What Could Have Been
Chapter Nineteen "Drenched in my own blood and sick..."
The crisp air nipped at his shaven face and he shivered, having lost some of the warmth now that his hair no longer touched his shoulders. It had been the shortest his hair had been cut in a long while and, despite Muriel's warm smile and compliments, everything else weighed heavy in his chest. He wanted to go home and hide away from the blue sky like a vampire. He never wanted to look at the blue sky again. However, since Muriel had driven him into town, and she was the only wa back. He had to go along with whatever she had in mind.
That wasn't true. He could go anywhere he wanted. He didn't have to follow her as though he were a child.
But where would he go?
Where could he go?
He rubbed at his neck. He didn't want to be under the blue sky any longer than he had to.
It's not as though the blue sky would jump out at him, he scoffed at himself.
It's just...
He wished it would rain.
He wished it were rainy and gloomy and he didn't have to be reminded of it anymore. He wished he didn't have to feel anything anymore. He wished he didn't have to feel anything ever again.
He started as Muriel touched his shoulder.
"Why, Fred dear, what's the matter?"
"Why did you touch me?" The panic in his voice embarrassed him.
"Why, I..." Muriel seemed at a loss for words.
"Forgive me." He muttered.
A sudden sadness on top of everything else weighed on his heart and he wanted to be pulled down with the rest of his sadness. To stop thinking. It wasn't just that he wanted to cry. What would crying do? It would only reinforce how pathetic he had become...
Part of him was relieved when she lead him to the truck, relieved to get home and hide away in his room. As they drove through the town, they passed by the barber shop once more and, for a split second, he saw how the barber shop had looked when it had been his establishment.
He missed the smell of his hair products. He missed his gleaming, polished mirrors. The gleam of his even more polished scissors and razors. The crisp smell of water. The feeling that this was his domain and his business. The shop he had envisioned since he was a little boy.
The few pleasent memories of his childhood were when his mother took him to the barber shop. The sound of the scissors snipping away his hair soothed him. It had been the only thing other than the melody of his father's music box that made him feel safe.
He would arrange his stuffed animals in his room and pretend his room was a barber shop, with a sign written in crayons taped on the door, setting up every mirror he could find from the bathroom. He practiced on his stuffed animals until there wasn't anymore fur to cut, causing his mother to confide in Muriel in a hushed whisper when she thought Fred wasn't listening. As a little boy, he would gaze at his school mate's long, beautiful hair and envision them walking into his barber shop once they were all adults when he could finally cut their hair.
He longed to grow up.
He couldn't wait to grow up.
He waited years and years to grow up.
He couldn't wait to get away from his mother's house and, at times - as much as it shamed him to admit it and as much as he loved her - away from Muriel as well. He longed to be on his own, with his own thoughts. To get away from school and his mother's smothering influence so he could begin his journey as a barber.
Adulthood could not come fast enough and the wait had been agonizing. His childhood crept by at a caterpiller's pace and, bit by bit, he grew from an angry and sullen little boy into an even angrier and even more sullen teenager.
Admist his raging hormones, his preoccupation with hair had morphed into something that he never would have forseen as a child, warping his innocent little boy daydreams of cutting hair into...something else.
And his once gentle daydreams of inviting girls from school into his shop became...something different.
Something decidedly dirtier than what he had daydreamed of as a boy.
His lonely teenage years had been punctuated by occasional visits from Lindsey, who had lived with her mother and who had been just as overcome with teenage hormones as he had been. Teenage hormones that lead to much, much kissing and fervid and enthusiastic exploration of one another's bodies. However, as much as he enjoyed kissing her and enjoyed her kissing him, he found that once they stopped, he wanted to get away from her. He couldn't understand his feelings at the time. She had been the only real friend he ever had and perhaps the closest thing he ever had to a best friend.
When Lindsey left Nowhere when she was eighteen to pursue her own aspirations, Fred felt as though the last thread holding him to his past had snapped. He could move on. He could pretend that Crane had been a nightmare that his mind had concocted and that his childhood and his teenage years had merely been a dream. And so, he entered his twenties, if not a dignified man, then on his way to becoming a more dignified man. As far as he had been concerned, the day he had left for barber school had been the first day of his life.
Something else that had always bothered him was his voice. His school mates would tease him, repeating what he said in an exgaggerated Scottish accent. With the help of a speech therapist, who had insisted that there was nothing wrong with the way he spoke, he managed to change his voice to the point where his mother frequently asked him why he talked like that, visibly disturbed when he refused to talk in a Scottish accent. He tried to make his accent as American as he could, deciding that he didn't care if it wasn't a proper American accent.
Just as long as he didn't sound like her.
Were he to speak in a more American accent, or at least, the closest he could get to an American accent, it would...
Separate him from his mother.
From his school mates and teachers.
From Crane.
This thought alone set a fire under him and he eagerly attended every charm and etiquette classes that his busy schedule would allow. In a sense, it was comforting to put a limit on himself when it came to the way he spoke and the way he acted. Anytime he had kept himself from reacting in a crass or brutish manner, anything that would remind him of Crane, he felt as though he had accomplished something, something he didn't want to lose no matter the situation.
No matter the situation...
No matter...
The...
He turned his head to catch one last glance at the barber shop before it disappeared from view, closing his eyes as Muriel drove out of the town.
He was back to square one.
Worse than square one.
Worse than what he had been as a child.
It had been understandable when he had been a child.
Because he had been a child.
Everything that he had built his whole life, everything he wanted, everything he had become...
All destroyed.
What was he now?
Could he even call himself a man anymore?
"Does your wound hurt, Fred dear?"
"It doesn't hurt."
"Oh, it's just that you keep rubbing it."
"Force of habit."
He paused.
"Aunt Muriel?"
"Yes dear?
"Did - did Mum tell you exactly what happened when she...stabbed me?"
Muriel glanced at him.
"Is there something wrong Fred dear?"
As he hesitated, Muriel drove to the side of the road and turned off the truck.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He swallowed.
"I feel ashamed."
"Why, Fred dear?"
"The woman who stabbed me had a...crush on me."
He had all but yelled all of this at Barbara in the graveyard.
Why was he having trouble talking about it now?
