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Grand Obsession, Part 4 (Final)
(continued from part 1, part 2, and part 3)
But first there was one last step: pinholes. It was Thursday afternoon that Ed suddenly realized that he might get a few more seconds of belief out of the speeder by putting small pinholes in Harry's eyes, nostrils, ears, and a series of them across the mouth; that way the head might give way under impact in those pre-stressed areas, making the eyes and other orifices bleed (and even Ed hoped, dribble bloody sponge bits) quite realistically.
He thought he'd never get to sleep Thursday night.
* * *
Dressed in a black sweatsuit, wearing a black woolen hat, Ed crouched between a parked SUV and a pickup. The autumn night was cool. Harry was surprisingly warm in his hands; he'd considered wearing black gloves, but decided against it. He'd need full control of his hands to carry this off. The ball rested against the curb, ready to go.
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
It couldn't have been more perfect.
Blood exploded out of Harry. He tore into two pieces, his limbs flailing hideously. Ed was amazed; he knew Harry, he'd built him, and even he was horrified. Brakes squealed as the car skidded left and right, leaving bloody rubber skidmarks as it slid to a stop down the road. Harry's upper half was still on the hood of the car; his mangled legs were still mostly at the impact site. Chunks and ropes of blood-soaked sponge were everywhere.
Ed moved like a ninja along the sidewalk, staying low behind the parked cars. It only took seconds to get closer to the stopped car; he knew it was dangerous, but he could no more have stayed away than he could have flown to the moon.
The car door opened, and the driver got out. He was young, with piercings and one of those weird goatees; he looked ghost-white as he stared at Harry, who had half-slid off the car's hood.
The moonlight made everything magical.
Harry steamed from the great opening at the base of his torso. Jagged white bone jutted upward from here and there. His head was flaccid, but chunks of white styrofoam protruded from the split-open mouth. And the eyes had exploded outward perfectly. One had sponge literally protruding through it.
The driver fell to his knees in the middle of the street without a sound.
As the driver slowly rolled to his side and drew his knees up towards his chest, Ed felt a deep feeling of peace enter his soul. Now, at last, he could sleep.
* * *
At least, that's how Ed hoped it would go.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. Harry hit the car a little high; most of him hit the windshield. He split with an odd splat and bounced up over the top and behind the car.
Brakes screeched. Car doors flung open while the car was still rolling. Ed heard footsteps, shouts. He saw big, tough-looking kids and a slutty-looking girl. The girl spotted him, and shrieked, pointing.
"GET HIM!"
Ed tried to run, but he was too slow. The largest of the three boys grabbed him from behind and dragged him out into the middle of the street. As they pinned him up against the back of their car and tore into him, he felt strangely calm. Time passed, but it didn't seem to matter. Everything faded away by the time they were done with him. As they drove off, his broken body pitched to the filthy street. Face to face with Harry, Ed's last fleeting thought was an impulse to apologize.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball.
Harry hit the ground just in front of the car, bounced upwards, flipped end-over-end, and was caught in mid-air...by the red and blue lights on the top of the squad car.
Ed didn't wait a second. He started running, as fast as he could, into the darkness. Three terrifying months later he slunk into a small village in a particularly rural part of Mexico. He can be seen doing a shambling dance for drinks every afternoon, just after siesta.
But despite that, Ed is as happy as could be expected. No one in the village can afford a car.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
Or it should have. Instead the car swerved violently, and smashed at full speed into a telephone pole. The driver shot like a rocket through the windshield in a shower of glass, bouncing off the pole and landing on the street with a sodden thump.
Ed felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. From the way various parts were bent, he knew that there was no way that the driver could be alive.
He wanted to run, but couldn't help himself. Step by step, he came out into the street light to stare down at the boy. Harry lay not far away. To Ed's stunned eyes, the resemblance between the two was nearly perfect...except that Harry wasn't bleeding.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The big front grille took Harry head-first. For a moment he compressed, feet and head squeezing together, and then he exploded.
The car screeched to a halt.
