by Tiana Laveen
One hour passed, then another. I didn’t know the exact time, but I could feel it, and the sun was getting lower and lower in the sky. I started hearing noises, so I set out walking, and called out to him. I’d never been so afraid in all my life. Soon, the nightfall came, Melissa. I couldn’t see. It was getting cold outside, and I just kept walking, calling for my dad. There were wild animals racing around. I kept hearing them, as branches snapped here and there. I thought we’d be hunting quail, just like he said, but no, he just left me. Some other hunters found me crying. They tracked my father down; he was asleep in the truck not too far away. They tapped on the window, woke him up, and he looked at me and burst out laughing. He kept asking me if I was scared, and kept calling me a crybaby. One of the hunters threatened to report him for child endangerment, and then the two of ’em got into it until that guy just walked away…
Dad drove me home… and he laughed the entire way…
I never did learn to hunt from him, Melissa. I had to teach myself, and teach myself, I did. So there you have it. It was time for the prey to become the hunter, and the hunter to become prey. So, that’s what I did, Melissa. Yup. That’s what I did…
Chapter Seven
“YES, BUT WHO are you?”
“I just told you.”
Aaron ran his hand along his stubble-covered jawbone as he slumped a bit in his seat. The damn chair was hard as rock and too small, to boot. He readjusted himself, growing weary of the battle the two had been at for longer than he’d anticipated. The little twerp just wouldn’t give it a rest.
“Aaron, it’s been a little over two weeks since our first session and you are still resisting. Where do you believe that will get you?”
“Are you a homosexual?” His brow lifted just so at the man.
Dr. Owens looked at him curiously and crossed one leg over the other before fastening his hands around his knee.
“Aaron, all you’ve told me is your affiliations. I know nothing about you as a man, as a person outside the white nationalism spectrum.”
Aaron leisurely scratched his left ear lobe and glanced at a painting on the wall. It had been done in shades of earth and death, with maybe a hint of life, too. A young boy stood there with a rifle out in the woods, surrounded by tall trees, thick darkness, and the ugly side of nature. For a moment or two, his chest tightened as he stared at the thing, finding a connection, an identity. He’d never paid the damn thing any mind previously, but somehow, today, it pulled him in…
How ironic… I hadn’t thought about that hunting trip in years and when I open up about it, lo and behold, here the shit hangs on this wall. That little son of a bitch even looks a little like me…
“Do you like going to art museums?” Aaron coughed into the palm of his hand as he kept his eyes on the little boy with the gun.
“Sometimes. Does that make me a homosexual, Aaron? Because I appreciate art?”
His eyes drifted down into the man’s for a short while before returning to the thing.
“Nah, not really. I asked if you were a homosexual because I don’t like homosexuals, Dr. Owens.”
“Seems to me, Aaron, you don’t like much of anyone… including yourself.”
Aaron cocked his head to the side and clicked his tongue against his inner jaw as he fought a smile.
“Is something funny?” Dr. Owens questioned, the beginnings of a grin forming on his face as well.
“Yeah, it is. You gotta come up with something else. I’ve heard it all before. White nationalists, race supremacists—supremacists? That is a ridiculous term by the way…” He rolled his eyes. “We all have small brains. We’re inbred hillbillies. We hate everyone.” He waved his hand limply. “We are afraid and hate ourselves, too. No, Dr. Owens, I don’t hate myself. I love myself.” He pointed to his chest. “And that’s why I’m here in the first damn place.”
“I see.” The man leaned further back in his seat and rocked ever so slightly. “So, your love for yourself is defined from your dislike of others? Perhaps, Mr. Pike, you could actually question what love means to you, then.”
“That’s laughable.” Aaron chuckled.
“Is it? I think you are stalling, as you have been the last couple of weeks. I know it was you that sent that little noose to my home, Aaron. The word ‘fag’ attached to it was a nice touch.”
