Part III: "Junior"
By Elisa Higgins (c) 2001
[email protected]
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 69 HOURS TO LIVE.
Standing in the center of society's beating heart involves a certain amount of
cerebral pain. There is that much more pain involved in watching some feral
child run circles around his mother, hollering at the top of his lungs, his
voice so high-pitched and irritating that every dog in the city should have come
ripping through the terminal at any given moment.
Now and again the kid's eyes darted in my direction. I could feel him looking me
up and down, trying desperately to see through my sunglasses, wondering why I
wore black leather gloves. I know the slicked-back ponytail made him think. I
could see the gears of his imagination working, and I grinned at him.
The airport was a bitch.
Every schmuck and his grandmother were lugging around matching suitcases,
scanning the monitors for what gate led to what, rushing around trying to find
their flights with worried lines of panic etched into their faces. Half of them
couldn't navigate their way out of a closet let alone an airport terminal. And
there I stood, sipping my bad coffee (which was too hot and didn't have enough
caffeine in it to keep a field mouse awake) watching that darling child go round
and round and round and I wondered: What would happen if someone suddenly
shouted:
"BOMB!"
The temptation was irresistible.
It's well known that in the back of everyone's little sputtering mind there's
this lurking fear: certain death exists at the airport. You've got your
terrorist acts and your plane crashes, and that lone individual that decides to
go postal, blowing off heads at random.
It was all quite amusing really.
There was a nervous twitch in the feral kid's mother as she eyed my black duffel
bag. And in all honesty I should have gone right up to her, right into her face
so that she could smell the cigarettes on my breath, and say:
"It's not nice to stereotype."
If she only knew.
But truly, where's the fun in that? Then she'd flag down the nearest security
guard, and they'd haul my ass to some secluded room, rummage through my stuff,
get some closet homo named Paul to strip search me --just for kicks of course-
and come up with . . . nothing.
You people think I'm stupid don't you?
There's already too much hassle at the airport, tickets and lines and
credentials and life insurance. Attempting to tote some lethal weapon onto the
plane is a snag in my day I really don't need. I'm just not much in the mood.
Besides, only movie stars do things like that . . . ahem.
But what about chaos, you ask? Chaos is great when it's happening to somebody
else. Did I forget to mention that? Oops. As for static--static is the spice
of life! But try telling that to Veronica right now.
So here's the million dollar question folks: What is darling little Veronica up
to at this very moment? Let's do a run-through . . .
IF -emphasis on the "if"- some Hollywood screenwriter decided to tackle the
scenario, we would find our Heroine (69 hours and counting) filing away the
hinges on her door with some Revlon Deluxe nail file she had hidden up her ass
the whole time. (Just in case her exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-boyfriend decided to lock
her up with the very bomb she thought had killed him).
--Here's where we pause to admire the beauty of irony.--
It would take her no time at all to hack free of her prison (this was a super
nail file, mind you, heavy duty steel for those times when you just don't have
the patience to be perfect). And as fate would have it, she stumbles outside to
steal a six cylinder Trans-Am from some poor couple making out in the woods.
Immediately following would be a miraculous high-speed chase down I-95 (which
would take her all of ten minutes when with traffic it took me nearly three
hours) where she would arrive on the scene just in time to come face to face
with her arch nemesis on his flight to Ohio. (We need a spectacular finish here
darlings,) so after a heroic fight, and a ludicrous delay on my part to tell her
that I've won and she's lost-- she would then proceed to shove a bomb down the
front of my pants (and with some catchy one-liner) parachute into the sky just
me and my family jewels blow to Kingdom Come.
Try not.
The truth of the matter is this: Veronica really just wishes I at least had the
decency to leave her toilet paper . . . which I didn't.
So where are we off to you ask? (And I admonish you for not paying attention.)
We're going back to Sherwood. According to the dearly-not-yet-departed, I have
a mongrel of my own loins roaming around the planet somewhere, and damn me if
I'm not dying to know what the little bugger looks like! He should be almost
three by now. Ah the fond memories of being three . . . give me a minute here,
I'll think of something . . . childhood, childhood, something fond about
childhood.
Nope, nothing's registering.
So who's to blame when someone like myself cannot remember a single solitary
moment when they were ecstatic to be a child? That's part of what I aim to
discover. (And you thought I was looking for my son just for the hell of it! Of
course, he'd better not be like feral child over there or he would join his
mother sooner rather than later.)
The circling kid stopped short as if he heard me. So how could I resist? His
mother had her back turned (and people wonder why so many children disappear) so
I beckoned to him.
"Hey, kid, c'mere."
Simple enough, and he listened!
"Wanna see something?"
I knew he was actually scared shitless of me--staring at the way my eyebrows
arched over the jet-black rims of my sunglasses, staring most of all at the
leather gloves on my hands, as if I were some mob hit man--or just your humble
archetypal villain.
Which I am.
I was too delighted by the way his eyes bugged out of his head. He knew he
wasn't supposed to talk to me--that his mother had given him that age-old line
"Never talk to strangers." But here lies the essence of temptation. This kid was
the true son of Adam and Eve, and we all know how THEY faired against the snake.
So he nodded and I held up my hand, slowly tugging at the fingertips of my glove
as though I were unveiling some great secret. And he watched with undying
anticipation until--VOILA!--my lovely hand was revealed in all its mutilated
glory. His eyes glued to the stub of my middle finger (which I wiggled for him)
and his face twisted until he was just about as ugly as his mother. Then he
let out a scream and charged back in her direction, half knocking her over as he
wrapped around her legs. She hollered at him and shot me a horrified look.
I smiled.
Oh, thank you Veronica for small favors.
Hold that thought--they're calling my flight.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 67 HOURS TO LIVE.
There is something living in airplane food. Have you ever noticed that just
when you look away, something ruptures the surface of the slop they call mashed
potatoes? And you snap your head back to catch it, but like the cunning
substance it is, it only moves when you're not looking?
I grinned at the woman next to me; she adjusted her glasses and tried her best
to look comfortable. She appeared to be one of those religious types that had
something the size of Antarctica shoved up her ass. To her I was probably Satan
in disguise, come to lure her into sinful temptation. Actually, if Satan were
roaming the earth, he probably would look a hell of a lot like me.
She tried to crawl into the book she was reading to hide from my view.
Or perhaps she was worried about the creature in my potatoes?
I dumped my tray into the hands of the nearest stewardess (the only thing you
can do with airline food is play with it) and quickly ordered one of those
little bottles of Jack Daniel's.
The best part about flying is flying high.
The stewardess looked charmed (don't ask me why, I can only guess there's
something about the eyebrows that gets them.) She reached into her cart and
pulled out that tiny mouthful of amber liquid I do so enjoy. The woman next to
me watched, I suppose 'thou shall not drink' is one of the Ten Commandments.
Someone should let her know that on planet earth it's legal to drink alcohol on
a plane . . . as long as you're not the pilot.
I felt compelled.
The stewardess swaggered on to the next guy and I turned to my companion.
"Greetings and Salutations."
No, that never gets old.
"Hello," she answered stiffly. Her comfort level dropped even further. Satan
was speaking to her. I flashed the eyebrows. She managed a tight-lipped smile
and shifted, hoping like hell I wasn't about to commence upon a conversation.
Which, of course, was all the more reason to do so. My eyes zoned in on the book
in her hand.
Moby Dick.
"Ah, Melville," I sighed. She glanced down surprised, as if she hadn't expected
an intelligent word to come out of my mouth.
"You've read it?"
My grin broadened.
"Many times."
"Really?" She sounded suspicious. "I find it quite complex."
"Of course!" I sneered, "That's the beauty of it! Melville's elaborate language
gives total shapelessness to the work's allegorical importance, so every man can
basically translate its symbolic significance to whatever suits his needs!"
She looked at me cross-eyed, and I watched her brain try to compute what I had
just said. It took her a moment. I supposed she was reading it just because
someone mentioned that old Moby himself was Leviathan from the Bible.
"So what do you find most compelling?" She asked. "The blatant evil of the
whale or the blatant evil of Ahab?"
I had to laugh. She was blatantly calling me evil. Oh, if she only knew. She
was definitely one of those pseudo-intellectual types. They've got MA's and
MS's coming out of their asses but ask them what they got out of their multi-
million dollar education, and be prepared to have your brain fried by ignorance.
"The whale's not evil." I said simply. "He's just out to sink the world. Ahab
on the other hand, he's an icon in American culture with that pegged leg of his,
but he's virtually non-existent as a character in the book. Melville wrote him
as a vehicle for human psychology. Ahab is that line on the application that
reads 'Your Name here.'"
"Really." She said again, pushing her glasses up her beak-like nose (librarian
material that didn't know the first thing about literature.)
"So you can relate to Ahab?"
She was now accusing me of being a lunatic.
"Definitely."
"And what is your White Whale?"
"Actually there are quite a few white whales swimming around my ocean;" I
shrugged, "But they're all inextricably linked."
"At the end of the book Ahab dies you know."
This was her method of damnation.
"Correction," I interjected, "Ahab goes mad and THEN he dies."
"So is that what you see in your future, young man?"
Patronizing little monster. I desperately wanted to fry her brain.
"Been there, done that," I sighed, stretching. "Actually, the whale is my hero;
he takes them all out."
"Oh, how interesting." There was a nervous lilt in her voice. She tried to
delve back into the book, but I wouldn't let her. She was making me nauseous,
Bible Belt victim that she was, so I decided to hit her with it.
"You know, in college, I once knew a girl who used Moby Dick as a suicide note."
"What?!"
Ah, the horror of the worst sin in The Book.
"How could she do a thing like that?"
This was when my morality was supposed to kick in and decode the question. What
did my lovely companion mean? Did she mean: 'How could she commit suicide?'
(Suicides go to hell you know.) Or 'How could she use Moby Dick as her sign-
off?'
"Easy," I replied, twisting off the small cap of my bourbon bottle.
"She went through the whole novel and underlined passages that held specific
meaning for her. If you were to put them in the context of her life you could
figure out just what miseries she was suffering . . . Basically she thought she
was an Eskimo."
The woman's mouth gaped. I could see it in her face: how could I be so cold and
ignorant of the Good Lord's word? I took a swig of the liquid fire and gave her
my best shit-eating grin.
"Cheers."
But wait! You say. Heather Duke didn't commit suicide! And I reply: How the
hell would you know? Were you there? Didn't you bother to look past the
credits? Note I said college, not High School, dearies. Much to Heather's
dismay, life after Westerburg didn't consist of very much at all.
Look, I had put all that effort into outlining MOBY DICK! I had to put it to
use! Do you have any idea how many hours it took to plow through that sucker?
Give me a little credit here!
My companion was at a loss.
The alcohol stewardess passed by again. My eyes gravitated down her body, pink
polyester skirt stretched taut across her shapely ass. She had long legs too,
could have been a model in her spare time. I watched as she cast a glance over
her shoulder, a wisp of blond hair falling free from the bun she had tucked
under that cute little cap of hers. She bent over to serve some old business
guy and then continued to push her cart past me to the back of the cabin. My
eyes followed her the whole way. There was still twenty minutes until touch
down.
"Excuse me," I murmured to my Moby Dick-reading friend, "Nature calls."
I got up from the seat and headed towards the rear of the plane.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 66 HOURS AND 58 MINUTES TO LIVE.
Three hours without a cigarette is bad enough, three hours without a cigarette
to smoke after sex is even worse. The stewardess pulled down her skirt and
shifted her jacket as she tried to squeeze past me and out of the lavatory. She
beamed in that dizzy way of hers and I half expected her to walk into the cabin
wall as she attempted to compose herself. I turned to the mirror and pulled the
rubber band from my hair. She poked her head back in and whispered:
"We're landing soon."
"Thank you, dear," I purred.
