Chapter Twenty-Seven

From Helene Bright’s Journal

November, 1968

 

Daniel has phoned again. My brother, the world traveler. Who would have thought when Father sent him off to Princeton that he would be squandering his life away being a bum. Yes, a high-class bum, no argument there. But he’s still flopping around the world with no direction and no purpose, no thought of the future. Never mind that the places he’s holing up are exotic locales, like Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Munich.

Today’s call was from Marrakesh. I could hardly make out his words through the staticky connection. But I heard enough to disgust me. Here I am, at Vassar, trying to apply myself to my studies, and he calls me up with what he thinks I will put under the category of “good news.” Good news would be that Daniel was coming home to take his place in Father’s business. Good news would be that he’s rid himself of that wine-swilling, drug-abusing whore he calls his “lady.” Lady? If ever there was a misnomer, laying the term “lady” on Lanta was it.

So the good news is that he’s knocked her up. Oh, let me put it his way: “Helene. Guess what? You’re about to become an auntie.” What does he think? Having a baby when he has no employment, when he’s squandering the family fortune away on hashish, heroin, and God knows what else is a blessed event, cause for celebration?

It makes me ill.

I have always looked up to Daniel. Until he met Lanta, he was a good boy, full of dreams of a prosperous future. She, with her inane hippie ways, ruined him. And now there will be a baby to tie him further down in the muck that surrounds her. Thank God, I suppose, Father has provided for us so well. Otherwise, God only knows what would happen to him and to her and that offal they will call their child.

I asked him if he planned to marry her.

“Marriage is for the bourgeoisie,” he told me, parroting Lanta, I’m sure. “It’s nothing more than a piece of paper. What do we need that for when we’re sure of our love for each other?”

“But what about the baby? It’ll be a bastard. You’ll bring disgrace to a family that’s had only love for you.”

“Oh, don’t give me this bastard drill; that’s for Victorian romance novels. Our baby will be brought up in a different kind of environment than we were. It’ll have the benefit of love and not the petty, money-grubbing ideals we grew up with. Can’t you see that?”

Easy words when you have a hefty trust fund upon which to draw. I wonder how he’d feel about the bourgeoisie if his travels weren’t supported by the sweat of their brows.

“No, I can’t see that.”

“Aren’t you happy, Helene? A baby, think of it. We’ll be coming home in March or April, just before the baby’s due. You’ll change your mind once you hold him or her in your arms.”

“What about all the drugs?” I asked, but then the connection became garbled.

I never knew if he heard me.

*

Night’s darkness gave way to morning, a gray sky, and winds that whipped around Helene’s house as if they were in turmoil over her predicament. Her hands and feet felt numb. The needles tingling in them had ceased, giving way to a deadness that concerned her.

“Can’t you loosen these things?” she’d asked him when the discomfort was reaching its peak, late in the night.

Timothy just looked at her, a strange smile playing about his lips. “Now you know how it feels to be kept a prisoner. It’s not very pleasant, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Aunt Helene. Have you forgotten? Should I show you the basement? Maybe that will freshen your memory.”

Helene went silent.

*

Timothy stood, staring out the window of his old bedroom. A dingy gray light permeated the front yard, casting dull illumination on the pine trees that lined the red brick driveway. The flagpole in the center of the roundabout stood empty, casting no shadow.

He had been listening to the radio and had actually heard himself mentioned on the eight o’clock news report, although the name they used wasn’t his. That name was buried, forgotten on the scenic planes of Rosehill Cemetery. They used his name, David Long’s—the bastard who had defiled him. The name wasn’t an uncommon one. Still, Timothy hoped the police would call on him, in his office, preferably. He pictured the stunned expressions of his staff and patients when the police barged in with a warrant for his arrest.

It would never happen. Just having the same name as an alleged serial killer would not be enough to insure any kind of public humiliation. No, David Long’s punishment would have to come at Timothy’s own skilled hands.

And come it would. Dr. Long was the last person on Timothy’s list who would pay for erasing his life.

And Dr. Long, Timothy thought with a giggle, doesn’t have long to wait.

*

David Long was ill. He had a whole day’s worth of patients to see, but he couldn’t worry about that today. “Physician, heal thyself” was a phrase that could not always be counted on, but as David Long languished in his oak sleigh bed, he wished there were a way to make it so. He lay staring at his white walls decorated with David Hockney prints in brass frames. There was the red lounge chair, the muted champagne-colored carpeting. His window gave a stunning view of forest: oaks, pines, and maples, clinging stubbornly to the last of their leaves. All that was visible to him now, however, was a dingy gray sky and a few treetops. Not that he was interested, anyway.

All night long he had been racked by a dry, hacking cough. Nothing would come up, but each time he sought to alleviate the dry tickling, it only made him wince with pain deep in his chest and ribs.

