“You can think whatever you want,” she said. “The truth is, he’d probably be dead by now if not for me.”
“Yes, he told me. You pulled him out of hell.”
“Out of a serious emotional disturbance. I happen to be a psychologist.”
“Oh, really? Is that where all this is coming from, about his abused childhood? You’ve been helping him recover memories?”
“He doesn’t need help remembering an alcoholic, domineering father.”
“Domineering?” Monks said wearily. “Because I used to interrupt his tantrums where he threw dishes at his mother when he didn’t get his way? He was still doing it at seventeen.”
“He was expressing the anger he got from you. Just like he got your addictive personality.”
“Is that a clinical assessment? Or you telling him what he wants to hear, so you can keep a hold on him?”
“Ah, yes, the physician dismisses psychology as a soft science,” she said sarcastically.
“I’ve got great respect for psychologists who don’t use convenient labels to blame everything on somebody else,” Monks said. “We sent him to two of them. A psychiatrist, too, in case there was a neurological problem or a chemical imbalance. The consensus was, ‘Well, we can keep treating him as long as you want, but all he’s going to do is play games with us. This is just the way he is.’”
“And instead of supporting him, you undermined him. Like you’re doing now.”
“His mother and I did everything we knew how, Doctor. With plenty of pain involved, believe me. I finally decided the only way I could deal with it was to call it by its real name. Try to keep the hurt from spreading too much. Glenn’s very good at getting people to believe what he wants them to. Especially women. He was doing it as soon as he could talk.”
“If he was such a charmer, how come he never had a good relationship with a girl?”
“Is that what he told you? There were plenty who were willing. But he’d lose interest as soon as they fell for him. He left a string of poor little broken hearts.”
She put her hands on her hips, one foot pointing toward him, a pose that was tough but provocative.
“I guess he needed a grown-up,” she said.
Right, Monks thought. Mother and lover in one package-and glad to let him do all the drugs he wanted.
“I have no desire to go into my son’s bedroom,” Monks said. “If he’s happy, I’m happy for him. Like I told him, I’ll leave here and never say a word about it, if Mandrake comes with me.”
“That’s up to Freeboot.”
“Surely you don’t believe a four-year-old can heal himself of diabetes through willpower.”
Her gaze shifted away. “I’d handle the situation differently. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t leave it at that,” Monks said. “But if you’ve got a better idea than keeping me chained up here playing ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,’ then by all means go for it.”
Her head tilted with a calculating air. “He’s sure right about one thing,” she said. “You reek of self-righteousness.”
The words hit hard, and it must have shown. Monks saw her take on the satisfied look of knowing that she had scored.
He turned away and walked to the door. “You’d better get him to do something about those blisters,” he said. “He’s looking at losing his teeth.”
He stepped out of the cabin, feeling weak, as if he were bleeding internally. He stared off into the gloom in the direction that Glenn had run-his son, who in some ways seemed old far beyond his years, but in other ways would always be very young. There was an ugly irony in that the niche he had finally found, his pride in whatever Freeboot’s cause was, involved madness and violence.
He had tried with Glenn, Monks assured himself. But it had never been enough. The more that Glenn had gotten, the more-and more belligerently-he had demanded, until there was nothing left for Monks to do but build a wall.
At least that was how Monks remembered it.
Hammerhead was waiting for him. They walked back toward the lodge, the shackles clanking around Monks’s ankles.
“Uh, getting back to what you said before,” Hammerhead said.
“What?” Monks said distractedly.
“That tic. In my eye.”
Monks stared at him, then remembered.
“What about it?” he demanded.
“You said it was probably nothing. What does ‘probably’ mean?”
Monks shook his head. “It means you probably don’t want to know.”
“Yeah, I do. Tell me.”
“Well-a tic like that is a classic symptom of a brain tumor. Pressing on the optic nerve.”
“A brain tumor?”
“Sometimes if you catch them very early, they can be lasered out, or treated by radiation. But by the time they start interfering with your vision, they tend to be the size of an egg, and they’re growing fast. They’re pretty tough to handle by then.”
Hammerhead’s square jaw moved from side to side, as if trying to work its way around the concept.
“Of course, I’m not sure,” Monks said. “Keep tabs on the headaches and delusions. If they go away, that’s good. But if you start noticing them more…” He grimaced. Then he added, comfortingly, “There’s other things it could be, too. Maybe a minor stroke. That’s no problem in itself, but it makes you more susceptible to a major one. Then you’re talking the rest of your life in a wheelchair, wearing a diaper.”
Hammerhead’s face had taken on a stunned, flounder-like look.
“Is there, like-I mean-what should I do?”
“A hospital might be able to help,” Monks said. “Or at least tell you how long you’ve got. But if you buy into the antimedical sentiment around here-” He shrugged. “Enjoy yourself as much as you can, is my advice.”
8
When Monks stepped into the lodge, Freeboot was sitting at the long wooden table with a kerosene lamp before him, poring over an open book. The pose was so like medieval paintings of scholars like Aquinas and Erasmus that Monks wondered if it was deliberately staged.
Freeboot kept reading for another half minute, a pause that also seemed staged.
“I’m a self-educated man,” Freeboot said. “I never had no benefits of formal schooling. But that also means I think for myself. My mind hasn’t been crammed full of poison by people who want you to believe things their way.
“So here’s how I see it. This country’s gotten to be a big, spoiled, overgrown kid. Everybody figures if they got the best toys, that gives them the right to hog the sandbox.”
He watched Monks intently, apparently expecting a response.
“I told you, I’m not interested in discussion while I’m chained up,” Monks said.
Freeboot considered this a moment, then said, “All right.” He dug into a pocket of his jeans and tossed Monks a small key.
Monks sat on the floor and unlocked the cuffs. The clicks as they released were among the most satisfying sounds he had ever heard. He stayed sitting down, rubbing his chafed ankles.
“Does this mean I’m free to go?” he said.
Freeboot smiled thinly. “I’m working on trust, like I told you. I expect the same back from you.” He held his open palm out for the key. Monks tossed it back.
“Let’s hope we won’t need it again,” Freeboot said. “You with me so far?”
“About the country being a spoiled kid?”
“That’s right. What’s it going to take to make it grow up?”
Monks chose his words carefully, very much aware of the shackles still lying on the floor.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think there are simple answers to complex problems.”
“Oh, the problem’s real simple. The system’s set up so all the money’s going to a few rich motherfuckers who’ve already got a ton of it, and it’s being taken from the masses who need it.”