The Maddening Page 7

  He was always depressed when he worked with the livestock; he didn’t own a quarter of what his father had owned. Of course, his father had helped them. Joe and Martha, the German couple, lived in the apartment in the attic of the house, and Martha was just as good a farmhand as Joe. She pitched hay, milked cows, drove a tractor, and plowed land. They were both in their forties when they came here, and they stayed for nearly twelve years, four years after his mother died. Martha took over the kitchen duties then, but she didn’t reduce her farm work much until he took on more responsibility and worked beside Joe and his father. It was shortly after Joe and Martha left that things began to disintegrate.

  There were few family-owned-and-operated dairy farms left, and the big chicken farms in the county had dwindled to a little over a dozen. It wasn’t his fault that a way of life had gone sour, even though his father in his dotage blamed him for the tragedy. His father always considered him inadequate in one way or another, and his marriage to Irene seemed to confirm that for him.

  She was never really strong, never really a farmer’s wife. She was a good cook and a good homemaker, but she wasn’t one to put on an old shirt and a pair of dungarees and come out to help with the chores. She was slim and feminine, to be handled like his mother’s fine china, a thing of beauty in which the essence of the beauty lay in its fragility.

  He liked the contrasts. He was thrilled by the juxtaposition of his huge, clumsy hands cupping her small but firm and shapely breasts. He enjoyed imposing restraint on his muscles and arms when he embraced her. He was soothed by the softness in her voice, a voice that often forced him to bring down the volume and force of his own. In short, he believed she was a good and valuable influence on him. She brought out his humanity, and he hated his father for not seeing the significance in this relationship.

  Sophie, his mother, was more like John’s wife Martha. They were both hardened by the land and the labor, their hands no longer soft, their bodies heavy, their eyes dull from looking into endless tunnels of dreary, monotonous work. They rarely complained; they behaved like stoics accepting the rain, the sleet, the snow, the cold, and the burning sun as part of their inevitable fate. How could he ever complain if the women never did?

  Irene was his oasis. He rushed toward her with a thirst for gentle and sensitive things. When he brought her home, he felt as if he were wearing her; she was a precious jewel, something to show off. He loved her for her weaknesses and for the way she clung to him in lightning and thunder.

  But the first time his father saw her, he said, “It’s like pitchin’ hay with a fork made a paper. A man don’t need any more to carry than his own weight. That’s enough as it is.”

  Maybe for you. I need more, he thought.

  And so he had married her.

  And then he thought he had proved his father wrong when their firstborn was a boy, even though he was premature and grew like a flower without enough sunlight. There was always hope.

  But that was long ago, in another life, in the other world, the world from which this woman and child had come and to which, hopefully, the man, the husband and father, had returned. He believed that now they’d be left alone to harvest some happiness. If only for a while.

  He turned when he heard the clap of the back screen door and saw Irene, the new girl, and Shirley walking toward him and the chicken coops. He looked furtively toward the road and then hurried toward them. Shirley and Irene had the new girl between them, holding her by the hands. The hem of the other girl’s dress, which Irene had insisted she wear, dragged over the ground. She looked as though she were shrinking within it. Her clipped hair left her face even more diminished. She was doll-like and the terror that had been in her face when she was released from the Bad Box was now partly diluted by her look of confusion.

  “We’re going to pick some eggs,” Irene said before he reached them. “Donna’s never done that before, right, Donna?” Tami looked up at the woman, fear glinting in her eyes, and then nodded quickly. It was better to answer everything the way she sensed the woman wanted her to answer. The alternatives were horrible. It had been dark in that heavy box in the basement and there was no room for her to shift her weight. She could think only of the long box in which Grandpa Oberman had been placed after he died. She couldn’t remember any details, but the image was still vivid and nurtured by occasional nightmares.

  “You can’t do this. You can’t do this,” he repeated, gesturing toward the road. “She shouldn’t be walking across the lawn, for anyone to see. It’s too soon.”

  “Too soon?” Irene paused as though she had just been shaken out of a dream.

