The Tormentors

by Jack Phoenix

  After he married, a wide gap grew between him and his father, one that was growing for years. In the end, it had spread them so far apart that the only time the two ever communicated was for business purposes. There were no family visits, no friendly phone calls, and only a few hours were provided for get-togethers on holidays. The old man had barely even known his granddaughter.

  And now, here he was, standing over his father’s grave, waiting for him to be put into the ground. Robert Whithers, after all his talk of living right and having dignity, had gone crazy and blown his brains out. Roderick wondered what his mother would have thought about all of this. He also wondered what his sister would have thought. Then he immediately tried to push her from his mind.

  “She should be here, you know,” Elizabeth stated, as if sensing what he was thinking, her eyes still on the coffin.

  “Who?” asked Roderick, knowing perfectly well whom she meant.

  “Your sister. She should be here for this.”

  “She wouldn’t even know what was going on.”

  “Maybe not, but she’s still your sister. She’s still family. She’s not just some thing you can just shove into a closet and forget about.”

  “I know that,” he declared sternly. “For chrissakes, I’ll go see her this week, okay?”

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No thanks. I can handle it myself.”

  * * * *

  “Dust to dust.”

  * * * *

  Elizabeth took off her black dress in front of her vanity mirror. It was an old mirror from the nineteenth century that was passed down to her from her mother. She intended to give it to Samantha someday. She had such concern for her little girl. Elizabeth was trapped in a loveless marriage, and she often questioned how that affected Samantha. She knew the uncanny intuition of children. She knew of their ability to absorb the ambient emotions around them, whether positive or negative.

  Roderick told her about his sister. He told her about how she’d begun to act strangely as a child and gradually worsened. The story seemed frighteningly similar to what was happening to Samantha. What if there were madness in the Whithers family genes, and what if it was passed to her daughter? Roderick was more worried about this than he let on too. Elizabeth was certain of this.

  Why did Robert Whithers have to do this now, of all times? Why did he choose to now to go nuts and shoot himself? The first time she’d met the old man was the night of her and Roderick’s forty-sixth date. She was in awe of the house, and it astonished her to think Roderick was raised in such luxury. It was the house after which their current home was later modeled. The furniture was elaborate, costly, and had names that she’d never heard before like Settee and Hassock. Were they this cultured?

  Robert had greeted her cordially, taking her hand. He asked about her life, he told her about his, and the entire time they spoke his eyes moved up and down her frame like she were being examined, scrutinized. She would later overhear some of his remarks to his son after she was married, something about being, “plain”, “short hair is no fun”, “why is she wearing that?”

  In the early days of their marriage, she once heard Roderick defend her, “I still think she’s pretty, Dad. Isn’t that all that matters?”

  Robert Whithers responded, “Sure it is, Roddy. At least take her shopping, for chrissakes.”

  She looked in the mirror. She had gained weight, but she didn’t mind. She had earned some new wrinkles, but she was still a young woman. She could even meet someone new. She thought of leaving this place, leaving her husband. There was still plenty of life ahead of her, plenty of opportunities, and plenty of world to explore.

  Chapter Six

  The Thornfield Institute of Living always smelled of too much disinfectant for Roderick. It made him wonder what kind of unsanitary acts were happening in a place that apparently needed so much decontamination.

  He could visualize the nurses on their hands and knees rigorously scrubbing the floors or spraying down the walls to clean all of the flung feces before any more guests arrived and it made him chuckle. Despite the white and cool-blue color schemes designed to have a calming effect, he could not remove from his mind’s eye the dark and Gothic picture of a mental asylum with lightning flashing and thunder roaring in the night.

  His shoes knocked against the floor, echoing through the hallway as he looked at each room number. If he visited more often, he might have memorized her room’s location, but there was no worrying about that now. He reached room number 230 and heard a voice behind him. He turned to see Doctor Flint approaching with an electronic tablet in his hands.

  “I’m glad to see you, Mister Whithers. It’s been quite some time since your last visit,” he commented in a thick Kentucky accent. “I have some good news for you.”

  “Really?” he asked, surprised. “I could use some.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Huh? Oh, I fell. What’s this good news?”

  “Rebecca has made a great deal of improvement lately. She’s showing signs of increased awareness of her environment. She’s been much more reactive to external stimuli. She’s also become more physically active and…”

  “Has she started speaking?”

  “No, no, she hasn’t, but the progress she’s made is, well, simply astonishing.”

  Roderick didn’t share, nor care for Doctor Flint’s enthusiasm. “Well, I’m glad she’s not totally coherent, since I have bad news for her. I was counting on her not comprehending it.”

  Roderick had resolved years ago that his sister would never return as a full human being,

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out,” stated Doctor Flint.

  “You’re not going to tell me that bad news is bad for her right now?”

  “Well, considering the circumstances, any type of emotional reaction would be a big plus. Maybe it can trigger just a little more progress. I’m sorry to hear about your father by the way. I read it in the paper.”

