The Caretaker of Lorne Field

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Do you think your son might’ve been telling you that to please you?”

  “No, Bert believed it. I could tell. He wasn’t humoring me.”

  “Maybe he made himself believe it as a way to please you?”

  “It wasn’t just Bert,” Durkin said. “Hank Thompson told me he believed it, too. He told me how he snuck down to Lorne Field when he was a kid and watched my grandpa weeding the field. He heard the Aukowies scream when they died. He told me how he was afraid his ears were going to start bleeding from the noise.”

  The psychiatrist patted Durkin’s hand. He kept his stare fixed on the opposite wall.

  “Jack, as you said before, when Mr. Thompson was younger everyone in your town believed in these creatures. Naturally, Mr. Thompson would be predisposed to believe in them also. He knew he was supposed to hear them scream, so he heard them. This type of behavior is really the basis of group hysteria. Think of how a cult works. Everyone knows they’re expected to believe, so they try hard to, and in the end they do believe, regardless of how irrational the beliefs are.”

  “I thought cults used brainwashing,” Durkin muttered.

  “That is all part of the psychology behind brainwashing,” she said. “Think of what your town underwent for several hundred years as collective brainwashing.”

  Durkin shook his head slowly, his eyes still fixed on the opposite wall. “I know what I’ve been seeing my whole life,” he said.

  “Jack, think about it. The two most important male role models in your life were your father and grandfather. They both believed in these weeds being creatures, so you had to make yourself believe. You were going to see what you had to see and hear what you had to hear.”

  “It ain’t like that,” he said. “No, that ain’t it. It don’t explain why no animal, bird or insect goes anywhere near that field. It don’t explain what I saw those Aukowies do to my son, Lester, or to Dan Wolcott.”

  “It does, Jack, if you think about it honestly. With everyone else in town doubting the existence of these creatures, you needed to believe, Jack. You needed to create those memories so you could continue to believe.”

  The muscles along Durkin’s mouth and jaw bunched up as he shook his head. The psychiatrist waited patiently for him to speak. When he didn’t she gently patted his hand again.

  “What if Dan Wolcott’s body still exists?” she asked.

  “It don’t. I saw what the Aukowies did to him.”

  “But what if it does? According to your statement, you waited forty minutes after Dan Wolcott stepped into the field before you set fire to his jeep. What if you used those forty minutes to drive his body somewhere?”

  He shrugged. “If that happened, then I guess I’m crazy.”

  “Why don’t I try to find out?”

  Durkin looked back at her, his eyes staring unfocused into the distance. He nodded glumly.

  When the psychiatrist met later with McGrale and Goldman, she explained to them how she couldn’t hypnotize Durkin.

  “I thought I had him under,” she told them. “But I guess I couldn’t get him under deep enough.” Sighing, she added, “Not everybody can be hypnotized.”

  “What makes you think you couldn’t get him under deep enough?” McGrale asked.

  “Because I couldn’t tap into his unconscious. I was stuck in his false memories of watching the victim being torn apart by the weeds, and then with him spending the next forty minutes trying to figure out how to deal with the weeds. I couldn’t budge him away from the field. I couldn’t get him to remember what he did with the victim’s body.”

  “Would additional hypnotherapy sessions work?” McGrale asked.

  “Not in my professional opinion, no. He either can’t be hypnotized and is faking, or the false memories are locked in too tightly.”

  McGrale rubbed his jaw. Goldman asked whether she’d support his client being declared incompetent.

  “Absolutely not. He’s lucid and, outside of his fantasies about those weeds, quite rational. I would oppose any attempt to do so.”

  “How about whether he’s criminally insane?” McGrale asked, a pained look spreading over his face.