  “Of course. Someone was just here, in fact,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Irene looked toward the road and let her free hand flutter to her face.

  “Oh, my…my goodness, I thought they had stopped looking.”

  “That was different; that was a while back. She just arrived yesterday,” he added, nodding at Tami. Irene looked down at her, the realization settling in.

  “I forgot. I was thinking that they had never left.”

  Gerald’s eyes flashed dangerously, and the lines in his forehead creased. Tami shrank from him, whimpering at his mannerisms and volatile nature. Even to his wife he occasionally thrashed his muscular arms about; now he loomed over them all as if to strike out. Irene didn’t seem to notice.

  “Get back inside. Quickly,” Gerald said. “She’s not to come out until I say it’s all right. You understand?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry dear,” she told Tami. “We can’t see the chickens today. Maybe another day. Gerald will bring us some freshly laid eggs, won’t you, Gerald?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said gruffly. “Get inside.”

  “Come along, Shirley.”

  “I want to see the chickens,” Shirley said. Gerald looked at his daughter. There was something familiar about her expression of stubbornness and anger. He thought his father’s face was emerging from within her. Sometimes, when she spoke, he thought she sounded just like his father. The old man is here; the old man comes at us in different ways, he thought.

  “Not now,” he said, but he said it softly. “After dark,” he added as a quick compromise. “It’s better after dark.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Irene said, mollified. “Isn’t that a good idea, Donna?” Tami nodded slightly. She was so terrified, she didn’t understand what these odd, volatile people meant, though she had to indicate she did. “See, Shirley, Donna wants to go after dark, too.”

  “I wanted to go now,” Shirley said and then released Tami’s hand by throwing it back against Tami’s body angrily. She pushed her aside, then whirled to run back to the house. Tami, already numb, hardly felt the blow and watched as Shirley stumbled across the yard tearfully. When she reached the steps of the small landing to the back door, she turned. “I hate you,” she said and threw down Tami’s doll before disappearing within.

  “Oh, she doesn’t mean that, Donna. You’ll see.”

  “Just go inside,” Gerald said.

  “Come on. We’ll have cookies and milk and Shirley will be nice again.”

  Gerald watched them walk back to the house. He looked back at the road and then went off to the chicken coops, driven by that one moment when his father’s image appeared in Shirley’s face. He opened the door of the first coop and looked in. He had under a thousand layers total. He could almost hear his father’s laughter of ridicule.

  The old man had moved in and out of a world of senility for nearly half a dozen years before his death. He would spend hours sitting by the window in his upstairs room babbling at Gerald, sometimes cursing him, sometimes threatening him, sometimes giving orders. It was haunting—that old man’s voice echoing, bellowing over the farm, all of it threaded into a monologue of madness.

  Years after his father’s death, Gerald was still not free of it. It drove him into his own monologue of madness, babbling excuses, chastising himself for failures, pushing himself to do more, to work ha
rder. To protect his family if need be. And at any cost.

  He’s in me, too, he thought, and kicked at some hens. The old man…he’s everywhere. He looked around as though he expected to see him standing in a corner of the coop. The idea gave him a chill and he attacked his work with a vigor designed to both warm him and take him away from his own terrifying thoughts.

  The chickens, as though sensing his anguish, moved away from him in a wave.

  Inside the house, Shirley led Tami to the kitchen table and told her to sit down.

  Irene had gone upstairs to lie down. She had one of those headaches and needed to rest her eyes. “You girls either go down or up, but stay out of mischief. Gerald is just out of earshot,” she said before she climbed the lengthy stairwell.

  But Shirley had hauled her “slave” into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to get out some milk and cookies for you,” she said. Tami looked about furtively. She sensed something strange was about to happen. The air around her seemed charged. Then she saw the pantry door open slightly and Shirley pull out two glasses, then go to the refrigerator and awkwardly drag out a bottle of milk.