  “Thanks.”

  Doctor Flint unlocked the door and they both entered the tiny white room. A small desk was added for Rebecca since Roderick’s last visit. She sat with her back to them. She was coloring rigorously with crayons on white paper like a toddler, and did not pause or acknowledge the presence of anyone else in the room. Doctor Flint was correct. Roderick hadn’t seen his sister active like this in years.

  “Hey, Sis,” he said as he stood over her, peering over the back of her head to see the artwork she had created.

  There were about a dozen pictures of various animals such as dogs, birds, snakes, bats and amalgamations thereof. The illustrations were those of a preschooler. There were several of these pictures hung about the walls.

  “I hear you’ve been getting better, huh? Well, that’s great, but when’re you gonna start talkin’? I’m just kidding, there’s no rush. These pictures are really cool.”

  She continued to color without response, her broken crayons lying all over the desk. Roderick picked up one of the pictures and looked at Doctor Flint. “You call this an improvement?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Doctor Flint replied with agitation. “I would call it a vast improvement. I know that it’s been a while since you’ve visited your sister, but I’m sure you can remember on your previous trips here that she’s come a long way from just sitting in a chair without saying a word, or only moving to yank her hair out by twisting it around her fingers. She even seems to have broken that habit, and she was doing that since she was admitted here. We’re even thinking about letting her hair grow, since we’re confident that she won’t pull it out now.”

  “I was just expecting more, I guess. She’s still not looking at me.”

  “No, and you should give it some time. She may make even more improvements or she may do a complete reversal to
morrow. So don’t let your expectations get too high. The one person she responds to very well to is Helena down the hall. I even saw her smile once when Helena walked into the room.”

  As if on cue, a golden-locked young woman, short and doughy, bounced into the room with her face beaming. Like an oversized Shirley Temple, she looked like something that had just sprung out of the 1930s. Her rosy cheeks and big blue eyes landed right in front of Roderick, her face catapulted up to him, nearly bashing their noses together. He took an awkward step back as the young woman stood, unblinking, with a smile from ear to ear.

  “Hi!” she exclaimed, “I’m Helena! Helena E. Cate! You must be Rod!”

  “Um, hi.” Roderick winced.

  Doctor Flint put his hand on Helena’s shoulder, and gently pushed her down from her tippy-toes.

  “Helena, what have I said about respecting another’s personal space?”

  “Golly, I’m sorry, Doctor Flint. I’m just ever so excited to meet Becky’s brother! I’ve heard so much about you!” she blurted without blinking.

  “Uh, yeah, I bet you have,” Roderick shrugged, remembering that the girl would not be here if she weren’t mentally unstable. He also noticed that his sister had stopped coloring and was now sitting completely still.

  “Well, I guess I ought to be going!” Helena sang. “It’s almost lunch time, and I sure do like pudding! I like it bunches! Nice meeting you, Mister Rod!” With that, she skipped out of the room like a spastic pixie.

  “Good to see you’re hanging with a decent crowd, Sis,” Roderick said as she began her arduous coloring again.

  Doctor Flint adjusted his glasses and took advantage of the vapor-trail of excitability left in the room from Helena’s presence to speak openly with Roderick.

  “If I may be blunt, you should come and visit Becky more often, especially if there’s a potential for improvement. Your father never visited her much either, although I have seen your wife here quite a few times, so at least that’s something. I’ll leave you two alone now,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

  Roderick sat down on the bed behind his sister. He still hadn’t seen her face since he walked in and she was still coloring away. Even after all these years, Rebecca hadn’t been diagnosed with anything officially. The doctors had ruled out everything from autism to post-traumatic stress. Up until her early teen years, she had been relatively normal, although her deterioration was first noticed when she was seven years old.

  Her condition worsened when their mother left, becoming a further embarrassment to their father. He would cringe at the thought of taking her anywhere public and eventually pulled her out of school and just started leaving her at home all by herself. She gradually stopped all normative human action, showing virtually no emotion, as if she had slipped into a daze and never came out. Then she seemed to lose herself completely. No speaking, barely moving unless picked up and guided by someone else, and even then she would often struggle. Robert Whithers had his daughter institutionalized at the age of fifteen.

  “Well, Becky, I don’t know if you can understand me or if this will sink in. I’m really glad that you’re doing better. I have bad news, though. Ummm, Dad…he passed. He died. I’m real sorry to come visit you with bad news like this, and I promise I’ll visit you more. I’ll come by soon, okay? See you later. You keep up the pretty pictures.”

  As he left, Roderick heard a crayon snap in two. At least he thought he did. He didn’t look back to find out.

  Chapter Seven

  “I tripped-hit the coffee table,” Roderick explained to the employees who hadn’t made it to the funeral.

  “Ouch. Must’ve been a nasty fall,” they would say.

  He sighed. “It was.”

