Cursed Be the Child

by Mort Castle

  “I’m sorry,” Dorothy said. “Don’t cry, huh?” She awkwardly touched Missy’s shoulder. Then, feeling really dumb and weird doing it, she hugged Missy. It was what she figured a grownup would do, but, maybe it was wrong to hug if you were all alone with your best friend.

  “There, there, Missy,” Dorothy said, patting her back. “I am sorry, and I won’t say mean things to you again.”

  “Okay.” Missy pulled away. She sniffled a final tear and formally held out a hand. “I forgive you.”

  Dorothy solemnly shook with her.

  “You are my best friend for always, Dorothy. I don’t need any other friends. I don’t want anyone else.”

  Dorothy frowned, not quite sure what Missy meant.

  Missy said, “If someone was picking on you, I’d be on your side. And if someone was against me, then you’d help me. I know you would.”

  “Yeah,” Dorothy said. Missy was saying things that made sense, but that at the same time somehow didn’t make sense.

  “I’ll be right back,” Missy said, walking toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Dorothy asked. She had a moment’s panic, fearing that Missy was on the way to tattle.

  “I just have to go to the bathroom.”

  Dorothy didn’t have to worry. Missy was her real and true friend, and a friend wouldn’t do anything rotten like tattle to your mother.

  Your friend was on your side, you were on your friend’s side, and even if sometimes you got in fights with your friend, it didn’t really mean anything.

  Friends were friends forever.

  And a friend would never do anything to really hurt you.

  After she’d gone to the toilet and washed her hands, Missy decided to rinse her face when a glance in the mirror showed her she had that look that always prompted Mom to ask, “Have you been crying?” Then she brushed her teeth, trying to wash the gunky crying taste from her mouth.

  She slipped her toothbrush back in the holder.

  She stood, cold sluicing down her spine, staring into the mirror over the vanity, staring at herself, staring at a face that no longer seemed to be her face.

  Don’t you understand? I am you! Now I am the only you that there is!

  No! I am Missy! You are Lisette! I am real! You are not real! I am alive!

  Don’t…

  I am alive and you are not alive! And if you are not alive, then you’ve got to be dead. That’s what you are, Lisette!

  Don’t say it!

  There was a burst of empty silence in her mind that went on and on.

  Lisette?

  Missy smiled. She had done something. She wasn’t quite sure what. There was no more Lisette. Imaginary Lisette, Pretend Lisette, Lisette Who Made Trouble, Lisette Who Cannot Be was gone.

  And she, Melissa Barringer, called Missy, was herself just herself and nobody else!

  Missy took a deep breath. That was that.

  She’d just stepped back into her room when she heard the voice like scratchy smoke.

  No more Missy.

  She hated Dorothy Morgan. Dorothy Morgan was Missy’s best friend. Dorothy Morgan would want to help Missy. She would be on Missy’s side, wouldn’t she? Maybe Dorothy Morgan could be fooled. Maybe it was better to fool her, yes, and to fool her in a way that would get rid of her.

  “Dorothy!”

  That was Missy’s scream—a scream that could be heard only by Lisette who was now Missy. Melissa Barringer? She was here—and not here. She could watch and wish, but do nothing.

  It was Lisette who was alive and smiling a fake smile at Dorothy Morgan. I will trick her.

  Lisette was alive and…

  Oh, it feels so lovely to smile. Your upper lip curls wet on the smooth hardness of your teeth…

  And it’s lovely the way everything you see is swollen with color when you see with real eyes, my eyes…

  And it’s lovely the way the air feels buzzing and tickly when you breathe in…

  And it’s lovely the way my feet feel in these socks inside the warm pinch of these shoes, and I love to hear that scritchy-scratchy sound when I walk in my corduroy pants...

  It is beautiful to be alive.

  “Hey, Missy?” Dorothy said. “Is something wrong with you?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re doing something, you know, freaky-like with your face. Like in that movie, Carrie, when she burned up the prom and everything.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Dorothy.”

  “It was on cable.”

