by Clay Chapman
“I would never hurt Eli. Never.”
“Then…how?” She shakes her head, searching for the right rendition of how. There are so many versions to pick from. Which how fits here? “He showed me, Richard.”
“Showed you what?”
“The bruises. On his arm. I saw them this morning.”
“I—” My train of thought snaps like a bone. “Did he say how he got them?”
Where did these bruises come from? Such a simple question.
“He wouldn’t tell me. But his arm is black-and-blue.” Tamara’s foot presses on the gas, reflexively revving the engine.
Who did this to you?
“All I can think about is that woman, that mother, and her little girl. What they said about you.”
Was it your teacher?
“They’re lying, Tamara—”
“That girl pointed at you. She looked right at you.”
“It’s not true—”
“She said your name. And then I—I see Eli’s bruises and he told me about how you shouted at him and—”
“I never laid a hand on Eli!”
“What about Weegee?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
I don’t respond.
“Did you do something to him?”
“No! I…”
“I went into your studio. Jesus, Rich, I found him.”
“That—that wasn’t me! The night we came back from the fair, I found him hanging from the—from the tire swing. I didn’t say anything because you were so worked up over—”
We miss the turn that takes us back to our house.
I crane my neck to watch our road slip off into the surrounding tree line, swallowed by pines. “Where are we going?”
Tamara doesn’t say a word. She still hasn’t looked at me.
“Tamara…Where are you taking me?”
“To a hotel.” She doesn’t need to say why. A level of trust has been breached and I won’t be allowed back into the house until…when, exactly? I make things right? Clean this mess up?
“I’ll explain everything. I swear. I just—please. I need you to believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
Elijah is slipping away.
Tell her about me, Sean whispers.
Tamara is slipping away.
Tell her now!
My family, slipping through my fingers.
TELL HER.
“Pull over,” I say. Too forcefully. “Please.”
Tamara pulls onto the shoulder. The Jeep’s parked just a few paces away from the farmers market. It must be Saturday. The weekend market is up and running. A Danvers tradition. A half dozen open-air tents are set up in a gravel parking lot just off the highway selling everything from corn to kale to fresh milk and venison. There’s a crowd of J. Crew catalogue models wandering from tent to tent. Stepford parents. The Friends of Danvers. Tamara and I could’ve easily been among them. That would’ve been us on any other day, in any other life than this one.
Tamara cuts the engine. The keys remain in the ignition. She sits back in her seat, still gripping the steering wheel, elbows locked, bracing herself for what I’m about to say.
“I can explain this. I can explain everything.”
The muscles in her neck tighten, the tendons like two steel cables clamping down on her throat. She still can’t bring herself to look—to see me. “I want to believe you. I do. I’m trying, but…I can’t stop seeing that girl. That poor girl. I’d never forgive myself if I…if I brought something, someone like that into…into our house. If anyone ever hurt Elijah…”
“No one’s going to hurt him, I swear. Just hear me out. Please? Please.”
Say my name, Sean whispers.
“We’ve talked about my childhood before. About…me. But there are certain things I haven’t told you, because…because…”
Say it.
“This was—what, 1983? There was a rumor going around about my teacher, and I…So many parents were getting paranoid about predators at school…so when my mom saw these bruises on my body, she panicked. I made up a story, and she believed me and called the police, and they got involved and one thing led to another…Before I knew it, before I could stop it…”
Tamara’s lips part. I can see her panic mounting.
“It got out of hand so quickly. I couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t make it go away. More people got involved. People I didn’t know. Lawyers and the FBI and…and it became this tidal wave that swept up so many people. No matter what I said, there was no stopping it. My mother, she—she couldn’t take care of me anymore. Couldn’t take care of herself…”
This is all coming out wrong. I can’t make the story sound the way it is in my head. I’m losing Tamara, but I have to keep talking, keep telling her my story, the only story I’ve ever had, in hopes that—if I can just reach the end—she might understand. That’s all I want in this world.
I need Tamara to believe me.
“My adopted parents put as much distance between me and what happened as possible. They wanted to protect me from myself. I took their name and they pushed away the press. We created this new narrative for myself. A story for everybody to believe. Something that fit the new me and buried the old. We moved on. It was like we forgot it even happened.”
Forgot me, I want to say. “I forgot, too.”
Please, just look at me, I want to say. It’s me! It’s Richard.
No it’s not, Sean whispers.
“I was five. Most of it I can’t remember anymore. That part of me, that part of my life…it feels like a bad dream now. It doesn’t exist. This is who I am now. This is me.”
I take Tamara’s hand. She lets me. Her arm merely hangs there, limply suspended from her shoulder. A rag doll. “Please,” I say. “It’s me.”
Tamara looks at her hand in mine, as if it belongs to somebody else. She follows the length of my arm until she finds my face. Her eyes are wide, weltering. “Who are you?”