A door opened. A man in a long black coat got out and stood there, mute, staring at the carnage. Ed, peeking cautiously over the back of the pickup was mystified; were boys wearing that sort of hat these days? He wasn't up on teen styles, but he didn't think so. The driver turned back to the car, bent inside for a moment, then backed out again, holding something.
The driver put the object to his head. Ed's horrified moment of realization came a fraction of a second too late; his shout was drowned out by the shot. The driver pitched sideways to the street, the hat rolling. Wispy gray hairs waved waved in the cold breeze, on what was left of the balding head. The big old service revolver lay in the gutter near the driver's outstretched hand. Numbly, Ed watched as blood dripped down the "Veteran" license plate.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
It was beautiful.
The car screeched to a halt well down the road. After a minute, it backed up towards the impact point, screeching again as it stopped. Ed suddenly realized that this wasn't a car he'd seen before on his street; but it looked oddly familiar. Back to the Future, that was it! But what was a Delorean doing on Oakdale Street?
The driver's door swung upward, and a very strangely dressed man got out. He walked over to the largest piece of Harry, looked at it for a minute...and then kneeled down to touch it.
"Oh, wow." A British accent. Or maybe Australian. The driver stood up again and started looking around. Ed suddenly realized that there was no way to avoid being seen from the driver's perspective.
"Hey, you! Yeah, you. Come here." Ed didn't know what else to do, so he obeyed.
"Did you do this?" Ed nodded.
The driver grinned, and Ed smelled alcohol.
"That was beautiful. Listen...this is a great thing you've got here. Scared the fertilizer out of me, know what I mean? Anyway, listen, I work with a reality show. Brainbusters, on The Men Channel. Maybe you've seen it? No? Anyway, this would make a hell of an episode. Hell, you might even get your own series! What do you say?"
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. Harry touched down just in time for the tires to go over him. The wheels and undercarriage tore him to pieces very satisfactorily.
The car never even slowed down.
Two days later Ed read about the suicide of an area teen. The excerpt that the paper printed from his suicide note may have mystified everyone else, but Ed knew. The next day Ed moved out of the state. His new location is a bit quiet; he hasn't found a new job yet, but he doesn't mind. He still has trouble sleeping nights, though.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
The car slowed for a minute, and then kept going. Once it was out of sight, Ed moved fast. He grabbed up every piece of Harry that he could find, dumped them on the sidewalk, then ran to his house for a trash bag. Shoving all the chunks into the bag, he dumped the bag into a garbage can out back. Then he ran into the house for a bucket of water, sluicing down the most bloody areas on the street and sidewalk. Ten minutes later everything looked pretty much normal.
Ed went into the house, took off all his clothes, and put them in the trash too. Then he took a long cold shower, followed by a warm one. Then he got dressed, took the bag of clothes and got the bag of Harry out of the garbage can, and dumped both bags into two different garbage cans on the back side of a supermarket parking lot when no one was watching.
Then he drove home and settled down to wait. And wait. And wait.
He's still waiting. And even he couldn't tell you what he's waiting for.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
The slowed for a minute, and then kept going. Ed stared in amazement. Didn't they care? Were they drunk or something?
Well, he wouldn't give up. Harrys #2 and 3 could be ready to go the next night. Ed cleaned the street and went back to stuff sponges.
The next night Harry #2 made the first flight, and it was nearly as perfect as before. But again, the car just slowed for a moment and then went on. For a moment, Ed thought he heard something...something like laughter. He gritted his teeth and went back for Harry #3.
Half an hour later, Harry #3's torso went under the wheels of a speeder, his ass exploding with a loud bang. Again, the car slowed for just a moment...but this time, Ed noticed something. This was the first car again. Car #2 had been different, but this car was the one that had hit Harry #1!
"Hey, mister!" came a voice from behind him. Ed nearly jumped out of his skin. Five mean-looking high school kids stood watching him on the sidewalk.
"We loooove your dolls," said one of them.
"Yeah, what are they, your boyfriends?" sneered another. They all snickered.
Ed stared at them, frozen.
"Okay, look," said the shortest, his voice suddenly businesslike, "we'd like to make a deal..."
