The Secret of Ventriloquism

by Jon Padgett

My brother left me trying not to blubber in my bed with a new demon to torment my sleep—Sam. What would it feel like for something other to invade my body and push me out of it? Would I see my own face grinning up with hilarity and malice as I just floated away and disappeared? I doubted whether the Hand or the Doll existed (at least during the day), but I was certain that the malignant shade of Sam was real. Hadn’t my brother actually tried to kill me? Hadn’t my parents both been sad and angry over something unstated for as long as I could remember?

  In the months that followed, my brother mentioned Sam every night.

  “Sam says stab you in the brain with the ice pick.”

  “Sam says hold you under the water in the bathtub.”

  “Sam says smother you with your pillow.”

  “Sam says almost time.”

  “Sam says won’t be long.”

  My brother whispered such things to me at the breakfast table, in the kitchen, in my bedroom, in the den, in the front and backyards. Once he even convinced me that Sam spookily entered a statue of a certain cherubic, laughing Buddha. It sat in an attitude of eternal, uncanny glee on my parents’ cluttered dresser.

  “Now, big-head-little-body,” my brother whispered. “You bust that statue, and you’re saved.”

  So I snuck the heavy Buddha figure outside that afternoon and dashed it against the sidewalk in front of our house. Just then, my brother appeared at the open front door with our mother, pointing at me next to the shards of ruined statue. Soon I was receiving the Brush treatment. I sobbed, bent over a chair in the dining room, as my brother danced and silently taunted me out of mother's sight, through the doorway.

  After that, I worked harder to avoid being alone with him. I spent as much time as I could outside elsewhere in the neighborhood, searching for bugs to capture. The insects’ tiny lives proved a welcome distraction, a kind of temporary bulwark against my brother’s shenanigans. Some days passed without incident.

  One morning, though, I was washing my hands in the upstairs bathroom when my brother entered behind me and closed and locked the door. He stank of chlorine from a swimming competition the night before. My parents were out of hearing or out of the house altogether. Before I could bolt, my brother placed me in a one-armed chokehold and forced me to look at myself in the mirror.

  “This is poison,” he said as he held out a handful of bright red pills. At that, he overpowered me and pushed every one of the pills into my mouth.

  “Look,” he said, pointing at my image in the mirror. “You’re dying.”

  Sure enough, red foam was pouring out of my mouth and down my face.

  The scary looking pills turned out to be only harmless, dental disclosing tablets used to reveal plaque on teeth. But through my brother’s laughter and my own high-pitched, terrified wailing, I made the decision to take action against further torments.

  ~

  The night after the dental pill murder fake out, I sat up in the darkness of my bedroom and considered my options. What could I do to defend myself from further psychological and physical damage (or death)?

  I heard a slow moving rice beetle buzzing, plinking against my window screen. It made me think about the insects and arachnids and grubs from the flowering hedges or underneath garden bricks or logs or within webs or nests in our carport and backyard. The kind of creatures I collected in my jar—the little crawling and flying things I observed and released, alive or dead. Honeybees, flies, centipedes, inchworms, spiders. I lacked the natural resources that most of these creatures had. I couldn’t protect myself like the roly-poly, curling up in its protective shell when assaulted. I lacked the wasp’s sting or the spider’s nimble web spinning. I was slow as the rice beetle plinking against my bedroom window screen, but I lacked its ability to fly.

  A thought occurred unbidden to me: maybe I am like a daddy longlegs. Yes, the spiders that my father once told me are not spiders—the ones that spin no webs but amble about on segmented, needle-thin limbs. Legs that break off so easily when grabbed, never to grow back. The non-spider-things that release a terrible, acrid, chemical stench when threatened. That pungent smell was unforgettable.

  I remembered my brother once telling me that the small body and tiny head atop the gangling legs of the daddy longlegs had no sting or bite that could pierce human skin. But (and he said this with relish) the daddy-long legs’ poison was more venomous than that of any other spider, even if it was unusable—lacking an effective delivery mechanism. I later discovered that my brother was half wrong about the daddy longlegs (or Pholcidae). Its fangs are indeed miniscule, but its venom is far from potent. As far as I knew at the time, though, the gangly insect's poison could kill.

