The Laughterhouse

by Paul Cleave

  Octavia drops her mug and it rolls across the floor, she reaches out for it but can’t reach and starts to cry. This is what a turtle must feel like, he imagines, when it’s lying on its back. Katy picks it up and hands it to her. Her crying stops.

  “There you go,” Katy says.

  “Cat,” Octavia says.

  Katy rubs Octavia’s arms as she drinks. Caleb washes down the cereal with an orange juice.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” Katy says.

  “Okay,” he says, because he needs it too. She puts Octavia back into the seat then he leads her outside. “Same tree,” he says, and she goes over and disappears behind it. He moves to the car and pisses on the hood.

  In the full morning light the slaughterhouse has lost none of its creepy feel. It should be nothing more than an abandoned building, harmless, just a bunch of walls being climbed over by nature, but it’s not. This is the building where his baby girl died, and inside there are ghosts. There are dark rooms with large meat hooks. There are nightmares. The slaughterhouse is a home to all the misery in the world.

  He stands with the sun on his face. His clothes feel a little damp, but fifteen minutes out here and that won’t be a problem anymore. There are no clouds, just blue skies. A beautiful day that could stay the way it started, or just as easily shower the city with rain. He closes his eyes and there’s a moment, a brief moment, when he asks himself whether he can walk away from all of this. He doesn’t have to go back into the slaughterhouse, doesn’t have to deal with the doctor and the children, and nobody has to die. He can walk away, find a beach somewhere and sit in the autumn sun, soak up the atmosphere, and things can end differently. He can swim. Just pick a direction and go for it. See how far he can get before the tiredness sucks him under. He used to be a pretty good swimmer. There was a time he could go length after length without fatigue, his breathing would stay calm, his arms slicing through the water effortlessly. Before he got married he used to swim three times a week, normally for an hour at a time. It was the only exercise he got. He’d go before work started, when the only people at the pool were keen swimmers like himself. When he got married life got busier, then his daughter arrived, then swimming became one of those things you cut adrift as you get older and responsibilities change.

  Only he can’t do that. His family is dead because of the doctor, because of these other people. He hasn’t finished getting justice for his family.

  He finishes up. So does Katy. Back inside he looks through the bag and opens a tin of tuna. The smell hits him like a bullet and he almost gags, he throws the can through the doorway into another room, it lands on its side and rolls out of sight. If the rats can stomach the smell, then good luck to them. Katy picks Octavia back out of the seat and walks over to Melanie, her arms around Octavia’s chest from behind. It’s like watching a large princess doll carrying a smaller princess doll. She settles down beside her older sister with the baby between them.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks the doctor.

  The doctor mumbles something else from behind the gag that he can’t make out, but the tone suggests it isn’t about being hungry. The tone suggests a whole lot of fuck yous mixed in with a good ol’ fashioned go to hell.

  Octavia is staring at him again while she sucks at her drink, a line of drool hanging from the bottom of it that creeps him out. Katy reaches up and removes the tape from Melanie.

  “I need to use a bathroom,” Melanie says.

  “Okay,” he says, and cuts through the plastic ties. “Don’t stop holding her,” he says to Katy, and nods toward Octavia.

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “And don’t try to free your dad. You’ve got nothing you can free him with, and if you try, I’m going to be mad. If I get mad, then bad things are going to happen, and I’m going to have to punish you, and Melanie, and Octavia. Okay?”

  She nods, her mouth turning down at the edges. “Okay,” she says.

  He takes Melanie outside. She keeps scowling at him. “You don’t have any idea how to look after a baby, do you.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m never wrong.”

  “You are this time. I used to have a daughter.”

  “Where is she? You tie her up too and bring her out here?”

  “No, but somebody else did. And he killed her.”

  “Oh,” she says, and she opens up her mouth to say something else, and he waits for it, knowing she won’t know what to say, and that’s exactly what happens. “Oh,” she says again, then looks down.