  With a smirk on her face, she put the two glasses on the table, sloppily poured the milk, and brought over a plate full of chocolate-chip cookies, left there by Irene, from the counter. She then looked up, smiling, an evil glint in her eyes. From her stained smock she pulled out a cleaver that she must have gotten from the pantry. Tami whimpered.

  Shirley set the cleaver down awkwardly; it clanked on the table and skidded toward Tami, who shrank away and looked around desperately. She didn’t know where Gerald—who terrified her anyway—was, and the older woman was somewhere upstairs, out of earshot. She seemed to condone anything her daughter did, and probably wouldn’t pay heed anyway. When Shirley had pricked her with needles in a slave game, the woman had appeared in the basement doorway to scold Shirley, but she hadn’t paid attention exactly to what her daughter had done. In fact, she never explored the details of her daughter’s games of torment.

  Shirley grabbed up the end of a leash she had collared Tami with and knotted it to a table leg. “Okay, Sooey-face,” she laughed, climbing into the chair next to Tami. “Now you reach for a cookie and the milk while I chop.”

  Tami began to cry, and Shirley only laughed and yanked on her leash; Tami choked. “Go, Sooey-face, go,” she said, and struggled with the cleaver in both hands until she established a steady tattoo on the table. “Go now—or I’ll call my father. Do it, Sooey-face.” She jerked the leash again.

  Tami coughed and sobbed, but inched a hand toward the cleaver that was clattering unevenly on the table already knicked and worn by Irene who apparently used a corner for her slicing. In a quick movement, Tami, whose reactions were more agile than Shirley’s, grabbed a cookie from the plate and drew it toward her as Shirley fought to bring down the sharp blade on Tami’s wrist. All she did was nick Tami, who howled more from fright than from pain. “Shut-up, Sooey-face, shut up,” cried the other, whose face was an angry mask. “I played this with my little brother, and he never cried, you big baby.”

  But Tami howled even louder. Some shuffling noises from overhead increased in tempo, stopping Shirley from her tirade as she tilted her head to listen. She dropped the cleaver and scrambled from the chair. Irene was descending the stairs quickly. She sauntered in, adjusting her hair, just as her daughter disappeared into the pantry. Tami, gladdened at the sight of the woman, calmed considerably.

  “I heard some crying,” she said. “Where’s Shirley?”

  Tami didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to respond, but was afraid not to as well.

  “Shirley, get out here now, honey,” Irene called. She waited a moment and then repeated the order. When Shirley still didn’t appear, she shook her head. “Must’ve gone upstairs to her room. She can be so spoiled sometimes. Don’t you ever get like Shirley, Donna. Hear me?” Tami nodded. “I’ll be right down with her. Meanwhile, you start on the milk and cookies. Go on,” she commanded. Tami reached for her glass. She brought it to her lips as Irene started out of the kitchen.

  Almost immediately Shirley emerged from the pantry. Without saying anything, she walked over to the table and took the glass of milk from Tami’s hand. She looked at her for a moment and then spit into the glass.

  “Drink it,” she said, handing it back.

  Tami shook her head.

  “You better drink it,” she said, pointing to the pocket from which she had pulled the cleaver.

  “No, it’s dirty now.” She pushed herself away from the table and started to get out of the chair, forgetting the leash. Shirley grabbed it and yanked. The other girl gasped.

  “Drink your milk or you won’t get big and strong,” she sang, obviously imitating something Irene had often said. Tami screamed when she seized her neck to tighten the collar. A moment later Irene appeared, and the girl stepped away.

  “What’s going on? Where were you?”

  “I was in the bathroom,” Shirley said quickly. She glared at Tami. “She doesn’t want to drink her milk.”

  “Nonsense. Go on, sit down, Shirley. If you drink yours, Donna will drink hers. Right, Donna?”

  Tami started to shake her head, but stopped when Shirley’s smile widened. Shirley took up her glass of milk and brought it to her lips quickly, swallowing half the glass in one gulp. Tami looked up at Irene helplessly.

  “You don’t want to go back into the Bad Box, do you, Donna?” Irene said.

