by Jon Bassoff
How could he have known what that young woman was going to do? How could he have known her greed would lead to such terrible violence? He’d tried to save the old woman. If only he’d lobotomized the girl, too!
Desperate, he grabbed his briefcase from the floor, dumped all the testimonial letters on the bed. Lives saved, not taken!
He sat down and rifled through the old photographs and the old letters. All lovely. What more proof could there possibly be? How many peer-reviewed studies would they need to conduct to equal that proof? Yes, there were negative letters, grotesque photographs, a few, but those were aberrations and what good would it do to hold on to those?
Time passed, and he read dozens and dozens of letters. A savior, that’s what he was. Now was not the time to give up; now was the time to dig in. How many lobotomies had he performed in this one little town? Twenty? Thirty? Not enough. The whole town, the whole world needed curing!
He limped over to Edgar’s bed and shook him. “Edgar, my boy. Wake up.”
Edgar’s eyes flung open and focused on Freeman. Then, without warning, his right hand shot upward, grabbing Freeman by the throat. For several long moments, he squeezed while Freeman, eyes bulging from his skull, tried prying his fingers away. Then, as quickly as the violence had begun, Edgar released his grip, let his hand fall back to his side.
Freeman, gasping for breath, staggered down to the wooden chair. Edgar remained lying down. When Freeman spoke, his voice was raw and trembling. “Edgar, Edgar. Why? What has gotten into you?”
No answer as Edgar stared at the ceiling, stomach rising and falling in rhythm.
“Did you have a bad dream, Edgar? Is that what happened?”
He shook his head slowly. “No dreams.”
“Disoriented. That’s all it was. You were disoriented.”
Edgar sat up in bed, blinking in time. He looked around, as if seeing the motel room for the first time. Then he looked up at Freeman and said, “I’m hungry, Doctor. I’d like to eat.”
Freeman cleared his throat and wiped a strand of hair from his face. “Yes, of course. We can get some food. But then,” and now a thin smile, “our mission continues. This town can still be saved, my boy!”
An hour later, after they’d eaten, they were back at the carnival at their familiar spot, setting up shop. The sky was clear, and the sun shone overhead. Edgar helped the doctor spread the “Amazing Dr. Freeman” banner on the front of the stage. There was just a scattering of people. Carousel music played and carnies shouted.
Freeman had just placed the megaphone to his mouth when he heard a loud rapping on the stage. He looked down and saw a familiar figure: the old man with the missing leg. He had that same old whiskey jug, not more than a coin or two rattling around inside it.
“You’re that doctor I met once,” he said. “The Amazing Dr. Freeman.”
“Yes. And you’re the veteran of every war.”
A toothless grin. “You’ve got a hell of a memory, Doc.”
“I remember people. That’s all.”
The old cripple gummed on a few peanuts. “Not much God here,” he said.
“Say again?”
“What about the preacher?”
“Preacher?”
“I heard his boy was the Messiah.”
Freeman removed his glasses, wiped them absentmindedly. A handful of people had gathered around the stage. “Yes. The preacher. I remember him quite well.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was sick. Now he’s well.”
Another grin, gums purple. “I heard he’s dead. That’s what I heard. And he’s not the only one. Your operation is making ’em even crazier, Doctor!”
“I don’t know about him being dead,” Freeman said. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“Sure, sure. Not too many prophets left, not in this town. And only one Messiah. Why do you think he chose our town? Why do you think?”
But Freeman waved him away, stuck the megaphone to his mouth and shouted, “Salvation, my friends! As cheap as a visit to the dentist!”
A few more people gathered. Edgar sat down on the stage, cross-legged, and closed his eyes.
And now Freeman removed the ice pick and the hammer from his bag and shouted, “It’s a mean old world, isn’t it? So much sadness, so much loneliness, so much rage. God placed us on this giant rock, among all the beasts, but it was nothing but a cruel experiment. He watches the misery and the mayhem from afar, jotting down notes and shaking his head.