"She would follow me around and sit close to me and stand close to me. She would put her hand on my thigh and touch my legs and hair. And I didn't want her to touch me because I-"
He let out a breath.
"I missed my girlfriend."
He let out a watery chuckle.
"She's the only woman I've ever loved. And even now, I can't envision myself being with another woman other than her. And I've tried, Aunt Muriel. I've really tried..."
He felt Muriel nod.
"Anyway, I told her all of this. I told her I had a girlfriend and that I was still very much in love with her..."
Might as well get it out. Rip it off like a bandage.
"She undressed me while I was trying to write in my journal out in the garden and..."
He tried to laugh. It came out sounding like a cough.
"She had sex with me."
No reaction from Muriel. No shift. No throat clearing. He felt her eyes on him. He gazed out at the blue sky, too embarrassed to look at her.
"That's when she stabbed you?"
He gave another watery chuckle and nodded.
"What happened? Who stopped her?"
He closed his eyes. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear the world apart with his bare hands.
"Fred?"
"Muriel?" He looked at her, dropping his voice to a whisper, "Can I tell you something?"
"Of course." No discomfort in her face, only a soft gentleness.
"I'm-"
He leaned closer.
"I'm not rehabilitated."
Muriel started.
"I'm not rehabilitated. I pretended to be cured to get out of there."
It was easier to talk to the buttons on her coat.
"Ever since I got locked up, I pretended I was cured just to get out of there. I stayed on my best behavior. I cooperated with the doctors. I did whatever I could to make them think that I was cured. That's why..."
He gave another sputtering laugh.
Why was this harder to talk about?
He outed himself. He essentially outed himself. Had this been anyone else, had he breathed all of this to anyone else, they would have clamoured to get him locked up again.
"I didn't push her off me or tried to stop her. I was afraid that if I used force, she would say that I hurt her and it would ruin my chances of getting out of there."
"But she had scissors," Muriel murmured as though she were talking to a little boy, "She stabbed you. That's why you didn't fight back."
"Had things been different, I would have thrown her to the ground, regardless if she had scissors or not. I would have stopped her from having sex with me."
He swallowed.
"But I let her."
He closed his eyes.
"I often wonder whether that was the reason I was let out. Because I had reported to them that she had scissors. Their attitude towards me had changed after that. They saw me as a more trustworthy person."
He swallowed.
"It felt...It feels..."
He wavered, trying to think of a word that wasn't crude. He didn't want to upset Muriel or disturb her any more than she already was.
He knew the words he wanted to say.
Whored himself out.
Prostituted himself.
"The very reason I'm sitting here next to you is because I let her have sex with me. Even though...I didn't want to have sex with her."
He exhaled through his nose.
"I can't explain how I feel without saying something terrible. I don't want to upset you."
"Frederick dearest, you can tell me anything. I want to hear how you really feel."
An idea struck him and he reached into his duffle coat and pulled out his journal. Turning to a page he had not yet written on, he wrote out the words he wanted to say as clearly as he could. He hesitated before handing Muriel his journal. He gazed out at the sky, at the birds fluttering outside, at anything but his aunt.
Muriel unbuckled her seat belt and pulled him closer to her.
"You are no such thing, Fred dear. You are nothing of the sort and that wasn't what happened. So put those thoughts out of your mind at once. And-"
She touched the scar on his cheek.
"Fred dearest, look at me."
Shame burned his stomach as he looked into her eyes. Shame for writing down such words and showing them to her. Shame for having thought of them in the first place. Shame for who he was. Shame for existing-
"And even if you were, it would change nothing. You're alive and you're here with me. That's all that matters to me."
She kissed his cheek.
"This is the start of a new beginning for you. And if you ever have any thoughts about cutting hair, you can always tell me. We'll figure something out together."
Giving his cheek another kiss, she turned on the truck.
"Now enough of this, let's go home and we'll start cooking lunch. Perhaps we can make some peanut butter cookies. Courage would like peanut butter cookies. Its the perfect weather for nice warm cookies..."
As Muriel chattered on, Fred took this moment to wipe under his eyes with his fingertip.
Peanut butter had been the only thing he could eat as a little boy. He couldn't stomach eggs or mayonnaise or milk. Anything that felt slimy or smelled weird. Anything that reminded him of bodily fluids. Peanut butter had been the only thing that could fill him up.
"When are we going to eat supper?"
"Hungry? I just made egg salad and we're having macaroni and cheese tonight."
"Macaroni and cheese tastes slimey! And I don't like egg salad! The smell makes me want to throw up! I get a stomach ache when I eat it! Can I please have peanut butter toast?"
"You had peanut butter toast for breakfast and your lunch and your snack! That's all you ate today! You can't eat peanut butter toast all the time!"
"Can we have hamburgers?"
"We had hamburgers last night and there isn't anymore! I already made the egg salad and macaroni is all we got until we go grocery shopping! That's what we're eating tonight and that's that! And don't even think of carrying on, Fred, I will not have it!"
"You're filling out your clothes very nicely." Muriel said as though Fred weren't on the verge of sobbing, "I think this is the most weight you've put on your whole life."
"You really think so?"
"It does my heart good to see some meat on your bones."
Fred gave a watery chuckle.
"You really scared me to death, Fred." Muriel's tone became serious, "Seeing you skinny like that. I had begun to fear the worst."
"I'm sorry, Aunt Muriel. I've worried you enough for a lifetime, haven't I?"
Muriel shook her head.
"All I want is for you to be happy. As long as you're happy, then I'm happy. Now, let's go home and get some food in you..."
Because of the embarrassing way he had reacted to her touch, he felt too ashamed to lie there in her bed with her, deciding to walk home in the darkness and rain. He insisted that he didn't need a ride as he wished to be alone. He asked if he could use her bathroom, the contents of the sink drawer never having left his mind that entire evening.
Locking the door, he pulled the drawer open as gently and slowly as he could, taking pains to not make a sound. There, amidst combs and brushes, were a pair of red handled scissors and a razor.
