Methods of Madness

by Ray Garton

  A vacuum was nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  A television’s picture tube, according to Buddy, is so empty that the emptiness is hungry, so desperate to be filled that, if its shell were cracked, it would collapse on itself, violently sucking in as much air as it could take.

  Jason often imagined himself inside a giant picture tube. He imagined that he actually was a vacuum, not just inside one, because that would be impossible. No one—nothing—could be inside a vacuum.

  A vacuum was nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  He sometimes wondered what an implosion would sound like. Somehow he knew—he wasn’t sure how or why, he just knew—that the sound from upstairs was exactly that.

  Someone had thrown his dad’s little television set.

  Probably his dad.

  But in front of company? That was odd.

  He didn’t think about it, though. Instead, he thought about picture tubes and vacuums and implosions as thunder purred like a jungle cat and lightning peeked in the windows.

  “Jason, my boy! Alone at last. Forgive my tardiness,” Dr. Krusadian said as he came slowly down the stairs shaking his head. “You must never listen to people who criticize you too harshly for occasionally breaking or forgetting the rules. Even parents sometimes, I’m terribly sorry to report, forget them. Break them. Ignore them. No one is perfect.”

  Never in his life had Jason seen a human being so big. Or so black. His cheeks shined like black apples.

  He effortlessly pulled the recliner around so it faced Jason and sat down, leaning forward.

  “Jason, do you know why I’ve come?”

  Jason didn’t know exactly, but he knew it was big and important. He’d heard shouting when he was upstairs in his bedroom. When he finally realized that it was a stranger shouting—well, not shouting, exactly, but speaking in a very loud, threatening voice—at his dad, and his dad wasn’t breaking things up in the living room, he knew something was up. But he didn’t let on that he knew; he was afraid his dad would get angry about it later if he did.

  “To talk about my arm?” Jason replied.

  “Yes, to talk. With you. I’ve come to talk about lots of things. Like that picture.” He turned to the Disneyland picture on the mantle. “I’d like to talk about that. Yes… yes, I would.” Dr. Krusadian looked at the picture as if he were looking out a window at something beautiful an4 a smile spread over his face like warmth over a cold windowpane. “Must be a wonderful place, Disneyland.”

  “I had fun,” Jason lied.

  “Is it big?”

  Jason nodded.

  “A place where everyone can be a child. Mmm. Must be absolutely delightful.”

  Jason nodded again, only slightly this time, lowering his gaze to his broken arm. He could feel Dr. Krusadian looking at him.

  “But there’s one thing I don’t understand, Jason. About that picture. How is it that a boy like you could go to such a place—a gigantic land made up of fairytales and pirate ships and trips to outer space—and spend one tiny little second without a joyous smile on his face? You’re not smiling, Jason.”

  There was another cavernous silence.

  “You don’t look like you were having fun.”

  The silence of a vacuum.

  “Were you? Having fun?”

  No reply.

  “I don’t think so. But if you don’t want to talk about it yet, that’s perfectly all right. Do you like music?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. I have something for you.” Dr. Krusadian went to his black bag and removed a white cardboard box shaped like a big cube. He sat down again and put the box on the coffee table. “Powerful thing, music. Magic. It can make you happy, make you cry. Some makes you angry, some relaxed and soothed. I don’t know what I would do without music. How about you?”

  “I like music.”

  “Of course you do. All children do. They have to. Because sometimes it isn’t easy to be children, is it?”

  Jason didn’t speak, but he looked up at Dr. Krusadian finally. He could tell by the darkness in the man’s eyes that he already knew the answer to that question.

  He knew.

  “Music has always been my refuge,” the doctor said. “I turn to music for comfort, for protection. I put music into my life the way one puts a bandage on a wound so the wound can heal. Like that cast on your arm. It’s there to protect your arm while it gets better. Sometimes,” he whispered, “I wrap my whoooole life in music. Like a broken arm in a great big cast.” He spread his arms before him as if embracing a huge cast. “Have you ever done that, Jason?”