  “Oh.” She had no idea what Dorothy Morgan was talking about.

  But she did know she wanted to get Dorothy Morgan out of here, Missy’s room—no, my room.

  “Dorothy! Help me!”

  The cry made Lisette grind her teeth. No, you fool! You gave me your hair, your blood. You gave me your life! No one can help you. No one will!

  And Dorothy wouldn’t help. No, Dorothy wouldn’t be around long because…

  “Want to see something?”

  “What?” Dorothy asked.

  “Something secret.” She smiled. “I’ve got lots of secrets.”

  “I guess I want to,” said Dorothy Morgan. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “It’s in here,” she said, and she opened the dresser’s top drawer. “Look.”

  “Huh?” Dorothy said, staring quizzically at neatly arranged underpants and undershirts. “What are you talking about, Missy?”

  “It’s a surprise. Look under the underpants.”

  Cautiously, as though expecting to find a live worm, or worse, a dead one, Dorothy reached inside the drawer. “I think you’re just kidding, Missy.”

  “It’s big. You’ll need both hands.”

  “Okay.” With both hands, Dorothy dug beneath the stack of underwear. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “No! Dorothy! Oh, please don’t do that!”

  Missy’s outcry came from somewhere else, from someplace ever so faraway, a warning that Dorothy could not hear.

  And a plea that Lisette-who-was-Missy ignored.

  As she put the palms of her hands against the drawer and slammed it shut.

  — | — | —

  Twenty-Seven

  The Volvo’s rear speakers hissed static. A weak FM station broadcast a nostalgia show, When Radio Was Radio, “…those well remembered, best loved shows from the good old days when we were all so very young.” The wipers dragged sluggishly over the windshield, working hard. The heavy rain seemed timeless. He could not doubt that it would go on forever. It seemed he’d always been driving like this, in the constant rain.

  There was the moody intro music, and then, “There he goes…”

  There he goes, Warren thought, and he knew who he was. The radio character was a private detective named Brad Runyon. The Fat Man. Warren wondered how he knew that. After all, when radio was radio, Warren Barringer had been too young to know it. His was the first generation to grow up with television as an electronic babysitter. He was an alumnus of Howdy Doody’s Peanut Gallery, not Tom Mix’s Ralston Straight Shooters.

  Still, the announcer and Warren said it together:

  “…into that drugstore…”

  It was time for him to go somewhere, too.

  It was…time.

  He clearly understood that now that he was in control.

  “Sure, Vicki, I’ll leave you womenfolk to yourselves, and I’ll go rustle myself up a bit of grub. Be back later, not quite sure when I’ll mosey in…” That’s what he had told her.

  He had stopped for lunch about an hour ago, but what he was really going to do was nothing he could have told Vicki, nothing he could have explained to her. He couldn’t have told her he was off to do battle with demons.

  And he was ready.

  This was the day that everything would be forever set right by Warren Barringer’s willpower.

  In control, in control. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. He repeated it in his mind, a ritual chant perfectly synchroniz
ed to the cadence of the windshield wipers.

  Far out to the west, three-pronged lightning lanced from the sky and stabbed the earth. He thought about symbols and coincidences. The rear speakers responded with a crackling rush of static, almost, but not quite, drowning out the announcer’s words.

  Bursting thundershocks followed, echoing weighty crashes of sound.

  Warren turned off the radio. Then he heard a voice, taunting and familiar—and expected. It was the voice of The Rat within him. I’m here, Warren. I’m still with you, you know.

  Warren smiled and felt the tightness at the edges of his mouth.

  You will never be rid of me, said The Rat.

  Warren gripped the steering wheel harder. A mile or so ahead, through the momentarily clear screen of the windshield, he saw the shopping center.

  I am you! I am! said The Rat.

  He pressed down on the accelerator, speeding to the battleground.