Aaron tucked his joy away, for his pleasure was hitched on the man’s agony… He savored every morsel of the confrontation brewing between them.
“You’ve sat here for two weeks, Mr. Pike, and wasted valuable time. I am not letting you off the hook. I have rearranged my schedule to have even more one on one time with you.”
“I don’t care if you’re gonna take up space to sit your scrawny ass next to me in my cell for the rest of my sentence. You and me aren’t friends and you won’t get anything from me but what I want you to get.”
“Because you’re afraid…”
“I’m not afraid of a goddamn thing.”
“Sure you are. Only cowards call onto other men and have them do their bidding. Are you a coward, Aaron?”
“Do you honestly care? I doubt it.” He grimaced.
“You sent it as a warning, the little red noose, so that I’d let you out of this program. You were hoping it would scare me and cause you to be kicked out of treatment. I have not told Warden Huckleberry and have no intentions of doing so. I am getting close to something inside of you that you’ve spent the majority of your life trying to protect. I am getting very close, so close that you are fighting with everything you have… and you are breaking. You know you can’t hold out much longer. And it’s not only that a part of you actually wants to talk about it… but you’re scared, so you are becoming desperate.”
“If that’s so, Dr. Owens, then you must understand, being as brainy as you are and all,” he smirked, “that a desperate man is a dangerous man.” He let the threat simmer, percolate, until it was cooked to perfection.
“Perhaps. But let’s talk about what you are doing right this second, to protect yourself from what you perceive as a threat. When I insult you, you don’t flinch. When I say something that upsets you, you don’t show it in a typical way. The angrier you become, the calmer you behave. You have completely turned off your empathy and need to express emotion. That is where the true danger lies, Aaron. You are broken. You are damaged. But, you are not destroyed. Only you can be your own wrecking ball, Aaron. So I ask you again, who are you?”
“I’m Aaron Pike.”
“And who is Aaron Pike?”
His throat constricted around a ball of spit, gulped it down whole.
“Is he the little boy in the painting that you keep staring at?” the doctor asked calmly as he pointed to the thing but kept his eyes on him, not even blinking. “The little boy that looks a bit afraid, carrying his big gun for protection, but he still doesn’t feel safe. Is that you, Aaron? Is that you carrying your pride, your trumped up, self-imposed identity to protect a little boy that was violated and hurt but only wants to be loved?”
“Shut up.”
“Shut up?” Dr. Owens lifted a brow. “You like art, don’t you, Aaron? It is a little secret of yours… No one knows about it. You like pictures, words, expression… and this one means something to you.”
“You don’t know what I like and don’t like.”
“I know for the past two weeks you’ve glanced at the painting, first thing, when you walk in here. And today, you looked at it the longest, stared at it as if it were calling to you. That painting was done by an artist called Claude Monet.”
“What’s this? Faggot trivia?”
“Are you a faggot because you like art and expression and words, Aaron?”
“No, but you are.”
“So you admit that you enjoy art, expression and words? I’ve seen some of your speeches, and I know you wrote them yourself… Your writing is incredible.”
Aaron grew a bit warmer, so much so, he wanted to ask for a tissue to dab at his f
orehead, but he refused. No… he’d do nothing to confirm his discomfort.
“You speak so expressively when you are giving speeches to a crowd of people, Aaron. From my research regarding Adolf Hitler, you hit both of his pivotal points regarding how to influence and persuade people, gain their attention and trust. And that, sir, is with the written and spoken word.” The man squinted and pointed in his direction, as if he should react, nod in agreement, or give a round of claps. Instead, Aaron cleared his throat and looked away lazily before resting his eyes back on the man, all the while begging time to move faster.
“Hitler put much stock into the spoken word, believing it created a special connection between speaker and audience. You are motivational, able to stir peoples’ emotions at the very core. You write so beautifully… They are mere words, correct? But they read almost like poetry and I have no doubt that when you say the words aloud, magic is created. You’re gifted, Aaron, despite the heinous message being presented in your vocalizations.”
