by John Mimms
Debbie gulped and felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She stared at her open palms in her lap silently.
“My dear, I assure you ... anything you tell me will not go any further than this room. Please allow me to help you.”
Debbie gazed up at him, her lips quivering, and tears welling in her eyes. Dr. Staples handed her a box of Kleenex from the table. She pulled one and dabbed her eyes before lowering her head again.
“You urinated in your sleep, didn’t you?”
Debbie’s face shot up as if slapped by an unseen hand.
“How...?” was all she could manage as the tears flowed harder.
“I know because I have seen this dozens of times before. You are not alone in your problem, Debbie. This is quite common and very fixable. You will get through this, I promise.”
Debbie cracked a faint smile before drying her face with another tissue.
“What do you think it is?” she asked.
“More than likely, it is a subconscious memory trying to resurface.”
Debbie raised her eyebrows.
“Unpleasant memories from childhood affect us a great deal. They have more of an impact than unpleasant memories generated in adult life,” Dr. Staples began. “Unfortunately, negative memories from childhood do not fade away. Instead, they are sometimes repressed. This occurs for two very different reasons, either they are not valued, or because they were too traumatic.”
Dr. Staples leaned back and clutched his notebook to his chest. “Negative memories can lead to personality disturbances. In your case, it is manifesting in dreams. These memories are often triggered by anxiety. The memory has been repressed and relegated to the subconscious mind for years. All it takes sometimes is a small spark or catalyst to begin to resurrect this memory, so to speak. To remove the causes of personality disturbance, these unpleasant subconscious memories need to come to the surface. This procedure is not a pleasant process, but the ends are well worth the means.”
“So, you’re sayin’ I’m nuttier than squirrel poop?” Debbie sighed.
Dr. Staples laughed. “No, no of course not!” he hooted as his belly heaved up and down in his lap. “I haven’t heard that expression in a long time. It is not ‘politically correct’, but it was an expression used in private circles by some of my colleagues.”
Debbie giggled.
“No Debbie,” he sighed, taking a deep breath and rubbing tears from his eyes with his index fingers. “Everyone has repressed memories in some form or another. Some are buried deeper or are more traumatic than others. I would say something, or someone, has acted as a catalyst for reviving the memory in you. Can you think of anything out of the ordinary you have done or experienced lately?”
Debbie thought for a moment but the most obvious did not come to her right away. “Well, this is my first-year teaching school. There is a little girl in my dreams. Maybe it could have something to do with it?”
Dr. Staples jotted a few notes on his pad. “Anything else?”
Debbie bit her lip and blushed. “Well, I did join a paranormal research group.”
Dr. Staples ceased writing and placed the pencil and pad on the table beside him. He peered over his glasses at Debbie. “Indeed?”
“Yes, but I’ve only been with them a little over a week.”
“Have you experienced anything in that week?” Dr. Staples asked, picking up the notebook and pencil.
“Not sure,” Debbie said. She took a deep breath before recounting an abridged synopsis of experiences at the Chilton house.
“I see, I see,” Dr. Staples said. “Tell me about the first time you experienced this nightmare?”
Debbie confessed it started the night she visited the Chilton house alone. Dr. Staples set the notebook back down and clasped his hands together under his chin as if in prayer.
“Debbie, would it be possible for me to observe your group? It may enable me to help you more quickly.”
A king-sized butterfly fluttered in Debbie’s stomach. She didn’t want anyone in the group knowing her business. She wasn’t going to introduce his as her shrink ... the man who is trying to help her stop wetting the bed. “Well, I don’t know...” Debbie said.
“I understand your apprehension. As we have discussed, nothing we say here goes any further. You could introduce me as an old family friend. A friend interested in researching the psychological side of paranormal phenomenon.”
“Well ... I don’t know,” Debbie said.
“That part is true,” Dr. Staples urged. “I have long held a fascination. I believe the paranormal to be a psychological phenomenon. It would give a chance to research as well as allow me to identify some potential trigger mechanisms for your nightmares.”
