The Reception

Back to Moon Notes, October 2006

His hands started the ritual of making a pot of coffee; a ritual that didn’t require much of his attention. At times, Dick believed he could do this blindfolded. But not today; he didn’t want to deal with anymore disappointments.

The day continued to grow steadily worse after Dick took two phone calls at work. One was from the doctor in charge of Jane’s treatment. He was adamant about having Dick take part in Jane’s therapy and couldn’t understand why Dick wanted to have nothing to do with her ever again.

This feeling wasn’t just because of her attacks. The last two years of their five-year marriage had been tumultuous. Jane’s paranoia had become more pronounced; constantly accusing him of having lovers and plotting her death. Dick’s faith in real love helping Jane to see reason lasted until the day she went after three-year old Nell, accusing her of helping in the murder plots.

After the coffee started its steady caffeine-laced stream into the pot, Dick manipulated his mug under the downpour. When it was nearly full, he replaced the carafe. Impatience can also be the mother of invention at times.

Collapsing backwards as if bones had been removed from his legs, Dick relaxed into his chair at the table, blew the steam off his cup and enjoyed the first sip with his eyes closed.

The second phone call came from his mother-in-law. According to her, it was a courtesy call to inform him that she’d retained a lawyer friend of hers from the country club. That he was going to help her little girl. And with a noticeable sense of glee, she informed Dick that "no wrong side of the county line son-of-a-bitch was going to keep my baby in a state hospital," at least not while she was alive and had money. There was one thing Dick was sure of about Evelyn. She had a ton of money.

The only good news Dick had today was when his mother called, asking if she and dad could take Nell out to eat and to a movie.

"Yeah, Mom. Jeez, that’d really make her weekend. And…"

"Bad day, honey?"

"You have no idea. Am I that obvious?"

"It’s in your voice. Dick, if you think it’s okay, can Nell just go ahead and spend the night? It would give you the night to yourself."

"Mom, you’re a lifesaver."

"Yeah, I know. But what flavor?"

"Oh, that’s easy. You’re a peach, Mom. A real peach."

Dick let her know that he would call the daycare so she’d have no problem getting Nell. After his mother’s call, Dick decided to do something he had never done before. He told his boss he wasn’t feeling very well and that he was going to take off a couple hours early.

Mr. Buford gave Dick a look that was equal parts pity and disgust and told him, "That’s okay. Just go home and take care of yourself."

He finally opened his eyes and reached for the television’s remote control, aiming it at the twenty-year old relic vanquished to the kitchen counter. It was reduced to wearing rabbit ears but it still produced a decent picture. As the picture took its time coming up, the news anchor was earning his paycheck, clearly announcing,

"And to repeat the top breaking news of the day…"

That’s when the picture chose to pop up on the tube and Dick’s world slowed down to frame-by-frame.

In one frame, the television was showing a live shot of a building with which he was very familiar.

In another frame the melodious voice of the anchor was saying "at least one guard is dead and another in critical condition following the escape of three patients from the Kansas State Mental Health Facility in Osowatimie. Two patients were almost immediately recaptured, but one still remains at large at this hour."

The last frame came into focus in Dick’s mind. He now understood what that wave of uneasiness had been when he first opened the door. It was a smell. The smell of her perfume. Jane’s favorite perfume was Obsession, the irony of which had not escaped Dick. And it was a trace of Obsession that he had subconsciously smelled when he had entered. Jane was in the house.

Dick’s world regained its normal speed as he strained to hear any noise that would be out of place in his home.

"And the other top story today…the Leawood Strangler has claimed another victim. Last night the body of Brenda Horn was discovered bound to her bed and strangled. The medical examiner also confirmed that Ms. Horn had been sexually assaulted before…"

Dick’s hand snaked over and hit the off button on the remote at the same time one of the floorboards on the second floor creaked above his head. He knew that floorboard. He stepped on it every night. It was near the head of the stairs.

Abject terror flavored Dick’s mouth with the metallic tang of an experiment he had performed with a bent paper clip and an electrical outlet when he was four. He felt as if he was being electrocuted with fear, completely unable to move.

The thought of electricity turned Dick’s eyes toward the house’s breaker box. It was mounted on the wall to the left of the open doorway that the kitchen shared with the living room. The living room that held the stairway Jane was probably creeping down right at this moment.

That thought broke the paralysis that had glued him to his chair at the table. In two strides he was across the kitchen, reaching for the door on the box. He swung it open, slapping at the mains at the top of the panel and missing.

On the second attempt he managed to keep his eyes on his shaking hands, forcing them by willpower to close over the mains and throw them. The house plunged into darkness.

Dick was now in the middle of the doorway with nowhere to hide. Without a second’s hesitation, or much thought, he scrambled up onto the counter. After momentarily entangling himself in the antennae of the television, he flattened against the wall.

Dick realized he was in a dangerous situation. Jane had always maintained her athleticism and the last time he had seen her, she still appeared in remarkable shape. After he added in the fact that she was stark, raving mad and had already likely killed one person, he knew he would need some type of weapon in order to best her.

Standing on a kitchen counter, moments away from a confrontation with a madwoman, with no apparent weapon easily at hand, Dick grabbed the first thing that came to mind. The television.

Bringing it over his head, he stood poised, ready to strike. There was just enough diffuse light creeping in through the window over the sink that Dick’s vision was beginning to discern between shadows and objects.

He became aware of someone else’s breathing at almost the same time that a hand with a revolver broke the plane of the doorway. The strain from holding the tube at such an awkward angle was making the muscles in his forearms scream. And yet, he waited.