She disappeared again, and some trace of her giggle lingered in the potent air
of the bathroom. Ah, yes, the evidence of horizontal refreshment; or in this
case, vertical refreshment at 20,000 feet. There was a nice new ruddy glow to my
face. I combed my fingers back through my hair, pulling free the snags, before
twisting the whole thing back into a ponytail. The entire 3' x 4' compartment
reeked of copulation. I'd pay to see the look on the next guy's face that
walked in here.
I stepped out, grinning like the devil. The air was much better in the open
cabin. Down the isle I spotted the feral kid twisting around in his seat to
bother the man behind him. The gods had taken pity on that child and not sat
him in front of me.
Too bad.
I took my own seat and the woman beside me caught a whiff of the stewardess on
my skin. I watched her through my shades. Sniff, sniff--it must have been
long, long time since she had been laid. But eventually the memory kicked in,
and she recalled some sinful night long ago in the back of her boyfriend's car
when the windows were all steamed, and the sweat was all over the leather
interior. Yes, the scent of sex brought her right back to that unfortunate
moment of weakness.
She glanced at me, then at the stewardess as she passed by, and a look of utter
horror came over her face.
That was it, I had fried her brain.
One toke over the line you poor fool.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 64 HOURS TO LIVE.
Home sweet home. Actually, there's no such thing for me. When you've had as
rootless an existence as I've had home is more like a state of mind than a
place. It's just that with my recent troubles, Sherwood Ohio holds a certain
amount of sentimental value. So, truly how could I resist cruising by the old
school? I was flattered to see that the pavement in front of the steps where I
blew sky high had been turned into a little memorial garden not only for me, but
for Heather and Kurt and Ram.
Touching.
The parking lot was full. Everyone was inside going through the same mindless
social turmoil of teenage life. I'm 21 now--I've actually cleared the range of
adolescence (and you thought I'd be in High School forever). Yet there's part of
me that yearns for the chaos I once felt while trapped inside those stale
hallways, the timbre sound of lockers slamming in my ears, the familiar shouts
of football players, like retards let loose from a mental asylum, echoing off
the walls. It's funny to think that everything going on in that building at
this very moment was just like everything that had gone on while I was there.
Some loser is still trying to feed the world in the cafeteria, some group of
horrid hairspray addicts were still pretending to be Westerburg royalty. There
was a new crew of jock assholes date raping cheerleaders at every given chance.
And those poor lost souls who yearned to be anything but what they were still
filled the spaces in-between. It was all an on-going cycle; only the cast had
changed. Hell, there may even have been some loner wandering around in a long
black coat with a .44 tucked into his pocket . . . no, probably not.
True genius is like lightning; it never strikes twice.
But sometimes I think I miss the ambiance of it all. . .
NAAAAAAAAAAH.
So instead here I am, two years later, still dead to the world. I suppose you
continue to question how I actually survived that little bomb stunt of mine? But
you know what, I'm not going to tell you. Why ruin the illusion? I'm Lazarus
risen from the dead. (And if I sit in this parking lot any longer I'll be
tempted to bomb the school again.)
So off we go, pulling away in our snazzy rental car, driving through cow
country, passed the Snappy Snack Shack--look I can see my house from here! No,
I don't live there anymore. How could I? I'm dead. Dear ol' Dad jumped ship
soon after my funeral . . . I was there, you know. How many chances do you get
to attend your own funeral? I was the one in the back with the phony beard and
sunglasses. I was the one watching Veronica wrestle with all her angst and
bullshit. It was beautiful. Nice flower arrangements too. My lovely father
thought we should have taken pictures. Everything he knows he learned from me.
What is it they say?
The child is the father of the man?
In that case then I'm looking for my own father aren't I?
Objective #1 here folks is to find out what Mommy Dearest did with my spawn.
She said she put him up for adoption. It's just so typical of her isn't it?
Too guilty to abort it, too weak and selfish to keep it. You do the crime you
pay the time. You don't see me shirking my fatherly responsibilities do you?
I'm looking for the little devil!
Veronica makes me sick.
And I bet she still thinks that I have feelings for her--that there's some part
of me that thinks we were MEANT for each other! As the great Mad Max once said:
"Crap."
She's so completely disillusioned, and she's always so goddamn dramatic for
Chrissakes!
Oh, look we're here. Her house has not changed in the least. Ever wonder how
she got all her money? Her father is not exactly a rocket scientist, and yet
here they are, Mommy and Daddy Sawyer, sitting pretty in a house that's as phony
as they are. No wonder Veronica turned out the way she did. Ahh, but is that
the reason? Or was she born a bitch? (Once again, my little experiment
surfaces, but more on that later.) First I must see if The Beavers have any
information regarding my son.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 63 HOURS TO LIVE.
Breaking and entering?
Guilty as charged.
As luck would have it, I'm all alone in my quest here. Apparently, word of
Veronica's disappearance has reached home base, so I can only guess that her
doting parents have flown off to Connecticut to cooperate with the search. It's
seriously a shame; I could have done the world yet another great favor. But
much to my chagrin, I have to go at it alone.
So I walked into her father's study. Stuffed birds mounted on the wall, useless
trophies scattered about the room, the location of the family safe obvious as it
protruded through the canvas of that really bad painting. I walked over and
took the ugly thing down, and sure enough, there was the safe, combination lock
and all. Was it a safe for moola? Or was it where Daddy Sawyer kept his
important documents--like adoption papers? And where could he possibly have
written down the combination? God knows he couldn't have committed it to
memory--he was an idiot on wheels. So I began rummaging through the desk.
Drawer by drawer--one of which was locked.
Way to go to be obvious.
I grabbed an expensive-looking antique envelope opener and wedged it in the
crack. It took a bit of pulling a prying to get some leverage; and at one point
I slipped and caught my finger, nearly puncturing my glove.
"Damn you and your family," I muttered, and again shoved the dull brass blade
deeper inside the opening. With one final motion I wrenched the drawer free.
The inside left a lot to be desired. Part of me was hoping to find some sort of
sadomasochistic pornography of Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer riding each other with
various articles of horse regalia--but alas, no such luck. There was absolutely
nothing here that suggested these people were anymore interesting than a ball of
wadded up chewing gum.
The drawer contained tax papers and business papers, and other assorted mind-
numbing materials, and-oops-a trick bottom. (I swear this guy reads too many
spy novels.) I lifted the thin piece of wood away to behold a little black
address book hidden beneath it. Snatching it up, I began flipping through the
pages.
I looked under 'lock.'
Nothing.
'Combination lock.'
Nothing.
I looked under 'safe':
08-03-78.
Eureka.
At least Veronica had some degree of intelligence; the same could not be said of
her father. Did he actually believe that secret agents were dying to raid his
study? And if he did, don't you think he would have taken a little more care
with the combination?
What am I, a moron?
The safe openly easily enough with combination in hand. Atop some more
important looking documents (and a wad of cash) was a 9.MM Parabellum Automatic,
fully loaded clip and all.
"There is a god," I mused.
I lifted the gun (nice balance), pocketed the cash (probably about $1,000 in
fifties and hundreds) and grabbed the papers:
Crap, crap, crap, Giles & Giles Adoption Agency, Yadda, yadda, yadda, Mr. and
Mrs. Lance and Lorna Usher adopt baby boy, December 31, 1989, blah, blah, blah
residence: 264 Pequod Drive, Sherwood, Ohio.
I'm so smart sometimes I hurt my own head.
And how convenient for Veronica's current predicament that they kept him in the
same town! If I really made the attempt, I'm sure I could get back before
detonation.
But suddenly I remembered that day Veronica came to visit my father. I was
still a mess at the time, second-degree burns on much of my torso (and there was
that little detail regarding bullet holes in my abdomen.)
Yeah, that was a bitch.
I did drag myself to the funeral, but after that I took some heavy time off,
lounging around, waiting to recover. Veronica showed up out of the blue one
day with some sob story I didn't hear at the time (though it turns out that she
told my pop about the kid--he just never passed the information along to me.
Dad could never understand my obsession with Veronica, didn't even think she was
all that attractive--not enough in the cleavage department, he said. I told him
it was a vengeance thing.) Anyway, so he called out real loud in an attempt to
warn me that she was coming, but I was in the shower at the time, so I had no
idea what he was hollering about. Veronica then proceeded to snoop around my
room, lift a photo from an album I had lying around somewhere, and that was it.
She took off.
So, standing here in her empty house, I thought I at least could return the
favor.
I traipsed up the stairs to her bedroom--neat and clean as always, the pristine
princess had to have her interior décor as sophisticated as she believed her
grand IQ to be. The sight of the window brought back fond memories of strip
croquet--and I remembered fucking in that bed the night we planned to shoot Kurt
and Ram.
"Ich Luge" bullets.
Sucker.
And speaking of Grand IQ, (I opened a drawer and removed one of her many
diaries) genius Veronica had written everything down! As if at the trial some
prosecutor couldn't just whip out one of those little puppies and say, "Well,
Miss Sawyer--it's all right here--you openly admit to killing those poor kids!"
It boggles the mind, really.
I flipped to a page. Go ahead darling, speak your words of wisdom:
"Dear Diary, (how cute)
My teen angst bullshit has a body count. (Genius at work.) The
most popular people in school are dead. (Little thanks to you.) Everybody's
sad, but it's a weird kind of sad. Suicide gave Heather depth, (perceptive.)
Kurt a soul, (imagine that!), Ram a brain (it would never happen). I don't know
what it's given me, but I've got no control over myself when I'm with JD. (Damn
straight.) Are we going to prom or to Hell? (Speak for yourself, sweetness.)"
I flipped to another page:
" . . . So again let me ask: Do I truly have a responsibility to
JD for carrying his child? (Dilemmas, dilemmas.) Do I owe it to him to have
this baby so it can correct the sins of its father? (Sins?) Is his life,
because it's over, more important than mine? (Always has been, always will be.)
I'm not going to have an abortion. I'm going to have this child, not for my
sake, not for the baby's, but for JD's. (How nice of her.)"
I clapped the book closed, and shoved it into my coat pocket. I would
eventually have to read the whole thing. Maybe it would give me more insight
into the mind of my former love? Maybe it would melt my black heart, and make
me rush back to Connecticut to save her from certain death? Naaaaaaaaah.
Burn the evidence; it's the only way to go.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 58 HOURS TO LIVE
I drove out of town to find a room for the night. You see, there always lurks
that remote possibility that I bump into someone I know around here, and they
screw up their face and say to me: "Dude, I went to your funeral."
Yeah, there's a scenario for ya.
So I motored along to the nearest dirt-cheap motel, paid cash for a one-bed pad
and cable TV, and ordered a pizza--everything on it, no anchovies. I can't help
but think that Veronica's getting kind of hungry right about now. It is
dinnertime after all.
Let's picture it:
Her lying there like a broken doll, already dying of dehydration, suffocating
from the smell of her own piss in the corner of the room, mesmerized by the TV
screen ticking away the seconds of her life.
I was glued to a rerun of The Breakfast Club starring Molly Ringworm and that
guy who makes Billy the Kid movies. But, honestly folks, how long can a person
actually watch a movie about high school once they've been through the ordeal?
It's like a painful memory flashback. So I flipped on the porno channel, grabbed
another slice of pizza and lit up what must have been my tenth cigarette in the
last two hours.
The documents I had lifted from Veronica's house were simple enough. Two pricks
had my son in their possession, they lived on a street named after the ship that
sunk in Moby Dick and they were pretty wealthy. Apparently the woman was a
shrink--that's all my kid needs is to be raised by a shrink!
Oh, God the humanity!
What?
What's that you say?
What do I want with my child anyway?
(I'm beginning to sound like Dr. Seuss here.)
Allow me to explain: there is a great debate in the world of psychoanalysis.
Are people born or are they made? Are we the way we are, because of our
inherent nature? Or because of the environment that nurtures us? It's an age-
old question, but current science claims both arguments are valid. So now we
must ask ourselves: "what are the complex ways in which genetic inheritance and
life experience interact to mold our behavior?"
Why do we do what we do?