“We all suffer, people! Some of us more than others, to be sure, but we all suffer. And how do we cope? Some of us drink, some of us fight, some of us screw. But it’s hopeless. Because God created the biology, and the biology leads us to hell on earth! A common misconception: it is not the soul that is the problem. No, no. The brain leads to our ruin. Yes, the brain, that spongy sphere made of billions of nerve cells. Indeed, I understand it is the most wondrous and intricate of all of God’s creations. But I also know it leads to untold misery, it imprisons us, it fills us with anxiety and depression, mania and hallucinations.”
Freeman gazed out to the carnival grounds and saw people once again gathering around his stage, fascinated by this preacher of the scientific. And among the crowd many he’d operated on, watching him with those blank eyes and slack jaws.
“But we don’t have to be imprisoned, people. The tools are quite simple. Look here, look here! A simple ice pick. Bought for three dollars and ninety-nine cents at a local hardware store. A hammer. Even cheaper still. Yes, two simple tools. The science is uncomplicated. In your brain, you see, there is a fixed circuit of nerve cells that causes all the misery. Cut the circuit, and the pattern ends. It seems too simple, doesn’t it? But it works. I have hundreds of cases. Thousands of cases. The end result of peacefulness is quite common. Would you like to see letters, personal testimonials? Or perhaps you’d like to hear from my former patient, Edgar Ruiz. Many of you have heard this story before. You have heard how he slaughtered two innocents in cold blood because of the music he heard. That’s correct. Slit their throats. Bloodied the floors and walls. He seemed destined for hell. But then I stepped in with the ice pick and…well, why don’t we let Edgar speak?”
And, as had become his custom, he handed Edgar the megaphone. And the people in the crowd smiled, even some of the lobotomized patients, because they knew Edgar would speak of wonderful miracles. They knew he represented hope and love and salvation. If Freeman was the savior, then Edgar was the blind man given sight, the dead man given life, the lame man given movement.
The megaphone held in front of his mouth, Edgar began the memorized speech he’d given so many times before: “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…”
A tremendous round of applause from the crowd, louder than any applause Freeman had ever heard. They’d heard Edgar’s story before, most of them, but they loved it. The story comforted them. That’s what stories do.
But then Edgar stopped speaking. He stood on the stage, staring directly into the crowd, smiles beginning to fade away. Freeman squeezed his shoulder, whispered, “Continue with the story. The operation…”
Edgar’s mouth parted and then closed again. He began rocking back and forth, back and forth. Then he continued speaking, only this time he sounded different, his voice sadder.
“I don’t remember much about that day. But I guess Dr. Freeman came and shoved that ice pick into my eyes. That’s what I guess. When I woke up, everything was different. I had a headache. I couldn’t remember things. Not even my name. He told me what he’d done. He said I’d feel better soon. He said I’d be cured. I think he was wrong. ’Cause I still think about killing quite a bit. I still think about bloo
d…”
Everybody got quiet. Freeman remained motionless. And now, apparently inspired, many of the patients he’d operated on moved toward Edgar, one by one. In a single-file line they walked, led by Mary Duncan, who’d once been delusional, and they stood on the stage and they wanted to testify as well…
“I was crazy,” Mary said into the megaphone. “And now I’m dead…”
Next in line! You with the wild hair and the bathrobe. Step right up!
“I used to cry all the time. But now I can’t even do that. My soul is gone.”
What about you? What’s your name? Danny Heaton? Testify…please!
“I was mean and cruel. I hit my wife. Not now. I don’t care enough.”
More and more of them spoke, and it wasn’t like the words in his letters. Was this the truth? Is there a truth?
But when a short woman with a goiter on her neck grabbed hold of the megaphone and began speaking of her newfound apathy and exhaustion, her testimony was cut short as gasps and murmurs and screams rose from the crowd.
