On The Bridge

by Ada Uzoije

  A serious problem that needed no time to grow.

  “Mom, can I please stay at Mick’s tonight?” Doug’s voice woke her from her mission and the recurring thoughts on demons now brought on by Father McBride.

  “I’m frightened, Mom,” Doug shook his head.

  “There is no way I am sleeping alone, especially now knowing a full-blown demon is after me,” he pleaded, flashbacks to the wicked encounters plaguing his recollection as he spoke. “Everything’s alright when I have someone in the room. Please, mom!”

  “Doug! I don't rightly know if this is a demon you possess, but I myself seriously want you to sleep over at your friend’s house,” she replied before he completed his carefully recited plea.

  Doug was not expecting this quick approval from his mother. It was a welcome twist for him.

  “Thanks, mom,” he sighed in relief.

  “What about dad?” he asked, wishing his mother would be bold this time to stand up to her husband.

  “You just leave him to me. You go and pack your sleeping bag. I will ring Mick's mother straight away,” she ordered and he felt a safety net fall over his entire being. He took a moment to let it sink in. He didn’t have to worry about what he’d see tonight and the thought filled him with ecstasy.

  She quickly took a second look at her son before he disappeared up the stairs. She could see he had lost weight and he looked utterly worn out. Doug was exhausted, physically and emotionally in such a short period of time. Then it occurred to her that this was the best time to tell her son how much he meant to her.

  “Doug, I’m very sorry I haven’t noticed what was going on. God, I could not have known. I should have known there was something. I should have asked better, I suppose,” she tried to make sense but everything came out wrong, “and I should not have allowed you to keep quiet about it. I’ve been careless about you, too afraid to push you too much and in the process abandoned your needs, honey. I really care very, very much, and haven’t given you the support you needed from a mother. Please, can you forgive..?”

  “Mum, please stop. It’s not your fault. Sometimes things happen which you and dad can't solve. There’s nothing to forgive, so don't ask me to forgive you when there’s nothing to forgive, okay?” He begged his mother to stop blaming herself.

  “Please! I will feel much better if you just said the word,” she reiterated, “Say you 'forgive me',” Jean begged her son. She was truly upset and he felt sorry for her pain.

  “I forgive you, Mum, but it’s not your fault a filthy demon decided to play cat and mouse with me,” Doug said, trying to be humorous to lessen her burden and lighten the dark atmosphere. The old silly Doug filtered through in his statement and she had to smile.

  Jean was elated her son was fighting to be happy again.

  “Yes! And it’s not your fault either.” She opened her arms, inviting Doug to hug her.

  “This must be the thousandth time you are hugging me today, Mum. What is going on?” Doug said while hugging his mother, his mouth in her hair and his voice dampened by her embrace.

  “I just want you to know that you are special and if you have any more trouble, please tell me!” her voice was gentle and strong again. Doug knew she understood completely now. Relieved, his face lit up. “I promise, mom. I’ll tell you if something happens again.”

  “Anything.”

  “And this time I’ll tell you immediately.”

  After promising his mother, Doug went to his room and packed a suitcase and rolled up his sleeping bag to take to Mick’s. The aquarium bubbled in the corner, like another world compactly caught in a tank. His eyes rested on the soothing colour for a while and his mind took him into the deep softness of the cool water where everything floated. He wished he could live in such a world, where there was no gravity, no heaviness to weight him down. He could fly through the water without touching the ground. How wonderful to not have to listen either. No noise, save for the incessant sound of bubbles and any angry voices and hard words would be nothing but muffled sounds.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and closed his bedroom door behind him, looking forward to his crazy friend’s company. He came down the stairs and onto the landing, but just as he reached the door, his father had arrived.

  When Norman saw Doug, he said, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “Dad, Mom said I could go over to sleep at Mick’s,” Doug stuttered a bit, because something about Norman was especially hostile. His father’s voice was not at all hiding his infuriation.

  “What’s that around your neck?” Norman said, fixing his eye on the cross.

  “Father McBride gave this to me,” Doug said, managing his tone, because he knew his father was just picking a fight again and he did not want to afford him the pleasure.

  “Who is Father McBride?” he asked, curiously. A menacing bend in his voice proved his disrespect for all things religious.

  “He is a priest from St. Peter’s Catholic Church,” Jean answered him as she came out of the laundry room holding a basket of clean clothes.

  “That’s not answering my question, though. Why is my son wearing a cross?’ Norman was persistent and he did not like the dismissive nature of his wife’s answers. He deliberately blocked her way as she passed.

  “Please, just let him go to his friend and I will explain later,” Jean said, trying to be diplomatic.

  “Take that thing off.” Norman ignored his wife’s plea. Doug reluctantly took the necklace from his neck, enveloped it in his fingers and put it in his pocket. His father steered him to go to his room, but Doug did not move and eyed his mother to persuade his dad to the contrary.

  Norman noticed the exchange of glances between them and it ran him red. He turned to her with a distrusting frown. His body stood rigid and fast, like a boxer about to engage and he said to her, “What have you two done while I was gone?” His voice was soft and foreboding. “You know, Jean, ghosts do not exist.”