I have been led to believe that no slate is ever clean. We are all dealt a hand
of cards the second the sperm makes it's way to the Promised Land. How we use
those cards, well that's another story.
So what cards was my son dealt?
Did he get the aces from my deck or from Veronica's?
You see, what I really plan to do is place myself at the very origin of
psychosocial development. I aim to watch the entire process of mental growth and
trace it's every outcome. This kid is a Pandora's Box waiting to reveal the
very way in which we make assholes and non-assholes with the poor tools society
has given us.
He is one lucky little bastard to have me for a father; at least I know what I'm
doing.
Ah, but you don't think I have the first clue of how to raise a child.
The basics are elemental--4 a.m. feedings and diaper rash, baby talk and naptime
(plus, you forget I'm rich and can afford nannies, and he's three, he's already
potty trained.)--It's the other part that confuses the shit out of people. The
psychological part. That's where I will do my best work.
This child is going be my little legacy of havoc to wreak on the world after I'm
gone. I'm going to make him tough as nails, with an IQ so advanced it won't fit
in the creases of his little brain! By the time I'm finished with him, he'll
even be MY superior.
And another thing, we're going with private tutoring all the way here folks.
Fuck high school, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. (But Veronica's
already been there, so it doesn't much matter.)
I am going to craft this kid to perfection.
(I just have to hope that I'm not too late. That and that he doesn't take after
his mother.)
Will he have problems? Sure. Will he rebel? Of course! And I will be there
to witness everything with open eyes.
I've been in the field long enough; it's time to see into the heart of things.
And Jesus, how do they expect anyone to get a decent woody when they play such
ridiculous elevator music during these porno flicks?!
I mean really, cum on . . .
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 46 HOURS TO LIVE.
It took me over an hour to find Pequod Drive. How retarded is that?! Sherwood
isn't that big of a place, and yet there I was roaming around like an idiot,
refusing to ask for directions.
Yes, there is that part of me that is still typically male.
But I forfeited in the end and stopped at the gas station. Turns out, there's
an East Sherwood and a West Sherwood. I was in the west part--Junior was in the
east part. Who knew? Once that little kink was ironed out, I was pulling into
The Usher's driveway in no time.
It was a giant house; Tudor style like Veronica's, tucked away in a grove all by
it's lonesome.
Not a neighbor in sight.
The family cars were present, which meant that unlike the Sawyers; the good
doctor and her husband were home.
This would be fun.
I bet you're wondering right now how I planned to get my kid back? After all, I,
as the biological father, was officially deceased. But don't worry, I knew what
I was doing. I walked right up to the front door and rang the doorbell.
No answer.
I did it again.
No answer.
I ran out of patience, pulled out the automatic and unloaded two shots at the
doorknob. Then I was in like Flynn.
The house was unusually dark for this hour of the day, all the shades were
drawn, all the curtains closed. There was an odd smell in the air--kind of like
burnt flesh. Of course I know what burnt flesh smells like! I was the one that
blew up, remember?
Something was rotten in Denmark.
I kept the gun drawn, and slowly started into the foyer. Not a soul in sight,
everything still, everything silent. The kitchen emerged on my left. Somehow it
reminded me of Heather Chandler's kitchen, and then I realized that this was the
same model house. Spooky. (Here is where Veronica would have interjected that
our ghosts were coming to haunt us.) Though actually, this was a good thing,
because I knew my way around Heather Chandler's house.
I sniffed at the air, listening long and hard for any sound whatsoever. I
thought I heard the pad of soft footsteps above my head, so I approached the
stairs and started slowly up, watching every shadow. It was ridiculously dark
by the time I reached the top, I couldn't see shit. And yet the smell grew
increasingly stronger, more putrid.
This wasn't normal, but I was up for the challenge.
So I pulled out my car keys and clicked on the small flashlight I kept attached
to them, just for situations like this. The hallway I was in stretched straight
down on either end of me--swallowed up by darkness. There still remained that
possibility that the Ushers were just really late sleepers on Saturday morning,
and hadn't gotten up yet; but my Spider Sense told me otherwise. I shone the
small light into a doorway and caught the edge of a porcelain sink. The
bathroom. I knew almost instinctively that that was the origin of that foul
smell. So I approached, my gag reflex on full alert. I knew what this
was, I had smelled it before, so I wasn't surprised by what I found when I
stepped inside.
My little light filtered over the tub at the far end of the room and in small
snatches I put the picture together. The fat arm dangling over the side, the
balding head tipped back against the porcelain, eyes wide and staring, mouth
agape. I followed an electrical cord from the bath water to the socket on the
wall. This guy looked a little well done to me. My guess was that somehow that
radio he was listening to decided to join him tub. Maybe it got lonely sitting
up there on the boudoir all by itself? (Someone should have warned him that
radios make poor substitutes for Rubber Duckies.) He probably shorted out the
entire house with this little stunt of his. It occurred to me then: could he
have been a genuine suicide? After all, I didn't do it.
In the midst of playing Sherlock Holmes I felt a pair of eyes on my back. I
whirled around quickly, gun ready. My flashlight found him first. He looked
like a deer in headlights, but aside from squinting, he didn't budge. Instead he
pulled out an orange toy gun and aimed it at me. I think my mouth hit the floor
right about then. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or start dancing around
in the sheer joy of it all.
He was beautiful!
And Jesus! He had my eyes! And my eyebrows! God, he looked just like me! Only
smaller. (He had Veronica's mouth though, petit and perfect, dare I say
pretty.)
I lowered my weapon the second I saw him, he clicked his own trigger at me and I
turned to complete mush.
"Hey there little fella," I said in my sweetest voice.
I crouched down to make eye contact and held the flashlight over my head to
illuminate the room a little. It gave him a chance to see me and this strange
look of recognition came over his face. The thought crossed my mind that things
couldn't be more perfect.
"Did you do that?" I asked, motioning to the dead guy behind me.
Junior hesitated shyly and then in a tiny voice he said:
"It was an accident."
(Nice articulation.)
"Of course it was," I replied grinning proudly from ear to ear. My kid had
knocked the radio into the tub.
"And why was it an accident?" I asked.
The little guy scratched his head with the tip of his gun.
"He was not my daddy."
I could have had a heart attack on the spot. My three-year-old had committed
premeditated murder!
"Do you know who I am?" I asked.
Hell it was worth a shot.
He smiled coyly, like it was a trick question, then he turned and scampered down
the hallway, his pajama feet scuffing along the polished wood floor. I followed
him to what I assumed was his room, where he quickly produced a photograph from
inside a drawer. He knew exactly where it was, despite the darkness, and handed
it to me. I held the flashlight on it and recognized my eighteen-year-old self
in the photo. Holy Jesus God this kid was a genius! Here was the very photo
Veronica had swiped from my room, in the hands of my son who had used it as
motive for murder.
"You're Daddy," he said.
For the first time in my life I was speechless.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 43 HOURS TO LIVE.
Mission accomplished. Technically speaking. It took us three hours to pack
everything Junior would need, all the toys and clothes, and toddler necessities.
I was right, though; he was potty trained.
No diapers desired, no diapers required.
And he opened up to me in no time, confessing how he knew I would show up
eventually. Get this; it seems his darling psychiatrist foster mother believed
that honesty was the best policy in raising a child. So she told a three-year-
old that she and her husband were not his real parents! Then she gave him the
photo of me (he had one of Veronica too) and thus planted the seed in his head
for what I encountered on my way in here. Apparently, two seconds before he
knocked the radio into the tub and caused a 4th of July in October, the dead guy
warned him not to do it. He said it would "electrocute him and he would die."
Way to go genius.
And speaking of genius, I have a little sociopathic prodigy on my hands, what
more could I ask for?!
His foster mother, dear old Dr. Lorna Usher, was not home at the time being.
She was on a business trip or something. But if she happened to walk in, I
planned to shoot her and place the gun in hubby's charred hand.
The murder/suicide routine.
Of course there would have to be a note to go along with that, and (as Veronica
learned too late) I too can do anyone's handwriting just as well as my own.
Turns out, the good doctor never did show up. So that mess was avoided--but the
entire situation itself didn't exactly look kosher. Dead husband in the
bathtub--missing child and his belongings. I found myself scrawling a note
anyway. After rummaging around in the study I found a nice little handwriting
sample, and off I went by flashlight. I have to say my plot was twisted, but
would definitely buy Junior and me all the time we needed to disappear into the
woodwork.
So the note went along these lines: Mr. Usher (who as it turns out was one of
those Bible Belt preachers of fire and brimstone) confesses to his dear wife
that he thought Junior here was the Spawn of Satan. (Which he is--not that I
want to seem presumptuous or anything). And because Junior was the Spawn of
Satan, Mr. Usher took it into his own God-willing hands to send Junior back from
whence he came (namely Hell). He then proceeded to bury his poor little body
out in the woods somewhere. But, because our man was your typical criminal
pussy, he couldn't deal with his sins and offed himself in the bathtub!
You see, perfecto!
Based on this confession of infanticide, the authorities would then have to
start searching the woods pronto (notice I didn't specify WHICH woods) before
they could begin looking anywhere else for the missing child. It's procedure.
So the kid disappears with me, everyone else thinks he's dead, and by the time
anyone figures out the contrary, we'll be long gone.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 38 HOURS TO LIVE.
"Hey son, how'ya doin."
(Car phones, gotta love 'em.)
"Yes, he's here with me now--everything went smoothly, not a kink in the works .
. . No, no, he wanted to come, he was waiting for me. Yeah, he knows who I am-
-I guess that makes you grandpa now doesn't it? Well, we don't want to confuse
the little bugger do we? God, knows that insane woman confused him enough
already . . . No, well, I missed the flight back to Connecticut, can't catch
another one till tomorrow. Minor setback . . . for me anyway. Yeah, Junior and
I are just gonna kick back and bond. Listen pop, I gotta motor, I'll see you
tomorrow."
Can you believe that Veronica once actually had the balls to ask me if I LIKED
my father?! What kind of a question is that?! Hasn't she ever heard of
unconditional love? Doesn't she know what it is to be loyal no matter how
insane your parental units are?! Do I LIKE my father? The nerve! Of course I
like my father, I taught him everything he knows. He worships me! Why else do
you think he supports whatever I do?! Poison the popular kids? Sure. Blow up
the school? Go for it! Kidnap my son? Wouldn't have it any other way.
And you thought we had a bad relationship.
Junior was happy as punch strapped into his Deluxe Baby-Safe Car Seat. He had
about 3,000 toys scattered all over the back, and he was singing some Sesame
Street song in this impish little voice of his. (I loved the way his eyebrows
peaked at the high notes.) He had already predetermined that he was hungry and
could do with a cherry slushy and a pizza cut up into tiny bite-sized morsels.
(I was always partial to coke slushies myself, so I guess that's the Veronica in
him.) Of course, what that all meant was that we'd have to stop at the Snappy
Snack Shack.
It was tempting to say: "Junior, this is the second place I met your mother,"
but I decided against it. Mother-Dear would have to be weeded out of the
picture. It would be tricky, he had already asked about her, and I was not
about to tell him that she was locked up in a cabin somewhere with a Norwegian
and a pack of thermals. His radio stunt had demonstrated that he was
not in the most stable of mental states.
I had my work cut out for me.
And yet, as I pulled into the parking lot, envisioning me on my bike and
Veronica sipping her icy drink through ruby red lips, I had this crazy thought
that maybe we could make it work. After all, we had Junior--and both of us were
out for his best interest. Though I'm sure our specific viewpoints conflicted.
According to her, I was the worst thing for him.
I glanced in the rearview mirror --there was more than just a hint of his mother
in his round little face.
I guess I would have to catch the early flight back to Connecticut.
The full irony was not lost upon me: I still held a grudge against my own father
for blowing up my mother. And here I was, blowing up the mother of my only
child.
Ouch.
"Junior, it's slushy time," I announced, "Put on your sunglasses."
