Down Under

by Sonia Taitz

  Neil Whitsun was not going to be lied to by the anti-Christs, Satanists in the garb of the Holy Roman Empire.

  “In this house, there will be no changes made to the doctrines of Peter and Paul, and no forgiveness for the sins of the blood! Fancy calling me the prejudiced one, when it’s you and yours who continue to deny, and to twist and to corrupt!”

  “I’m not trying to offend you or stop you or do anything, really, to you,” Judy said, her voice wavering under his blue-laser glare. “I like your painting—and, and—your song was really kind of interesting—”

  “Well, there’s a start. You ‘like’ this and you ‘like’ that. What a great relief that will be to the Heavenly Hosts!!”

  Well, I hope they’re better hosts than you’re turning out to be, thought Judy.

  “Do you also like him?” he said, pointing to the bleeding crucifix hanging on the wall. “The Man behind the image? The Man behind it all?”

  Judy sincerely hoped that this corpse-dummy, hanging in the madman’s kitchen, carved and shellacked in garish crimson by Neil Whitsun, was not the actual man behind it all. She wasn’t even sure she was comfortable with what “it all” implied. Her death? Her eternal banishment to hell?

  “It’s a very powerful portrayal,” she hedged.

  Of your insanity, she added to herself.

  “What’s that?”

  Could he hear her very thoughts? She might have been whispering.

  “A powerful portrayal of . . . humanity,” she amended. If she really tried, she could see, in this form, the miserable deaths of so many victims of prejudice and hatred, the kind she was hearing right in that kitchen.

  “Oh, He is powerful, He is. More than a portrayal, I must inform you, however. Can you feel it pulsing with the Holy Spirit?”

  “Oh, yes!” In fact, Judy could see a vein pulsing in Neil Whitsun’s forehead, under a lock of sweaty, gray hair.

  “And you say you also liked my song?”

  “Of course! You know I did!” Because, she thought, it showed me what my precious Collum has to deal with, and makes me love him more than ever.

  “Well, now, maybe there’s a chance for you, then,” said Mr. Whitsun, seemingly relenting at last. He smiled broadly, as though he had decided to take the road of forgiveness. His tone, when he spoke again, was jovial.

  “Betty! Go downstairs and get a few brochures. I’ve written most of them myself. You might want to have a look.”

  “Dad,” said Collum, “Judy seems to have her own beliefs, as you’ve pointed out so well.”

  “But you see, son, that is the problem,” said his father, still reasonable. “People with their own beliefs. And everyone thinking one is as good as the other.”

  His wife left the kitchen and headed to the staircase, which led to the basement. With a house as dark as the Whitsun’s, Judy could not begin to imagine how desolate that basement might be.

  “But as for you,” said Neil, when his wife had gone. He wavered on his feet as he headed for Collum. “As for you!”

  Uh oh, thought Judy. Here comes Mr. Crazy again.

  Collum got up, kicking his kitchen chair behind him so hard that it fell over. He was much shorter than his father at the time, but he tried to look Neil Whitsun right in the eye. He had recently decided that if his father ever tried to lift a hand to him again, he would try to defend himself. He was ready now.

  “What about me? I can pick whichever friend I want!”

  “You can decide everything, huh?”

  “Yes, that—that might actually be right.”

  “You’re totally free, is that it?

  “Free of you, someday, I hope,” Collum said daringly.

  Neil let that pass. The smile of forgiveness came back onto his face. It was such a warm and sincere smile that it was nothing if not frightening.

  “And what did you think of my song, my Big Strong Man?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “It’s why I asked you, isn’t it?” Neil’s smile wavered minutely, and his voice betrayed a molecule of worry.

  “I hate your sick, crazy music, Dad, and I think your art is really grotesque.”

  Saying this, Collum winced and braced himself for blows, but his father simply closed his eyes slowly.

  His wife had entered the room, arms laden with brochures.

  “Help me to the bed, Betty,” he said. “A little lie-down’s what I need. I’m tired now.”

  “He doesn’t mean it,” said Betty to her husband. Laying down her papers, she took his arm and began to lead him out. Suddenly, Neil Whitsun stopped at the doorway.