  “Toilet’s over there,” he says, and points at the trees. “Don’t try to run away. I’m not going to hurt any of you, I promise,” he says, “as long as you do what I say. You just have to trust me. But, if you try to run away,” he says, then inhales sharply and scrunches up his face, “well, do I need to tell you what will happen?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Good. Now hurry up,” he says.

  He stands next to the building drinking orange juice as she runs into the trees for a few minutes before coming back. Most of the trees are skeletons now, a few of them still clutching on to handfuls of leaves, and the sun coming through them looks cold. The ground is soft from yesterday’s rain, there is a trail of muddy footprints leading back and forth from the car, and a set of handprints too where Stanton fell over. The car has at least a dozen wet leaves stuck to the body, and the windshield and windows are clouded over with moisture.

  “You know the police are looking for us,” Melanie tells him. “The police can track people. They do it all the time.”

  “On TV they do,” he tells her, “but this isn’t TV.”

  “No, not just on TV,” she says. “We had this girl at school and she ran away. The police found her within a day. And there was another girl who-”

  “Melanie,” he says, “I don’t want to hear you talking anymore, okay? And I don’t want to hurt you, I really don’t, but you’re making me feel as though I want to.”

  He leads her back inside. She goes over to her father the same way Katy did earlier and wraps her arms around him. Caleb leans against the wall drinking orange juice staring at them. He remembers his own daughter holding him that way.

  “That’s enough,” he says, and unlike Katy she lets go right away. “Octavia needs her diaper changed.”

  “Yeah? So why don’t you do it?”

  “Because I’m telling you to. Your sister can help.”

  They lay Octavia down on the blanket. Katy starts humming. He doesn’t recognize the tune, but from the sound of it he guesses it’s her own tune, something she’s making up as she goes along. The doctor is crying. It’s pathetic.

  “What’s it like having no control?” he asks, but of course Stanton can’t answer. The girls all look over at him but say nothing.

  “Not much of a man, are you,” Caleb says.

  Stanton looks directly at him. He muffles more of the fuck yous and struggles against the ties, but really, what does he expect to happen?

  “We’re done,” Melanie says.

  Katy stops humming and starts singing. “A, b, c, d, g, f, g. . g, f, g,” she says, over and over.

  He realizes she has a beautiful singing voice, but he’s not in the mood for it. “Stop that,” he says, but she gets louder. “I said stop that.”

  “She can’t,” Melanie says. “When she gets really sad she starts doing that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s sad, weren’t you listening? She didn’t used to do it.”

  “A, b, c, g, c, g. .”

  “Why did she start?”

  “She started when Mom left.”

  “G, f, g,” Katy says.

  “And when was that?” he asks.

  “Why should I tell you?” she asks, handing Katy’s teddy bear to Octavia. Octavia smiles and grabs it tight. Katy stares on, still singing, her sweet voice echoing through the room.

  “Because I asked nicely. If you like, I can ask not so nicely.�
��

  “Six months ago. She’s a bitch.”

  “What?”

  “She’s a bitch. A fucking bitch.”

  “Whoa, slow down,” he says, showing her his palm. “Don’t use that kind of language.”

  “Why not? You use it.”

  “But I’m an adult.”

  She shrugs. “Doesn’t change the fact my mom is a bitch who walked out on us. A fucking bitch. That’s what Dad says when he doesn’t think we can hear him.”

  More sounds from Stanton. More struggling. Maybe he should knock him out again.

  “Sounds tough,” he says to Melanie.

  “Tough? No, what’s tough is you. You’re a tough guy, right? You must be since you’re keeping my dad tied up and walking around with a knife. Bet your mom and dad would be proud.”

  Octavia pulls away and starts tracing her finger back and forth across the floor. He’s thinking he may have to gag Katy. It’s distracting. Gag Katy and knock Stanton out-his to-do list is building up. He points toward the bag and looks at Melanie. “Help yourself,” he says, “and feed your family too. They’re going to need their strength. And no more swearing.”

  “So I can take off Dad’s gag?”

