Evil in Me, page 2
“Where are my clothes? It’s snowing for heaven’s sake.” He blinked and the gory face of Rabbi Reuben came into focus; a kitchen knife embedded in his eye. Adam recognized the knife and blinked again. “What? What’s going on?” It came to him in a rush, all of it, no detail spared. He looked from Rabbi Reuben’s body to that of the rabbi’s wife.
“No!” he cried. “No! No!”
He held up his bloody left hand, stared at the hateful ring, the spider thing with the demon eye. It was but a ring again. He snatched hold of the knife with his right hand and without hesitation began to hack at his finger, sawing and chopping, finding out quickly that cutting off one’s own finger wasn’t such an easy task. He kept going, screaming until he sawed right through the bone. His middle finger plopped into the snow.
He stared.
Where was the ring?
He looked at his hand. The ring was on his index finger now.
“What the fuck!” He attacked that finger with the blade, spittle flying from his lips as he sawed away.
He heard the voice. Stop, just stop. You cannot win.
“Fuck you!” Adam shrieked and kept sawing until the digit tore away, falling into the snow next to the first.
“The ring? Where’s the goddamn ring?” He checked the three remaining fingers on his left hand; it wasn’t there.
He felt a sting on his right hand.
No, he thought, closing his eyes, not wanting to look. No. Slowly he opened his eyes and there it was, the ring wrapped tightly around the middle finger of his right hand.
Adam Feldstein, sitting in the snow, astride the simmering body of his rabbi, covered in blood and wearing only a pair of mismatched socks, began to sob uncontrollably.
“Drop the knife!” A cop stood, legs planted wide, his service revolver pointed at him. “Drop it, buddy! Not gonna tell you again!”
His partner, a burly man approaching retirement age, came running up behind him. “Oh, shit! What the fuck we got here?”
“Help me,” Adam cried. “Help me!”
“Drop the knife,” the first cop repeated, despite saying he wouldn’t.
Adam shoved the knife up under his own neck.
“Hold on,” the other cop shouted. “Just hold on a minute.”
Adam slid the knife, the knife he’d used to cut his daughter’s birthday cake, across his own neck. He had a moment to enjoy the warmth of his own blood running down his neck and chest, then fell over on his back, staring up into the billowing smoke as the night faded.
The voice, the other, let out a dispirited sigh, but Adam didn’t hear it. Adam, or at least his soul, his essence, was shrinking, screaming in shock, horror, and confusion as it was being sucked into the ring, through the ring, funneled down into the land of fire and pain.
RUBY
1985, ENTERPRISE, ALABAMA
Twenty-three-year-old Ruby Tucker, in her ripped jeans and ragged high-tops held together with safety pins, sat in a metal folding chair with an acoustic guitar on her lap. She was strumming along with the kids. There were nine of them, boys and girls ranging from Nancy, the youngest at eleven, to Marky, who was fourteen. They were all playing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore,” playing it badly, their faces cinched up like there was a dead fish in the room.
Ruby raised a hand and they stopped, looking relieved, like someone had just let them out of jail.
Ruby pushed a strand of long red hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear, then nodded to Marky. He smiled and dashed to the door, pushing it shut.
Ruby tugged a cassette labeled PISS OFF from her Walkman, and slid it into the boom box on the table next to her. She glanced back at the door, then gave the kids a wink. They all grinned and pulled out the chord sheet she’d given them last month. “GARBAGEMAN,” BY THE CRAMPS, was written across the top in creepy letters, an even creepier image of the band leered out from below.
“Y’all ready?”
It took a moment for the kids to place their fingers. Ruby waited another for Nancy to set hers, then pushed play.
Poison Ivy’s grinding guitar rumbled out of the boom box, and the kids’ faces lit up as they began to play along.
“E,” Ruby said. “Now G.” Their small fingers bouncing and sliding on the strings. “That’s it. Now E again. There … you got it!”
They stumbled, missing chords here and there, but overall, they were doing it; after only a few weeks of practice, almost every one of them was keeping time with Ms. Poison Ivy Rorschach herself. The rumpus tune echoed off the hard cement walls of the YMCA music room, and it sounded like heaven to Ruby.