  Like the daddy longlegs, I thought, I was clumsy, slow, skinny, harmless. But was there not hidden, potent toxin within me? And—if so—how could I access that poison and use it to protect myself against my brother’s attacks—or even use it to end his life before he ended mine?

  That night, following my brother’s spooky-voiced bedtime story —Sam as usual persuading him to kill me in a variety of more or less creative ways—I sat in the gloom of my bedroom, counting to one thousand. My thoughts drifted to the Hand under my bed. Each number I recited seemed punctuated by noiseless fingers crawling up the foot of my bed, inching nearer and nearer. What if the Hand under my bed was Sam’s hand, growing even after the death of the rest of his infant-body? I forced those thoughts away and shifted my attention back to an idea that began uncurling itself like a roly-poly within my head. My brother, so powerful and malignant during the day, would be helpless in sleep.

  Once I finished counting and the house grew quiet, I stood up and tiptoed through the open door towards my brother’s bedroom, out into the hallway. As I approached his door, my wary eyes kept watch upon the ceiling attic entrance in which my brother told me so many times the Doll lurked. Past that entrance, in the dark, I could go no further, paralyzed by whirring thoughts of the Doll and her sharp, poisonous teeth. What if the Doll and Sam were now one and the same, another demon-brother clothed in that hideous figure? Would my death by poisonous bite be a prelude to undead possession? I slunk back to my bed and spent another night wracked with fear. All of my brother’s monsters—real or imagined—melded together with jagged, segmented limbs and toxic stingers.

  The nightmare images lingered into the next day but became divorced from the previous evening’s fear. It was as if the mechanism propelling the night horror shorted itself out, leaving only the remaining nightmare-trappings behind, racing back and forth behind my eyes. And behind those nightmare after-images? My brother’s hateful face—dark brown eyes shining.

  Then I remembered the long-handled ice pick and retrieved it from the kitchen drawer. With that weapon I might stand a chance against Sam-Hand, Sam-Doll, Sam-Buddha, Sam-Sam, my brother, whatever else might attack me in the darkness.

  That night, again, I counted to one thousand. Again, I imagined clutching Sam-Hand and grinning Sam-Doll waiting to spring on me. But now I was brandishing the long-handled ice pick. The counting done, I slid out of bed, holding the ice pick in front of me like a flashlight. At the far end of the hall, my brother’s room stood, door ajar. I made it past the attic ceiling-door above and slipped inside his bedroom. I imagined myself insubstantial, invisible in the quiet night.

  I crept inside and looked around, anticipating ambush. But only my sleeping brother was revealed, half covered by a thin blue blanket, mouth agape. Like a dead fish.

  I took in a deep breath and descended to the ground until my torso, arms, and legs were flat on the dusty hardwood floor. Like a daddy longlegs, like the Hand, I crawled under my brother’s bed and flipped over onto my back when I was more or less in the same position as my sleeping brother above. I considered the floor, my rail thin limbs and torso and large head upon the floor, box-screen inches above my face, mattress upon box-screen, and my brother upon that mattress, oblivious. And above him, the ceiling with its globular, extinguished light. And beyond t
hat, the attic. And beyond that? And beyond that? My mind emptied of further thought.

  I placed the point of the long-handled ice pick on the slatted box-screen below the covered mattress. The bottom of the box-screen was covered with a kind of thin, rough fabric, almost like burlap. I ran the ice pick along it, listening to the soft zipping sound it made. From underneath the bed, I adjusted my position, guessing where my brother’s head might be up there. I closed my eyes and envisioned myself floating just above instead of below him, pressing the pointed metal of the pick onto my brother’s soft, yielding eyelid. I pushed up against the box-screen and applied just a little more force... and then a little more. Thwip. The pick (my stinger) entered the box-screen—big brother’s eye and brain in my imagination—within it to the hilt. I realized then that the box-screen was empty—just a hollow frame with rough material stapled around it. I lay underneath the bed in a kind of euphoric glee for the longest time, musing over that emptiness and what could be used to fill it. I was holding the ice pick within the box-screen under my brother’s head, my mind clear of fear for the first time in memory. “That was you,” I whispered to the prone shape above me.

