by Jon Bassoff
Chapter 15
By the third day of preaching, interest in the lobotomy was rising. By the fifth day, lines started forming outside the motel. Children concerned about their delusional parents. Parents concerned about their attitudinal children. Wives referring unfaithful husbands. Husbands referring ungrateful wives. The depressed, the anxious, the violent. And Communists, Communists, Communists!
By the tenth day, Dr. Walter Freeman had performed six lobotomies. Not enough to make a real dent in the insane asylum that was Burnwood, but it was a start, anyway. Thanks to a supply of grade-A anesthesia (which he’d procured from a crooked doctor in Odessa), the lobotomies had all been completed with few complications. Oh sure, there had been one particularly violent slaughterhouse worker who mistook Freeman for a hog and tried slitting his throat with the ice pick, but Edgar had grabbed that fellow by the neck and squeezed so hard that he fell unconscious without the anesthesia, a win for everybody involved. Otherwise the operations had all gone smoothly: the delusional grandmother (“Squirrels! Squirrels! Everywhere is squirrels!”), the skeletal young woman, the schizophrenic mailman, the depressive housewife…and her husband.
He’d taken to wearing a rain slicker during the lobotomies to prevent his suit from becoming splattered with blood. Soon, he’d have enough money to buy a new suit, but now, with the ridiculous discounts he was giving for the surgeries (eighty dollars to be cured for life), things were tight. Edgar had a gargantuan appetite, and his own taste for smoky Scotch didn’t help matters.
And for each of these operations, as he had done for three years now, Edgar Ruiz stood behind Freeman and observed.
And now in the forest, and there were corpses everywhere, rabbits and coyotes and deer and dogs. Animals killed for upcoming miracles, not for food, and Durango was hungry, ribs pressing against skin, muscles withering. “Raise them, raise them!” Stanton shouted, his eyes wild and his fists clenched, but Durango was only a boy, and even when he felt the occasional power of the Lord, or perhaps the breeze whispering in his ear, the animals remained dead, skin sloughing from bodies, flesh rotting and consumed by maggots.
And for the first time, Durango saw his father cry. There he was, crouched in the dry creek, putrefied leaves covering his boots, and the tears streaked his cheeks with filth. For an hour or more Stanton sobbed, inconsolable, broken, a man who’d lost everything, faith hanging on by a single silken string of a spider’s web.
But just when Durango was certain his father would cry forever, when he was certain he would reject God and, perhaps, his own son in the process, Stanton grabbed his King James Bible, the cover long since torn from the binding, pages gifted to the breeze, and raised it above his head, the power of the Holy Spirit returned to his veins, and spoke the words of a remembered sermon, and it didn’t matter that death was all around him, it didn’t matter that dirt had been made thick with blood, the possibility of disbelief was too painful, his heart shriveled in a mason’s jar, so he preached with the fervency of a circuit preacher in days of old, salvation for the pure, damnation for the sinful.
And he surprised Durango, because he spoke first not of Jesus and God, but of the great and powerful doctor, Dr. Freeman, and when he spoke those words, he stared right at Durango, as if he knew the thoughts that had been scurrying through his son’s skull—a lobotomy would do him good, don’t you think?
“Oh listen to me, if you care much for the truth. Listen and understand what a strange and terrible town this is, filled with false prophets of the worst kind. Because prophets don’t speak of a better world, they warn of a world crippled and bleeding. So we must cast out these false prophets, because they will lead us to a reckoning. And one more dangerous than the rest. A trusted confidant of Lucifer. Oh please, don’t pretend you don’t know whom I refer to. Please, don’t gaze at me with those bewildered eyes and those bemused grins. He appeared from the mist making promises, such beautiful promises. Promises to heal, promises to save. But he has destroyed brains and souls. Look around you. See the old women and the adolescent boys sitting in their rocking chairs, staring straight ahead, eyes empty, jaws slack. Think of what we’ve allowed him to do, without a fuss or a fight. Slice through our brains. Dig out our souls. And what did Jesus die for, if not our souls?