Ruby joined in, unable to help herself; a small, almost sinister smile spread across her pale, freckled face.
If you’d told Ruby a year ago that she’d not only be teaching little twerps to play guitar, but actually digging it, she’d have laughed at you. But she hadn’t felt this alive in months, the music flowing through her like adrenaline. And she knew why, exactly why: because she’d stopped taking those damn pills, the lithium ones, about two weeks ago. And now her mind felt free of the fog. She’d been on medication since she was fourteen, but stopped whenever she could get away with it, hating the way they made her feel.
I’m not schizo, she thought. Got a temper, sure, just like my daddy, but I’m not manic-depressive, or that new word everyone’s tossing around—bipolar. No, that ain’t me, not at all. Don’t care what Dr. Fatass Ferguson thinks. Don’t care what Momma thinks. Because I know I don’t need those pills killing my soul. What I need is more art and music, and for people to give me some goddamn space.
A twinge of anxiety pricked her—knowing how much trouble she’d be in if anyone found out she’d stopped taking her medication. And not just from her doctor and her mom, but from the judge this time. This was her last chance. One more incident, one more of her little blowups, and they wouldn’t be talking about some treatment center this time, but state correctional.
Let it go, she thought. No one’s gonna find out, cause this time you’re gonna keep your shit together. Yes ma’am. So just let it go. And she did, the music helping her to forget about her blowups, her arrest, probation, all of it. Just a week left and I’m out of this pea-patch town for good. Off to find Tina … off to finally get the band going again.
Ruby’s eyes were closed, her mind floating, so she barely noticed when the kids stopped playing, not realizing anything was wrong until someone clicked off the boom box.
Ruby opened her eyes to see the kids’ horrified faces and turned to find Mrs. Wright, the YMCA director, staring at her.
“Ruby,” Mrs. Wright said, tersely. “Would you mind stepping out into the hall with me?”
“Aww, don’t get cross with Ruby,” Marky said. “We’re the ones that wanted to play that song.”
“Yeah,” the other kids chimed in.
Mrs. Wright glared at them and a chill fell over the room. She ejected the tape and held it up. “This is ugly music. We don’t play ugly music at the Y.” She slipped the cassette into her pocket.
That wasn’t just any tape, Ruby’s best friend Tina had made it for her. Ruby felt her face flush, actually started to snatch the cassette back, to take it right out of the woman’s pocket. No, she thought. Keep cool. Just keep cool.
Mrs. Wright squinted at the chord sheet on Marky’s music stand, her eyes going wide like she’d spotted a snake. She marched over, yanked up the sheet, the one with the Cramps leering out at them, and held it up like it were soaked in urine. “What kind of deviltry is this?” She walked from student to student, snatching away their music sheets and tucking them under her arm. “No ma’am and no sirree! No, no, no! Not in my Y!”
Mrs. Wright took a deep breath, picked up the booklet off Marky’s stand—Favorite Christian Folk Songs. “Look here,” she said, holding the booklet up. She was speaking calmly now, but Ruby could hear the strain, like a wire about to snap. “There’s so many beautiful songs in here.”
“Aww,” Nancy grumbled. “But we don’t wanna play that boring old stuff.”
For a second, Ruby thought Mrs. Wright was going to shove the booklet into Nancy’s mouth. Instead, she took another deep breath and set her cold eyes on Ruby. “Ruby, in the hall. Now.”
Fuck, Ruby thought. When am I gonna learn? She stood and followed Mrs. Wright out. Now, mind yourself, Ruby. Mind … your … self.
Mrs. Wright walked over to a watercolor painting hanging above the drinking fountain and straightened it.
Mrs. Wright not only ran the Enterprise YMCA, she also taught piano and painted quaint watercolors of local produce. Her work wasn’t bad, not at all; why she’d won third place in the local Piney Woods Art Festival eight years ago. That painting, along with the ribbon, hung in the front office, right behind her desk so nobody could miss it. Several of her other works, including a barn that had won honorable mention—that one had the ribbon on it as well—were hung throughout the facility. As Mr. Miller, the custodian, had once confided to Ruby, “She thinks the place is her own gawd-dang art gallery.”
