Ryan's Suffering

by Lloyd Paulson

  Tense, I waited for the phone to ring, certain that someone was calling me with bad news. Maybe they finally found my father. Maybe the police had more questions for me. What else could that strange episode in the backyard mean? I waited for half a minute, listening to soporific drone of my wife soothing my daughter.

  I stood up, my joints cracking with tension, and watched the news for a moment with interest. There were still no leads on the three missing children or the grisly murders of their parents, it seemed. I felt uneasy, feeling protective of the kids, and wondering what sick mind was at work on here in the bay area. Was it me? Ha-ha. I shuddered, as though a goose had walked over my grave.

  Dark Harbor was a small town. Everyone knew everybody, and the rumor mills were hard at work. Was it someone we know? Is it a drifter? Some speculated that the children’s bodies would wash ashore in Black Bay, or further up the coast of Michigan somewhere maybe. That begged the question though; why not dump the parent’s bodies too? Why leave the parent’s bodies to be found?

  Sighing, I clicked off the television. More shit to worry about, as if the economy wasn’t bad enough around here. What automotive work that remained in the US seemed to have moved south into the Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. It seems the cost of breaking unions and the cost of heating the large manufacturing buildings in the winter made the choice to move south look mighty attractive to the bean counters, and left the State of Michigan a fucking devastated wasteland of abandoned factories and poverty. Unless you had a college degree, you probably didn’t work for the big three if you lived in Michigan anymore. Therefore, you took what work you could—a paltry steady paycheck was better than no paycheck, wasn’t it?

  I could no longer hear my wife upstairs comforting my daughter, although I could hear my son babbling loudly from his bedroom. I assumed my wife was soothing and tucking the children in again.

  I wandered into the kitchen, ignoring the stack of dirty dishes that buried the countertop. I eyed the phone from the corner of my eye, daring the phone to ring. If the phone rings late at night, it’s always big news. Nobody ever fucking calls to shoot the shit late at night. Maybe it would bring good news, such as they found my old man’s body. Sighing, I wondered why a psychotic thought like that would cheer me the fuck up. No matter how much I hate the cocksucker, that’s still nothing to wish upon anyone. I decided it didn’t fucking matter.

  I kicked a bag of trash out of the way, ignored the maggots that spilled out and squirmed on the dirty linoleum tiles, opened the fridge, and stared at the contents within. I had no idea what I was looking for, but nothing inside interested me. I closed the fridge, and opened the pantry door. The pantry was closer to the phone, and I kept glancing back and forth between the pantry and the phone. I wondered why we still bothered with a house phone.

  I closed the cupboard door and stepped in front of the phone on the wall. I took a deep breath, held it, and lifted the phone to my ear. The reassuring buzz of the dial tone was there, with a faint crackle from lightning underneath as the storm’s fury tapered off outside.

  I felt a cold hand grasp my arm, and I screamed as I dropped the phone. The handset clattered on the floor as I whirled around, and Trisha cringed as though I was going to hit her. My heart was pounding, and the adrenaline surge made my legs shaky. "Way to go, asshole," I thought. She was being nice to me for once, and I was acting like a fucking ass.

  My wife uttered a short nervous bark of laughter, still looking uneasily at me as she stepped back away from me. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you."

  I took a deep breath. "That’s ok. This storm just has me on edge." I opened my arms towards her, fishing for a hug. She stared at me, uncertain for a moment, before embracing me.

  She looked up at me. "You sure you’re ok? Last time you got like this…"

  I nodded. "I’ll be fine."

  I knew what she was thinking, though. Last time I was this wired up, I ended up in the psych ward. Again. I stepped back, and accidentally kicked the phone’s handset, sending it spinning, knocking bits of trash and dust around. The receiver started squawking a fast, insistent "Brat! Brat! Brat!" noise that meant it was off the hook.

  I reached down, still shaking from the adrenaline surge, dusted off the handset, and hung the phone up.