  The Mound site didn’t have as many protestors this morning as it had the past few weeks. Lately a crowd of them had begun to grow larger, day-by-day, demanding the Whithers’ company stay away from the Mound. Most of these people were students and a few local tribe members. Roderick decided that they were just bored and wanted, maybe needed, something to complain about. The cause of this vexation, the only reason why anyone was galvanizing at all to protect this Mound, was Doctor Amanda Jones. She was a professor of religion and mythology at the local college.

  He rolled his eyes when he saw a woman in a grey business suit approaching him across the grass

  “Goddamnit, Bob,” Roderick whispered, “who let her in the fences?”

  “Don’t know, Rod,” he answered. “She keeps sneaking onto the perimeter, and we’re not sure how she’s getting past us. Every time we’ve busted her she said she wanted to talk to you or your dad.”

  “Pain the ass, that’s all she is,” grumbled Roderick. “Just an over-educated elitist, has to take up causes out of boredom.”

  Ever since his late father had acquired this land that just so happened to have the Mound on it, she had sent angry letters to them both. Upon receiving no response, she resorted to calling news stations and newspapers and organized the protests. It was clear she wouldn’t rest until she had an audience with one of the Whithers men.

  “Mister Whithers, I’m Doctor Jones,” she said, extending her hand firmly as she approached.

  Roderick took her hand, gently and daintily. “I know who you are, Miss Jones. You’ve caused quite a stir here, haven’t you?”

  “It’s Doctor Jones. I also wanted to say that I heard about your father, and you have my condolences for you and your family,” she stated sympathetically.

  “Thanks,” Roderick uttered, crossing his arms. “Now, what is it that you have to say?”

  “Well, for starters, you realize that this stir could’ve been avoided if you had agreed to meet with me earlier,” she explained.

  “My father acquired this land legally years ago. There was nothing to discuss with you. The contracts have already been drawn up, and there are at least a dozen different retailers and even a coffee shop ready to build here. Just because you bring a class out here for a field trip every once in a while doesn’t give you a claim to the place.”

  Doctor Jones’ face twisted.

  “I bring my students here because it’s a learning experience. This place has a lot of history and knowledge to offer about our state and our city and the people who used to live here.”

  “’People who used to live here’,” he mimicked. “Until you went running around with your agenda, no one cared about this place or even knew that it existed. It’s a single Indian Mound, and it’s not even a big one. It just looks like a hill…a zit on the ground. It’s just a lump of dirt from an extinct tribe.”

  Doctor Jones’ hands went to her hips.

  “For your information, the tribe didn’t go extinct. They were defeated in war with another tribe and were assimilated, a tribe which I happen to be a descendant of.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. Me and my family. I’ve been campaigning for years to have this Mound declared a historical site.”

  “But you’re black.”

  “And you’re ignorant.”

  A sly sneer stretched across Roderick’s face. “Well, you obviously didn’t fight very hard for it, did you?”

  “I’ve been trying to get this area under government protection for a long time, Sir.”

  “And as I recall, my father already owned it, and it wasn’t difficult for him to get it. I’ve heard what you had to say. Now, get off the property immediately, or I’ll have you removed. And if I see your face anywhere around here again, you’ll regret it.”

  “You’re threatening me?”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Very well, I’ll get off the property, but you can’t stop me from protesting. This is still America,” she proclaimed.

  “What do you know about America?” he snapped as she walked away.

 
; Roderick remembered what his father had taught him years ago about America. The little people, the inferior people, the ones with accents and colors, would keep complaining and complaining, protesting and marching, until they turned the country into a state of sniveling weaklings and pushovers who are cursed to forever walk on eggshells.

  He recalled when he was in high school; Robert Whithers had become irate about the fact that his son was being forced to read “that stupid-ass book. You know, the one with Scout and Pickle and that girl gets raped, and the colored guy goes to jail for it, and we’re all supposed to feel guilty and bad about it, because the world wasn’t fair to him. If this story was in the real world, then he sure as hell would’ve raped her! Son, the world isn’t fair to anyone, but if the blacks and the Mexicans and even the women had their way, they’d all get special treatment. That’s the road this country’s headed down, Roddy, so you just make sure you stand in the way any chance you get and mow them down if they stand in yours.”

  Roderick had no intention of dignifying Doctor Jones’ complaints, or dignifying Doctor Jones herself, for that matter. His father’s company had bought the land to build condos and a golf course, and since the responsibilities of the company were now falling into his lap, he had every intention of seeing his father’s wishes come to fruition. He did, however, decide that if any artifacts or remains were uncovered within the Mound, he wouldn’t destroy them or toss them away. He’d donate them to the museum and would negotiate whatever tax write-off was most appropriate for doing so. After all, he wasn’t a total monster.

  The concept reminded him of the time when he and his sister built a sand castle together. He was six and she was four. She was pretending to be the princess of the castle, and he was pretending to be the noble knight until their father commanded Roderick not to act like a sissy. He then became the dragon that stepped on the castle, obliterating it, relishing as it crumbled while his sister began to cry.