by Laird Barron
That’s when the television called my name.
“Tumblety.”
A man’s deep voice narrated over old photographs of London’s streets with the History Channel’s “H” at the bottom corner of the screen. The pictures dissolved into a reenactment of a red-haired woman shielding herself from the shine of a lifted scalpel. A female interviewee replaced the reenactment, and though I wasn’t completely coherent, I could make out key words such as “murder” and “Whitechapel.” It was just another documentary about Jack the Ripper. The calling of my name, surely, was a mere byproduct from the remaining remnants of the dream.
“Tumblety,” said the woman on the screen, and I held my breath while a chill of fright crawled up my spine. A yellowed photograph replaced her, showing a man with a bulbous head and a comically enormous Snidely Whiplash-like mustache. His identifier popped up on the lower third of the screen: Dr. Francis Tumblety.
Seeing my last name scrawled on the screen was so odd that I had to physically shake away the confusion.
The deep male voice continued, “Dr. Tumblety had already fled the United States to avoid persecution from both his private and business life, and continued what some have called a ‘deviant lifestyle’ while living in London. On the next episode of ‘Ripper: Unleashed,’ we will explore the facts behind this man’s dealings in Whitechapel and why some expert investigators call him the best candidate in the search for Jack the Ripper’s true identity.”
I was never told a thing about my past. My grandfather killed himself when my father was a teenager, so there was never any knowledge passed down. If my mother knew anything about my lineage, she never told me. If she wasn’t working, she was drinking, telling me that I was just like my father, telling me that I had to pay for his mistakes. She died when I was nineteen. If I ever see my father again, I’ll tell him what I just learned, that it’s not his fault he’s an evil, abusive bastard. Evil just happens to run in the family.
Bad luck runs in the family as well. It’s almost comical. I had dropped my Prozac down the bathroom sink and had to pick up a refill from the pharmacist. Fishing out a new pill on my way to work, I slipped on ice and the refill rolled into a runoff drain in the street. I arrived at the hospital twenty minutes late with a scraped knee and a coffee stain running down the left leg of my scrubs. During one of my father’s angrier rants he had told me, “Son, every man in this family is fucking cursed.” Considering the parents I had, as well as the extreme anxiety and the insomnia, nothing in my life had yet disproved that statement.
“You pissed yourself,” Dr. Elizabeth Carmine muffled from behind her surgical mask as I walked through the door, looking up from a cadaver’s chest cavity. Her judgmental eyes were the only visible part of her body, like Bela Lugosi’s eyes in the Dracula films when he’s transfixing his victims. Her dagger-like eyes and cold demeanor were the reasons why those who had the pleasure to work alongside her called her Dr. Death. A handful of students laughed behind their notebooks. They would need her recommendation for an internship one day, so it was better to suck up while they had the opportunity. I lifted up my half-filled cup of coffee with a fake “that’s life” smile. I needed her to write me a recommendation too.
I worked in the room adjacent from the teaching lab. It was a closet space with two desks and a cot in case one of the instructors was pulling double duty as a medical professional and teacher. I used it a lot. After graduating with a doctorate in Cellular and Molecular Medicine I stuck around the hospital to help pay off my student loans. I spent hours translating Death’s bad handwriting into a spreadsheet. The notes were from her personal research into using microscopic proteins to stimulate infected cells on gangrenous limbs in order to slow the rotting process. I did this until Melissa finally arrived, storming into the room at noon and announcing that it was lunchtime.
“Why do all doctors’ handwriting look like chicken scratch?” I asked her, holding up the stationary paper. She dropped her surgical jacket and shoulder bag on her desk and leaned over me to look at the notebook. She picked up a pen from my desk and a pile of Post-it notes and slammed them down in front of me.
“Write your name in cursive,” she demanded, and then unsheathed her laptop from her bag and placed it on the desk. Playfully, I did as she said and peeled the note away from the stack, lifting it into the air. She snatched it from my fingers and then stuck it to the back of my neck, “Congratulations, it’s terrible, you’re a real doctor.” Though I’d only known her for a short while, I was closer to Melissa than any other woman I’ve ever known. She had a unique effect on me that no other woman, including my mother, was ever able to create; she made me feel comfortable.
“I’ll believe that when I get my own stationery,” and then I saved the document.
The hospital’s cafeteria was crowded, but we found a booth near the front. I bought vegetable soup to warm against the cold air that came from the windows. I knew Mel wouldn’t take my seat or my jacket even if I offered. She was very strict on not showing that she needed anything. Even as a cancer survivor, she wore a pink ribbon on the inside of her jacket, not because she didn’t want anyone to think she had once been sick, but to remind herself of her inner strength. I think I’m the only one who ever knew she was going through treatment. I never saw her family when visiting her in chemo, and mine were always the only flowers next to her bed.
I felt her look up from her parfait every few minutes, most likely wondering why I wasn’t making small talk. I couldn’t get my mind off of Francis Tumblety. My potential relationship to this man trailed my psyche like a shadow. It was a morbid curiosity, but maybe finding if it was true could fill the hole that was my family’s unknown history.
