by Leif Wright
It was a bad decision to include the Easter bunny on this flight. He was grumpy and foul. Robby briefly frowned and then decided the bunny wanted off the flight. The pilot steered the plane over to the closet, where folding doors had never been able to shut over the toys spilling out. The plane landed on an old cardboard box full of outgrown clothes and the Easter bunny haughtily departed the flight, disappearing into one of the hand holes on the side of the box, where he could have peace and quiet.
Smiling, the pilot gunned the engines and the plane took off stronger than ever.
“BRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWW!”
The Weebles all giggled this time. Flying was so fun and exciting. At least that’s how Robby imagined it must be. He had never been more than six miles from his house. His only way to imagine what lay beyond that was through books—or TV, when Daddy wasn’t home. When Daddy was home, the TV was his. Only his.
“Goddammit!” The Easter Bunny was still complaining. “I’m going to teach you a fucking lesson you’ll never forget, you little shit!”
Robby’s bedroom door burst open, and the sudden bang made Robby scream. Daddy moved so fast Robby couldn’t even move before his hand landed on Robby’s head, flinging his little body across the room into a pile of toys. The plane fell, its hinged top popping off and all the Weebles—except the pilot—falling out and rolling around on the floor.
Pain engulfed Robby’s body so quickly and thoroughly that his lungs refused to draw in air for the scream he was trying to utter. Like a cat, Daddy pounced onto Robby, slapping him again and again, knocking him into the window.
“I said shut up, you little shit! I said SHUT UP!”
Daddy picked Robby up by the neck. Robby, still trying to scream, eyes wide in pain, horror, and fear, couldn’t draw in a breath as Daddy began slamming his head into the wall, teeth bared, face compressed into a mask of pure anger, unadulterated hate for the little boy he was choking and beating.
“Now keep it fucking quiet,” he shouted as tears ran down Robby’s purple cheeks.
“And clean up this fucking pig sty,” he said as he threw Robby against the wall. Robby heard a crack—the last sensation he would ever have as a person who could use his entire body—and then he fell onto a pile of toys in a heap. Daddy stormed out of the room as Robby’s unconscious body finally got a breath of air.
Richard Turner slammed his son’s bedroom door, knocking off the wall a family portrait that they had just taken a month ago, shattering the glass. He calmly walked to the easy chair across from the TV he had been forced to buy because that bitch of a wife had to have color.
Archie Bunker had disappeared, replaced by that Communist, Alan Alda. Goddammit. That little bastard had caused him to miss the end of All in the Family. He had half a mind to go back in there and give the snivelly little shit a kick for good measure. Instead, he drank a swig of beer and settled in for the episode.
By the end of the show, he hadn’t heard a peep out of the little shit.
“Better go see if he’s cleaned his room,” he said to no one. “By God, he better. I’ll show him what a real ass-whoopin’ feels like.”
When he opened the door, Richard Turner’s jaw dropped.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered. “Holy Christ-kicking shit on a fucking stick. Shit, shit, shit!”
Robby was lying where he had landed, but his entire body was shaking and writhing around. Blood was leaking out of his eyes and foam was pouring out of his mouth.
“Oh Jesus,” he said. “Jesus Mohammad fucking Christ!”
46
1973
SHERRY COULDN’T BREATHE. IT FELT LIKE A WHALE HAD JUMPED UP OUT of the water and landed on her as she sat here in the turquoise waiting room with the plastic chairs and a tiny TV hung from the ceiling in the corner, Bob Barker silently seducing a woman in a sequined, skin-tight shirt, his eyes repeatedly flitting down to what might have been her nipples poking through as she excitedly bounced up and down at the prospect of winning whatever he was giving away.
Sherry wasn’t really watching. Her eyes saw the show, but somewhere between there and her brain, the signal got lost. All she could think of was the two words she had heard before the doctor, cigarette in mouth, shiny bald head reflecting the harsh fluorescent lights, say: “brain trauma”.
