by Jon Bassoff
Coca-Cola can banging down the sidewalk. Dog howling at the hidden moon. Train whistle screaming through the mist. Rain pounding on a tin roof. Finally she came to her house. It was just like all the rest of them, decades past its prime. An American flag, torn, whipped in the wind and the rain, and an American car, rusted, sat in the muddy driveway. The screen door hung off the hinges, banging open and shut. Wind chimes played a terrifying tune.
The girl bent down and reached beneath a welcome mat. Durango stood across the street and watched. Her hands must have been trembling as she pushed in the key and shouldered open the door. Certainly she felt a presence behind her. Certainly she knew that eyes were watching her…
A cottonwood gave him shelter, and he squatted down. He waited for the lights in her house to turn on, but they never did. Just darkness. Durango’s eyes twitched and his mouth trembled. What was she doing in there? Why darkness? And then a flash of lightning, and he could see her at the window, all in black, arms crossed, staring into the night.
He remained beneath that tree for a long time, breathing labored, sure she was watching him. And then the sound of calliope music, so he covered his ears, willing it to stop. His brain was being nibbled on by parasites, infected by a diseased rodent…
He soon drifted to sleep, dreaming of blood and Christ and flagellation, and maybe he was still dreaming when Scent lay down beside him and whispered save me, save me and then kissed his damp eyes, because then she was gone and Durango was alone and the wind blew cold and sad.
Chapter 10
The sky was still dark when he returned to the campsite. His father was sitting in the rain, eating the rabbit he’d sacrificed that morning. Durango stood before him, thorns on his head, rocking back and forth. These were the moments that frightened him. His father owned him. His father owned God.
But now there was no fury, no violence. Stanton only raised his head slowly, whispered, “Where you been?”
“Just wandering,” Durango said. “Seeing what I could see.”
The old man bit into the meat, juice streaming down his stubbled chin. “And what’d you see?”
Durango’s chest tightened. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and shook his head.
“You see a girl?” Stanton asked.
Durango didn’t answer.
“You see a girl?” he asked again.
A quick nod of the head. “Yes, sir. Her name is Scent. I think she maybe likes me.”
Stanton took a final bite of rabbit and wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand. “You watch out for this girl. Hear me? Could be she was sent by Satan himself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Could be that she’ll flay your skin, drain your blood.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Satan’s here, boy. I can smell his stink. Now eat some of this rabbit. Energy for the day.”
Later that morning, they were back at their familiar carnival spot, Durango in the splintered chair, the crown of thorns around his head, and Stanton on the whiskey box, his voice ragged and worn. The sun hung low in a sky badly burned.
Despite Stanton’s passion—he was preaching a new sermon with the devil playing a large role—today was slower than usual. A little boy eating a mountain of cotton candy stopped and watched the proceeding, but his mother grabbed him by the shirt and he was gone. A man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase watched with great interest, nodding his head in agreement, but at some point he began swatting imaginary insects and conversing with himself. Were all the believers lunatics?
A couple of university boys watched with mock interest and asked unimportant questions: Did Stanton really think Noah could have brought every species of animal on the ark—over one million of them? If Adam and Eve were the first people, then how did their son, Cain, discover another country of people when he was banished? How was there day and night on Earth before God created the sun? Stanton didn’t answer the inquiries directly, but he told the boys to look into their hearts, that the Lord would provide answers. And when that didn’t work, he threatened them with eternal damnation, and they left laughing and patting each other on the backs, smug as hell.
But after a while, it was just the two of them, alone, preaching to the wind.
The sun was callous and brutal and Durango was tired of everything. His father’s voice was failing, and now people weren’t even stopping to ridicule. Stanton took a final swig of water from his army canteen, swished it around his mouth, and spat it on the ground. Then he glanced back at his son, still sitting on the throne, his face badly reddened. He raised an imaginary crook in the air and said, “I will not forget what the Lord told me. The humiliation must continue, son. I’m sorry, but that is how it must be.”
