A Wistful Tale of Gods, Men and Monsters

by David Ruggerio

  He didn’t dare look back as he fled as fast as his legs would carry him. Running faster and faster, his lungs seemed to burn. It was almost painful, but he was too frightened to stop. As he barged through the door of his home at 9 Petticoat Lane, he was met by the intimidating image of his stepmother. She stopped him dead in his tracks and instantly began railing while wagging her long index finger in his face, “What the hell happened to you this time? Look at the knees on your pants. You are a spoiled rotten kid; you just make me so angry!” For once, his stepmother’s ranting seemed almost welcoming. He took a deep breath and apologized without any explanation. He scurried off to his room along with his dog Charlie (a tricolor, King Charles Spaniel) hot on his heels. As he slammed his door closed, his back pressed up against it, he slid down to the floor. He couldn’t breathe; it felt as if someone was choking him. His hands were trembling.

  (No matter what Lilly says, I’ll never go back there)

  Charlie nuzzled up to him, licking his face in a soothing manner. This time he welcomed the sloppy kisses, he was safe, and they felt so-so good. After a few minutes, he brushed the dirt off his knees. The one knee was painful, the skin was stinging something awful, but the peroxide was in the hallway, and there was no way in hell he was going to open that door. He went to his window and timidly peered out. There was nearly a full moon, and off in the distance, he could see a thick greyish gloom. It was the mist from the cemetery!

  (Oh my God, it knows where I live!)

  It was hovering in wait. It desired for him to come out and play (or die). William could sense its being; it was alive; breathing, slithering and morphing into a vague, beguiling body of distant troubled and tortured souls. These were ghosts that were disturbed for keeping evil obsessions hidden. It was seeking to lure the unsuspecting like a spider into its deadly web. It had a palpable consciousness that was frightfully sinister. His fear was beginning to get the best of him; assuredly the fog was simply waiting for him to sleep. William apprehensively peered out his window again. Suddenly, like the Lone Ranger to the rescue, right out of the mist, the familiar sight of his father’s old paneled Country Squire came rumbling into the driveway. That old Ford was a sight for sore eyes, he could now breathe easy.

  CHAPTER 2

  MOTHER HEN

  Can a mother forget her nursing child?

  Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?

  -Isaiah 49:15

  William was to turn twelve on November 1st, the day after All Hallows Eve. He like many in this outwardly charming hamlet adored Halloween and everything that autumn brought to the area. The hills of Brunswick were dotted with vibrant orchards, burgeoning cornfields and glorious pumpkin patches. People came from far and wide to pick apples, frolic on hayrides, and collect gourdes, while searching for that elusive, perfect pumpkin. Come the first autumn chill, a corn maze seemed to pop up at every local farm. Many of the village women made extra money by catering to the tourists, cooking candy apples and bags of kettle corn for the plethora of roadside stands that appeared near the end of September and disappeared promptly on that first day of November. This small village rolled out the red carpet, happily adorning their houses in folksy decorations. Jack-o’-lanterns, ghosts, and goblins trimmed many a storefront. Cornstalks and bales of hay decorated Town Hall, along with hanging pots brimming with mums, all shades of brown, adorning each lamp post on Main Street. But as pretty a town that Brunswick was, it had become better known for its haunted past. Far and wide people told tales of the creepy graveyard, a spooky schoolhouse, and a dreaded abandoned mortuary. After hearing of all its dark dwellings, this writer was curious; were the stories all untrue, and if not; can a town be inherently evil?

  Brunswick was first settled back in the early 18th century. The town was a magnet for German Palatines, many who volunteered to fight during the Queen Anne’s War in Canada in 1711. The area saw action during the revolutionary war, and many locals boasted that Herman Melville had once taught school in Brunswick. The fertile hills served the locals well; Brunswick thrived with agriculture from its inception. Other rural upstate villages had an intrinsic problem with keeping their next generation from leaving to sow their oats in nearby Gotham. Brunswick was the exception; most of its population was born, lived and died there, unlike other small towns where the young folk tended to leave with their diplomas under their arms, never to return. In Brunswick…people never left.

  A recognizable chill could be felt in those northerly breezes signaling that All Hallows’ Eve (many inhabitants of Brunswick felt that the ancient Gaelic name should remain All Hallows’ Eve) was not too far off. The alluring perfume of those summer idled fireplaces were now alive again, the smell of charring wood pervaded the countryside, rooftops had gentle pillows of white smoke drifting off into the near mountains. The surrounding forest was suffused with oak and maples which signaled to all when fall was approaching. The changing of their leaves painted the countryside into a joyous masterpiece. Those stunning colors did well to hide the grim reality of Brunswick.

  . . .

  William’s mother, Lillian, though girlish for her age, had total command of her household. Her only child was her world. On the top of her list of do’s and don’ts, she detested the sobriquet of Billy and forbid anyone from using it. She was such a proud mother; he was extraordinarily bright for his age. Although since birth, William had stuttered terribly. The more daily stress William encountered, the worse his stutter would become. From the moment his mother and father realized their son’s disability, she found herself fighting back twangs of guilt, although she couldn’t pinpoint why. Lillian spent countless hours of home speech therapy, and at times it just seemed like it was a waste of time. She would wake in the morning feeling refreshed and hopeful, and by the finish of dinner, she was filled with frustration and doubt. She was horrified when a physician told her to “Ignore it, it should go away.” She was not a violent person, but at that moment, she felt like punching him in the nose.

