"Seth, haven't you ever heard of knocking on the damn door?" Eddy asked.
"Tch, what for? You two ankle-biters were already home and the door was wide open. Where's Mattie?" Seth asked again, looking around.
"He's not here!" Eddy replied, irritably, "do you have any idea where my brother might be?"
"I wouldn't be here if I did," Seth retorted, helping himself to some chips.
"Excuse me for asking, but what are you doing here? It is not like you to show up at our house unannounced," Edd asked.
"I'm here to take Mattie to Lucas' house for several weeks. Looks like I'm also stuck watching you two until Mattie's folks get back or until Mattie calms the fuck down, whichever comes first," Seth stated, yawning.
"Is it over my brother freaking out over the anniversary of whatever the fuck happened to him?" Eddy questioned. "I'm tired of your clique keeping important secrets from me and not even bothering to tell me what the fuck happened."
"How did you find out about that?" Seth asked, alarmed.
Eddy sighed, "Does it matter? The only thing that matters is why you are planning on taking my brother to Lucas' house for several weeks. Why would that help?"
"Look I'll explain everything later. Just let me use your phone to call Lucas," Seth responded.
"The telephone is currently out-of-order," Edd replied, holding up the plastic Ziploc bag the phone was in.
"What happened to the phone?" Seth squawked, noticing that the phone was covered in stains and the phone line had been cut.
"My brother," Eddy mumbled, "you know of anyone that could help us?"
"Yeah, Lucas can," Seth replied, "he went to a party an hour or two ago, so I can just drag his bitch ass out of the party and have him help us look for Mattie. We can use my car."
"Let's try to catch him before he leaves the party or gets wasted," Eddy said, heading towards the door.
"Pardon me, Seth, but what do you know about Matthew's current psychological state?" Edd asked from one of the backseats.
Out of all of the cars that Seth could've owned, it was surprising for both Edd and Eddy to learn that Seth drove a blue minivan. Usually a guy like Seth would've been associated with a motorcycle, a car like the type Matthew owns, or even some kind of custom hearse. They probably would not have been able to tell that it was Seth's minivan if it didn't contain the permanent smell of cigarette smoke and some of Seth's personal belongings. A pair of Mardi Gras beads and a dragon novelty air freshener hung from a rearview mirror. The back seats contained several binders of what were apparently different tattoo designs. Edd had to admit, Seth was an impressive artist.
"Where to start? That shit didn't start up until after we were ten years old." Seth replied, taking a drag from the lit cigarette in his hand.
"I get that, so what the fuck happened that day?" Eddy asked, impatiently.
"Why the fuck do you want to know, Pipsqueak?" Seth asked, taking another puff of his cigarette.
"It's my brother, goddamn it!" Eddy yelled, giving Seth's seat a swift kick, "so tell me what the fuck happened already!"
"Eddy, control yourself!" Edd scowled, "there are better ways to receive information about the incident without resorting to violence."
"Yeah, well, none of that has worked!" Eddy shot back, "Tell me what fucking happened! Tell me! Tell me! Tell me, goddamn it!" Eddy demanded, kicking the seat like a child throwing a tantrum. Seth looked like he was trying to ignore Eddy, but was growing angrier by the second. Eddy continued kicking the seat, "I swear to God, Seth, if you don't tell me what happened right this minute; I'm going to chop off your dick and feed it to you!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Seth snapped, quickly pulling up to the side of the road and parking the vehicle. Other cars drove past them, their lights shining brightly in the night. Seth's face was twisted into an irritated scowl and would not turn to face either one of the teens. Edd feared that whatever emotion Eddy unleashed in Seth. If what Sasha told them was true, Seth was also traumatized by whatever had happened that day.
The car was deathly quiet. Seth continued to stare out of the window while letting the ash from his cigarette fall into his lap. Neither Edd nor Eddy wanted to provoke the man anymore than Eddy already had. Several minutes passed by and the car was as silent as a mouse. Perhaps it was not the best idea to get into the car with the guy.
After several more agonizing minutes, Seth's expression started to soften and he sighed heavily, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Out of all of the stupid stunts Matthew pulled, that day was the worst. Mattie had the bright idea that we would use this geeky kid that we knew as bait while we stole from this one house that the neighborhood children feared. Our parents forbid us from going to that place for our own safety. My mom told me that a bad man lived in that house. None of the adults in the neighborhood would specifically tell us of why we children had to stay away from the house, or more importantly who the man was."
"Who was he?" Edd's voice cracked.
"He was a sex offender. He was a goddamn sex offender. None of us, not even Matthew, knew what that sick fuck was capable of. At the time, we hardly knew what sex was. The man was in his early thirties and had been released from prison two years before the incident. The man was charged for molesting a child that was the same damn age we were. Lucas, Matthew, and I looked into that guy's criminal background history once we became older."