Say my name. Say it.
“My name is…was…Sean.”
Hearing myself say my own name, out loud, for the first time in years sounds like a death rattle to my ears. That last exhalation before passing away. It releases Sean. The presence of my childhood self fills the car with a pungent odor. Something decaying. A dead child.
A gray boy.
For the longest time, I wondered, even fantasized, that coming clean and saying his name would somehow unburden myself. A weight lifting off the shoulders. But there’s no relief. No divestment, no shedding of skin. I’m still me. Whoever that is.
“Who are you,” she repeats. It’s not a question this time. Not anymore.
“Tamara. Please. I need your help. Someone, I don’t know who, is using my past to—”
She yanks her arm away and brings both hands to her face, rubbing her eyes. Her sleeve tugs at her elbow, exposing the lower coil of her tattoo. I stare at the snake wrapped around her arm, the serpent conjured from her scars. It looks like a dagger to me. A winding knife.
I lose myself in Tamara’s tattoo. All her tattoos. All the images on her body represent something significant in her life. She imbued her body with deeper meaning, like an open book.
A book of spells. Tamara, my witch.
What had she said about the thistle on her thigh? It’s supposed to break hexes.
What did the compass symbolize? What about the star on her shoulder?
She keeps asking me who I am, but what about her?
Who was she?
What if…? What if Tamara was one of them?
One of the Others?
I just got into the car with a complete stranger, forgetting every warning we were told as children. All this time, for our ent
ire relationship, what if she always knew I was Sean? Asking that one simple question opens a floodgate of others. They begin with a trickle, the queries dribbling from my head. But more questions come rushing in. They won’t stop now.
What if Sean is the reason Tamara was with me in the first place? What if she was tending to me? Holding onto me until the others were ready? How else could she have fallen in love with me? All this time, all this time, she knew, she knew I was Sean because…how else?
How else could she have ever loved someone like me?
The scar along her arm. The story she told me. What if that’s not really how she got it? What if she received the burn? What if she was branded? Marked? Isn’t that what they do? I know it’s not true, that it couldn’t possibly be true, but—what if? That’s all I have now. This nagging sense of doubt echoes through my head, Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif…
What about the cardboard box? The remnants of Hank left out in the garage? Tamara must’ve known I’d go through his belongings. She wanted me to find them.
What if she wanted me to become him?
The two of us stare at each other like we’ve never known each other at all.
“What do you want from me?”
Tamara’s face tightens. “Excuse me?”
“How did you find me?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“How long have you known? What are you going to do—”
She slams her fist against my shoulder. “Get out. Get out of my fucking car!” She reels her fist back and starts punching. Aiming for my face. My ear. My chest. She won’t stop shouting. Her fists hit whatever part of me she can find. Clawing at me now. Scraping my neck. I can’t help but feel the slightest sense of relief, like I’m standing in a rainstorm after languishing in the sun for hours, the steady shower rinsing the sweat from my skin. I could have sat there and let her crush me. Obliterate me into a million pieces of flesh and bone. Until there’s nothing left.
I want it. Need her to destroy me.
“Get out get out GET OUT!”
I finally open the door and spill onto the shoulder. I hit the ground. Gravel digs into my arm, cutting me. Picking myself up, I stare back at Tamara as she turns the ignition.
“Tamara—”
“Don’t come near my son ever again!”
My son. Not two days ago he had been so close to becoming our son.
Gone now.
Tamara speeds off without shutting the door. The tires kick up loose gravel before the Jeep reaches the pavement and screeches away. I stand at the side of the road, watching her go.
I’m not alone.
Across the street, a couple is just leaving the farmers market. They’re dressed to match—him in a slate-gray cashmere cardigan and her in a mock turtleneck sweater of the same hue. She’s carrying a tote bag full of freshly shucked corn. Strands of silk still cling to the ears. At this distance, it looks like hair. Blonde hair. Wisps spill over the brim and flutter in the wind.
When the road is clear, the man releases the woman’s hand and runs across the street. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine.” I feel my knees buckle, my legs weakening, unable to hold the rest of myself up. I start to list. The man grabs my arm before I fall. “I just need to…need to…”
A sob escapes my mouth. It comes from deep within my chest.
“Hey—it’s okay. I got you. You’re not alone.”
Not alone. He says it calmly, so reassuringly. He wants me to feel safe. I lose myself in his clean-shaven face. Not a nick on his chin. His skin still has the remnants of a summer tan. But somehow I can’t put his features together. His face is a puzzle to me, scattered about.
“It’s Richard, right?”
I pull out from his grip and stumble back. “How do you know my name?”
“Whoa. Easy now.” He holds his hands up in placating gesture, as if to assure me that everything’s just fine, that this is all just a big misunderstanding. That I’m not alone.
“This is, uh…weird. But…” He lets out an awkward chuckle. “Sorry. This isn’t how I expected this to go, but…I’m Hank.”