  Trish cocked her head, and looked at me, trying to understand what was going on. "Were you trying to call somebody?"

  I couldn’t tell her I was expecting a phone call, based on intuition, resulting from a bizarre conversation with my dead grandfather and/or missing father in the backyard, which probably didn’t really happen anywhere but inside my head. Besides, Trish didn’t know the history from the episode eleven years ago downstate, and she thought my family was dead—another partial truth/lie I had told in the interest of self/preservation and/or denial. Ahem.

  It would have been nice to talk to her, to tell her the full and complete truth—what little of it I could remember from over a decade ago, and what had happened tonight. However, she would probably call my psychiatrist’s emergency number and leave a message with his service, only to have an urgent, hushed conversation with him when he called back.

  I shrugged, nervous. "The phone rang while you were upstairs. No one there though."

  She nodded, suspicious. "You ok?"

  "You just startled me, that’s all. After thinking I saw someone in our backyard, you know, with all the missing kids and stuff that’s been going on in town...and then the storm, I’m just on edge."

  She stepped forward without hesitation to give me another hug. "I was afraid, well…afraid you might be…well, you might have been having trouble again." She hugged me fiercely.

  I felt lousy. I had just misdirected my wife, and she now thought she understood why I was on edge. I held her, wondering if my conversation in the backyard had been real, or a another bizarre development of my psychiatric problems. I leaned towards the idea that it had actually taken place. I don’t know why. Reason would argue I had lost my fucking marbles.

  It seemed to be in by best interests to keep the conversation in the backyard to myself at that moment—for lots of reasons—along with what little I could remember from that night eleven years ago. I told myself I won’t remember, and it’s going to stay that way. I was not going to go back to the loony bin. No fucking thank you, ma’am.

  She pulled away, staring at me with concern. "You’re sure you’re Ok?

  I sighed. I could tell her what is going on right now, or deepen the lie. I chose option C. "I don’t know." I cringed. That was a chicken-shit choice, but I had no idea what I could say that wouldn’t add to the problems that were roiling below the surface.

  She stepped back, and slipped her hand down to grab mine. "I prefer that answer, actually. It’s better that you can admit you don’t know. That’s real. That’s honest. Come on, it’s time for bed."

  I let her lead me upstairs, but I couldn’t sleep.

  The storm’s fury faded, and settled into a soft rain. Lightning flashes in the distance as the storm receded lit the gloom of the bedroom, and I listened to my wife's soft snores next to me, her head resting in the crook of my arm as I lay on my back, staring at the cobwebbed ceiling.

  I had no idea who Tanner was. I thought about my dead grandfather. Had I really been talking to a ghost? Why wasn’t I terrified? I felt angry, and could feel the resentment growing within me against a man who had died before my parents had even met. There was no fear of him, though. Only the smoldering coals of anger. I understood he was an asshole, and apparently, the trait had followed him into the afterlife. A ghost was plausible enough to suit me. It would certainly allow for the possibility of the visitor transforming into my father as well.

  Who the fuck was Tanner, anyway? I never remembered anyone talking about Tanner. My dead grandfather implied there was business between him and me. I racked my brain, but I could not associate any thoughts between Tanner and anything relevant. I half wondered if he worked in leather, but that a
ssociation was too obvious—and offered no insight into who the fuck Justin was, either. The whole train of thought was pointless, and if I rode that train to the end of the line, I would find the men with butterfly nets waiting patiently for my return.

  I sat up, and tried to untangle myself from Trisha. She shifted grumpily, and rolled over. I sat up the gloom of the bedroom furniture outlined in subtle relief of varying shades of grey. I stood up, and plodded softly towards the master bathroom. Thankfully, I did not stub my toe along the way. I shut the bathroom door softly behind me, and flipped the light switch. The fluorescent light above the vanity stuttered to life, forcing me to squint against the blinding flashes.