  “He could be. He does believe these weeds are monsters. I have no doubt about that, and it’s possible he murdered and disposed of the victim without any conscious awareness of it for no other reason than to erase self-doubts he may have been having about the true nature of those weeds. It’s equally possible that this could be a calculated act to convince others of the existence of these monsters. This is a man who badly needs other people to believe this. The lack of respect he has been receiving in his Caretaker role has been devastating for him, especially since he feels as if he has been sacrificing his life for the world’s sake. For that reason, and because I find it curious that his only supporters are both dead, I’m leaning more towards the latter explanation.”

  McGrale stood up, walked around his desk to where Goldman was sitting hunched over, and clapped the younger attorney solidly on the shoulder.

  “Well, counsellor,” he said. “For better or worse we’ll be bringing this three-ring circus to the courtroom. Charges will be filed tomorrow.”

  That night Goldman visited Durkin to tell him about the arraignment hearing the next day and also that he went to see Jeanette Thompson, but that she claimed she never saw either the contract or book, and doubted whether they even existed. The news devastated Durkin. He sank back into his hospital bed an old man. Goldman was going to ask him for names of anyone else who might’ve ever seen either of those items, more to satisfy his own curiosity than anything else, but one look at Durkin and he knew it would be worse than beating an already whipped dog.

  The next day Durkin was taken to the District Court in an ambulance and wheeled into the courthouse with a blanket covering the lower part of his body. The reporters and photographers lined up outside pressed towards him, but he stared blindly ahead and gave them no notice. Inside the courtroom he was charged with manslaughter in the first degree and remanded without bail. When the trial date was set for April tenth, Durkin grabbed Goldman by his oversized suit jacket and pulled him close.

  “That’s too late,” he croaked frantically. “That’s going to be at least two weeks after spring thaw. If the Aukowies are left alone for that long—”

  “Please, Mr. Durkin, let go of my suit,” Goldman whispered, grimacing. “And don’t worry about the Aukowies. If they’re what you say they are it will only help our case.”

  “Help our case? You don’t understand a thing. If they get too big there ain’t nothin’ anyone can do about them.”

  “I’ll be checking on them everyday, Mr. Durkin, don’t worry. Please, let go of my suit.”

  Durkin noticed people in the courtroom staring at him. He let go of Goldman’s suit jacket, his face flushing a deep red. As he was wheeled out, he caught sight of Lydia sitting in the courtroom watching him. Lester, also. In the back row was Jeanette Thompson looking at him as if he were a bug. He pretended not to see any of them.

  A week later Durkin was fitted with a prosthetic foot and, after another two weeks of physical therapy, was brought back to a cell in the County Jail. It was December second when Goldman visited him, telling him he had some good news. Lester had recanted his earlier testimony and was now saying that the Aukowies bit off his thumb.

  “So they believe me?” Durkin said, excitement rising cautiously in his eyes. “They goin’ to let me out of here and give me my old Caretaker job back?”

  “Well, no. People are looking at this as a son trying to help his father. It won’t have any impact on the manslaughter charges against you for Sheriff Wolcott, but it will force them to drop the aggravated assault charges against you for your son’s injury. As much as they’d like to, they can’t proceed with a trial without your son’s testimony.”

  Durkin sat back on his jail cot, his face deflating. “That’s all you got for me?”

  “Well, no.” Goldman’s lopsided grin grew
large as he took a manila folder out of his briefcase. “I found a copy of your Caretaker’s contract and the Book of Aukowies. Thought you’d like to see it.”

  Durkin’s eyes filled with tears as he flipped through each page. When he looked up at Goldman, his leathery face was on the verge of crumbling.

  “How’d you get this?” he asked.

  “I talked with your wife earlier today. She told me that a lawyer she saw a while back made this copy, so I saw him and he gave it to me. Hope you don’t mind, but I made a copy for myself. Fascinating reading, by the way. I’m planning to use it for our case.”

  Durkin shook his head while rubbing a hand across his eyes. He wiped his hand off on his shirt and held it out to his attorney, who only hesitated for a moment before taking it.

  “I don’t know why this means so much to me anymore, but it does,” Jack Durkin said. “Thanks.”

