Methods of Madness

by Ray Garton

  “But Mom, I wanted to see it with you!”

  “Lower your voice!” she hissed, glanced around to see if anyone had heard. “Now that’s it, okay? There’s a lot of sex and violence in the movie and I don’t want you to see it. Maybe when you’re older… Hey, how about the new Benji movie, huh? I hear it’s pretty good.”

  Brett clenched his fist around his fork and turned his eyes away from Mom; he knew he could not conceal his anger and disappointment if he looked at her. His appetite was gone.

  Mom continued eating, apparently unaware that he was upset.

  “Are you really gonna leave me tomorrow?” he whispered.

  “I have to, honey. Good grief, you sound like you’ll never see me again.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. Until… well, for a while. It’s not so bad, babe.” She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away. “Don’t do this, now. You’ve got friends here.”

  No I don’t, he thought.

  “Grandma takes good care of you.”

  No she doesn’t.

  “I know she’s a little weird. God knows I don’t get along with her, but that’s different. We’ve never gotten along. Grandma loves you. So does Grandpa. You’ll be okay.”

  No I won’t.

  “Until you get more movie roles?” he muttered.

  “What? Oh, yeah. A couple leads under Jeff and I’ll be able to take good care of you.”

  “A lead? You mean, like a star?”

  “Yeah, a starring role. In a good movie, none of this low budget horror crap.”

  “Is that what you really want? To star in a movie?”

  “More than anything, sweetie. More than anything. Now eat your dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Not hun… well, why didn’t you say so?” she snapped. “This is an expensive dinner. Now eat.”

  He stared at the plate silently for a while.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” he lied.

  “Okay. But when you come back, you’ll eat, right?”

  He nodded, then left the table and crossed the restaurant. As he rounded the tables and chairs, he thought of a scene from one of the movies he’d watched at Mr. Moser’s. Prime Cut. Lee Marvin played a gangster who was sent to Kansas City to find and punish Gene Hackman. Not only had Hackman gone back on a few promises made to old friends and business partners and cheated them out of a lot of money, he’d even killed some of them—and had one ground up into hot dogs at his meat packing plant. When Marvin was through with him, Hackman ended up full of bullets and fed to some pigs.

  Brett liked that. Hackman had deserved it; it had been a fitting punishment.

  Some people simply deserved to be punished.

  On the other hand, some deserved to be rewarded, like Luke, the Princess, Han, and Chewbacca at the end of Star Wars.

  Brett thought about rewards and punishments as he walked toward the RESTROOMS sign in the back and passed by the men’s room.

  He went on to a bank of payphones, fishing in his pocket for some change.

  Mom tapped her fingernails on the steering wheel as she drove out of St. Helena.

  “You’re just upset with me, that’s all,” she said stiffly. “I wanted us to have a nice evening together, but… “ She shook her head and sighed.

  Brett gazed straight ahead, barely hearing her. His mind was intentionally blank, his body relaxed.

  “I’m just tired,” he said quietly.

  “Then why don’t you let me take you home instead of to your friend’s?”

  “I have to pick up something I left there. Then I’ll go home.”

  She sighed again. “I came a long way to see you, you know. And my friend paid for it. What’s he going to think when I tell him you didn’t even want to be with me?”

  He pressed his lips together over the sharp reply that came to mind.

  Brett watched the road ahead for several minutes, then said, “Turn right here. Then take the first left.”

  When the car started down the dirt road, Mom said, “Jesus, this is a rented car, you know! Gawd!”

  Lighted windows at the end of the road drew nearer.

  “Is this the house?”

  Brett nodded.

  She stopped in the drive and Brett said, “Come in. He’d like to meet you.”

  Mom sighed but turned off the ignition and got out, following him to the door.

  “Aren’t you going to knock?” she asked when Brett walked into the house.

  “He doesn’t mind.” He let her in and closed the door. “He said he was—” He swallowed a dry knot in his throat, “—was going to do some laundry tonight. He’s probably in the laundry room.”

  Brett led her to the end of the hall, opened the door—he wouldn’t let his hands tremble—and stepped aside so she could go ahead.