The next day Ed withdrew his name from the temp agency. He and an unending string of Harrys give "performances" every Friday and Saturday night. He charges $100 per car, and clears about $5,000.00 per month, tax free. It's a good living, and the business has plenty of room to grow; the kids love the show. He's even thinking of hiring an assistant. And now, when he hears an engine roar, Ed smiles.
Even in his sleep.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
Harry's seams split lengthwise, from armpit to ankle. Steaming sponges in a great mass slid out of him. The empty and obviously fake vinyl skin caught on the windshield wiper for a moment, then blew off.
The car slowed and stopped. Ed quickly flung himself to the ground, crawled with desperate speed behind some shrubs, and took to the back yards of the neighborhood. Several times he heard footsteps, but finally, after an hour of silence, he slunk home.
For several days he shivered at the thought of the incident. But slowly the fear faded, to be replaced by a nagging thought: Harry wasn't real enough. I need something more real.
He drifted back into his old habits. As he was watching the neighborhood kids again - what was wrong with their parents? - the idea hit him: what could be more real than real? And it wasn't as if their parents cared about them.
At first he was horrified, and pushed the thought out of his mind. But it kept coming back. Ed wasn't the strongest person.
And so, six months later, came the sensational string of child-murders which have been exciting the media so much of late.
* * *
Ed woke with a start, coated in sweat. It was Friday morning. Hands trembling, he looked up a number in the phone book and called it. After booking an appointment with a psychiatrist, Ed drove to the mall and bought the best and loudest white noise generator he could afford on his credit limit. He installed it in the bedroom that afternoon. After three months of therapy and medication, Ed carefully disassembled all three Harrys and threw the components away. The chicken blood he thawed and flushed down the toilet.
He's now saving as much as he can towards first-and-last-and-security-deposit on an apartment in a better neighborhood. He's even dating; the girl he's seeing has her own issues (they met in group therapy), but she can tolerate Ed's quirks. And she drives very, very slowly.
Which is as happy an ending as anyone could expect, these days.
But first there was one last step: pinholes. It was Thursday afternoon that Ed suddenly realized that he might get a few more seconds of belief out of the speeder by putting small pinholes in Harry's eyes, nostrils, ears, and a series of them across the mouth; that way the head might give way under impact in those pre-stressed areas, making the eyes and other orifices bleed (and even Ed hoped, dribble bloody sponge bits) quite realistically.
He thought he'd never get to sleep Thursday night.
* * *
Dressed in a black sweatsuit, wearing a black woolen hat, Ed crouched between a parked SUV and a pickup. The autumn night was cool. Harry was surprisingly warm in his hands; he'd considered wearing black gloves, but decided against it. He'd need full control of his hands to carry this off. The ball rested against the curb, ready to go.
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
It couldn't have been more perfect.
Blood exploded out of Harry. He tore into two pieces, his limbs flailing hideously. Ed was amazed; he knew Harry, he'd built him, and even he was horrified. Brakes squealed as the car skidded left and right, leaving bloody rubber skidmarks as it slid to a stop down the road. Harry's upper half was still on the hood of the car; his mangled legs were still mostly at the impact site. Chunks and ropes of blood-soaked sponge were everywhere.
Ed moved like a ninja along the sidewalk, staying low behind the parked cars. It only took seconds to get closer to the stopped car; he knew it was dangerous, but he could no more have stayed away than he could have flown to the moon.
The car door opened, and the driver got out. He was young, with piercings and one of those weird goatees; he looked ghost-white as he stared at Harry, who had half-slid off the car's hood.
The moonlight made everything magical.
Harry steamed from the great opening at the base of his torso. Jagged white bone jutted upward from here and there. His head was flaccid, but chunks of white styrofoam protruded from the split-open mouth. And the eyes had exploded outward perfectly. One had sponge literally protruding through it.
The driver fell to his knees in the middle of the street without a sound.
As the driver slowly rolled to his side and drew his knees up towards his chest, Ed felt a deep feeling of peace enter his soul. Now, at last, he could sleep.
* * *
At least, that's how Ed hoped it would go.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. Harry hit the car a little high; most of him hit the windshield. He split with an odd splat and bounced up over the top and behind the car.
Brakes screeched. Car doors flung open while the car was still rolling. Ed heard footsteps, shouts. He saw big, tough-looking kids and a slutty-looking girl. The girl spotted him, and shrieked, pointing.
