, physically and emotionally. "We're going to your grandmother's house on Martha's Vineyard," I said. "I've been staying in the guest cottage while things come back together."

  "So we get to hang out, like you said," he said.

  "Sure looks that way."

  "Will Garret be there?" Billy asked.

  "He's moved most of his things in," I said.

  Billy nodded over his shoulder. "I have better memories of the House of Corrections than Darwin's house," he said. "At least everyone agrees this is a prison. You kind of know what to expect."

  Garret testified before the grand jury two days later. Carl Rossetti was there, as was District Attorney Tom Harrigan.

  Rossetti told me the scene was heart-rending. Garret had been a mess, trembling and sweating, needing much more reassurance than he had at Boston Police headquarters. Still, by the end of his testimony, he had nailed Darwin Bishop's coffin shut with an eyewitness account that put the plastic sealant in Bishop's hand and the bottle of nortriptyline in his desk. That complemented the fingerprint evidence perfectly. An indictment of Darwin Bishop for murder in the first degree, with extreme atrocity and cruelty (a special add-on in the Massachusetts courts), along with two counts of attempted murder (Tess and Julia) was issued within an hour of Garret stepping down from the witness stand.

  "I've been in this business long enough that most things don't get to me, you know?" Rossetti had told me. "But when Garret broke down, crying how he still loved his father but couldn't understand why, I almost got choked up myself."

  "Almost," I had said.

  "Honestly, Franko, the only time I really lose it is when I lose at the track. I drop more than a grand, I cry like a baby. Anything else, it's no skin off mine, if you know what I mean."

  "So you did get choked up," I said.

  "Pretty much," he said.

  When Garret returned home, I sat down with him. "I talked to Carl Rossetti," I said. "I know how hard it was for you today."

  "I didn't think it would be," Garret said. "I thought it would be easier than last time. Maybe it's that we're getting closer to the trial."

  "And the trial itself will be even harder," I said. "With everything Darwin has done, it's normal for you to feel a strange sort of devotion to him."

  "That's what I don't get," he said. "Why would you worry about what happens to someone who's tortured you?"

  The answer to that question brings up another strange human calculus. Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster. "Questioning your love for Darwin would mean questioning whether he ever loved you" I said. "That's a tough one, at seventeen or forty-seven. Take it from me."

  "Was your father… abusive?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said. "He beat me."

  "Shit," he said. "I'm sorry."

  "Thanks," I said.

  He shook his head, took a deep breath, let it out. "With everything Darwin did to me, I've always assumed he didn't really mean it. But he must have. He couldn't have cared about me. Not in any normal way."

  I could hear the guilt in Garret's voice. He was about to put his father away for life, after all. "It's not a question you can figure out in one sitting," I said. "But if you keep coming back to it, you'll get closer and closer to the truth. And you'll be less and less afraid of it. Even when it hurts."

  We sat for several seconds, without saying anything else.

  Garret broke the silence. "I'm glad you're here-living with us for a while, I mean," he said.

  I reached out, squeezed his shoulder. "I am, too," I said.

  21

  Julia's mother's house was vintage Martha's Vineyard-an oversized, rehabbed barn on a lush hill within walking distance of the sea. The guesthouse where I was staying was a weathered, gray 1852 cottage that had been moved from Edgartown at the turn of the century. Wild blueberries and gooseberries and grapes grew all around the place, and the scent of sweet pepper bush filled the air.

  The first couple of weeks there were Eden. Not only were Billy and Garret coming to me for advice on everything from sports to girls to careers, letting me play the good father, but Julia was combining her neediness and sensuality more magically than ever. There were evenings she wept in my arms over vivid memories of Darwin's cruelty and could be comforted by no one else. She would mix her tears with surprise caresses, the warm wetnesses mingling into a potion that leached to the center of my being. She might whisper she was scared at one moment, that she needed me inside her at the next. And when we made love, it was with such intensity that I lost the boundary between my pleasure and hers, so that I was moved equally by each. Transported.

  Those days were like a drug, a drug I wished I could stay on forever. But on Sunday, July 21, just shy of three weeks after Darwin Bishop's arrest, the high ended, and everything began to crash.

  The day had been my best on the Vineyard. Julia, her mother, Candace, the boys, and I had lingered over a late, gourmet brunch that drifted effortlessly into an easy day of Julia reading on the porch while I played a lazy game of catch with Garret and Billy, the three of us cooling off in waves that seemed custom-made for body surfing. As evening approached, Julia said she was feeling more herself and suggested we celebrate with her first real excursion- a sunset stroll along the cliffs at Gay Head. I agreed, and we drove there together.

  The faces of the 150-foot bluffs glowed like the center of the earth in the day's last light. The tide was low, rhythmically washing the velvet sands below, leaving behind fields of iridescent bubbles.