He glanced at the door, deciding that it would be suspicious if there weren't any...noises and he didn't want her to think that he was doing anything other than urinating in her bathroom. Spotting her toothbrush glass, he placed the toothbrush on the sink counter and filled the glass with water, He poured the water into the toilet in as steady of a trickle as he could, reminding himself that she was most likely not analyzing the sounds in the bathroom as much as he thought. His heart pounded as he flushed the toilet, snatching up the scissors and razor, tucking them underneath his journal and his father's music box. After making sure that the bathroom looked exactly how it had looked when he had first entered it and after making sure his innermost pocket was buttoned, he left the bathroom, buttoning up his duffle coat.
Her gentle hand on his shoulder nearly made him leap out of his skin.
"Are you alright?"
Why did she have to sound so gentle?
"You've been jumpy everytime I touch you. Do you want to talk about it?"
There were moments such as these when he found himself just as in love with her as he had with Barbara. However, unlike his love for Barbara, his love for Lindsey would last just as long as a shimmer of rainbow would last in a shower of water.
On impulse, hoping that it would distract her from whatever she might have heard in the bathroom, he pulled her close and kissed her full on the mouth. He decided that it didn't matter if she still had traces of him on her lips or on her gentle tongue. It was only him, after all. It was his bodily fluids, his DNA. As long as it was his DNA and her DNA, it didn't matter...
...Crane's DNA.
Her saliva.
Her spit.
It was Crane's DNA as well.
The very DNA had had been forced to smell every time his mother and Crane had sex.
He pulled away from her, suddenly finding her more repulsive than any human being he had ever known.
Including Crane.
As disgusting as Crane had been, the fact that Lindsey had come from his DNA...
...From the body part that that had been in his own mother's mouth more times than he had ever wanted to see...
"Are you alright?"
Her once pure hearted and beautiful voice grated on his nerves and he found himself wanting to hit her out of sheer disgust.
"I don't wish to worry my aunt." He gritted out, fighting to keep his composure.
"Will I see you again?"
"I do not know." He answered as truthfully as he could.
Outside, he had stumbled through the dark until he found himself in an alleyway. Leaning against the wall, he gagged and retched, waiting for the nausea to subside enough for him to continue walking. He was grateful for the freezing rain on his face, pelting him and stinging him as though they were shards of glass.
He recalled a piece of information he had come across while surfing on the internet. One of the reasons human beings kissed on the mouth was to determine whether or not the other person was compatible with them, often through the exchange of saliva, something that he had never once considered before.
He had never gagged at the thought of ingesting Barbara's saliva.
Quite on the contrary.
There had been many times when they had kissed and a string of saliva had snapped between their parting lips. And instead of wiping it away as he would have in any other situation, Fred licked his lips, swallowing her saliva. He expected to gag or to feel sick, but he hadn't. Furthermore, he found that her sweat smell had never bothered him. As a matter of fact, he found that he actually liked it, something he never would have thought possible before he met her. This lead to him thinking about her private parts, considering something that he never would have considered before.
As it turned out, both of them preferred to shower before making love. Because of the often hot Kansas weather, and the fact that he and Barbara often worked before seeing one another, being intimate with her while he had an afternoons worth of sweat on him was the last thing he wanted. Being clean made everything nicer. And it was just as well, because Barbara often told him that she wanted time to herself before they made love, which often lead to them showering separately, which only added to their anticipation.
And thus, one sunny blue sky filled afternoon, as Barbara lounged against the bed, smelling clean and wonderful, he lowered his head to her most private part. He smelled and inhaled her before giving her a kiss, needing to take his time and go at his own pace with this. Tentatively-tentatively-he tasted her, pleasantly surprised that he hadn't minded how she tasted. And because he hadn't minded how she had tasted, he found, to his delight, that he wanted to continue. A clean breeze ruffled the lacy curtains causing them to flutter against the open window. Her room smelled of sunshine and the blue sky that tinged the white sheets of her bed.
As he walked through the darkness and the rain, he wondered if anyone else felt like this. Did women feel this way as well? Did certain men smell or taste better than others? If this were the case, this would explain how he felt towards Lindsey. Perhaps it had nothing to do with Crane at all and it merely boiled down to the fact that they weren't and had never been compatible with one another.
He suddenly felt ashamed of acting cold towards Lindsey, feeling more ashamed as he stepped into the house. Every cell and strand in his body pulled away from Muriel, who had insisted on standing close to him. If he could smell Lindsey's scent, then Muriel could smell her as well.
As he picked out clean underwear for his shower, the same pair of underwear that he had worn when...
...When Enid had attacked him...
...He happened to glance at the waist band and spotted what looked to be a dark piece of lint stuck on the elastic.
For all he knew, the speck of lint could have come from her. It might have been on her finger and it had stuck to the elastic of his waistband when she...
...When she pulled his underwear down.
If he were to put his underwear on, even if he were to pick off the piece of lint, what happened with Crane would happen again. For a split moment, he had panicked.
And then he thought.
What happened with Crane couldn't happen again.
He's dead
Crane was dead and his mother was dead.
What happened couldn't happen again.
Still, as he laid in bed after his shower, he felt as though he were wearing a ticking time bomb, despite having worn this same particular pair of underwear many times before.
"Fred?"
Suddenly finding himself able to breathe, Fred sat up gasping, coughing as he tried to take in air. He felt someone touch his shoulder.
Someone cold.
A cold that was all too familiar.
He lifted his head and struggled to his feet though not without the help of the all too familar man before him. A man whose eyes he had gazed into many times. A face he had studied for many years. His all too familiar face set in a gentle expression, wild blonde hair, bushy eyebrows, hooked nose and large green eyes made Fred as though he were looking into a mirror. His hand seeped frost into Fred's shoulder.
"You're not real." Fred murmured, "You're just a figment of my imagination."
The young man gave him a sad smile.
"Aye, I'm just something your noggin conjured up. But now isn't the time to argue about such things, son. You have a world to save."
"Why did you stop Crane?" Fred massaged his neck, not a drop of him ungrateful that his father had saved him, "That would've stopped the meteor."
"And let Crane murder my only son? I don't think so, laddie."
"But Dad-" He struggled to articulate what he could barely comprehend himself, "If I created the meteor, then thinking about Muriel should stop it. But thinking about her hasn't stopped it."
"Aye, it hasn't. And thinking of me won't stop it either."
"But thinking of you made the wolves disappear."
"Aye, but it appears that Crane dug his claws much deeper than you thought. And this time, thinking of Muriel or I won't stop it."
