DANNY BOY

Cocooned in a straitjacket and secured to the chair by not one, but two nylon restraints, the boy looked up at the man and smiled.

It was the smile of an innocent babe—wide and guiltless.

“You must be the new Mr. Psychologist,” the boy said, his child’s voice reminding the man of the boy’s age.

Not even shaving yet and already a multiple murderer.

Joel Rossman—who was, indeed, the newly appointed State Psychologist—returned the smile nonetheless and took the little steel chair the sanatorium staff had set next to the boy’s big, wooden one.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I’m Dr. Rossman. How do you do, Danny?”

“Fine,” the boy said.

Rossman couldn’t help but smile. Danny looked like a million other mid-western farm boys who’d be starting middle school in the fall: towhead, blue eyes, freckles the color of chestnuts sprinkled across the upturned nose, and baby-fat cheeks.

Except that this sixth-grader would be taking classes in his cell, strapped to the bed to keep his teacher safe. If a teacher could be found, that is, who wanted to risk life and limb to teach Daniel Thomas Mackey.

Rossman took a micro-cassette recorder out of his coat pocket and held it up for the boy to see.

“Can I record this session, Danny?”

“Sure.” The boy’s eyes brightened.

Rossman nodded and turned on the recorder. “What did you do to deserve having a muzzle put over your mouth, Danny?”

The boy’s grin stretched almost to the lobes of his ears. “Bit off the last Mr. Psychologist’s nose and spitted it out.”

Rossman frowned and moved the recorder closer to the boy. “Why?”

The boy stopped smiling and looked puzzled.

“’Cause it’s better than chewing them.”

Rossman’s gut clenched into a ball.

“No, Danny, I didn’t mean why did you spit the nose out, I meant why did you bite it off in the first place.”

“Oh,” the boy said, and looked away for a moment, to the new day’s sunlight streaming in through the cell’s only window—a 5-by-5-inch square made of Plexiglas that looked out onto the sanatorium’s lush grounds. His face grew cloudy, shadows crossing it. He turned his moony face back to the doctor. “I . . . I dunno. Just did, I guess.”

Danny returned his gaze to the bright little square in the wall, his only window to the world for the past nine months.

Rossman followed the boy’s eyes, trying to imagine what it must be like for Danny, what thoughts would be going around in such a young boy’s mind . . . A young boy that had murdered his entire immediate family—his brother, two sisters, grandfather, both parents.

Rossman had taken the case because of its unprece- dented nature. No one this young had ever committed a crime of this nature before. And it wasn’t just the fact that he’d murdered six people, it was some of the methods he’d employed . . . It was too intriguing to pass up.

“Danny,” Rossman began, deciding to switch tracks, since motive for his aggression didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, “what happened to your mother?”

Danny didn’t even flinch, kept staring out the window.

“She’s dead, Mr. Psychologist.”

“How did she die, Danny?”

The boy shrugged.

Rossman waited.

“Danny?”

Danny was somewhere else, his eyes glazing over, tears forming on his lower eyelids, dropping when they got too heavy, splashing on the rough material of his straitjacket. Then he started singing. Lightly. His voice so small Rossman could barely make it out.

“Oh Danny Boooooy, the piiiipes, the piiiipes are calliiiiiing . . . ”

Danny sniffled, his shoulders and arms struggling against the restraints, trying to bring his hands up to his face. He looked at the doctor, pleadingly.

Rossman wasn’t going to wipe the boy’s tears for him. Little boy or not, he was a murderer.

Danny slumped a little more in his chair in defeat, scrunching his face up at the doctor’s reluctance.

“Can’t bite ya like this, now can I?” He rolled his eyes, feigning exasperation.

Rossman ignored him.

“Danny, was that a song your mother used to sing to you?”

“Mama’s dead, Mr. Psychol—”

“I know, Danny, I know your mother’s dead.”

Rossman waited a heartbeat.

“You killed her.”

Danny shifted positions in his seat, uncrossing his legs, crossing them the other way, right over left. He stared at the doctor. Rossman began to feel uncomfortable.

“Look, um, Danny . . . ” he started. He felt his face flush. The boy’s eyes ripped away his calm like the layers of an onion. He gathered himself a little more and began again.

“Danny, what did you do to your mother?”