Her little Robby’s brain had apparently swollen up enough that his eyes were bleeding and the doctors had to drill a hole in his head to relieve the pressure. Was that even a real medical procedure? It sounded so … medieval.
Why had little Robby’s brain swollen? “Hard to say,” the doctor had said, cigarette clinging to his bottom lip, defying gravity, bouncing up and down as he spoke. “Kids get hurt all the time. Probably banged his head on something.”
Bullshit, she had thought. It had to be Richard, who was so unconcerned about their unconscious son that he had dropped him off at the hospital and then driven himself to some bar. I hope he gets in a bar fight and someone shanks him, she thought angrily.
She had just learned the word “shank” from some prison movie Richard had watched, and she liked the way it sounded. That’s what Richard needed … deserved. A good old-fashioned shanking. He was always so mean, especially to precocious little Robby, who had just learned to talk enough to barrage his parents with dozens of questions.
This kid was so smart, she knew, but God knew where he had gotten it. Certainly not from Richard. If he had hurt little Robby, she would shank him herself. Her sweet, precocious, smiling, laughing, precious little boy was now unconscious on some bald cigarette-chewing doctor’s table with a hole in his head and if Richard had done this to him, it would be the last straw.
Just this morning as she had left for more humiliation at work, Robby had smiled up at her with his sweet little face and said, “I love you, Mama.”
It had immediately brought tears to her eyes and a smile to her face. She had tousled his hair and kissed his head as she left. With horror, she realized she hadn’t said it back. The realist in her knew it didn’t matter; Robby knew his Mama loved him more than anything in the world, whether she said it in response to him or not, but the realist in her was completely unwelcome in this turquoise torture chamber where it felt as if the skin had been peeled from her, nerves exposed.
The realist could take a flying leap. The realist didn’t have a sweet little baby whose brain was swollen so much it had to have an escape route drilled through his skull. Was Robby scared as he lay alone on the table, unconscious, with a hole in his head and blood leaking from his eyes? Was he wondering why his Mama wasn’t there to pick him up and kiss it all better as she usually did when he hurt himself?
She was too overwhelmed to do anything. Bob Barker’s lips mouthed the phrase “a new car!” as Sequined Shirt clapped her hands in front of her face and jumped up and down, jiggling titties reflecting the stage lights as they bounced up and down. She found herself wondering if Bob Barker would peel that sequined shirt off the contestant after the show was taped. “Here’s your real prize package,” he would say luridly as he took her to bed. It probably would happen just like that. He seemed like that kind of man. If there was anything Sherry knew, it was men, and Bob was the kind of man who could sweet-talk a nun out of her panties before she could say “Hail Mary”.
Oh my God, I’m going crazy! My baby could be DYING and I’m thinking about a game show host and his sex life! What the hell is WRONG with me?
If he really did die, she really would go crazy, she knew. Until Robby had come along, “love” had been a political tag word, something horny boys whispered as they fumbled with bra clasps, something people talked about when they really meant “infatuation”. But Robby had awakened her to the reality that nothing in life would ever compare to the feelings she had for him, his bald baby head, toothless gums, chubby little fists crammed up under his chin, hobbit legs all curled up to his belly. The first time he had opened those beautiful blue eyes and gazed up at her from her breast, she immediately understood being willing
to do anything for another human. Including staying with an angry, small-minded bastard like Richard, succumbing to his clumsy monthly advances, enduring the rough, loveless, awkward grunting as he satisfied himself on top of her.
For Robby, she would have endured much more if it meant keeping him fed and safe. But if Richard had somehow been responsible for this …
She shuddered, teeth clenched, fingernails digging into the palms of her hands.
“Mrs. Turner.”
For a moment, she wondered when Mrs. Turner would respond to whoever had said that. It was rude to ignore someone when they spoke to you.
Oh! That’s ME!