Edd waited with bated breath for the man to continue. He already had a pretty good idea of what had happened at the house, but he wanted to hear it from Seth. Seth continued, "That fucker fondled each one of us to see if we would fight back against him. Matthew did and the sick fuck molested him. That's all you need to know about the guy."
"So what happened after that," Eddy rubbed the back of his own neck, nervously.
"Well, Mattie started freaking out immediately after the rape. He was sent to a mental hospital on a yearly basis until he was kicked out. His folks and the psych doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with him, but Mattie kept his silence on the issue. Mattie told me that the psych doctors listed that he had Conduct Disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, and added that Mattie acted sexually inappropriate for his age. I guess some time later, they added that Matthew was hypersexual."
Edd could tell that the psych doctors were only basing their diagnosis on what they observed, rather than what might have been going on in Matthew's head. Matthew might have been also suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but even that would not completely explain the man's psyche. The man was still a complete enigma to him – and a bad one at that.
"After Mattie was kicked out, it was up to Lucas and I to make sure that Mattie was contained during that time of the year." Seth continued, fidgeting with his lip piercing, "So each year, we locked Mattie in one of Lucas' panic rooms until he came to his senses."
"Excuse me for saying this, Seth, but what you and Lucas did was illegal. Despite your good intentions, the law still considers it false imprisonment. You and Lucas could face legal repercussions if you two are caught," Edd informed.
"What we did was a hell of a lot better than what would've happened to him if he were arrested or put in a nuthouse." Seth reasoned, "Being put into one of Lucas' panic rooms is like checking into a fancy hotel room, except he can't leave until he chills out. He got five meals a day; Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. We would bring him his porno mags to look through. He also has a nice Jacuzzi tub he can soak his crazy ass in. Do you know how many broken bones and bruises we got when either of us tried to bring his ass food? More than I can fucking count! Sometimes he was too confused or whatever and attacked us, not realizing that it was us that he was attacking. Sometimes he knew that it was us coming in and still attacked us anyway just to hurt us."
"You two are just as insane as my fucking brother is," Eddy responded.
Seth frowned, "I'm not looking for your fucking approval, Pipsqueak. Matthew hated the nuthouse, how do you think he would've liked prison? The point of it was to make Matthew as comfortable as possible while he was out of his mind, even at the cost of my own fucking limbs. If you don't like it, you can get out of the car and walk home."
"Ugh, fine. I don't care. All I care about is finding my brother," Eddy groaned, "let me guess, you're planning on capturing my brother and locking him away at Lucas' house?"
"Now you're getting it." Seth put the minivan into drive and turned back onto the road, "you're not as dense as I thought you were."
"Go blow yourself, asshole!" Eddy spat.
"So what is our role in your plan?" Edd asked.
Seth yawned from exhaustion, "I'm glad you asked that. You two are going to lure Matthew to me and Lucas and let us handle the rest. Don't think you two won't get hurt by Matthew. He'll hurt you during a fit just like Lucas and I were."
The car fell silent once again. They had past a sign indicating that they were now in Lemon Brook. There had been a joke that Lemon Brook had more Lemon trees than they had people and the Lemon tree farms were everywhere with the occasional silo. After a couple of minutes of passing by the farms, they reached the town center where small shops, Lemon Brook High School, the police station, and various other buildings were located.
"Hey Seth," Eddy's voice broke the silence, "why did my brother pick you to be his lackey?"
"Excuse me?" Seth asked in confusion.
"My brother told me once when I was one or two years old to pick out lackeys who both had a talent and a weakness to exploit. He told me that outcasts were more likely to go along with the scams than social butterflies. It seemed like you were the common sense guy and the work mule behind all of my brother's scams. So what was it that drawn my brother to you?" Eddy asked.
Edd was taken aback by Eddy's question. Eddy was instructed at an early age to find people with talents to exploit? Edd immediately thought of Ed and him and how they fit into the trio's dynamic. Edd was the brains and Ed was the brawn. Ed was just Ed and rarely stood up to Eddy. Edd challenged Eddy plenty of times, but stuck by Eddy due to loneliness. Edd knew of the dynamic well. Edd wondered what drew Eddy to him and Ed, their talents or their weaknesses. Of course, as the years went by, Ed and Edd became less of Eddy's lackeys and more of his friends. Edd didn't know why it shocked him so much that Matthew instructed Eddy to literately take advantage of what he considered the weakest links, but it did.
Seth ignored the question and driven into an upper middle class suburb where the houses were near identical clones to one another. The only differences between some of the houses were the lawn ornaments in the yards, the gardens at some of the houses, and the cars that were parked in the driveways. "We're almost there," Seth announced.