Mrs. Wright turned from her painting and looked at Ruby with one eye narrowed, slowly shaking her head as though she couldn’t even find the words. “This is the YMCA, Ruby.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Do you know what the C stands for in YMCA?”
“Why … yes, ma’am. I do.”
“Please tell me.”
“Christian.”
Mrs. Wright held up the Cramps music sheet. “Well then, I needn’t be wasting my breath explaining why I can’t have you teaching the children to play this Devil music, need I?”
“Devil’s music? What? No…” Ruby could hear her voice rising and stopped. “Mrs. Wright, ma’am, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I know I should’ve checked with you first.”
Mrs. Wright’s face softened a touch.
Don’t say nothing else, Ruby thought, just leave it there. “But,” Ruby continued. “They were just bored to death with those old songs. I thought maybe it’d be good to break it up a little, y’know. So, I was just trying to come up with a way to make it fun for them. That’s all.”
The corner of Mrs. Wright’s mouth twitched.
I need to stop talking, Ruby thought. “I’m not saying they should be playing Devil’s music or anything like that. Of course not. Just worried if we don’t come up with something a bit more … I don’t know … hip maybe? Those kids aren’t gonna wanna come back … might quit playing altogether for that matter.”
Mrs. Wright’s eyes bore into Ruby.
Ruby closed her mouth and bit her tongue.
A long silence followed, then slowly a thin smile spread across Mrs. Wright’s face. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is your very first group of students. Am I wrong?” She waited. “Am I?”
“Well … no, ma’am. You aren’t.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been teaching music? And not just music, but art too? Teaching kids and adults alike?”
“I don’t.”
“Since before you were born. Been playing piano every Sunday down at First Baptist for going on thirty years now. Why, my paintings have won awards. Did you know that?”
“Well … yeah,” Ruby said, and thought, everybody in the fucking building knows that.
“Seems fair then, to say I know a thing or two about art and music. Doesn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Interesting then, isn’t it? That being the case and all, yet you still got a mind to be lecturing me on how to teach.”
“Lecturing? No! No ma’am! I wasn’t doing no such a thing.” Fuck, Ruby thought, wondering how she kept digging herself in deeper. “Just trying to say, let’s make things as fun as we can. That’s all.”
Mrs. Wright looked Ruby up and down again, let out a long sigh. “I think maybe it’s time we switch gears here.”
“Ma’am?”
“You need a break from those kids and Mr. Miller needs some help. The boys’ bathroom is a mess—little boys don’t seem to have very good aim, if you get what I mean. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to go give those toilets and sinks a good scrub.”
“What? No! I’m not your janitor!” Ruby cried before she could stop herself, a small speck of spittle flying from her lips. She could feel her face going scarlet, but this was the third time this month Mrs. Wright had made her clean the bathrooms.
The smallest of smiles tickled the corner of Mrs. Wright’s mouth. Ruby had endured that smile most of her adult life. It said, See there, she is crazy. Look at her, you can see it in her eyes.
Ruby sucked in a breath, closed her eyes for a long second, then reopened them. “I’m sorry. Sorry, Mrs. Wright. But please give me another chance with those kids. Please.”
Mrs. Wright crossed her arms and shook her head. “Can’t let you go back in there while you’re in this state.”
State? What state? Ruby wondered. What the fuck is she even talking about? I barely even raised my voice. Why is it that everybody else can cuss and carry on and no one hardly blinks? But if I so much as pipe up, I’m bat-shit crazy. Ruby clutched her hands together to keep them from shaking.
“I think,” Mrs. Wright said. “Doing something else for a while would be good for you, anyhow.”
“But … Mrs. Wright, cleaning toilets isn’t what I volunteered for. I’m supposed to be teaching guitar.”
Mrs. Wright’s eyes narrowed. “Dear, you didn’t volunteer for nothing. You were given a choice … jail time or community service.”
That took some steam out of Ruby because it was true—the incident, the arrest, the whole mess—but there was more to it. At Ruby’s parole hearing Judge Stevenson had given her a comprehensive interview, seemed to genuinely want to help her get on the right track. When he found out how much Ruby loved music, he’d been the one to propose teaching kids at the Y, as part of her community service obligations. And for the last several months Ruby had done just that, twice a week, found she really enjoyed working with these kids, wondered if teaching might be in her future.
