Date Posted:06:53:00 11/01/03 Sat Author:Raphaela Author Host/IP: webcacheB04a.cache.pol.co.uk / 195.92.168.166 Subject: Re: Mother: A Short Story In reply to:
Ashley Owen Smith
's message, "Mother: A Short Story" on 23:35:52 10/01/03 Wed
Wow this had me gripped and the end was a complete twist to what I had expected from the opening. I am not sure the section where the mother talks about him having dismembered her works, I think the story was stronger without that.
I look forward to reading the continuation.
R
>Mother
>A Short Story
>
>By Ashley Owen Smith
>
>
>for Sigmund Freud
>
>
>
> “And just who might that be?”
> “Who?”
> “That scrumptious little morsel talking to Gwendolyn
>O’Hara.”
> “Ahhh...that would be Hartley Draper.”
> “I would devastate him.”
> William Pendleton stood talking with his friend
>Thomas Littlefield at another of Pendleton’s lavish
>parties.
> Pendleton held a dry vodka martini, and Littlefield
>sipped from a white wine spritzer.
> “What does he do?” Pendleton asked, eyeing the young,
>handsome man like a shark would bleeding a swimmer
>who’s drifted to far from shore.
> “He’s supposed to be this young prodigious writer
>that all the critics are drooling over,” Littlefield
>answered, finishing his spritzer.
> “Is that right?”
> “Oh, indeed. Perhaps you’ve heard of The Pillars of
>the Sea?” Littlefield asked, favoring Pendleton with a
>sly smile.
> Pendleton’s eyes widened. “That delicious little
>twink wrote The Pillars of the Sea?”
> “Oh, indeed,” Littlefield repeated.
> William Pendleton was a notorious playboy (this
>meaning that he played the boys), and he all but
>watered at the mouth, watching Draper as he talked
>animatedly to Gwendolyn O’Hara.
> “Why is he talking to Gwen, I wonder?” Pendleton
>murmured, almost to himself.
> “She’s the one who got him the book deal in the first
>place,” Littlefield answered.
> “Really?”
> “Well, you know that she’s sleeping with Anthony
>Delvecchio,” Littlefield said.
> “Really?” Pendleton repeated.
> Nodding, Littlefield snagged another spritzer from a
>passing waiter’s tray.
> “Delvecchio, Delvecchio...He’s that publisher isn’t
>he?” Pendleton asked.
> Littlefield nodded again.
> “How’d he get in here if he isn’t on the guest list?”
>Pendleton asked, his mind on Draper again. He furrowed
>his brow and pursed his thick lips in speculation.
> “He was the guest of none other than Arthur Noonan,”
>Littlefield said, if a bit dramatically.
> “Arthur Noonan?” Pendleton asked in a harsh, shocked
>whisper. “Who would’ve thought the old man could
>still get it up?”
> The two friends shared a laugh at this.
> William Pendleton was a painter. A very successful
>one. His latest painting Symphony of Red had sold for
>a very modest $45,000.00.
> He resided at a very large and very old plantation
>mansion in Atlanta, Georgia. His parties were well
>known; he had at least one every month. A “small,
>quiet” dinner party could usually be numbered at 200
>people. A “little wingding” would most likely mean
>cars would be parked up and down Morningside Road,
>making hell for other drivers, not to mention the
>local police. Pendleton was very close friends with
>the chief of police, Omar Menendez.
> “Do you actually think their fucking?” Littlefield
>asked scandalously.
> “Does a bear relieve himself in the woods?” Pendleton
>answered, raising an eyebrow.
> “Viagra, d’you think?” Littlefield asked, eyes wide.
> “How else?” Pendleton answered. “Do introduce me.”
> Pendleton begin walking ahead of Littlefield, anxious
>to get close to Draper, to smell him.
> They made their way through the milling crowd in the
>ballroom of the enormous house. They stopped here and
>there to exchange a few polite pleasantries.
> Most of Pendleton’s satisfaction from his parties
>derived from keeping a keen eye on what the women were
>wearing, and later reporting it to the fashion
>designer Jean-Claude Fournier.
> There’ll be a riot tonight, Pendleton thought as they
>walked up to Gwendolyn O’Hara and Hartley Draper. The
>woman has absolutely no sense of fashion, he thought.
> Gwendolyn O’Hara, otherwise known as “new money,”
>smiled at the advancing Pendleton and Littlefield.
> Here come Laurel and Hardy, she thought, referring to
>Pendleton’s short, fat stature and Littlefield’s tall,
>thin one.
> “Hello, William, Thomas,” she said kindly when they
>finally came to stand in front of her.
> “Hello, Gwendolyn, dear,” Littlefield responded.
> “Hello, Gwendolyn,” Pendleton said quietly,
>distracted, hardly taking his eyes off Draper. “And
>who have we here?” he asked, finally looking at
>Gwendolyn.