It was at that moment that Durango heard a commotion from across the carnival grounds. A crowd had gathered beneath the Ferris wheel and there was plenty of hooting and hollering.
“Now I do wonder what’s happening over there,” Stanton said. “C’mon, boy, let’s go take a look. Even a prophet of God needs a break every now and then.”
Stanton and Durango packed up their stuff and took to walking through the carnival grounds, the sky now filling with darkened clouds, the winds whipping around. The rides—a carousel and a roller coaster and a tilt-o-whirl—were all packed full of screaming children, and calliope music played, as terrifying as it gets. Carnies called out five balls for a dollar, and a mob of masked revelers, their veneers grotesque, depicting death and hell, seemed to be closing in on Durango, leering at him through torn holes.
They came to the mass of people, and Stanton pushed through, followed closely by Durango. Curses and jeers, but they were used to it, and they made their way to the front of the crowd.
An oversized banner hung from a makeshift wooden stage. Made to resemble a carnival sign with its bright orange colors, it read: “The Amazing Dr. Freeman and his Transorbital Lobotomy. Ending Mental Anguish Today.” On the stage stood an old man with round spectacles and a white goatee, a bowler’s hat cocked on his head. He leaned on an ornate cane, the top of which was shaped and colored like a human skull. A gold pocket watch chain hung from his suit vest. Standing next to him was a younger man dressed in an oversized suit, dirty blond hair combed forward over his forehead, hands hanging limply at his side. What Durango noticed were his eyes: dull and empty, as if he were already dead. And near the edge of the stage sat an oversized cage with a rhesus monkey jumping wildly, hissing at the crowd, scratching at its own skin.
“Oh Lord, oh Lord, what is happening here?” Stanton whispered. “The air is thick with sin.”
The old man, Dr. Freeman, was shouting into a beat-up megaphone, his voice surprisingly strong for a man his age. Competition as there was a new preacher in town. “Now you take my assistant Edgar Ruiz,” the old man said, pointing to the lanky man standing next to him. “You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but this fellow used to be violent and dangerous. Indeed, for many, many years he was considered by most to be criminally insane and was locked up in what you might call a loony bin. But now take a look at him. Do you see what I see? The definition of placid. As gentle as a lamb. So what happened to create this shift?
“Some history. Edgar’s father used to do him wrong in the worst way possible. A drunk and a bully, the old man would pound on him whenever he had a chance. Broken noses. Black eyes. Crushed ribs. Cigar burns. These were daily events, people! And his mother. Did she help her only son? No, she did not. She sat in the living room, listening to her radio shows all day—Buck Rogers, The Cisco Kid, Bringing Up Father. When little Edgar would ask her for a hand, pleading with her to make his old man stop, she would look at him with those haunted gray eyes, slowly shake her head, and then continue listening to her shows. People, is it any wonder he became isolated? Is it any wonder he became mean?”
The whole time Dr. Freeman spoke, Durango was transfixed. He ignored his father’s theories about the devilish origin of the doctor. “From beneath the dirt he’s come
. Cover your eyes, son. He’ll leave your sockets bleeding, he will.” Yes, somehow Durango knew within just a few minutes that not only was Freeman not the devil, but he was the savior, the real savior, and whatever he was selling, Durango would buy.
“But it’s true!” Freeman continued. “The boy grew up to be a man. And within his heart he only knew hatred. At first it was the usual thing. Stealing. Fighting. Destroying. He was suspended from school four or five times. He got more chances than he deserved. But when he waited for a teacher after school and attacked him, bloodying his nose in the process, they had no choice but to expel him. And what was there at home? Only an abusive father and a comatose mother. He became more and more enraged. Not long after his expulsion, he got into an argument with a storeowner after the owner had accused him of stealing a can of snuff. Young Edgar jumped behind the counter and slammed the poor man’s head against the glass. Then, after he crumpled to the ground, bleeding badly, Edgar took to kicking him over and over again in the stomach. The owner was too terrified to press charges, but people should have known it was only a matter of time before Edgar would give in to his learned violent behavior.