What could this be? It didn’t seem like a cold. More like a form of pneumonia. Even the Smetana playing softly on the portable CD player in his bedroom did nothing to alleviate his misery.

He had no energy. There was no reason to get out of bed, anyway. The thought of food made him queasy; he hadn’t eaten anything in two days.

Perhaps he should call Mike DeLorenze, his old friend from med school. Mike specialized in communicable diseases, and he would probably be able to fix David up with some antibiotics, make him completely well within a couple of days.

But David didn’t have the energy to make the call, let alone a trip down to his office. And he could think of no one to take him there.

David Long had his suspicions about what the matter was, but he buried those suspicions under all sorts of rationalizations. Yet all the clues were there, and in his darkest moments, he would lie in bed and list them: the night sweats he had had on and off for the past couple of months, the sudden loss of weight that seemed to have nothing to do with how much he ate, the swollen glands, tender to the touch, in his neck and groin, and most disturbing of all, the white patches in his mouth.

David held to the belief that these things were nothing more than the usual kinds of illness: a cold, the flu, just a little bug. But he remembered the weeklong bout he’d had a month ago with diarrhea and how the affliction had left him drained, too weak to do anything more than to come home from his office as soon as his workload allowed and collapse in front of the TV.

He couldn’t be infected with HIV, could he? He rolled over in bed, groaning as another round of coughs spasmed through him, causing him to draw up his legs in pain. He had never been a bottom. He had always used a condom when he was with another man. And those liaisons were so infrequent the past few years. How could he possibly be infected? Him, a North Shore doctor with all the trappings of the so-called good life, a position in society, respected by his peers, worshipped by his patients.

David had done what he had seen others do so many times before: ignore the pain, ignore the symptoms, and wish they’d go away. He had even told himself how the body was a wonderful machine, more capable of healing itself than any doctor could ever hope.

And yet the image remained of his face in the mirror, the dark circles under his eyes, the protruding jawline from the loss of weight. He had nightmares about looking down at his body and seeing it covered with Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions.

He had never been tested. Denial had kept him certain he was one of the fortunate ones, one of the ones this plague just couldn’t happen to.

The phone rang, and David turned to stare at it, as if he could see it vibrating with each toll. He was tempted not to answer. His arms felt too weak to make the effort to reach out and lift the receiver. He listened as the answering machine recording started, and he heard his own voice spouting out the familiar message.

When a high, breathy voice responded, the voice of someone definitely not female, no matter how feminine sounding, David tried to right himself enough to pick up the phone. The voice had an air of familiarity about it, although David couldn’t quite place it. He was certain he had heard the voice before.

He managed to pick up the phone and tried to will himself to ignore the tickling in his throat which signaled another round of coughs. “Hello?” His voice was a croak.

“Dr. Long?”

“Speaking.”

“I called your office, and they informed me that you’d be at home today. They said you weren’t feeling well. I trust I’m not interrupting your sleep.”

David let loose with a string of coughs that left him gasping. “Who is this?” he managed to breathe.

“This is an old friend. Don’t you recognize the voice?”

“I’m sorry,” David managed to say, but the words came out a hoarse whisper.

“You remember Helene Bright, don’t you?”

David froze. He hadn’t heard from Helene in years. “What is this?”

“I think you know.”

The voice clicked into place. But that couldn’t be…

“David? Are you still there?”

“I don’t have time…”

“I think you’ll want to make the time.”

“Who is this?” He wished desperately he had not picked up the phone. The voice was Timothy’s. But David told himself he hadn’t heard the boy in so long that anyone could do a reasonable imitation. There was no way to be certain that this voice matched exactly the voice of a man who had been dead now for, what was it, two years? Three?

“It’s Timothy.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Have it your way.” The man laughed. “Let’s just say I was a very close friend of Timothy’s. Does that make it easier to believe?” The man chuckled and then went on. “Timothy confided a lot of information to me before he died.” Another snicker. “Information that could be very damaging to you, or maybe damning is a better word.”

“What do you want?” David’s head was spinning, and he wasn’t sure he could remain conscious through this conversation, this harangue, whatever he chose to call it.

“I need to speak with you.”

“Call my office. Make an appointment.”

“That won’t do, Doctor.” There was an unpleasant sarcastic twist put on his title. “I need to speak to you right away. Today, within an hour or two.”

“I can’t. I’m very, very sick.”

A snort of laughter. “You certainly are.” There was a pause. David could feel the sweat trickling down his forehead, down his sides from his armpits. If he’d had anything in his stomach, he was sure he would have vomited.