The boy just continued to stare, his gaze ever more intent. The knowledge in those eyes belied the boy’s years. They were the eyes of a killer, no doubt, unforgiving, unrelenting, but beneath were still the eyes of a frightened child, unsure what to do, unsure how to communicate his reasoning, his feelings.

Suddenly the eyes softened.

“Didn’t do nothin’ to her, Mr. Joel.”

Mr. Joel, Rossman thought, grinning a little. Better than “Mr. Psychologist,” anyway . . . 

“Danny, my last name is Rossman. My first name is Joel. So you should probably call me Mr. Rossman, okay?”

The boy nodded, tiny bubbles forming on his bottom lip.

“Okay, Mr. Rossman, so long as ya know I like Mr. Joel better.”

Rossman laughed. Danny was acting like a normal eleven-year-old. The blood drained a little from his face, his heartbeat settled. He took a deep breath. “Okay, Danny,” he continued, wanting to take advantage of the mood swing, “who did do something to your mother?”

“From glen to gleeeeeeen and down the mountain siiiiide . . . The summer’s goooone and all the leaves are falliiiiiing . . . ”

Danny was singing again.

“But come ye baaaaaaack when—”

“—summer’s in the meadow,” Rossman took up the thread, interrupting the boy. “Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow . . . I’ll be here in sunshine and in shadow . . . ”

Danny’s mouth hung open, eyes wide, teary. “How d’you know my song, Mr. Joel?”

Rossman finished slowly, “Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so.”

Silence.

Danny suddenly began twisting and turning violently in his chair, trying to get free, trying to get at the doctor, feet kicking out, face turning red, veins bulging.

“You fucking cocksucker!!” Spittle flew from the boy’s thin lips as he screamed. The chair tipped backward, nearly fell over. “That’s my DADDY’S song, you . . . !” The boy scrunched his face up, a ripe, red tomato, ready to burst. “. . . BASTARD!!”

He flailed, cursed some more, wrenched his body side-to-side. An orderly opened and peeked through the tiny slot in the door, looking panicked, probably expecting to find, despite its impossibility, a piece of the new psychologist sitting detached from the rest of him on the floor in a puddle of blood.

The young man was fumbling for his keys, but Rossman held up a hand, still staring at the boy—

 . . . all the flow’rs are dying, Danny.

—his eyes never leaving the display of rage in front of him. The orderly just stood there, gawking through the slot, dumbfounded. Finally Rossman had to tear his eyes from the boy. He glared at the orderly, mouthed, “Go away!”

The orderly’s eyes hardened and he shook his head side-to-side, then the slot flapped shut, the key still fumbling in the lock . . . and Danny finally tipped over in his chair, frothing and bellowing incoherently, hitting his head against the wall behind him, and—

—swimming, floating, sinking in his . . . house.

Danny. Boy wonder. Baddest motherfucker in town, baby. Like Han Solo or somethin’.

“Danny, you little shit!”

Yeah, and here comes Dad. Biggest loser in town, baby. Stormin’ in as always, thumpin’ across the carpet, trackin’ mud. Man on a mission, chump. Fuckin’ man on a—

Stars. Univers-eriffic!!

“Danny Boy, you little bastard.”

Cracking an eye to see. Other is bleeding, running red, painting the world. Weird perspective you got here, Danny Boy. Floor-level view. Dog’s eye to the world, baby. Wonder what these seats go for, huh? Wonder what—

“Where’s your mother, Danny? Where is she?”

Dad’s head’s gonna pop, chum. Watch it’ splode in bright red and orange, bits of skull creepin’ in! Wee! Wonder what tickets would be for that show, then, eh?! Don’t matter no how, no one’s gettin’ my floor-level view, man. Fuck that. I’ve earned these here seats . . . Oh, hey, here comes—

Ah, Jesus, wish I could see better. Screamin’ again in the kitchen, like it’s somethin’ fun to do (nothin’ better!) on a Sunday afternoon, huh? Ha! Ma Laura.

(flittering pictures of mother, MAMA, burning, falling into puddles of blood, falling into—)

Oh, God, what a show this is. I can smell Dad’s anger. I’m breathing it. Just breathing it. Gotta sit up to check out the show. Always in the kitchen. Always somethin’ fun to watch in that fucking kitchen. If not on TV, then ’least I got me some REAL home entertainment. Always got me some—

(BANG!)

 . . . (tea kettle whistling, metal clattering to the floor, maybe a pot or a pan, then silence) . . . 