  Tolando Park was a middle-class suburb some 50 miles northwest of Grove Corner. Although he’d never been here before, the Tolando Park Magna-Mall was exactly what he knew he would find—a standard issue 20th century shopping center, open seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Tolando Park, Illinois, Lebanon, Missouri, Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas—it didn’t matter where you went, you had two or three levels and the same basic layout under one roof. The three major department stores had only different names, not the merchandise. The not so special specialty stores had discount records and discount shoes and discount eyeglasses and discount jeans.

  He was alert, all senses fully engaged, watching. With his hands in the pockets of his car coat, he ambled along in what seemed an aimless manner. Anyone paying attention to him would have thought: Here’s a guy killing time while his wife takes the Visa card to the limit, or, maybe he’s here to pick up his kid and the kid’s friends…

  Here to pick up a kid, said The Rat.

  A few steps ahead, an ancient woman with parakeet legs stopped abruptly. He stopped just in time to avoid impaling himself on her shoulder blades, as she turned a smart right angle into the Hi-Standard Uniform Center.

  At the entrance to the video arcade, snippets of strobe light and sirens shooting out, a punky girl (teen? pre-teen?) broke away from her loitering friends.

  “Spare change?” She held her hand out, palm up. She wore mirrored sunglasses and an ancient, baggy pin-striped, man’s suit jacket; he could smell the damp wool. “Got any spare change?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t move. The palm stayed where it was. She smiled. Her plump lips were adorned with fluorescent purple. She had braces.

  “Hey, come on, okay?” she said. “I wanna play some games.”

  She wants to play games, said The Rat.

  “Come on, lemme have something. Don’t be a shit.” Her friends were laughing and egging her on. “Give me some spare change.”

  “No,” he said, “get away from me.”

  Too old for you? said The Rat.

  He walked on, hearing her call him a shithead.

  An old guy was licking an ice cream cone with a reptilian tongue. Those too-goddamn-garish-to-be-true plaid pants! What was there about old men and hideous plaid pants? Hope to hell I remember so I don’t one day wind up an old man in ugly plaid pants…

  A dirty old man in plaid pants? said The Rat.

  Though he knew he was in charge of the situation, Warren felt a trill of impatience. It was time.

  Are you certain, Warren Barringer? You sure you want to meet The Rat? Let’s not forget, I am you, the worst of you and the real you.

  No, not anymore. I’m the master of my fate, captain of my soul.

  Spare me the melodramatics. Take a look over…

  There! Across the way, in front of The Pay-Lo Shoe Store, he saw her. For an instant, his heart stopped, and then jumped to a rapid thudding in his chest.

  She was lost. He could see that by the panicky way her eyes darted up and down and all around, by the way she slipped inside the shoe store then popped right back out again.

  People walked past her, ignoring her as if she were invisible. She turned her head with the stiff precision of a bird, hoping to bring a familiar face into focus.

  Then it was his face she focused on, as he stooped down in front of her. Her eyes were so big and frightened they were almost cartoony. She was a perfect towhead, but her hair had been clipped roughly and amateurishly. She was missing a tooth on the bottom, and her lips were full and pink.

  And she was a beautiful child, he thought. Five years old? Six?

  She was a beautiful little girl who needed him.

  “You’re lost, aren’t you?”

  A nod and a sniffle.

  Lost and more than that. In weather like this, she was wearing skimpy shorts and a filthy T-shirt. And her feet were dirty and her knees were bruised and it looked like infected bug bites on her arm.

  She took a small step back, as if perhaps recalling warnings about talking to strangers.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Angie.” Her voice was small and sweet and Southern. “My mama went in there”—she turned to point back into the shoe store—“an’ I was with her, and then she was gone, and I came out to find her.” More sniffles, and then, bright teary diamonds rolling down her cheeks.

  “Angie,” he said. “I think you ought to come with me.”

  That’s just what you think, isn’t it, Warren? That’s just what you need, what you’ve wanted all your life! The Rat was laughing.

  “I dunno…”

  “I’ll help you, Angie. I’ll take care of you…”

  Take care of her, be sweet to her, and touch her and feel her sweetness and her softness, feel her all warm and trusting and yours...