  The light beyond the door was so dim the room seemed gray. As soon as Mom stepped down into the room, her heels clicking on the dirty concrete floor, Brett swung the door shut. It hit with a slam like gunfire.

  “Brett!” she called. “What the hell are you—”

  She stopped, there was a scuffle, then Mom screamed.

  Brett stared at the door for a moment, listening to the screaming and the awful, thick hacking noises, the retching and coughing. Then he began to back away, trying to shut the sounds from his ears, realizing that Mom wasn’t the only one screaming.

  In the living room, he turned and crossed to the front door. Mom stopped screaming, but Mr. Moser continued; his cries of, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my God, I’m sorry!” died in the wet sounds of vomiting.

  Brett went outside and stood on the porch, thinking of nothing.

  It could have been a minute or an hour later when Mr. Moser came out of the house and into the dim yellow glow of the porch light; Brett wasn’t sure.

  Mr. Moser held his hands out before him, palms up, fingers clawed, staring at them as if they weren’t his own. Blood speckled his twisted face and his sleeveless arms were black with it to his elbows. He was gulping sobs and his eyes sparkled with tears.

  “Dear Jesus,” he breathed over and over, “dear Jesus… “

  “Did you get it?” Brett asked. “On video tape?”

  “I… if I’d known earlier, I… I was so upset, so scared… I didn’t have time to… “

  “You didn’t get it?” Brett snapped, anger flaring in his head for a moment.

  “I couldn’t, I was too… too… Why, Brett? Why did you make me do this, why?”

  “I thought you enjoyed it,” Brett replied flatly, still preoccupied with the fact that his mother’s murder had not been videotaped.

  “Not this, not an adult, a… a woman.”

  “Oh. Well. I think it’s time you left behind the little kid stuff, Mr. Moser.” He turned and stared silently at his mom’s rented car.

  Mr. Moser paced behind him, muttering, “Oh, God, oh Jesus-God… “ He stopped abruptly and snapped in a hoarse, pained voice, “And what am I gonna do about the car, huh?”

  “It’s rented.”

  “Rented? Oh God, that’s just… that’s… rented!”

  Brett stepped off the porch.

  “If I get caught, you’re in just as much trouble as I am, you know. You helped! You’re an accomplice!”

  Brett turned to him and, genuinely worried for a moment, said, “You think anybody’d believe that? I mean, I’m just a kid, and… and you killed all those boys. I’ve got that tape… “ He thought about it a while, then shook his head, feeling better, and muttered, “No. I don’t think so, Mr. Moser. I really don’t.” He started across the drive toward the dirt road. “I think I’m gonna walk home. They don’t expect me for a couple hours.”

  “What will you tell them?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

  “But… what if they notice she doesn’t bring you home?”

  “They go to bed real early. Especially Grandma.”

  Gran
dma. Brett thought of her stern gaze and the smell of those messy Ben-Gay back rubs.

  He turned to Mr. Moser again and said, “Get rid of the car by tomorrow afternoon. I want to go into San Francisco.”

  “What? Why?”

  “There’s a movie I want to see. Bedside Manners.” Then, to himself, Brett muttered, “You saw her die, now I need to.”

  But Grandma… she was still around to make Brett’s life miserable. And Grandpa’s.

  Mr. Moser bellowed, “Are you out of your—”

  “And keep that video camera loaded and ready. Later in the week, I’m gonna bring my grandma over.”

  Brett watched as Mr. Moser slowly turned his back, then began to kick the side of his house, pulling his hair and screaming like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

  Mr. Moser’s screams faded as Brett started down the road, looking forward to getting to know Grandpa.

  Shock Radio

  The studio was dark but for a soft lamp over the console and, after being cued by the engineer who sat with the producer beyond a long rectangular window, the man leaned toward the microphone suspended before his face, touched his fingertips to the headphones through which he could hear his show’s theme music and said, “You’re listening to the Arthur Colton, Jr., Show and we’re back! We have a few more minutes with my guest Melissa Cartwright, who is joining us by phone from Liberal Central, San Francisco, California. Miss Cart—excuse me… Mizzz Cartwright—is a writer, a feminist and, in my opinion, another of the whining castrators who has found a way to take out her aggressions and make a fast buck by writing a book about the evil that men do. Not people, but men, who, according to Mizzz Cartwright, are inherently evil simply because they have been born men” He smirked and winked at Harry, the engineer, who laughed silently beyond the glass.