“And so it was that Edgar used to leave his house for days at a time, go see what he could see. He’d steal food from farms and general stores, drink more bourbon than a boy should drink. This one night, while he was out wandering around, he came across this grand farmhouse, all lit up and beautiful. And coming from the house the sound of organ music, just like he used to hear at church when he was a small boy. He sat down on an old maple stump, rubbed his numb hands together, and listened to that music, watched that house. He stayed there for a good hour, until the music stopped and the lights shut off. What was it about that music? What was it about that house? Because from then on, every single night, Edgar returned to that same spot and listened and cried.”
And now Freeman wiped some sweat from his forehead and cleared his throat. “I should warn you, ladies and gentlemen, the next part of my tale is rather brutal. Those who are inclined to light-headedness or who have heart conditions should perhaps move on down the carnival, should exit the area now.”
Freeman looked left and right and then left again, but nobody moved. “Come on,” said a fat man wearing a too-small three-piece suit. “Don’t keep us waiting. Tell us more.”
A mischievous grin from Freeman. “It was a cold and snowy night, people, and once again he sat on that stump watching the house and listening to the music. Was it the music, God’s music, that haunted him, that moved something inside of his torn soul? It’s hard to tell. What I do know is that Edgar rose from the stump, as if in a trance, and walked toward the house. And along the way he passed a shed, and piled near that shed a bunch of old tools, badly rusted, left, perhaps, by the devil himself. He found a claw hammer. He found a saw. And he carried those tools in his hands and he carried that rage in his heart. Down the pathway and up the porch he walked, and the organ echoed across the open field. He knocked on the door. Three lonely knocks. And then he waited. Long moments passed and then the door opened. An old man stood in the entryway, hunched at the back, gray hair splayed wildly. He looked at the boy with the rusted tools in his hands and said, ‘Who are you? What do you need?’ But Edgar didn’t answer. Instead he pushed his way into the house, toward this terrified old man. Without a moment’s pause, and without a word spoken, he raised that hammer and came down hard. Over and over he pounded the skull—a terrible fury of violence!—and then the bones gave and blood and brain matter sprayed across his linen shirt. The old man fell to the hardwood floor, his body bent at grotesque angles.
“When Edgar finished the job, he walked to the living room where the man’s wife sat at the organ, apparently oblivious to the murder that had taken place in the room next door. She kept playing. Edgar tried telling her what had happened. ‘I killed him,’ he said. ‘Busted his skull with a hammer.’ She kept playing. ‘And I will kill you, too! Don’t you get it? You’ve got not much of a reason to live!’ She kept playing. Not the hammer for this woman. The blade for her. As she played Jesus Christ is Risen Today, he took that hacksaw, all smooth wood and burnished metal, and reached around her slender figure and placed the blade against her throat. For a moment she stopped playing, but just for a moment, and then he began sawing. The blood splattered on her floral dress, splattered on the splintered organ. And she kept playing, although the notes became discordant and eventually her arms started to spasm and she lost control of her facilities.”
And now the crowd was completely hushed, staring at the murderer in their midst.
“So it was,” Freeman said, “that Edgar Ruiz, the gentlemen you see before you, continued sawing until she played no more.”
Chapter 11
A buzz rose through the crowd and Dr. Freeman stopped speaking. He grabbed a whiskey jug full of water and began drinking, the liquid spilling on his fine clothes. Ladies whispered behind hands: “Do you think it’s true? That fellow standing on the stage butchered those poor people for no reason? Hideous!” And the men: “Well, what the hell is he doing here, in our little town? What’s to say he won’t kill again? What’s to say?”
Stanton, for his part, was furious. He turned to Durango and said, “These men here have been sent by the devil, that I know for certain! Come with me, Durango, and let’s return to our preaching station. The devil’s company we don’t need.”