"GET HIM!"
Ed tried to run, but he was too slow. The largest of the three boys grabbed him from behind and dragged him out into the middle of the street. As they pinned him up against the back of their car and tore into him, he felt strangely calm. Time passed, but it didn't seem to matter. Everything faded away by the time they were done with him. As they drove off, his broken body pitched to the filthy street. Face to face with Harry, Ed's last fleeting thought was an impulse to apologize.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball.
Harry hit the ground just in front of the car, bounced upwards, flipped end-over-end, and was caught in mid-air...by the red and blue lights on the top of the squad car.
Ed didn't wait a second. He started running, as fast as he could, into the darkness. Three terrifying months later he slunk into a small village in a particularly rural part of Mexico. He can be seen doing a shambling dance for drinks every afternoon, just after siesta.
But despite that, Ed is as happy as could be expected. No one in the village can afford a car.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
Or it should have. Instead the car swerved violently, and smashed at full speed into a telephone pole. The driver shot like a rocket through the windshield in a shower of glass, bouncing off the pole and landing on the street with a sodden thump.
Ed felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. From the way various parts were bent, he knew that there was no way that the driver could be alive.
He wanted to run, but couldn't help himself. Step by step, he came out into the street light to stare down at the boy. Harry lay not far away. To Ed's stunned eyes, the resemblance between the two was nearly perfect...except that Harry wasn't bleeding.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The big front grille took Harry head-first. For a moment he compressed, feet and head squeezing together, and then he exploded.
The car screeched to a halt.
A door opened. A man in a long black coat got out and stood there, mute, staring at the carnage. Ed, peeking cautiously over the back of the pickup was mystified; were boys wearing that sort of hat these days? He wasn't up on teen styles, but he didn't think so. The driver turned back to the car, bent inside for a moment, then backed out again, holding something.
The driver put the object to his head. Ed's horrified moment of realization came a fraction of a second too late; his shout was drowned out by the shot. The driver pitched sideways to the street, the hat rolling. Wispy gray hairs waved waved in the cold breeze, on what was left of the balding head. The big old service revolver lay in the gutter near the driver's outstretched hand. Numbly, Ed watched as blood dripped down the "Veteran" license plate.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
It was beautiful.
The car screeched to a halt well down the road. After a minute, it backed up towards the impact point, screeching again as it stopped. Ed suddenly realized that this wasn't a car he'd seen before on his street; but it looked oddly familiar. Back to the Future, that was it! But what was a Delorean doing on Oakdale Street?
The driver's door swung upward, and a very strangely dressed man got out. He walked over to the largest piece of Harry, looked at it for a minute...and then kneeled down to touch it.
"Oh, wow." A British accent. Or maybe Australian. The driver stood up again and started looking around. Ed suddenly realized that there was no way to avoid being seen from the driver's perspective.
"Hey, you! Yeah, you. Come here." Ed didn't know what else to do, so he obeyed.
"Did you do this?" Ed nodded.
The driver grinned, and Ed smelled alcohol.
"That was beautiful. Listen...this is a great thing you've got here. Scared the fertilizer out of me, know what I mean? Anyway, listen, I work with a reality show. Brainbusters, on The Men Channel. Maybe you've seen it? No? Anyway, this would make a hell of an episode. Hell, you might even get your own series! What do you say?"
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. Harry touched down just in time for the tires to go over him. The wheels and undercarriage tore him to pieces very satisfactorily.
The car never even slowed down.
Two days later Ed read about the suicide of an area teen. The excerpt that the paper printed from his suicide note may have mystified everyone else, but Ed knew. The next day Ed moved out of the state. His new location is a bit quiet; he hasn't found a new job yet, but he doesn't mind. He still has trouble sleeping nights, though.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
The car slowed for a minute, and then kept going. Once it was out of sight, Ed moved fast. He grabbed up every piece of Harry that he could find, dumped them on the sidewalk, then ran to his house for a trash bag. Shoving all the chunks into the bag, he dumped the bag into a garbage can out back. Then he ran into the house for a bucket of water, sluicing down the most bloody areas on the street and sidewalk. Ten minutes later everything looked pretty much normal.