“Mrs. Wright, the judge … well, he said that the teaching would be good for me. That’s why he sent me here. And you know, I’ve really—”
“And how do you think Judge Stevenson will feel if I tell him about you teaching those kids to play Devil’s music.” She shook the flyers. “Passing out this … this satanic material to minors?”
Ruby flinched, felt her blood heat up. She’s just trying to set me off. Does she just want me to fail? Is that it? Ruby dug her nails into her palm. Let it go. Let … it … go, she begged herself, because she knew whatever games Mrs. Wright might be playing, if she made her mad, Mrs. Wright could say anything she wanted. And a bad report would mean she’d have to continue her probation, that she’d never get out of here. And a really bad report would mean she’d be on her way to state, and worse, they’d probably up her meds too. There’d even been whispers of a conservatorship.
“Ruby, I can see you’re upset. That you’re angry with me right now. But you should know that you’re not the first wayward soul I’ve been asked to help. And what you need to understand is that the judge sent you to me for a reason … because he trusts me to know what’s best for you. So, you need to trust me too. But in this case, it’s not just what’s best for you, but also for those kids. And I don’t feel things are working out so well. So, for this last week, we’re gonna find you something else to do. You do a good job and we’ll just let this other go. That sound fair?”
No, Ruby thought, doesn’t sound fair at all. Sounds like bullshit. Sounds like you’re just jealous those kids like me so much better than you. That’s what it sounds like.
“Ruby … does that sound fair?”
Ruby didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just nodded.
“Good. Now, you know where the mop is don’t you?”
Ruby nodded again.
“Alright, let’s get to it. I’ll be in to check on you later.”
Ruby headed down the hall, glancing back just in time to catch Mrs. Wright tossing her cassette into the garbage.
“You bitch!” Ruby hissed.
She waited until Mrs. Wright returned to the music room, then dug the tape out, wiping away the cookie crumbs.
“Bitch,” she said again and headed for the mop closet.
* * *
The bathrooms were at the far end of the corridor. As Ruby wheeled the mop bucket along, she passed a series of doors that opened into long row buildings. These rooms looked like open wards, or barracks, and there was a reason for that—they once were. Apparently, the whole compound used to be a prison; it was converted into the YMCA sometime in the early sixties, after a couple of inmates escaped and went on a murder spree in a nearby neighborhood. The contractors had done the minimum to convert the compound, even the two old guard towers remained. So, the place gave off an oppressive air, making it easy for Ruby to feel like a prisoner herself at times, with Mrs. Wright the cranky old warden bent on keeping her down. And there, between each ward, was one of Warden Wright’s quaint watercolors staring back at her, mocking her.
Ruby steered the mop bucket into the boys’ restroom, not even bothering to knock. Some boy who looked to be around twelve let out a shriek, getting pee down the front of his pants as he rushed to zip up his fly.
“Hey!” he cried. “You ain’t supposed to be in here.”
“Get out,” Ruby barked, and when he didn’t move fast enough, she jabbed the mop at him.
The boy fled.
Ruby peered into the stalls. Mrs. Wright was correct, it appeared as though kids were peeing everywhere but into the toilet itself.
“Fuck!” Ruby said, tugging out her headphones. She put them on and slid the cassette out of her back pocket. She stared at the words PISS OFF, written all in red, in Tina’s bold handwriting. “God, I sure miss you, Tina.”
They’d met in high school art class, Ruby then a sophomore and Tina a junior. Tina arrived late to class and took a seat next to Ruby at the very back. Ruby couldn’t stop staring. Tina was Asian, that alone made her stand out in southern Alabama, but that wasn’t why Ruby was staring—it was her hair, it was cut short, hacked would be a better word, like with lawn clippers. Not only that, but her clothes, they were, well, ragged—a faded black T-shirt with the arms cut out, a pair of dingy high-tops covered in safety pins, and jeans with big holes in the knees. Ruby was trying to understand why anyone would dress that bad on purpose, wondered if there was something mentally off with this girl.