“Heinous?” He shook his head dismissively. “Nah, it’s truth, Dr. Owens. Sometimes truth and beauty can’t live together…cohabitate. That’s not my problem.”
“Here…” The man reached into a cream colored folder on his desk and retrieved a piece of paper. “Let me quote something you said:
“The fiery embers of a Hell on Earth crash against our ankles as we run towards the open arms of freedom. The burdens of others call us by our birth name, the one that God gave us, not our parents.
And we answer; we keep fighting through the burn. We answer our master’s cry.
This sick, twisted society tells us that we are wrong
To protect our red, hot blood, our beating hearts and our clear minds.
Do not fall prey to the oppressors, ladies and gentlemen.
Don’t become sidetracked or lose your stronghold on control. This life is a wave, and sometimes the waters get rough, but in those cases, one must hold on with everything he has, and as he drowns, he must smile and say,
‘I will wash ashore, live again, and people will see what I’ve done…’”
Silence webbed itself between them for a moment or two as the words filtered through the air like invisible musical threads, taking Aaron to a place where he was happy, respected, and treated with reverence.
“Aaron… that’s nothing short of remarkable. You use emotional pull to grab your audience. You have a beautiful grasp of just how to do it, too. You have a skilled command of etymological expression, lyrics, and how to twist and turn them for your benefit. How long have you been writing speeches like this?”
“For years…”
Dr. Owens nodded in an all-knowing, annoying sort of way.
“Your words are like that painting.” He pointed back to the little boy in the wilderness. “I can hear your fear, even within the formidable shell of your pride.”
“No fear. It’s about sacrifice. Don’t read into it.”
“Oh.” Dr. Owens nodded agreeably. “But I must, Aaron. I must read into it, because I need you to tell me who you are. Everything we say and do provides telltale signs of who we really are. You give little pieces of yourself in your speeches, you see? Let’s take a line from this discourse, for instance – the one I just recited a short excerpt from.” The man looked down at the paper and located the spot he was looking for. “I suppose this passage will do,” he murmured.
‘And we answer; we keep fighting through the burn. We answer our master’s cry.’
“When you wrote that, what did it mean?”
“…The same thing that it means right now. The meaning hasn’t changed.”
“I understand that. I was only providing context for my question. So, explain to me,” he said, pointing to himself. “What you meant by those words?”
“It means that when the call to action comes, we, as members of the Nationalist Socialist Movement, will answer and not allow the pressure of this deviant world around us to stop us from doing our duty.”
“Hmmm, okay.” Dr. Owens nodded again as his eyes drifted back and forth from passage to passage. “Who is the master you are referencing in this?”
“God, our Divine Creator.”
“That’s odd. I would have guessed the master was actually you…”
“What? That doesn’t…” Aaron shook his head. His upper lip lifted into a roguish grin that toyed with turning into a sneer at any moment as he tiptoed on semi-squelched emotions. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, hear me out. I don’t think you believe God weeps… though, in this case, I understand ‘cry’ means a call to action. But if we look at the word out of this context—and you choose your words quite carefully, Aaron; you pride yourself on that I believe… I think if we look at the raw words here, you are telling people who you really are.”
“Now,” Aaron’s cheeks plumped with forced mirth, “that’s an interestin’ theory, isn’t it, Dr. Owens. Please, tell me more.”
“You struggle with honesty, Aaron. Yet, people telling the truth is very important to you, so you can accomplish what you have thus far and be good at what you do. Manipulation is not an option; it is a requirement. You have to emotionally pull and draw people in, to achieve what you consider your life calling. So, you offer full disclosure in roundabout ways to appease your need to be upfront. You’re like this because you absolutely hate being lied to.”
“Interesting…”
“Interesting, indeed. Aaron, I’ve learned much about you in a short time, via reading your speeches. My initial assessments about you have altered significantly based mainly on the things you’ve written that I’ve been able to obtain.”