> “This is Hartley Draper. He is the Truman Capote of
>his generation,” she said, her voice full of pride.
> God, you’d think she’d given birth to the guy,
>Pendleton thought. He smiled at Draper.
> “Hartley, this is William Pendleton and Thomas
>Littlefield. William is the one responsible for this
>little get-together,” Gwendolyn said.
> “Hello, William,” Draper said, holding out his hand.
>Pendleton seized it in his own damp, meaty paw.
> “Loved your novel,” Pendleton said airily.
> “Why, thank you.”
> Draper turned to Littlefield. “Hello, Thomas.”
> Thomas and Draper shook hands.
> Hartley Draper was one who’d been blessed by his
>Maker, with the dark blue wounded eyes of an artist,
>raspberry lips, the lower one slightly fuller than the
>upper, white-blonde hair that made his eyes all the
>more prominent, and a trim, muscular body that brought
>to one’s mind images of Michelangelo’s David.
> Gwendolyn smiled over the young writer like a doting
>mother hen. “William is a painter,” she said to
>Draper.
> “Oh, of course, Gwen. Anyone who hasn’t heard of
>William Pendleton, painter of The Lightless Channel,
>has urgent need to climb out of his or her hole,” he
>said with a tone that Pendleton thought sounded like
>false compliment.
> Draper had mentioned one of Pendleton’s older
>paintings. The Lightless Channel had been worked on
>during one of Pendleton’s depressive periods. The
>painting featured a gray background with several
>angel-shaped images in white. Even the critics said
>is was a work of art that one might not want to put in
>a hospital or an insane asylum’s suicide-watch floor
>because the grayness of the background and the
>whiteness of the angel-shaped images was apt to make
>one feel dreary, uncaring about life and its brighter
>happenings.
> “And I thought The Pillars of the Sea was absolutely
>breathtaking,” Pendleton said with the same tone false
>compliment.
> Pendleton and Draper stared at each other: Draper’s
>expression was one of icy indifference and amusement;
>Pendleton’s was one of lust.
> Pendleton’s loins ached.
> “Well, I see you’ve met my boy!” came a voice with a
>thick British accent.
> Pendleton’s and Draper’s stare was broken and they
>and O’Hara and Littlefield turned towards that voice
>that had come to them.
> “Quite the little nymph, don’t you think?” Sir Arthur
>Noonan said, coming to stop within their little
>conversational circle.
> Sir Arthur Noonan was at least in his eighties with a
>fringe of white hair ringing the crown of his head and
>deep lines cut into his face. He was tall with a
>thickness around his middle that almost became a
>potbelly.
> Been hitting the stein a little too often, Noonan?
>Pendleton thought.
> The fat painter was the first to greet him. “Arthur!
>My good man, how have you been?” he asked heartily.
> “Oh, fine, just fine.”
> “And that nasty angina?”
> Noonan shot a look at Draper and seemed to blush a
>bit.
> “It’s fine, too,” the old man said sternly. But it
>was as though he was trying to convince Draper of that
>rather than Pendleton.
> “I heard your name mentioned in relation with...what
>was it?...Alzheimer’s, maybe?” Pendleton asked,
>enjoying himself immensely.
> “Certainly not!” Noonan said vehemently.
> “Oh, perhaps it was your wife, then?”
> Noonan regarded Pendleton with a look of fiery anger
>and stormed off into the sea of party-goers.
> “Don’t you think that was a little rude?” O’Hara
>asked.
> “Oh, he’ll get over it,” Pendleton answered, “a man
>that old should take pains to not collect too many
>enemies if he wants to die with a clean conscience.”
> “I oughta knock the shit out of you,” Draper said to
>Pendleton.
> “Oh, if I were you, I’d think twice about that. You
>don’t want an arrest record when your fame is still so
>young. I happen to be close friends with our chief of
>police, Mr. Omar Menendez. We knew each other in high
>school. We used to fuck under the bleachers everyday
>after the final bell rang.”
> “You are a disgusting, nauseating pig of a man, and I
>thought Red Symphony was amateurish and hardly worth
>the canvas it was painted on. My three year old niece
>can fingerpaint better things than that,” Draper said
>and turned to follow Noonan.
> “Draper?” Pendleton called.
> The writer turned back and faced him angrily.
> “Does the old man manage to get it up? Or does he use
>his finger?” Pendleton asked with genuine curiosity.
> A vein throbbed in Draper’s neck and a thin sheen of
>sweat greased his face.
> He looks even better when angry, Pendleton thought.
> “Go on and find Arthur,” O’Hara said to Draper.
> Draper left.
> O’Hara turned angry eyes onto Pendleton.
> “Oh, do keep your mouth shut, Gwen,” he said when she
>opened her mouth to give him a tongue-lashing.