His father placed a frosted hand on his shoulder. Despite the fact that his father looked to be in his twenties, there was an authorative depth in the way he held his shoulder and in the way he looked at him and Fred felt compelled regard him as though he were so much older than him.
"He made you believe that things would be better if you were dead. And I fear that particular claw has dug its way deep in your mind. He made you believe that you deserve to die."
Fred attempted to shrink away out of instinct, but his father held him fast, frost digging into his shoulders.
"But - I do deserve to die."
"That's Crane's doing. He made you believe that-"
"I hurt Courage."
"Is that what this is all about?"
"I really hurt him." Fred gazed into his father's eyes, pleading for him to understand, "How can I continue to live after I hurt him? Why do I deserve to live after I hurt him so much?"
"So, you'll destroy the world and Muriel because of your guilt?"
"Crane was going to kill me." Fred pulled away from him, "He was going to put an end to it."
"And so your aunt has to lose her dear sister and her nephew within the span of a year?"
"And what if she passes away? If she dies, then I have nothing to live for. If she dies, I'm just going to end up killing myself anyway."
"And so, Crane has won." His father intoned.
"Maybe Crane was right all along!"
"Those are his words and you know it. These aren't your words. This isn't you."
"Dad-"
"This is not you."
"Maybe I don't want to live anymore! Have you thought about that?"
His whole body shook with adrenaline and he began to pace around as though he were a caged animal.
"I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be in this body anymore-"
"Aunt Muriel? Could I perhaps borrow a ball of yarn? I wish to knit Courage a pair of mittens for Christmas-"
Muriel handed him the box of yarn before he had finished his sentence.
"I needn't the whole box." He said and gazed at the various balls of yarn, his eyes falling upon a ball of light blue and dark blue yarn, held together within a single rubber band.
The moment he took the rubber band off of the yarn and stretched it between his fingers, his thought process changed. He couldn't remember what his thought process used to be before he had decided to stretch the rubber band between his fingers.
If you do this, Enid will find you.
If the thought of Crane made his underwear feel infected, then Enid infected everything.
A speck ingrained in a page in his journal would cause Enid to escape and come find him.
Underwear with lint on the elastic would cause Enid to come and find him.
Using a certain pen would cause Enid to come and find him.
Using a certain word or writing a sentence a cetain way would cause Enid to come and find him.
He had already decided that if Enid were to find him, that if she had ever attempted to touch him or undress him again, he would kill her. He knew with every marrow in his bones that he would kill her. He knew someone would find out and he knew that he would kill himself. And the wolves would be more than happy to oblige for him. He had an out. He had a definite out and it terrified him.
Enid had become synonymous with death.
If she were to find him, it would mean death for him.
And if he were to throw away the rubber band, he would throw away proof of what caused the thing he feared the most to come true. The thought of it being in the garbage, unable to find it when the time came to show evidence of what caused the thing he feared the most to happen, made him panic, deciding to keep the rubberband on his person at all times
It had felt unsafe to write down what Enid had done to him, unable to write down certain details. Certain details felt unsafe to write. As much as he had wanted to use cerain words or write write things a certain way, he felt he couldn't, often rewording things to feel "safer".
And each time he reworded something to feel safer, it felt as though an invisible hand reached inside of his stomach, putting words that weren't his own into his own gut. He grew to hate his writing because of this.
Because it was not his own writing.
His own words.
And if he didn't have his writing, what did he have that was his and his alone?
The words in his head.
"The words you hear are in my head."
If he were unable to write down the words he wanted to use, he would still be a slave to this thought process. Regardless of the source of this thought process, whether his brain stem were connected to a computer program or if an infection in his brain caused him to have these thoughts, it didn't matter. The source of this thought process didn't matter.
He couldn't live like this anymore.
Death was better than this.
He was ready to die if it meant that he had to live like this for the rest of his life.
"...I don't want to wake up anymore. I wish - I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up again-"
Despite how he felt, he refused to cry in front of his father. The fact that he was able to control his emotions in front of his father strengthened a foothold inside of his body
"I don't want to go back, I -"
His voice caught and he waited until he felt sure his voice wouldn't waver.
"...I want to be with you."
His father sighed.
"This is what Crane wants you to do. He wants you to destroy yourself."
"Dad-"
"If you were to die-" His father winced, as though saying this pained him deeply, "If you were to die, I'd rather that you die as yourself rather than dying warped and twisted by Crane's influence."
His father stepped closer. His manner reminded Fred of someone trying to approach a frightened cornered animal without scaring it away.
"Thinking of Muriel won't stop the meteor and thinking of me won't stop the meteor. Crane has dug his claws too deep in you."
"Then what can stop it?" Fred snapped, though a part of him quivered with curiosity.
"The only way you can overcome his influence is by exerting your own influence."
Fred looked at him.
"Exerting my own influence?"
"Aye, that's it."
"I don't understand."
"This wish to destroy yourself came from him. He was the one who poisoned your mind. He planted this thought in your mind. So, in order to get rid of his influence, you have to distinguish his thoughts from your own. You have to know what your own thoughts are. And to do that, you'll have to be your true self."
"But-" He could argue that he already knew his true self, but for the sake of not arguing with his father, he decided not to, "I don't know my true self."
His father smiled.
"Aye, you do, laddie."
He knelt and picked something up from the darkness and handed it to Fred.
It was his journal.
"You will exert your influence by writing."
"How?"
"By writing without the influence of anyone or anything. Easier said than done, I know."
"But how can that get rid of Crane's influence?"
Despite the cold that his father gave off, his green eyes warmed.
"You've always been drawn to poetry, haven't you?"
His father held up a pen.
"That is your true self."
"How do you know that's my true self?" Fred asked, once again resisting the urge to argue with him.
"Because no one told you to become a poet. That is something you gravitated towards yourself. It is something that came from you and you alone, no one else."
"No one told me to become a barber either. I decided that myself."
"Becoming a barber was just a means to an end and you know that."
The slight reprimand in his father's soft tone caused Fred to feel sheepish.
"You aren't a barber. That whole barbering business had always been just a means to an end. That isn't who you really are. This is your true self, Fred."
Fred stared at the pen.
