It Was There

I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was there.

It was very real to me.

In my earliest memories, as a kid in the late 1960s, I encountered it, though I could not have realized it at the time.

It plagued me all my life, ever-present but strangely absent when I needed it to assert itself most.

For instance, it was a great help when I was alone. It kept me grounded by giving me a sense of continuity and integrity; but then it would disappear, leaving me unstable and confused when others were around.

Others seemed to drive it into hiding.

I could sense it, just on the peripheral of every interaction.

Lurking, studying, calculating.

But it never felt safe around anyone but me and I never felt safe around it.

Grounded, yes, but not safe.

For it would urge me to do unpleasant things.

Things I knew—or at least had been taught—were wrong.

At eight years old, it told me to burn down the old barn out on Hydraulic Road.

It’s abandoned, it said.

No one will ever know it was you, it said.

Don’t you think it would be fun to strike the match and watch it go up in flames? It asked.

During these conversations, it smiled at me with what I came to think of as the Grinch’s Grin.

We watched that show together every Christmas and delighted in the title character’s wicked smile.

I’m a mean one, too, it said, but not to you, Denny. You’re my bestest best friend in the whole world. Am I yours?

Its voice was a husky whisper, and no matter where it was, I always felt like it spoke right into my ear.

It scared me, but it was my only friend too, and I loved it.

The other kids made fun of me, wouldn’t play with me, wouldn’t pick me for their teams or invite me to their parties.

I was shy and I stuttered.

They called me Denny Dufus and sometimes they chased me home after school.

At first, I told my parents about the other kids and the things they did.

Dad would just say I needed to stand up for myself.

Mom would hug me and tell me she loved me, but her love didn’t keep the others from hurting me or calling me names.

If she talked with the other moms, this would only make the bullying worse, because the other kids would get in trouble and then take it out on me.

I was usually fast enough to get away, but one time, Bobby Benton and Rick Swan caught up to me and gave me a wedgie and a wet willy.

They shoved my face in the dirt, chanting:

"Denny Dufus! Denny Dufus!"

I was mad and hurt and crying, but I didn’t dare tell Mom this time.

That old barn’s gotta go, Denny, it whispered in my ear. It won’t take away what they did, but it’ll make you feel better. Trust me, bestest best friend!

I squirreled away a book of matches I got from a local restaurant. They used to just hand them out like business cards back then, with their logos and phone numbers on them.

I told Mom I was going out to play.

I made the trek to the barn on Hydraulic Road.

I crept through a hole in the side.

It was full of old hay and trash, so I made a pile against one wall, struck a match, and threw it into the mess.

Smoke curled, then flame bloomed like an evil flower.

The wall caught.

Better get out, bestest best friend! It whispered gleefully, or the smoke’ll get ya before the fire!

I retreated to the woods at the edge of the open field and watched it burn.

I imagined Bobby and Rick and some of the other kids who made fun of me, trapped in there, screaming for help, unable to escape.

A funny feeling blossomed down in my private place, where Mom said no one was ever supposed to touch me, and I watched for a long time.

It was there, clapping its hands, chuckling, grinning the Grinch’s Grin.

***** * *****

By thirteen, I didn’t have to burn down old barns to feel that funny feeling in my privates.

I knew I liked girls, though girls didn’t much seem to like me.

Even so, it was there, reminding me of how I’d never felt better than that day out on Hydraulic Road.

No one ever knew it was me, but word got around town it was arson.

The forest at the edge of the field caught after I ran off, and the volunteer fire department had to come out to keep it from spreading worse.

Dad cussed a storm about it at dinner.

Part of me was ashamed, but another part delighted.

Even as I sat listening to my dad complain about kids-these-days and how proud he was of my sisters and me for not being delinquents, I was thrilled with the knowledge I got away with something bad.

I knew something they didn’t know.

I often thought about what it would have been like if I let those kids chase me there, then trapped them in and set it alight.

It was a fantasy I nursed every time they came after me, but I just kept running home instead.

By high school, however, as so often happens, those kids were my friends.

I was on the football team with Bobby and Rick.

We laughed and joked.

There were no hard feelings.

But you’re my bestest best friend, Denny! You’ll see! You’ll see they’re all fakers!

Without a hint of resentment, it chuckled and whispered into my ear with its husky, quiet voice like dry leaves falling apart in a cold wind.

Just wait. You’ll see. I never called you Denny Dufus. I never chased you home from school. I never passed you over for anything. I was there, always there, and I still am, and I always will be, even when they let you down. I’ll be waiting to lift you up.

I didn’t need to see the Grinch’s Grin.

I knew all too well the shape of the mouth which whispered those words into my ear, which teasingly pushed, poked, and prodded that funny feeling in my private place with something other than thoughts of girls.

When it talked to me, I could see the barn burning, and hear the screams, but I just shoved away the thought and told it to shut up.

It answered with one last dry chuckle, then stayed silent for a while, but I knew it wasn’t gone.

It was there.

***** * *****

I felt that funny feeling when I was around Laura Thompson, but it didn’t feel all dark and mean.

She was a girl I liked from the neighborhood.

We went to school together too.

Everyone in our small town went to school together.

Since I was as young as I could remember, she was there, the girl down the street.

I suppose just like the Grinning Chuckler, I encountered my feelings for Laura before I even knew I had them.

All those feelings, they live in different places, and sometimes they stay there and they don’t talk to each other, and they don’t talk to me until the pressure builds so I can’t help it anymore.