> “That was incredibly rude and uncivil. I’m ashamed to
>be on a first-name basis with you,” she said. And she
>too stormed away.
> “You keep this up, and the next party you throw will
>be able to fit in an RV,” Littlefield said.
> Pendleton laughed at this.
> “I wouldn’t think it was funny, Bill. You don’t make
>it in People if you end up throwing parties in a
>Winnebago.”
> “You overdramatize,” Pendleton replied. “These
>people love me to insult them. Sometimes I feel like
>Simon Cowl, only with a better haircut. They take my
>insults because they know that I can squash them like
>a bug, and they know that they can’t do a damned thing
>about it either.”
> “Don’t be so sure of yourself, Bill. Arrogance
>doesn’t become you.”
> “Have you ever seen me any other way?”
> Littlefield had to admit that he hadn’t.
> “Let’s go mingle,” Pendleton said.
> Again they made their way around the ballroom,
>chitchatting with most of the guests. Pendleton
>insulted Baroness Uma Zbornak and told Raleigh Weber,
>the oil tycoon, that his toupee resembled a dead
>opossum that had seen a terrible end–perhaps death by
>vehicle.
> “You’re on a roll tonight, Bill,” Littlefield told
>him a few moments after Pendleton had had a Harvey
>Wallbanger poured over his head. He’d told Mimi
>Feldman that here husband had a mouth like a Oreck.
> “Rather entertaining, don’t you agree?” he asked,
>wiping the alcohol from his face and hair. His right
>cheek still smarted after having it slapped by Pamela
>DeYoung. He’d revealed to her that her new husband,
>Congressman Isaac DeYoung, squealed when his nipples
>were pinched. He felt his broad face break into a
>lascivious grin.
> It was infectious, and Littlefield found himself
>smiling as well
> Pendleton finished wiping the Wallbanger out of his
>hair and replaced the red silk handkerchief in his
>pocket.
> “Ready to dive again into that viscous sea of
>humanity?” Pendleton asked him.
> “Indeed.”
> “Let us be off, then,” Pendleton said.
>
>
>
>*****
>
>
> The party was over and the clean-up crew was busy
>downstairs and Pendleton was upstairs in his private
>bathroom. He was in the bathtub, fantasizing about
>Hartley Draper, masturbating furiously.
> He had had fun, a lot of fun, and he was excited
>about calling Jean-Claude Fournier and telling him
>what the people, especially the women, were wearing.
>That outfit O’Hara had been wearing was almost enough
>to send him into gales of laughter.
> She’d been wearing a too-big black Giorgio Armani
>suit. It had set off her square, mannish shoulders
>and had exacerbated her height and made her look
>frumpy. And the glasses, good Lord, the glasses!
>They’d been pushed up on her nose and had thick black
>frames. And they were enormous, nearly reaching above
>her eyebrows.
> Pendleton almost felt sorry for the poor guy who was
>sleeping with her...What was his name?...Delvecchio.
> But he knew that, behind those enormous glasses there
>was a beautiful woman. It was almost as if she were
>afraid of someone seeing her as beautiful. Perhaps it
>was some women’s lib hullabaloo. Maybe she, in a fit
>of frustration, had one day dressed herself as
>unattractively as possible, thinking that no man in
>his right mind would hit on her again. But it seems
>that that hadn’t deterred this Delvecchio guy.
> He climaxed and laid back against the tub, his
>manhood flaccid, but still in his hand.
> “It seems as though age hasn’t changed you at all,”
>came a sudden and familiar voice.
> Raising up so abruptly that he water sloshed over the
>side of the bathtub, Pendleton whipped his head around
>and looked with abject horror upon the form of his
>mother–his dead mother.
> “Mother?” he asked in a tremulous voice.
> “You should be ashamed of yourself, William Daniel
>Pendleton,” the ghost scolded.
> “I’m sorry...I–I...”
> Pendleton fumbled with a towel and laid it over his
>shriveling genitals.
> “I know you did that when you were a teenager,” she
>spat out, “but I had no idea that you would still
>indulge in such vile behavior after becoming a man. It
>is despicable!”
> Pendleton looked at her, his broad face pale, his
>eyes bugling so far that they seemed as though they
>might dislodge from their sockets. “My God, where
>have you come from?” he asked in a terrified whisper.
> His mother, before her death at the age of
>seventy-four, had been a very severe woman. She wore
>her hair pulled back in a bun so tight as to cause her
>eyebrows to crawl up her forehead. Her expression was
>always one of stern disapproval, her small, colorless
>lips pursed. Her cheekbones were high and her eyes
>had always been bright with the intensity of hatred
>and cruelty; they had been hard and cold like polished
>stones in winter.
> “I’ve been here,” she answered, and said no more.
> She disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.
> Pendleton blinked, rubbed his eyes with two wet fists.