  “No, no, Arthur,” Melissa Cartwright said, “that’s not what I’m saying at all and you know it. I simply want to—”

  “Let’s go back to the phones.” Arthur Colton, Jr., whose real name was Andy Craig, looked at the computer screen before him where the words TAMPA, FLA-FRIEND glowed in amber. “Tampa, Florida, you’re on the air.”

  “Yeah, uh, Arthur?”

  “Yessir, you’re on the air.”

  “Yeah, Arthur, my name’s Tom and I’m just calling, uuhhh, to tell you that you’re, y’know, uh, right. You’re right.”

  “I know I’m right, sir, that’s why I’m the host and you’re the caller. Do you have a question for our guest?”

  “Yeah. I do. I’d like to ask Miss Carter—”

  “Cartwright,” Andy snapped. “Read my lips: Cart-wright.”

  “Yeah, okay, Miss Cartwright. I’d like to ask her exactly where she thinks women would be without men, huh? I mean, like, through history, y’know? Where do you think? And, uuhhh, I’ll take my answer off the air.”

  Melissa Cartwright said, “I’m very sorry, Tom, this is not your fault, but I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding here. It is not my opinion that men are inherently evil or dishonest or even ignorantly wrong. All I’m saying is that we have to find a way to—”

  “It’s very clear what you’re saying, Mizzz Cartwright,” Andy interrupted. “Your book, Women in Crisis, Men in Power—which, for those of you interested in this kind of whiney propaganda, is published by Putnam—is clearly the manifesto of someone who feels that all of our problems are the result of men and the works of men. Now, I would appreciate it if you’d answer my caller’s question, which is quite straightforward. Okay? Oookay. Now, let’s hear it.”

  She was silent for a long time—too long—and Andy was about to speak again to fill the dead air, but she spoke first. Slowly and coldly.

  “I think that… to speculate on the position of women… without the presence of men… throughout history… would be asinine.”

  “Well, isn’t that convenient.” The screen read WINSTON-SALEM, NC-FOE. “Winston-Salem, you’re on the air.”

  “Yeah, Arthur, I listen to your show a lot and I just wanna say that I think you’re being a little hard on your guest, okay?”

  “And why is that, sir?”

  “Because I’ve read her book and, as a man, I can say that I think she’s—”

  “Wait-wait-wait a second here. You read her book? What, you enjoy being castrated? What, you like having a woman chew your balls off? And you call yourself a man?”

  “That’s exactly my point, Mr. Colton, you’re interviewing her and you probably haven’t even read the book.”

  “Well, of course I haven’t read the book! I like my balls!”

  “But you rely on name-calling rather than discussion to make your point, when really you have no point to—”

  Andy punched a button on the panel, cutting the caller off, and sneered, “You have a good time, sir.”

  Melissa Cartwright released an explosive breath over the phone and Andy could imagine her rolling her eyes as he flashed a grin at Harry; it was his this-is-good-radio grin.

  “Redlands, California, you’re on the air.”

  “Yes, Arthur?” an elderly woman said.

  “You’re on the air, ma’am, please get to your question.”

  “Well, I’d just like to say that I’m seventy-nine years old and I don’t understand how your guest—what’s her name? Cartwright?—can possibly suggest that all men are evil. Speaking from experience, I can say that I’ve—”

  Miss Cartwright interrupted firmly: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you and the rest of the listeners are being misled by Mr. Colton. I am not saying that men are evil. I’m simply saying that our culture— along with many other cultures—has given women a back seat in everything and it’s time to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Andy said as the theme music came up, “but we’ve run out of time. I’d like to thank my guest, Melissa Cartwright, whose book Women in Crisis, Men in Power, is, for some reason, number two on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. Thank you for joining us, Mizzz Cartwright, it’s been an education, if nothing else. We’re coming up on the news, then well be back with open lines. Stick around.”