Ed went into the house, took off all his clothes, and put them in the trash too. Then he took a long cold shower, followed by a warm one. Then he got dressed, took the bag of clothes and got the bag of Harry out of the garbage can, and dumped both bags into two different garbage cans on the back side of a supermarket parking lot when no one was watching.
Then he drove home and settled down to wait. And wait. And wait.
He's still waiting. And even he couldn't tell you what he's waiting for.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
The slowed for a minute, and then kept going. Ed stared in amazement. Didn't they care? Were they drunk or something?
Well, he wouldn't give up. Harrys #2 and 3 could be ready to go the next night. Ed cleaned the street and went back to stuff sponges.
The next night Harry #2 made the first flight, and it was nearly as perfect as before. But again, the car just slowed for a moment and then went on. For a moment, Ed thought he heard something...something like laughter. He gritted his teeth and went back for Harry #3.
Half an hour later, Harry #3's torso went under the wheels of a speeder, his ass exploding with a loud bang. Again, the car slowed for just a moment...but this time, Ed noticed something. This was the first car again. Car #2 had been different, but this car was the one that had hit Harry #1!
"Hey, mister!" came a voice from behind him. Ed nearly jumped out of his skin. Five mean-looking high school kids stood watching him on the sidewalk.
"We loooove your dolls," said one of them.
"Yeah, what are they, your boyfriends?" sneered another. They all snickered.
Ed stared at them, frozen.
"Okay, look," said the shortest, his voice suddenly businesslike, "we'd like to make a deal..."
The next day Ed withdrew his name from the temp agency. He and an unending string of Harrys give "performances" every Friday and Saturday night. He charges $100 per car, and clears about $5,000.00 per month, tax free. It's a good living, and the business has plenty of room to grow; the kids love the show. He's even thinking of hiring an assistant. And now, when he hears an engine roar, Ed smiles.
Even in his sleep.
* * *
Ed waited.
A car turned onto the east end of the street and gunned its motor. With a SCREEEECH! of burning rubber it roared down. For a moment Ed panicked, and then suddenly he was icy calm, everything going into slow motion. The car was accelerating down the road. A hundred feet away...ninety...eighty...seventy...sixty...fifty...forty...Ed used the side of his foot to kick the ball out into the road...thirty...twenty...staying low, Ed threw Harry on a low arc towards the ball. The front grille took Harry when he was two feet off the ground.
Harry's seams split lengthwise, from armpit to ankle. Steaming sponges in a great mass slid out of him. The empty and obviously fake vinyl skin caught on the windshield wiper for a moment, then blew off.
The car slowed and stopped. Ed quickly flung himself to the ground, crawled with desperate speed behind some shrubs, and took to the back yards of the neighborhood. Several times he heard footsteps, but finally, after an hour of silence, he slunk home.
For several days he shivered at the thought of the incident. But slowly the fear faded, to be replaced by a nagging thought: Harry wasn't real enough. I need something more real.
He drifted back into his old habits. As he was watching the neighborhood kids again - what was wrong with their parents? - the idea hit him: what could be more real than real? And it wasn't as if their parents cared about them.
At first he was horrified, and pushed the thought out of his mind. But it kept coming back. Ed wasn't the strongest person.
And so, six months later, came the sensational string of child-murders which have been exciting the media so much of late.
* * *
Ed woke with a start, coated in sweat. It was Friday morning. Hands trembling, he looked up a number in the phone book and called it. After booking an appointment with a psychiatrist, Ed drove to the mall and bought the best and loudest white noise generator he could afford on his credit limit. He installed it in the bedroom that afternoon. After three months of therapy and medication, Ed carefully disassembled all three Harrys and threw the components away. The chicken blood he thawed and flushed down the toilet.
He's now saving as much as he can towards first-and-last-and-security-deposit on an apartment in a better neighborhood. He's even dating; the girl he's seeing has her own issues (they met in group therapy), but she can tolerate Ed's quirks. And she drives very, very slowly.
Which is as happy an ending as anyone could expect, these days.
