Take a dark journey through the mind of a young woman.
RINGING
By M.N. Norton
Did anyone know that once again I was losing my mind? Did anyone care? I pondered the thought for a while; I couldn’t really decide. So rather than try to affect my oncoming madness in some positive way, I just sat at the foot of the bed and picked lint balls off the bright pink blanket. What I really wanted though, were some rainbow-colored lawn darts. There could be no greater joy than killing those god-awful sunflowers on the wallpaper, who’s only purpose in life was to torment the little butterflies who were, for what must have seemed an eternity, trapped there with them.
Three things in particular had been monumental in driving me to this less-than-joyful state. A man (as always), the telephone and my mother. My first teenage love seduced me, took every deep emotion from me, and then dumped me like a pile of dirty clothes down a laundry chute. Maybe I’d save a lawn dart for him as well. Mother had been insane herself for most of her life. Though not from natural causes. While I strove for Valedictorian in school, she coined the phrase ‘reality is for people who can’t handle drugs.’ Her medicine cabinet had more in common with the neighborhood pharmacy than a vanity case full of anti-perspirants and perfumes. I would watch her stand in front of the bathroom counter, and wonder what she saw in the mirror as she closed the door with the bottle in her hand. Was it the lined and haggard face of a miserable old woman reflecting the image of a tortured soul or just the shadow of an empty human being too far gone to even comprehend her own existence? As I watched her standing there I would think of how ironic the saying: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I don’t think the composer of these words understood the true depth of what he had said.
In years gone by I would fight my periodic bouts of insanity. I’d feel it starting to creep through me, covering every inch of my frozen skin like a wetsuit after a cold dive. I’d call a friend, who was inevitably in the middle of a cup of coffee or making love to someone other than her husband and yell for help. But no one heard. No friend or family. I was left with nothing but the silent screaming of my own soul as I waited for it to pass once more.
It was also true that I didn’t have to endure it. I’d always had the answer. It lay in a very dark place, and its name was never spoken. But I had always felt that its cold steel was too permanent a solution for a terror that I could always pray would go away.
I knew that if I unplugged the phone the insanity would pass. I had often imagined my hand reaching over and ripping the plug from the wall. I would laugh with glee as I saw shards of clear plastic fly across the room, leaving its master to hang in dead silence. The man and my mother aside, I can’t imagine a more fitting end for the object that was most responsible for my current state of mind. But I couldn’t do that, you see, because I knew the call was going to come. I felt the electricity dance on my skin; driven by the pounding in my chest and accepted the fact that I had to wait for it to ring. I had to wait because the dark man would be on the other end of the line.
I realized that something was terribly wrong with my mother when I was four years old. That’s when I first saw the craziness in her eyes. Her hard, unmoving stare would cut through me with knives of ice-cold hatred. It looked to me, when I was a child, as though sheets of glass had come out from under her eyelids and settled on her pupils to let her see me more clearly. That’s how I memorized the color of her eyes. She said that I had caused her insanity just as the phone had helped cause mine.
I remember going on a trip with our neighbors. I spent hours looking down at the riverbank, watching the waves lapping against the underwater grass by the shore. Moving it back and forth in a constant, hypnotizing motion. The grass looked like my mother in the bathtub. Bobbing her legs to mix the hot and cold water into one. As the two visions came together in my young mind, I knew then that the woman living in my house had killed my real mother and buried her in the river. I was certain that if I looked hard enough, I would see my mama’s body hiding down there among the grasses.
I went home from the river and realized that I desperately needed to ask if it was true . Yet I wondered what this imposter mother would say. Did she know that my mother was dead? Did she know the magic that would bring her back to life? Or would she kill me too and leave me alone to rot in the darkness? Lacking the courage to have my face smacked for my impertinence, or worse, I chose to let it go until another day. There would always be another time to ask her the question. While I waited for the opportune moment, she fell deeper into her own darkness.
During my teenage years, I discovered that parents never share the important information with their children: ‘stop drinking before you vomit’, ‘make certain the cupboards are well stocked if you’re going to get stoned’ and ‘he will not respect you in the morning.’ This was an era of firsts. First drink, first love, first joint.
It was also at this time that my mother’s voice began to echo her madness. There was a certain intonation that I thought was probably some unknown oral virus she’d created in order to inflict yet more terror in what was already an unhinged soul. I would hear her yell at me from the bottom of the stairs and as the sound reverberated past the dingy plaster walls one underlying note would separate itself from the rest. It was a single off-key note that had hidden itself in the normal tones, until being smashed apart by the hardness of the wall. The virus was her messenger, there to show me the hollowness of her caring, and her contempt for my soul. So I stayed upstairs, inoculating myself from her virus and wondered if I would ever have the courage to ask my question.
