“Timmy, you have used up almost all of my glass spice jars. What are you doing with them?”
“Just collecting small things, insects, and stuff, so the small jars are a perfect size. You can buy more, right?”
“Well, OK, but be careful not to break them and get cut.”
“I’ll be careful, Mom.”
“Good and be even more careful with that pellet gun. I still think your father shouldn’t have bought that for you. I can see getting that utility tool, but not the gun.”
“You don’t need to worry, Mom. I’m twelve years old. I’m not a baby.”
Joan tried to be a good single mom. The divorce from Tim Sr. was like most divorces, contentious, but at least they both tried to be civil when Timmy was around. They were both getting better at that.
When still married, Tim Sr. helped Timmy build a backyard tree-fort though Timmy preferred to call it his tree-fort. It was built in the sprawling oak tree that shaded their back yard. It was solidly built to satisfy Joan’s constant worries. Tim Sr. made sure of that. He was proud of his son and cared about his safety, too.
Timmy helped his dad build a solid floor about 12-15 feet off the ground. Then came the half-walls that rose four feet up from the tree-fort floor. This made it easy to see in all directions, depending on how many limbs and leaves are in the way, but from below you what you were doing remained hidden.
Timmy was a loner, not quite anti-social, but close. His mom and dad talked about having him see a professional. They even took him to a child psychologist. It was only one visit, though, because Timmy refused to return. He said he didn’t like the smell of the asshole. He ignored the parental reprimand.
But that was a moot point because the psychologist didn’t want him to come back after Timmy pulled a dead frog out of his pocket, squeezed guts, blood and body fluids onto the floor, then, with a sadistic laugh, threw the mangled frog at the psychologist, where it stuck to the stomach of his dress shirt, oozing more guts, blood, and body fluids.
The psychologist was horrified, disgusted, angry. He grabbed Timmy by the upper arm, dragged the smiling boy out of his office and into the waiting room where his mom and dad stood up in shock.
“See this expensive shirt? See the ugly, disgusting stain!” he screamed. “Your disturbed brat squeezed the guts out of this frog,” he held it out for them to see, then threw it at me. Get him out of my office and don’t bring him back. He’s incorrigibly sadistic.”
The psychologist glanced at Timmy, who was still smiling. “Look. Look at him. He’s smiling. Thinks this is funny. You’ve got a quickly maturing sadist on your hands.” He pointed to the exit, his hand shaking, his face cherry red, then shouted, “Get out!”
“But he’s usually fine at home. He’s a loner, doesn’t have friends, but well behaved, and polite. I don’t understand,” Joan responded, her face contorted by disbelief.
Tim Sr., angered by the man’s accusations, stepped forward, glared into the psychologist’s eyes, and shouted, “He’s a good kid. It was just a prank. You are a child psychologist. You know how kids this age can act up. Aren’t you exaggerating a bit? Overreacting to a prank? Hell, man, I’ll buy you a new shirt.”
“Are you two kidding me? Are you that out of touch concerning his attitudes and behaviors? Talk to his teachers, for God’s sake. Talk to the school principal. I did and the people I talked to said he’s creepy, strange, and uncooperative. And you don’t make friends with pranks like putting a snake down the back of a girl’s dress or in her desk, or bugs, lizards down the shirt of a boy. Jesus Christ, you have no idea just how far out of touch you are about his life, except for his home behavior. He’s sure got you fooled.” The psychologist kept pointing to the door. “Go, damn it.”
With no alternative, the family left the office.
When home, they did call Timmy’s teacher, and the next day Joan called the principal. Joan was startled when it turned out that she and Tim Sr. really were out of touch. Timmy was a menace in school, distracting the learning process, angering students with pranks and cruel verbal abuse, as well as flaunting his uncooperativeness.
As punishment, for a week, Timmy lost the use of his gun, forfeited his weekly allowance, was confined to the house, and could not watch TV. It was agony for him. Each day he wanted to hurt everyone at school. He even had the darkest thoughts about his parents but forced the thoughts to go away. He knew he needed to act one way that pleased others, but then secretly feel another way with bitterness and hate.
Three days after the punishment ended Joan got a surprisingly good review of Timmy’s dramatic improvements in school. His attitudes and behaviors had become commendable, and both teacher and principal were grateful for whatever they did to correct Timmy’s school related behaviors. The letter was signed by both the teacher and the principal.
Timmy even got a tree-fort roof, made from a heavy tarp, as a reward for such a speedy change. But, for those ten days before the complimentary letter Timmy had to become a great actor. He did, too. He turned into an Oscar worthy, consummate actor, playing his role as an angel of dramatic positive changes. It involved a lot of standing in front of his bedroom mirror, talking to himself, practicing niceties and politeness, being his own cheerleader. He was a natural.