  I spent the next day pacing up and down the length of the flowering hedges in the backyard, collecting honeybees in my jar. And one, then two daddy longlegs, both discovered in a bush covered, pine-straw matted hollow between our house and our neighbor’s.

  For his part, my brother continued his habitual menace of me, but now his threats seemed as hollow as a box-screen, and his typical swagger felt strained—put on.

  “Sam says stick you in the fridge tonight and hold the door closed till you die,” he said. I giggled in response.

  “You even know how long it’d take for me to run out of air in the refrigerator?” I asked. “How long you’d have to hold it closed? God, you’re stupid.”

  My response surprised both of us. In retaliation he stuck a knuckle into my shoulder and squeezed the nail-less, pink flesh of my injured finger. He twisted it until I shrieked and tears began to run. Until he made me whine for mercy, as I always did. My brother sneered with satisfaction, leaning close to me.

  “I’ve made up my mind, diaper dick. Sam’s coming. And you’ll be dead soon.”

  But I knew it was my brother, not me, whose time was drawing to a close.

  That night, according to the next phase of my plan, I brought along—in a small canvas bag—the long-handled ice pick, some duct tape and a jar containing the seven bees and two daddy longlegs collected earlier that day. Again I counted to one thousand and crossed my dark bedroom and hall, less fearful than ever of the Hand, the Doll, let alone Sam. Over the past two nights, I had become one of them, hidden away in darkness like the Doll, even lurking under a bed like the Hand. And as for the malignant shade of Sam—his obsession with being rehoused in my dead body? Well, that wasn’t going to be a problem much longer.

  Again I slipped under my brother’s bed with my equipment in tow. I inserted the ice pick into the eye-level hole I had created in the box-screen the night before. I twisted the pick around and around, widening the aperture until it was half as big as a quarter.

  Twisting off the gold cap, I placed the jar’s mouth against the hole. I could smell the daddy longlegs’ chemical-protective-fear-stench that had been bottled up for hours. I gagged a little. It struck me that the bees wouldn’t exit the jar and enter the box-screen, too drunk on the foul odor. But I was patient. I concentrated on making those buzzing shapes move. One entered the dark cavern above them, whether from the force of my silent concentration or simply to escape the acrid confines of the jar. Then another crawled into the box-screen. Then another.

  When all the bees had entered the hollow space, I pressed layer after layer of heavy tape upon the aperture, trapping the insects inside. Afterwards, in the semi-darkness, I listened to the almost imperceptible, erratic hum of bees within my brother’s box-screen. Then I set my ear against the rough fabric and listened to the buzzing. I imagined my brother’s head melting down, down into the mattress and the box-screen below that, watching in my mind’s eye as seven bees crawled one by one into his open mouth.

  I scooted out from under the bed and sat cross-legged beside it, now unconcerned that my brother might awaken. I jiggled my insect jar upside-down until the two daddy longlegs fell out onto my small palm. They were both worse for the wear. Two disembodied limbs, one still twitching, fell along with the bugs, and both daddy longlegs were trying without success to raise their small bodies upon needle thin legs that would no longer support any amount of weight. They survived hours of honeybee abuse, and now a nameless giant held them in its hands for a monstrous purpose. I closed my palm into a quivering fist, feeling the spasmodic jerks of daddy longlegs-limbs and the two pea-like bodies popping. The foul stench was almost unbearable now. I stood up, holding my shaking little fist over my brother’s prone head, letting several drops of the daddy longlegs fluid drip into his open mouth and finally tossing the remains of the un-spiders under the bed as my brother gagged and coughed, sitting up.

  I collected my things and walked backwards, almost gliding, out of his room, unconcerned now whether he saw me or not. My brother hadn’t, though—he was still retching. I had never felt emptier or more carefree. And I slept deeply for the rest of the night, unmolested by dreams.

  The next morning, my brother was sick in bed, complaining of a bad night’s sleep, a sore throat, a buzzing in his ears and a terrible taste in his mouth. I couldn’t contain my glee when my diminutive mother told me about it. She scolded me for my giggling grin. But she didn’t understand. I knew there was so much more to come. No one knew I had become more cunning than the Hand, more poisonous than the Doll. More secret than Sam.