My mother’s eccentricities had made it beyond embarrassing to have company over. She once cornered my friend Alex, and asked if he had a Valium. As I watched Alex’s face I could see that he had fallen between the proverbial rock and the hard place; contribute to the delinquency of a lunatic, or make an extra five bucks on the side. I decided the time had come to examine the potentialities of life from a cosmic space that was far removed from the hell that I called home.
I did make note of one very important fact in those years. Normal people can’t see the insanity. They can’t hear or smell it. But they know when it’s near. They can sense it. More than a bad day at work or an ill mood, they can feel the insidious nature of the demon and it scares the hell out of them. They seldom realize on a conscious level how desperate they are to get away. I endlessly pondered what their reaction would be should they find themselves faced with the question.
I chose to leave the rapturous comfort of my familial life, and settle in with the man who would make it all go away. All that ever really went away was my money, self-respect and the remnants of my childhood. But the up side was that I had achieved emancipation and could wallow in the fact that I was becoming just as crazy as my mother. It was then that I realized something evil lived on the other end of the phone. He would never believe me when I told him it was dangerous to pick it up. I didn’t believe him when he said I was crazy. Why would I? It’s the abnormal we look for when defining questionable behavior in ourselves, I was merely pointing out something I believed to be true . When I asked him if he knew the dark man – he got nervous and started making other plans. Sadly, I became pregnant before he could follow through.
When I was eight months along the jobless wunderkind that had impregnated me decided he was tired of living in the Cuckoo’s nest and told me to leave. Having nowhere else to go I meandered back to the ‘den of solace’ that I’d known as a child. Back to the ghosts of my past, and back to the same room where I had first felt the terror of my own rising insanity. I knew there was no God as I laid my suitcase down on the bed. No drug, no joint, no pondering the question could save me. Looking back I’d have to say that moving back into my mother’s house was probably the catalyst that would break me to the point where healing in any real sense of the word was impossible.
My son was born after two agonizing days of hard labor. Mother stayed by my side and acted the martyr. I suspect she was trying to prove to the world that she hadn’t really earned my sarcastic nickname ‘mommy dearest’. While the nurses where in the room she tended to my every need. Yet as soon as they left her voice fell to a whisper as she asked how it felt to be the mother of a bastard. I lived in my mother’s house until our collective lunacy was enough to throw the most unwavering member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group over the edge. I began to tremble every time I held my son, afraid that sooner or later one of us would destroy him. The end came when I woke up one night and found her staring in Billy’s crib. Her eyes had turned to glass. The next day I sold everything I owned of value, got on the dole and moved into a one-bedroom apartment. From there I wouldn’t have to see her eyes or ponder the question.
For once in my life I could say I was truly happy. Billy was blessed, genetically speaking, with a round pudgy face, short dark hair and a dimple. He looked like a newborn version of the Pillsbury Doughboy and I loved him. The strangest peace came to me as I watched him coo and giggle while blowing gently in his face. I would sit for hours after he went to sleep with his tiny hand wrapped around my little finger. He was content to be with me and I took spiritual solace from him. His presence caused the insanity to subside while we lived in that run down apartment.
I tried my hand at writing. I successfully composed a personal masterpiece called ‘The Cockroach Cookbook for the Rich and Famous.’ For a time I was at peace. I even lost all desire to ask my mother that bothersome question.
But, like an ill-treated pauper in a Shakespearian play, my life was one of servitude and heartache was my master. It seems now as though some other person walked into Billy’s room and found his cold lifeless body in the crib. His face was black where the blood had congealed after his death. I picked him up to my breast and stared numbly at his face, his dimple, his ears, and into his glass covered eyes. As I looked at his face I saw hers and from the recesses of my mind came the truth. I knew exactly how my son had died. I dropped my son. The sound of his body hitting the floor imbedded itself in my mind and I remembered nothing more until I woke up in the hospital three days later. When I asked what they had done with Billy, the Doctor told me with a casual reserve that they had buried him without me.
After his death my insanity took over completely. I would sit and rock for hours, stare at the sunflowers on the wall, and try unsuccessfully to push the memory of his dead face out of my mind. I constantly asked myself how I could have let it happen until one afternoon I realized that it was all tied into the question. Never asked and never answered it poured through my mind day after day until my obsession with it controlled every waking moment of my life. Mother tried to console me; tried to tell me it was “Gods will” and that my boy had died from crib death. She said that she had no part in how he had died. Lie after lie she went on. She tried to pretend that I didn’t know what had happened.