  Jason gave that careful thought and realized he’d never done anything of the kind. It made him feel bad, that realization, because he’d felt that way before, lots of times: like a great big wound that needed bandaging.

  “No,” Jason said, “but… I know what you mean.”

  “I thought you might. What is your refuge, Jason?”

  He chewed his lip while he thought about it.

  At first, he was going to say his bedroom, but that wasn’t true. When his door was closed, his dad just came in anyway, sometimes even kicked the door open without bothering to turn the knob. He’d broken two locks that way.

  Jason had a lot of books in his room and sometimes turned to them for comfort and diversion. He didn’t have as many as he used to, though, not enough to call them his refuge. If his dad ever caught him reading when he wanted Jason to pay attention to his shouting and hitting, he usually swiped the book from Jason’s hands and ripped it into three or four pieces.

  Feeling lost, Jason looked up at Dr. Krusadian and, sounding surprised, whispered, “I don’t have one.”

  The doctor’s face fell. “I am truly sorry to hear that, Jason. But—” He held a finger, “—that is why I am here.”

  Dr. Krusadian reached into the box and removed what looked, at first, like a gold colored ball with fascinating intricate designs carved into its smooth surface.

  But it wasn’t a ball because it had a little stand attached to the bottom with tiny legs to stand on.

  When he spoke again, Dr. Krusadian’s voice was quiet, secretive.

  “Different music does different things, Jason. Some music is meant to make you dance, while other music will put you to sleep.” As he spoke, the doctor opened his other bag and removed a heavy black tarpaulin folded into a square. Standing, he pulled the coffee table back a few feet and began spreading the tarpaulin over the carpet in front of the sofa. “Music like that—dance music, lullabies —fills you up. It puts something inside you. Do you understand, Jason?”

  “I think so,” Jason said as Dr. Krusadian took a long sturdy rope from his bag and began threading it through brass rings in the corners of the tarpaulin.

  “Some music, however, does the exact opposite.” He sat in the recliner again, still speaking softly, his twinkling eyes holding Jason’s attention. “Instead of filling you up, some music lets you… fill it up… with anything you wish. Does that make any sense to you, Jason?”

  It didn’t, really, and Jason frowned at Dr. Krusadian.

  “Perhaps it would be best to simply show you.” The doctor touched the globe gently with a fingertip. “This is a music box. Of sorts. A very special music box. This music does not give you anything. Doesn’t make you want to dance or sing. This music… takes. It takes whatever you need to get rid of, Jason, whatever you need to let go of. But before I play it for you—and this is important—I must tell you that it is to remain our secret. Ours alone. You must never tell a soul. Not even your parents. Promise?”

  His eyes wide with fascination, Jason nodded.

  “Now,” Dr. Krusadian whispered, placing a big hand on the globe, “listen.”

  When he lifted his hand, the globe began to turn very slowly and Jason noticed something startling.

  There was another globe inside, turning in the opposite direction.

  And inside that globe was another, turning
in the direction of the first.

  Each had minute designs carved into them, as the outer globe did: wiggly openings, round ones, triangular ones, all passing one another with each revolution, giving the illusion of movement.

  The openings seemed to blink like eyes…

  The globe appeared to breathe with life…

  And its music began to play…

  For a moment, it sounded nothing like music at all. It sounded instead like the cracking of wood, the slow falling of a great tree in the distance. Then other sounds joined in: a high, wistful pinging, a gut-deep thrum, a hollow, mournful whistle…

  They blended, the eerie sounds, locking together like cogs until they were one single, unified sound. Achingly beautiful music bled from the rotating globes and embraced Jason, held him like a guardian angel…

  Stroking him…

  Rocking him…

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Dr. Krusadian asked.