When enough of the person’s body had come through the opening, Dick started to bring the TV set down onto their head. Dick noticed that it took a split-second for the stranger to realize that something was wrong; that there was a shadow moving on their left. The shadow began turning toward Dick to bring the gun to bear.

The television caught the prowler in the left shoulder, crumpling the joint under its weight. The gun discharged, lighting the entire scene with a strobe, blinding them both. Dick lost his footing and followed the television into the person below as the gun went skittering across the linoleum.

As Dick became entwined with the stranger, he quickly understood two things. This wasn’t Jane and this wasn’t a woman. After seeing and feeling the TV smash into this guy, Dick was amazed at how ferociously this person was fighting.

Dick’s senses felt as if they had been tilted. He was still temporarily blind from the gunshot, the cordite gagging him with its sharp aroma. His hearing had also been effected; the only sounds breaking through were the grunts and fleshy impacts of this close-order fighting.

Rolling back and forth, each man tried to gain the upper hand. After what seemed like hours to Dick but was only a few seconds, he knew he was losing to this stranger. The man managed to roll on top of Dick, pinning Dick’s arms underneath his knees, pushing his thumbs into Dick’s windpipe.

Dots and swirls formed in front of his eyes as cottony whiteness seemingly gobbled up his peripheral vision. The roaring Dick was hearing was his blood trying to force its way to his brain. He knew that he had mere seconds before he either passed out or died.

He desperately tried a bucking motion, trying to throw his opponent like a mechanical bull in a country bar. But either Dick was too weak or his assailant was experienced at this type of macabre rodeo event and managed to maintain his position and his strangle hold.

The crunch of glass and the pebbly feeling of small shards cutting into his back signaled to Dick the spot where the television set found its final resting-place. The thought that it also was going to be his final place galvanized his floundering once more.

His hand brushed against something that they immediately recognized as a weapon and the reptilian portion of his brain took over. It must have, because Dick had no recollection of what he did next.

Grabbing one of the antennas of the rabbit ears, Dick brought his fist up in an arcing motion and plunged the shaft into his opponent’s eye.

The slowed down version of the world that Dick had experienced only moments before returned. Only snippets of data and sensory information were being allowed into Dick’s brain, as if it feared some type of overload.

The sound of his foe’s eye popping mixed with the sensation of warm liquid pouring out over his fist, running down his forearm and he violently twisted his head to keep it from dropping into his gasping mouth as he struggled for air.

The gunman’s grunting turned into an animalistic howl of rage that broke down toward the last, ending in a choking kind of exhalation. It reminded Dick of the choking sound that he had been making a split-second earlier.

A sharp pain broke through Dick’s befuddled shock, as the dying man’s knees tried to clench together like a bully’s fist. The only obstruction was Dick’s chest and several of his ribs broke. Then the stranger’s body rolled off to the side.

The last fragment of information brought to his brain’s attention apparently had the ability to turn the alligator portion’s switch to off. Dick’s nose was detecting the unmistakable stench of feces. He squirmed his bottom against the floor to determine that it wasn’t his and was instantly proud that he hadn’t soiled himself. The gleeful thought that it had been the other guy to shit himself turned to shame, though Dick couldn’t figure out why.

Dick scrambled across the kitchen floor trying to locate where the gun had come to rest. His knuckles banged against the gun’s steel and he grabbed at it like a drowning man does a lifeline. He didn’t know who the dead man was, but he knew that he hadn’t been mistaken about the perfume.

Dick felt his way back to the breaker box, flipping the mains back on to survey the damage that had been wrought. The terror he felt at the actual sight of the body was stronger than he had thought possible. It was lying in the doorway, almost perfectly halfway between the kitchen and the living room. The rabbit ears’ base was standing at attention, attached by a thin telescoping rod of metal to a face Dick knew he would see in nightmares the rest of his life.

Fearing a hand going around his ankle like a cheap horror movie, Dick stepped over the corpse, keeping the revolver trained on it all the time. He turned the corner and inched up the stairwell, breathing shallowly to maintain not only his silence, but to keep the pain in his ribs to a dull roar. Reaching the top, he glanced along the hallway, noticing his bedroom door was the only one ajar.

Walking down the hallway, Dick had to bite the inside of his lips to keep from screaming as he stepped on the creaking floorboard. He used the back of his hand to edge the door open further and then let the gun lead him inside. He used his elbow to find the switch, flooding the room with light. Dick was totally astounded by the tableau in front of him.

Naked, Jane was tied hand and foot to the four corners of his bed; her mouth stuffed with what appeared to be her panties.

Voices that he had heard earlier in the day came flooding back:

"It wasn’t my intention to bring up all this pain again…"

"I think it’s essential that you help with Jane’s therapy…"

"With this lawyer, you won’t be able to keep my baby in some hospital…"

"The other top story of the day…the Leawood strangler…"

Dick slowly moved into the room.

Much later the Medical Examiner’s assistants were readying the body bag for the Leawood Strangler.

"God damn. Would you look at that? I mean eeeewwww..uck."

"I know. I wonder what kind of reception this guy can get off that? I mean, who uses rabbit ears anymore, anyway?"

"After looking at that dude’s throat, he sure is lucky that he was."

"Did you see the girl?"

"Yeah, he did a helluva piece of work on her. I thought this Strangler dude just raped ‘em and choked ‘em?"

"And then he stuffs their panties in their mouths, the sick fuck."

"So why’d he do it different tonight? Why’d he shoot her in the head five times?"

"How would I know, man? Crazy people do crazy shit."

"You got that right. I wonder if the doc wants me to bag this antenna somehow. Hey, grab that zipper, will ya?"

-- Trace Estes