"Slushy time!" He sung, slipping on a pair of sunglasses whose rims were shaped
like stars.
I watched him, slipping on a pair of my own.
"Now your hat," I added.
He obeyed, pulling on one of those Disney "Goofy" caps with the floppy ears. He
seemed to know that he had to pretend he was someone else. After all, we were
both supposed to be dead now, weren't we?
I unsaddled him from the car seat and lifted him up. He continued to sing
"slushy time" all the way into the convenience store.
He had told me in the car that those stiffs who called themselves his parents
had forbidden him to drink slushies! They were too "artificial" and "not good
for him" and blah blah blah blah blah. What utter crap! You bring a child into
this lousy world, you're supposed to spoil him every chance you get. It's
compensation.
So he shouted across the counter to the obvious Westerburg attendee that he
wanted a cherry slushy, (I had to add the part about the pizza) and the kid went
right to work on our order.
That's when Satan decided to pay me a visit.
"JD?"
Gut instinct when you hear your name is to turn around, right? That's unless
you know that you're supposed to be dead, and that you're holding a kidnapped
child in your arms. So I did my best to just ignore whoever it was that thought
they knew me.
But she was persistent, and two seconds later I felt a tap on my shoulder. I
didn't want to make it obvious that I was trying avoid people at all costs, so I
turned around . . .
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!
That was the first thought through my head when I saw her: Ms. Phlegm staring at
me with this utter look of horror plastered on her face. I could see the wheels
turning in her mind that here was the dead kid back from the grave to haunt her
for being a lousy guidance counselor. And it occurred to me that I had to make
her feel as stupid as possible.
"I'm sorry," I said, "Are you talking to me?"
It took an intense amount of effort to change the gravely fluctuations of my
voice to something that was, well, more yuppyish. Her cheeks flushed red, but
she continued to study me, searching for some nuance in my face that would give
me away. I was suddenly thankful that I had neglected to put in the ponytail
this morning. That way the long black hair I had gone through such pains to
grow could mask those very definitive features of my face. That, and as long as
I could keep the eyebrows under control, she'd never see them through the
sunglasses.
"Oh, gosh," she said, "I thought you were someone else."
I cringed at the very sound of her voice. Oh how I loaded the bullshit on her
when I was at Westerburg. I had to be her most popular patient.
Her eyes shot suddenly to Junior, as though she hadn't realized we were
together. She looked him up and down, confused as hell at why there was a
mini-me sitting on the counter. And he glared back, irritated that she was even
speaking to us.
"I'm so sorry," she went on, "you just reminded me so much of a student I once
had."
She sounded as though she were grieving.
"Oh," I replied, my mind racing to all the details of my persona I had to
conceal from her. "Is that a bad thing?"
I think Junior sensed I was on edge; so he flipped on his "shy" switch--which I
had realized by now was just a facade. The little devil was almost as crafty as
I was. He feigned innocence beautifully!
"Oh, no," Ms. Phlegm responded.
I thought she would burst into tears at any moment; her melodramatic concern for
my suicide was making me ill.
"He was such a sweet boy, so sad."
I felt my eyes bulge from their sockets.
She always was a very bad judge of character.
"All he really needed was a little love."
She clutched her chest mournfully.
'Why did God make you?' I thought. 'Was it just to irritate me? Because I
really can't think of any other purpose.'
"Sounds unfortunate," I said stiffly.
"That poor, poor creature," she crooned.
"Hurry up! Make the pizza!" Junior cried suddenly. His outburst surprised us
both. The pimply-faced kid behind the counter shot him an annoyed look.
I glanced at Ms. Phlegm; she had been thrown off guard.
"He's hungry," I justified.
"He sounds it." She replied, saddling up to him. "Are you hungry sweetheart?"
'Lord have mercy,' I thought.
Junior stuck his lip out at her. The kid behind the counter slapped the cherry
slushy down in front of him."
"Suck on that for awhile," he muttered under his breath.
Normally I wouldn't have let that slide, but Ms. Phlegm's presence was putting a
serious glitch in my style. If she hadn't been there, I would have given Junior
a little lesson in how to scare the crap out of dumb assholes; but alas, no can
do. I watched as Junior had some trouble getting the straw into his mouth.
"Is he your brother?" Ms. Phlegm asked, studying Junior in his goofy hat and
starry sunglasses.
"Son," I replied flatly.
"Oh," she sounded surprised. Guys my age were not supposed to have children.
"Are you married?" She added.
I blinked at her slowly.
"Go away," Junior interjected.
I had to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a gag.
There was a momentary pause on her part.
"Hmph," she said. "You should teach him some manners."
She sounded taken aback.
I coughed, "That's his mother's department."
"Well, it shouldn't be."
Here came the lecture.
"It takes both parents to raise a child properly."
I couldn't stand anymore.
"Lady, do I know you?" I sneered.
She suddenly remembered her place.
"I suppose not."
"Pizza!!" Junior cried.
"Keep your pants on, it's coming!" The Westerburg kid shouted.
The microwave beeped.
"Pizza!" Junior cried again, more urgently.
"He's pretty rambunctious," Ms. Phlegm observed.
"I don't know where he gets it from," I muttered.
She twisted her face. The kid boxed our pizza.
"Will that be all?" He asked, obviously irritated by the child who was sucking
on the slushy.
I nodded, pulling Junior off the counter where he had made himself quite
comfortable.
"$9.95"
I handed the kid a ten and grabbed the pizza,
"Suck on that for awhile," I grumbled, heading quickly out the door.
Junior rushed into the car as soon as we got to it.
"Let's go, let's go!" He shouted, climbing into his car seat, slushy still in
hand. Something told me he knew Ms. Phlegm could give us away. He desperately
wanted to make good the escape. I had other methods.
"Hang on there, big guy," I murmured, opening up the trunk, "Watch and learn."
I withdrew a set of pliers from my black duffel bag and slid on my back
beneath Ms. Phlegm's car. Junior stuck his head out to look on.
"Is she coming?" I asked him, searching for the break line.
He strained to see into the store.
"Nope. She's talking to that guy."
I clipped the line.
"Good," I replied. "All finished."
I wiped the break fluid off my chest with a rag, and strapped Junior into his
car seat.
"What did you do?" He asked casually, plunging the slushy straw between his now
red lips.
"Eliminating evidence," I grinned.
"Take note, Junior, it's always good to clean up after yourself."
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 1 HOUR TO LIVE.
What did you expect? It takes time to schedule flights and return rental cars,
and get on airplanes, and fly to Connecticut. Not to mention it's a three-hour
drive from the Hartford airport to the cabin in the woods. But before all that
I did manage to catch the Ohio news.
Some poor guidance counselor is in a coma right now because her car hit a tree.
I couldn't leave Sherwood without doing it one more gracious favor.
It seems I have been on the road nonstop for the past 37 hours. But I haven't,
we spent one final night in Ohio before catching the first flight to
Connecticut. Junior couldn't wait; he had absolutely no attachment to Sherwood
whatsoever. He could care less that I had whisked him away from all that he
knew to take him to a place he had never been. Kind of like the way my father
did to me all my life.
Jesus, I'm turning into my parents!
You know, you sit there and you say "When I have a kid, I will never do this to
him. I will not blow up his mother, I will not uproot him and move him around
all his life."
And then you find yourself doing it.
They say those of us who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But
I've learned, that much I'm sure of . . . I think . . . damn, I know I've
learned something.
Or maybe not.
After all, I am semi-rushing down this winding, twisting mountain road to get to
a woman who's caused me nothing but pain and misery. And why am I doing this,
you ask? This is the same woman who blew me off three years ago, blew me off
and blew me up. Yes, she wanted nothing more than "cool guys like me" out of her
life. Then she had my baby. Talk about your mixed messages.
And speaking of baby.
I glanced in the rearview at him pensively staring out the window. I knew he was
thinking--what exactly, I wasn't sure. He was very tired; it had been non-stop
all day. Planes, trains and automobiles, or something like that. Busy, busy,
busy. I had thought of stopping at "grandpa's" house and dropping him off, but
I just so badly wanted Veronica to see how he had turned out. It would be the
one primo factor in how she determined her next course of action. She either
A) would try to kill us both, or
B) have no choice but to join me in raising our son.
Was that what I really wanted?
I have to admit I was indecisive.
I was supposed to kill her.
That's what I had spent three years planning--her death. But she had one last
trick up her sleeve, lousy little minx. And damn, a child should have a mother.
Even I know that. And this child, he was only happy with biological relatives,
foster parents didn't do it for him, and I don't believe stepparents would fit
the bill either. He wanted me, and he wanted Veronica.
No two ways about it.
And if he were as cunning as he was clever, then he would have her wrapped
around his little finger better than I ever could. She'd be blinded by a
mother's love.
But no! Hell no!
She was going to fuck me six ways from Sunday. There was absolutely no way I
could delude myself into thinking that this would work out. Not now, not then,
not ever.
I pulled the car over.
What the fuck was I doing?! Going back for HER?! She deserved every fucking
thing she got. It was ridiculous; it shouldn't even have been an issue. I'd
just have to tell Junior that mommy was dead, and there was nothing I could do
about it. How could he ever find out otherwise if I didn't break down and tell
him? But that's always my first mistake isn't it? I underestimate those who are
mentally inferior. I did it with Veronica and she blew a couple of holes in me.
And Junior, hell if he had my head on his shoulders, I'd have to be ready for
anything. His intelligence was almost intimidating.
Almost.
"Why did we stop?" His voice piped up from the back.
I heard a hint of me in his tone.
"I'm having a moment of weakness, Junior" I replied, "Give me a minute."
I glanced at the clock on the dash--Veronica had 30 minutes to live. And then
for some ridiculous reason I had this flash. I saw my mother, retro-60's look-
alike that she was, waving from that dear old library window in Texas. I saw
her clear as crystal, and I remember thinking. "Hey, isn't there a bomb in that
building?"
"Fuck it," I muttered, roughly pulling the car back onto the road.
There's no going back in this life, only forward.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 2 MINUTES TO LIVE.
I had to blank out of my own head and look at this objectively:
If I sped to the cabin, logic dictated that the bomb would go off just as I
pulled into the driveway. That way it would not only take out Veronica, but me
and Junior as well.
That was not the game plan.
So perhaps it was Divine Intervention that I found myself suddenly helpless
against my own scheming? Perhaps the Powers That Be decided I was about to fuck
myself over, so why not just rule out the possibilities by default?
Hell, I gave it my best shot. I was five minutes away.
I stopped the car in the middle of the road. No point in going any further.
"We're stopping again," Junior observed.
"I'm aware of that, darling," I muttered.
"Is it another moment of weakness?" He asked.
"Something like that."
"Why?"
1 MINUTE left.
"Well, Junior," I began, "It seems I can't decide if I should take you to see
grandpa or not."
No use in mentioning mommy.
"Do you want to see grandpa?"
I scanned the tree line distractedly.
"Does he have toys?" Junior murmured.
"I'm sure we could find some," I replied. "And if not, he'll buy you toys."
He considered this quickly.
"Um, okay."
I was actually surprised at how chipper he sounded. For a moment I was under the
impression that he knew what was about to happen. But how could he?
"Okay, then," I took a deep breath and popped a cigarette into my mouth.
"It's done."
The explosion shook everything around us as a stream of fire shot into the sky.
I watched it, at first fascinated. Then I looked to him for some reaction. He
said nothing as smoke billowed across the clouds and a great rumble of noise
echoed from here to eternity.
I lit my cigarette and turned the car around.
It was time to go to grandpa's.
"Daddy?" Junior asked a little later down the road.
The ashen smell of smoke was still thick in the air.
"Yes, June?" I replied.
"That was a big boom, wasn't it?"
I paused for a moment, feeling my way around his thoughts. Then I grinned and
raised my eyebrows.
"Yeah Pops, that was a big boom."
(c) Elisa Higgins 2001
[email protected]
Part III: "Junior"
By Elisa Higgins (c) 2001
[email protected]
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 69 HOURS TO LIVE.