  His deep resonant voice reached Jason’s ears as if from a long distance. The boy’s gaze was held firmly by the spinning globes but, peripherally, he could see Dr. Krusadian rise to his feet and walk to one of the room’s four shining lamps.

  “The music is forever changing,” he whispered as he clicked the lamp off.

  The room dimmed slightly.

  “And the globes never remain the same… do they?”

  Click.

  Dimmer still.

  Lightning fluttered in the windows like playful ghosts.

  “The music is waiting, Jason. Waiting for you to decide what to give it. If you listen carefully… if you’ll watch closely… “

  Click.

  “… sometimes you’ll… see things… “

  Another click and the murky darkness fell unnoticed around Jason.

  ‘‘… pictures… some pretty… some not. Lie down, Jason.”

  He did, still watching the globes. He wasn’t sure, but… Jason thought… he saw something inside… something glowing, pulsing, blinking a bluish white inside Dr. Krusadian’s music box.

  Sitting down again, the doctor whispered, “Watch closely. Look inside, Jason… deeeep inside… and perhaps you’ll see them, too… “

  As Jason stared intensely, he began to feel sleepy, groggy, like he had just before having his tonsils removed.

  Then the pictures began…

  15.

  After the volcano in her stomach began to subside, Dani drank some more Maalox and fought to keep it down.

  Richard was sprawled on the bed staring at the ceiling. His eyes appeared glazed, dead.

  Dani listened for noise from downstairs, but heard nothing.

  “He’s gonna pay for that fucking set,” Richard croaked. “He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to.”

  When Richard wasn’t talking and the thunder was still, the room was so silent Dani could hear her blood flowing.

  “We won’t say anything right now,” Richard went on. “Well just go on with him while he’s here. Cooperate quietly.”

  Dani stood in the bathroom doorway looking around the room for something. A book, a magazine. Anything to take her mind off of… everything.

  The music box caught her eye.

  “But as soon as that son of a bitch is gone, I’m gonna sue his fat nigger ass from here to the goddamned Second Coming, you just wait.”

  She ignored him. He wasn’t talking to her, anyway; he was talking to himself, the way he so often did.

  Dani sat in her chair at the dresser and studied the box, frowning.

  There were holes in the gold colored cube, finely carved holes of all different shapes and sizes.

  The more she looked at it, the more beauty she saw in its patterns and the more she realized that—

  —there was something inside.

  “We’ll call that other doctor—what’s his name?—Saunders. Find out a little more about this asshole. Not gonna throw my - fuckin’ television at me and get away with it.” He was beginning to sound sleepy. “Honey, turn the light off, will you?”

  Dani didn’t hear him. She was trying to figure out the shape of the object inside the cube. It looked like… maybe… a pyramid carved with more intriguing curlicues and squiggles…

  “Dani? Dammit, Danielle, will you turn the god—” He got off the bed. “Okay, I’ll get the goddamned light.”

  The sudden darkness startled Dani from her concentration. A small yellowed nightlight in the shape of a daisy was plugged into the outlet above the dresser, always there, glowing day and night. It came alive in the darkness, shedding a pool of dull yellow light onto the dresser.

  Onto the cube.

  It shined a hazy gold, like sunlight filtering through heavy, dirty clouds.

  ‘‘I’m gonna take a nap” Richard said. “Wake me up when that bastard comes back.” He rolled onto his side and mumbled into his pillow. “Locking us in our bedroom… moving into our fucking house… Jeee-zus.”

  Dani’s stomach began to burn again. It had eaten the Maalox, sucked it up, and now was chewing on itself again like a mad animal caught in a trap. She leaned forward, hugging her stomach, and belched sulphur as she looked at the box.

  Thinking…

  That was her problem; she couldn’t stop thinking…

  About Jason: one year old and giggling in his highchair, pink round face splotched with applesauce.

  That image came often, always turning up the fire in her gut, fueling it with… what? Sorrow? A feeling of loss? Both of those, she knew, and something else, the worst of all.