Because from beyond the Ferris wheel there appeared a ragged figure, and he wore a crown of thorns and he carried a body smeared in mud and blood.
Chapter 31
And now the carnival turned to hell, flames everywhere, and Freeman could no longer tell the difference between reality and fantasy, between consciousness and nightmare.
The boy, Durango, staggered up to the stage, carrying the body, and she was bloody and battered, mutilated and dead, dead, dead. But Durango didn’t think so. Durango, who was the Messiah, Durango, who could give sight to the blind. Durango, who could make the lame walk. Durango, who could raise the dead…
“She was dead!” he shouted. “My mother, my mother! Larynx crushed. Buried in an olden well. But then, by a miracle, after so many years she was placed in my midst, and my faith was vanished in the wind, and it was my job to raise her from the dead, my job and my job only. What do you do without faith? All is impossible! But I closed my eyes and I prayed. I prayed for hours and days and months and years, and my faith returned, seeping through my lips and nostrils. And then another miracle as her eyes fluttered open, sight renewed, life renewed. Look at her! Don’t you see the smile creeping across her face? Don’t you see her chest heaving up and down? She once was dead, flesh tasted by maggots, and now she has risen. And all of this so you would believe. For my father was a prophet, and I am the Messiah. With faith, anything is possible. With faith, the blind shall see. With faith, the dead shall live. Believe, believe!”
Freeman could see she was dead, a rotting corpse; Freeman could see it was Baby, not his mother; Freeman could see Durango was crazy, eyes darting in sockets. But murmurs of belief, of delusion, began to rise from the crowd: “He has raised the dead! He has given us faith! He is the Messiah!”
Was Freeman the only person who saw the truth? Was he the only one who was sane? These people who had once ridiculed Durango and his father, who had once laughed at their proclamations, suddenly, without cause, without explanation, were true believers, falling to their knees, singing alleluias, praying to the heavens.
Didn’t they see rigor mortis had set in, that her muscles were stiff and her skin was stained black? What about the bloody froth trickling from her nose and mouth? If she were alive, why couldn’t she stand on her own two feet? Why couldn’t she testify to the miracle?
“Yes, yes, I am the Messiah! You have waited nearly two thousand years for my return, and the wait is over.”
Faith was a poison that, if ingested, led to delusion. And they were poisoned, all of these people who were gathered around Durango and the woman, bellowing “She has risen, she has risen.”
As the crowd became more frenzied, Freeman backed away, left the stage completely. He’d read about cases of mass hysteria—The Dancing Plague of 1518, The Salem Witch Trials, The Halifax Slasher—but he’d never witnessed such an epidemic firsthand. Suddenly all believed and he was terrified.
Even Edgar was rocking back and forth, mumbling prayers of the insane. “Edgar!” Freeman hissed. “We must go. This town is lost. Filled with true believers. We must go.”
But Edgar remained, engulfed by the rest of the lobotomized patients, staring at the body he had once covered with forest mud, raising his arms to the heavens.
And then this happened.
One of the carnies, an enormous man with badly burned arms and a red beard hanging to his sternum, was so moved by the proceeding that he sat down on a bench in front of the carnival calliope and began playing music, haunting spirituals: “Nearer My God to Thee,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The music sounded strange being played on a calliope, but the Holy Spirit moved him. And when he was done with those songs, he started on another spiritual, and it was the most haunting of them all. “Jesus Christ Has Risen Today.” Don’t you remember this song? Don’t you remember the words?
Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!
Everybody stood at attention, prayers whispered into the wind. Durango placed the rotting corpse/living woman on the ground and closed his eyes and lifted his hands to the sky, a better world to come.
Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our heavenly king, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!
And now Freeman came to the sudden realization that this was the same song that had played when Edgar had butchered the farmer and his wife. Butchered them for no reason at all.
From behind the stage, Freeman watched as Edgar Ruiz stiffened, his focus shifting from Durango to the calliope music. Yes, he remembered, too. As if in a trance, Edgar moved across the stage, spotted Freeman’s ice pick and hammer scattered on the floor. I still think about blood, he’d said.