With the punishment over and back to his normal routines he was temporarily satisfied. But he needed a place to have sanctuary for the sinister thoughts that were now expertly concealed at home and in school. The walls of his tree-fort provided this privacy, as did the forest. These were places where his true feelings could come into focus, and fester in his mind, eyes darkening into midnight, with lightning flashes of anger and revenge roaring in his ears. He often got a bloody nose when these emotions took control of his mind. He would blackout for a short time.
Some nights he snuck out of his ground-level bedroom window and visited his fort where his cache of dead specimens was kept in those clear, spice-size jars. He would touch them, almost as if caressing a loved object. He was smart enough to place red crepe paper over his flashlight lens to conceal his activity as he sat behind the fort wall. On moon-lit nights the flashlight was not needed. He could sit for hours, in a trance, thinking, thinking, then smiling as his eyes darkened and a feral grin consumed his face. He was never caught doing this.
He was immensely proud of his specimen collection, as if each bottle was worth its weight in gold. But Timmy didn’t have much use for riches. His desires leaned toward the hedonistic pleasures of cruelty, something money couldn’t buy now, but could in the future.
That weekend Timmy asked for a board to build another longer shelf in the tree-fort. His mom got it for him from his dad’s pile of extra boards from other projects. He had the new shelf built by mid-afternoon. With his extra time, he neatly labeled all the bottles and spaced them out on the old shelf, in a straight line, the distance between them the same.
He stared at them as if the shelf was an altar of worship. He looked at the baby snake, the small frog, a spider, a butterfly, a chipmunk’s tail, but his prized specimens were the bird heart, the squirrel tongue, the rabbit liver, a cat’s eyes, and most of all that same cat’s baby fetuses. He didn’t know the cat was going to have a litter, but it was a grand, thrilling feeling for him to look into those two jars.
Then he turned to look at his newly completed, longer shelf, no jars on it, yet.
He looked at his watch and realized that he still had time to visit the forest. He got his gun and was on his way thinking of both gore and happiness galore.
One thing he hated about the forest was the noise, especially the damn birds. Maybe he needed more bird hearts he thought in anger. Yeah, you bastards. He aimed his gun upward, pulled the trigger and down plummeted a bird as silence rose upward. Bird chirps irritated his ear drums, but now he could sense the glory of silence.
But the silence didn’t last long. Nutshells were hitting the ground around him. Squirrel, he thought. He listened for its chattering, isolated the noise, saw the bastard, aimed, shot, and down came the dead squirrel.
Dinnertime would be coming soon so, with his utility tool, he cut the heart out of both specimens—he thought of them simply as specimens in a science laboratory—not as lives. He placed the bird’s heart in the jar with the other bird heart, then placed the squirrel heart in the jar with the squirrel’s tongue.
Damn, he thought, wouldn’t it be grand to fill the jars with parts of his kills?
He climbed down the ladder, hurried to the garage, which had a sink, washed the gore and blood off his hands, not wanting his mom or dad to see it and ask questions.
During one school day Ms. Stevens acted callously toward him and he didn’t know why. He was sure she didn’t suspect him of the super-glue prank, so he approached her desk and asked her what was the matter.
“I’m disappointed, Timmy. What did you think of the sad face I drew on the poor grade you got on your math test? You can do so much better than that.” Then she made the mistake of saying, “You are not retarded you know. I do my best, so you should do your best.” She immediately apologized, told Timmy she didn’t mean to say that, but Timmy just turned away from her, went to his desk and smiled at her. Another Oscar worthy performance.
After school, he went home and got on the Internet. He found where Ms. Stevens lived and was thrilled that it was only about a fourth of a mile away.
After dinner he did his homework well enough to get by, then watched TV with his mom, being especially nice to her so she would vividly remember this nighttime togetherness.
Bedtime came, so he washed, brushed his teeth, put on his pajama bottoms just like a good boy would do. He set his alarm clock for 2:00 a.m. and placed it under his pillow. Shortly after that his mom came to kiss him and to say good night. She turned off his light as she left.
The muted sound of the alarm went off. He got up, dressed, checked his pocket for the tube, opened his window and started for Ms. Stevens’s house. He ran for five minutes and was there.
When he accomplished his task, he ran home, climbed into the open window, undressed, cooled off, and climbed back into bed. He was only gone about an hour. He had restful sleep. He rose in a cheery mood the next day and was unusually happy to go to school.
Once in school, he found what he expected. Ms. Stevens was not there. The class would have Mrs. Dobbs as their substitute teacher. He would be the best-behaved student in the entire school. He would kiss the substitute teacher’s ass all day, be the best helper, be mannerly and polite to other students. If he saw his vile principal, he would enlarge his smile, and greet the other teachers kindly while killing them in his imagination. Such a marvelous day it would be. Memorable, too. Mrs. Dobbs would certainly remember him and his wonderful behavior.