  He nods. Katy is still singing, and there are tears on her face and a long string of snot hanging like a spider web between her nose and her hand. She wipes it over her top as Melanie walks over to her father and slowly pulls the duct tape from his mouth, the front of which has drips of dried blood on it.

  “Don’t you fucking hurt them,” Stanton says, then spits a wad of mucus onto the floor.

  “You swore,” Katy says.

  “Don’t hurt them,” he says, then he looks at his girls. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, changing his tone. Melanie hugs him again.

  It’s obvious he wants to hug her too but can’t. She holds him tight and his next words of assurance toward them is muffled against her shoulder. She steps back, and Katy carries Octavia over so they can hug too, and it’s such a sweet moment in which Caleb imagines different scenarios, all of them involving the knife that is still owed a lot of blood. The good news is that Katy stops singing. Both Melanie and the doctor are trying to look strong, and both of them fall short. Katy is the only one who’s really showing her emotions. Octavia is too young to have any emotion other than I’m happy or I just shit myself.

  “I’m scared,” Katy tells him.

  “It’s okay, honey, it really is,” he says, then coughs for a few seconds. “We’re going to be fine.”

  Caleb says nothing. They can believe what they want-he’ll prove them all wrong soon enough.

  The father looks past his daughters and over at Caleb, then tries to clear his throat again. “Listen, Caleb, I’ve been thinking about why you’ve been doing this, and I, I. .” he says, but his throat blocks back up and he has to clear it again. “I understand why you hate me,” he says, and the look in his eyes says something else, his eyes are saying he’s thought about it, doesn’t understand what’s going on, and wants to kill Caleb. “I really do, and I can’t blame you for that, Caleb, I really can’t,” he says, his words almost running together. “You deserve to hate me, but not my children. You’ve made your point. For the love of God, leave them be.”

  Caleb shakes his head. “No, Doctor, I haven’t made my point. I haven’t even started. And your kids, they are part of this, just like mine were.”

  “No, no they’re not. Listen to me, they’re not responsible for what happened.”

  “You’re responsible,” Caleb tells him. “My children are dead and so is my wife and I’ve spent fifteen years in jail getting the shit kicked out of me every day, and what have you been doing, huh? Buying a nice house, raising your kids, laughing and smiling and making a family and pissing off your wife and. .”

  “It wasn’t my fault what happened,” Stanton says, then can’t carry on as Melanie tips a glass of juice toward him. He gulps it down greedily. For the first time Caleb realizes how much Melanie looks like her father. Katy does too, but not Octavia. At one year old, Octavia doesn’t look like anything other than a generic baby. All babies look the same except when they’re your own.

  “You killed my daughter.”

  “No, no I didn’t,” he says, spluttering on the juice.

  “Yes you did,” Caleb confirms. “You and the others.”

  “I can see how you see it that way, Caleb, I really can, but that’s not how it was.”

  “It’s exactly how it was. I want you to experience what I went through.”

  “What?”

  “The loss and the blame, I want you to live what I lived, and I want you to die how I died.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I think you know,” Caleb says, looking at the pain on Stanton’s face, looking at the awareness dawn on him. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose a child, let alone two of them?”

  Katy moves over to Octavia and starts singing again. Melanie stays with her father, but suddenly she’s not looking as brave as she’s trying to be. Stanton is doing an even worse job now of trying to look strong. Octavia is drawing a circle on the dirt floor with her finger, looking confused as to why the circle keeps disappearing.

  “I. . I don’t understand,” Stanton says.

  “I think you do,” Caleb says. “See, I lost two children, and if you were to lose two children at least you’d still have a spare.”

  Stanton starts shaking his head. “No, no, you can’t. You can’t. Please, don’t hurt them.”

  “You hurt me.”

  “I’m-I’m sorry,” he says, his voice dry again. “I’m truly sorry.”

  “What does he mean?” Melanie asks.

  “He doesn’t mean anything,” Stanton answers, then, in a lower voice even though all his children can hear him, he says, “Caleb, you can’t do this.”

