Frobisher was counting. “Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…”
“Dad?”
“Not now Willie. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight….”
“But, Dad.”
“Look boy, don’t bother me now. Twenty-nine, thirty… Thirty-one. Do I need to get the belt?”
Willie looked stricken and left his father’s presence. Frobisher kept counting. “Thirty-two, thirty-three…”
* * * * * * *
(1988)
(A short note… I WAS WONDERING WHERE I WAS GOING. IN FACT, I WAS TOTALLY MYSTIFIED. BUT THEN, WHEN I BOUGHT A CARD AT THE HALLMARK SHOP, THE ISSUE WAS SOLVED. I SAID, “THANK YOU.” THE WOMAN REPLIED, “YOU’RE WELCOME,” AND ADDED, “THERE YOU GO,” AS SHE HANDED ME THE BAG. YOU CAN IMAGINE MY SURPRISE AND RELIEF WHEN I REALIZED THIS WOMAN KNEW EXACTLY WHERE I WAS GOING. Did you see where she gestured? NO, I MISSED IT.)
* * * * * * *
My counseling experience with BJ ebbed and flowed—drawing up this memory and exposing that one. I could feel inside another awakening as I got deeper into what the feeling of the BAD was all about. My mind tentatively probed for the extent of my fears until one night I fell to the bottom.
I was dreaming along when my partner, Leslie, appeared in the dream. “Oh Joceile,” she said, “You’re having problems getting to what ‘IT’ is? Here, I’ll help you.”
Without anything further, I watched in amazement as Leslie immediately crossed the room, sat down on the floor, and took off her head. She laid it down on the floor. I couldn’t believe how realistic it looked and how clever Leslie was. Leslie took her head and began squeezing it from the top so that the insides began coming out at the neck. I was revolted and fascinated by the sight at the same time. “How does she do that?” I thought.
Leslie had on a duplicate of her head and commented, “See.” I acknowledged that I did indeed see. I hurriedly left the room, out the nearest door, and entered the bedroom that I had as a child. I felt angry and upset. I strode over to the window overlooking the shop and smashed my hand in it through the curtain. Then, I lifted the curtain to see another identically cracked pain just beneath the one I had just smashed. Suddenly, I knew it had all happened before.
I ran back into the living room to get Leslie to hold me before I got so upset that I couldn’t move. In my mind, I kept thinking, “Something like that happened. I have seen something like that before.” Once inside Leslie’s arms, I felt the red burning terror of what it had felt like when I had seen it before as a child.
I woke up. My eyes searching the dark ceiling. The Gentle Wind was sleeping quietly beside me. The low hum of the humidifier ran in the background. Leslie slept in a bedroom in another part of the house. I knew I had just seconds before the mental storm hit. Carefully, I got up. I placed a pillow next to the Gentle Wind and ran for Leslie’s room trying to think of nothing but getting there as fast as I could.
Tersely, I spoke. “Leslie, Adrian’s ok. I need you to hold me now!” Leslie came awake with arms outstretched. I jumped into her arms and began shaking and sobbing. In that moment, right then, I knew IT was true. There was no other truth. It was my greatest fear, the object of my most terrifying nightmares. And, I KNEW it was true.
I screamed and cried in terror—my body shaking and my stomach convulsing. I had seen it. I had seen something like Leslie’s decapitation demonstration. That was the bottom of what I had never been willing to let myself know under any circumstances, ever, until now.
The feeling of hot terror rolled on and on as if I was still in the dream. Eventually, I could let go of Leslie long enough for her to go get Adrian, the Gentle Wind. After an hour or two or three, I began to be able to convince myself that, indeed, it was not true. It was absurd, outrageous, ridiculous, and I had made it up in a dream.
But, another knowing part nagged at me driving me into mind numbing confusion reminding I how badly I had wanted the dead body parts to be animals and how much I’d been afraid to imagine they were human. Although, I had long suspected that they were. Now, all I could think of was critical mass—that explosive state where I was BAD if I made it up and BAD if it was true.
* * * * * * *
(1972)
It wasn’t too long after that when Willie returned to his father’s side to ask a question. And, Frobisher, pushed to his quick intolerance of intrusion, beat Willie with a belt on his bare butt for not minding and disturbing him.