  “No! I promised her some of my pamphlets, and so some of my pamphlets she shall have!”

  “Yes, I’ve brought the pamphlets!”

  “Not all of them! Not the right ones! Not the newest ones! Only I know where they are!”

  Dropping his wife’s arm, he seemed to gain energy as he went to the staircase, descended into the depths of his private sanctuary, and returned with an armful of literature.

  “Take these!” he commanded. “And now,” said Neil Whitson to his wife. “You can escort me upstairs.”

  After a moment, Neil and Betty Whitsun were gone.

  Judy looked at her boy. She loved him more than ever. She stuffed a mass of pamphlets into her shoulder bag, then took his hand in hers. As Collum’s parents made their way up the stairs, Judy and Collum walked outside together, into the clear, fresh air of a spring afternoon. The sun seemed more shiny than it had ever been before.

  Neil Whitsun had only drawn them closer.

  Conspiracy Theory

  Later that evening, however, Neil Whitsun made his son read his new pamphlet.

  “It is my masterpiece,” he said. “It says it all.”

  Secrets THEY Don’t WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!!!!

  Did YOU know?

  THE HOLOCAUST HOAX WAS A PLOT TO MAKE MILLIONS AND THEN STEAL THE HOLY LAND!

  WAKE UP!

  JEWS are trying to take over the world!

  They conceal themselves cleverly . . .

  But smart people can tell because JEWS have a special smell!!

  MAY THIS NEWS BRING JOY

  To those PEACEFUL HEARTS

  JOINED IN LOVE

  IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST!!

  Collum skimmed the pamphlet. Its words bore into him, hurting him, and he tried to return them to his father.

  “No. Take it. It is yours to keep,” said Neil, with a gesture of benevolence. His subscribers (there were about a hundred) had to pay fifteen cents a copy, to cover costs. His son was different. He was his blood and his life. But there would be conditions.

  “I will be testing you on this material over the course of the year,” he said. “Should you learn all my precepts, you will not be beaten. Should you fail, consider yourself the rebellious son who must be chastened. It is my duty as a father, and my right. I pray you’ll understand that love and punishment go hand in hand.”

  Spilling Heidi’s Beans

  Although school is out for the summer, Delaney still keeps in touch with her teacher Ms. Ewington.

  “I can’t help but write to you,” one of her emails says. “I just think you are the best teacher I ever had, and really I wanted you to know it. Because how would you know if I didn’t tell you?”

  That is sweet. Hardly anyone ever tells her she is great anymore.

  “I think you’re pretty great, too,” Jude replies.

  This is encouragement enough for Delaney. In her next email, she attaches a new story:

  TO HELL WITH MAMA SPICEHANDLER

  Mama Spicehandler always has a bag of spices. She carries them in a big stinking sack on her back. She is a hag and a crone, but no one knows that because she knows how to hide it.

  Every day she puts on a mask so no one knows what a horrible and ugly bitch she is. But her daughter Deena knows everything.

  This is what goes into Mama’s foods:

  MARIJUANA and MAGIC MUSHROOM
S, depending on seasonal availability!!

  She gives the food out to everyone, men, women, children, and especially horses! Mama Spicehandler should be given the death penalty, but she thinks she is too sneaky to be caught.

  But her daughter Deena knows all about it.

  She tells the police. They don’t believe her.

  She tells the contract killers. They ask for too much money.

  She tells her favorite teacher.

  The only person she can trust.

  Maybe the teacher will do something! Anything!

  Upon reading this story, Jude begins to worry about Davey. Surely there is no cannabis in the horse food, much less hallucinogenic fungi—and surely, Davey would not be ingesting that food, either way. Nevertheless, she finds herself calling Heidi. After all, Delaney has begged her teacher to “do something! Anything!” Jude feels mandated, which was something of a thrill in itself.

  “I know this sounds wild, but are you using, uh, pot in the Pops, Heidi?”

  “Excuse me? Jude, honey, what the heck are you talking about?”