> “Oh, God,” he said aloud.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> Pendleton tossed and turned in his gigantic
>four-poster, canopied bed. The red and gold silk
>sheets were twisted tightly around his fat, stumpy
>legs.
> He flopped on his back, his rounded stomach sticking
>up, and stacked his hands beneath his head.
> I won’t tell anyone, he thought. I just won’t tell
>anyone. Even if I do they’ll think I’m nuts. But
>that wouldn’t really matter, either. There were a lot
>of crazy painters. Geez, look at Van Gogh and Pollock.
> He was frightened–that much was a given. But he was
>also confused. He’d never believed in ghosts. Even
>when his mother would force him to go to camp during
>the summer, when he and his troop would gather around
>the campfire, he’d let his thoughts wander, highly
>disinterested in the ghost stories and such.
> He found himself believing that there had to be some
>reason why she’d come back, some motive for her
>return.
> Had he done something to make her mad at him?
> As a little boy he’d only needed to speak when she
>had a guest over and, after that guest left, she’d
>search him out in the house, grab his ear, twisting
>it, and drag him to the Punishment Closet. There he’d
>stay, in the dark, terrified, until his mother decided
>that the closet had punished him enough. His mother
>had been a firm believer in the old adage, “Children
>should be seen and not heard.”
> The thought that she could be lurking in the enormous
>house, in spirit, as she was, sent little shivers of
>fear down his back like drops of melted snow. The
>thought that she could move through doors and walls,
>rise through the floors at will. He shuddered.
> Pendleton forced his mind to entertain more pleasant
>thoughts, like making love with Hartley Draper. He
>tried to picture the writer without a shirt.
> Would he have a six-pack?
> Would his biceps be hard, large, and rounded like
>smooth stones?
> Would he be well endowed?
> Pendleton’s manhood began to throb with rushing
>blood, and he put his hand beneath the sheets. But
>then he jerked it back guiltily.
> What if she came back?
> His manhood quickly deflated.
> He lay awake, eyes scanning the big room constantly,
>until the lids became heavy.
> He fell into a light and troubled, dream-filled sleep
>when dawn’s gray, smokey light begin seeping through
>the red miniblinds.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> Pendleton sat at the long mahogany table, eating a
>large breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs with
>cheese, three thick sausage patties, and two halved
>buttermilk biscuits smothered in rich white gravy.
> He ate with gusto, shoveling the food into his mouth
>with his fork, dropping dollops of gravy on his silk
>kimono.
> His maid, Myrtle, had really outdone herself today.
>The eggs, with the cheese melted into them, were
>exceptional, the sausage was greasy and ever so
>slightly pink on the inside, and the biscuits were
>sopping with the delicious peppered gravy.
> Finishing, he scooted his plate away from him and
>picked up his small, dainty teacup and finished the
>dregs of the Oolong. He poured himself some more from
>the gleaming stainless steel pot, unfolded the paper
>and lit a Marlboro Menthol 100.
> His attention kept drifting from the newspaper to the
>subject of his mother. He couldn’t help but wondering
>if maybe he could hire an exorcist to make his mother
>to leave. He realized this was an absolutely
>ridiculous notion but, spirit or not, he wanted his
>mother gone.
> He suddenly decided that he wanted to throw another
>party, and soon. A good dinner party would banish
>thoughts of his mother from his head.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> “Michael Llewellyn?” Littlefield asked.
> “Oh, no, Thomas. He was at the party before last, and
>he bored me to tears with a story about a boat he’d
>just bought.”
> Pendleton and Littlefield were sitting at the dining
>table, heads bent over a piece of stationery bordered
>with roses, going through Pendleton’s extensive roster
>of past party guests. Littlefield would sound off a
>name and Pendleton would accept or deny.
> “Frank Feldspar?”
> “Why not? He makes a good roll in the hay every now
>and then.”
> Littlefield looked up at Pendleton with a faint
>expression of hurt.
> Pendleton caught it, said, “Oh, come now, Thomas. No
>one stays in a monogamous relationship anymore.”
> “I–I know,” Littlefield replied. “I just wish you
>wouldn’t flaunt it the way you do. Like that night at
>the party. I don’t want to know how many men
>you’ve...given blow–how many men you’ve satisfied
>orally. I love you, William, and you know that.”
> “Don’t start with that shit again, Thomas. I don’t
>love you. And that is what you need to know. Know it
>well, Thomas, keep it close to you, because I’m not
>sticking with anyone. Ever.”
> For a horrible moment Pendleton thought Littlefield
>would start bawling. His face turned red and his eyes
>went glassy and he hiccuped.
> “Let’s finish this guest list and go to lunch,”
>Pendleton said cheerily.
> Littlefield took a deep breath, said, “Aaron Guttman?”
> “No! Absolutely not. That man drives me mad with
>pictures of his little rugrats. No.”
