Dregs of Society

by Laimo, Michael

  "No," I said, feebly, knowing very well that I was only prolonging their game by not cooperating.

  A demon suddenly appeared from just behind Fenal, groveling towards me on its knees, a great tormentive grin pulling its lips wide. In one dirty, twisted claw it held my daughter's teddy bear, one button-eye dangling from withered threads.

  They had violated my asylum, the place where I find my only peace of mind. The place of my purest and most precious possession, the only place still sacred in my life. My daughter's room.

  The demon dug its claws into the teddy bear and shredded it with one swift motion. Soft white stuffing fell out, so alien here in this dirty filthy place.

  "Maltor," it said.

  I had no choice, their threat was clear. Kill Len, or they would kill my daughter.

  I finally set my eyes upon Len. He was crying, tears pouring down his face, through the blood, the dirt, the pain.

  I closed my eyes, raised the club over my head and swung.

  With barely the strength to stagger up the stairs, I looked up, pondering the grisly sight: my precious beauty torn from limb to limb, her innocence splattered on the walls of her so-called sanctuary.

  My heart tottered as I took each step, my muscles screaming in pain. I reached top, turned and entered her room. My nerves flared the moment I saw her.

  Turning in bed, she faced me, rubbing her eyes, her golden locks partially covering her face.

  "Hi Daddy." Her voice, sweet, tender, so innocent.

  I smiled, sat next to her on the soft mattress.

  She sat up. Her hair fell away from her face, revealing a smear of blood on her forehead.

  Shivering, I held her close and cried, knowing I must come up with a solution, some way I could leave without further injury or harassment. My body and mind cannot go on any longer, can no longer endure any further anguish. I must find a way, must spare my family from the possibility of encountering the people with the golden eyes.

  But is that realistic? I've made a few vain attempts to leave in the past and have gained only injuries and affliction for my efforts. And now, with the breed healthy, strong...

  It is not whether they will harm my family; it is a matter of when. Possibility has become probability.

  Leaving is not the answer. In this playground of good and evil, my only solution is to fight back.

  My only hope.

  The sun has finally risen, a new day has begun. And I as I hug my daughter, run my fingers through her hair, I watch from the window, watch the woods, and wait.

  Anxiety

  Anxiety exists in everyone. It is a learned talent, like the ability to tap into one's own psyche and draw out an extra-sensory perception proficiency. We thrive on it, allow it to command the very essence of our lives. Succumb to its dark temptations, to the quality of life considered flawed and insufficient. Cognitive Behavioral Analysis, anti-depressants—ways to mask the pain. Still, beneath these shrouds of dependency, anxiety lies blossoming, waiting for the veil to be lifted so that it may once again attack the mind with more determination than ever before.

  For some, it's a license for suicide.

  For others, euphoria.

  Cognitive Behavioral Analysis had proved to be no true practical methodology for Shane Whitcomb's recovery other than offering him the ability to matter-of-factly discuss why he dreaded the world he lived in. His therapy sessions had gone much deeper than that, examining every grain of fear gimmicking with his nerves and mind. In this age of medical dependency where individuals looked high and far for a magic pill to cure all their physical woes, Shane Whitcomb joined the ranks of those spiritless teeterers woefully lining up at the psychologist's office in desperate search for normalcy. A stroke of poor fortune it was that Richard Allis had been the doctor he found.

  They had their first session three months ago.

  "Good afternoon...I'm Doctor Allis." He did not offer his hand to Shane.

  "Hello. Shane Whitcomb."

  "What do you do for a living, Shane?"

  "I work in Manhattan. Used to, actually. In the Garment Center."

  "Sales?"

  "Piece goods. I took a temporary leave because of this...this thing."

  Allis poured himself a glass of water from a Poland Spring bottle. He looked like the type that drank a lot of liquids, ate fruits and vegetables, exercised. Not a worry in the world other than to keep fit and decide when to fuck his trophy wife. He offered some water to Shane.

  "Nothing for me. Thanks."