  “This is not a conversation for the phone, so I’d better come over,” Jude replies, adding cryptically, “this time I might have to clean your kitchen, if you know what I mean.”

  “I really don’t,” says Heidi.

  Driving over in her dusty maroon van, Jude thinks about what she’ll say to Heidi. She is not going to tell her how persistently her daughter wants to kill her. That is obvious hyperbole. But Jude feels that Delaney’s characterizations bear a grain of valuable truth. Heidi is a bit witchy, Davey is a little “weird” (but so are all the best people), and there is a good chance that those Ponipops are laced with something stronger than vanilla bean or nutmeg.

  Whenever she picks Davey up from the ranch, he seems so loose and floppy. Equine therapy alone could not do that, could it? Work instant miracles? Shake out all the kinks? And sometimes, now that she thinks of it, his eyes do seem a bit red. Heidi’s food simply changes your inner temperature; it dilates vessels and opens up pores. Jude herself has indulged in her pal’s “tonics,” and no amount of slushy ice can conceal that they are zombie-makers. Maybe the aphrodisiacs that she has given to Slam have been baked with absinthe, hence his sudden passing out (and vivid dreams). If Heidi is a dealer in potent herbals, she needs to know that her daughter is now aware of it.

  “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Heidi, opening the door to her marble foyer. “As you can see, everything is perfectly pristine, as always.”

  “When I said I’d clean your kitchen, it was a metaphor,” says Jude.

  “Well, metaphor or not, the idea of your organizing my life—any part of it—is ridiculous. And your tone! You sounded so upset when you called; you sounded crazy. Are you having hubby troubles again?”

  Jude ignores these comments. She races passed Heidi to the industrial kitchen, sniffing audibly.

  “You may have gotten rid of the evidence for the moment,” she says knowingly, “but I heard from a very good source that you doctor everything you make.”

  “A good source?” Heidi scoffs. “What good source? I’ve let you into my kitchen countless times! Would I have done that if I had anything to hide?”

  “Well, yes!” says Jude, victoriously. “It’s called ‘hiding in plain sight.’ Your daughter does it. You may think you have the perfect child, but—all right, I’ll just tell you—Delaney’s the one who ratted you out to me!”

  Heidi finds this sentence to be so stuffed with input that at first, she can’t reply. Then she screeches:

  “Hiding? My daughter? ‘Ratted me out’?”

  “Mmm hmmm,” says Jude, with joyous calm. “Sounds like you got the full picture, or should I say, the whole recipe.”

  “I ‘got’ nothing!” says Heidi, her voice still strident. “I ‘got’ that you’re as strange as your son! Maybe you’re the one who put stuff in my food!”

  Jude withstands this insult. She replies: “So you’re admitting there’s ‘stuff’ in your food?”

  “Nothing but the finest and freshest ingredients, grown from organic earth that has been lavished with duck dung, as you well know, and I am not going to dignify your accusations with any defense!”

  “You just did,” says Jude, trying to maintain her suaveness. Heidi’s implacable perfection always rattles her. She is starting to wonder if Delaney’s claims themselves are not a bit poisoned by adolescent bile.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, suddenly confused. “I just—Delaney wrote this story where she said you were lacing everything with hash and grass and whatnot—”

  “And you believed her? Don’t you know my child is a creative young lady? Isn’t your class actually called ‘creative writing’?”

  “Yes it is, but—oh, my God,” says Jude. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “That’s all right,” says Heidi, benevolently. “What you need is a bit of my chamomile pudding. It’s good for the nerves.”

  She serves out a super-sized portion in a Pyrex mixing bowl.

  “Industrial, but it works.”

  “Thanks,” Jude breathes, her head inside the bowl. “It’s just what I need.”

  After that, Heidi has an alarm system installed in her kitchen. She also has a word with her daughter.

  “Never, never, never again are you to go into my sanctum sanctorum without express permission.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Stay out of my workspace. My kitchen is my temple. You are not to touch my spices, or my roots, or my powders. Nothing.”

  “Do you think I ever did?”

  “Yes, in fact I do think that. For one thing, food has been disappearing for years.”