- end -
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Me... I think the teen suicide should be the one to be cut of the two, but that's me.
I'll see if I can drum you up some commentary from others on it...
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The long buildup is probably because I ended up writing this over a relatively long period, and spent a lot of time in between thinking about technical problems. I may have gotten too interested in how to create a believable victim.
I should probably admit now that Ed's street is my street, in every detail but the name. Teri even called the police about the speeders on the road. They weren't as rude to her as my fictional versions, but they didn't offer any help, either.
I've been thinking about this for years. In fact, the idea of throwing a life-sized child-doll in front of speeding cars came to me at least five or six years ago.
I agree that the two suicide options were a bit too similar. On the other hand, I rather liked both of them. That said, perhaps it would have worked better if the less-dramatic version (the Teen) had been placed before the Veteran?
There's something about the Veteran one that bothers me...it feels a little clunky, and didn't come smoothly to me. I'll continue to think about it. In the meantime, I've removed the Teen option completely from the new 2.0 version of the story.
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And then came the final chapter, and at first, I was taken aback, trying to figure out what was going on. I cringed at some of the more grisly endings and found myself wondering at it all...as if we were being shown this because one bad ending simply couldn't encompass the enormity of it all.
But then, of course, comes the big finale, and we see for certain what the truth is, which ties together all very neatly. Indeed, 'as happy an ending as anyone could expect'.
I think my favorite of the endings was the one where Ed cleaned up, and returned home, waiting. As if he'd committed a real murder, and was expecting to be caught.
Intense story, Bob.
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As you might have seen in my reply to
I have to admit that I wondered if anyone would expect the story to go in a fantasy direction.
Were some of the endings too grisly? One of my friends has been refusing to read the story because she thinks that it will be too disgusting for her. I don't see that, but of course I'm too close to the story.
Apparently, what put her off when she skimmed the first section was the word "diaper". I'm not sure why.
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I will say it does give an interesting insight into your own psyche - something I suspected prior to your confession, but having you say it lends a slightly different cast to it, too. Would you say it was exorcizing personal demons, writing this story?
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Anyway:
Hmm. Only a little, I guess; I'm really not an obsessed person. The closest I get to Ed is when I'm in my "cranky old grouch" mode, which is relatively rare.
I'm too old to burn with righteous indignation any more...or at least, not much. I kind of had to become more mellow, if only to survive the Bush Regency without blowing a gasket. :D
More than anything else, it was just that the doll-toss idea was such a neat one...I had to make use of it somehow. Because, to be honest, my best guess is that there's no way that the doll incident wouldn't play out badly in the real world. I'm sure it would be illegal, too.
Just to be clear, though, I never in a million years would actually have done it.
As for the grisly stuff, I'm told I have a dark and sick sense of humor, and that's probably true. The odd thing is that although I can enjoy movies with incredibly gross and disgusting gore - I own John Carpenter's The Thing, and Herbert West: Reanimator is on my Christmas list - I can't stand teen-slasher movies. You see, I can't stand gore if it's presented as being connected with real human suffering.
Or animal suffering, come to think of it.
So it really hurts me to see someone (particularly women, for some reason) being hurt or killed in a movie, even though I know that it's not real. On the other hand, I can watch somebody being dunked in toxic waste and splattered all over a windshield, and laugh my ass off.
So to me, sponges soaked in chicken blood is totally not grisly. Except for the chickens, I guess. :D
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You know, this is really very good. There's an urgency to the writing that nicely captures Ed's obsession, and drives the reader on the the ending(s). I disagree with Joe's comment that the buildup is a little long. I think it just seems that way because it's spread over a number of entries. Read all in on go, as it should be, it's concise and punchy.
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I find it a little amusing that Ed comes off so creepy and disturbed, since I used myself as a starting point for him. But only in the loosest sense; I have a long-standing dislike for nonfiction masquerading as fiction (my reason for that dislike is a long and, I think, interesting story).
So maybe I should announce right up front that I do NOT own any inflatable dolls.
How very odd - that's exactly what I was thinking. In fact, I was working out an authorial comment to that effect in my head a week ago. But then I was reminded that "less is more", which when applied to me means that I have a tendency to over-write and over-explain. So I went the minimalist route.
