Death Rhythm (24 page)

It's just a doll. Just a doll, and it's not so bad. Just a doll, and she can stand being down here. Just a doll, and she can watch the last bits of life being sucked out of Mr. Severson, because when he's just a doll, it's only stuffing. Just rags and yarn being pulled out of his body so that her daddy can refill him, give him some new and improved stuffing. So Mr. Severtson is just a doll, and that's fine with Edna.

Standing with her hand on the door and Mae babbling, Edna hadn't wanted this memory, but it came anyway. Came through the walls, the fortifications she'd built up, and now slipped out into her mind while Hector's voice still rang in her head. While Mae continued to babble on -

"Forget it?" Mae said. "How can we forget it? How can I forget it? With Hector over there, yelling, shouting his memories at us, his grudge. And Natalie. Now Natalie has caught this memory like a disease, a plague. It's Hector's memory pushing her down and making his grudge into her grudge. Yes, maybe you can forget it - no, not forget it, but at least hide it away in the back of your mind - "

Yes, that's right, Edna thinks. Hide it away, push it away so far back, lock it away in a sound proof vault. It worked so well before. Before she heard Hector, at least.

"And Andy," Mae continued. "You can think of all this as just a dream if you want to, if you must. But not me. I have to live with this. I have to live with this memory. It lives in this house. In the cemetery. In Hector and Natalie."

"Why don't you move?" Andy asked.

Mae sighed. "I can't. I've spent too much time as a child hiding it, locking it away, and now I can't."

But I can, Edna thinks. And what's so wrong with that?

"I have to face it," Mae said. "Face the past. Look it in the eye. Stare it down. Tell it to fuck off. Can't you see? Don't you understand? Here is where I can make my stand and live with myself in the process."

Make her stand. Make her stand, Edna thinks. And how did I cope with it all before? How did it work for me for so long?

Andy spoke again. "Shouldn't you leave them alone? Don't you think that grudge is too deep?"

"Well, I have to try," Mae said. "And if it doesn't work - if they just laugh at my face or yell at me and shout - I'll at least have a greater sense of peace with myself because I tried."

Peace. That's what I want, too, Mae, Edna thinks. I want peace. And I had it for so long. At least until I came here and heard Hector. And I can hear her drum again. Evelyn's drum. I just want peace. And hadn't it felt so good before? My peace? Hadn't it been so good, shutting up Evelyn's drum? That constant pounding, that banging, in my head, forever in my head, until I shut it up, shut her up? Hadn't it felt so good, finally thrusting my hand at her, burying that stick up to her ribcage, and finally shutting that drum up, that sound, the constant pounding ceasing, ceasing for so long, the fortifications beginning to build themselves right then and there? Yes, it had felt so good, and it had worked for so long. Evelyn's drum had been only a dream in the back of her mind for so long after that, only hearing it in the distance of her dreams, until now. Until now. Hector's voice had started the pounding again.

Edna's hand slowly turned the rusting doorknob of the shed until it clicked. She pushed the door open and they walked into the sunshine, the October sunshine. The temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees, and out in the west, clouds formed.

The pounding had started for Edna once again, and she remembered how easy it had been to stop it before. How easy and good it had felt to bury her hand. Up to the rib cage. And the drumming, the pounding, had ceased.

FORTY

That undercurrent. That undercurrent.

Andy felt it.

From the moment his mother came into his bedroom this early morning - he felt it.

Like a thousand flies.

Like that beat in his head.

That undercurrent. Alive and buzzing, an electric wire. An electric, sizzling umbilical cord. It thickened and grew and sizzled when Edna had stepped into his room. It was there in the shed, the three of them waiting in hushed silence during Hector's vocal onslaught. God, it's still here, Andy thought. Still here, and it wasn't Natalie. She was a part of it, yes. She was part of it. But as he had the seat belt wrapped around her neck, trying to choke off that
beat
, he realized it was something more.
Almost too late
, he thought now and closed his eyes. Almost too late.