"Will you promise me to work as hard as you can to rid yourself of Crane's influence? And I hope that, when we meet again, you will be more yourself than ever before."
"But, what if I don't see you again?"
Fred looked into his father's eyes.
"What if I won't see you again after I die?"
"Then will you promise me that you won't let Crane kill the person I love most in this world?"
Tears sprung into Fred's eyes.
"Will you overcome Crane's influence so you can better protect yourself? You will need your writing, laddie. It will be your influence and the source of your strength. Will you promise me, Fred?"
Tears streamed from Fred's eyes. He clutched the journal to his chest.
"It will be hard. It will be so hard. But you'll have to be brave, laddie."
He couldn't make that promise. He knew he couldn't make that promise. Such a promise overwhelmed him.
"If nothing else," A small smile played on his father's lips, "If nothing else, will you do it to stick it to Crane?"
Fred suddenly laughed aloud, wiping at his eyes.
"Will you promise to stick it to Crane for me, laddie?"
"I-"
He remembered how the blue sky tinged Barbara's sheets and her pale face.
("What I had done with Barbara of my own volition...")
No one pressured him to do that.
He decided to do that of his own volition.
Nothing could take that away from him.
Tainted, infected or unusable or not.
("I chose her. I chose Barbara. ")
The blue sky.
Barbara.
("The source of my strength.")
The blue sky a talisman.
A physical reminder of what he had done of his own volition.
Tainted, infected or unusable or not.
("It will be the source of my strength.")
"Fred!"
He felt Muriel's arms around him, helping him sit up. He tasted blood and clutched the journal and pen close to his chest.
"Muriel-"
He couldn't hear himself above the roar of the meteor.
He already had a phrase in mind.
"Crane's influence-" He muttered, "Will never again..."
Again.
Man. Tan.
Or.
Again. As though there were an e at the end of again.
Ten. Pen. Men
Pen.
"Crane's influence will never again..."
He had always been able to think up rhymes on the spot.
"Aunt Muriel, what words rhyme with again?"
"Again?" She shouted over the wind.
"Please help me think of a word that rhymes with again, again as though theres an e at the end of again, so it will rhyme with pen - pen as in a pen-" he held up his pen "-Or-"
"What are you doing?" Courage yelled.
"I don't have time to explain, just help me think of words that rhyme with again and pen-"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Just help me, damn it!"
Pen.
Pen.
"As in to keep farm animals in...Will never keep me within his pen.."
"Rhyming pen with pen, are you?" Crane sneered against his ear.
"I've done it once before. Rhyming a word with the same word. My name is Fred. I say I said my name is Fred. I've rhymed my name with my own name before! Will never again.." He wrote, unable to see what he wrote in the dark, "Keep me within his pen...As long as I can hold a pen-"
He started as he felt the pen ripped from his fingers.
"What are you going to do now, Little Freddy?" Crane cackled as the wolves disappeared presumably with his pen, "What will you do without your pen?"
He had something.
He had something there.
Will never again
Within his pen
As long as I can hold a pen...
His insides twinged.
He shook his head.
That sounded too redundant.
Even as he murmured his poem aloud, it still felt too redundant.
His insides twinged each time he murmured the phrase over and over in his head, making the foothold in his gut weaker, part of him bargained to keep the rhyme as it was even as the rhyme made him want to tear his guts out, if only to stop the twinging in his stomach and brain.
But changing the rhyme made him feel as though he were giving into the voice in his brain.
And wasn't this what this was all about?
Not giving into the voice in his brain?
To the urge to change something he wanted?
"My name is Fred, the words you hear are in my head..." Fred muttered to himself, 'I say I said my name is Fred..."
I had rhymed my name with my name before, He thought, many times.
Still...
Pen and pen.
But...
What if he couldn't hold a pen?
What if something happened and he wasn't able to write with his hand anymore?
What if he lost a hand or his fingers?
He shook his head.
That settles it.
He couldn't use the phrase as long as I have a pen.
It was too conditional.
He needed something that could carry him through any situation, regardless if he had something to write with or not.
Again.
Ten. When. Men.
He would have to start over.
Think of a different phrase to start with.
Wait...
"My name is Fred," He murmured aloud, "The words you hear are in my head."
In my head.
Blood spattered the pages of his journal.
Even if he relapsed and every paper felt too infected for him to write on...
The one place he could always write was...
"My head."
Cranium.
Mind.
Brain.
"As long as I can write in my head..."
He stopped.
Wait...
What did his father say?
"I'm just something your noggin conjured up ..."
Noggin.
Noggin!
A smile spread across his lips.
"Soon, I figured what the heck and..."
He could hear his own voice above the wind.
Reckoned.
What the heck and...
"Crane's influence will never again..."
Again, as though there were an e at the end of again.
"Keep me within his pen..."
He couldn't help but let out a laugh.
"For as long as I can write inside my noggin..."
Saying noggin as though there was an e at the end of noggin.
"I am... your hero...ever doughty."
The rumbling from above had ceased. He could see his blood spattered journal clearly as well as the basement floor. Particles winked and floated, brushing against the beams that held up the basement ceiling, sparking and winking before dissipating into nothingness.
He felt Courage brush past him, hearing him run up the stairs.
"Oh dear, Fred your nose-"
Fred felt at his wet face, pinching his nose, tasting and swallowing blood that had seeped into his mouth.
At that moment, Courage clattered down the steps and begun to babble gibberish while jumping up and down and pointing at the stairs.
"What is it Courage?" He felt Muriel brush past him as well, "Come on, Fred dear, let's follow him!"
He struggled to his feet, leaning against a beam to keep himself from falling over.
"Here-"
Muriel assisted him up the stairs and together they followed Courage out the front door, where Fred sank to his knees, suddenly unable to stand up. Courage hopped up and down pointing at the sky.
"Oh, Fred! Come look at the sky!"
Catching his breath, he stumbled to where Muriel and Courage stood, open mouthed, their eyes filled with the lights that twinkled and shone above them.
In place of the meteor that had filled the once darkened orange sky were sparkling particles, bright as galaxies, as ephemeral as fireflies, scattering and winking against the deepening lavender sky as though they were dandelions.
"Oh, how lovely!" Muriel sighed, "Fred dearest, have you ever seen such a prettier sight?"