  Goldman nodded solemnly and left the Caretaker alone with his contract and book.

  Lydia visited the next day. Both of them stared stonily at each other until Lydia broke the ice, telling Durkin that she couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing him until Lester told the truth about him not cutting off his son’s thumb.

  “Don’t think for a second I believe any of that Aukowie nonsense,” she said. “But I accept that it happened because of an accident.”

  “How are you, Lydia?”

  “I-I’m good,” she stammered, surprised at the question. “I got a nice apartment. Lester’s with me now. If you can believe it, some idiot publisher from New York is paying me a ton of money to write a book. Guess what it’s going to be called?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Caretaker’s Wife.” She took a heavy breath and added, “This business with Daniel is getting me invitations on all these shows to promote it. I’m on Oprah next week, and Letterman the week after, if you can believe it.”

  “Hard to picture.”

  “Ain’t it?” She sniffed, dry-eyed, and tried to smile, but it broke. “Jack, why don’t you tell them what you did to Daniel’s body? Your lawyer told me if you do you’ll only have to serve ten years.”

  “I wish I could,” Durkin said, showing only a bare trace of a smile. “The problem is I’m telling it the way I remember it. What do you think of my lawyer?”

  “He seems smart.”

  “You think so? To me, he’s just a kid who can’t even look me in the eye. I think he’s afraid of me.” Durkin laughed at that. “I only got one foot and he’s afraid of me. Thinks I’m crazy. He’s having me see a psychiatrist now who’s trying to convince me I’m crazy, too. According to him I killed Dan and hid his body without knowing it, that I did it so I could ‘continue living in my fantasy-world concerning the Aukowies’. Maybe he’s right.”

  “All those years alone in that field were bound to drive you crazy,” she said. “Ain’t entirely your fault. I guess I could’ve been better to you.”

  “No, you couldn’t’ve. I’m sorry I married you, Lydia.”

  She stared hotly at him, her jaw dropping open. “Why, you old fool! Here I am trying to be nice to you—”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I mean because I married you only because of the contract. I needed to marry someone. But I didn’t love you. And I know you didn’t love me. I stole that from you. Because of me you never had a chance to marry someone out of love, and I’m sorry. But I did grow to care about you, even though we could barely tolerate each other.”

  Tears leaked from Lydia’s eyes. She turned away trying to hide it. “No doubt about it,” she said. “You have gone completely crazy.”

  “God, I hope so. I’m praying every day that I’m insane. It’s the only chance the world has.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re crazy,” she said. She paused to wipe a thin hand across her eyes. “Is it okay if Lester visits you? He’d really like to.”

  “I’d like that, too. And Lydia, I’m so sorry about Bert.”

  She bit her lip and nodded, fighting back her tears.

  “Lester’s waiting in the car,” she said. “I’ll send him in here to see you. You take care, you old fool.”

  Hiding her face from him, she rushed out of the visitor’s area.

  Lester wore a despondent look as he entered the room, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He nodded towards his father, kicking at the floor as he walked over to his chair.

  “I’m sorry, dad,” he said.

  “I know, son.”

  “I’m sorry for throwing those tomatoes at you.”

  “Were you the one who hit me square in the nose?”

  Lester nodded solemnly.

  “You have a good arm. You almost knocked me to the ground.”

  “I’m sorry, dad.”

  “No more sorries, okay?”

  Lester shook his head. “I still got to say how sorry I am for telling people you cut off my thumb.”

  “It’s over, Lester.”

  “I’m still so sorry. You lost our house because of that. And everything else that happened . . . to you . . . to Bert . . . It was all my fault. I just couldn’t remember anything about what happened to me, and when they asked me to say those things I went along because I didn’t want to be Caretaker. I’m so sorry, dad.”

  “So you don’t remember Aukowies biting off your thumb?”

  Lester shook his head.

  “You just said that to help me out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Son, come closer.”