He holds out his hand for me.
“I’m Elijah’s father,” he offers. His hand remains open for me to take. “Or…I was. I’ve been…I’ve been thinking about reaching out to Tamara lately but could never figure out the timing.”
My stomach turns over. I knew I’d seen him at the fair. I knew it. “What do you want from us?”
Hank’s expression hitches. “Look, this isn’t how I thought this would all go down. My girlfriend and I—” He turns to the woman across the street, watching us. She switches her tote from one hand to the next. The decapitated head inside must be getting heavy. “—live in Mechanicsville. I didn’t know Tamara and Eli were living here—or, hell, that she even got remarried. I just filled in the gaps with Facebook after I saw you two together.”
He offers up a reassuring smile, as if to say, Trust me.
“I don’t know what Tamara’s told you,” he continues. “I’m sure it’s not pretty. But I’ve cleaned up since we were together. Did a solid stint in rehab. Now I’m in the program. Been spending the last year or so trying to make amends and just…I feel like it can’t be an accident that I’m here in the same town as her and Eli.”
Can’t be an accident.
“Look, I can tell this is a bad time. Why don’t we just exchange numbers and maybe I—”
“Stay away.” None of this is coincidence. None of this is by chance. He’s a part of this. He’s been following me. Can’t be an accident.
“I’m sorry if I—”
“Stay away from me!” I rush off, leaving him by the side of the highway. I glance over my shoulder to make sure he’s not following. He stands there, struck. His girlfriend has crossed the street now, the two of them standing together, staring at me as I pick up my pace.
“That’s him?” I swear I hear her whisper.
“That’s him.”
The farmers market. The customers are watching. Staring. Now they’re all whispering. “That’s him,” they say. “The art teacher.” They know who I am. How do they all know?
What if…
People are watching. On the street. From the other side of windows. They have the same look in their eyes. I see them speaking to each other, discussing me under their breath, their hushed tones just out of earshot. What if they’ve always been here, hiding among us?
have you seen me? The telephone poles all ask the same question.
Now I can. I see them all.
missing. help. It’s too late. The animals go first. That’s a part of their ritual. Now they’re ready for me. They don’t think I see them. I have to pretend. Pretend that I don’t notice.
It’s impossible not to sense their eyes following me down the street, wherever I go.
There are eyes everywhere.
They are here. Right now. Hiding in plain sight. They look like you or me or anyone else.
But they are watching. Always watching.
I never believed. Never thought it was true.
What if…? What if Mom was right? What if she saw them and I didn’t believe her?
What if the stories are true?
Mr. Cassavetes’s closing thought was practically a sermon. He stood before the studio audience as if they were his congregation. The devil is here, he said, in our backyard, in our homes, as we speak. His followers, his disciples, are hidden among us at this very moment. There is a widespread network of Satan worshippers operating throughout our great nation, he proclaimed. This secret society exists in the open daylight, right under the sun for all to see. They are engaged in child pornography. Sex trafficking. The torture of children. They brainwash our boys and girls into becoming devil worshippers, continuing their profane legacy…
These devil worshippers have infiltrated the highest levels of our society. They are embedded within the very institutions that hold our nation up and maintain its laws, in order to subvert our society, subvert our institutions, subvert our very laws. They want to create chaos. They want to let this world burn. Its houses of worship, its schools. They want the world to descend into darkness and let their master rise, rise up and bask in the flames of our nation.
How did Mr. Cassavetes know?
Because our children told us so, he said. From the mouths of babes, we’ve been told that this threat is here. That evil is here. Evil walks amongst us and we have to heed the warning.
I never believed. I never believed because I was the one who made it up. The stories were mine. The lies. I never believed—until now. Until the devil began believing in me.
In Richard.
I thought I could run away from myself. Hide. But there’s no hiding. Not from them.
What if the people living here have known about me this whole time? What if they followed me? They’ve known all along. They’ve just been waiting for the right moment.
Full circle.
These people have always been too perfect. Too clean. All the cookie-cutter residents, wearing crisp catalogue-brand clothes, the refurbished stores for a revamped Danvers brought back from the dead, the prefab antiquity of this entire gentrified hamlet…it’s all a façade.
A mask.
I’ve been in their box this whole time, an animal imprisoned in their cardboard container, trying to claw my way out…but the walls are too high. I’m trapped in this town.
I’m their sacrifice. All this time they’ve been prodding me along, pushing me in whatever direction they needed me to go. Leading me to this. This has been their plan all along. I never wanted to be an art teacher. I never planned to have a wife and kid. They made me this way. They turned me into him.
Now I see them everywhere. You have to know what to look for.
The devil’s in the details.
They look like us. Talk like us.
They are us.
There. That woman. There. That man. This whole fucking fake town. Danvers is just an elaborate cage to keep me in until they’re ready. Finish what they started all those years ago.