  I turned on the cold water, and opened my side of the medicine cabinet. I had to take numerous pills every day. Pills for depression, currently a tri-cyclic called nortriptyline. A mood stabilizer, aripiprazole currently. Pills to sleep. I had accumulated an endless smorgasbord of delectable delights through the years.

  I resigned myself to the idea of being ‘treated’ by psychiatrists for the rest of my life. It’s as though my father decided when I was young that he needed to fuck me up psychologically, and now he could stand back and admire the handiwork. Where ever the fuck he was now, I would never be ‘normal’. All I could do was learn to deal with life on my terms—and for now, that meant ignoring the weird train of thoughts chasing themselves merrily around inside my head.

  I sighed, grabbed the bottle of sleeping pills, trazadone, and opened them. I shook one out, and placed it back in the cupboard with all the other magic pills. I downed it with a glass of water, and shut off the faucet.

  I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering if I was my father’s son and denying that I was anything like him at the same time. He put me through hell, and then disappeared in the wake of that disastrous night when I was eighteen. I was stuck with the aftermath. The endless questions and no answers. What did you do?

  I turned off the light, and crawled back into bed. Sleep was still elusive, and I lay awake for a long time, pretending I wasn’t thinking about my father, strange things in the backyard, and confused memories of a night from a decade ago.

  Trisha hated my father, from what little she knows about him. She thought he was dead. I used to love him. Fuck if I knew why. Maybe love is built into children—a universal program to love their parents no matter what—a need for love, affection, and acceptance in return. That’s too bad, because while all kids love their parents, why don’t all parents love their children in return? Why?

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  One of my earliest memories of my father was from when I was five years old. The memory has filled and fleshed out the gaps quite a bit over time, as I’ve spent quite a bit of time contemplating that day. This day sharpened and defined my life. It was inevitable and terrible. Despite all the thinking I’ve spent on it, all the introspection I’ve gained, in the end, I still can’t find any fucking answers at the bottom. I've filled in the blanks, yet there it sits, no goddamned answers.

  I was playing with a toy truck in front of the TV set while watching cartoons. My father stormed into the house after a day at work, and stood in the doorway, unmoving. My mother had just started making dinner, and called out to him from the kitchen. "How was work today?"

  I could hear the pots and pans banging on the stove as she waited for his usual answer, and I kept playing away for a few seconds. However, when he didn’t answer as he usually did, I stopped pushing the truck around on the carpet, and glanced up at him.

  My dad was still standing at the tiled area at foyer by the front door, just gazing across the living room and dining room into the doorway to the kitchen. He hadn’t sat down at the bench by the front door to take off his boots yet. His lunch pail dangled in his right hand. His left hand gripped a newspaper, and he tapped the rolled up newspaper against his leg in a steady rhythm. He hung his head low, glaring without blinking at the kitchen.

  My neck creaked as I turned to look towards the kitchen. I saw my mother wiping her hand on a dishtowel, and a look of sheer fright flashed across her features. The look disappeared in a flash while she set the dishtowel down.

  She took a deep breath, looked up again, then flashed a bright smile and walked briskly into the living room. "How was your day today?"

  His voice was low, his lips barely moved. "I don’t know. How was yours?"

  She took the newspaper and lunch pail from his hand, and set them down on the bench before she hugged him lightly and pecked his cheek with a kiss. "It was fine. Fairly quiet. Dinner will be ready soon. Tough day? Do you want to relax, watch some TV first?" My mom started to walk back towards the kitchen. I started pushing the truck around again, watching my dad from the corner of my eye.

  He started tapping his hand against his leg. "Did I say it was a tough day?"

  My mom stopped mid-step and turned back to face him. "No…I just…well, never mind." She fluttered her hands absently, and turned to head back towards the kitchen.

  My dad stepped heavily onto the carpet, reaching after her, while still wearing his boots. It was a hard and fast rule in the house; everyone must remove his or her shoes before stepping onto the carpet. It was his rule, the rule was sacrosanct, and it was ruthlessly enforced. "You just what?"