The memory of his death left me incapable of doing anything more than rocking on the bed, cursing the sunflowers and staring at the phone. I reached over and grabbed the picture I had resting on the table beside me. It was a picture of Billy in a little Santa suit I had bought him for his first and only Christmas. Tears flooded my eyes as I held him in my hand. Every second of his life was playing through my mind, tearing into me until I thought my guts would spill out on the floor. I held his picture and rocked as hard as I could, repeating a silent mantra to beg his forgiveness for what my mother had done.
“I’m so sorry I failed you.”
I stopped rocking after a while, and stared down at him. I had forgotten all about the phone, the impending call and the dark man. The only living thought in my mind was to be with my son. My fingers gently outlined the smile on his small face, remembering the softness of his skin and the tone of his voice. I could have stayed there forever, holding him again. Then I heard it ring, and the terror I had fought for so long to control came full circle. I was in its grip and there was no human way to pry myself out. I held his picture tightly against me and felt the scream tear from my throat.
“NO!”
I knew that the insanity had incarnated itself as a demon and he was on the other end of the line. At first I tried to not answer. But I had to obey. On the seventh ring I picked up the receiver and put it to my ear.
“Hello”
“Jena, this is Doctor Ossin. Your mother called. She’s a little worried. She says you refuse to take your medicine.”
I was shaking almost beyond control. I could hear the chaos in my voice.
“It’s a lie. She always lies about me. You know that.”
God help me, I wasn’t going to make it. The demon was taking control.
“Jena. She was only trying to help.”
No, no, no. She wasn’t trying to help. She wants me to ask the question. SHE WANTS ME TO ASK THE QUESTION! I started rocking back and forth on my bed to calm myself down.
“Dr. Ossin, I took my medicine. I’m having a bad day. Just a bad damn day. That’s all.”
“You sound extremely upset Jena. I’m getting a little concerned.”
Stop it mama it’s coming; it’s coming.
“Dr. Ossin, what did she tell you to ask me?”
My breaths were coming in gasps. I had to hurry before it was too late. I had to kill the demon. From somewhere outside of me I felt an uncontrollable desire to move my hand. I reached over to the drawer and slowly pulled it open.
“She only said she had talked to you this morning and that she suspected you had stopped taking your medicine.”
She hadn’t called this morning. I would have remembered if she had called this morning. But he wouldn’t believe me. He didn’t even know about the question.
“I can’t explain her crazy behavior. But I’m telling you that nothing is wrong.”
“Jena, she said she told you she was going to call me and for you to wait by the phone.”
I could no longer tell which was blinding me. My tears and sweat were one mass of salt burning my eyes.
“Closer, reach in closer.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?’
“Nothing. Do I have to talk to you? I’m tired, I want to go.”
I put my hand deep inside the drawer. I just had to hang on for one tiny minute more. I felt around on the left side of the drawer until my hand rested on something hard and cold. I wrapped my fingers around the grips and pulled it out.
“Jena, I want you to tell me where you are and what you’re doing.”
“NOTHING. DAMN YOU NOTHING!”
Oh my god it’s coming. Mama, I don’t know the question. Please don’t make me ask the question. I made myself look down at the gun in my hand. As I loosened my hold and stared at the shiny blue metal I began to realize that it wasn’t frightening at all. The more I watched it shimmer under the bedroom light, the more the terror began to ease in me. I finally began to comprehend what I had known deep down all along. I’d had the answer this whole time. All of a sudden, a strange and wonderful calm began to envelop me. ‘Here, this isn’t so bad. The barrel is small. I’ll be okay.’ I closed my eyes and rubbed the steel against my face. I wanted to bathe myself in the serenity. I opened my mouth and tasted it. The metal was prickly on my tongue, almost like a pie plate made from aluminum foil. As I explored this new wonder, I remembered Dr. Ossin was still on the line. What in the hell did he want from me? Why wouldn’t he let me off the phone? I was about to hang up when I heard a key turning in the front door. I couldn’t care less. I knew the answer to the question; she had killed my real mother, and left her body to rot under the dirt in the river. That heartless bitch had killed her just as surely as she had killed my son. But it no longer mattered; the demon couldn’t hurt me any more.
There was a long pause on the end of the phone line. Dr Ossin could hear footsteps coming into the room.
“Jena, Jena are you there? What was that noise? JENA!”
A strange voice came over the line, speaking only in a whisper.
“She’s dead Doctor Ossin. Your services won’t be needed anymore.”
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Reviewed by Bob Clay
1/15/2002
A dark and potent story of the slipping into madness of a young woman. Gripping and one that carries you to the end feeling the terror of the protangonist. Killer ending not to be missed.
Reviewed by Phil
1/9/2002
A disturbing tale and not for the faint of heart. You can be there as this poor woman slowly descends into madness and see and taste her pain and horrors. The ending was a shock I will not soon forget.