  Tami reached out slowly and took up the glass. Closing her eyes, she brought the liquid to her mouth, but before she could swallow, she began to retch and the glass dropped, spilling its contents over the table. It had the effect of a small explosion.

  Tami started to cry in anticipation. Shirley laughed, but Irene seemed immobilized by rage. Then she stepped forward and slapped Shirley across the face. Instantly, Shirley’s laugh turned into a shriek as her strangely calm mother pulled Tami away from the table roughly, unhooking the leash, and went for a dish towel.

  “I hate you,” Shirley hissed at Tami. “I’ll get you for this,” she added, nodding toward her pocket. Then she ran out of the room, leaving Tami to shiver in terror as Irene began to wipe up the mess.

  Stacey opened her eyes and sat up. Despite the boarded-over windows and the locked door, she felt a chill; she felt as though a constant stream of cool air was flowing through the room. She embraced herself and looked around. Then she used the chamber pot to relieve herself and went back to sitting on the bed, getting her bearings. She was exhausted from not eating that crazy woman’s meals, and from worrying about Tami. She also suspected that Gerald was lacing her juice—the only food she consumed—with some sedative to slow her down and keep her quiet. Now she prayed it wasn’t poison, though common sense indicated if it was, she’d have been gone long ago. Gasping for breath, she inched her unsteady body to the edge of the bed and peered around the weakly lit room. It was as bare as before—only furnished with the bed, two side tables, the dresser, and that previous woman’s clothes bursting from the closet. Where could she find a wedge or something to pry open the window boards or door lock with? Her glance roamed the room from corner to corner, settling eventually on the door hinges. She nearly stopped breathing as a thought crept into her mind. What if she loosened the pins from their cylinders with the spoon left on the tray, and opened the door from its other edge.

  Shaking her head to clear it, she tested her footing, and coaxed herself toward the door. When she reached it, she leaned against its consoling hardness, catching her breath. Then she studied and tested the hinges with her fingers; the middle pin creaked as it turned in the cylinder. She nearly laughed aloud in joy. For the next forty-five minutes she worked the hinges, pausing every few minutes to catch her breath and fight her dizziness. Sweat poured from her brow, tears streamed down her cheeks as she whispered, “Tami. Tami. Tami.”

  Before long she succeeded in loosening the upper and lower hinges until she was su
re she could wriggle the pins up and and drop the door away from the jamb. It was simply a matter of doing it at the right moment. The excitement of a possible escape gave her a chill. She felt as though a constant stream of cool air was flowing through the room. Her skin was clammy and she embraced herself as she looked around.

  How would she know the right moment to do this? Should she wait for evening and do it when these people were asleep? She put her ear to the door and listened. The house seemed empty. Not a sound erupted from the rooms below and she heard nothing on her own floor. If they were away from the house…

  What she could do was get out, peer out a window to see where they were, and then make her escape. She felt sure if she could just get out on that road while it was still daytime, she could get help quickly. She would try to spot Tami and release her but if she couldn’t find her daughter, she’d flee and try to flag down the next motorist on the road.

  She went to the hinges and, after some straggle, wriggled free the pins, setting them on the floor gingerly. Then, using the spoon, she began to pry the door away from its hinges. Just at that moment, however, Gerald turned the lock and pushed the door to open it. The door fell away from the jamb and struck Stacey on the forehead, sending her reeling backward to the floor, the door nearly coming down over her. All that stopped it was Gerald’s firm grip on the handle. He looked down at her and then at the hinges.

  He didn’t smile. When he moved forward, glowering over her, she slid back on the floor until she was against the leg of the bed. She whimpered as he reached down, took up the pins, and set the door back in place. He slammed the pins into their cylinders with balled fists, not wincing as bone struck metal.

  “You can’t keep me here,” she said. “You’ve got to let me and my daughter go. Please, stop this.”

  He didn’t turn around until he was finished repairing the door. He looked at her a moment and then walked out of the room. She got up slowly and sat on the bed. She hadn’t heard him lock the door behind him, but she didn’t have the courage to attempt an escape right now.