But Durango only shook his head. “I want to stay,” he said. “I want to hear the story.”
“From the devil’s mouth!” Stanton said, his eyes turning to slits, his face reddening.
Durango bowed his head and nodded. “From the devil’s mouth.”
For a long time, Stanton glared at his son, fire in his eyes. Then he shoved his way through the crowd, mumbling about Satan and sin and salvation. As he watched his father disappear, Durango suddenly felt terrified. He felt the urge to race after his father, to play the role of the Messiah again, but Durango remained. The pull of Dr. Freeman’s story was too strong…
As Freeman continued his narrative, the protagonist, Edgar Ruiz, remained as still as an idol, hands clasped together, eyes dead and gone. Meanwhile, the red-faced monkey, resembling a little Satan, was going crazy, pounding on the metal cage, baring its sharp teeth.
“I only tell you these terrible things about Edgar to show you the miraculousness of his cure. You see, after he butchered those strangers, he remained in that death house for another two weeks, in the company of rotting corpses, until a neighbor, beckoned by the stench, shouldered open the front door and witnessed the carnage. Authorities were called and the process began. What to do with this child killer? The system took pity on him, and he was spared prison or death, and instead was placed in Briarwood Psychiatric Hospital, where I worked as a psychiatrist.
“When I first met Edgar Ruiz, I was struck by the cruelness in his eyes, the scowl on his face. This was a young man with hatred in his heart, this was a young man with murder in his soul. And while I occasionally saw a glimmer of humanity, for the most part I saw a boy without a notion of decency, without a notion of kindness. Another doctor, a doctor influenced by that fraud Freud, would have wasted weeks, months, indeed years, discussing the situation with him trying, as it were, to get to the bottom of things. That doctor would have perhaps discovered some deep-seated hatred toward God and the church. He would have surmised that somehow this organ music triggered a psychotic breakdown. Or he would have discovered some other trauma, sexual or violent, that led to his destructive personality. And after that discovery, they would have spent hour upon hour discussing this trauma. And when all things were said and done, they might have developed an intricate theory for his violence, but Edgar Ruiz would still have been violent.”
And now a few more people stopped to watch Dr. Freeman speak, or at least to get a glimpse at the wild little caged monkey, snapping and hissing at all passersby, trying to squeeze through the metal bars to create some real mayhem. An old woman wearing a beaver pe
lt coat; a mining veteran, face blackened with dirt and soot; a little boy holding a bag of sour candies. All of them watched this peculiar new preacher. Dr. Freeman turned toward Edgar, curiously silent, and placed his arm around him.
“I completed treatment on Edgar Ruiz on October 17, 1953. Since then, he has been nothing short of a model citizen. No stealing. No fighting. No violent outbursts. He is no longer consumed with anger, with rage. Now his personality is cheerful and easygoing. Now Edgar feels calm, unconcerned with the swarm of trivialities. But why should I tell you these things. Edgar? Please tell the good folks of Burnwood, Oklahoma, what my amazing treatment did for you.”
For several moments, Edgar didn’t say a word, as if he were trying to process Freeman’s command. Then his mouth opened and he began speaking softly, methodically. Freeman placed the megaphone in front of his mouth so the people could hear.
“I used to hate everybody,” he said. “I felt they was doing me wrong. I felt they was out to get me. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to kill them. And one day I did. They locked me up in a hospital, but I wasn’t cured. I still wanted to hurt and kill people. Yes, I did. Then I met Dr. Freeman. I could tell he was a kind man. I could tell he was a smart man. He told me that something was wrong with my brain. He told me that it wasn’t my fault. He decided to perform an operation on me. The operation didn’t hurt. When I woke up, I felt better. When I woke up, I wasn’t mad anymore. Now, if somebody says something mean to me, or shouts at me, it don’t bother me. Now, I just shake my head and say okay. I feel pretty calm, now. I want to thank Dr. Freeman. Without him I would still be angry. With him, I’m happy.”