“If you know me so well now, Dr. Owens, why do you keep asking me who I am?” he joked.
“There are still too many missing pieces, Aaron. I need you to work with me, not against me. Now, let’s not lose focus.” He glanced back down at the paper then hooked his sights back onto Aaron. “I think, you think you are the master leading the sheep, but behind closed doors, you cry and feel lost as you want to be found yourself.”
“Hmmm, I see.” His tongue journeyed inside of his mouth, making slow trails across the soft wetness of his inner jaw as he fought biting into his own flesh, drawing blood, and swallowing his dignity in the process. “So, Dr. Owens, when you get done jammin’ your cock into another man’s rectum or havin’ your own ass plowed the fuck out, you drive your tiny Tim, Milhouse Van Houten ass over here in your pint-sized foreign, wind-up toy car and mind fuck the inmates, right? Just one big ass gangbang in this motherfucker! You just fuck all goddamn day, don’t you?! An ass here,” he looked to one side of the room. “a brain there,” he looked at the other side of the office. “…makes no difference to you. Not gonna work here, partner! The speech meant what it meant. Nothing more, nothing less.” He crossed his arms over his chest, almost cutting off his own damn breath as he dared to contain himself.
“Your obsession with my alleged sexual orientation is not an uncommon divergent. In actuality, I don’t think you hate homosexuals at all. I believe you are indifferent to homosexuality. It doesn’t move you to the left or to the right. I think because you believe me to be one, you are trying to cause tension and upset me. That is what racial slurs and other derogatory names intended for an entire group of people are created for, correct?”
“I call people what they are. Black people are niggers, coons, and monkeys. Gay men are fags, queens, and queer. Lesbians are dykes and carpet munchers. Would you like for me to continue or do you get the idea now?”
“What is a nigger, Aaron?”
“You want the textbook definition? You know what the hell it means and we’ve already established I’m not an ordinary motherfucker.”
“Yes, that is true. Nevertheless, please address the question.”
“I know that it means ignorant. The origin of the word, nègre, is French, and was first used in approximately 1640. The Spanish version is negro. It is considered an offensive term for a mem
ber of a dark-skinned race, mainly ones that originate from the continent of Africa. Now these dumb ass coons are walkin’ around here callin’ each other that, but still want to get angry with white people if we say it. Fuck them, I don’t give uh shit. Most of ’em are goddamn idiots! We had one in the White House lettin’ all the illegals over here.”
“President Obama has a white mother, Aaron. He is technically of mixed heritage.”
“Yeah, his sell out mama fucked an African nigger who got ’er pregnant and then didn’t take care of his illegitimate kid. Big surprise! Most of these fuckers just make a bunch of bastards and then don’t take care of ’em. His white grandparents saved the day. Regardless, he’s still a goddamn nigger!”
“Aaron, President Obama’s parents were married…”
“Not at the time of his conception and birth! Look it up; do your damn research! He’s a fuckin’ nigger that aided in destroying this country!”
Dr. Owens’ lips curved at the ends. “You like saying that, don’t you?”
“NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! PORCH MONKEY! PORCH MONKEY! COON! COON! COON! BLACK, STINKIN’ ASS BASTARDS! Who the fuck cares?”
“I see.” Dr. Owens turned away as if disgusted, as if needing a moment alone. He looked back up and glared into Aaron’s eyes. “Anything to get the spotlight away from yourself once again. The closer I get to knocking your protective shield away, the angrier and more belligerent you become. You are losing your resolve. You are typically more self contained and controlled than this. That means I’m close… I’m almost there.”
“No, I’m getting angry because of all of these dumb ass questions, and this ridiculous discussion, too. You’re wasting my time and I could be asleep right now or talking to my lawyer, trying to get the hell outta here. It’s a name. What difference does it make? If someone feels like it doesn’t apply to them, so be it. No need in gettin’ all worked up about a goddamn name. People call me shit every damn day. Doesn’t mean that’s who I am.”