Standing in the center of society's beating heart involves a certain amount of
cerebral pain. There is that much more pain involved in watching some feral
child run circles around his mother, hollering at the top of his lungs, his
voice so high-pitched and irritating that every dog in the city should have come
ripping through the terminal at any given moment.
Now and again the kid's eyes darted in my direction. I could feel him looking me
up and down, trying desperately to see through my sunglasses, wondering why I
wore black leather gloves. I know the slicked-back ponytail made him think. I
could see the gears of his imagination working, and I grinned at him.
The airport was a bitch.
Every schmuck and his grandmother were lugging around matching suitcases,
scanning the monitors for what gate led to what, rushing around trying to find
their flights with worried lines of panic etched into their faces. Half of them
couldn't navigate their way out of a closet let alone an airport terminal. And
there I stood, sipping my bad coffee (which was too hot and didn't have enough
caffeine in it to keep a field mouse awake) watching that darling child go round
and round and round and I wondered: What would happen if someone suddenly
shouted:
"BOMB!"
The temptation was irresistible.
It's well known that in the back of everyone's little sputtering mind there's
this lurking fear: certain death exists at the airport. You've got your
terrorist acts and your plane crashes, and that lone individual that decides to
go postal, blowing off heads at random.
It was all quite amusing really.
There was a nervous twitch in the feral kid's mother as she eyed my black duffel
bag. And in all honesty I should have gone right up to her, right into her face
so that she could smell the cigarettes on my breath, and say:
"It's not nice to stereotype."
If she only knew.
But truly, where's the fun in that? Then she'd flag down the nearest security
guard, and they'd haul my ass to some secluded room, rummage through my stuff,
get some closet homo named Paul to strip search me --just for kicks of course-
and come up with . . . nothing.
You people think I'm stupid don't you?
There's already too much hassle at the airport, tickets and lines and
credentials and life insurance. Attempting to tote some lethal weapon onto the
plane is a snag in my day I really don't need. I'm just not much in the mood.
Besides, only movie stars do things like that . . . ahem.
But what about chaos, you ask? Chaos is great when it's happening to somebody
else. Did I forget to mention that? Oops. As for static--static is the spice
of life! But try telling that to Veronica right now.
So here's the million dollar question folks: What is darling little Veronica up
to at this very moment? Let's do a run-through . . .
IF -emphasis on the "if"- some Hollywood screenwriter decided to tackle the
scenario, we would find our Heroine (69 hours and counting) filing away the
hinges on her door with some Revlon Deluxe nail file she had hidden up her ass
the whole time. (Just in case her exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-boyfriend decided to lock
her up with the very bomb she thought had killed him).
--Here's where we pause to admire the beauty of irony.--
It would take her no time at all to hack free of her prison (this was a super
nail file, mind you, heavy duty steel for those times when you just don't have
the patience to be perfect). And as fate would have it, she stumbles outside to
steal a six cylinder Trans-Am from some poor couple making out in the woods.
Immediately following would be a miraculous high-speed chase down I-95 (which
would take her all of ten minutes when with traffic it took me nearly three
hours) where she would arrive on the scene just in time to come face to face
with her arch nemesis on his flight to Ohio. (We need a spectacular finish here
darlings,) so after a heroic fight, and a ludicrous delay on my part to tell her
that I've won and she's lost-- she would then proceed to shove a bomb down the
front of my pants (and with some catchy one-liner) parachute into the sky just
me and my family jewels blow to Kingdom Come.
Try not.
The truth of the matter is this: Veronica really just wishes I at least had the
decency to leave her toilet paper . . . which I didn't.
So where are we off to you ask? (And I admonish you for not paying attention.)
We're going back to Sherwood. According to the dearly-not-yet-departed, I have
a mongrel of my own loins roaming around the planet somewhere, and damn me if
I'm not dying to know what the little bugger looks like! He should be almost
three by now. Ah the fond memories of being three . . . give me a minute here,
I'll think of something . . . childhood, childhood, something fond about
childhood.
Nope, nothing's registering.
So who's to blame when someone like myself cannot remember a single solitary
moment when they were ecstatic to be a child? That's part of what I aim to
discover. (And you thought I was looking for my son just for the hell of it! Of
course, he'd better not be like feral child over there or he would join his
mother sooner rather than later.)
The circling kid stopped short as if he heard me. So how could I resist? His
mother had her back turned (and people wonder why so many children disappear) so
I beckoned to him.
"Hey, kid, c'mere."
Simple enough, and he listened!
"Wanna see something?"
I knew he was actually scared shitless of me--staring at the way my eyebrows
arched over the jet-black rims of my sunglasses, staring most of all at the
leather gloves on my hands, as if I were some mob hit man--or just your humble
archetypal villain.
Which I am.
I was too delighted by the way his eyes bugged out of his head. He knew he
wasn't supposed to talk to me--that his mother had given him that age-old line
"Never talk to strangers." But here lies the essence of temptation. This kid was
the true son of Adam and Eve, and we all know how THEY faired against the snake.
So he nodded and I held up my hand, slowly tugging at the fingertips of my glove
as though I were unveiling some great secret. And he watched with undying
anticipation until--VOILA!--my lovely hand was revealed in all its mutilated
glory. His eyes glued to the stub of my middle finger (which I wiggled for him)
and his face twisted until he was just about as ugly as his mother. Then he
let out a scream and charged back in her direction, half knocking her over as he
wrapped around her legs. She hollered at him and shot me a horrified look.
I smiled.
Oh, thank you Veronica for small favors.
Hold that thought--they're calling my flight.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 67 HOURS TO LIVE.
There is something living in airplane food. Have you ever noticed that just
when you look away, something ruptures the surface of the slop they call mashed
potatoes? And you snap your head back to catch it, but like the cunning
substance it is, it only moves when you're not looking?
I grinned at the woman next to me; she adjusted her glasses and tried her best
to look comfortable. She appeared to be one of those religious types that had
something the size of Antarctica shoved up her ass. To her I was probably Satan
in disguise, come to lure her into sinful temptation. Actually, if Satan were
roaming the earth, he probably would look a hell of a lot like me.
She tried to crawl into the book she was reading to hide from my view.
Or perhaps she was worried about the creature in my potatoes?
I dumped my tray into the hands of the nearest stewardess (the only thing you
can do with airline food is play with it) and quickly ordered one of those
little bottles of Jack Daniel's.
The best part about flying is flying high.
The stewardess looked charmed (don't ask me why, I can only guess there's
something about the eyebrows that gets them.) She reached into her cart and
pulled out that tiny mouthful of amber liquid I do so enjoy. The woman next to
me watched, I suppose 'thou shall not drink' is one of the Ten Commandments.
Someone should let her know that on planet earth it's legal to drink alcohol on
a plane . . . as long as you're not the pilot.
I felt compelled.
The stewardess swaggered on to the next guy and I turned to my companion.
"Greetings and Salutations."
No, that never gets old.
"Hello," she answered stiffly. Her comfort level dropped even further. Satan
was speaking to her. I flashed the eyebrows. She managed a tight-lipped smile
and shifted, hoping like hell I wasn't about to commence upon a conversation.
Which, of course, was all the more reason to do so. My eyes zoned in on the book
in her hand.
Moby Dick.
"Ah, Melville," I sighed. She glanced down surprised, as if she hadn't expected
an intelligent word to come out of my mouth.
"You've read it?"
My grin broadened.
"Many times."
"Really?" She sounded suspicious. "I find it quite complex."
"Of course!" I sneered, "That's the beauty of it! Melville's elaborate language
gives total shapelessness to the work's allegorical importance, so every man can
basically translate its symbolic significance to whatever suits his needs!"
She looked at me cross-eyed, and I watched her brain try to compute what I had
just said. It took her a moment. I supposed she was reading it just because
someone mentioned that old Moby himself was Leviathan from the Bible.
"So what do you find most compelling?" She asked. "The blatant evil of the
whale or the blatant evil of Ahab?"
I had to laugh. She was blatantly calling me evil. Oh, if she only knew. She
was definitely one of those pseudo-intellectual types. They've got MA's and
MS's coming out of their asses but ask them what they got out of their multi-
million dollar education, and be prepared to have your brain fried by ignorance.
"The whale's not evil." I said simply. "He's just out to sink the world. Ahab
on the other hand, he's an icon in American culture with that pegged leg of his,
but he's virtually non-existent as a character in the book. Melville wrote him
as a vehicle for human psychology. Ahab is that line on the application that
reads 'Your Name here.'"
"Really." She said again, pushing her glasses up her beak-like nose (librarian
material that didn't know the first thing about literature.)
"So you can relate to Ahab?"
She was now accusing me of being a lunatic.
"Definitely."
"And what is your White Whale?"
"Actually there are quite a few white whales swimming around my ocean;" I
shrugged, "But they're all inextricably linked."
"At the end of the book Ahab dies you know."
This was her method of damnation.
"Correction," I interjected, "Ahab goes mad and THEN he dies."
"So is that what you see in your future, young man?"
Patronizing little monster. I desperately wanted to fry her brain.
"Been there, done that," I sighed, stretching. "Actually, the whale is my hero;
he takes them all out."
"Oh, how interesting." There was a nervous lilt in her voice. She tried to
delve back into the book, but I wouldn't let her. She was making me nauseous,
Bible Belt victim that she was, so I decided to hit her with it.
"You know, in college, I once knew a girl who used Moby Dick as a suicide note."
"What?!"
Ah, the horror of the worst sin in The Book.
"How could she do a thing like that?"
This was when my morality was supposed to kick in and decode the question. What
did my lovely companion mean? Did she mean: 'How could she commit suicide?'
(Suicides go to hell you know.) Or 'How could she use Moby Dick as her sign-
off?'
"Easy," I replied, twisting off the small cap of my bourbon bottle.
"She went through the whole novel and underlined passages that held specific
meaning for her. If you were to put them in the context of her life you could
figure out just what miseries she was suffering . . . Basically she thought she
was an Eskimo."
The woman's mouth gaped. I could see it in her face: how could I be so cold and
ignorant of the Good Lord's word? I took a swig of the liquid fire and gave her
my best shit-eating grin.
"Cheers."
But wait! You say. Heather Duke didn't commit suicide! And I reply: How the
hell would you know? Were you there? Didn't you bother to look past the
credits? Note I said college, not High School, dearies. Much to Heather's
dismay, life after Westerburg didn't consist of very much at all.
Look, I had put all that effort into outlining MOBY DICK! I had to put it to
use! Do you have any idea how many hours it took to plow through that sucker?
Give me a little credit here!
My companion was at a loss.
The alcohol stewardess passed by again. My eyes gravitated down her body, pink
polyester skirt stretched taut across her shapely ass. She had long legs too,
could have been a model in her spare time. I watched as she cast a glance over
her shoulder, a wisp of blond hair falling free from the bun she had tucked
under that cute little cap of hers. She bent over to serve some old business
guy and then continued to push her cart past me to the back of the cabin. My
eyes followed her the whole way. There was still twenty minutes until touch
down.
"Excuse me," I murmured to my Moby Dick-reading friend, "Nature calls."
I got up from the seat and headed towards the rear of the plane.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 66 HOURS AND 58 MINUTES TO LIVE.
Three hours without a cigarette is bad enough, three hours without a cigarette
to smoke after sex is even worse. The stewardess pulled down her skirt and
shifted her jacket as she tried to squeeze past me and out of the lavatory. She
beamed in that dizzy way of hers and I half expected her to walk into the cabin
wall as she attempted to compose herself. I turned to the mirror and pulled the
rubber band from my hair. She poked her head back in and whispered:
"We're landing soon."
"Thank you, dear," I purred.