However, he needed to avoid Fat Freddie, the bully. Freddie hated him. Timmy grinned. Fat Freddie was the only person to whom he was not nice. But he would try not to antagonize him today. Now would be a bad time for a punch to the stomach or ribs. He especially remembered his sore ribs. Every movement was painful, and it took them a long time to heal. No witty sarcasm, as usual, just pass him in the hallway as quickly as possible. He didn’t see Fat Freddie all day.
Timmy’s classroom had swimming in their Physical Education class today, so he also needed to be nice to Mr. ‘Buck-tooth’ Bradshaw, the macho creep who usually called him Mr. Wimpy or Pencil Man due to his thinness and short stature.
By the end of the day the rumor about Ms. Stevens was that there was a locksmith at her house all day. Apparently, someone had squeezed super-glue into all her external house, garage, and car key holes.
Timmy thought, “See, no ‘retard’ would be that clever. And I’ll get away with it, too. Expensive repairs, huh, bitch?”
When Timmy got home his mom said, “Your principal called me this afternoon.”
“Holy crap, mom. I haven’t had time to even close the door and you’re already in my face about something. What did he say I did?”
Staying calm—innocent looks best on a calm face—he put his books down on the end table, put his coat away and sat on the couch with his mom.
“He couldn’t possibly know it was me,” he thought, as he looked sincerely up at his mom. “What’s up?”
He was surprised to see the smile on his mom’s face. But why?
Your principal called to see if you were home last night. Someone did something to your teacher’s house and car. He was suspicious that you may have done it. I don’t like it when someone gets into trouble, then corrects their behavior, but still get blamed for other people’s mischief. I was pleased and proud to guarantee to your principal that you were in bed, asleep the whole night.
Ms. Stevens returned the next day but would not look at Timmy. She avoided him. He collected his courage and went to her desk while other kids were doing homework at the end of the day.
Timmy stood in front of her desk. She looked up at him, sadness showing in her eyes and mouth. With exaggerated, false sincerity he quietly said, “You probably think I did that awful glue thing to you, but I didn’t. I truly did not do it, Ms. Stevens. I swear to God I didn’t do it.” Tears appeared to moisten Timmy’s eyes. His lips drooped as if in sadness for her.
Ms. Stevens looked at his pathetic face, full of emotional sympathy and responded, “I believe you Timmy because you have genuinely tried your best to improve your behavior.”
“Thanks,” Timmy said in a phlegmy, strained voice. He turned around and walked back to his desk thinking, “I should change my name to Oscar.” He could hardly stop himself from laughing, but another feeling seemed to be souring his stomach. Bitterness.
Over the weekend, he killed Fat Freddie’s cat. He slit open its belly and left it hanging on the porch.
He spent increased time in his tree-fort feeling more comfortable with his collection of specimens. He ran the palm of his right hand along the new shelf. It was empty now as he passed his palm over the entire length to remove dust, dirt, and pieces of bark.
His dad was coming to dinner that night. Timmy noticed that his parents were treating each other nicely, and even when he was not around, but within hearing range, he did not hear their occasional arguments. He was happy to see his dad more often but was scared that having him around too much would upset his private interests and routines. He finished admiring his collection just in time for dinner.
At the dinner table, all was quiet. Timmy smiled at his mom, then at his dad, suspicious about their quietness and if it were due to something that would negatively affect him, somehow. “What’s going on?” he asked.
His silence turned to reverie when he saw that on his plate was a good-sized serving of liver and onions, with peas in a separate, smaller bowl, plus a glass full of milk. He thought of the rabbit’s liver specimen and the thrill grew twice as intense. The liver tasted better than last time. All he said was, “Wow!” then filled his mouth with a large chunk of liver covered in onions. Timmy smiled at his mom and dad with stuffed cheeks.
Timmy remembered their quietness, so with cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk, he carefully asked, “Woot gooin on?”
Timmy’s mom and dad explained that they were going to get back together to try to make the marriage work and be family, again.
“Fantastic!” Timmy said as some food sprayed out of his mouth. He stood and clapped happily.
Tim Sr. and Joan marveled at their son’s happiness, glad to share it with him. It was a happy, friendly, family meal. Everyone left the table happy. Joan and Tim washed the dishes together with sweet sounding whispers echoing as if passing through a tunnel of love.
Through a veil of parental whispers, Timmy bounded up to his parents, saying, “I need much larger jars, like Mason jars. Can one of you buy six of them for me? That should be enough for a start.”
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