Evil in Me, page 5
Ruby was greeted by the familiar scent of musty books and exotic spices. There were boxes sitting all around the sparsely furnished room, so many that they had to squeeze their way into the living room.
There, on a green corduroy sofa, sat Mr. Rosenfeld, a smallish balding man in blue pajamas. Several open boxes sat on the couch next to him. The old man was carefully unrolling a wad of packing paper, revealing a small hourglass of black stone and murky glass.
“How are you doing, Papa?” Pam asked.
“Half dead and dying,” he said without looking up.
“About like usual then?”
“Yup.”
“Hi there, Josh,” Ruby said. Mr. Rosenfeld insisted Ruby call him by his first name. “Glad to see you’re finally unpacking the rest of your things.”
His pushed his spectacles up on his nose and gave her a hard look. His brow furrowed, then he broke into a smile. “Ruby, dear!”
“Be happy to help you sort through some of this,” Ruby offered, and meant it too. According to Josh, he used to be some kind of custodian at his synagogue back in Brooklyn. It was part of his job to look after their collection of religious artifacts—a lot of oddities, mummified frogs, bracelets made from teeth and such. Apparently, these creepy items didn’t sit so well with the younger generations. The new rabbi—or as Josh called him, “the little pup”—wanted it all out of the synagogue. So, Josh had taken it upon himself to keep up with it all. Anyway, that story always got a little murky, a little different every time Josh told it. All Ruby knew for sure was that Mr. Rosenfeld had an incredible collection of weird stuff.
Josh held the hourglass up, squinting at it. He flipped it over so that the red sand began to slide into the lower chamber. He held it out toward Ruby. “See that sand?”
“Yes, sir,” Ruby said.
“Want to guess where it’s from?”
“No idea.”
“Hell.”
Ruby wanted to laugh, but there was something in the way he said it that unnerved her.
Josh set the hourglass on the side table. “They’re coming. I have to be ready.”
Ruby glanced at Pam. Pam shrugged.
“Who’s coming?” Ruby asked.
“The demons.”
“Not this again,” Pam said. She picked a cigarette butt out of a coffee cup. “Papa, what’s this?”
“A whole lot of none of your business.”
“You know you’re not supposed to be smoking. Right?”
“Do I?”
“Papa, you only have one lung left.”
“One and a half.” He pulled a cigarette out of his pajama pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Anyone seen my lighter?”
Pam groaned and rolled her eyes. “Okay you two, I have to get to work.” Pam leaned over and gave the old man a kiss on the top of his head, taking the cigarette. “Love you, Papa.”
Mr. Rosenfeld gave her a sour look.
“I’ll be back in a couple of days, now you be nice to Ruby. You hear me?”
“Only if she’s nice to me,” he said.
Pam winked at Ruby, then left them alone in the trailer.
There was a long moment when the two just stared at the floor, then Mr. Rosenfeld cleared his throat. “Ruby, dear, got a question for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much I gotta pay you to take me to Atlanta?”
DICK
My name’s Richard, but people called me Dick. I’ve always hated being called Dick. I was fifty-two years old then, and I was evil.
I tortured people, killing them in interesting and horrible ways, usually as slowly as possible. But that wasn’t what made me evil. Evil must be a choice.
To be clear, there was never any simmering rage just below my smile; I’d never been one to hold onto anger that way. No need to strike back at some perceived slight by society. And I didn’t have a hidden childhood history of snuffing out little Fidos and Mittens. No episodes of paranoia, delusions, or fits of rage. I had a respectable number of pals, and a few meaningful girlfriends throughout school and college. What I’m getting at, is there was no evidence of the typical telltale signs that foreshadow psychopathic behavior. I was too lame to even get sent to the principal, much less make any real trouble. So, I wasn’t born to it. Becoming evil took a lot of effort on my part.