And now here's Mae, rattling on about her twelve step program to deal with your twisted, murderous past, Mae rattling on about confrontation, psychological self-help and justification. Mae - ready to do battle.

As the three of them sat in the dining room, Mae banged her glass on the table, rose from her seat and said just that. "Into battle!"

Into battle.

The three of them to do battle with Natalie and Hector.

Isn't it funny that she puts it that way? Because, really - all they want to do is talk to them. Just talk to the two of them and try to straighten this whole thing out. Into battle? I suppose, Andy thought, that you have to think of it that way. This confrontation could be hell. So best to psyche yourself up. That's what Mae's doing. Psyching herself - all of us - up.

So into battle it will be.

Andy took a sip from his glass of water, noticing for the first time how dry his throat was. He drained the rest of the glass in one lone gulp. Suck up that water and into battle.

Jesus, he really didn't want to do this.

But into battle it must be.

Here's what you do, he thought. When you go over there and Hector starts screaming and ranting, just ignore the bastard. Ignore him, act like you can't hear him. Let the screams pass through the ears like a breeze. The shouts can be like the mist in the air, and it will pass through the brain with no more than a slight chill.

Yes, ignore the son of a bitch and let Mae do all the talking. That's what she's good at, and she's the one who really wants this, anyway. She's the one who wants to do battle.

But Natalie. What about Natalie? Will you be able to face her again? Look into her eyes after what you've done? Will you be able to handle that? Hector's screaming, yes, but Natalie? Maybe block her out, too. If that's at all possible. Don't look into her eyes. Don't listen to her eyes. Don't feel her eyes shoot icicles into you. Because that is what she will do. Bombard you with her stare of hurt and hate and that deep rooted grudge.

So just ignore that, too.

Ignorance is blisters on your mind, maybe, but blisters that you can deal with later.

"Andy." It was Mae. "Did you hear me, Andy?"

Andy looked up from the table.

"Can you do this? Can you talk to her? We need you to talk to her, Andy, because you're the bridge between us, you can make her shake off that grudge." Mae looked hard into Andy's eyes. "Can you do this?"

Andy looked at his water glass and held it up, looking at it in the sunlight filtering in through the dining room window.

"I'm thirsty," he said, and got up, went into the kitchen, and turned on the water faucet, filling his glass with the metallic tasting liquid, pouring it into his mouth, and filling his glass again and again.

FORTY-ONE

Edna's eyes, the distant eyes, the gone eyes. The forever gone eyes.

So she knows.

Into battle. Is that what she wants? Is that what Mae wants?

Into battle, against the mighty Hector and Natalie fair.

Edna giggles to herself.

She freezes. The giggles, the laughter inside surprises her, frightens her.

She had kept it back, way back, in an unused, unwanted drawer in the chest of her mind. Or was it a trash bin?

The years in the mental institution had taught her that. Stuff it away. Stuff it away and play their game.

She knew their game. She could see their game. And she suppressed the giggles the best she could.

At first it was impossible. The silly patients there. The nuts. And she had been a nut, too. A nut, and the world was one big fucking acorn tree and who cared?

But better to not be in there, in the institution, because they made you eat what they wanted you to eat, when they wanted you to eat, and she had, she had, she had. She'd done what they had told her to do, said what they wanted her to say, and this nut, she thought, this nut was going to get out of there.

And it wasn't easy. At first.

But then she'd had quite a spell of luck, hadn't she? Coming on to her shrink, and think, just think - him coming on to her.

Why, after that it was so easy. Love is easy to act out if it means freedom. And here, freedom it would be.

How did she act sane? Well, she really was sane, wasn't she? Everyone is sane, really. Just be the opposite of the nut you are.

Just turn into shy, quiet Edna - just stuff it, stuff it, stuff it, and come on to your shrink, and maybe, just maybe through your feigned vulnerability, he'll fall in love with you.

And you know what? Edna thought, remembering all this as she walked through the house,
their
house, her childhood house. You know what?

It worked.

It worked. As simple as that, it worked.

