Surreal, When Evening Comes
Leonard.
Leonard is scary. You have to say his name slow, like he does. Lin-errrd. Linn-eerd Wec-grrrr.
He walks slow too; kind of a stiff-leg/bow-leg drag. It gives me the creeps.
At sunrise I saw him hunch across the gas station parking lot through my back window curtain. Something glinted in his hand, but it was a coffee cup, not a knife. Leonard makes me shiver.
His face is round and thick (didn't 'Pumpkinhead' kill people with an axe?), more moon-like and rounder than Hannibal Lector's—although his eyes are blue and stare the same way.
I've talked with Leonard once and hid my panic. I recalled that line to Agent Starling: “People will say we're In Love."
I remember Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade and visualize Leonard swinging his arm above my body and the blood spatter and no change in his expression at all…
Leonard says he got his limp in Vietnam. But Leonard is a Liar.
I have great fear since I talked to Leonard. I couldn’t get away. I have ‘good listener’ and ‘insecure’ and ‘easy prey’ tattooed on my forehead. I sat and listened and was polite and said all the right things. Leonard is quiet. He’s country with a horrifying mixture of black leather. His mumbled speech shuffles like feet and I could hear the dueling banjos twang in my mind as he drawled forth his pathetic story. He spent a great deal of time rambling ‘bout his sad return from the war and how people treated him like shit then and treat him like shit now. I sensed his need for sympathetic response, but something was a little off. I clenched my fists under the coffee booth to calm rising hysteria. He radiated underlying hatred and fierce analytical judgment, and by God deliver me… if I can’t come up with the correct thing to say… Well, the hairs were rising on the back of my neck…
He just makes me afraid. My stomach flops. Who is he really? Leonard looks special ed and weirdo and bad dresser. I can’t use the word ‘psycho’ just yet. He’s the most morose, wretchedly dejected man you’ve ever seen, but that’s not quite right. He’s a freak. Other people say, “Leonard’s alright. Just a little odd.” But I’ve glimpsed the hidden rage that boils beneath the skin. I’ve seen it because I watch--carefully.
I go for coffee at 6:15; sit with the locals and chat. I watch the windows and try to ‘leave by Leonard’— that means when he pulls up, I head out. Sometimes I can’t escape. Leonard came in for coffee and sat one booth away; I was relieved ours’ had no room. He sits with ‘Newt’, a mentally challenged man who resembles the dwarf Dopey, but gangly with wildly thrashing arms and a scratchy voice that gets louder and foul. He’s a lawn man and ‘pointed in the right direction, he makes a helluva worker, a helluva worker’. Leonard aids Newt in his more difficult lawn endeavors. Leonard helps him out when he offers ‘cause they ‘get along’.
I avoid eye contact but am aware that Leonard attracts a lot of attention. He sports a bright plaid shirt too hot for summer and a ridiculously wide dull tie that have no business being worn together, or separate, or anywhere else for that matter.
I noticed his black Harley boots and his brown leather belt that’s hitched around with a big twist in the back and my shoulder blades crawl because I want to giggle but don’t and pray no one points out that belt because they’re already goin’ for the tie…
Shut up, I think. Haven’t you folk seen Full Metal Jacket? You need to just shut the fuck up. Leonard has a red flush at the base of his neck and out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a muscle pull tight in his jaw. No, they don’t see that. He has already mumbled something about ‘going to a funeral’, but one more customer comes in and makes a tie comment and Leonard’s cup hits the table a little too hard.
He sits for a few more seconds and heads for the door—the fastest I’ve seen him move and then someone wonders aloud why he didn’t say goodbye…
I leave fast, ashamed of them and ashamed of me, dreading he has a gun named Charlene in that car. Sweet sweet Charlene.
I’ve become morbidly fascinated—too curious and a bit obsessed. I should know better and I do know better... Many years ago I met a man. We talked a lot and he really seemed ok, just like Francis Dolarhyde did, but I was driven to a lake and asked if I would miss my daughter if she disappeared. She was only two and he wanted to see me panic, but I could read that, and acted tired and bored instead. Nights later we hid in her closet while he ripped the window screens. And, after that, when he pulled a .9mm in the dark of the Kmart parking lot, towering, menacing, I reached out with both hands saying ‘Wow! My brother has one just like this!’ and feigned interest and made the right comments before casually tossing that black gun into the back seat of his car, clear to the opposite side. ‘Nice to see you; take care’. He growled that he was going to be famous someday and I drove fast, shaking, to the police station and stayed there crying forever and ever. You can’t ever tell about people. You can’t ever tell.
A man knocked on my door years ago when I first got my divorce. He started grabbing at me, slurring that I ‘must be so lonely’. I pushed him backward down the steps and clicked the lock.
I received bizarre letters once, signed Jake-the-Snake, Jake-the-Ultimate One. They were written by a patient from Pawnee Mental Health.
Out for a walk once, a man said hello from his front porch. I said hello too, and he bluntly blurted ‘I am dressed as a human today.’
I walked faster. Why do I meet all the weird ones?