> “Hartley Draper?” Littlefield asked with a slight
>edge in his voice.
> “Oh, certainly. See if I can’t make up for last time.
>And jealousy most decidedly does not become you,
>Thomas.”
> “Harry Lipschitz?”
> “Hmm-hmm,” Pendleton answered.
> “Terrence McTiernan?” Littlefield droned on.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> Pendleton had had an long oval-shaped table brought
>into his cavernous diningroom, and thirty people now
>sat around it. Pendleton’s finest china and silver
>gleamed and shimmered on the table’s surface, fluted
>crystal wine glasses sparkled and lush, heavy-headed
>antique cabbage roses rested in bowlfuls of icy water.
> Pendleton stood at one end of the table, addressing
>his congregation. “Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you
>dearly for joining me in this little get-together. And
>I wish to apologize, publicly, to Mr. Hartley Draper
>for my incredibly uncouth behavior of last week.”
> He favored Draper with a little smile.
> Draper returned with a tight one of his own.
> Once again the young writer was with Sir Arthur
>Noonan. Pendleton had thought it wise to invite the
>old man, believing that Draper wouldn’t attend without
>him.
> “My maid, Myrtle, has prepared for us a wonderful
>meal starting off with a delicious consomme, a chef’s
>salad, roasted duck, with asparagus tips in
>hollandaise sauce, and glazed carrots. And for dessert
>there will be creme brulee,” Pendleton said, looking
>and smiling at each guest in turn. “I supervised the
>menu myself, tasted every–” he broke off, feeling a
>cold draft of air billow around his neck. He broke
>out in gooseflesh, and shuddered.
> He knew, intuitively, that it was the return of his
>mother, and he felt like crying, running to the
>Punishment Closet. His broad face crumpled and a long
>wailing sob blew past his lips.
> Littlefield, who was sitting at the other end of the
>long table, stood, taking his napkin from his lap and
>laying it on the table. “William...?” he asked,
>concern written on his face.
> “Get these heathens out of my house, William!” said
>his mother, who was standing to his left, behind him.
> “Mama?” he asked in a shaky whisper.
> “It will be at your own risk if you should let them
>stay.”
> “William?” Littlefield asked a bit more insistently.
> “Get out,” he said quietly. Too quietly; no one
>heard him.
> “I want them GONE!” his mother raged.
> Pendleton felt even more solitary, single. Because
>he was the only one who could see her. He was alone;
>completely and utterly alone. He felt as though he
>was standing on the edge of a precipice, with his
>mother behind him, her hand on his back, ready to give
>him a push.
> “Mama? I’m a-scared, Mama,” he said tearfully.
> A dark stain began at the front of his pants, rapidly
>spreading, blooming into a humiliating flower. Urine
>ran down his leg in streaming rivulets, coming to
>puddle around his left shoe.
> His guests gaped in horror and embarrassment, not
>wanting to look but unable to turn their faces away.
>Draper’s lips twitched with the need to smile; but he
>was able to suppress it.
> “Get out,” Pendleton said, a little more forcefully.
>“Get out!”
> The guests began stirring. Napkins were taken from
>laps and placed on the table, purses were collected,
>women grasped the elbows of their gentleman callers.
> “Get out!” Pendleton said, louder still. “GET OUT!”
>he roared.
> “William!” Littlefield gasped, horrified.
> Pendleton turned on him, picked up a steak knife,
>walking towards the guests, who had just that minute
>began departing.
> “Leave my home. Leave it!”
> Little cries of fear and surprise were expelled from
>chests and eyes widened.
> Pendleton wore a mask of devastation, as though he
>were aware and unaware of what he was doing. As
>though he were standing outside himself, seeing
>himself, knowing what he was doing was wrong, but
>unable to do anything about it.
> “Bill?” Littlefield asked tentatively. He slowly and
>warily made his way to Pendleton, talking softly.
>“Put the knife down, honey. I’ll have Dr. Ingalls give
>you a sedative,” he said, talking about the
>psychiatrist they’d invited.
> Pendleton regarded Littlefield blankly.
> Littlefield walked closer to Pendleton.
> Moving with impossible speed and agility, Pendleton
>grasped the back of Littlefield’s head and drove the
>knife into the smaller man’s stomach. Littlefield
>made a strange sound like a hiccup crossed with a
>gasp, blood burbling out of his mouth.
> Littlefield went down slowly, pulling on Pendleton’s
>wool blazer, looking up at him sadly.
> Pendleton turned on the stunned crowd, the bloody
>knife held vertically, blade pointing upwards.
> “You can’t be in my mama’s house!” he shouted, flecks
>of foam spraying onto his thick, wet lips. “She wants
>you gone!”
> The words had the effect of a lit firecracker that’d
>been tossed near a group of cats. The guests began
>clambering for the door, trampling on each other,
>violent and indifferent in their desperate race for
>safety.