  “I am not sure about that,” she replied carelessly.

  “It’s not a ghost, actually. We think it’s a demon.”

  Jean did not notice that word slipping out of her mouth until it was said out loud.

  “What? Is that what the priest told you?” Norman was astonished at the turn of events.

  “Please listen, Norman,” Jean begged, knowing that he was intolerant.

  “I can't have any more of this nonsense!” he bellowed. “What are you still standing there for? Go to your room!” he yelled at Doug.

  “Mum,” Doug called to his mother for support. He hoped that she would not fold this time. She did not disappoint him.

  “He is my son, too, and I say he is not going to his room,” Jean stood between Doug and Norman.

  She shook her head in earnest, a little afraid of what he would do next. He was livid at the blatant disregard he got from his son and his wife’s continual covering for him.

  “Don't you understand?” he barked at Jean, “If word spread that your son is seeing demons, the mental unit will be here within days to lock him up, Jean!”

  “You’d rather rely on what people think than what is really happening to our son. Look at him! You honestly think he would fabricate such things - for what?”

  “Attention! That is what this is about!” Norman yelled.

  Doug was furious with his dad's statement. He could not stand for this misguided opinion of him anymore.

  “How could you say that, Dad?” he shouted back at his father, and his voice was fraught with rage and fearlessness that bordered on hostility.

  “Doug, stop!” his mother pushed him away from getting too close to his dad.

  “The guy is dead, Douglas! Nothing is chasing you. Dead men don’t chase people. It’s time you stopped believing in ghosts.”

  “But Dad,” Doug tried, his eyes wet with tears.

  “No, I won’t have it! This stops here and now. This is your way of seeking attention like a little school girl. Man up! This is e
ither you crying for attention or you really need to get your head checked. Doug, you aren’t being stalked by some dead guy; you simply have some sort of complex in your brain. You’re like someone with a guilty conscience; it’s all in your mind!”

  Doug turned to Jean. “Mum, I have had enough!” He pushed his mother carefully aside to face his dad.

  “You think I’m an idiot because I’m haunted by what I saw. I’m not afraid of the man, I’m afraid of having visions and hallucinations. I’m afraid of what I’m going to see the next time I turn a corner, or take a bath, or open the fridge,” Doug shrieked now, his voice hysterical with frustration and fear alike.

  “Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

  “Visions and hallucinations are nothing to be frightened of. You just simply tell yourself they’re not real…because quite frankly they aren’t! They are pictures in your mind. You think they can actually harm you? You have to be a bigger idiot than I thought. It’s time you grew some balls!” Norman’s voice was condescending and dismissive and Jean cringed at the harm it was no doubt doing.

  “Norman, you have got to stop this! Do you hear yourself?” Jean said.

  “Yes! Listen to your wife for once,” Doug shouted at his father, not even realising his insolence.

  “Dad, nothing works…except to be with my friends, to have someone in my room with me. And you know, I used to think it works because whatever came for me was confused when more than one soul was there, but you know what I think now? It works because they actually care about me, unlike you! They listen to me while nobody else does.”

  “No! Doug, you can't say that! A demon is no friend of yours,” Jean corrected him fast and firm, the very thought abhorrent to her.

  Norman would not have his son speak to him with such a tone. The insubordination in his house was overwhelming him and he felt emotionally exiled, which infuriated him even more. He shoved his pointed index finger in Doug’s face.

  “Listen you little pipsqueak,” Norman’s voice shuddered with rage, “don’t you dare raise your voice to me like that. That’s not the way a son talks to his father.”

  But Doug was at the end of his tether. His father’s intimidating frame and his possible actions held no pressure anymore and he knew this was the moment of truth. He was going to fight back for once. He was going to let his father know exactly how he felt. Was this not what they kept telling him to do?

  “I’m not your son! I’m just a stupid teenage boy who lives in your house,” Doug’s voice was certain and clear. “You barely ever talk to me and you never listen to me. You treat me as if I’m a robot with no feelings, like I’m just another possession you own! You do nothing but shout at me and when you can’t, you make up some excuse to find something wrong so that you can.” Norman stood still. For once he was listening. He had to. He could not believe his ears. “You pay more attention to your business than you do to me. If you treated your staff like you treat me, you wouldn’t have any left. They’d just quit. Well, you know what? I wish I could quit and go off and have somebody else as a father!”

  Norman slapped him across the face, the sickening sound reverberating in Jean’s ears.

  “No!” Jean cried, pushing Norman away from their son.

  “Listen you ungrateful little bastard. You have the audacity to say that after all I’ve done for you?” Norman held nothing back now. He was done with it all. It was time for a wakeup call, a kill shot. “No other father would take in such a nancy. You wish! You are nothing but an ill-mannered little brat with no respect for his father. Go to your room now!”

  Doug looked at his mother, holding the red welt that was forming on his cheek. He could see the pain in her eyes and the helplessness she felt, no matter what she tried.

  “I am sorry, Mother,” Doug said coldly, but he meant it.