She disappeared again, and some trace of her giggle lingered in the potent air
of the bathroom. Ah, yes, the evidence of horizontal refreshment; or in this
case, vertical refreshment at 20,000 feet. There was a nice new ruddy glow to my
face. I combed my fingers back through my hair, pulling free the snags, before
twisting the whole thing back into a ponytail. The entire 3' x 4' compartment
reeked of copulation. I'd pay to see the look on the next guy's face that
walked in here.
I stepped out, grinning like the devil. The air was much better in the open
cabin. Down the isle I spotted the feral kid twisting around in his seat to
bother the man behind him. The gods had taken pity on that child and not sat
him in front of me.
Too bad.
I took my own seat and the woman beside me caught a whiff of the stewardess on
my skin. I watched her through my shades. Sniff, sniff--it must have been
long, long time since she had been laid. But eventually the memory kicked in,
and she recalled some sinful night long ago in the back of her boyfriend's car
when the windows were all steamed, and the sweat was all over the leather
interior. Yes, the scent of sex brought her right back to that unfortunate
moment of weakness.
She glanced at me, then at the stewardess as she passed by, and a look of utter
horror came over her face.
That was it, I had fried her brain.
One toke over the line you poor fool.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 64 HOURS TO LIVE.
Home sweet home. Actually, there's no such thing for me. When you've had as
rootless an existence as I've had home is more like a state of mind than a
place. It's just that with my recent troubles, Sherwood Ohio holds a certain
amount of sentimental value. So, truly how could I resist cruising by the old
school? I was flattered to see that the pavement in front of the steps where I
blew sky high had been turned into a little memorial garden not only for me, but
for Heather and Kurt and Ram.
Touching.
The parking lot was full. Everyone was inside going through the same mindless
social turmoil of teenage life. I'm 21 now--I've actually cleared the range of
adolescence (and you thought I'd be in High School forever). Yet there's part of
me that yearns for the chaos I once felt while trapped inside those stale
hallways, the timbre sound of lockers slamming in my ears, the familiar shouts
of football players, like retards let loose from a mental asylum, echoing off
the walls. It's funny to think that everything going on in that building at
this very moment was just like everything that had gone on while I was there.
Some loser is still trying to feed the world in the cafeteria, some group of
horrid hairspray addicts were still pretending to be Westerburg royalty. There
was a new crew of jock assholes date raping cheerleaders at every given chance.
And those poor lost souls who yearned to be anything but what they were still
filled the spaces in-between. It was all an on-going cycle; only the cast had
changed. Hell, there may even have been some loner wandering around in a long
black coat with a .44 tucked into his pocket . . . no, probably not.
True genius is like lightning; it never strikes twice.
But sometimes I think I miss the ambiance of it all. . .
NAAAAAAAAAAH.
So instead here I am, two years later, still dead to the world. I suppose you
continue to question how I actually survived that little bomb stunt of mine? But
you know what, I'm not going to tell you. Why ruin the illusion? I'm Lazarus
risen from the dead. (And if I sit in this parking lot any longer I'll be
tempted to bomb the school again.)
So off we go, pulling away in our snazzy rental car, driving through cow
country, passed the Snappy Snack Shack--look I can see my house from here! No,
I don't live there anymore. How could I? I'm dead. Dear ol' Dad jumped ship
soon after my funeral . . . I was there, you know. How many chances do you get
to attend your own funeral? I was the one in the back with the phony beard and
sunglasses. I was the one watching Veronica wrestle with all her angst and
bullshit. It was beautiful. Nice flower arrangements too. My lovely father
thought we should have taken pictures. Everything he knows he learned from me.
What is it they say?
The child is the father of the man?
In that case then I'm looking for my own father aren't I?
Objective #1 here folks is to find out what Mommy Dearest did with my spawn.
She said she put him up for adoption. It's just so typical of her isn't it?
Too guilty to abort it, too weak and selfish to keep it. You do the crime you
pay the time. You don't see me shirking my fatherly responsibilities do you?
I'm looking for the little devil!
Veronica makes me sick.
And I bet she still thinks that I have feelings for her--that there's some part
of me that thinks we were MEANT for each other! As the great Mad Max once said:
"Crap."
She's so completely disillusioned, and she's always so goddamn dramatic for
Chrissakes!
Oh, look we're here. Her house has not changed in the least. Ever wonder how
she got all her money? Her father is not exactly a rocket scientist, and yet
here they are, Mommy and Daddy Sawyer, sitting pretty in a house that's as phony
as they are. No wonder Veronica turned out the way she did. Ahh, but is that
the reason? Or was she born a bitch? (Once again, my little experiment
surfaces, but more on that later.) First I must see if The Beavers have any
information regarding my son.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 63 HOURS TO LIVE.
Breaking and entering?
Guilty as charged.
As luck would have it, I'm all alone in my quest here. Apparently, word of
Veronica's disappearance has reached home base, so I can only guess that her
doting parents have flown off to Connecticut to cooperate with the search. It's
seriously a shame; I could have done the world yet another great favor. But
much to my chagrin, I have to go at it alone.
So I walked into her father's study. Stuffed birds mounted on the wall, useless
trophies scattered about the room, the location of the family safe obvious as it
protruded through the canvas of that really bad painting. I walked over and
took the ugly thing down, and sure enough, there was the safe, combination lock
and all. Was it a safe for moola? Or was it where Daddy Sawyer kept his
important documents--like adoption papers? And where could he possibly have
written down the combination? God knows he couldn't have committed it to
memory--he was an idiot on wheels. So I began rummaging through the desk.
Drawer by drawer--one of which was locked.
Way to go to be obvious.
I grabbed an expensive-looking antique envelope opener and wedged it in the
crack. It took a bit of pulling a prying to get some leverage; and at one point
I slipped and caught my finger, nearly puncturing my glove.
"Damn you and your family," I muttered, and again shoved the dull brass blade
deeper inside the opening. With one final motion I wrenched the drawer free.
The inside left a lot to be desired. Part of me was hoping to find some sort of
sadomasochistic pornography of Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer riding each other with
various articles of horse regalia--but alas, no such luck. There was absolutely
nothing here that suggested these people were anymore interesting than a ball of
wadded up chewing gum.
The drawer contained tax papers and business papers, and other assorted mind-
numbing materials, and-oops-a trick bottom. (I swear this guy reads too many
spy novels.) I lifted the thin piece of wood away to behold a little black
address book hidden beneath it. Snatching it up, I began flipping through the
pages.
I looked under 'lock.'
Nothing.
'Combination lock.'
Nothing.
I looked under 'safe':
08-03-78.
Eureka.
At least Veronica had some degree of intelligence; the same could not be said of
her father. Did he actually believe that secret agents were dying to raid his
study? And if he did, don't you think he would have taken a little more care
with the combination?
What am I, a moron?
The safe openly easily enough with combination in hand. Atop some more
important looking documents (and a wad of cash) was a 9.MM Parabellum Automatic,
fully loaded clip and all.
"There is a god," I mused.
I lifted the gun (nice balance), pocketed the cash (probably about $1,000 in
fifties and hundreds) and grabbed the papers:
Crap, crap, crap, Giles & Giles Adoption Agency, Yadda, yadda, yadda, Mr. and
Mrs. Lance and Lorna Usher adopt baby boy, December 31, 1989, blah, blah, blah
residence: 264 Pequod Drive, Sherwood, Ohio.
I'm so smart sometimes I hurt my own head.
And how convenient for Veronica's current predicament that they kept him in the
same town! If I really made the attempt, I'm sure I could get back before
detonation.
But suddenly I remembered that day Veronica came to visit my father. I was
still a mess at the time, second-degree burns on much of my torso (and there was
that little detail regarding bullet holes in my abdomen.)
Yeah, that was a bitch.
I did drag myself to the funeral, but after that I took some heavy time off,
lounging around, waiting to recover. Veronica showed up out of the blue one
day with some sob story I didn't hear at the time (though it turns out that she
told my pop about the kid--he just never passed the information along to me.
Dad could never understand my obsession with Veronica, didn't even think she was
all that attractive--not enough in the cleavage department, he said. I told him
it was a vengeance thing.) Anyway, so he called out real loud in an attempt to
warn me that she was coming, but I was in the shower at the time, so I had no
idea what he was hollering about. Veronica then proceeded to snoop around my
room, lift a photo from an album I had lying around somewhere, and that was it.
She took off.
So, standing here in her empty house, I thought I at least could return the
favor.
I traipsed up the stairs to her bedroom--neat and clean as always, the pristine
princess had to have her interior décor as sophisticated as she believed her
grand IQ to be. The sight of the window brought back fond memories of strip
croquet--and I remembered fucking in that bed the night we planned to shoot Kurt
and Ram.
"Ich Luge" bullets.
Sucker.
And speaking of Grand IQ, (I opened a drawer and removed one of her many
diaries) genius Veronica had written everything down! As if at the trial some
prosecutor couldn't just whip out one of those little puppies and say, "Well,
Miss Sawyer--it's all right here--you openly admit to killing those poor kids!"
It boggles the mind, really.
I flipped to a page. Go ahead darling, speak your words of wisdom:
"Dear Diary, (how cute)
My teen angst bullshit has a body count. (Genius at work.) The
most popular people in school are dead. (Little thanks to you.) Everybody's
sad, but it's a weird kind of sad. Suicide gave Heather depth, (perceptive.)
Kurt a soul, (imagine that!), Ram a brain (it would never happen). I don't know
what it's given me, but I've got no control over myself when I'm with JD. (Damn
straight.) Are we going to prom or to Hell? (Speak for yourself, sweetness.)"
I flipped to another page:
" . . . So again let me ask: Do I truly have a responsibility to
JD for carrying his child? (Dilemmas, dilemmas.) Do I owe it to him to have
this baby so it can correct the sins of its father? (Sins?) Is his life,
because it's over, more important than mine? (Always has been, always will be.)
I'm not going to have an abortion. I'm going to have this child, not for my
sake, not for the baby's, but for JD's. (How nice of her.)"
I clapped the book closed, and shoved it into my coat pocket. I would
eventually have to read the whole thing. Maybe it would give me more insight
into the mind of my former love? Maybe it would melt my black heart, and make
me rush back to Connecticut to save her from certain death? Naaaaaaaaah.
Burn the evidence; it's the only way to go.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 58 HOURS TO LIVE
I drove out of town to find a room for the night. You see, there always lurks
that remote possibility that I bump into someone I know around here, and they
screw up their face and say to me: "Dude, I went to your funeral."
Yeah, there's a scenario for ya.
So I motored along to the nearest dirt-cheap motel, paid cash for a one-bed pad
and cable TV, and ordered a pizza--everything on it, no anchovies. I can't help
but think that Veronica's getting kind of hungry right about now. It is
dinnertime after all.
Let's picture it:
Her lying there like a broken doll, already dying of dehydration, suffocating
from the smell of her own piss in the corner of the room, mesmerized by the TV
screen ticking away the seconds of her life.
I was glued to a rerun of The Breakfast Club starring Molly Ringworm and that
guy who makes Billy the Kid movies. But, honestly folks, how long can a person
actually watch a movie about high school once they've been through the ordeal?
It's like a painful memory flashback. So I flipped on the porno channel, grabbed
another slice of pizza and lit up what must have been my tenth cigarette in the
last two hours.
The documents I had lifted from Veronica's house were simple enough. Two pricks
had my son in their possession, they lived on a street named after the ship that
sunk in Moby Dick and they were pretty wealthy. Apparently the woman was a
shrink--that's all my kid needs is to be raised by a shrink!
Oh, God the humanity!
What?
What's that you say?
What do I want with my child anyway?
(I'm beginning to sound like Dr. Seuss here.)
Allow me to explain: there is a great debate in the world of psychoanalysis.
Are people born or are they made? Are we the way we are, because of our
inherent nature? Or because of the environment that nurtures us? It's an age-
old question, but current science claims both arguments are valid. So now we
must ask ourselves: "what are the complex ways in which genetic inheritance and
life experience interact to mold our behavior?"
Why do we do what we do?