> Pendleton grabbed a handful of Mildred Fischbein’s
>hair, roughly pulled downward, stretching her neck
>out. He put the knife’s serrated edge against the
>loose, pale skin of her her throat and cut her from
>ear to ear. Blood spewed in a freshet into the air,
>splashing in Laura Benson’s face. Laura stumbled
>back, let out a high-pitched scream, her hands rising
>involuntarily, flapping them in revulsion.
> Pandemonium erupted in the high-ceilinged diningroom,
>screams echoing and reechoing, cries rising up, only
>to be lost in the rafters.
> His mother, behind him, floating, “That one. Cut him,
>William.”
> Darryl van Damm was the “he” she was talking about.
>Pendleton had invited him along with his lover Lowell
>Olyphant.
> Pendleton, hypnotically obeying his mother, dazedly
>advanced on Darryl.
> Van Damm tried to fight him off, Olyphant helping
>him. But Pendleton was stronger than both of them.
>He easily pushed Olyphant to the floor, the man’s
>skull cracking on the dining table. Pendleton turned
>again towards van Damm, grabbed him by one lapel and
>buried the knife’s blade deeply into his chest.
> Van Damm’s eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth
>opening, but no sound coming. Pendleton let him
>loose, van Damm crumpled to the floor.
> “Get out of my mama’s house, you heathens!” Pendleton
>shouted.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> In the kitchen, Myrtle Kleinschmidt sat on a barstool
>at the stainless steel island in the middle of the
>large, state-of-the-art room. She was sipping a cup
>of chamomile and kava kava tea (she was having trouble
>sleeping lately) when the racket started out in the
>diningroom.
> Frowning, she put her teacup down on the island’s
>gleaming surface, scooted down off the barstool and
>limped to the kitchen’s swinging door. God her feet
>were sore.
> She opened the door about an inch and peeked out into
>the diningroom. What she saw made her gasp silently.
> William Pendleton, her employer, held a bloody knife
>in one meaty fist, walking around like he was on dope.
> And as she watched, Pendleton stabbed Darryl van Damm.
> People were running around like the devil himself
>were after them, screaming their heads off, falling
>and tripping over each other.
> Myrtle moved quietly away from the door, and headed
>for the kitchen’s phone extension.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> “Like a fish, William, gut him.”
> Following his mother’s orders, Pendleton made his way
>toward Nathan Flaherty.
> The young man did not see Pendleton coming toward him
>in his slow, purposeful gait, because he was kneeling
>down on one knee, checking on Lowell Olyphant.
> Pendleton grabbed Flaherty’s collar and yanked him to
>his feet. Flaherty let out a squeak of alarm, his
>eyes wide.
> Pendleton stuck him with the knife and jerked his
>hand upward, backed away.
> Flaherty fell to his knees, a look of almost comical
>surprise and horror on his face, as his innards
>slopped out of his slit stomach, falling heavily into
>his hands with a sickening wet sound.
> “Get out of my mama’s house,” Pendleton muttered
>softly. “Get out.”
> Most of the people had gotten to the door, but a knot
>of them were congested there. There was much
>screaming and cursing, crying and sobbing. Pendleton
>walked slowly to them, snagged the first person to
>whom he was closest, stabbed at them blindly; stabbed
>another, and another.
> The door cleared and a wave of people rushed out of
>the mansion, running to their respective vehicles,
>burning rubber and spewing gravel as they sped away.
> Pendleton seemed to come out of his daze and he
>looked at the knife with an expression of horror. He
>dropped it to the floor, his hand shaking violently.
> “Mama?” he asked uncertainly.
> “You did good son.”
> Pendleton hurried to the bathroom and looked in the
>large gilded mirror. He opened his mouth in a little
>O of surprise. Blood had been spattered on his face
>and was drying in little red-brown flecks. His eyes
>looked wild, even to him, and his face was abnormally
>pale.
> “Oh, my God, what did I do?” he cried miserably.
> “You did exactly what I told you to do,” his mother
>said suddenly from behind him. “And it’s about time,
>too.”
> “You made me do this? You?!” he roared.
> “Don’t you raise your voice to me, young man!”
> He looked at the ghost of the wretched woman and
>raged.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> “Hello?” Myrtle Kleinschmidt said into the phone.
> “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a kind voice
>asked.
> “My boss,” Myrtle said tentatively. “He’s gone
>completely crazy. He’s kill–killing everybody. Just at
>random.”
> “Does he know where you are?”
> “He knows I’m in the kitchen, but I think he’s
>forgotten about me.” Myrtle suddenly began to cry,
>hot tears running down her soft, powdered cheeks.
>“His eyes,” she said, “oh, Lord in Heaven, his eyes.”
> “Ma’am?” the operator asked. “Ma’am? Are you still
>there?”