  Lester wiped a hand under his nose and hesitantly stepped forward. Jack Durkin grabbed him and hugged his son close to his chest. He let go only when he realized Lester was struggling to maintain his composure and would be bawling soon.

  “Okay, son,” he said, “you better go back out with your ma. Take good care of her, okay?”

  Lester nodded morosely, his mouth forming a tiny circle on his pale face. Durkin watched him leave and wondered why he was so disappointed. If Lester had truly seen the Aukowies bite off his thumb, then the world was damned. As it was, there was still a glimmer of hope his psychiatrist’s angle on it was right—that the Aukowies existed only in his mind. At least he could hope for the best.

  Chapter 14

  Spring thaw occurred on March twentieth the next year. Every day after, Goldman came to see Jack Durkin to tell him nothing was growing on Lorne Field. That the place was still as desolate as the moon. He seemed disappointed, almost as if he was hoping to see monsters there, or maybe for some reason he didn’t want to accept a solution as mundane as Durkin just being insane.

  During the months leading up to his trial, Durkin hoped that Wolcott’s body would be found. If that happened, then he could accept that he was in fact insane and at least be assured that the world would be safe. But as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t shake a growing uneasiness that his memories were real. That he was not brainwashed. That he was not the victim of collective hysteria. That he didn’t have the psychotic breakdowns that his psychiatrist insisted he did. That the Aukowies were real, and that his violations of the contract had irrevocably altered the equation with them. He couldn’t shake his uneasiness that burning them alive was the final straw and that they were no longer playing by the rules that the contract governed.

  Everything in that contract is written for a reason, his pa used to tell him. You have to cherish it, treat is as the most sacred document on the planet . . .

  Instead he had violated it. Over and over again. If the Aukowies were real, how could burning one generation stop all those other generations from pushing their way up? If they were real, then somehow he had damned the world . . . If they were just weeds, then none of it mattered.

  He prayed that they were just weeds. As much as he didn’t want to be insane, he prayed that he was. He wondered whether someone insane would feel as he did.

  During those winter months, Durkin read every book he could get his hands on. His lawyer helped him by bringing in stacks of books every time he visited. Homer, Steinbeck,
Twain, Plato, Dickens, Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes—he found himself particularly drawn to Don Quixote. But it was Dante’s Divine Comedy that made him tremble as he read it. As a kid he never bothered to read books, since he knew from the start what was planned for him, and later, after he became Caretaker, he was either too tired during the months between spring thaw and first frost, or simply needed to rest during the winter months to regain his strength. Now, though, he read insatiably and continuously as if he were trying to squeeze in a lifetime of reading. Even though Lydia’s book made the New York Times bestseller’s list, his lawyer never brought it, and he never asked for it.

  Eventually his trial came. His lawyer had blown up drawings from the Book of Aukowies to postersize and introduced them as evidence to show the jury how Durkin had been indoctrinated in support of his temporary insanity defense.

  On the first day of the trial, he whispered to Durkin how they were going on day twenty since spring thaw. “I’ve been out there every day, and nothing’s growing,” he said, his grin strained. There was an edginess to him, a discomfort. Durkin knew that the lawyer had read both the contract and the Book of Aukowies carefully, and as much as he wanted to believe that it was a simple matter of Durkin having a psychotic breakdown, he had his own doubts. He mentioned to Durkin several times over the winter how he couldn’t fathom Durkin cutting off Wolcott’s foot with a single slice of the machete. He told Durkin how he had bought the same brand of machete and tried himself with a watermelon and couldn’t cut it through with one strike. “We’re talking a watermelon, Mr. Durkin. Somehow you were supposed to cut through a leather boot and bone. I don’t see how you did it.” When Durkin found himself thinking about it, he couldn’t see how he could’ve done it, either. But he tried not to think about it. He tried to think that it was a simple matter of that psychiatrist being right. Or maybe somehow burning a field of Aukowies alive ended them forever. Maybe that was it. Except everything in the contract was written for a reason. His pa said so. So did his grandpa. And his great grandpa before him . . .