  “You have a debt to pay, Doctor.”

  “There’s no debt!” he shouts, spittle flying from his swollen lips.

  “You say you’re sorry, but that’s only because you’re here where my daughter died, and because you’re desperate. Were you sorry fifteen years ago? Were you sorry for taking our lives away? No, you weren’t, because if you were you would have come and seen me, you would have come to tell me how bad you felt.”

  “Is this what you want? To be just like Whitby? Is that what your wife and children would want?”

  “What they want is to be alive again.”

  “You’re dishonoring them.”

  “No, I’ve honored them. I’ve kept them alive in here,” he says, touching his head, “and in here,” he says, touching his heart. “I’m the only one who has. The rest of the world has moved on. You moved on. You’re still a doctor, you still treat people. If there was any guilt inside of you, you would have become somebody different, you’d have given up your job fifteen years ago when you saw what you had done. Instead you feel nothing, except now, because right now you feel remorse because I’m here to punish you. This is the moment in your life, Stanton, where being a bad person catches up with you. It’s the moment where you have to be accountable.”

  “You’re wrong. I think about what happened to your family all the time. I use it to make people better. Please-”

  “Melanie, go and sit over there with your sisters,” Caleb says.

  “No. I’m not leaving my dad.”

  “It’s okay, Munchkin,” Stanton says, and his nickname for his daughter makes Caleb’s heart jump. On occasion he’d called his daughter the same thing. Munchkin. Pumpkin. Princess. Sometimes it’d be Princess Munchkin or Princess Pumpkin.

  Melanie is starting to cry.

  “Do what he says,” Stanton begs. “All three of you, go to the other side of the room.”

  They do as he asks, Katy and Melanie carrying Octavia between them. Caleb moves in close, he crouches in front of the doctor. He lowers his voice. “It will be different for you, I promise,” he says.

  “Please, please, don’t
hurt my kids,” Stanton says, matching the volume of Caleb’s voice. “They haven’t done anything to you. I’ll do anything, anything, don’t hurt them.”

  “What are their nicknames?” Caleb asks.

  “What? Why?”

  Why? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t need to know either, or at least he shouldn’t. But right now it’s important to him. “Tell me,” he says.

  “Munchkin and Kitten,” he says. “Munchkin Mel and Katy Kitten.”

  “And Octavia?”

  “Huh?”

  “Octavia.”

  Stanton shakes his head. “She doesn’t have one.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t hurt them,” Stanton says.

  Caleb shakes his head. Fuck it. It’s time to move on. What does he care who is named what? “It’s too late for that.”

  “No, no it’s not. There’s no reason why it’s too late. You haven’t hurt them yet, you don’t have to, you can do what you want with me, but you don’t have to hurt them. Please, I’m begging you.”

  “Begging. My daughter begged for her life,” he says, knowing she would have. She would have begged and cried and called out for him and his wife. “We also used to call her Munchkin,” he says, and Stanton winces and Caleb knows why-suddenly it’s all become a lot more human to him. Suddenly Stanton’s imagining what it would be like to lose his own daughter. Well, he isn’t going to have to imagine for long. “I’m going to let you decide which one of your kids dies first,” Caleb says. “I never had that choice.” The sun is coming into the office, highlighting a beam of dust in the air. He knows the girls can’t hear him, because if they could they would be doing more than just crying, they’d be bawling their eyes out and screaming. “You’re going to be with them when they die,” Caleb says, carrying on. “My daughter was all alone out here with the man that killed her,” he says, and he’s seen it play out in his mind a thousand times a day since it happened. It’s always there on repeat, an image he can’t shake, an image that has defined him. “He stabbed her and raped her in the middle of winter. It was thirty fucking degrees out here and that didn’t slow him down. Stabbed her over and over in her chest and her stomach. Before that he stripped her naked and pressed her tiny body against concrete as cold as ice, and during that time you were sitting in your warm office drinking coffee and offering bullshit advice while having no fucking idea at all about how people tick.”