> “Yes, yes, I’m here.” Myrtle wiped the tears out of
>her eyes and took a deep, fortifying breath.
> She knew she hadn’t been threatened directly, and
>Pendleton probably had forgotten about her, but she
>was so very scared. She found herself thinking about
>her long-dead husband, Lord rest his soul. She’d been
>missing Gil a lot lately, more than usual. She’d
>found herself mourning him one night in bed. She had
>rolled over onto her right side and had said,
>“Goodnight, Gil,” like he was there. She’d been so
>shocked that she hadn’t been able to get to sleep for
>hours after.
> “Can you just come as soon as possible?” she asked
>the operator.
> “I’ve already alerted the police; they’re on their
>way.”
> Myrtle hung up the phone.
> She looked around the kitchen feeling at a loss. She
>didn’t know whether to hide or go outside, or what.
>She just stood there, feeling helpless. Then she
>noticed the screaming had stopped.
> Myrtle went back to the kitchen door, opened it a
>crack, and peeked out.
> Everyone was gone. But she could hear faint voices,
>coming from the direction of the hallway.
> Mr. Pendleton? she thought. Who’s he talking to?
> Her eyes were snagged by the sight of the bodies.
>Mr. Littlefield; Mrs. Fischbein; Mr. van Damm; Mr.
>Flaherty. And three other bodies once belonging to
>people she didn’t recognize.
> She said a prayer for the souls of the dead and
>backed away from the door. She turned and stood, and
>once again looked around the kitchen–a kitchen she
>knew as well as her own–and wondered what in the world
>to do.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> Pendleton continued to gape at the mirror, staring in
>horror at the sight of his face. He could sense, more
>than he could see, his mother’s ghost.
> “Why would you make me do something like this,
>Mommy?” he asked pitifully.
> “It serves you right, you fat little worm.”
> “What? What’d I do?” he asked.
> “You will not let me go!”
> “What the hell are you talking about?”
> “You mean to tell me that you don’t remember?”
> “Remember what?!”
> “You killed me!”
> Pendleton was stunned to speechlessness.
> “You killed me,” she repeated.
> “Kill...?” he asked stupidly after finding his voice
>again.
> “Yes; kill.”
> “Mama? Mama, I don’t remember.”
> A growl rumbled in his mother’s throat.
> “You killed me during afternoon tea. We were arguing
>the way we always did.”
> Pendleton looked at her, his eyes shiny with
>desperation.
> “You’d put rat poison in my tea. Cyanide, I believe.
>And I died at the table. My voice began petering out,
>getting softer and softer. But suddenly, before I
>died, I knew what you’d done. I cursed you. I cursed
>the very day you were born. The most evil man on earth
>wouldn’t have been able to understand the depths of
>hatred I felt for you as I died.”
> Pendleton felt dizzy, dazed. He felt confused and
>nauseous.
> “You had gotten up from the table when my voice began
>going out. You stood over me, as I lay dying, and you
>said, ‘Goodnight, Mother. Sweet dreams.’ And I tried
>to raise my hands and wrap them around your neck–your
>fat, disgusting neck–but I was so weak that I couldn’t
>even raise my arms over my head. They’d felt so heavy.
> “And I died. You carried me to the bathroom, put me
>in the bathtub and decapitated me. You then proceeded
>to dismember me, humming all the while. And then you
>placed my limbs and torso in two separate bags and put
>me in the garage. The next day you buried me, in
>pieces, in your rose garden. You won the tope prize
>at the rose show for your cabbage roses that year,”
>she added, a strange little smile on her face.
> Pendleton had sat on the toilet lid, head in his
>hands, while his mother had finished her narrative.
> “I remember...a little...”
> “But you won’t let me go.”
> “I don’t remember, Mama. I...”
> “You won’t let me go, William, you insufferable fool!
>You won’t let me go!”
> “Mama...Mama, I wish you were here. Really here,” he
>blubbered, sobbing into his hands.
> His mother made a sound of disgust deep in his throat.
> “You won’t let me go,” she repeated again. “Your
>puny gray brain in wrapped as tightly around me as
>your hand was wrapped around your sad little penis.
>Let me go, William.”
> Pendleton sobbed harder.
> “Let me go!”
> Pendleton moaned and wailed.
> “Let me go, you miserable, despicable insect! LET ME
>GO!”
> Pendleton suddenly leapt off the toilet lid, ran
>through his mother, and out of the bathroom.
> His mother had no trouble keeping up with him.
> “I should have drowned you in a tubful of water after
>I got you home from the hospital. Should’ve put you
>face-down in your bath water.”
> Pendleton raced through the cavernous diningroom,
>into the kitchen, and out to the garage.
> “You aren’t even your fathers! We had your Uncle
>David over for cocktails and we fucked like a couple
>of horny teenagers when your dad left the room to get
>more bourbon. The stupid fool.”