  As he walked up to his door, his phone rang. It was Krista. But Doug was most certainly not in the mood for answering calls and so he simply switched off his phone, unfazed by who it might be. He opened the door and was not at all swayed by what he saw. There it stood, waiting. It was the shadow, hidden in one of the corners of the ice-cold room. Doug felt the creepiness, the dark and heavy evil that filled his bedroom, but somehow he did not care.

  He was tired of fighting an endless battle.

  Downstairs, Jean shook her head in disbelief, her tears streaming over her face and her hands latched tightly together over her chest. Jean looked at her husband with utter distaste.

  “Can’t you listen to him just for a moment? Just once, Norman. Can’t you see he needs help, not punishment or insults? He’s not a man yet. He’s a boy who’s experiencing things he doesn’t understand and can’t deal with. Have you no heart at all?”

  Doug’s father looked at his wife for a long moment and said, “And I am a man, so I get no empathy at all? Do I get no credit for having fed him and housed him for 15 years, slaved to send him to the flossy school, all with no thanks at all? Huh?” He looked at her, waiting for an answer that never came.

  “Where’s the appreciation for what I do, Jean? I’m tired of both of you.”

  The decision she had entertained for quite a while now simply came out.

  “I want a divorce!” she said to Norman and disappeared into their room and slammed the door under the force of her annoyance.

  At that very moment, Norman realised he might lose everything. He hoped to put things right the following day. There was too much confusion and he thought he needed some time to cool off. His family was the most important thing to him.

  Doug was wrong.

  He had never put his business before his son. Everything he had done was for Doug to have a bright future. Now, he was not sure of that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The next morning came quickly.

  Outside it was silent, mostly, save for the occasional car passing through the street or the vague sound of a lawnmower far away in another block. Jean had woken after only two hours of sleep, unable to stay in bed for another moment. Norman never came to bed as he had wisely chosen to sleep on the sofa.

  Jean was parched, so thirsty that she went downstairs to fix herself a cup of coffee. She saw her husband snoring in the parlour as she made her way to the kitchen. In the half-light of dawn she sat contemplating her life, her hands both tightly clutching her mug as she stared into space, reliving the things that had recently unhinged her happiness and how she could not figure out how to begin healing it all. After all, as mother, was that not her job? So she sat well into the sunrise and the morning with only the radio to keep her company.

  At 6:30 a.m., she heard Norman having a shower upstairs. She figured he was getting ready to go to work. She could hear the water pipes and she waited for him to make his appearance. No doubt it would be quite awkward, but such things had a way of finally unknotting themselves and she hoped for the best.

  Jean took a sip of her cold coffee and wondered how her boy had slept. Since he described his troubles to her she had often guessed at his state of mind and now she sat here, wondering if he had seen any demons during the night after his father exiled him to his room. She could hear movement upstairs between the bathroom and their room, but Doug must’ve still been sleeping, she hoped. The last thing she needed was for the two boys to walk into one another up there now, with matters still unresolved as they were.

  She decided not to prepare him breakfast. He did not deserve any kindness from her for his brutish behaviour, and this time she would not give in. He would need to apologise to their son or she would leave him. Her mind was fixed.

  The doorbell rang.

  How odd, for this time of the morning. Jean certainly did not feel like welcoming visitors, especially now. She stood still, trying to figure out who it might be and then it chimed again. She heard her husband rush downstairs. The door opened and she could hear unfamiliar voices, so she went to see who it was.

  “Is this the home of Norman Bates?” a female police officer asked a
nd her partner simply brooded over her shoulder. Jean did not like the sight of them. The police? It could not be a good thing.

  “It is,” replied Norman. “Can I help you, officers?”

  “Can we come in, sir?” the woman asked and Norman stepped aside to let them in, closing the door behind him slowly and looked at Jean with a measure of uncertainty which unsettled her. He offered them a seat in the living room and sat down across from them.

  There was a brief silence in the room and then the male officer spoke.

  “Mr. Bates, I’m afraid we may have some bad news for you.”

  Jean came into the room and stood behind her husband. Her stomach knotted at the disturbing statement, although she could not think of what they might say.

  “Do you have a son about 15 or 16?”

  Jean choked on a lump in her throat. Doug? Why Doug? What could the police possibly have to do with this? Had he been acting out with Mick and Thompson, perhaps? More trouble from a troubled teen?

  When Norman nodded, she asked, “Do you know where he is?”

  “He’s upstairs in his room asleep.”

  The two cops looked at one another, a little surprised. The woman raised her eyebrow and nodded to her partner.

  “Well, I think you’d better check,” said the male officer and before he could continue, Jean interrupted.

  “What is this about, officers?” she said quite abruptly, her tone driven by concern, not rudeness.

  “A body of a young boy was found under the bridge by a kayaker at first light this morning, ma’am. He had a billfold in his jeans pocket with the identification, ‘Douglas Bates,’” the man said softly.

  “Could you check on your son?”

  The words echoed like flying glass through Jean’s soul. It was so unreal. Her face contorted in disbelief and denial, she gasped.

  Norman got up quickly and raced up the stairs, and knocked at Doug’s door.