“Yes, yes, he died. And what a terrible death! Shouldn’t you remember? Because he didn’t just die, people, he suffered. And what would any of you know of suffering? Nothing, I tell you. Only Christ understands the pain, the agony, the torture. Only Christ understands the crucifixion. Close your eyes, people, close your eyes and imagine. Forget about water to wine and consider sweat to blood, trickling down upon the ground. The things they did to him. Lord, oh Lord! Remember how they tied him to a post and then whipped his shoulders, his back, his legs. Again and again the legionnaire brought the whip—leather and lead—down with full force, and it wasn’t long until the skin dangled like a forgotten cocoon; it wasn’t long until the capillaries and veins ruptured, bursting blood. He was blinded, people, blinded by his own blood! ‘Throw a robe around his shoulders!’ they shouted. ‘Place a stick in his hand for scepter! The king needs a crown!’ And so they made one of thorns and branches and pressed it into his skull!
“His blood pouring on the desert floor, they tied the thick cross to his shoulders and led the condemned toward Golgotha. And it was here that the beam was placed on the ground in preparation of his death. The legionnaire, his lips spread into a devilish grin, hammered an iron nail through Christ’s wrist and into the wood. ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’ he shouted. Why indeed? As our savior begged for mercy, the Romans hammered his other wrist. And then the derisive sign: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
“People, you must understand! His feet were pulled downward and nails were driven through the arches of both, ligaments and muscles and nerves torn forever away. Hanging by his arms, his muscles were useless. Breathing became almost impossible. For hours he struggled through the pain, through the near asphyxiation, more and more tissue torn from his lacerated back. His heart became compressed, the fibroserous sacs filling with serum. Pain, agonizing pain! His final cry we have heard: ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ And so it was that the legionnaire buried his spear into Christ’s ribs, and death crept toward his brain.
“Oh, Christians love talking of his resurrection, but they forget the crucifixion. They forget the blood. They forgot the torture. He needed to die to forgive our sins, and he did so. He needed to experience hell, so we wouldn’t. And now I am telling you that Christ is back, and he is in the body of my son. And my son will save, he will save, but his fate will be the same. Body torn, organs destroyed. A bloody crucifixion. I will watch, people! I will watch my only son tortured while the townsfolk mock. My eyes will fill with tears, my heart will fill with agony, but I will not try to stop his bloody death. It is God’s will. Let he who accuses God answer him!”
And now Stanton raised both hands to almighty God and gazed out to the crowd, but there wasn’t a crowd to speak of, not a single person, so Durango rose from his throne and squeezed his father’s shoulder—the way you would squeeze the shoulder of a person who has lost something very dear—and said, “It was a good sermon, Dad. A really good sermon.”
Stanton remained gazing at a point off in the distance and began nodding his head slowly. “Make me a promise, son.”
Hearing those words shouldn’t have made Durango anxious, but they did, they filled him with dread.
“What kind of promise, Father?”
“Promise me that when I die, you will try to give me life. Even after these failures, after so many failures, we can’t lose faith. God said we would be tested. But he also said that eventually you would achieve the miracle. I believe the miracle will be with me.”
“You’re not going to die,” Durango said. “Not for a long time.”
Stanton turned and looked at his son, and now there was kindness in his eyes, so unfamiliar. “My time is not long, son. I
know this to be true.”
“Father—”
“Please. Promise me. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“And if not me, then the next one.”
“The next one?”
“Whoever that might be…”
But in the days that followed, there was no more fervency. Donald Stanton stopped preaching and he stopped eating. Durango would come back from town, come back from spending time with Scent, and Stanton would be huddled beneath an oak tree, staring straight ahead, not talking at all. Durango was scared, so he tried raising rabbits, tried raising deer, tried raising groundhogs. But they remained dead, all of them, and the old man became more bitter and despondent.
“I’m sorry, Father, so very sorry. I’ve let you down again and again.”
The old man shook his head, said, “It’s not you that let me down, boy. It’s God who pissed and crapped all over us. It’s God who’s a worthless drunk. God who’s a pedophile and rapist.”