As my mind wandered, fixating on the image of my possible relative, I spooned out the little bits of vegetables from the tomato broth. Apparently, three green beans, two baby carrots, and a handful of those little corncobs from Asian restaurants were enough for the café to call a “vegetable” soup. Mel used to be perplexed with the way I broke apart my food, like the way a soldier field-dresses a machine gun. She had gotten used to it in the eight months we had been working together.
My throat was dry so I reached for my water. Still half asleep, I miscalculated, and my knuckles hit the plastic cup, tipping it over the edge of the table. It fell onto a black leather dress shoe and splashed across a suit cuff. I looked up to see a very large man looking down on me and wearing a bemused grin. I grabbed the cup off of the floor and uttered an apology.
“And this,” came Dr. Death’s voice as she appeared at his side, “is the man I was telling you about.”
Death was holding a tray of food that held two plates. I knew the woman well enough to know that she would only carry someone else’s lunch if she could gain something from the action. The man must be important.
“Ah, you must be Dr. Patrick Tumblety,” the man said jovially, sticking out a large hand. I shook it and kept my eyes fixed on his, wondering what he knew about me.
“Hello, sir…”
“Doctor,” he corrected, “Henry Clemenson.”
The Tumblety luck struck again. Henry Clemenson was the Dean of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and I spilled water on him after Dr. Death talked shit about me.
“It’s an honor to meet you, sir, uh, Doctor Clemenson.” I was good at sabotaging myself.
The doctor shifted his gaze over to Melissa and extended his hand again. “And you must be Dr. Melissa Mendoza. Maddy here told me a lot about the two of you.”
“I hope it’s all good,” Melissa said with a flirtatious undertone. She would often ask me why, even in the new millennium, she had to change herself in front of men to get professional attention. All I could ever think to say was, “The more things change the more they stay the same.
“Well, let’s hope,” Dr. Clemenson said with a huff that sounded like a laugh. “I hear you both applied for residency next quarter.”
Mel and I just nod, unwilling to say an
ything that could disprove our worth to the man. The competition for the handful of open positions was fierce.
“I’m sorry I got your cuff wet, Doctor,” I told him, and winced once I said it.
The doctor huffed out a laugh once more. “Nothin’ to it, son. Y’all have a good afternoon, and good luck to ya on the applications.” He walked away and Death followed, but before moving out of sight she shot me a look that was full of disapproval.
“Do you believe in karma?” I asked Mel.
“Keep your head up,” she snapped jokingly, keeping me from boiling over with anger. “Even if you did something in your past that was so bad that you are doomed for it, I haven’t. I’ve put up with enough shit to get us both into Heaven.”
I put the vegetables back into the broth and looked up at Melissa. Though she smiled, her eyes showed the truth, that I could have just ruined both of our chances.
My mother was right; I was paying for the sins of my father.
That evening was spent in bed researching with my laptop. I used various searches on my last name, as well as websites offering extensive research on family trees, one of which I had to pay to unlock information. None of these turned up much about whether or not I was directly related to the man, but I did find that it was highly likely. There are various versions of the name Tumblety, mostly spelled with an “ee” ending. The “ty” ending wasn’t common, and the line tracing the name backwards ends with my great-great-grandfather, who travelled from Ireland. The name-line stopped there, only to pick up again with Francis Tumblety. However, it seemed to begin there as well, as his parents’ headstone was chiseled with a different spelling: “Tumuelty.”
This change in name wasn’t too out of the ordinary, as Francis often used aliases as he traveled across America and Europe. Until his death in 1903, Francis had been known as a misogynistic homosexual who spent most of his life on the run from authorities on two separate continents. Though dying a free man, suspicion of several criminal acts are still attached to his name, the most infamous being that he is the likely candidate for the man known as Jack the Ripper.
Francis had been in Whitechapel at the time all the murders were committed, with rarely a credible alibi. He had rudimentary knowledge of human anatomy and an incredible distaste for women so intense that acquaintances had witnessed the man break out into sermons on the evil that women bring to mankind. The murders were of prostitutes, brutally cut and disemboweled, their womanhood torn from their bodies.
Upon investigation, Francis fled to France, and the suspicion surrounding him went global. Even the New York Times reported on the search for the doctor. The article was titled “Something about Dr. Tumblety,” and that something was that he “…is at present under arrest on suspicion of being implicated in the Whitechapel murders.”
Every psychological profile on Jack the Ripper fits a man like Francis Tumblety more than any other suspect, and every piece of information about the man I can find points to me as his last descendant.
Out of curiosity, I googled “Patrick Tumblety” in full, and every search result that was listed led to articles about Francis “The Ripper” Tumblety. If Dr. Death hadn’t already sabotaged my career at the hospital, any other potential job would be turned away once they searched my name and came across Grandpa Serial Killer. My name doesn’t appear until the survived-by article for my mother’s obituary on page four, and who looks that far back anyway?
Seeing my name buried under all of that dark information made me think about karma again. What if the tragedy plaguing my family’s history was residual payment for the unholy debt accrued by my one ancestor?