  As Andy leaned back in his chair and removed his headphones, he heard Melissa Cartwright’s pinched voice calling from them, “Mr. Colton? Mr. Colton?” He glanced at Tanya, the producer, waved toward the phone and picked up the receiver, saying, “Yes?”

  She struggled to control her voice. “I’m very disappointed, Mr. Colton. I was told you were going to interview me about my book. I didn’t know this was going to be the broadcast equivalent of stocks and public humiliation. I didn’t know it was going to be an inquisition.”

  “Oh, please, Ms. Cartwright, don’t take it personally. It’s just the way I do the show.”

  She paused. “I’m sorry? Pardon me?”

  He shook his head and chuckled. This always puzzled him. Didn’t they understand it was just a show? That it was just show business? “Have you ever heard my show, Ms. Cartwright?”

  “No, I haven’t. And after tonight, I have no intention of listening.

  “Well, if you had,” he said gently, “you’d realize that this is just the way the show goes, okay? I mean, think about it. My audience is made up of very conservative, aggressive people who want more than just an interview, okay? Otherwise they’d be listening to Larry King. They want fireworks, you know? So please, Ms. Cartwright. Don’t take this personally. I have nothing against you or your book or your opinion. In fact, you’re probably right, I don’t know. Anyway, I really appreciate your good sportsmanship. It’s just show business, you know?”

  Another pause, longer this time. “You appreciate what?”

  “Your good sportsmanship.”

  She laughed, but it was an angry laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure I’m serious. Look, it’s just a show, okay? I mean, you want compassion, call Talk Net You want indepth questions, you go on Nightline. And on my show, you get confrontation and a lot of yelling.”

  “And name-calling and humiliation and s
ome pretty obscene sexist insults.”

  “Well, that too. But you can’t take it personally. It’s the nature of the show. You got to make your point and plug your book, right? Myself? I think you’re an interesting, intelligent woman. What I say on the show really means nothing.”

  A cold chuckle. “In other words… you’re a whore.” She hung up.

  Andy rolled his eyes as he replaced the receiver. Why was it so hard for them to understand? Why did so many people get so upset? Not that he minded; they were his best publicity and stirred the controversy that made his show the number one late night radio talk show in the country. He just didn’t understand what made them so furious. “About li’l ol’ me,” he muttered, leaving the studio and heading to the lounge for coffee.

  Laurence Olivier had once played a hideous Nazi, but did anyone accuse him of actually being one? Of course not. They praised his performance; he was simply a great actor. Nobody accused Stephen King of being a sick bloodthirsty monster, did they? Well, maybe a few… but surely they didn’t really believe it; he was just a very good writer. But when it came to The Arthur Colton, Jr., Show, otherwise rational people began to foam at the mouth, pound fists into palms and scream for a public hanging. It made no sense.

  He’d used that argument with Kathrine, a former girlfriend back in Cincinnati who had been irate about the content of his show. It hadn’t worked.

  “That’s different!” she’d exclaimed. “What they do is fiction. Everyone knows that what Olivier and King do is fiction! You, however, are hosting a talk show! You’re shaping opinions, manipulating them! You aren’t writing a novel or acting in a movie. People listen to what you say. They respect it, they take it seriously. And for you to go on that show and say the barbaric things you say to boost your ratings—things you don’t even mean—is obscene, Andy!”

  It had just been a local show which, for the first four months, was just straight talk with a few guests and a couple hours of open phones; Andy had never expressed an opinion, just kept the conversation going. The ratings were bleak, so he’d listened carefully to his audience, looking for something he could use to breathe life into the show, trying to figure out what they wanted. One night it occurred to him: they were angry and they wanted to scream and shout and kick furniture and if they couldn’t do it, they wanted someone to do it for them. His listeners were fed up with everything from crime and poverty to crooked politicians and unfair laws and they wanted someone with a voice—a loud, powerful voice—to represent them.