It also would have changed the tone a bit to have broken the fourth wall, even if it was from the outside-in, so to speak.
I really appreciate your feedback.
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1, the 'ending' with the Delorean is awkwardly out of place. And I agree with
2 - and this is just me being picky because I work in a mental-health related field - Psychiatrists prescribe meds and that's it. Psychologists, social workers, licensed clinical social workers, and licensed professional counselors do talktherapy/mental health groups. Most (reputable) psychiatrists won't see you unless you see a therapist first and get a legit diagnosis.
Hope this helps. :)
ps, am I the only one who started having the Suzanne Vega song "Ironbound/Fancy Poultry" meandering in my head when you mentioned chicken blood and the Portugese?
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True, but I have to admit that it's not a coincidence that it's an Armenian name.
I agree, absolutely. It bothered me the moment I wrote it, although the idea of turning it into a reality show still amuses me. But it doesn't serve the story, so I took it out from the new version of the story. Thanks for giving me the little push I needed to make that change.
Another very helpful point! At the time I thought that it didn't cost anything more to copy and paste the whole section, but now that I think of it, repeating all that text did have a cost - on the patience of the reader. I've now shortened the lead-ins even more than you suggested.
I don't work directly in the mental-health field, but I have a LOT of experience dealing with it on behalf of others (recently I took on Magellan over a denial of benefits and won). I know several psychiatrists personally who do talk therapy as well as meds, and who even have some patients who are completely med-free by mutual agreement.
I'll admit that many psychiatrists have been reduced to little more than prescription-dispensers, doing 15-minute med-checks...but the ones I've talked to hate that, and I don't know of any who don't spend at least some time doing the 50-minute hour.
As for the call and appointment at the end, in my experience some sort of referral is necessary for insurance to cover therapy. Those can be obtained from a primary care physician, or by calling the behavioral-health insurer directly. I have personal knowledge of cases in which a call to Magellan resulted in a referral to a psychiatrist for evaluation, in a non-emergency situation with no previous behavioral issues on record for the patient.
Still, perhaps I should reword that part of the story.
Definitely not, since it was going through my head most of the time that I was writing this. And of course the sign itself was lifted completely from the sign in Cambridge (http://riehle.org/humorous-takes/fun-photos/live-poultry-fresh-killed.html) near Inman Square. Of course, the sign itself is just a relic and that building is now an artist's co-op, or something. But I'm sure that there are places selling chicken blood in that area, and Chicken Blood Rice is real.
Although I don't plan ever to try it.
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Works better as science fiction than fantasy. A perfect example of quantum-split timelines (albeit on a macro rather than quantum scale).
Kiralee
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As for the multiple endings, I thought that the most likely assumption that the reader would make was that this was simply a series of dreams...which would make this a totally non-genre story.
Oddly enough, I'm comfortable with doing non-genre work these days. In an odd way, it's a little freeing. I've come to think that it's actually harder to stick strictly to a science fiction format than to just write general (or psychological) fiction.
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The different pieces in part 4 aren't believable (to me) as night time dreams. They are too coherent, way more coherent than anything I get or hear about outside of fiction. The would work as a series of daydreams - except I don't think the main character has that accurate a picture of himself and the world around him. If he did, his project would have died on the drawing board (like it did for you.) It would also be believable as different people speculating on what might happen - but the main character clearly isn't going to tell anyone, so that obviously doesn't fit.
I could believe it as... well... Neil Gaimen does something very similar with the ever-waking dream sequence at the end of Sandman #1 or #2. And that didn't break my suspension of disbelief, but then it's being done by Dream, a supernatural entity with the power to control dreams, which "explains" the coherence of the result. But that's genre fiction.
I could also believe in a series of quantum-worlds, where information is passed from world to world through the medium of dreams. But again, that would be genre fiction.
OK, maybe it's a little weird that I can believe in Anthropomorphic Figments of the Imagination or Quantum Worlds more easily than I can believe in coherent dreams in the "real' world... then again, maybe I just have different standards for genre and non-genre work.
I also have to say that It's less interesting as a non-genre piece, but that may just be a fannish bias.
Kiralee