Debbie shrugged. “Well, if we can keep it private, I guess it would be okay.”
“I promise you, it will be.”
“I’ll let you know when the next meeting is,” Debbie said. She was not comfortable with this, not one bit. However, she decided to trust Dr. Staples's judgment, at least for the time being. If this man could stop her nightmares, she would give him some latitude.
“Wonderful!” he said, clasping his hands in front of his belly. “In the meantime, I would like you to keep a notepad by your bed. When you wake up the next time you have one of these nightmares, I want you to write down anything you can remember. Write it down no matter how insignificant it seems. Can you do this for me?”
“Sure, when would you like to see me again?”
“Since you teach school, Saturdays would probably be best for you, right?”
“Yes, I never know when I am going to have a teacher’s meeting or parent conference during the week.”
“I’ll put you down for next Saturday at ten o’clock,” he said, jotting the appointment time on his steno pad.
“Great,” Debbie said, retrieving her checkbook from her purse, “do you take checks?”
Dr. Staples held up his hand. “Today is on the house; consider it a meet and greet.”
“No, you fit me in this morning, and I appreciate it. Let me settle for today.”
“I won’t hear of it,” he said, rolling from his chair and walking to the door. “We will begin your road to peaceful sleep next Saturday.”
He opened the door and beamed pleasantly.
Debbie saw little benefit of arguing the point. She replaced her checkbook and stood up. “Thank you, Dr. Staples.”
He patted her on the back and walked her down the hallway to the waiting room. She said her final farewell and made her way to the front door.
Dr. Staples snapped his fingers.
“I better check my mail while I’m thinking of it, should be here by now,” he said, glancing at the Timex on his wrist.
He followed Debbie out and retrieved a bundle of letters from a small mailbox mounted on the outside wall.
“Whew! I must have forgotten to check it yesterday,” he exclaimed.
Debbie smiled, waved, and then got in her car, not noticing the white Pontiac slowly pass.
Pac had made his pilgrimage home and was now in search of “Graceland” – Springfield. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Debbie. His backtrack was rewarded.
Pac saw Dr. Staples smile and wave as Debbie departed and his mouth curled into a sneer. He started a mocking singsong as he passed the office and rounded a corner.
“Debbie Gillerson fell out of her tree, went to see a s-h-r-i-n-k!”
It wasn’t a perfect rhyme, but it was the best Pac could do on short notice. He checked the map on his phone and headed for the abode of Aaron Presley. Pac finally found the house situated alone at the top of an undeveloped cul-de-sac. He pulled his car into a vacant lot with many trees. He parked underneath a large oak with many bushes, but in clear view of the house. There were no other homes in sight, so he felt he could sit and observe without chance of harassment. He felt weird about doing this, but he felt even weirder about letting the big idiot talk about him unchallenged. He needed some preemptive ammo.
It was now a little after noon and he turned the radio to a reasonable level, kicked back, and popped open an orange soda. He would wait.
Soon, a large black sedan entered the cul-de-sac. It startled him, making him drip orange soda down his chin. The car’s sudden appearance did not shock him as much as the logo and script displayed on the driver’s door. Beautiful calligraphy ringed a white dove taking flight. The script read - Brown & Sons Funeral Home.
“Did Elvis die?” he muttered.
This thought perished when he saw the big buffoon get out of the car and lumber to the front door.
“He is a mortician!” Pac laughed.
A few minutes later, Pac got another surprise when Jeff pulled up and went inside carrying a briefcase.
“They’re pretty chummy after only one investigation,” Pac mumbled. “What are they – fags?”
He decided he had gotten enough for one day. He didn’t want to hang around and watch them ‘get gay’ with each other. He shifted into reverse and began to pull away. Pac was feeling good about himself, until his phone began to ring. He checked the caller ID. It was his mother.