My experience as a psycho-magnet makes me edgy. I have an excellent outward calm and a caring smile; never mind my guts twisting in knots. I manage to maintain at most times but am deplorably labeled ‘too nice’.
As a child, I begged my mom for her story about the man cooking a human heart. She told that and others; things that probably horrified her as a girl, and if I pleaded hard enough I got to stay up and watch about the Clutter family in nowheresville Holcomb, KS.
I’ve voraciously read most serial killer books but not since my daughter left for college. It sickened me: it could happen to her.
But I hear little tidbits about Leonard and it’s started to draw me in:
‘Leonard has a brother, you know…; he’s not all there. He tried to work as a greeter at Wal-Mart, but it didn’t work out….’
I can feel the lure:
‘Leonard has a daughter, but she hasn’t spoken to him in years and years.’ Leonard has a daughter? Newt has a child too and even a girlfriend. I am aghast--for some reason it appalls me. How did they get women?
My ears perk when I hear his name now:
‘Leonard goes to Wal-Mart and wanders around and ‘round. He stops in the aisle and just stands. Some of the workers say it scares the customers…’ Very creepy. I can see him quietly prowling about like he’s hunting elusive game. He has a way of sneaking up on people. What is he looking for? A friend? A victim? Conversation? Sex?
God. What the hell is wrong with me?
In the nighttime I lie awake and recall that Leonard lives on a farm, remote and quite obscure. I’m not sure where, but I’d like to find out. I think of the farmhouse in Plainfield, WI and the grainy crime scene photos; black and white viscera of Ed Gein's home furnishings.
Later, I jerk wide awake and clutch my covers. Gein had a retarded man that helped him dig graves. No, Newt is too smart....I drift off...
And later.
He saw me today. He stares. I nodded a weak hello and got no response. My spine is nervously taut. His face remains blank and heavy and yet he stares. I find my throat has frozen.
I think of Pinhead on Hellraiser with that mute maniacal presence. "Welcome to Oblivion," it finally speaks, but I know Leonard wouldn't use that word or utter it before he killed anyone. Just anger. He would just have the anger.
If I could trash that black vest with 'MIA' and 'POW' and the American flag and throw a black robe at him; then would he replace his hunting hat with a grid of pins? He just keeps staring and doesn't speak at all. The stillness is worse than any mumbling. Have I done something wrong?
He glowers like we're bugs on a pin and I wait for his cloud of doom and gloom to erupt in a hailstorm of bullets, or a machete, anything... but truthfully his hands appear as empty and numb as his mind...
Now I'm the Liar.
He does have a mind and it works very well. He's tricky, that Leonard. But he doesn't know that I know...
that he lied to me.
I don't like liars-- been lied to all my life. And I seethe when I think of being trapped in that coffee booth; him forcing those fantastical details of that fabricated trip to the 'Nam... It just pisses me off.
I tried to find Leonard on-line, but it was if he didn't exist and I missed him by seconds this morning--sporting nightmarish faux-pas Wrangler-meets-Nike-plus-Vet. But at least he didn't wave. And I'd take a country drive but I’m leery he'd walk out the door the moment I'd slip by his lane, and Newt is awful well-versed in all makes and modes of transportation. I'd hate to wake up in a dank hole pleading up to Precious...
Then:
“Leonard test drove a motorcycle and wrecked it in the lot.” Still trying to look like a Veteran, huh? Don’t garner sympathy from me.
“Leonard drove Newt to a girlie bar…” Ugghh. The both of them together. Lucas and Toole.
I sit up straight:
“Joe teased Leonard today and man was he mad! Called him the town Mayor! His ears were smokin’!” Asshole farmers…Do I want to see Leonard go off? Hell no!
And yes.
One summer a man in a wheelchair wanted to mow my lawn. He came back on a rider and I gave him ten bucks. That night, drunk, he beat a guy horrendously with a pool cue down at the local bar. After he was released from jail he grabbed the wheel of my son’s first bike, but let go when I called the cops.
At the end of the street a guy trades vegetables. He spouts horticultural tips with catholic religion, but actually seems rather harmless. The Virgin Mary, tomatoes, jacking off, levitation. He manages to fit it all into one sentence, but I only respond to the gardening part.
He brought a tomato last night.
A man in a green truck keeps circling my block. I met him a few times, nice-looking/clean-cut with cute brown eyes. Normal, thank God. But by the third time we spoke, he kept saying that he ‘liked me…really, really liked me’. Goddamn it. Part of the profile for a serial bully; plus I learn he’s been banned from a bar. He had me fooled... Looks are deceiving—even looks can lie.
I just despise liars.
I’ve been latching the screen door lately. Don’t know why. There are enough guns in here I could open my own pawn shop; but the fear is all Leonard’s fault, with his living in my head.
He’s just there all the time. That little niggling feeling that says ‘don’t look around’. On last night’s walk, after dusk, a car behind me slowed. That crawly feeling clamped behind my knees. And as I neared my house, I heard a creak, so I crouched behind my front yard tree eyeing my shades for shadows.
I was there quite a while, stalking my own home... Damn it Leonard, you’re wasting my time.