Freeman watched, he watched. With great deliberation, Edgar picked up the ice pick and the hammer. The whole town was going crazy and nobody else was paying him any mind. Durango was praying to the sky, the burned man was playing the calliope, and everybody believed they were witnessing a miracle. No, no, thought Freeman. It’s the woman we killed. It’s just a corpse. Still in a trance, Edgar moved slowly across the stage toward Durango Stanton. And the music played:
But the pains which he endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation have procured; Alleluia!
Now above the sky he’s king, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing. Alleluia!
Another step, and Edgar gripped the ice pick tighter. He would kill Durango, the Messiah, that much was a certainty! Wheezing and coughing, Freeman lunged back onto the stage, his cane splitting the already rotted wood. Through the mob of the deranged he shoved, his bowler’s hat falling to the ground.
“Stop him!” he shouted. “The blood will be on our hands!”
Sing we to our God above, Alleluia!
Praise eternal as his love; Alleluia!
Praise him, all you heavenly host, Alleluia!
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Alleluia!
And suddenly he had the strange thought that Durango was indeed the Messiah, and that it was his job to save him, that this was what he had been placed in this world to do. Not to become a physician. Not to perform lobotomies. To save the Messiah. Save the Messiah. Save the Messiah. Such strange thoughts…
Edgar raised the ice pick in the air, the metal glinting in the sun. And as the crowd watched, seeing but not comprehending, Durango turned toward his Judas, saw the weapon in his hand, and bowed his head. “Into God’s hands,” he said.
But before the blood could spill, Freeman grabbed Edgar’s wrist and yanked his arm backward. He was old and weak, but the adrenaline coursed through his body and, with a violent jerk, he managed to pull Edgar, his lobotomized patient, his reborn son, to the ground, the ice pick and hammer clatt
ering next to him.
The crowd’s attention shifted to the battle in their midst, and soon they had encircled the doctor and his patient, with songs of alleluia shifting to cries of bloodlust. Getting to his knees, Edgar grabbed both of Freeman’s legs and sent him crashing to the ground, his glasses spinning off the stage. The two of them wrestled, but Freeman could barely see, could barely breathe. All around him the calliope music playing, the crowd screaming, the Messiah living.
Edgar pounced on top of Freeman, his knee digging into his stomach, his hands pinning down his arms. “Help me,” Freeman whispered, “Lord, help me.” But the crowd just watched and laughed and screamed.
Edgar’s eyes were no longer dead and gone. They were aware, they were enraged. How many times had he witnessed Freeman performing the operation? Hundreds and hundreds of times. He could do it. Of course he could. Freeman had been preaching salvation for so many years. At this moment of truth, did he believe in it? He closed his eyes and he pictured his wife, young and beautiful, wearing her wedding dress, lips trembling, tears tumbling down her cheek, whispering, “I do.” He pictured his son, just a boy, laughing and leaping into his lap, Freeman tousling his hair. He pictured his mother, face free of stress, mouth spread into a smile, whispering, “Of course I love you, Walter. I’ll always love you. Always.” Life lived, life taken away.
He opened his eyes and saw Edgar grab the ice pick with his right hand, the hammer with his left. And as he felt the tip press into his eye socket, as he listened to the crack of the hammer, he smiled because the pain was all gone.
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Jon Bassoff was born in 1974 in New York City and currently lives with his family in a ghost town somewhere in Colorado. His mountain gothic novel, Corrosion, has been translated in French and German and was nominated for the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, France’s biggest crime fiction award. Three of his novels, Corrosion, The Incurables, and The Disassembled Man have been adapted for the big screen. For his day job, Bassoff teaches high school English where he is known by students and faculty alike as the deranged writer guy. He is a connoisseur of tequila, hot sauces, psychobilly music, and flea-bag motels.