> Pendleton began searching the garage frantically,
>intent on finding whatever it was he was looking for.
> “You were spawned during forty-five seconds of
>animalistic lust! You were nothing but a meaningless
>microorganism! A stain on my dress! I could’ve
>squashed you with my thumb!”
> Pendleton, with a grunt of approval, found what he as
>looking for–a gas can–and, walking through his mother
>again, returned to the house.
> “I’ll let you go, Mother. I’ll let you go! I’ll send
>you to hell a second time!”
> He began splashing gas onto the furniture, the
>carpet, in the fireplace, the diningroom table.
> The gas fumes caused more tears to roll down his fat,
>red cheeks. They assaulted his olfactory senses and
>made him feel as though he wanted to sneeze.
> He slung more gas from the can onto the hallway
>floor, went to his bedroom and poured some on his bed.
> The remaining gas sloshed around in the can. He
>poured some more of the odorous liquid into the
>toilet, on the bathroom floor, and finally flung the
>can aside.
> Pendleton pulled a handful of strike-anywhere matches
>from his pocket and held them up before his mother’s
>ghost.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> Myrtle Kleinschmidt nearly screamed when William
>Pendleton crashed into the kitchen, banging the
>swinging door back against the wall. But she stopped
>herself at the last second by shoving her fist into
>her mouth.
> She watched, eyes wide, as her employer entered the
>garage like a bull in a china shop, knocking things
>off the wall, scattering old newspapers meant for the
>recycling bins. He left her line of sight for a
>moment, making more loud, crashing noises, giving the
>occasional grunt.
> He came back into Myrtle’s field of vision, knocking
>more things from another shelf, finally finding what
>he wanted.
> He left the garage, crashed back through the
>kitchen’s swinging door.
> It was like he didn’t even notice me, Myrtle thought,
>confused and frightened.
> But what terrified her the most was what he’d been
>carrying when he came out of the garage.
> A gas can, she thought stupidly.
> Quiet as a mouse, she tiptoed back to the kitchen
>door, opened it a crack as she’d done three times
>before, and peered around at the diningroom, where Mr.
>Pendleton stood.
> He was talking to someone.
> Myrtle strained to hear what he was saying.
> “I’ll send you to hell a second time.”
> Myrtle furrowed her brow curiously.
> She opened the door an inch more; just wide enough to
>stick her head through so she could crane her neck and
>see who Mr. Pendleton was talking to.
> There was no one there.
> Myrtle suddenly caught a whiff of gas as the scent
>wafted to the kitchen. Fear clutched at her throat
>with greedy little hands. She tried to swallow but
>found herself unable to.
> She stepped back, away from the door, watched it
>swing back and forth, making a soft whooshing noise
>against the jamb.
> The stringent stench of gas. Mr. Pendleton with a
>handful of long matches.
> Her mind tried desperately to process this, mold it
>into something understandable. But she stood there
>dumbly, utterly mystified, blinking against the stink
>of the gas, wringing her hands in her apron.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> Pendleton stood before the witch, his face a color
>somewhere between red and purple, his fat, wet lips
>pursed tightly. His breathing was shallow and quick,
>his head aching with the gas’s pungent odor. He was
>dizzy and terrified. Incredibly.
> “I’m gonna send you to hell again, Mother,” he
>repeated, his chest heaving.
> “Do it then.”
> Feeling cowardice beginning to creep up on him, he
>stamped it down; put a big, heavy mental foot on it.
>He held up one of the strike-anywhere matches in his
>mother’s face, put a thick, clammy thumb on the
>flammable head. He put the head under his thumbnail
>and raked the nail against the head.
> Nothing.
> He tried again.
> Nothing still.
> Once again he attempted to light the match.
> The flammable head broke off the match in crumbs.
> His mother laughed.
> Growling deep in his chest, he took another match and
>tried again.
> A spark and a scent of burnt sulphur and nothing
>more.
> His mother’s laugh resounded in his head and the
>diningroom.
> With a wet, guttural sound of fury, Pendleton wielded
>another match at his mother, turned at the waist and
>raked it against the underside of the dining table.
> A flame leapt to the match’s head. Pendleton looked
>at it with a big, idiot grin.
> His mother’s expression remained blank.
> “Do it,” she demanded.
> “See you in hell?”
> His mother didn’t answer.
> He dropped the match.
> The flames begin immediately, rolling in like a tide,
>seeking out and burning the gasoline with which
>Pendleton had soaked everything.
> Fire consumed Pendleton, the flames and the smoke
>twirling around him in a cyclonic dance. He could
>smell his own flesh burning, could feel it melting,
>falling at his feet in big sizzling globules.
> And, indifferent to all the fire’s light, the
>darkness came. Cool and gentle, the darkness came.