  Allis tasted it as if it were fine wine, seemingly committed to find flavor in its sterility. "You sure? It's cold and good."

  "I'm fine." Dumb, Shane thought. The water would have felt nice on his coated tongue. He yawned in effort to catch a deep breath; he prayed he didn't start hyperventilating.

  Allis studied his water for a moment, and Shane used this time to observe the man: perhaps twenty years older than his thirty-two. An odd choice for fashion: new boat shoes, khakis, short sleeve button down shirt with vertical stripes. Over it, a tattered sports jacket—its best days long past—draped loosely upon his angular shoulders like a damp bath towel on a door-hook. His face was drawn-out and prosaic, the eyes muddy brown with milky ringlets edging the perimeters, a hint for the need of cataract surgery. Heavy glasses pressed juicy red spots into the skin on the bridge of his prominent nose. Mouth thin, wet from the water. Hair, gray and thinning.

  He reminded Shane of a college professor. The office added to that. Three walls lined with texts that could very well have been the same book. And just how did Allis derive his worldly pleasures? Via woman? Man? Child? God? Savvy thoughts, indeed; typical for a man in Shane's sensitized condition.

  "I'd like to take some notes. Is that okay?"

  "You're the doctor."

  Allis nodded. "You should be seeing a psychiatrist."

  "Why?"

  "First impression tells me you're in need of medication."

  Shane hadn't considered this.

  Allis droned on. "It's unprofessional of me to make such an assumption. But I see it in your eyes. They're hungry. In need of something influential to quell the turbulent waters."

  Odd statement. Was this the doctor's way of trying to appear clever? Shane tried his luck at a grin, but Allis' face remained stoic in his effort to impress.

  "You look familiar. You say we've never met?"

  "I don't think I said that." Shane began to wonder about Doctor Allis. "I did say that I was never here before. That doesn't mean we've never crossed paths at one time." More silence, the doctor staring, Medusa-like. Perhaps he was on drugs? Shane added, "I thought you were going to take notes."

  The psychologist grunted, reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cigar. He bit off the end and lit it with a Zippo. Not a common maneuver. Doctors didn't smoke in front of patients, did they? Then again Allis appeared to not consider himself a legitimate doctor. Real doctors prescribed medicine for the sickly, not words of encouragement for the needy, so he implied.

  He blew out a stream of blue smoke. "I asked if I could. Doesn't mean I will."

  Interesting. "Fair. Ball's in your court."

  Allis broke his stone face. "Shane, let's talk in generalities for a moment. Mental health. Do you really believe there's anything corporeal in it that will make you feel better?" His voice rang slightly bitter, perhaps even contemptuous.

  "Corporeal?"

  "Real. Tangible."

  "I was hoping so."

  "Hmph. I could nurture you with a little Freud, sprinkle it with a dash of Jung and wash it down with a half glass full—or should I say empty—of Weekes. Regardless of the research, you must realize that there's never any true assessment to the complications we suffer in our minds. We therefore choose to rely on choice words to provide us with the will and desire to carry on. But understand this: it's all a sugar-coating. Beneath the rosy layer lies a monster. The devil. To the extreme."

  "The devil?"

  "Our menta
l health. It's the devil in disguise. I'm sure you'll soon agree."

  "I never really—"

  "It's a dog with a happy tongue and waggly tail that'll bite your fucking hand off when you go to pet it."

  Shane could only nod in forced agreement. The analogy was harsh, way over his head.

  "And when it crumbles, we seek out a prescribed methodology that unbeknownst to us maims us even further. You see, we should be more terrified of our inner mind than of the anxieties forcing us to seek its counsel!"

  "Why?" Strangely, Shane was intrigued by the doctor's reckless technique; was this the start of some radical form of therapy?

  "Because no one walking this earth is perfectly sane. Deep inside the human mind exists the unbridled potential to snap under pressure. Although we may never reach this grand level, a tiny part of it leaks out in all of us, allowing us a small taste of what it would be like to completely lose your sanity. Hence, anxiety. A sampling of madness. When we seek comfort in the remedies of mental health, we rely solely on the deception of linguistics to soothe our instability, when in fact it still exists flourishing infinitely beneath the weak layer of persuasion we place there."