“I repeat. I need to speak to you. Immediately. If you choose not to see me, I could reveal some very damaging information to people close to you. Raping a fourteen-year-old boy does not look very good for a doctor.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know very well. Cut it out. Drop the mask, David. We both know the score. I know where you live. I’m coming out there now. Will you let me in?”

David couldn’t muster any more conversation, so he whispered, “Yes.”

“Good. I’m sure you’ll be charmed—and quite surprised, I might add—to see me.”

David let the phone drop to the floor. There was no energy left for questions.

*

Timothy made his way north, passing through affluent suburbs like Highland Park and Lake Forest, and finally he was on the tree-lined roads of Lake Bluff. He had traveled this route many times as a teenager, summoned by the wiles of his aunt’s lover and his own.

The car was silent, the hum of its engine barely above a whisper. He was glad Aunt Helene had invested in the Lexus. It made driving a much more pleasant experience. Although the wind whipped outside, Timothy was comfortable in an automatically maintained seventy-two-degree temperature.

“You’d think,” he said to himself, “such heat would begin decomposition.” He giggled and switched on the radio, playing with the Seek button and finding nothing to suit his tastes. He banished the voices of deejays and music to silence.

The driveway was barely visible from the road, just an opening in rows of pines. There was no mailbox at this point, no address marker. And yet Timothy knew the way by heart, driving from memory even after all these years.

The red-brick driveway curved through the trees until, with the final curve, one had a view of the house. Red brick with cream trim and deep-green shutters, it was a taste of Georgian architecture right here in Illinois. He pulled up in front of the double doors and cut the engine.

For a long time, he sat in front of the house, simply staring up at its imposing façade, which spoke of wealth, success, and a kind of quiet power. So many memories crowded his brain. The fear, the anticipation, and the guilt of those years washed over him, leaving him feeling slightly queasy, a throwback to his teenage years when he had spent nights in this house, doing things of which Aunt Helene could not even dream.

David Long had been a relatively young man at that time, about the age Timothy was right now. He had been a handsome man, in that sort of male model way, the kind of model who would appear in a Brooks Brothers suit ad. Suave, sophisticated, with just a touch of gray at the temples. A sort of George Hamilton of the medical profession. His body was firm. Timothy had explored every inch of it with fingers and tongue. Had lain in silence biting his lips as the good doctor entered him, used him, then pushed him away, pushed him home to Timothy’s aunt and David’s girlfriend, to spout off lies about what the two of them had done.

Timothy got out of the car. There was no guarantee David would even let him in. When David saw him, Timothy was certain that shock would impede any kind of joyful reunion or welcoming embrace. But there was no need to worry about gaining entry. A big house such as this had many means of access, and one in particular Timothy was no stranger to.

Games… They had played games, and in one of them, Timothy would surprise David in his sleep, playing the role of intruder. For the purpose of this game and not because of forgetfulness, a trait David Long did not possess and abhorred in others, David had left a key in the one-horse stable that stood, needing paint, in the woods just a short walk along a fieldstone path, only a few yards away from where Timothy now stood. Timothy hoped luck would still be on his side and the good doctor had not moved the key.

He decided not to bother with the doorbell. Much too formal. Timothy strode quickly through the trees and went back to the little stable. Inside, among the rusting garden implements, Timothy found the key on a windowsill, under a trowel, just where it had always been so many years before. “You stupid bastard,” Timothy whispered.

Key firmly ensconced in hand, Timothy strode with more confidence than he ever had to the front door.

*

David drifted in and out of sleep. His slumber was troubled, his fever spiking to make him sweat, drenching the bedclothes. Fragmented images scattered with each waking, images he didn’t want to consider. Most lingering was one of himself: a gaunt David staring up from a hospital bed, his eyes huge in relation to his shriveled face, his ears protruding, his hair falling out.

It was from one of these dreams that he surfaced when he heard the noise downstairs, in the entryway. He tensed, trying to hold in a string of painful coughs, and failed.

The noise downstairs stopped, as he expected. Whoever was down there was listening, the aural antennae up, pinpointing his location in the house. There was nothing he could do but lie, gasping for air, as he heard a light tread on the front staircase. Light tread, yet heavy enough to make the oak beneath his intruder’s feet creak with the pressure.

What was coming up the stairs? David wasn’t really all that afraid. In different times, when his frame of reference was untroubled with thoughts of terminal disease and a slow, withering death, he might have been horrified, might have clenched his muscles in terror, mind clicking like a metronome to find a way out of what was about to happen.

But his frame of reference, like the muscular frame that had once housed his soul, had withered, gone downhill remarkably quickly over the past few weeks. He lay in bed, breathing shallowly, and waited.

Someone was in the hallway. David closed his eyes, too tired for terror, too tired for little more than a vague concern. He hoped whatever was coming would at least not be painful.