That question had plagued me for days. An almost supernatural feeling assured me that by knowing more about this man, I would know more about myself. I had been emailing Death that I was sick for almost a week. When I wasn’t in my apartment I would haunt the library, the diner, the bagel shop, anywhere with a strong Wi-Fi connection. One barista commented on my twelve-hour stay by calling me the Phantom of the Starbucks as she finished her shift. I couldn’t argue, especially if she had seen the information on my computer screen.
There were many theories about the Ripper’s motivations, from plain insanity to a conspiracy with several men to rid London of the lower class. If I were to conclude that Francis Tumblety was the sole murderer, then I could make some inferences that could have led to his actions. The hard facts about him included that he was a misogynist, an adequate physician, and a person who had no qualms about breaking the law. Could his hatred of women run deep enough to kill them? The women’s bodies were mutilated, confirming his rage, but they were also dissected, the way you cut up a frog in a classroom. That piece of information stuck out at me, as though it were the key to a locked door. Could it be that he just didn’t understand them? Did he take the women apart piece by piece, not out of hate, but because he wanted to understand how they worked?
Francis Tumblety could have just been a misunderstood and misguided doctor who used his skills to solve a problem. The Ripper could have been a man just trying to understand the world.
Regardless of his motives, the question remained: Since my ancestor was never caught, was vengeance being exacted on me? I never knew why I wanted to be a doctor, but considered that I probably just wanted to be a healer. I also never had a close relationship with a woman, but I figured that was because of my mother. I always felt detached from the world, an outsider. There needed to be a reason, and as strange as it seemed, my father must have been right when he said that the Tumblety name is cursed.
The lack of sleep was making me feel inebriated. I stopped by the hospital and asked Tom, one of the nurses, to grab me some Xanax. He just told me that I looked like shit and to get some rest. I had a six-day-old beard by that point and my eyes were bloodshot from staring at a computer screen for that long.
I resolved to sleep in the office. On my way there I found myself stopping at the morgue and contemplating cutting up a female cadaver. If Francis was family, the only way I could know anything about him was to do what he had done. I’d dissect a body and pull out the internal organs one by one. Some of the bodies had already been used as practice autopsies, so it was not like I would get caught, and if I did, no one would think I was doing anything other than practicing. Could I imagine this woman as my victim, putting myself inside my ancestor’s head? I would dress her. Yes, that would bring more realism to the illusion. Melissa kept an extra pair of jeans and a few nice shirts for when she was going out directly after work. I could pretend I stalked the body, seduced her, and then cut her while she was still alive. What better way to understand the man inside me than to bring him to the surface?
I opened the door to the office and froze as the light in the hallway caught the edges of Death’s face as she slept on the cot. My initial thought was that this had been a sign to back up and get out of the morgue and leave my curiosity in the past. However, still lacking sleep, medication, and sensibility, my unhinged mind rationalized the situation in a different direction; I had to work twice as hard to get anywhere, from living in assisted care when my mother died, to putting myself through medical school with multiple jobs. The curse pushed me to take the risk. Death was the temptation.
I was able to swipe a vial of sedative and a few syringes. I covered her eyes as I jabbed the needle into her neck. The doctor was in scrubs so I thought about changing her into Melissa’s clothes, but Dr. Death was a flesh and blood specimen that I found. I no longer needed the illusion. I wrapped her in Melissa’s lab coat and carried her limp body to the lab, straining against the dead weight as I plopped her onto the autopsy table. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but the feeling of power over her was intoxicating.
Seeing the doctor on the slab created quite a manic feeling. I had left behind mere curiosity and there was no turning back, so I decided to enjoy myself. I went into the bathroom and shaved off what I had of my week-old beard until all that was left was the outline of a thin, pointed m
ustache. Had I more foresight, I would have gone all the way: grabbed a nice fitted jacket and a top hat to complete the iconic Ripper look. I also considered that, if I was able to get away with this much, could I commit murder for real? You can’t burn in Hell twice.
I threw away my reservations and allowed my forefather to the forefront of my mind. Whatever he wanted to happen would happen.
I undressed the doctor and found myself quite embarrassed with how attracted I was to her. She had a more youthful figure then the hard lines of her face let on. Looking down at her nude, limp body brought up thoughts of my mother. On several occasions I had to strip my mother down and wash off the puke that accumulated during one of her drunken binges. She would be covered in the filth of her own transgressions. After washing her and draining the tub I wondered how someone who looked so pure on the outside could have so much internal chaos.
I put the scalpel to Death’s chest and contemplated making a long cut down her abdomen. I wouldn’t kill her, but I would cut her. The woman would wake up and never know how she got that scar, but she had seen that kind of incision so many times that she would know how it was made. She would always wonder who had cut her…
I could feel my forefather’s disappointment in me, so I tried to push back my hesitation and just kill her like he wanted. This woman might have sabotaged my career anyway, so what kind of future did I have to look forward to? Besides, it was poetic. Francis Tumblety was wanted for murder and fraud in two different countries, but existed without persecution until he died. Francis’ work lived on in infamy, and through a history that resided inside of me. I was responsible for carrying on his legacy…