  Guilt.

  Because that was the last time she could remember Jason laughing, really laughing through a genuine grin. She’d tried to remember others, but couldn’t. That was the last.

  It was easy to think Jason’s laughter stopped when their drinking—their nightly drinking—started, but maybe not. Maybe the drinking came after, in an attempt to silence the constant shouting.

  That, she decided, is when Jason’s laughter went away. When the shouting started.

  The shouting was one thing, but the hitting… It was the hitting that had done so much damage.

  No, a voice said, a guttural fiery breath voice in her stomach, the damage came when the hitting didn’t stop. And why didn’t the hitting stop?

  She scrubbed her face with her hands, trying to reroute her thoughts.

  Why, Dani? Why didn’t it stop?

  “I tried,” she breathed into a curled fist.

  Coward.

  “No.”

  Coward.

  “I tried… once… “

  Once wasn’t enough, was it?

  “But… I did… try…

  Her head dropped heavily and she put both hands on the cube and—

  —it came alive.

  Dani gasped and jerked her hands away.

  But it was too late…

  16.

  “Do you see the pictures, Jason?”

  “Mmm… hmmm… “ His eyelids were stones and his body was turning to warm smooth milk and soaking into the sofa. But he never took his eyes from the globes within globes… from the tiny pictures that flashed from the holes and were magnified for an instant in his head.

  “Can you see the pictures, Jason?”

  “Uh… huh… “

  “Good. I… I would like you to do a favor for me, Jason.”

  “Wha… ?”

  “I’d like you to look for particular pictures for me. Will you do that for me, Jason?”

  “‘kay.”

  “Find for me the last time you remember being happy. Truly… truly happy. Can you do that?”

  He looked. Searched. The pictures flashed through his mind like a slideshow being projected on the side of a moving roller-coaster until—

  —there.

  Jason willed the picture to stay in his mind, in focus.

  The globes stopped turning, just held, and the picture grew bright, vivid, real, and—

  —Jason slipped his right thumb in his mouth.

  “How
old are you, Jason?”

  He started to reply, but speech was now a distant memory that took a moment to recapture.

  “Don’t… know… “

  “Can you hold up fingers for me?”

  Jason’s fingers wagged slowly, stopped, then disappeared, tucked beneath his chin, giving up.

  “Where are you?”

  “Kitchen.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Eating. Nummies. Ap… applesau… ap… “

  “Applesauce?”

  He nodded. “Mommy’s… laughing. Feeding me.”

  “Mommy’s happy?”

  Another nod.

  “Where’s Daddy?”

  “Work. Home soon.”

  “Find Daddy in the picture, Jason.”

  Jason frowned, listened.

  He heard the front door open, heard Daddy’s footsteps.

  “Daaa-eee!” he cooed.

  “Is he home?”

  “Just came in.”

  Jason’s smile disappeared; he pulled his thumb from his mouth. This, he knew somehow, was the bad part, like the monster finally coming into the light in a scary movie. He didn’t want to look, but the picture remained inside his head, held by the globe, vividly superimposed over the dark living room.

  “He’s… he’s gonna… “

  Goddamned son of a bitch Steevers… at work… fucking idiot doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing… we got any wine?

  “He’s mad,” Jason said.

  Mommy said, but it’s only five—

  I don’t give a damn what time it is, goddammit.

  A fist slammed the table.

  Jason started, bumping the little jar with the baby’s face on it.

  The jar shattered on the floor, sending small gobs of applesauce through the kitchen.

  Daddy’s foot crunched some glass.

  Son of a bitch, that little—

  Daddy’s fist flew—

  —hit Jason’s chair—

  —and the world tilted.

  “Falling! Daddy h-hit… the ch-chair! Falling!” Jason screamed.

  “Not really. It’s okay, Jason, it’s—”

  His body jolted on the sofa when he—

  —hit the floor, bumped his head, and screamed—