"I suppose we'll have to make it a dinner date." Barbara whispered, "The tearoom is most likely closed by this point."
"Oh dear." Fred murmured feeling, not the least bit guilty or unhappy about this turn of events.
Giving her thigh and that beautiful, lovely part of her body one last kiss, he gently pulled her petticoat and skirt over her bare legs out of a gentlemanly instinct and nestled close to her, prompting a murmuring chuckle from both of them.
He gently nudged one of her stuffed animals aside, suddenly feeling self conscious at the thought that her stuffed animals and dolls had witnessed everything that they had done, the adult part of him chiding himself for having such childish thoughts.
"You have the most beautiful eyes, Fred."
"Do I?"
"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."
"You flatter me."
("Oh, Barbara, I miss you. I miss you so much...")
She shook her head.
"I've always had trouble making eye contact with others, even with my own family. But I never had trouble looking you in the eye."
She blushed.
"With you, it's..."
She let out a delicate sigh, her rosy cheeks deepening.
"It's as easy as breathing."
Had he not cut her hair...
Would they still have been together all this time?
Had he known how his life would turn out...
He would have not cut her hair.
He would have fought the urge as hard as he could.
But it was too late.
It was too late to change.
Too late to fix anything.
Too late for anything.
Anything...
"Fred!"
He couldn't bring himself to lift his head for Muriel's sake. Her voice faraway, echoing, far far off. Her touch felt faraway. The taste of his blood a distant thought. The ground soft as a cloud, his body a ghost, his mind seafoam.
Fred figured that after overcoming Crane's influence he would feel better. But he didn't. He slept for days and when he managed to get himself out of bed, he would just pace back and forth for hours. And when his feet hurt from pacing, he would crawl into his bed, wanting to sleep it all away.
He felt sick.
At first Muriel allowed him to sleep, insisting that he rest, all but shooing him to his room after he had eaten.
Then one rainy afternoon, she knocked on his door.
"Fred? Are you alright?"
"Yes."
"You hadn't left your room in days." Muriel said, her voice gentle, "Eustace went to the hardware store. How about you come down for a nice cup of tea and we can take advantage of the quiet?"
"Where's Courage?"
"I'm not sure. I haven't seen the dear all day. He'll turn up. He always does."
Rolling over, he could smell himself.
"I would like to shower first."
"Take all the time you need to, dear."
She left him and he dragged himself out of bed, selecting a clean pair of pajamas and a clean cardigan. Shedding his clothes, he kept his underwear on as he stepped under the shower.
As a boy, he had always worn his underwear in the bath and his mother would ask him why he kept his underwear on. He would tell her that he didn't want to take all of his clothes off, unable to articulate why he didn't want to do such a thing.
He had completely forgotten he had used to wear his underwear in the shower and in the bath. Ever since Enid attacked him, he found he couldn't bring himself to fully undress himself, sometimes leaving his pajama pants on while he showered and when the time came, he would make a quick job of changing into dry clothes, not wishing to remain naked for longer than he had to.
He had intended to do a quick job of washing himself as he didn't wish to linger in the shower with his thoughts. His hair had grown long enough to braid and he found himself braiding and unbraiding his wet hair, thinking of Barbara. Braids always made him think of her. Everything reminded him of her in some form or another, reminding him of what he had...
Waking up in her bedroom had been a greater pleasure than waking up in his own bed. Sunlight streamed into her little bedroom and it was such a pleasure to wake up from a night of romance with a very naked Barbara resting sometimes asleep against his own naked skin and the light filling the lacy white curtains, watching Barbara, smelling sweet from her shower, seat herself before her vanity.
Being in the company of someone like Barbara, who surrounded herself with feminine and often child like things, made him feel more at home. And it had always been a secret pleasure to take in the various stuffed animals on her bed and the fairy tales that filled her shelves, fairy tales ranging from Grimms to old Dutch folk tales. And how delighted he had been to see familiar authors on her shelf, such as Lewis Caroll and L. Frank Baum. How even more delighted he had been to inquire Barbara about her collection of books, confessing that he had read these very books many a time as a boy.
As much he had waited to grow up, so he could live on his own, in his heart, Fred still felt very much like a child. And to meet someone who still enjoyed childish things herself and wasn't ashamed to admit it, made him comfortable enough to reveal his own childish delights, such as playing his father's music box and losing himself within children's books which he should have grown out of long ago.
"Fred? Could you help me brush my hair?" Barbara cooed, batting her eyelashes at him.
He knew she didn't have any trouble brushing her own hair, seeing how impeccably brushed her hair had always been every time he saw her. However, he wasn't about to turn down her request.
Taking the pearl brush from her and gentle hold of her hair, he began to brush her hair as gently, as though he were attempting to comb through a spider web without breaking it. Inhaling her perfume, which smelled just how sugar tasted, his eyes drank in the contents of her little dresser table, instinctually looking for a pair of scissors which he never found. Regardless, it had been a delight in itself to take in the various perfume bottles, ribbons, delicate porcelain jewelry boxes and the little bunnies and teddy bears adorned with bows and pearl necklaces, dressed in frilly doll dresses she had made herself.
"Oh, why thank you, Fred."
Barbara's sweet voice had drawn him out of his daydream and he suddenly realized he had braided her hair. He stammered before catching himself, pretended as though he had meant to braid her hair.
"Could you tie this into my hair, Fred?" His love handed him a sea green ribbon and he obliged with all his heart. Running his fingers down the length of her braid, he had hastened to quell his...urges by sinking his teeth into her pale neck as though he were a vampire.
And instead of screaming in fear, Barbara had responded enthusiastically, pulling him to the floor, delaying their trip to the tearoom. In between kisses, Barbara decided to make their brunch date a lunch date before returning to playing with him and doing as she pleased with him to her heart's content...
Barbara had made a living creating and selling little figurines and dolls, having run a shop wedged between a tailor shop and a tearoom. It had been a place most had missed unless they knew where to look for it. Because his mother collected figurines, Fred had hunted through the various shops in Nowhere, looking for a birthday present, stumbling upon her shop by pure accident.
And, oh, what a happy accident it had been.