Feet, stomping across the carpet again, gonna wear a hole in it, Dad, but Dad don’t care, Dad’s holding a gun.

Ma’s dead.

Ma’s dead.

No tea today, Danny Boy. No more piano lessons, chum. End of the road. Ma used to brush my hair—

(standing up, dizzy, room spinning, bloody vision)

(BANG!)

Dad’s upstairs now. Sis is screaming.

(walking, wishing that wasn’t ma in the kitchen, she used to let me eat Count Chocula right out the fuckin’ box when no one else’s ma would let their kids have it even WITH the milk! The fucker, the goddamn—)

Dad’s killing everyone. His head ’sploded, after all, Danny Boy. Wonder what the scalpers would get for tix to those seats, eh? Haha. Ha.

Not so funny, though, now, friends. Not so—

(BANG! BANG! BANG!!)

Thudding upstairs, like dominoes, three blind mice, see how they die. See how they would have run if they weren’t dead.

(falling against the wall, slumping down in the corner)

Grandpa’s whispering something, I hear his raspy (dead) voice, smell an oily gun barrel, feel his old man’s too-wet lips on mine, kissing me, always wanting to kiss me. Gross, I said to ma. I love grampy and all, but it’s just GROSS, ya know? I mean—

Dad’s coming down the stairs. Who’s he think he is, for chrissakes? Clint Eastwood? Fucking Billy the Kid? Fucking Bruce Willis? Fucking Terminator? Fucking fucking fuck—

“I don’t want the gun, Dad.”

“No time for that, son. No time for bein’ a baby about it. Only one bullet left. Either you or me. Who’s it gonna be, son?

Who do you think should die this fine day?”

(she used to clean me up when I was younger, when I was done making mud pies in the yard after the rain; she used to pack me into my snowsuit, wrapping the scarf ever-so-gently around my neck, tying it in a loose knot and smiling, handing me my lunch pail, then send me off to school, sneaking some Almighty Count Choco in a little Tupperware container; she used to—)

“Son, now come on, stay with me, here.”

(Dad is—)

“No time for thought, we have to act on this now.”

(covered in—)

“You or me, son, one bullet.”

How is he so calm? Calm? Balm? Lip balm. “Gimme some Chapstick, please, Dad, my lips hurt, I need—”

(my family’s blood.)

“Come on, now, son,” he says, growing impatient, like we don’t have all the time in the world to die.

“Ma would have given me some lip balm, Dad,” I’m sayin’, and Dad’s wonderin’ what I’m talkin’ about, like it’s so weird to want Chapstick for your lips, or somethin’.

He killed my mother, the motherfucker. Han’ll beat his ass. Baddest space pirate around, baby. Fuckin’ A. Solo’ll kick your ass direct, Dad. Don’t mess with Danny B—

(BANG!)

Dad shot me.

We’re all dead. Squirming around, crawling down the stairs in agony, heads shattered, bleeding, sisters, brother, grampy, ma in the kitchen reaching for the Count Chocula, a big smile on her face, a bullet hole in her neck, blood pumping out, splashing in my bowl, splashing my bad eye, my glasses, but still smiling, always smiling, my ma . . . 

Dead.

Dead . . . 

And if I am dead, and dead I well may be

You’ll come and find the place where I am lying

And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me

And I shall hear tho’ soft you tread above me

And all my grave will warmer sweeter be

And you will call and tell me that you love me

And I shall sleep in peace ’til you come to me . . . 

“—Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy,” the boy whispered through bloody lips, the orderly pulling his chair into its proper sitting position. “. . . I love you so.”

“He sang it to me every night before I went to sleep,” Danny said.

Rossman shivered.

Danny’d been given some more sedatives and had his straps tightened. An orderly had been posted just at the end of the hall instead of all the way down at the front desk, in case there was more trouble.

“It musta been him that killed ’em all, Mr. Psychologist. Musta been Daddy.”

Danny had told Rossman all about what happened in his dream when his head hit the wall. He said it jogged his memory and he remembered everything now.

Rossman didn’t know what to make of the story.

In the official report, the neighbors had called the police upon hearing shots. When the police arrived, Danny was found holding the gun, bloody from head to foot, standing over his father, crying.