Of course, we should consider any outside influences, any traumatic events that might’ve warped my ability to have empathy with my fellow human beings. Y’know, the kind of horse feathers that psychologists devote their entire careers to. I guess it helps us all sleep a little better if we can find logic in the illogical, make some sense of the brutal, horrific acts perpetrated on random innocent lives. I grew up middle-class; never got most of what I wanted, but can’t ever remember doing without. I wasn’t picked on, bullied, or ostracized in school … at least no worse than any other kid. My parents were still married. They never beat me or each other. No verbal lashings or forced sessions on my knees begging Jesus for forgiveness.
Couldn’t blame my career. Before I retired, I was a fairly successful commercial photographer. Pretty boring calling, but it was what I wanted to do, or at least thought I did. So, no ax to grind there. Ahh … but then there’s my divorce … an area ripe for trouble. But as much as I’d like to blame my ex for something, for anything, the only thing I might’ve been able to accuse her of was being a bit distant, and that just doesn’t add up to a very good reason to start torturing and killing people. None of it does. And that’s my point.
I was evil because I chose to be, not because I had to be. That choice, that sane, rational choice, is what made me truly evil.
There was a bit more to it—beyond the choice. It was the complete awareness that what I was doing was despicable and wicked and heinous, and I think that might’ve been the most important part, not just awareness, but my horror and repulsion. I heard more than pain in their muffled wails. I recognized their utter despair, the knowing that they would die horribly and would have to do it alone. I saw below their fear, I saw the confusion in their eyes of how such an incomprehensible thing could be happening to them, how their safe, warm world of dayglow nail polish and moussed hair could’ve ever twisted into a nightmare of unbearable pain and terror. I understood the unfairness of stealing their young lives from them before they barely got started. I want you to know that tore my heart out, that I felt it to my very core.
So why did I choose to be evil? It’s no mystery, not anymore. It’s simple. Painfully clear. I got … bored. Bored with my career, bored with my wife, bored with my fuel-efficient car, my house and its fixed-rate, thirty-year mortgage, my friends, especially my friends and their endless yakety-yak about their dreams and ambitions that never turned into anything, with my annual vacations to Gatlinburg, to Panama City Beach, or whatever other godforsaken place my wife wanted to go that year, with Democrats, with Republicans, with Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, with watering and mowing my lawn to keep up with every other lawn in my cookie-cutter subdivision, with sex, with all ninety-nine stations on my cable box. All of it. I got bored. Bored to death.
So?
So, a little torture and a little killing were the only things I’d come across that could take the tedium out of life. There it is, that simple. I found that this rational choice to do evil was what tooted my horn. To know something is so heinous and to do it anyway, this completely sane and rational awareness of the vileness of my actions was what made it so intense. What made me feel alive again. And until you’ve held someone’s very life in your hands, had them trembling before you as you decided not only if they would live or die, but just how long and dreadful that death would be—until then you’ll never truly get it. It’s an infusion of supreme all-powerfulness. I walked around like a god, knowing that anyone I saw, anyone I talked to, bought groceries from, sat next to in a movie. Anyone. Anyone. They were all essentially at my mercy. Heck, I won’t even cheapen it by comparing it to sex or drugs. Man, I’m telling you, it was the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow. There’s just nothing like it. Nothing.
Maybe if my wife had cheated on me, maybe if she’d got hooked on her medication, took to running up the credit cards, or contracted a life-threatening disease, then there might’ve been enough drama to keep my life interesting. Maybe then there wouldn’t have been the chopped-up remains of a dozen young women scattered along the waterways between Boston and Miami. But it was too late for maybes. I’d found something that made life worth living again, something to look forward to, a reason to hang around this tired old turd of a planet just a while longer. It was called evil.
And evil was calling me again. Like a whisper, like a muse. Who will she be this time? How bad will it be? How good will it be?
My name’s Richard, but people called me Dick. I’ve always hated being called Dick.
* * *
Ruby’s bedroom was in the basement of her mother’s house and she awoke to the sound of heels clumping above her. She peeked at the digital display on her clock and groaned. It was eight a.m. Sunday morning, and apparently her mom had decided to go to church after all. Her mother only tended to go to church when she felt guilty about something, leaving Ruby to wonder what awful thing her mom had done that week.