I have been led to believe that no slate is ever clean. We are all dealt a hand
of cards the second the sperm makes it's way to the Promised Land. How we use
those cards, well that's another story.
So what cards was my son dealt?
Did he get the aces from my deck or from Veronica's?
You see, what I really plan to do is place myself at the very origin of
psychosocial development. I aim to watch the entire process of mental growth and
trace it's every outcome. This kid is a Pandora's Box waiting to reveal the
very way in which we make assholes and non-assholes with the poor tools society
has given us.
He is one lucky little bastard to have me for a father; at least I know what I'm
doing.
Ah, but you don't think I have the first clue of how to raise a child.
The basics are elemental--4 a.m. feedings and diaper rash, baby talk and naptime
(plus, you forget I'm rich and can afford nannies, and he's three, he's already
potty trained.)--It's the other part that confuses the shit out of people. The
psychological part. That's where I will do my best work.
This child is going be my little legacy of havoc to wreak on the world after I'm
gone. I'm going to make him tough as nails, with an IQ so advanced it won't fit
in the creases of his little brain! By the time I'm finished with him, he'll
even be MY superior.
And another thing, we're going with private tutoring all the way here folks.
Fuck high school, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. (But Veronica's
already been there, so it doesn't much matter.)
I am going to craft this kid to perfection.
(I just have to hope that I'm not too late. That and that he doesn't take after
his mother.)
Will he have problems? Sure. Will he rebel? Of course! And I will be there
to witness everything with open eyes.
I've been in the field long enough; it's time to see into the heart of things.
And Jesus, how do they expect anyone to get a decent woody when they play such
ridiculous elevator music during these porno flicks?!
I mean really, cum on . . .
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 46 HOURS TO LIVE.
It took me over an hour to find Pequod Drive. How retarded is that?! Sherwood
isn't that big of a place, and yet there I was roaming around like an idiot,
refusing to ask for directions.
Yes, there is that part of me that is still typically male.
But I forfeited in the end and stopped at the gas station. Turns out, there's
an East Sherwood and a West Sherwood. I was in the west part--Junior was in the
east part. Who knew? Once that little kink was ironed out, I was pulling into
The Usher's driveway in no time.
It was a giant house; Tudor style like Veronica's, tucked away in a grove all by
it's lonesome.
Not a neighbor in sight.
The family cars were present, which meant that unlike the Sawyers; the good
doctor and her husband were home.
This would be fun.
I bet you're wondering right now how I planned to get my kid back? After all, I,
as the biological father, was officially deceased. But don't worry, I knew what
I was doing. I walked right up to the front door and rang the doorbell.
No answer.
I did it again.
No answer.
I ran out of patience, pulled out the automatic and unloaded two shots at the
doorknob. Then I was in like Flynn.
The house was unusually dark for this hour of the day, all the shades were
drawn, all the curtains closed. There was an odd smell in the air--kind of like
burnt flesh. Of course I know what burnt flesh smells like! I was the one that
blew up, remember?
Something was rotten in Denmark.
I kept the gun drawn, and slowly started into the foyer. Not a soul in sight,
everything still, everything silent. The kitchen emerged on my left. Somehow it
reminded me of Heather Chandler's kitchen, and then I realized that this was the
same model house. Spooky. (Here is where Veronica would have interjected that
our ghosts were coming to haunt us.) Though actually, this was a good thing,
because I knew my way around Heather Chandler's house.
I sniffed at the air, listening long and hard for any sound whatsoever. I
thought I heard the pad of soft footsteps above my head, so I approached the
stairs and started slowly up, watching every shadow. It was ridiculously dark
by the time I reached the top, I couldn't see shit. And yet the smell grew
increasingly stronger, more putrid.
This wasn't normal, but I was up for the challenge.
So I pulled out my car keys and clicked on the small flashlight I kept attached
to them, just for situations like this. The hallway I was in stretched straight
down on either end of me--swallowed up by darkness. There still remained that
possibility that the Ushers were just really late sleepers on Saturday morning,
and hadn't gotten up yet; but my Spider Sense told me otherwise. I shone the
small light into a doorway and caught the edge of a porcelain sink. The
bathroom. I knew almost instinctively that that was the origin of that foul
smell. So I approached, my gag reflex on full alert. I knew what this
was, I had smelled it before, so I wasn't surprised by what I found when I
stepped inside.
My little light filtered over the tub at the far end of the room and in small
snatches I put the picture together. The fat arm dangling over the side, the
balding head tipped back against the porcelain, eyes wide and staring, mouth
agape. I followed an electrical cord from the bath water to the socket on the
wall. This guy looked a little well done to me. My guess was that somehow that
radio he was listening to decided to join him tub. Maybe it got lonely sitting
up there on the boudoir all by itself? (Someone should have warned him that
radios make poor substitutes for Rubber Duckies.) He probably shorted out the
entire house with this little stunt of his. It occurred to me then: could he
have been a genuine suicide? After all, I didn't do it.
In the midst of playing Sherlock Holmes I felt a pair of eyes on my back. I
whirled around quickly, gun ready. My flashlight found him first. He looked
like a deer in headlights, but aside from squinting, he didn't budge. Instead he
pulled out an orange toy gun and aimed it at me. I think my mouth hit the floor
right about then. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or start dancing around
in the sheer joy of it all.
He was beautiful!
And Jesus! He had my eyes! And my eyebrows! God, he looked just like me! Only
smaller. (He had Veronica's mouth though, petit and perfect, dare I say
pretty.)
I lowered my weapon the second I saw him, he clicked his own trigger at me and I
turned to complete mush.
"Hey there little fella," I said in my sweetest voice.
I crouched down to make eye contact and held the flashlight over my head to
illuminate the room a little. It gave him a chance to see me and this strange
look of recognition came over his face. The thought crossed my mind that things
couldn't be more perfect.
"Did you do that?" I asked, motioning to the dead guy behind me.
Junior hesitated shyly and then in a tiny voice he said:
"It was an accident."
(Nice articulation.)
"Of course it was," I replied grinning proudly from ear to ear. My kid had
knocked the radio into the tub.
"And why was it an accident?" I asked.
The little guy scratched his head with the tip of his gun.
"He was not my daddy."
I could have had a heart attack on the spot. My three-year-old had committed
premeditated murder!
"Do you know who I am?" I asked.
Hell it was worth a shot.
He smiled coyly, like it was a trick question, then he turned and scampered down
the hallway, his pajama feet scuffing along the polished wood floor. I followed
him to what I assumed was his room, where he quickly produced a photograph from
inside a drawer. He knew exactly where it was, despite the darkness, and handed
it to me. I held the flashlight on it and recognized my eighteen-year-old self
in the photo. Holy Jesus God this kid was a genius! Here was the very photo
Veronica had swiped from my room, in the hands of my son who had used it as
motive for murder.
"You're Daddy," he said.
For the first time in my life I was speechless.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 43 HOURS TO LIVE.
Mission accomplished. Technically speaking. It took us three hours to pack
everything Junior would need, all the toys and clothes, and toddler necessities.
I was right, though; he was potty trained.
No diapers desired, no diapers required.
And he opened up to me in no time, confessing how he knew I would show up
eventually. Get this; it seems his darling psychiatrist foster mother believed
that honesty was the best policy in raising a child. So she told a three-year-
old that she and her husband were not his real parents! Then she gave him the
photo of me (he had one of Veronica too) and thus planted the seed in his head
for what I encountered on my way in here. Apparently, two seconds before he
knocked the radio into the tub and caused a 4th of July in October, the dead guy
warned him not to do it. He said it would "electrocute him and he would die."
Way to go genius.
And speaking of genius, I have a little sociopathic prodigy on my hands, what
more could I ask for?!
His foster mother, dear old Dr. Lorna Usher, was not home at the time being.
She was on a business trip or something. But if she happened to walk in, I
planned to shoot her and place the gun in hubby's charred hand.
The murder/suicide routine.
Of course there would have to be a note to go along with that, and (as Veronica
learned too late) I too can do anyone's handwriting just as well as my own.
Turns out, the good doctor never did show up. So that mess was avoided--but the
entire situation itself didn't exactly look kosher. Dead husband in the
bathtub--missing child and his belongings. I found myself scrawling a note
anyway. After rummaging around in the study I found a nice little handwriting
sample, and off I went by flashlight. I have to say my plot was twisted, but
would definitely buy Junior and me all the time we needed to disappear into the
woodwork.
So the note went along these lines: Mr. Usher (who as it turns out was one of
those Bible Belt preachers of fire and brimstone) confesses to his dear wife
that he thought Junior here was the Spawn of Satan. (Which he is--not that I
want to seem presumptuous or anything). And because Junior was the Spawn of
Satan, Mr. Usher took it into his own God-willing hands to send Junior back from
whence he came (namely Hell). He then proceeded to bury his poor little body
out in the woods somewhere. But, because our man was your typical criminal
pussy, he couldn't deal with his sins and offed himself in the bathtub!
You see, perfecto!
Based on this confession of infanticide, the authorities would then have to
start searching the woods pronto (notice I didn't specify WHICH woods) before
they could begin looking anywhere else for the missing child. It's procedure.
So the kid disappears with me, everyone else thinks he's dead, and by the time
anyone figures out the contrary, we'll be long gone.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 38 HOURS TO LIVE.
"Hey son, how'ya doin."
(Car phones, gotta love 'em.)
"Yes, he's here with me now--everything went smoothly, not a kink in the works .
. . No, no, he wanted to come, he was waiting for me. Yeah, he knows who I am-
-I guess that makes you grandpa now doesn't it? Well, we don't want to confuse
the little bugger do we? God, knows that insane woman confused him enough
already . . . No, well, I missed the flight back to Connecticut, can't catch
another one till tomorrow. Minor setback . . . for me anyway. Yeah, Junior and
I are just gonna kick back and bond. Listen pop, I gotta motor, I'll see you
tomorrow."
Can you believe that Veronica once actually had the balls to ask me if I LIKED
my father?! What kind of a question is that?! Hasn't she ever heard of
unconditional love? Doesn't she know what it is to be loyal no matter how
insane your parental units are?! Do I LIKE my father? The nerve! Of course I
like my father, I taught him everything he knows. He worships me! Why else do
you think he supports whatever I do?! Poison the popular kids? Sure. Blow up
the school? Go for it! Kidnap my son? Wouldn't have it any other way.
And you thought we had a bad relationship.
Junior was happy as punch strapped into his Deluxe Baby-Safe Car Seat. He had
about 3,000 toys scattered all over the back, and he was singing some Sesame
Street song in this impish little voice of his. (I loved the way his eyebrows
peaked at the high notes.) He had already predetermined that he was hungry and
could do with a cherry slushy and a pizza cut up into tiny bite-sized morsels.
(I was always partial to coke slushies myself, so I guess that's the Veronica in
him.) Of course, what that all meant was that we'd have to stop at the Snappy
Snack Shack.
It was tempting to say: "Junior, this is the second place I met your mother,"
but I decided against it. Mother-Dear would have to be weeded out of the
picture. It would be tricky, he had already asked about her, and I was not
about to tell him that she was locked up in a cabin somewhere with a Norwegian
and a pack of thermals. His radio stunt had demonstrated that he was
not in the most stable of mental states.
I had my work cut out for me.
And yet, as I pulled into the parking lot, envisioning me on my bike and
Veronica sipping her icy drink through ruby red lips, I had this crazy thought
that maybe we could make it work. After all, we had Junior--and both of us were
out for his best interest. Though I'm sure our specific viewpoints conflicted.
According to her, I was the worst thing for him.
I glanced in the rearview mirror --there was more than just a hint of his mother
in his round little face.
I guess I would have to catch the early flight back to Connecticut.
The full irony was not lost upon me: I still held a grudge against my own father
for blowing up my mother. And here I was, blowing up the mother of my only
child.
Ouch.
"Junior, it's slushy time," I announced, "Put on your sunglasses."
"Slushy time!" He sung, slipping on a pair of sunglasses whose rims were shaped
like stars.