Danny’s brother had been drawing cartoons in his room, headphones on, listening to music, when he was shot in the back. One of his sisters had died halfway down the stairs, gunshot at point-blank range to the chest. His other sister died instantly while drying her hair in the bathroom after a shower, gunshot to the face. Grandpa was asleep in the spare room. Shot in the back of the head. Danny’s mother, Laura, was found in the kitchen shot in the head, then stabbed repeatedly and left riddled with various knives, pencils, cutlery, anything sharp that was within the boy’s reach, apparently.

Danny’s father, James, had been shot in the stomach with the last bullet in the six-shooter, then sliced open from neck to crotch and stuffed with TV guides, men’s magazines (that had apparently been hidden under the living room sofa, as the cushions were overturned), little army soldiers, dinky cars, action figures, and other assorted toys and books.

When the police approached Danny, guns drawn, he had the barrel of the gun shoved in his mouth and was pulling the trigger, the hammer falling on the empty chambers over and over again. Danny noticed them and removed the barrel from his mouth, aiming it impotently at the officers, a vapid look on his face, clicking away at both of them.

They could only blink as the surrealism of the scene sunk in . . . 

From a psychologist’s point of view, this was easy—the boy was initially in great shock and had forgotten what he’d done. The events he’d dreamed and retold were obviously just something his overwrought mind had made up to rationalize his actions. The question was: what triggered this? What would make a boy of his age do something like this? And why had the aggression not subsided? When he’d come out of his initial fugue at the scene of the crime, he’d battled the police officers tooth and nail as they tried to put him into a patrol car. He’d bashed his head against the window repeatedly, trying to get out, screaming that he wanted his mother, that he wanted his father. Spewing obscenities and kicking the backs of the seats in the car.

He hadn’t settled down until they’d started him on the drugs, always needing to be sedated and accompanied by several officers in case the drugs began to wear off. His will, his aggression seeming to shrug off everything administered into his system.

No one knew what to do about the boy.

Rossman roused himself from his meandering thoughts and noticed Danny was staring intently at his feet, moving his slippers back and forth slowly in the air, as if they were a curiosity of some sort, like he’d never seen them before. Brow furrowed, little beads of sweat forming on his upper lip and forehead, he was whispering under his breath again. It sounded like more snatches of “Danny Boy.”

“Danny,” Rossman said gently, “was it your daddy that sang that song to you, then?”

Danny ignored him, riveted by his blue and white sneakers. He giggled a little.

Rossman fiddled with his watch and waited.

Growing impatient, he finally asked again, “Danny, was it your—”

The boy’s head snapped up and he locked eyes with the psychologist. “You already asked me about this, Mr. Joel, and I told you it was my daddy’s song.”

Rossman swallowed, ready for a repeat performance of Danny’s earlier tantrum. But it didn’t happen. Danny’s face softened and his eyes glazed over in memory.

Rossman said something else, but Danny couldn’t hear him now, could only see his lips moving. Danny chuckled. It looked funny to see him like that, probably saying important things that Danny should be listening to so he could get better, because he knew he’d been a bad boy. He shouldn’t have hurt that psychologist and those police officers and those orderlies and his own—

No, can’t think of that. What Daddy did was wrong and he didn’t like to remember that stuff because it made him think bad things about his daddy when he only wanted to think good things. ’Cause Daddy was a good man. He used to sing to Danny and read him stories and tickle his feet to make him laugh. All those things were better than the few bad things he’d done to his family. Danny knew that Daddy would be in Heaven because he knew that only really bad people went to Hell, and his daddy wasn’t a bad person. Not really, anyway. Maybe a little confused sometimes, but certainly not bad.

Danny didn’t care, though, right now, ’cause Daddy was tickling his feet again and that was all that mattered. That was all that ever mattered.

Every night when Danny was getting ready for bed, Daddy would come into his room, sit on the edge of the bed and—

—tickle my feet, he’s ticklingticklingtickling! “Hahaaah!”

Such a nice voice, my daddy, so sweet. I love it when he looks at me like this and sings. I’m his Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling . . . He loves me so, does my daddy, and I love him, too.

Most of the time he’s like this. Why can’t he stay like this? Why does he have to get so mad sometimes?

(Oh Danny Boy . . . )

I know he doesn’t mean it when he gets angry and hurts someone. He always apologizes, so it’s okay, and it’s good because—

“Hahahahaaaah! Quit tickling, Daddy!! I can’t breathe!