  Later that morning, the first of a new childhood, I ate my colorful cereal, walked up the stairs, and paid my ailing brother a visit. His usually well-tanned skin appeared pale and wet as he sat up in bed. I watched him shaking his confused head, twisting an index finger inside his right ear. The daddy longlegs stench still hung in the air.

  “You look bad,” I said, ambling up to his bed, sniffing. “And you smell bad too. Maybe Sam decided you’d make a better home for him than I would.”

  But my brother didn’t reach over and stick a knuckle into my scrawny shoulder or twist my injured finger this time. He only averted his shifting, dull brown eyes from my unblinking, eager ones.

  “Bro, look,” my brother said. “Sam isn’t real. I mean, I won’t kill you. I wouldn’t ever really kill you.”

  “I know. I know you won’t kill me, bro. But one day I’m going to kill you.”

  And one day I did.

  The Indoor Swamp

  You’ll never see any Indoor Swamp employees. No informational tour monologue—not even a recorded voice-over while you ride. The flat-bottomed boat contains no hatch for a driver. A track pulley somewhere under the deck yanks the boat at intervals. You’ll feel the automatic pull then release, pull then release of a state fair ride.

  The water appears algae-covered green—but not quite the right shade of green. The trees, though, seem realistic. Grayish-white cypresses draped in what looks at first glance like Spanish moss. Some days, an acrid fog hangs over the Indoor Swamp—more mildew than swamp stench.

  There is only one Indoor Swamp rule—an off-white sign in front of the dock that reads “NO TOUCHING.” This commandment is a little trickier to follow than you’d think. Pay close attention at all times to avoid the hanging branches of burlap-Spanish moss. The closer those trees come as you make your automatic way downstream, the more the bark looks like swaths of dirty papier-mâché. Stroking the jagged, leafless branches as they go by is tempting, just to verify or debunk the trees’ natural reality. But you shouldn’t.

  Of course, it’s unclear exactly what the dock-sign means by “NO TOUCHING.” Does it mean no touching the off-green liquid, which passes as swamp water? No touching the looming, possibly synthetic trees? The sign offers no elaboration. To be
safe, you may want to avoid your fellow passengers—not even touching them with your direct gaze. After all, they’ll surely avoid contact with you (and each other).

  Silence prevails during the tour.

  On a clear day, you’ll see the city through the greenhouse windows that surround the Indoor Swamp. Little bridges and overpasses and tall buildings float by on all sides as the flat-bottomed boat makes its way down the river.

  And, of course, you do go down at a steeper and steeper angle. The pace of the ride quickens. That’s when you’ll notice the Indoor Swamp getting narrower and... smaller. Fewer cypresses appear this far down the artificial river, and they are reduced. The all-encompassing Indoor Swamp seems to shrink before you by degrees. It finally resolves into what appears to be a model train set-sized landscape—the Indoor Swamp in miniature. At first, this optical illusion may make you sick to your stomach as you feel yourself descending even as you appear to be gliding upwards. This effect is exacerbated by the bits and pieces of the flat-bottomed boat shifting in and out of place under and around you. Its structure folds and rearranges itself like an origami figure. What was once a flat-bottomed boat soon resembles a series of narrow, connected roller coaster cars. No more need to avoid the other passengers. You will all be in single file, one car per person, as the tour continues.

  The greenhouse and the cityscape beyond it rise until they disappear behind you into a large, dingy gray warehouse. The quality of the light changes from an outdoor glow to a drab, harsh fluorescent.

  You never can tell exactly when the Indoor Swamp gives out and the flea market appears. The walls are dim. Little alcoves appear, filled with odd knickknacks, old books, and used furniture. The artificial mildew stench of the swamp gives way to the smell of bug spray.

  All the items are used underneath the Indoor Swamp. Everything is for sale at a special price. But rarely will you discover anything of use. A child-size, crummy suitcase with crumbling innards. Ill-formed, glass globes filled with deformed black birds within ugly blue spirals. A crude ventriloquist dummy, hollow head half broken open—one good eye staring at you. Tacky, garish porcelain figures. Open, water damaged books too yellowed to read.