I watched him, slipping on a pair of my own.
"Now your hat," I added.
He obeyed, pulling on one of those Disney "Goofy" caps with the floppy ears. He
seemed to know that he had to pretend he was someone else. After all, we were
both supposed to be dead now, weren't we?
I unsaddled him from the car seat and lifted him up. He continued to sing
"slushy time" all the way into the convenience store.
He had told me in the car that those stiffs who called themselves his parents
had forbidden him to drink slushies! They were too "artificial" and "not good
for him" and blah blah blah blah blah. What utter crap! You bring a child into
this lousy world, you're supposed to spoil him every chance you get. It's
compensation.
So he shouted across the counter to the obvious Westerburg attendee that he
wanted a cherry slushy, (I had to add the part about the pizza) and the kid went
right to work on our order.
That's when Satan decided to pay me a visit.
"JD?"
Gut instinct when you hear your name is to turn around, right? That's unless
you know that you're supposed to be dead, and that you're holding a kidnapped
child in your arms. So I did my best to just ignore whoever it was that thought
they knew me.
But she was persistent, and two seconds later I felt a tap on my shoulder. I
didn't want to make it obvious that I was trying avoid people at all costs, so I
turned around . . .
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!
That was the first thought through my head when I saw her: Ms. Phlegm staring at
me with this utter look of horror plastered on her face. I could see the wheels
turning in her mind that here was the dead kid back from the grave to haunt her
for being a lousy guidance counselor. And it occurred to me that I had to make
her feel as stupid as possible.
"I'm sorry," I said, "Are you talking to me?"
It took an intense amount of effort to change the gravely fluctuations of my
voice to something that was, well, more yuppyish. Her cheeks flushed red, but
she continued to study me, searching for some nuance in my face that would give
me away. I was suddenly thankful that I had neglected to put in the ponytail
this morning. That way the long black hair I had gone through such pains to
grow could mask those very definitive features of my face. That, and as long as
I could keep the eyebrows under control, she'd never see them through the
sunglasses.
"Oh, gosh," she said, "I thought you were someone else."
I cringed at the very sound of her voice. Oh how I loaded the bullshit on her
when I was at Westerburg. I had to be her most popular patient.
Her eyes shot suddenly to Junior, as though she hadn't realized we were
together. She looked him up and down, confused as hell at why there was a
mini-me sitting on the counter. And he glared back, irritated that she was even
speaking to us.
"I'm so sorry," she went on, "you just reminded me so much of a student I once
had."
She sounded as though she were grieving.
"Oh," I replied, my mind racing to all the details of my persona I had to
conceal from her. "Is that a bad thing?"
I think Junior sensed I was on edge; so he flipped on his "shy" switch--which I
had realized by now was just a facade. The little devil was almost as crafty as
I was. He feigned innocence beautifully!
"Oh, no," Ms. Phlegm responded.
I thought she would burst into tears at any moment; her melodramatic concern for
my suicide was making me ill.
"He was such a sweet boy, so sad."
I felt my eyes bulge from their sockets.
She always was a very bad judge of character.
"All he really needed was a little love."
She clutched her chest mournfully.
'Why did God make you?' I thought. 'Was it just to irritate me? Because I
really can't think of any other purpose.'
"Sounds unfortunate," I said stiffly.
"That poor, poor creature," she crooned.
"Hurry up! Make the pizza!" Junior cried suddenly. His outburst surprised us
both. The pimply-faced kid behind the counter shot him an annoyed look.
I glanced at Ms. Phlegm; she had been thrown off guard.
"He's hungry," I justified.
"He sounds it." She replied, saddling up to him. "Are you hungry sweetheart?"
'Lord have mercy,' I thought.
Junior stuck his lip out at her. The kid behind the counter slapped the cherry
slushy down in front of him."
"Suck on that for awhile," he muttered under his breath.
Normally I wouldn't have let that slide, but Ms. Phlegm's presence was putting a
serious glitch in my style. If she hadn't been there, I would have given Junior
a little lesson in how to scare the crap out of dumb assholes; but alas, no can
do. I watched as Junior had some trouble getting the straw into his mouth.
"Is he your brother?" Ms. Phlegm asked, studying Junior in his goofy hat and
starry sunglasses.
"Son," I replied flatly.
"Oh," she sounded surprised. Guys my age were not supposed to have children.
"Are you married?" She added.
I blinked at her slowly.
"Go away," Junior interjected.
I had to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a gag.
There was a momentary pause on her part.
"Hmph," she said. "You should teach him some manners."
She sounded taken aback.
I coughed, "That's his mother's department."
"Well, it shouldn't be."
Here came the lecture.
"It takes both parents to raise a child properly."
I couldn't stand anymore.
"Lady, do I know you?" I sneered.
She suddenly remembered her place.
"I suppose not."
"Pizza!!" Junior cried.
"Keep your pants on, it's coming!" The Westerburg kid shouted.
The microwave beeped.
"Pizza!" Junior cried again, more urgently.
"He's pretty rambunctious," Ms. Phlegm observed.
"I don't know where he gets it from," I muttered.
She twisted her face. The kid boxed our pizza.
"Will that be all?" He asked, obviously irritated by the child who was sucking
on the slushy.
I nodded, pulling Junior off the counter where he had made himself quite
comfortable.
"$9.95"
I handed the kid a ten and grabbed the pizza,
"Suck on that for awhile," I grumbled, heading quickly out the door.
Junior rushed into the car as soon as we got to it.
"Let's go, let's go!" He shouted, climbing into his car seat, slushy still in
hand. Something told me he knew Ms. Phlegm could give us away. He desperately
wanted to make good the escape. I had other methods.
"Hang on there, big guy," I murmured, opening up the trunk, "Watch and learn."
I withdrew a set of pliers from my black duffel bag and slid on my back
beneath Ms. Phlegm's car. Junior stuck his head out to look on.
"Is she coming?" I asked him, searching for the break line.
He strained to see into the store.
"Nope. She's talking to that guy."
I clipped the line.
"Good," I replied. "All finished."
I wiped the break fluid off my chest with a rag, and strapped Junior into his
car seat.
"What did you do?" He asked casually, plunging the slushy straw between his now
red lips.
"Eliminating evidence," I grinned.
"Take note, Junior, it's always good to clean up after yourself."
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 1 HOUR TO LIVE.
What did you expect? It takes time to schedule flights and return rental cars,
and get on airplanes, and fly to Connecticut. Not to mention it's a three-hour
drive from the Hartford airport to the cabin in the woods. But before all that
I did manage to catch the Ohio news.
Some poor guidance counselor is in a coma right now because her car hit a tree.
I couldn't leave Sherwood without doing it one more gracious favor.
It seems I have been on the road nonstop for the past 37 hours. But I haven't,
we spent one final night in Ohio before catching the first flight to
Connecticut. Junior couldn't wait; he had absolutely no attachment to Sherwood
whatsoever. He could care less that I had whisked him away from all that he
knew to take him to a place he had never been. Kind of like the way my father
did to me all my life.
Jesus, I'm turning into my parents!
You know, you sit there and you say "When I have a kid, I will never do this to
him. I will not blow up his mother, I will not uproot him and move him around
all his life."
And then you find yourself doing it.
They say those of us who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But
I've learned, that much I'm sure of . . . I think . . . damn, I know I've
learned something.
Or maybe not.
After all, I am semi-rushing down this winding, twisting mountain road to get to
a woman who's caused me nothing but pain and misery. And why am I doing this,
you ask? This is the same woman who blew me off three years ago, blew me off
and blew me up. Yes, she wanted nothing more than "cool guys like me" out of her
life. Then she had my baby. Talk about your mixed messages.
And speaking of baby.
I glanced in the rearview at him pensively staring out the window. I knew he was
thinking--what exactly, I wasn't sure. He was very tired; it had been non-stop
all day. Planes, trains and automobiles, or something like that. Busy, busy,
busy. I had thought of stopping at "grandpa's" house and dropping him off, but
I just so badly wanted Veronica to see how he had turned out. It would be the
one primo factor in how she determined her next course of action. She either
A) would try to kill us both, or
B) have no choice but to join me in raising our son.
Was that what I really wanted?
I have to admit I was indecisive.
I was supposed to kill her.
That's what I had spent three years planning--her death. But she had one last
trick up her sleeve, lousy little minx. And damn, a child should have a mother.
Even I know that. And this child, he was only happy with biological relatives,
foster parents didn't do it for him, and I don't believe stepparents would fit
the bill either. He wanted me, and he wanted Veronica.
No two ways about it.
And if he were as cunning as he was clever, then he would have her wrapped
around his little finger better than I ever could. She'd be blinded by a
mother's love.
But no! Hell no!
She was going to fuck me six ways from Sunday. There was absolutely no way I
could delude myself into thinking that this would work out. Not now, not then,
not ever.
I pulled the car over.
What the fuck was I doing?! Going back for HER?! She deserved every fucking
thing she got. It was ridiculous; it shouldn't even have been an issue. I'd
just have to tell Junior that mommy was dead, and there was nothing I could do
about it. How could he ever find out otherwise if I didn't break down and tell
him? But that's always my first mistake isn't it? I underestimate those who are
mentally inferior. I did it with Veronica and she blew a couple of holes in me.
And Junior, hell if he had my head on his shoulders, I'd have to be ready for
anything. His intelligence was almost intimidating.
Almost.
"Why did we stop?" His voice piped up from the back.
I heard a hint of me in his tone.
"I'm having a moment of weakness, Junior" I replied, "Give me a minute."
I glanced at the clock on the dash--Veronica had 30 minutes to live. And then
for some ridiculous reason I had this flash. I saw my mother, retro-60's look-
alike that she was, waving from that dear old library window in Texas. I saw
her clear as crystal, and I remember thinking. "Hey, isn't there a bomb in that
building?"
"Fuck it," I muttered, roughly pulling the car back onto the road.
There's no going back in this life, only forward.
* * *
MENTAL NOTE: VERONICA HAS 2 MINUTES TO LIVE.
I had to blank out of my own head and look at this objectively:
If I sped to the cabin, logic dictated that the bomb would go off just as I
pulled into the driveway. That way it would not only take out Veronica, but me
and Junior as well.
That was not the game plan.
So perhaps it was Divine Intervention that I found myself suddenly helpless
against my own scheming? Perhaps the Powers That Be decided I was about to fuck
myself over, so why not just rule out the possibilities by default?
Hell, I gave it my best shot. I was five minutes away.
I stopped the car in the middle of the road. No point in going any further.
"We're stopping again," Junior observed.
"I'm aware of that, darling," I muttered.
"Is it another moment of weakness?" He asked.
"Something like that."
"Why?"
1 MINUTE left.
"Well, Junior," I began, "It seems I can't decide if I should take you to see
grandpa or not."
No use in mentioning mommy.
"Do you want to see grandpa?"
I scanned the tree line distractedly.
"Does he have toys?" Junior murmured.
"I'm sure we could find some," I replied. "And if not, he'll buy you toys."
He considered this quickly.
"Um, okay."
I was actually surprised at how chipper he sounded. For a moment I was under the
impression that he knew what was about to happen. But how could he?
"Okay, then," I took a deep breath and popped a cigarette into my mouth.
"It's done."
The explosion shook everything around us as a stream of fire shot into the sky.
I watched it, at first fascinated. Then I looked to him for some reaction. He
said nothing as smoke billowed across the clouds and a great rumble of noise
echoed from here to eternity.
I lit my cigarette and turned the car around.
It was time to go to grandpa's.
"Daddy?" Junior asked a little later down the road.
The ashen smell of smoke was still thick in the air.
"Yes, June?" I replied.
"That was a big boom, wasn't it?"
I paused for a moment, feeling my way around his thoughts. Then I grinned and
raised my eyebrows.
"Yeah Pops, that was a big boom."
(c) Elisa Higgins 2001
[email protected]
Part III: "Junior"