Chapter 13
JEFF AND ELVIS SPENT the better part of the afternoon listening for EVP’s. They found nothing else. They still could not wrap their head around it. Why was the anomalous voice captured on Elvis’s recorder, but not on Jeff’s?
“I think the fact that it was recorded on one and not the other is cause for study in and of itself,” Jeff said. “I’ll e-mail Debbie and Pac tonight to see if they got anything.”
Around four o’clock, Elvis got a call from work. An elderly woman at a nearby nursing home had passed away. All the family was still in town from paying their final visit to the beloved woman. The family requested the funeral take place on Monday so all could attend. Elvis had to work fast because the visitation would be tomorrow night.
He hung up the phone and came back into the kitchen. Jeff was sitting at the table listening to recordings on his laptop. Elvis tapped one ear of his headphones.
“I’m sorry Jeff; I have to go to work. I was going to invite you to dinner again tonight, but I won’t be home till late.”
“No biggie,” Jeff said as he set the headphones on the table. “Next time, it will be my treat and I’ll let you bring the beer.”
Jeff packed up and left with Elvis.
“I’ll holler at you if anyone else found anything. If not, we’ll have our next meeting this Friday; I can’t wait to discuss your theory!”
Elvis smiled sheepishly and waved as he dropped his heavy physique into the driver’s seat of the black sedan. Jeff drove home, but stopped by American Pie Pizza on his way. He booked the meeting for seven o’clock on Friday night.
ELVIS PERFORMED HIS unpleasant, but necessary task. He also reluctantly agreed to serve as one of the attendants for the visitation the following evening.
Sunday evening, Elvis arrived at Brown & Sons Funeral Home an hour early for the six o’clock visitation. He wore his best suit, complete with a white dove lapel pin, and red rose boutonniere. He examined a stack of programs. They were simple with the funeral home logo displayed prominently in the middle of the cheap paper. The only personalized portion read:
‘Nettie DeVorak - A silent thought, a secret tear, keeps her memory ever dear.’
The grief stricken began to arrive early. As is typical for most Southern events, the apparel differs greatly. There are always exceptions to the rule, but every family seems to have its black sheep. The first few arrivals were older couples, clad in the appropriate formal wear. Five minutes before start time, someone opened the gate to the black sheep pen.
A middle-aged man entered the scene wearing ripped and dirty blue jeans. He sported a faded Van Halen t-shirt over an extremely slender frame. He did have the courtesy to wear decent tennis shoes. A woman followed with her three-hundred-pound frame crammed into hot pink spandex. Her pudgy belly poked out between a matching hot pink belt and a solid black t-shirt about three sizes too small.
A smattering of the properly clad and the fashion inept followed this couple. A little after six o’clock, Elvis was about to turn his attention away from the front door when someone else entered. His jaw hit the floor. This person wore a nice black pin stripe suit and burgundy tie with shiny black shoes.
“Pac?” asked Elvis, incredulous. “Are you family?”
Pac jumped. He knew Elvis was a mortician, but he didn’t expect him to be greeting. He blinked for a few moments, not registering what Elvis had asked him.
“No, I like to check out funerals on Sunday nights for kicks!” he huffed.
Elvis gave him a warm smile and handed him a program.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Elvis said.
Pac regarded him, unblinking, for several moments before muttering, “Thanks.”
“Was Ms. DeVorak your grandmother?” Elvis asked.
Pac nodded, but did not reply. He then hurried into the chapel and took his place in the viewing line.
The call Pac received as he left his stakeout at the home of Elvis was from his mother. She delivered the news to him in the cold-hearted and familiar manner.
“Your granny died this morning and you didn’t have the decency to go and see her with the rest of the family ... you worthless bastard!” she screamed after Pac had barely gotten ‘hello’ out.
“Mom...what are you talk-,” Pac managed before she cut him off again.
“Don’t give me that! I told you the doctor said she only had a couple of days left! The whole family came to say their goodbyes, everyone but you; you uncaring bum!”