I took speech therapy to get rid of my stutter and I got over my shyness after I joined the football team.

I played through my senior year in high school, making the all-state team twice as a linebacker.

One year we almost won the championship, falling short by less than a touchdown.

I didn’t work up the nerve to ask Laura out quick enough.

She ended up going steady with Rick.

The Grinning Chuckler chuckled and grinned every time I saw them together.

See? It would say. She never wanted you. Never cared for you at all. Not like I do, Denny. Rick knew you liked her. Remember how you even told him? Didn’t stop him, did it? Shucks, I almost wonder if it goaded him on!

I shoved the voice away, pushed it down.

I was happy for my friend and the girl next door, who was always nice to me, even if she didn’t really talk to me.

I should have worked up the nerve sooner.

If I had, we might be together now. But I didn’t.

Dad would always say, “We can’t gain from an opportunity we don’t take.”

***** * *****

I sat next to Beth in Biology class.

We became lab partners, and as I got to know her, I worked up the nerve to ask her out.

We went steady, like Rick and Laura.

We got to doing things that good Catholic kids weren’t supposed to do before marriage.

That was Junior year.

I was in love, and for a while, the Grinning Chuckler was neither seen nor heard; but I could feel it, lurking, watching, waiting.

I didn’t care.

Let it watch, I thought.

The night of senior prom, Rick snuck in a flask.

He and I shared sips of whiskey between dances.

We talked guy-talk about our girlfriends.

The more the whiskey took over, the more I recalled those feelings about Laura.

Rick was saying things about her.

Sexual things.

He said they were going to do those things out by Sparkling Pond after the prom.

I heard a raspy chuckle in my ear.

We polished off that flask before the dance was over.

Beth complained about my breath.

She wasn't mad about me being sauced but said I should leave my car there and walk her home.

She would feel safer, and she wouldn't worry about me.

Being a polite, conscientious boyfriend, I obliged.

I walked Beth to her door and kissed her goodnight (though I’d had to pop some mints on the way to her place!)

My house wasn't far from Beth's, and I was still buzzed, so I thought I might walk the rest of the way to clear my head.

It was there.

The Grinning Chuckler.

Just a short detour to the lake, Denny. We can peek in on Laura, like how we hid in that tree with the binoculars, back in those days when Rick called you Denny Dufus and chased you home with Bobby Benton and gave you wedgies and wet willies.

This stirred more than my blood.

Hot, drunken rage mixed with that funny feeling, and before I knew it, I was crouched in the woods by Sparkling Pond, spying on a familiar ’68 Chevy Corvair.

The moon was full and bright in an open sky among galaxies of stars, and it seemed to shine a spotlight on the car.

They’re in there together, Denny. Rick Swan and your girl. She was supposed to be your girl, and he knew it.

The Chevy’s windows were down but the convertible top was up.

I heard Rick’s low voice then Laura’s laugh.

Rick’s making fun of the way you talk, and Laura is laughing at you, Denny.

I got up and started on a straight trajectory for the Corvair, pulling out and unfolding my pocket-knife as I marched forward, gripping the hilt with the blade up.

Rick must have heard me because he turned his head.

“Hey, Denny, Whatta you doin’—”

But he couldn’t finish.

The knife was in his throat.

Laura screamed as I pulled the knife sideways and back, ripping a big hole in the soft flesh.

Rick reached for the wound, but it only made the spurting blood fan out between his fingers, painting my face and chest.

He gurgled something, last words that would never be heard and which I didn’t care to understand.

Laura opened the passenger door and ran.

I threw the knife down and ran after her.

I tackled her from behind near the edge of the pond.

We slid through the mud and into the water.

She tried to turn and fight, but I held her arms, pushed her down.

I held her there under the water until she struggled no more as that funny feeling became a full-blown ecstasy beyond anything I ever experienced with Beth.

As the water went still, I looked down.

It was there.

Staring back at me in the pale moonlight, grinning the Grinch’s Grin, was my own face.

In my wide, maddened eyes, I could see the reflection of my reflection, creating infinite reflections, and it was there in all of them, and it was me, and I was it, but we were no one, nothing but a moonbeam reflecting off the dark water.

The Grinch’s Grin cracked just a bit and a dry chuckle escaped.

Then our reflection disappeared in the rippling water as we shook with laughter.

I retrieved my knife and wiped it clean in the grass.

Then I walked home, leaving one body floating in the pond and another bleeding out in the car.

***** * *****

The Prom Night Murders were never solved.

As the years went by there were other murders in and around my small town with the same modus operandi.

Women were drowned in their own bathtubs and left for their families to find.

The self-identified Grinning Chuckler taunted the police and the victim’s families with letters, always signed with a crude drawing of a smiling mouth and a little—haha!

When I married Beth, it was there.

When I took over my dad’s carpentry business, it was there.

When my two kids were born, it was there.

When I became an elder at my church, it was there.

Lurking, studying, calculating.

Just beneath the mask of sanity, it was there.

I’m the only one who knows.

Sometimes windows open between the feeling places, and I see all the things I’ve done as clearly as I saw my reflection in the water on that moonlit night.

I feel ashamed, but it just grins back at me and chuckles, because I also feel something else, that funny feeling in my private place.

I keep doing my dirty deeds any time I think I can get away with it.

Will anyone ever see it save for those poor women who will never see anything else?

Will anyone ever stop it from hiding in the background of my life and using me as a cover to stalk its prey?

I don’t know what it is, but I know it is there.