Despite having cleaned himself up and learning how to present himself as someone who was nothing but polite and charming to the best of his ability, Fred had very little success with women. He knew that looking presentable and attending charm classes could only do so much. Ever since he was a boy, he knew that he wasn't the most handsome and most good looking and no matter how well he dressed or how polite he tried to be, he hadn't been the sort of man a woman would go for.
And then he walked into Barbara's shop.
He had felt the attraction just as palatably as he could feel heat. The way she looked at him with her large seafoam eyes, feeling her eyes from afar. He tried his best to look for his mother's birthday present, much too distracted by the fetching young woman.
Looking for an excuse to speak with her, he asked her as meekly as he could if she could assist him in finding his mother's birthday present. And she eagerly showed him around the small, cramped store, the room scarcely big enough to fit the two of them. Indeed, Fred had to hunch over to avoid hitting his head against the ceiling and Barbara had to pull her voluminous skirts close to her to keep from brushing her whole body against his. And instead of feeling awkward, Barbara chattered as though she had known him her entire life, her cheeks flushing introducing herself and asking how long he had lived in Nowhere. She told him she had just moved here after graduating high school, having just turned twenty-one. Fred himself had been thirty, thirty-five - thirty-eight? He couldn't remember.
Feeling reluctant to leave this delightful creature of a woman, Fred decided to take a chance and asked her if she would like to accompany him for a coffee. Barbara had promptly hung up the closed sign before he finished his sentence and all but pulled him into the street.
He felt as though he had won the world.
...He let out an involuntary moan, so caught up in his thoughts that he had forgotten to maintain his composure. Barbara, on the other hand, seemed delighted at this sudden expulsion from him.
"You like that?"
He kept his arms outstretched, touching whatever his fingers brushed against. He never once touched her head while she explored his body or played with him. He didn't want to be reminded of...
That.
When he thought of gripping Barbara's hair in his hand, he would think of how Crane had gripped his mother's hair and he would have the urge to cut it away so Crane couldn't have anything to hold onto.
"Perhaps you ought to cover up your neck." Fred murmured sometime later, having slumped against her bed, watching Barbara brush her hair, her braid having come undone and her dress deliciously rumpled, "People might talk."
"Let them talk. Besides-"
Her eyes held his in the mirror
"I want them to see."
"They might get the wrong idea about...us."
"People are going to talk regardless of what you say or do. They don't know us."
She began to paint lipstick on her mouth using a brush. He had never heard of women using a paintbrush to put on lipstick. Shows how he little he knew about feminine things.
"Fred," She smacked her lips, "Be a dear and braid my hair."
She had whispered this in such a way that Fred would have felt compelled to do anything she asked. Kneeling beside this queen of a woman, he took gentle hold of her hair. Placing her brush down, Barbara suddenly pressed close to him, her lips and teeth nipping at his neck.
"Darling," He sputtered, "We'll never get to the tearoom at this rate."
"I can't help it. You're so scrumptious..."
Her seafoam eyes filled his vision.
"In more ways than one."
Fred couldn't help but blush.
"Why, thank you, Barbara. However, I'm quite...spent at the moment and I am getting rather hungry."
He placed a gentle finger under her chin.
"But later..."
Thirty-eight.
He had been thirty-eight.
Seventeen years older than her.
Much, much too old for her perhaps.
Perhaps...
But at the time...
At the time, it didn't seem to matter.
It hadn't mattered to her, so it hadn't mattered to him either.
"Will you tie this into a bow in my hair, Fred?" She handed him the sea green ribbon that either one of them had torn out of her hair a moment ago.
Taking the pearl brush once more, he ran it through her hair. Holding her seafoam, ocean drenched eyes, he ran his tongue over the reddened bite mark on her neck. Gripping a mouthful of her hair in his teeth, he pulled her head back as gently and slowly as he could, as far as her neck would allow.
"Barbara?"
"Yes, Fred?" Her whisper strained against her throat.
"On second thought..."
Heart pounding, he leaned his forehead against the wall. Once he was finally able to feel pinpricks of guilt for doing this in his aunt's bathtub, he quickly washed himself off.
No matter how much he tried to guilt himself and intellectualize how much he had hurt Barbara and how she must feel, thinking about her caused his darker, more baser instincts to take over.
There had been a time when he had been twelve or thirteen years old when Muriel had walked in on him...well.
He thought he had locked the door.
She had closed it quickly and he sat on the toilet, heart pounding, too embarrassed to leave the bathroom even after his mother had arrived to pick him up. Muriel must have spoken to his mother, for on the car ride home, his mother began to talk about how he was getting to an age where his body was changing and that that it was perfectly natural to explore his own body.
"You're growing into a man, Little Freddy," His mother said, "And it's the most natural thing in the world for a man to have these feelings..."
At the word man, he thought of Crane.
As soon as they arrived home, Fred locked himself in his bedroom and paced back and forth. He spent his boyhood and teenage years pacing back and forth in his room as though he were a caged lion. He tried to keep his breathing quiet, his heart pounding in his chest, suddenly afraid of his own body and afraid of himself. He could only think of one thing over and over and over.
"I'm not like him. I'm not like him. I'm not like him..."
He thought of Lindsey and what Courage had said.
After the way he had...
...Treated her mouth...
...And her throat...
...And how stressful that had been, making sure that she didn't suffocate, torn between the urge to let go and revel in the sensation and to lose himself within the motions and making sure that she didn't die from a lack of air.
...Even if Lindsey had enjoyed it...
...Even if she had wanted it and requested it...
He couldn't enjoy it if he had to worry about whether she was getting enough air or not. He decided that he had never wanted to do that again. He never wanted to go through the stress of that again. He was grateful that he had never attempted such a thing with Barbara...
...As though doing it to Lindsey had made it alright...
...Because she was Lindsey.
Perhaps he could call her and arrange a meeting with her. Perhaps he could undress her as slowly as he could, cover her face and shoulders with kisses. Take his time making love to her. Treat her as though she were made of glass; to smooth over everything he had done to her and every dirty thought he ever had of her in his mind...
He snorted.
What was he trying to prove?
That he was a good person?
He couldn't be a good person if he tried.
Stepping out of the shower, he made his way to his duffle coat and, as gently as he could, pulled out the pair of scissors and the razor from the innermost pocket. With a glance towards the locked bathroom door, he held Lindsey's possessions against his chest and ducked back under the hot water, pulling the curtains around him once more.