  “Well, I do live here! I have to eat!”

  “I’m not talking about your meals, sweet one. Every month a quarter pound of demerara sugar goes missing. And I can never fathom where all the kirsch goes. And some of the Ponipops did come out a little darker and chewier than the others, come to think of it.”

  “Maybe it’s Daddy!” screams Delaney, flushing bright red. “He’s here more than me! Maybe it’s you! You can’t prove anything! Just try!”

  There is the admission. Heidi sighes.

  “I don’t have the patience. From now on, this kitchen is locked to you unless I open it. Alarmed.”

  “Fine!” says Delaney. “Who cares about your stupid little business venture! You’re just a dabbler. You never do anything but make things look nice and fancy. You don’t fool me. And your food stinks, anyway. Give me a burger any day. Seriously.”

  “I have just the remedy for your insolence. I’ll get it from my root cellar. Don’t you dare move, young lady.”

  Delaney disobediently moves; she goes from standing to sitting. She is not going to stay on her feet for five or more minutes while her mother scrabbles around downstairs.

  When Heidi reappears, she holds before her a large horseradish root. These bitter herbs look phallic, thinks Delaney. She stands up from her chair and begins to run away.

  “Stay put!” says her mother, grabbing her by the shoulder. “You need to learn that life is not all demerara sugar. You need to develop your palate. There is sweet, and there is sour, and there is salty. And there is bitter. It’s an acquired taste, and all us grownups know it. This is bitter.”

  She puts the root in her daughter’s face.

  “Bite off a piece! Go on!”

  Nibbling the tip, Delaney obeys.

  “Now swallow it. That’s just part one,” says Heidi, as her daughter’s nose and eyes begin to run, “of your learning experience.”

  More Learning Experiences

  While Collum’s father was no easy man, Judy’s dad was no ant-free picnic either. Aaron Pincus, CPA, was a deep thinker who willingly—even eagerly—gave consideration to every aspect of every idea. If you asked him an ostensibly simple question, such as “What year did Columbus discover America?” you might get more philosophy than you wanted
or needed.

  Possible reactions to the question:

  —What, really, is America? A concept? An ideal? The founding fathers had trouble with that, and oh, did they debate it. And yet at the time, they had slaves, and women did not vote. And don’t even mention those unfortunate Indians, who were not from India, by the way.

  —And do you mean the North America or the South America?

  —Why do you choose the world “discovered”? The land mass wasn’t there before? You couldn’t see it? It’s a question of perspective. When I meet a new person, I “discover” them? What ego! Like a two-year-old, who thinks that when he closes his eyes, the entire world disappears.

  —Who was this Columbus? Was that even his real name? I don’t know. Colombo? Colon? Cristoforo? Maybe I might suggest the Hebrew “Chaim”? (Aaron Pincus had heard that Columbus may have been a Marrano, or hidden Jew, hiding from the Spanish Inquisition. And what better way to hide than to travel afar to new lands that had no Judeo-Christian complexes?)

  —And what is truly meant by “year”? Yes, the world turns around the sun in a year, but who says it all started 1492 years ago? Who says it is currently 1969? Who created this peculiar calendar, and which date did they date it from? (To Aaron Pincus, 1492 was not a real date. It was simply an artificial Roman construct, dating all time until and from the purported birth of Jesus Christ—and this was ironic, he’d add, given that the Romans were the very people who crucified people at the time. Lots of Jews, not just Jesus, that poor Jew—like so many others of his faith, before and since—were nailed to that cross.)

  So when Judy needed help with her homework in school, she very rarely asked her father for it. It wasn’t worth it. Each word released a testament. Still, there was no hiding from him. Although Mr. Pincus no longer practiced the Orthodox Judaism of his childhood, he brought these studies to bear on all of daily life. Nothing was simple, and without many “aspects.” Everything in his world could be, and was, woven into his intense religious and sociocultural cords of understanding.

  If Judy wore a violet-colored shirt to school, her father would say, “Beautiful! Purple was one of the colors in the Holy Temple. The dye was based on a plant source, purely natural. A gift from God.”