Ruby heard a man’s voice; that would be Eduardo, her mother’s boyfriend, technically her fiancé, who never missed church. They were supposed to have gotten married a year ago, but her mom kept putting it off. She’d had a myriad of excuses, but Ruby knew it was on account that Eduardo seemed unable to keep a job for longer than a few months.
Ruby’s father had died when she was eight, leaving her mother a fully paid-off house. Eduardo had nothing but a truck and he was making payments on that. He was, however, as he put it, drafting a right smart business plan, something about becoming a bounty hunter of all things. Ruby knew this and pretty much everything else about their relationship, due to the frequent and very loud arguments in the bedroom above her. She also knew far too much about their sex life, the basement providing little to no escape from her mom’s excessively vocal orgasms. One of the many reasons that Ruby had developed the habit of sleeping with her earphones on.
As soon as Ruby heard them leave for services, she hopped up, got dressed, and headed for Pam’s house to check on Mr. Rosenfeld.
Ruby loved Sunday mornings; most folks on her street were in church and she had the neighborhood to herself. She slid her headphones over her ears and hit play, the soft melodic vibes of the Velvet Underground bringing a smile to her face, calming her soul. She felt the Velvet Underground was made just for Sunday mornings.
Ruby used to enjoy church, but after her father died, she stopped going. She wasn’t sure why. She thought maybe she’d just grown tired of hearing some twit telling her she was a sinner. Ruby didn’t think she was a sinner; she thought she was a pretty good soul for the most part, thought the whole notion of original sin a bunch of hogwash.
Yet the church was easier to leave behind than God. No matter how hard she tried to rationalized away the existence of God, she felt he, or she, or it, was still there, judging her, just waiting for her to fuck up. She wondered how much of her belief stemmed from being so superstitious, as she tended to believe every ghost story she ever heard, believed in UFOs, fortune-telling, reincarnation, and had spent untold hours talking to dead folks through her Ouija board. She also knocked on wood a dozen times a day, avoided the number 13, couldn’t sleep without a nightlight on—just sure that the creepies were waiting for her in the shadows. Was religion any different? She didn’t think so. But when every person you knew believed in Jesus, it was hard not to as well.
She realized she was walking fast, that she was excited. It wasn’t Jesus she was thinking about now, but the Devil, particularly the clipping of his hair Mr. Rosenfeld had shown her yesterday. She’d thought about it all night, the strange shimmer it had given off. She’d been wondering all year about what he had hidden in all those boxes, couldn’t wait to find out what other creepy items he had stuffed away.
Ruby felt a twinge of guilt; as much as she looked forward to getting out of this town, she hated the thought of leaving Pam and Josh. Almost felt she was abandoning them. She didn’t know where she’d be if not for Pam and the kindness she’d shown her. Ruby thought how nice it would be if she could take the two of them with her.
To save time, Ruby left the street and headed through the gulch—about an acre of woods dividing the two neighborhoods. The trail led along a small brook. She came to a cement culvert and shuddered. Rumor had it that years ago, some crazy woman had murdered her children, then committed suicide, right in this very spot. The neighborhood kids all claimed the woman was some kind of witch, had sacrificed her children to Satan. Ruby told herself that was nonsense, but sprinted past anyway.
She came out of the woods just down from Pam’s house, crossed the street, and headed up the drive. She walked around to the backyard, relieved to see that the mobile home still appeared in good shape, that nothing was on fire, at least not at the moment.
She knocked on the door.
Nothing, she knocked again. This time she heard a thump.
“Just a minute!” someone squawked.
She heard more thumping, shuffling, then a loud crash.
“Mr. Rosenfeld?” She knocked again.
“Aww … hell!” from inside.
“Mr. Rosenfeld?” She opened the door. “Josh?”
He was over near the kitchen, digging through a big box. He was still dressed in his blue pajamas, his twist of white hair standing up like he’d been electrocuted. Ruby wondered if maybe he had.
“Mr. Rosenfeld? You okay?”