He gazed at the scissors for a long moment.
Then he proceeded to cut his hair.
Taking fistfuls of his hair, he cut as close to his scalp as he could, feeling the cold metal against his skin and with a loud snip, he pulled away half his hair in his hands.
He felt nothing.
No thrill.
No stirrings of excitement.
His heart remained its steady beat.
He had never dared to shave his own head for as long as he had been alive for fear his mother would have a fit. Shaking her head, frowning at him, "Naughty, naughty." She would say in her stern voice. He couldn't disappoint her.
"She's dead." He said aloud, "She cannot call you naughty anymore. You needn't try and please her anymore. She cannot see you..."
What should have filled him with excitement only added to his despair.
He had spent his entire life trying to be a good boy, so his mother would look at him and smile and say, "What a good boy you've been. I-"
He laughed, tears suddenly blurring his vision.
"I wanted you to love me for who I was..."
Tossing aside the hair, flicking away the few strands that stuck to his fingers, he took hold of his remaining hair and with another snip that should have satisfied every sense in his body, he watched the hair fall onto the bottom of the tub, feeling nothing.
In desperation, he hunted for shaving cream and covered his head and face with the stuff. He ran the razor over his head and face, reapplying shaving cream as he did so until he shaved off every last stubble.
Red streaked the foam.
He felt nothing.
He should have been beside himself. He should have been shuddering and sighing with joy and happiness.
Sweat prickled his forehead. His legs were rubber. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"I'm supposed to feel good. It's not gone. I should feel good. I can still feel good. I'm being naughty. Naughty. Naughty. Naughty. I'm a naughty boy. I shaved myself bald! I'm not allowed to cut my own hair! Fred, you naughty, naughty little boy! I'm being naughty. I'm going to be even more naughty than anyone dared to be!"
He covered his arms and filled his armpits with shaving cream, covering his chest and other parts of his body as well. He shaved his arms, scraping the hair beneath his armpits, rinsing and shaving and rinsing and shaving until the skin of his armpits grew red and irritated. Once his legs were just as hairless as his arms and head, he removed his underwear.
"Surely, the naughtiest of all places..." He gritted his teeth, running his razor as delicately as he could over every part that had hair. Dropping the razor to the tub floor, he stared for a time at his handiwork.
Picking up the scissors, he opened them and gripped onto the blade. Gazing at the scarring from the cigarette burn, he raked the tip across his arm, creating a small white scratch, no blood drawn. He dug the blade deeper into the cigarette burn, blood trickling from the cut.
He didn't feel anything.
He dug the scissors into his arm again and again.
He shook his arms, blood spattering on the wall and held his bloodied hands under the boiling hot water. Red tinged water pooling around his feet.
"I completely shaved myself. Mother, I've been a naughty boy. I cut my hair. I shaved my entire body. I shaved my naughtiest place. so dirty. so bad and awful. I'm a bad naughty person."
He vomited.
He had reoccurring nightmares where he would cut off his mother's hair, cutting around Crane's grip on her hair, his hands weak, barely able to hold the scissors in the dream, his heart pounding and his insides collapsing. He didn't care how close he was to Crane. He didn't care that he was pressed up against his naked body.
He had no thought for his own safety.
He didn't care about himself.
Sobbing as though he were a five year old boy again, he would plead and beg his mother to get away from Crane. But she remained sitting on the floor, kneeling in front of Crane.
He would cut and cut at his mother's hair as if that had been the only thing that kept her there.
Then he would wake up.
Sometimes he would rush to the bathroom to vomit. On one occasion, he had vomited while staying over at Barbara's and Barbara had fallen over him asking him what was wrong and if he was alright. He looked at her and mustering the most beatific smile he could manage, he simply told her, "It must've been something I ate."
He could still smell Crane's body odor.
That disgusting stench that had hung in the air after Crane and his mother had sex.
"I've known since I was a little boy that I was a bad person. But I didn't want to be. Especially when my mother thought..."
He met the gaze of his grinning subconscious.
The grin fixed.
A mask.
Glazed over eyes matching the red foam.
"She expected me to be good. I've tried so hard to be good. And what pains me deeply is that she expected only good from me. She died disappointed in me. She told me that I had been the greatest thing that has ever happened to her. But it's clear that I was the one who destroyed her. I was the cause of her misery all these years. I was the one who made her sick. I was the one who-"
Kneeling in the half filled bathtub, he wept bitter tears, drenched in his own blood and sick, his bloodied arms throbbing and tired.
"I...I killed her. I killed her."
He sobbed and sobbed, not caring if Muriel or Courage heard him. He wanted to submerge his head into the foamy, vomit filled water and scream. He didn't care about anything anymore.
"Aunt Muriel will not be pleased..." His subconscious murmured.
Fred glanced at the blood spots on the wall and he went to work scrubbing any trace of blood from the wall and the drained tub, rinsing off his arms and the rest of his body under the freezing water. Then he got out and holding the still bleeding arm against him, he rummaged through the cupboard until he found gauze and bandages and wrapped his arm.
He met his subconscious's eyes in the mirror.
"I've spent my whole life pretending that I was better than him. But I'm not..."
His subconscious held his eyes. No light, no malice. Resigned.
"I'm just like him. I'm disgusting..."
"...And so much worse." His subconscious murmured, "Much, much worse. He never pretended to be anything else."
He sighed and hurriedly dried himself off and pulling on clean underwear and pajama pants and a long sleeve shirt. With shaking fingers, he buttoned up his cardigan.
"How does that make you feel?" His subconscious asked, deflated.
"I wish I could forget everything..."
Because nothing would be preferable. No future or past. No awareness. No thoughts. No memories. No nerve endings.
"...I wish I was nothing."
To no longer be conscious or aware of anything. To no longer feel even pleasure, because to feel pleasure, he would have to feel pain and he would rather feel neither.
His arm pulsing and aching, he made sure his bandage was completely covered up before heading towards the stairs, wishing he could leave all of his memories behind him in the steamy bathroom.
"Drenched in my own blood and sick
My thoughts of panic
Grow slow and thick
I've done it now. I've been very, very...Naughty."