  "The devil in disguise?"

  "Exactly!"

  "So...is that what we're doing now? Sugar coating the rotten parts?"

  Allis smiled, eyes suddenly on fire. "Sure, Shane. We are. Walking hand in hand with the devil. Nurturing it. Hoping it leads us in the right direction."

  Interesting. "And which way is that?"

  "Toward the things that terrify us, the things we don't understand. To assist us in confronting our fears. Strolling through the dark instead of waiting for the lights to come on."

  Shane thought about it. Mental health, cognitive behavioral training: soothing the irreversible acids of insanity so that we may possess the capabilities to face the things that fully terrify us. He was beginning to grasp Allis' roundabout approach. Anxiety is the fear of fear, mental health a loose companion of fear itself.

  "So, you discuss your intimacies," added Allis. "And provide a blanket of comfort. Unless..."

  "Unless what?"

  "Unless we eliminate the anxiety."

  "How do we do that?"

  Allis took a puff from his cigar. The ashes on the end were an inch long.

  "We choose to face the devil itself, and kill it."

  There is nothing in this world that can compare to anxiety. If it were possible, in a voyeuristic fashion, to read any one individual's mind at any chosen time, their thoughts would flaunt the issue with great profundity. Certainly other more tangible reflections would creep into perspective, such as the current presidential election, the victor in last night's ballgame, the rising prices of gasoline, or simple cogitations initiated by the incessant exchange of pleasantries. But peel away these illusions, and rearing its dreadful head like a disease of the heart, is anxiety. And yet, while the cosmos press on and the nature of all that is universally divine goes fully ignored, human beings unceasingly deliberate over their immaterial pessimisms and tribulations. It happens everywhere: on the job, in the bathroom, while sleeping, while making love. A rite with no true passage repeated like the unavoidable finger picking away at a festering mosquito bite. Our fears. We go back to them time and time again until we no longer maintain any tolerance for them. That's when a life powered through the bitter course of anxiety takes hold.

  And that's when we explode.

  The next few days for Shane Whitcomb were customary. And then again, they weren't. Casually he went about his newfound business, taking off another week of work, spending a good deal of time cowering under the blankets and suffering true fear with no real threat: uncontrollable heart palpitations, tightness in the chest, tingling in his hands, nausea. Like the sun rising, the physical symptoms were there, tormenting.

  On the internet he conducted some informal research on Allis. Graduated Harvard Medical, 1978. Full Honors. A pioneer in his field, garnering accolades in his research on Behavioral Psychology.

  He found out nothing else, nothing about the man that was Dr Richard Allis, Ph.D. That terrified Shane. Yet, it intrigued him; he wanted to understand him. For the first time in months, Shane Whitcomb felt the first twinges of desire.

  There are two types of fear: first fear, the subconscious response of the mind upon thinking the body is in danger—that something terrifying and threatening is happening. It forces the individual to take to flight as its only means for survival. Second fear is the shocking notion that such utter discomfort can arise for no observable reason at all.

  That opens many, many doorways. Finding the right one is the arduous part.

  "Hello there," said Shane.

  Allis turned around. His eyes were black, pupils dilated. He'd been thumbing through the psychology section with no purposeful intention, it seemed. Why he was here, Shane could not guess. Didn't he have other clients? Or was this a lunch break?

  "I'm sorry if I frightened you."

  He looked different, preoccupied. "I was wondering."

  "About?"

  "About why none of these 'brilliant' men and women have discovered what I have." He swept his arms towards the bookshelf. They began a lengthy conversation. Shane didn't know why he approached Allis in the bookstore; it'd been strange enough to keep his company during therapy. And truthfully, Allis was intimidating. His ceaseless talk of the devil had reached a grand level of complication—a simple analogy blown way out of proportion. Yet still, when Shane sighted him, he wanted more, a taste of the man outside the insipid walls of his office. To find out whether his affinities held any ground beyond the stale, theoretical environment of his chamber.