Pac sat in silence for several moments as his mother verbally pummeled him. He knew his mother hadn’t said a word to him about Granny Nettie, but what good would it have done to argue the point? Either it was the Alzheimer’s or her severe hatred of him which left him out of the loop. Or, perhaps it was a combination of the two. Oddly enough, the rest of the family seemed to know.
After his verbal flogging, Pac agreed to meet the family at the nearby Ramada Inn for dinner. He hung up the phone and flung it into the passenger’s seat. His stomach boiled with anger and heartache. He loved Granny Nettie; he loved her very much. Tears flowed down his cheeks in a unified measure of rage and sorrow.
Granny Nettie had been the only one in his family, outside of his brother, who showed any interest in him at all. He enjoyed visiting with her. He listened for hours to stories of her time spent as an Army nurse in World War II. During these stories, he filled up on her cornbread and fried chicken. KFC, Popeye’s, and Bojangles had nothing on Granny Nettie. She called him ‘suga’ more often than she called him Mikey. He visited her at least once a week until two years ago, when she fell and broke her hip. She was sent to Golden Autumn Retirement Home where she lived, bed-ridden, until that morning.
Pac couldn’t stand going to the nursing home to visit her. It was depressing. The smell of excrement and cleaning fluids served as a sad reminder of the forgotten people inside the walls. His visits with her had gotten fewer and far between in the last year. He felt very guilty. Pac’s tears flowed with renewed vigor when he recalled his last visit was four months ago.
He stood in line, waiting his turn to view Granny Nettie one last time. His mother stood beside the open casket. She graciously accepted the words of sympathy from each passing person. Pac wasn’t sure who had helped dress her and clean her up, but she looked much better than the last time he saw her. He found it hard to believe Granny Nettie had birthed and raised his mother.
Pac slipped behind a couple of well-wishers and approached the casket, unseen by his mother. He stood motionless, staring in disbelief at the vision in front of him. It was all too real to him in the car yesterday when his mother made her hateful call. Now it all seemed as a dream, or perhaps watching someone else in a movie. As he stared at the surreal, lifeless body of the person whom he considered his real mother, he couldn’t feel anything. He was a hollow shell, completely
devoid of emotion, as he gazed upon the face of his grandmother. This emptiness frightened him as much as if she had risen from the casket and wrapped her withered hands around his throat.
A cruel and familiar voice broke the moment of silence.
“What are you doing here?” his mother called in a seemingly pleasant voice. To Pac, it dripped with venomous contempt.
Pac did not pay attention to his mother. He gave Granny Nettie a weak final smile, turned, and headed for the door. Elvis saw the distress on his face and tried to speak to him as he passed. Pac brushed past him as if he wasn’t even there before disappearing into the darkness of the parking lot. A few moments later, Elvis heard squalling tires.
“Poor kid,” Elvis whispered.
He thought of the recording from the Chilton house and Pac’s embarrassing scream. He would go home tonight and edit his clips of the EVP, edit them to where they ended right before Pac’s reaction. There was no reason to cause him any more grief.
JEFF SENT OUT E-MAILS late Sunday night announcing their meeting on Friday. Elvis and Debbie confirmed their attendance immediately. It was Tuesday before Pac finally replied with a blunt, “I’ll come.” He had endured a bad week. His mother continued to make daily, and sometimes hourly, harassing phone calls.
He did not attend the actual funeral. As far as he was concerned, he had paid his respects to Granny Nettie. He would not offer himself up again as a human punching bag. He stopped answering the calls by Wednesday and resolved to never have anything to do with her again unless absolutely necessary. He wasn’t sure what would qualify as necessary, outside of death.
Debbie kept her promise to Dr. Staples and informed him about the meeting. They decided to introduce him as her uncle; a psychologist very interested in the mental study of paranormal phenomenon. Debbie didn’t really want him to come, but she knew she was going to need his help. By Friday, she had experienced her nightmare three more times with the same humiliating results.