Keep singing, though, it’s so nice . . . ”

Quiet in the house, everyone else is asleep already. I wonder if Mommy will buy more Count Chocula tomorrow. I sure hope so . . . I ’specially like the marshmallows. They’re crunchy, but I thought marshmallows were supposed to be soft. Oh, well, don’t matter, they’re still good, and Mommy lets me eat them as much as I want, and she looks so . . . (yawn!) . . . happy when . . . 

“Mmm, so tired, Daddy . . . So . . . tired. Keep singing, okay?

I love you, Daddy.”

(“I love you, too, Danny Boy.”)

 . . . 

Rossman couldn’t get Danny to snap out of it. He tried shaking him by the shoulders, but the boy’s head just lolled about on his shoulders like an infant’s. The doctor banged heavily on the steel door, opened the little slot and bellowed for the orderly.

 . . . 

So tired . . . 

Daddy’s blue eyes were changing. Danny blinked twice to try to clear his vision. Daddy wasn’t tickling his feet or singing anymore. But he wasn’t changing into Angry Daddy yet, or at least it didn’t look like it. What was going on?

The blue of Daddy’s eyes swirled in a circular motion, like something was stirring them up. Sort of like a milkshake or something.

The bed changed into a metal chair and Daddy floated a few feet away on it. Danny looked down and his racing car bed was now a big, wooden chair, and he was strapped into it.

He started struggling, looking at his daddy, wondering what was happening. The blue swirling out from his eyes was painting the room, washing it in its subdued hues, dulling down noises, dulling down reactions, sensory input, everything.

Daddy started singing.

 . . . 

Two orderlies burst through the door and rushed over to Danny. He was staring straight at Dr. Rossman, terror in his eyes, sweat cascading down his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. His eyes widened even more.

Rossman was locked by the boy’s gaze. Unable to move, he drained himself into the terror, into the look on Danny’s face.

What is he seeing? Rossman thought. My God, what is he SEEING?

Danny started to convulse.

 . . . 

Daddy finished his song.

“Oh, keep going, that was great!” I said, but I noticed Daddy had his gun again. He never sang when he had his gun.

He was pointing it straight at me. The one I found in the drawer in his office. That was the same day I found his magazines in the couch. I can see ma in the barrel, and grampy, too. My sisters and brother are deeper inside the gun, but I can see everyone.

“Ma would have given me, would have given me, would have given me . . . ” I’m sayin’, and Dad’s wonderin’ what I’m talkin’ about. Like he doesn’t know. It feels funny to say things over and over again. It starts to sound like nothing. Like the words never meant anything to begin with.

He killed my mother.

Haven’t I done all this before? What’s the point in doing it all again?

“I love you, Danny Boy, and everyone’s happy you did what you did. It was the best thing for everyone.”

Dad’s freaking me out. What’s he talking about? I’m scared, Dad, I’m really, really scared . . . 

“I . . . ” Dad’s crying, the barrel of the gun wavering, family members screaming and falling out of the barrel onto the floor. I wish there were floorboards so they could squeeze through them and escape. Escape Dad. Escape his fucking—

“I never meant to hurt any of you,” he says, bringing the gun back up, level with my face. I think it’s time to scream. Dad’s going to kill me.

“Only one bullet left. Either you or me. Who’s it gonna be, son? Who do you think should die this fine day?”

I remember everything Dad ever did to us in that instant. I remember our fear and loathing. I remember words, phrases from different times in our lives, spoken by all of us, thought by all of us: “We’d be better off dead.”

The images and thoughts form into a solid emotion, and it shoots outta my eyes like a laser bolt. Yeah, like a badass laser bolt from Han Solo’s blaster or somethin’. I’m not sure if it hits Dad or someone else, but somebody picked it up, I know that.

“You did the best thing for everyone, Danny Boy . . . I’m proud of you, son.”

Dad’s singing again. I love it when he sings. He has such a beautiful voice . . . 

“And I shall hear tho’ soft you tread above me. And all my grave will warmer sweeter be. And you will call and tell me that you love me. And I shall sleep in peace ’til you come to me.”

Daddy’s smiling, and I can feel myself dying. Dead. Trapped now in the barrel of his gun with my family and Count Chocula. And I suddenly remember him telling me one night after tickling my feet that a boy becomes a man when the tickling stops being fun and instead becomes an annoyance. But I love Daddy so much that I know that will never happen with him.

I love Daddy so much.

I love Daddy—

(BANG!) so much.