  He stood up and held out his hand. He waited.

  She looked up at him.

  He saw it, then, knew that she would do whatever he wanted, knew that she wanted him to take her, that she desired him, wanted his touch, his caress, his love…

  No more pretense! said The Rat. You are what you are. You cannot fight me. You cannot fight yourself.

  He took her hand. He walked slowly so that she would have no difficulty keeping up with him.

  In front of Sears, he found a green uniformed security guard.

  “This is Angie,” Warren said. “I’m afraid her mother’s lost.”

  “Happens,” said the security man. “We’ll get her found.”

  Angie looked scared as he transferred her hand to the guard’s. She said. “Oh…”

  Warren did not permit himself to think about what she meant. Quietly, he said, “It will be okay, Angie. Don’t worry, little girl. Nobody is going to hurt you. Nobody.”

  Then, still more quietly, he spoke to her and to himself, “You are all right now.”

  A few minutes later, he was driving south on Route 83. The rain had eased up. The radio was playing Brahms’s “Concerto in A for Violin and Cello.”

  He listened appreciatively to the intricate interplay of stringed instruments and did not hear the voice of The Rat.

  — | — | —

  Twenty-Eight

  The rainy Sunday afternoon sucked. That was 15-year-old Bobby Smith’s verdict. It sucked the big suck because he was totally bored.

  Sometimes Bobby Smith blamed his name for his blah life. Bobby Smith! Wasn’t that about the same as naming your kid “Zero Nobody”? Maybe that was the reason the old man divorced his mom. His father probably wanted to name him something cool, something like D’artagnan or even Spuds, but Mom was Mary Smith, nee, ready for this, Mary Nelson!

  No way with a name like Bobby Smith could he be a jock or a nerd. He wasn’t a party animal or a class clown or a brainchild or an airhead or a Trekkie or a preppy. He wasn’t a punker. He wasn’t a stoner or a head-banger; no one ever bothered to approach him about trying or buying dope, so he never even had a chance to say no to drugs.

  When Bobby Smith wasn’t daydreaming about who he would like to be�
�kind of a cross between Chuck Norris and any male porn star with 11-plus inches—he saw himself as he was, and that was uncool. He was the goddamned Invisible Man, or, if you want to be technical, the Invisible Sophomore. He was totally anonymous, the guy that nobody notices.

  And nobody noticed his absence when he wasn’t there, either.

  Yeah, so Sunday was boring and Sunday sucked, but a lot of days were just about the same.

  So, what to do, what to do? Might as well jack off. He hadn’t done that for about an hour and a half. He wouldn’t go into the john this time. The old lady was out doing who knows what. And what if she did walk in on him while he was choking the chicken? Probably wouldn’t even notice!

  Time for some serious pud-pounding. Definitely.

  He got ready. Sitting on the floor in the hallway, spine curved against the wall, he took out his penis. Three facial tissues were ready and waiting.

  He picked up the phone and he pushed the touchtone buttons. He put the receiver to his ear, holding it with his shoulder.

  He heard one ring. If it was a woman’s voice on the other end, it was A-OK. If it was a guy, click!—and try again until you get lucky.

  The digits Bobby Smith had dialed were chosen at random.

  You might say it was luck as well as the fiberoptic technology of AT & T that brought him a young-sounding, definitely female “Hello?” You might say it was coincidence.

  You might say that—but that’s not what a Gypsy would say. A Gypsy would say that the sequence of numbers beneath Bobby Smith’s fingertip had been dictated by Baht.

  For a Gypsy, there is no coincidence.

  There is no chance. All things are as they must be. All events happen as they must happen.

  That is the working of fate.

  That is Baht.

  In the exact moments before Bobby Smith invaded her life, she was happy—not only happy but, as happens once in a great while, aware that she was happy.

  She lay on her bed, lazily gazing at the ceiling. She had on one of her father’s old L. L. Bean chamois shirts, about eight times too big and cuddly and nice, and a pair of blue jeans that were washed out enough to be really comfortable.