“Father…”
“God…”
Durango thought more and more about Dr. Freeman. Thought more and more about the operation. If he could convince his father. Only if he could convince his father.
“That man, Dr. Freeman,” Durango said.
“Sent by the devil, son. I’m sure of it.”
“But he could help you. He cures everything, you see. He could cure you.”
“I don’t need curing, boy. The world needs curing.” But he sounded feeble, and Durango knew he had nothing left.
So the next day, and the day after that, Durango spoke of Dr. Freeman, Dr. Freeman, Dr. Freeman, and Stanton slumped against a tree and scratched at his rashed face and said, “You want me to sell my soul to the devil, son?”
“No, sir. I—”
“Well then, we’ll pay him a visit. Besides. I ain’t got much of a soul left to sell.”
Chapter 16
Dr. Walter Freeman had preached in plenty of other towns and had gotten plenty of big audiences (heck, he’d filled up an entire city block in Des Moines once), but he’d never experienced anything like the Burnwood carnival. It seemed the whole town started showing up. They were tired of riding Ferris wheels and tilt-o-whirls, tired of eating funnel cake and hot dogs. But the Ice Pick Savior. Now that was a new experience. That was an American experience. And so it was that each evening hundreds of people gathered around to listen to The Amazing Dr. Freeman, to gaze at the lobotomized murderer and the placid monkey. And during his presentations, other performers from the carnival started bounding on stage as well: the sword swallower, fire eater, hootchie kootchie dancer, and knife thrower all took turns on the stage, and it was never clear if the good doctor had invited them.
Such charisma! Freeman owned the crowd. “This is what we do!” he shouted into the megaphone. “Hammer that ice pick through the eye socket. Twist and scramble. Repeat on the other side. The world can be cured, people! Mental illness can end! Eight lobotomies completed. And now you? Step right up! Now nine and now ten. Speed up the work. Look at this. Two lobotomies at once. Cheap and efficient. Eventually we’ll get the sane trained and they can treat the insane. If only we can figure out who the sane ones are! They slip through the cracks, don’t they? Twenty, now twenty-five, now thirty. Keep it moving, keep it moving! Who else needs to be saved? Who else?”
Behind Freeman, a man in drag climbed up a ladder of broken glass. Lightning flashed and calliope music played.
And then a break in the action and Freeman shushed the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I must have your attention. I am now prepared to make a special offer. One time only! I will perform the operation here and now, on stage, free of charge. You heard me right. Free of charge. Not a penny owed. Not only will you be cured of violence or delusions or melancholy, but you will be doing a great service to the rest of the community because they will witness the benefits of the lobotomy and spread the word of this miraculous operation. Do you understand, people, how devastating it is to be sick in the head? When we see a person with a bloody wound, we empathize. When we see somebody with a physical illness, we sympathize. So why should we ignore the most devastating sickness of all? The sickness of one’s brain?”
He waited and waited, but nobody stepped forward, and Freeman regarded this as strange because the entire town was sick, the entire world was sick.
“If you are worried about pain, I will do my best to assuage those fears. As you must certainly know, pain is felt because of nerve endings. Your lips, for example, have more than ten thousand nerve endings. Lovely for kisses but terrible for wounds. But the brain, fortunately, has no such nerve endings. None. Therefore, I have performed many lobotomies with the patient fully awake and aware. There are no screams of agony, I can assure you. Often they are able to talk and describe what is happening while I operate! Ladies and gentlemen, I daresay that curing your mental diseases—from headaches to depression, from hallucinations to homicidal mania—is as simple and safe as curing a toothache! I promise you, ladies and gentlemen, you have nothing to fear and everything to gain.”
The crowd murmured, and a few husbands or wives or children or parents encouraged a loved one to move forward, to be saved by The Amazing Dr. Freeman. But saying good-bye to a tortured soul is difficult, as if saying good-bye to an old friend, so nobody came forward.
“But all this pain! Terrible, terrible! Why live with it? Edgar, tell them.”
“Remember when I killed? Blood on my hands? The devil in my soul? Not now. Not now. Thank you, Dr. Freeman. Now heaven awaits.”