  On the brightside, were William’s affection for reading and his extraordinary love of puzzles. Somehow, Lillian surmised that by solving all shapes and sizes of puzzles, the signals in his brain would eventually straighten out. Lillian would proudly exclaim to anyone who would listen that her son was the only person she had ever actually witnessed solve the Rubik’s cube.

  Lillian, unmistakably the mother hen type, would tenaciously protect him from ridicule. She spent hours upon hours coaching him, encouraging him to slow his speech, thus improving the stutter. She had lost her first child in a late stage miscarriage. The ordeal was horrifying, and the birth of William was no better. She struggled with the pregnancy; she had to endure morning sickness for nearly the entire time. Giving birth was akin to a gang-rape. The doctor and nurses prodded and poked in areas that were reserved solely for herself and her husband. But since then, motherhood had been a joy; it was so much more than she had anticipated. She fawned over him, routinely dressing her darling son meticulously in collared shirts, cardigan sweaters, and oxford shoes. William was desperate to be like all the other kids and pleaded for a pair of dungarees and sneakers, but to no avail.

  William was small for his age, with wiry brown hair, thick-rimmed glasses and a birthmark on his cheek that all the local kids made fun of. His mother’s death had been a terrible blow to William who was nine at the time. Lillian seemed to sense something ominous as the end neared. The night before she succumbed, she startled her husband James, pleading with him to move the family away from Brunswick. James wondered where such sudden and distraught feelings came from. That evening, she wailed aloud that her village had become suffocating and unbearable for her. He was perplexed, her pleadings only got worse as that terrifying night progressed. There was no warning, never an indication, and by the next afternoon, she was gone.

  James was a meticulous
person; some might say he had OCD. It drove Lillian mad when he would regularly return to the bathroom at bedtime to make sure all the bottles in the medicine cabinet were all equidistant from each other, with their labels properly turned towards the front. His only vice in life had been working tirelessly as a pharmacist, but after the death of Lillian, the labels didn’t matter, and he covertly turned to a bottle. He brought home Xanax from his pharmacy and mixed them with liquor. Those first nights of grieving were indescribable, he had never known that such pain had existed. He winced with every customer who offered their condolences and tried to compare their losses with his.

  (They have no idea how I feel; God damn it! What do I tell my son?)

  He brooded alone, excusing self-pity and alcohol as simply the flavors of the hour; he began to savor the sweet taste of cheap scotch. He remembered well how his wife would never have allowed such things. Sure, they had always kept some liquor in the closet, but that was only meant for an occasional gin and tonic on a Sunday afternoon or a hot toddy in the winter. The potent combination of the drugs and alcohol he now toyed with put him into a nightly stupor, a feeling that he now greatly welcomed. His senses had become dulled, and he toyed with the idea of just taking more and more and see how close he could come to end the pain. Through the haze, in the far-off distance, he could hear his wife’s voice; stop feeling sorry for yourself and think of your son. He knew that he couldn’t do such a thing to him.

  Although they had a loving marriage, at times, she could be downright domineering. Though he could never admit it, deep down he was the type of man who required a spouse that was assertive. From the moment he put the ring on her finger, she took control and fashioned a wondrous home. Now he would sit at the dinner table, picking at his food, looking over at the one seat that was now vacant and pray that William didn’t ask him anything about the death of his mother. That dinner table became such a source of torturous pain; he began serving dinner to his son on TV trays in front of the television. James didn’t want to cry in front of William, the only way he could keep any sort of composure was to continually bite his lip till it would bleed and concentrate on its metallic taste. One Sunday, six weeks after her death, he sat in front of the fireplace full of melancholy and misfortune, the odor of the scotch competed with the burning logs. William quietly entered and looked upon his broken father with pity, as he rubbed his back, he consoled him; “It’s o…ok P…Pop…we’ll b…be alright, you’ll see.” His son’s strength made him feel like a failure, he was supposed to be the one comforting his son. That afternoon he swore never to touch another sip of alcohol or another pill, he had to get strong for his son.

  This had been a home of intense emotions. James, although loving, fought to maintain a stoic front for his boy. His feelings now needed to stay hidden. Lillian’s death left him ill-prepared to raise a son as a single parent. Nightly he would gaze upon his sleeping child; his heart bled for him, losing his mother left them both so desolate and despairing. His hand would gently brush his slumbering son’s hair as he silently sobbed; the talons of this grief were sharpening and digging deeper as time went on. He knew that although he could never replace her, he needed a companion to act in a motherly role.

  A year and a half after burying Lillian, William’s father remarried an alluring local named Anne Justice. It was a whirlwind marriage; the village women who congregated outside the laundromat on Main Street would lean and whisper, “Yup, poor guy never had a chance. A rebound run-away hitching if I ever did see one.”