  Julia wrapped both her arms around one of mine as we walked. "For the first time in my life," she said, "I feel safe."

  I stopped, turned to her, and kissed her forehead. Her emerald eyes literally sparkled. "Same here," I said.

  "You do?" she said.

  I nodded.

  "You trust me?"

  "Of course I trust you," I said.

  "Then close your eyes," she said, with a sly smile.

  I glanced at the edge of the cliff, three feet away. "If you're already bored with me, you can just tell me."

  Julia laughed like a little girl. "You said you trusted me." She kissed me deeply and pressed herself against me, moving her hand to my crotch and moving us a foot closer to the edge. Two more steps, and I'd have been parasailing without a sail. "C'mon, close
your eyes," she said, massaging me. "It'll be fun. I promise."

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes until Julia was just a shadow. One of my knees bent automatically, bracing me. An exhilarating combination of passion and fear gripped my heart. Beads of sweat ran off my chest, down the center of my abdomen. I could feel them pool in my navel, then spill over.

  Julia's warm, quick tongue moved up my neck, then into my ear. "Keep them closed," she whispered. She let go of me.

  I stood there several seconds in a kind of trance, listening to my own breathing and watching Julia back up several feet.

  "Don't cheat," she said. She turned to run away.

  I lost sight of her in the sun's glare. Fifteen, twenty seconds went by. All I could hear was the wind and rustling grass.

  "Okay," Julia called to me, from a distance. "Find me."

  I opened my eyes and looked around. The colors of the grass, ocean, sky, and cliffs seemed even more brilliant than before. The sun was a burning, red-orange beach ball hovering on the horizon.

  Julia was nowhere in sight.

  "Where are you?" I called out.

  No answer.

  A quarter-mile of low hills stretched before me. Julia could be lying in the wavy grass almost anywhere. I walked away from the cliffs, scanning the ground for footprints. When I'd gone about fifteen yards, I turned to face a small grove of tall, flowering sweet pepper bushes about ten, twelve yards to my right, a subtle path of matted grass leading to it. I had a feeling she was squirreled away inside. I walked toward the bushes. When I had closed to within several feet, I heard her giggle from inside the foliage. I slowly walked the rest of the way and cautiously pushed apart the screen of leafy branches. Then I stood there, staring at her.

  Julia was lying on her back on a bed made of her clothes, naked, her feet planted wide apart, her knees bent and touching. She looked like a mermaid in a secret garden, resting between tides. Her silky, black hair moved in an easy breeze that rustled the branches all around her. She smiled bashfully and let her knees drift apart. "You gonna come inside?" she said.

  We got back to the house just after 10:00 p.m. Garret's bodyguard, Pete Magill, was strolling around the front yard. We greeted him, then went inside.

  Julia's mother, Candace, was sitting on a well-worn leather couch in the great room, reading a magazine. Beside her, a lighted curio cabinet held a sampling of each of her children's toys. An original Barbie. A GI Joe. A metal race car. A cap gun. She looked up when we walked in. "Did you two have fun?" she asked.

  "I did," Julia said. "I think he did." She laughed.

  "We did," I said.

  "How's Tess?" Julia asked.

  "Asleep," Candace said. "She was no trouble."

  "Are the boys at home?" Julia asked.

  "Garret is," Candace said. "Billy's at a movie with that boy he met on the beach last week. Jason…"

  "Sanderson," I said. "Seems like a good kid."

  "He could be Billy's first real friend," Julia said. She gave me a smile full of warmth. "Billy's turning a corner. We must have the right doctor in the house."

  "I hope so," I said.

  "I'm going to go check on Tess and head to bed," Julia said. She kissed my cheek, turned to her mother. "Why don't you two talk a little while? You never do."

  Candace looked at me. "I didn't know she was watching us, Frank."

  I winked.

  "Maybe we will," Candace said to Julia.

  I watched Julia walk upstairs, then I sat down in a luxuriously worn leather armchair, catty-corner to the end of the couch.

  "She's come a long way," I said.

  "She's tough underneath all that pretty," Candace said, her voice elegant, yet kind. Her thinning hands were folded on the magazine now. Her paper-thin skin showed the blue veins running beneath it. "She didn't have it easy growing up, you know."

  "She told me a little about your husband," I said.

  "That was terrible," Candace said. "Truly."

  Julia had told me she had had to compete with her brothers for her lawyer-father's attention, that she hadn't been very successful winning him over. But that didn't sound catastrophic. "What was the worst of it, do you think?" I asked, fishing.

  "His ignoring her," Candace said.

  I nodded and stayed silent, in hopes she would say more.