  Thankfully there were no analogies this day, but he did discover more about the man that was Doctor Richard Allis. He looked up to no one, and followed no leaders—political or religious. He appeared unable to discuss or contemplate any subject without pessimism. The extent of his grin went no further beyond a flat unreadable display of pitiless humor, present only when discussing the sad throes of weak-minded individuals fruitlessly tracking their faltering sanities. To Allis, Shane discovered, all that mattered was anxiety, and the joys of exploiting the fear in it.

  Shane found it stimulating. He developed an appreciation for the renegade attitude with which Allis dismantled the universal practices exercised in sweetening the ailments of the nervously ill. It had been quite troublesome at first to have him slam Shane's initial perceptions on how to cure his anxiety—Cognitive Behavioral Analysis was a great waste of time. But after five weeks of sessions, the injurious decry of Allis' convictions began to titillate. He had effectively eaten through Shane's sugar-coating to disclose an unsettled state of mental health. Yes, it scared Shane. But it also excited him. His fear was suddenly free. According to Allis, he could use it any way he chose.

  "There is so much more to fear than just fear itself," Allis tenderly emphasized. "You are beyond anxiety and now have fear to guide the way. Do you feel your heart beating faster? Do you feel the adrenaline sucking the life from your endorphins?"

  Shane nodded.

  "Do you feel the utter unsteadiness of discharging serotonin?"

  Shane nodded.

  Damn, he did.

  Everyone fears. Of thunderstorms, of snakes, of heights, of the dentist, of the future, of failing, of dying. Fear is an internal alarm, a system to alert us of harm's way so we can take self protection. But some people have powerful fears and anxiety of things or situations that are not immediately dangerous and which take possession of the person's body, mind, feelings and actions.

  For most, it is terrifying.

  To others, an electrifying exploration into uncharted lands.

  Nearly three months into therapy, Shane entered Allis' office and found an attractive woman in her thirties seated on the black leather couch. Anne Devot was another one of Allis' chosen clients, Shane would later discover. Allis initiated an anxiety/fear/mental health discussion in which the three of them l
istened, argued, and reveled in its fascinating implications. The session continued on for hours with the three of them present. Things grew intense. Shane never knew how long Anne was seeing Allis before their assembly, but it seemed she wanted out by the close of their second group go-around.

  "I'm tired of being afraid. This therapy has its intents, but I don't necessarily find answers in its purposes. Isn't there any validity in subjective banishment?"

  Shane found pleasure in Anne's sharp appeal for a more affirmative prescription to her anxieties. Presumably she'd thought about it for a while, but never found the opportunity—or guts, really—to ask Allis. Shane thought, not only is she masturbation-applicable, but she's smart too. Too bad he didn't have the balls to put a move on her.

  "The only truth lies in the faculty of our anxieties," Allis replied. "Smell it, taste it, feel it. The bittersweet knot in your gut that calls your name and begs you to flee the moment wherever you are." Remarkably influential guy, Allis was, twisting Anne's thoughts back into his own predisposed arena. Pointing out the fallacy in her impulsive notion. He was good.

  "It's not helping me."

  "Is there no pleasure in your pain?"

  "There's only fear and panic and anxiety. And nothing else."

  Allis' eyes narrowed. He hesitated, staring at Anne, then said, "You're not telling me everything. You're hiding something."

  She stayed still, pointing her gaze to the floor. When she raised it, the slightest sheen of tears coated her brown eyes.

  "I'm right?"

  She nodded.

  "Tell me."

  Shane felt uncomfortable. He bit his bottom lip, eyes going back and forth between Allis and Anne Devot.

  "You tell me," Anne stipulated.

  Allis' face contorted with scorn, as if hit with a blow. "My anxieties are intimate to me!" he shouted. "Nothing you could ever understand! I could very well tell you the things my brain symbolizes as panic, but they're mere words, simple comparisons to the real terrors at the crux of my identity."

  The room fell in silence. Shane wanted to talk of his fears, but held back. The session ended with not a single confession.