Her psychiatrist soon fell in love, and Edna learned more about psychology than she ever had before. She learned which buttons to push. She learned how to get a psychiatrist to sleep with her, push, push, push, and to propose to her, push, push, and to get her out of that fucking loony bin, big fucking push! She pressed the right buttons in the right order and poppo and presto, a wedding band on her finger and boff bang pow, a child, a child, her Andy. Her baby, her baby.

With Andy came the realization that she no longer needed her husband. No longer needed Abner Byrd. Now she had Andy.

And push, push, push, she pushed her husband into oblivion, into the back of her mind, into
death
.

Push, push, push, the poison she used on him pushed that big death button, and it had been rather easy, hadn't it? Rather easy.

Quite easy.

Until she realized Andy wasn't really a doll, was he? She realized that she really did love Andy after all, didn't she? And raising Andy all by herself wasn't so easy, was it?

Raising Andy had changed her. It made her act become more real, and Edna was losing the real Edna and becoming a new Edna, an Edna who was quiet and shy and who really did love, really did love her baby, her baby boy, her Andy.

Edna had grown up.

My god, Edna thought as she walked through this house. I grew up. I grew up.

She did grow up, and it wasn't like she was pushing buttons anymore, it wasn't like she had to act anymore. The old Edna had gone into hiding, and the hiding process had been so gradual. The hiding process developed with each diaper she changed, each breast she offered to Andy as he suckled and grew.

The old Edna took a long, long lunch break. Gradually, yes. So gradual that Edna hadn't realized it. Hadn't realized it until now, or at least until she saw that old mortician's table in the shed, standing there like a beacon.

And the old Edna had peeked out. Peeked out from her hiding place for a brief moment. A brief peek-a-boo, how do you do.

Edna giggled again. Or was it the old Edna who made her giggle?

Andy no longer needed her,
that
was for sure. Andy no longer needed Edna, old or new.

Why had she come here, then? Why had she driven so far in the middle of the night after so many years gone by, why, why, why?

Was it because the only thing, the only one she really loved, had gotten a glimpse of the old Edna?

Peek-a-boo.

Andy had gotten a peek of the old Edna. Had snuck behind her back and got right into her mind via Mae, stupid Mae, and had tugged at the old Edna.

Peek-a-boo.

But why come now? What difference if Andy knew of her past? The only one she loved, the only one she ever loved.

Peek-a-boo.

She felt raped. There was no need for Mae to dig out the old Edna-tumor, reach in the back of her head while she wasn't looking and hand the old Edna-tumor to Andy like a trophy, some precious silver wrapped gift done up in pretty silk bows. No need for Andy to take that tumor and desecrate it with his judgments. No need.

Edna wanted it back. Give it back to me, she thought. Give it back to me, Andy, and forget what you have witnessed of my mind so that I can go back to loving you guilt-free and with a clean conscience. Put the tumor back inside my brain and pretend it was nothing so I can love you, even if you don't need me, I can love you.

Ahhhhh, she realized. He won't give it back. He can't. It's on him with vice-like suction cups and only I can extricate it from his being. Only I can take it back. And I will take it back, so help me, Andy - Mae. So help me, I'll put the old Edna back where she belongs. Just you watch me.

Peek-a-boo.

Edna couldn't help herself and giggled.

FORTY-TWO

The three of them stood at the edge of Mae's property, looking across the field of dead weeds and grass at the red brick house that belonged to Natalie and Hector Plant. Mae's eyes were hard set and determined. Edna's eyes stared at the sun, low on the horizon and descending. Andy's eyes roved back and forth across the field between the two properties.

"Well, come on," Mae said. "Let's go."

"Into battle," Edna mumbled, barely suppressing a giggle.

They strode out across the field, the three of them, the pressure in the air dropping, they felt it drop. They felt it in their ears, the pressure causing a dull throb at the base of their skulls. The temperature had dropped, too. Clouds closed in. The sun raced away from them on its descent.

The brown, dead weeds and stalks of grass brushed at their slacks like brittle fingers, trying to hold them back. The crisp exoskeletons of plants crushed beneath their feet, popping and crackling like cereal.