  She didn't need any encouragement. Maybe she had been anxious to have this discussion. "If Julia did the slightest thing that displeased him, he would stop talking to her, stop looking at her, like she didn't exist." She shook her head. "He wasn't that way with the boys. Not ever."

  I glanced at the curio cabinet. A tin carousel with flying, hand-painted horses caught my eye. Next to it sat a little porcelain doll, with lifelike, blue crystal eyes. Such pretty toys. No one showcases the ugly memories. "How long would he ignore her?" I asked.

  "It could go on for weeks." She started wringing her hands. "A few times, he kept it up for over a month."

  No wonder winning the attention of men was so important to Julia. "You think that's the reason she chose modeling as a career?" I asked. "No one ignores the woman on the runway."

  "I would think so," Candace said. "I think it's the reason she made a great many choices in her life."

  "Such as?" I said.

  "Her marriage, for one-staying as long as she did. I don't think someone else would have taken the abuse for so long."

  Candace was right, of course. Julia had learned to tolerate marathons of abuse as a girl, when she was powerless to do anything about it.

  "So, why didn't you leave?" I asked, surprised at the edge in my voice. It was a question I could have asked my own mother, which explained the anger I was feeling.

  Candace looked down at her hands, shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I was wrong. I should have."

  That confession was all it took to swing me back toward empathy. No doubt Candace had her own traumatic life history that explained why she would let her sadistic husband stay in the house. "Julia got out, eventually," I said. "She filed that restraining order and enforced it. That took a lot of bravery."

  "I think she's on the right track now," Candace said. She nodded at me. "She found you, after all."

  Candace went up to bed, and I started walking back to the guest cottage. The night was cool, about sixty degrees, with a salty breeze off the ocean. The full moon glowed so round and white that it looked like a fake-some idealized version of reality from a kid's drawing.

  Halfway to the cottage, I noticed the light still on in Julia's bedroom. Her shutters were open, and I could see Julia pulling her T-shirt out of her shorts. I stopped and stared as she arched her back and pulled the shirt over her head, exposing her perfect breasts. She unbuttoned the top button of her shorts and began to unzip them, the cloth on either side of the zipper falling away from the graceful angles of her pelvis. Even after touching and tasting her again and again, I still hungered to watch her step out of those shorts and the thong she wore underneath.

  Just as Julia bent her arms, moved her hands to her waistband, and arched her back, I heard footsteps behind me. I wheeled around and saw Billy standing about fifteen feet from me, half in shadows. I felt like a peeping Tom, caught red-handed. But another part of me felt like I had caught Billy peeping. Had he been lurking outside Julia's window, waiting for her to undress?

  "You okay?" I said, not certain what else to say.

  He didn't answer.

  "Billy?"

  "I'm sorry," he said softly.

  He sounded so embarrassed and frightened that my worry about his voyeurism was overtaken with worry for him. "We can talk this through," I said, walking toward him. I stopped short after just a few steps. What I saw made me lightheaded. "What the hell happened?" I said.

  Billy looked down and ran a trembling hand over his blue and white pinstriped shirt, the front of which was covered with blood. His fingers and palm glistened ruby red in the night.

  I broke into a sweat colder than the night air
. "Are you all right?" I said instinctively. I stepped closer.

  "I think… I might have killed somebody," he said. He started to cry.

  I stopped moving. "Killed… Who?" I said. My eyes frantically searched Billy's other hand for a weapon. I didn't spot one. "Tell me what happened."

  He looked at his own bloodied hand.

  "What happened?" I shouted.

  "I can't remember," he said.

  I had to pull Billy toward the cottage. He stared ahead with vacant eyes, occasionally stumbling, nearly collapsing at the threshold. I caught him and helped him to the couch, then unbuttoned his blood-soaked shirt and peeled it off him. He was shaking badly. I was still shocked to see the scars Darwin Bishop's belt had left across his back. I wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. "Tell me what you do remember," I said.

  He hung his head. "I messed up."

  "Messed up, how? C'mon, Billy. Tell me."

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  I picked up the phone. "Tell me every single thing you remember, or I'll call the police, and you can tell them," I said.

  He took a deep breath, let it out. He opened his eyes, but kept looking at the floor. "I was with my friend Jason," he said. "We went to the movies. When we got out, three guys from his school were waiting for him. They started bugging him, calling him names. Faggot, pussy, wimp, stupid shit like that. I should have just walked away."

  "But you didn't," I said.

  "I warned them." He shook his head, gritted his teeth. "I told them, 'Get the fuck away from us. Or I'll…" "

  "Or you'd-what?"

  His upper lip started to tremble. "Kill them." He looked straight at me.

  "Then what happened?"

  "One of them came right up to me." A tear escaped his eye, ran down his cheek. "He spit in my face."

  "What did you do?" I asked.

  "I hit him. Then, I'm not sure. Everything just… went black."