“Where is it?” he asked frantically, as he moved to another box.
“Where’s what?” she asked.
He looked round, pushing his glasses up on his nose and squinting at her as though never having seen her before.
“Morning, Josh. It’s me, Ruby.”
He continued to eye her suspiciously.
Ruby could tell he was having an off day, and it hurt seeing him like that, because she knew it wasn’t going to get better, that there was nothing she could do about it. She was losing him one memory at a time.
“Ruby,” she repeated.
Slowly he nodded. “Yes, I know that. Come in, Lucy.”
“Josh, it’s me, Ruby.”
“Huh?”
“Ruby. Y’know, Ruby Dear.”
“Uh-huh … that’s what I said.”
The room appeared even more chaotic than the day before, open boxes strown and stacked about. Again, she was struck by the smells—cinnamon, sage, a touch of rot maybe, and that of burned wood. She stepped around a few piles, made it into the kitchen and checked the fridge, finding the tuna casserole untouched.
“Josh, did you eat?”
He didn’t seem to hear her, just kept digging down into the box in front of him.
“You really need to eat something. Here, I’ll fix it for you.”
“Not hungry.”
She spotted a large cantaloupe. “How about some fruit then?”
“Where is it?” he barked. “Where the hell is it?”
Ruby pushed aside a box and set the cantaloupe on the counter. “Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for I can help find it.”
“A box. I’m looking for a box.”
Ruby glanced around at all the stacked boxes. “Okay … could you maybe be a bit more specific?”
He scratched his head. “It should be about yay big.” He indicated with his hands. “About the size of a shoebox. I think it was red, a red shoebox. No…” He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “A cigar box. A red cigar box! Yes, I’m certain. And it’ll have ‘do not open’ written on it … I think.”
“Okay,” Ruby said. “That narrows it down a bit.” She started sorting through the boxes, most weren’t labeled, the few that were, were written in what she guessed was Hebrew.
“Just open them up,” he said, sounding increasingly frantic. “Looking for a bronze case with a spider carved into the lid. We have to find it. Have to.”
Ruby started opening boxes. She unwrapped an urn, several moldy clay pots, a stone knife, a jaw bone covered in squiggly symbols, a box of socks, books, lots and lots of books.
“Pam was supposed to help me with this,” Mr. Rosenfeld mumbled. “Can’t count on her … so damn busy all the time. Swear, given half the chance, she’d toss all of this into the dump.” He shuffled a few boxes around. “Y’know, she had a nice Jewish boyfriend once, they were supposed to get married and settle down in Brooklyn, make me some gran-babies. She left him to fly airplanes. Can you believe that? Then … then she made me leave my home. What kind of daughter does that? Can’t even find a good bagel around here.”
Ruby nodded along, half hearing him as he rambled on. She felt like a kid at Christmas, quickly opening each box, excited to see what lay inside, marveling at each relic. She removed an ancient basket full of dried roots and there beneath it was a crimson cigar box.
There were no words on it, so she peeled back the strip of masking tape and opened the lid. Nestled in black velvet was a case, long and thin, like a watch case, only made of hammered bronze—crusty with age. There was something carved into the lid, it resembled a spider. She lifted it from the box for a closer look, but the minute she touched it, she felt a strange tingling and suddenly needed to know—had to know—what was inside.
It was held together by twisted wire. She unwound it, started to open the case, then hesitated as a sudden sense of dread swam over her. Did it feel warm? God, why did it feel warm? She glanced over at Mr. Rosenfeld; his back was to her. Put it down, she thought. Now. Right now! She wedged a fingernail beneath the lid and pried it open.
She gasped.
A human finger, mummified, dried and gray, lay within the case. Upon the finger, a ring of gold—a simple band attached to a flat coin shape. Ruddy, waxy crud lay crumbled around the ring. A glint of light sparkled off the surface, drawing her closer. She noticed a closed eye carved into it. The glint again, almost as though coming from within the ring. She blinked and the ring seemed different, the band shaped into spidery legs, the eye in relief.