Just like in the movies, he watched the brass doorknob turn, and he did manage to get up on his elbows and, wonder of wonders, found his heart could still rev up with adrenaline.

“Who is it?”

His question was answered with a dramatic flinging open of his bedroom door. The heavy wood crashed into the wall behind it, sending a flurry of plaster flakes into the frame behind the wall.

And then he was there, and David’s malaise finally took a back seat to horror. “Timothy…” he whimpered, eyes welling up, jaw gone slack.

Timothy smiled. “It’s me.”

*

Timothy’s smile vanished when he saw him lying on the bed. This was not the man he had expected to see. David Long was a big, virile guy, his body a powerhouse of energy and strength. The man lying before him looked to have aged thirty years since the last time Timothy had seen him. His skin and bones outlined by the sheet covering him, his face a death mask, ghoulish, telling a tale of infirmity.

This was not what he had expected. Not at all. Timothy was confused. He was frozen in his spot, unable to move. He hadn’t counted on this. “What’s the matter with you?”

David Long swallowed, sucked in a big lungful of air that looked as if it didn’t get down very far. “This isn’t real.”

“It’s real, all right. Do you doubt your own eyes?”

David flattened himself against the headboard. The only things bright in his ashen face were his eyes, shimmering with fear.

Timothy took a few steps forward, watching as David managed to draw up his knees to his chest, watching as he tried to shrink into the oak headboard of his sleigh bed. The same bed upon which Timothy had been violated over and over throughout his teenage years. He wondered if the mattress beneath the bed linens was still stained with his blood.

There was a knife in Timothy’s jacket pocket, a paring knife lifted from Aunt Helene’s wooden knife block. He had selected a small knife because he wanted to make the man suffer, just as David had made him suffer when he was a boy. He touched the knife now, rubbing his thumb along the blade. All his plans were gone, usurped by the situation.

“I’ll ask again. What’s wrong with you?”

David swallowed again. “Nothing. A little flu. Explain this.”

“Your eyes explain it all. Right? Didn’t you tell me that once? Didn’t you say the truth of what I was was stored in my eyes? That my attraction for other boys couldn’t be denied because my sight was the—what was it?—channel for my desires? You were always so literate, David.” Timothy smirked at the man on the bed.

“I came here to kill you. Slowly, in the most tortured, painful way possible. But it seems Mother Nature has already beaten me to the punch. The bitch.” Timothy crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “You don’t have the flu. If you do, it’s the worst case in recorded history.”

“It’s just a bug.”

“Right.”

The tension had vanished from the moment. In its place was an odd sadness, a despair. He had come for a fight, come thinking his tormentor would beg for his life. But how could one beg for something that had certainly lost its value?

David Long, from the looks of him, wasn’t long for this world. Timothy might even go so far as to say he would welcome a quicker passing.

Timothy wished there was a way he could heal him, make him into the man he once was, so he could steal from him something precious.

Timothy stood. “Killing you would be a favor, wouldn’t it?”

David Long stared at him.

“I don’t want your infectious blood on my hands.”

Timothy paced. He looked out the window at the trees. In the distance, the gray snake of asphalt that was the road in front of the good doctor’s house plotted a course for a speeding vehicle now and then. Everyone was oblivious to what had happened to Timothy.

And he felt the anger bubbling inside, a swarm of hornets growing in buzzing intensity. A throbbing started just behind his temples, and he reached up and clawed at his forehead as if he could rip the pain out. “How could you do this to me?”

“Do what?”

“Die.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“You’re a master of denial, aren’t you?” Timothy crossed to the dresser, where a small round hand mirror lay, its handle lacquered with red and black Japanese characters. He picked it up and brought it near David’s face. “Take a good look, Doctor. Look at your own face and tell me it’s not the face of a dead man.”

David tried to push the mirror away, but his weakness prevented him from doing little more than making the mirror wobble in Timothy’s grasp. “Look at it, damn it!” Timothy cried.

But David turned his head, squishing his eyes together.

“You won’t even give me this,” Timothy whispered, his words bearing an intensity that only just began to match the turmoil he felt inside. “Look in the mirror.”

But David Long would not look. He kept his head turned, his eyes shut. Timothy, the mirror held in one hand, reached out with the other and attempted to peel the doctor’s eyelids apart. The lids parted at last, but he could do nothing to force David’s gaze upon the glass.

Finally Timothy flung the mirror across the room, where it landed with a crash. “What can I do to you?”

David Long slumped down in his bed. It would take real effort now for him to keep his eyes open.

Timothy stared at the man for a long time. There was nothing, he thought, nothing at all he could do. If Timothy believed in God, he would have said he had already meted out his punishment for David.

“You bastard,” he whispered and walked out of the room.