  It was said that Anne’s blood could be traced back to the original Mohawks of the region. Although she was abrupt and could be quite cagey about her family’s history, Anne was intensely proud of her Indian heritage. She was tall, fascinating with stunning black eyes that had native fierceness in them. Her body was statuesque, with lengthy raven-haired locks and deep olive-hued skin that set her apart from the majority who traced their roots back to the Rhineland-Palatinate area of Germany (blues eyes and blond hair). Many men were taken by her extraordinary beauty; she seemed to tempt every male whose eyes turned her way. She wore tight sweaters and matching pants, knowing just how to swing her behind and puff out her generous buxom to attract male suitors far and wide. Her slight indiscretions concealed a voracious appetite that would stay hidden for the moment. From the outset of her union with James, it seemed to most of Brunswick that her overt beauty and smoldering lust would be too much for the village pharmacist.

  Deep down he must have had a suspicion, but James was still consumed by endless waves of anguish and remorse. He knew his feeling was not unusual; hell, every surviving spouse must feel such culpability and sadness. After he first slept with Anne, instead of the conceitedness of the conquering male awash in testosterone, he experienced guilt (and a certain amount of inadequacy). Nightly she had vivid needs, leaving James with the scratches and scars on his back and butt to testify to it. It was a herculean task for James to keep his new bride content, that urgency for Xanax was now replaced with the little blue pill. Although she proclaimed satisfaction, not surprisingly he began to experience waves of insecurity and inadequacy. Soon after their marriage, he witnessed a marginal need for intimacy and gentleness. Instead she craved lustful, vulgar sexuality, not passion or emotion. Her intensity and raging raw power seemed like a challenge; animalistic some might say. A sort of affirmation of supremacy.

  As weeks and months went by, the union between James and Anne began to morph. Her domination extended beyond the bedroom, while he became accepting and willingly resided to her demands. Although he was never an austere man like the men that shared his lineage, he unknowingly began falling under her spell, which troubled William.

  Anne was not able to have children of her own; William’s presence was a constant reminder that gnawed away at her psyche. Of course, in front of James, she was the picture of the perfect stepmother, but the moment he left for work, things were quite different. From the outset, she deeply resented her stepson, maybe hatred would be more apropos, and as time went on, her bitterness wouldn’t be easy to keep hidden.

  . . .

  It was said that Anne was born and raised in the shadows of Poesten Kill, the local creek where provincial legend told of an ancient Mohawk tribe that had buried their dead in its shadows. The picturesque Poesten Kill had seen more than its fair share of tragedies over the years. Anne spoke little of her childhood, she described how on her sixteenth birthday; her father had moved the family to Eagle Ford Texas to take a job drilling oil. If prodded, she would reluctantly tell a horrific story about how her mother and father had perished in a car accident when she was twenty. The story had little detail and left many holes. The fiery crash burned their bodies beyond recognition. In fact, if she hadn’t told the authorities who had been in the car at the time, there would have been no way of identifying them. She spoke of a pain that was still wrenchingly awful, a reason she pointed out why she didn’t keep any snapshots of her family. Beyond that, she had no box in the attic that held the usual array of mundane family photos or garbage-ready family mementos. Instead, she had two small crates that were always securely locked. She had James store them in the deepest recesses of the cellar. A mere two crates, for an entire lifetime? James had his doubts, there was something fishy about her story of Eagle Ford. Her answers only spurned more questions. At the end of the day, he merely buried his disquiets and embraced his alluring Mohawk. Life would be better…

  It was too convenient for his father to expect William to accept Anne with open arms. Instead, he disliked her from the outset. A suspicious William would silently spy on his father and his new bride. At night he would slither out of bed, still sporting his Spiderman footie pajamas (not a soul would ever know, not even Lilly). His face pressed against the spindles of the staircase, watching intently from the second floor. Although their couch was old and worn past the point of distress, it was hard to concei
ve that there was a more comfortable one in this world. It was strategically placed in front of the massive, stone fireplace. Each rock had been hand-hewn by his great-grandfather. On the richly carved mantel stood an exquisite plate-glass clock, the chimes of which were just striking eight, and, keeping it company to right and left, were two dainty figures of a shepherd and shepherdess in antique porcelain. As the evening temperatures dropped, a nightly fire was lit just after dinner by James. The odor of pine as it burned, provided a faint fragrance to reassure the senses that there would be comfort in the long bitter winter. That was one ritual that even after Lillian’s death, he did not stop. James and his new bride snuggled together, as the flames artfully curled and swayed, flicking this way and that. At times, the couples’ face felt as though scorched by its fieriness but welcomed the heat that emanated from the hearth as it popped and crackled. Anne adored a good port; they shared a glass or two in front of the fire for what seemed like hours. They were newlyweds and James struggled to act the part. This nightly brand of banal foreplay gave no clue of the animality that would go on later in their bed. Nevertheless, a saddened William watched from his perch, wishing that it was still his mother enjoying the warmth of that evening fire, instead of the woman who left him without an inkling of love or friendship.