Dr. Freeman: “It is true, people! After a lifetime in hell, heaven surely awaits Edgar Ruiz. And what about you? Aren’t you lacking? Listen to what I’m giving, please, please. A lobotomy for free! This is a limited-time offer, people. Step forward now. You are minutes away from salvation!”
A preacher, Dr. Freeman was. A true believer, Dr. Freeman was. See him as a circuit rider in days of old, galloping through the countryside on a horse, carrying only what fit in a saddlebag:
I saw a wayworn traveler, in tattered garments clad,
And struggling up the mountain, it seemed that he was sad;
His back was laden heavy, his strength was almost gone,
Yet he shouted as he journeyed, “Deliverance will come!”
Then palms of victory, crowns of glory,
Palms of victory I shall wear.
And now the gods got angry, the sky destroyed by lightning and terrible moans of thunder. And all around The Amazing Dr. Freeman, carnival freaks danced and showed their grotesqueness: Tom Thumb (“smaller than a whiskey barrel!”), Lobster Boy (“claws for hands!”), The Smith Twins (“connected at the waist!”), Mr. Frank Prenti (“three legs! two sets of genitalia!”), Pickled Punk (“an unborn fetus preserved in formaldehyde!”). The calliope music played louder and louder, the carousel spinning faster and faster. And terrible screams from children trapped in a house of horrors.
A voice from the crowd: “There is only one question for you, Doctor. And if you answer, I will consent to your mutilation.”
Freeman shielded his eyes with his hand and glared out into the mass of people. “Who spoke?” he said. “Please, please. Step forward.”
Pushing and shoving and a pathway opened up. Soon enough a man stood at the foot of the stage. His black hair disheveled, his face gaunt and sickly. And behind him a young man Freeman recognized. A crown of thorns on his head.
“A single question, Doctor. Because it is written that if one asks the devil his name, he must answer truthfully.”
A sardonic grin from Dr. Freeman. “Yes, then. What is your question, sir?”
“Your name, Doctor. Tell me your name.”
Freeman leaned on his cane for a moment before limping forward a few steps. “My name? Certainly. My name is Walter Freeman. I am a doctor. And certainly I will save more souls than any god you have created.”
The man’s face reddened. “That is blasphemy, Doctor.”
“Perhap
s. But my question for you. Are you ready to be saved?”
The old man looked at the crowned boy standing next to him and the boy nodded his head slowly. Together they walked up the steps and onto the stage. And now the crowd was getting rowdy for they recognized Stanton as the maniac preacher, and they recognized Durango as the phony Messiah.
“It is true,” Stanton said, “that my mind is diseased. I see that now.”
“Please. Lie down. I have a cot here for you, my dear sir. You are in good hands.”
With the freaks still dancing, with Edgar rocking back and forth, with Durango wiping tears from his mud eyes, The Amazing Dr. Freeman strapped down Donald Stanton to the makeshift cot. Stanton mumbled prayers, but the words were nonsensical, spoken in false tongues. From inside his jacket pocket, Freeman pulled out a handkerchief and a small vial. He poured a generous amount of liquid on the handkerchief before pressing it on Stanton’s face. Count to five, ten, fifteen, and Stanton’s eyes rolled back in his head and he was gone, dreaming of ghouls and demons gnawing through his skin and muscles and organs.
And sure a cure was moments away, but when Dr. Freeman removed his ice pick, when he removed his hammer, the young Messiah had second thoughts and screamed and tried pushing through to save his father. But Edgar had been trained well and grabbed him, yanked his arms behind his back, and soon many of the other freaks hovering nearby leapt onto the stage and pulled him away from Edgar and tackled him to the ground. So that is how it happened, with the dwarf grasping his leg, and Lobster Boy clawing at his face.
The crowd was giddy with anticipation, and the lightning flashed and the carousel spun fast enough to send children tumbling to the cement.
And now as Dr. Freeman plunged the ice pick into Donald Stanton’s eye, he described the procedure in a calm voice, despite the blood that covered Stanton’s face, despite the freaks tearing at the Messiah, despite his former patients moaning in remembered agony.