She turned her head toward the voice. She tried to say something, but only her mouth would obey her mind. Her voice refused. The doctor motioned for her to follow him. For a moment, she wasn’t sure she could. She could feel the blood running through her veins, her heart pounding hard enough that she feared she might actually die if she tried to walk, her heart literally exploding in her chest. Why hadn’t the doctor said anything? What did that mean? Was it bad news? She could hear the blood rushing through the veins in her ears. Each thud of her heart framed her vision in crimson.
Somehow, her legs started moving and she followed the bald doctor through a pair of swinging doors into another turquoise hallway. This one clearly wasn’t intended to be seen by the public. Scratches in the paint lined the walls. Bloody rags lay in a heap next to a full hamper. The floor, still polished, was nevertheless scarred with scuffs crisscrossing every which way. She was pretty sure she was one errant thought away from descending into hysterics.
The doctor turned into a room with a piece of paper taped beside the doorway, bearing a hand-scrawled “TURNER, CHILD”.
Sherry’s legs stopped. They refused to move her forward. The doctor, hearing her footsteps cease, stopped and turned around, face devoid of any clue about Robby’s condition, cigarette tip glowing gently orange.
“Come on, Mrs. Turner,” he said, turning around again.
Obeying him rather than her, Sherry’s legs started working again. A second later, she desperately wished they hadn’t.
Robby was lying on a bed, curled up in the fetal position. His pillow was wet with blood and some other fluid that was more yellowish and clear. His hands were formed into unusual shapes, the tips of his fingers meeting the tip of his thumbs, like he was trying to pick up a wisp of smoke. His wrists were bent over at the most extreme angle possible, his fingertips almost touching his forearms.
His face was bruised around the eyes, almost like a Lone Ranger mask. His eyes were open, but they were rolling around, refusing to stop on any one thing, and his mouth hung ajar, a twisted smile pasted on his face as he gently repeated, “Haaa, haaaa, haaaa.”
Sherry felt a sharp pain in her knees, then the floor leapt up and slammed into her head. A lipstick from her purse rolled into her forehead. The last thing she saw was the bald doctor’s shoes turn around to face her.
47
1973
IT WAS SO DRY, BUT HE DIDN’T SEEM TO CARE. TO HER, IT FELT LIKE rubbing two pumice stones together, but he didn’t seem to notice as he shoved it inside her again and again, veins sticking out on his forehead as he grunted.
She wanted to close her eyes, but she found herself staring at the veins, willing them to explode. If looks could kill, she thought.
God, how could he be turned on? She was just lying there like a dead woman. He didn’t notice, instead whispering what he must have thought was terribly dirty sex talk through his gritted teeth, “You like that, don’t you? You like that big cock stretching your whore pussy, don’t you?”
When they had first gotten together, she had liked Richard’s big dick. In fact, it was just about all she could remember truly liking about him. Back then, the sex had been good—great, even. The sex had hidden so many fundamental flaws with the relationship. Back then, he could erase any nagging doubts by grabbing her, pushing her down, ripping her pants off, and making her come again and again with that beast between his legs. But now, it was just painful—and getting more so by the second.
She refused her face permission to show what kind of pain she was in. He would enjoy that. How he could enjoy fucking what had to feel like sandpaper was beyond her, but she had given up trying to understand Richard. He had been the one who hurt Robby. She knew it beyond doubt. The damage was likely permanent, the bald doctor had said. Robby would be a vegetable for the rest of his life.
A tear silently slid from the corner of her eye, through her hair, and onto the bed.
Her sweet Robby. Her smart, funny, perfect little boy. He had stolen the future from Robby, hurt him so bad that his brain had strangled itself trying to get out of his little skull. It had been less than a month since he had beaten his own son into a vegetative state, and somehow Richard Turner could find it in himself to hump a clearly unwilling wife, whispering dirty come-ons in her ear, while Robby lay in his bedroom, diapers covering his three-year-old bottom because Daddy had beaten the potty training right out of him.
Richard seemed to have no remorse. In fact, he seemed happier than she had ever seen him, watching his TV shows without yelling “shut up” at anyone. Meanwhile, she was running completely on automatic, her mind never focusing on what she was doing, instead racing on and on, trying desperately to think of some way to help Robby, to change all this for him. She didn’t believe he was gone. He was still in there, still her little boy, trapped inside a body battered into submission.