It wasn’t funny and I felt like such a fool…
Last night I slept with my son’s .45—the backdoor lock was broke. I felt justified, yet scared completely shitless by unrelated, insignificant matters: the random freaks, phone calls, the circling truck, myself hovering low behind a bush, Leonard’s mood, and now a flashlight beam casting about in the muffled shadows…
I feel surreal now, when the evenings come.
Like my mind fragilely balances mundane small-town normalcy with livid breakdowns in terror… I summoned the memory of the low humming passage read by Detective Somerset: I loved the word ‘banality’ in John Doe’s journal. Morgan Freeman’s voice could lull you to sleep, if not for the consuming horror …
I think I look relaxed to others, as they perceive the ‘banality’ of my existence, yet am relieved my mind is invisible to the public. I can also conceal a knife.
I just feel rather odd—incomprehensively so. I don’t know what to do. Like I’m leaning sideways or have that weird off-balance elevator feeling when it doesn’t run quite smooth…I had to go downstairs today… changing the air filter in the basement back room, hastily avoiding webs, but then I abruptly examined the walls. Strange—they’re at least 3 feet thick. I’d been absorbed by the chambered rooms belonging to Buffalo Bill; my basement’s dull by comparison, but my back room has a dirt floor…
I shake my head. Everything verges surreal.
When I discovered what really happened to Leonard, I could hardly stand up. I maintained false composure, of course, but barely so…. I staggered home across my back yard and I know my mouth gaped open…my head has been reeling.
Just reeling.
Spinning.
I have to stop and shake it and look around...unbelievable. It’s not real. I feel pity and horror and shock and terror…
I’m intensely sick with fear.
I’m sick because he smiled today. Earlier. It makes my discovery so much worse...a half-smile, staring only at me, while he sat there indefinitely and didn’t look away—just focused at my face and I was caught like petrified bait. Right after I’d bought my coffee. He sat opposite and did not look away and the corners of his mouth held that tiny freaky twist.
A small knowing smile never left his face; a psycho smile; and I looked everywhere about that place, everywhere but him; but it was there at each intimidated glimpse and my body swam and melted and felt de-boned in fear under that knowing grin…that tiny curl played about his lip and it made me want to scream…
I can’t take it anymore.
“You didn’t know? Leonard’s never been out of the state…”
“He’s adopted; him and his brother…the brother went crazy and got put away…”
I wanted to scream.
“They were chained; around the leg. Him and his brother—years, chained to a bed.”
I want to scream still.
I keep thinking--can’t stop thinking, can’t ever stop thinking, of all the nut jobs (Rameriz) and killers (Manson) and murderers (Bundy) and freaks (Gacy) and what makes them and how they’re made and I didn’t do it… why do I feel like I did? Why was he smiling at me? I wasn’t part of the name-calling and the sneers and mocking antagonizing cajoling lifelong taunts or domineering mothers alcoholic fathers that overwhelm and break down and damage and ruin personalities and control and control and create them. My god how much more control can you handle when you’re found wearing chains? Chains, chained, chained to a bed, around the leg; no wonder he’s nuts…this only happens in my movies and books and I’d sat with this man, this thing, and I should feel sorry but I’m petrified… and the world sways under so much pressure…him with his damaged ego and whacko friend and I know he’s gonna snap… he's gonna snap... I keep thinking—CAN’T stop thinking, can’t EVER stop thinking of all the nut jobs and killers and murderers and freaks…
WHY WAS HE SMILING AT ME?
He knows. He knows I know.
I can feel myself start to tilt.
And I peer out the back window in the near-dark….
while the truck circles and the phone rings and my jaws clench and there it is, his DAMN car pulling up with that horrendous Veteran flag, that LIE, and it IS him and I yank shut the curtain and make my way across the back yard…
Something glints in my hand,
and its not a coffee cup.
References—if you don’t know the following, visualize any bloody scene.
Pumpkinhead—horror movie
Hannibal Lector—movie/book Silence of the Lambs-- supremely intelligent killer
Agent Starling-- movie Silence of the Lambs
Billy Bob Thornton—mentally-ill murderer
Sling Blade—movie
Dueling banjo/shuffling speech- from movie Deliverance
Full Metal Jacket—horrible army movie
Sweet Charlene—weapon from Full Metal Jacket
Francis Dolarhyde-- movie/book Red Dragon-- majestic serial killer
Man cooking a human heart: Ed Gein, mentally-ill man
Clutter Family in Holcomb KS—true story
Ed Gein’s Plainsfield WI farmhouse
Pinhead on Hellraiser—diabolical-looking, horror movie
Precious—serial killer Buffalo Bill’ dog from Silence of the Lambs
Lucas and Tool—serial killer partners
Detective Somerset—from the gaspingly horrid serial killer movie Se7en.
John Doe—Se7en’s serial killer’s name
Morgan Freeman- detective on Se7en
Buffalo Bill—serial killer from Silence of the Lambs, aka Jame Gumb
Rameriz—serial killer
Manson—serial killer Helter Skelter
Bundy—serial killer
Gacy—disgusting serial killer