  I sat stock still, afraid to move, and just watching. My mother just laughed and shrugged, flapping her hands theatrically, but it was clearly forced. There was no smile to match the laugh, and the terror was plain in her eyes. "I must be overheated, that’s all. Standing over a boiling pot too long before you got home. I’ll just finish up dinner. It won’t be long."

  She turned away from my father, and I could see her lips starting to quiver, and beads of sweat popping out on her forehead, yet she walked lightly and steadily to the kitchen. Somehow, the memory always reminds me of a tightrope walker, walking without a net.

  My father walked into the kitchen after her, slowly and steadily. After a few moments, he came out of the kitchen with a beer, his hand rubbing his temple. He sat down in his favorite chair, and changed the channel. I looked at him and almost protested the changing of the channels, but he was already staring at me, almost daring me to challenge him, as he took off his boots. I looked back at the kitchen, and my mother was staring at me, clearly frightened, shaking her head no. I looked back at him again, then down at my toy truck. I stood up and shuffled off to the dining room, to play with my truck under the table.

  My mother visibly relaxed, and bustled about the task of finalizing dinner. When it was ready, she seated me with her at the table, but my father unexpectedly refused to join us, instead eating his dinner from his recliner just a few feet away while watching TV and drinking beer.

  My mother was still very tense and on edge. I tried whispering to her, chatting her up, but she was tense and on edge. With uneasy glances, she looked at my father, but then she’d relax slightly, and I’d get carried away with my antics, and my father would tell me to shut the fuck up, and my mother would tense right back up. It was horrific, and terrifying, like being inside a brewing thunderstorm. I had seen it before, my best tactic was avoidance, and usually he would calm down after a while.

  After a few minutes had passed, I was talking quietly to my mom about my train set. Suddenly, I found myself looking at my mom’s feet under the table. He had knocked me off my chair. My left ear was ringing, a high pitch shriek, and felt simultaneously numb and hot. I looked behind me, trying to catch my breath to scream, but there seemed to be an iron band in my stomach and my lungs had never seemed so empty, so burning. I had landed on the table leg, and it had knocked the breath out of me. My mother scooted her chair backwards, but stopped when my father spoke.

  His voice was low, and quiet. "He just doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up, does he?"

  I finally caught my breath in great whooping gasps, and started shrieking as I scrambled towards my mother underneath the table. I felt my father’s hand grab my leg, and I started kicking violently. I conn
ected with something, and he bellowed, "Motherfucker!"

  He snatched the back of my pants, and dragged me out from under the table and stood me in front of him. I was bawling, and lunging desperately towards my mother for comfort. She wouldn't look at us, and was poking at her dinner with a fork. "Didn’t you fucking hear me? Shut the fuck up or I'll give you something to fucking cry about."

  I had never been this scared in my life. I tried to stop sobbing, but I could only manage to reduce my braying to a whimper. He lifted me, and shook me violently. My father had an iron grip on my upper arms, and the pain was searing. I started shrieking and struggling, and his grip tightened further.

  My mother stood violently, sending her chair crashing over backwards and her plate flying. "Stop it right now Goddamnit!"

  I thought she was talking to me. I wasn’t old enough to understand. I tried to stop crying. I tried to ignore the pain in my arms. I tried to be quiet. I tried to endure. My mom kicked the chair out of the way, as she strode towards us. I could see her anger, and I thought she was coming for me. I felt so small, so worthless. I knew complete fear. Between the heat baking off my father, and the deep glare from my mother as she moved towards me, I thought I was in serious danger from both of them.

  Both my parents were furious. Although I was trapped in the middle, I was too young to understand my mother’s anger wasn't directed at me. I only knew that I was in pain, and despite the current circumstances, I understood fear. I understood the potential for serious harm. There was tremendous power here, seething anger. It was inescapable. Regardless of the pain, there was a potential here for serious violence that had not occurred yet. I was helpless, and I had to ride out this storm. I wanted to run and hide. I had never experienced such raw, unadulterated terror before.