“I said you better get into this, bitch!”
His slap across her cheek snapped Sherry back to reality—the ugly reality of his sweat-dripping head hovering over her, his hard dick rudely crammed inside her unwilling body.
“Fuck you,” she heard her voice say. “I will never willingly have sex with you again. You hurt our boy.”
“Your boy,” he said angrily. “Whore.”
Had he just admitted that he was the one who had hurt Robby? He had always denied it before—to the doctor, to the police, to her.
“So you did hurt him.”
“He wouldn’t shut the fuck up,” Richard said casually, as if he was discussing the weather or the score in a football game, not the near-murder of her precious, helpless son. “Doesn’t talk so much now, though.”
Red filled Sherry’s vision as she screamed—a raw, animalistic, guttural explosion of pain and hate from her lungs, her body became an entity of its own, kicking, punching, scratching, biting him. Richard, taken by surprise, almost found himself bucked off her, but he recovered, grabbing her by the throat with his left hand and punching her in the nose and mouth with his right hand. Sherry felt her nose break, and one of her teeth fell back into her throat, gagging her.
He rammed himself deeper into her, the pain adding to the bright alert now coming from her face.
“You want it rough, whore? I’ll show you rough!”
Richard began fucking her hard, punching her bloody face every time he withdrew himself, then ramming into her between punches, his other hand choking off her air.
By the third punch, her left eye lost the ability to see, and if he had let go of her throat, she wouldn’t have been able to breathe because of the swelling from being choked—and the incisor lodged there.
By the fifth punch, she was unconscious.
By the ninth punch, she was dead.
After the twelfth punch, Richard Turner pulled out and came on Sherry Turner’s bloody face.
“How you like that, slut? You like it rough like that? You like my load on your face? That’s what you get, bitch. Fucking whore.”
The eye that was still in its socket stared blankly at Richard in reply.
“That’ll show you to kick me,” he said, rolling over to the side of her and falling asleep.
When morning came, Richard fully expected Sherry to already be awake and in the kitchen, getting Robby’s mush ready to spoon into his retard mouth. Maybe she’d have a shiner and a fat lip, but it se
rved her right, kicking and punching him. His eyes still closed, the first thing he noticed was the smell of blood and shit.
“What the—”
Richard opened his eyes to a horror show. Sherry lay naked beside him, one eye dangling out of its socket, broken mouth hanging open, nose smashed completely to the left. Shit covered the lower part of her torso and the upper part of her legs.
Richard wouldn’t notice until later that his bladder let go as he surveyed the damage he had done.
It might have been panic, it might have been the same sub-self that had covered up the mess when he had hurt the little bastard. Whatever it was, Richard Turner’s mind went to sleep as his body took over. The blood and shit. He couldn’t have that on him—not even a trace—later. He went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, hotter than he normally took his. His body grabbed the toilet-cleaning sprayer and took it into the shower with him. After he had washed with soap, he sprayed the cleaner and used steel wool to scrub all the shit—and especially the blood—from his body.
After the shower, he noticed that his footsteps from the bed to the bathroom were showing in the carpet because of the shit that had been all over his feet. Grabbing the toilet cleaning fluid again, he carefully and painstakingly scrubbed his footprints from the carpet.
The body. What to do with the body? How could he get rid of it where it would never be found? He couldn’t dump it anywhere—people were found in places like dumpsters. He couldn’t throw it in the river; bodies tended to float up after a time.
The well. Why hadn’t he thought of that first?
Sherry had been on him for … well, since they had gotten married and bought this little house, to fill in that old, dry well at the fence line of the property in the backyard. It was overgrown now, covered by weed vines and a layer of dirt, but it was still there, a gaping maw of a hole that she had reassured him poor Robby would fall down one day and break his little neck.
No chance of that now, he thought, nervously laughing. Unless his wheelchair rolls down there.