The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror Read online

  There was a sixth found doll—as it turned out, a disappointing one. But I could not have guessed so, beforehand.

  Still, I kept Trixie with the others. Though sometimes I didn’t remove the canvas from her crib, for her sour curdled-milk pug-face and reproachful green marble eyes were discomforting to me; and her cheap sleazy silly costume, a low-cut sequined top that showed the cleavage of her breasts and a frilly frothy ballerina-skirt in matching turquoise, and spike-heeled little shoes, were frankly embarrassing.

  No more of Trixie!

  I will draw the khaki-covered canvas over Trixie—Voilà! As my Friend says.

  And the seventh found doll—a boy doll.

  His name was an exotic name—Bharata.

  He had taffy-colored skin of the finest rubber that so resembled human flesh, you shivered as your fingertips caressed his face and felt a semblance of warmth, as of capillaries close beneath the surface of the skin. And his eyes were not glassy-brown but a warm chocolate-brown.

  And thick-lashed. Beautiful as any girl’s eyes.

  Bharata wore chino shorts, a sky-blue T-shirt, blue sneakers on his small feet and no socks. His legs were well-formed with a look of small sinewy muscle, more defined than his sister-dolls’ legs.

  The palms of his hands were lighter-colored than the rest of his body. I was fascinated by this—did “people of color” normally have palms lighter than the rest of their body? I had not ever known any “people of color”—no one in our family did.

  My Friend said, You see, Robbie? You were prejudiced against boys but now, you have a surprise in store.

  Bharata was one of the larger dolls, with a sweetly pretty boy-face and very black curly hair; his black eyelashes swept against his cheeks, which appeared to be lightly rouged. You could not have told if Bharata’s mouth was a boy-mouth, or a girl’s.

  Bharata was the only doll who tried to speak in actual words, not merely soft squeaking sounds. Bharata’s mouth moved and I leaned to him, to listen, but heard only what sounded like Where—where is—who are you—I don’t want to be—don’t want to be h-here . . .

  The other found dolls might have exhibited some jealousy, or envy, of my taffy-skinned found-boy-doll. But they disguised their emotions well for they knew their place and did not wish to offend me who was their Doll-Master.

  It was my Friend who had told me, one day Robbie, you are the Doll-Master. You must never surrender your authority.

  Mother said, “We have no choice, really. The house is so large, most of the rooms are shut off, and unheated. A house of this size was meant for a large family and now there is only us.”

  Only us was hurtful to me, to hear. As if only us were an admission of such shameful defeat, it had to be murmured, near-inaudibly.

  “So what do you mean, Mother? Do you want to—sell the house?”

  A clanging in my ears had begun, as of a fire alarm. I could barely hear my mother’s reasonable voice asking me if I would call a Realtor, if I would oversee the selling of the house.

  “It’s a profound decision. It’s a profound step in our lives. But I think we have no choice, the property taxes alone are . . .”

  It was so: property taxes were rising. Taxes of all sorts were rising in New Jersey.

  “Now there’s no one in our family going to public school, it seems a shame to pay for ‘public education.’ My sister was showing me brochures of condominiums on the river, two- and three-bedroom, very modern and stylish . . .”

  Mother chattered nervously, excitedly. Mother would not expect me to react to her suggestion in any emphatic way, for that was not Robbie’s nature.

  Father had not only departed the sprawling old Victorian house on Prospect Hill but also had dissociated himself from it entirely: in the divorce settlement he’d signed over the property to my mother. There were to be no alimony payments for my mother had a small income from investments she’d inherited. Mother sometimes wept but more often expressed relief—Your father has gone.

  Since the separation several years before, Father and I rarely saw each other. Father did not like to return to our suburban town—it was an effort for him, as he made clear, to attend my high school graduation and to resolutely avoid my mother and her relatives—and I did not like to leave our suburban town and so we exchanged emails occasionally and, less frequently, spoke on the phone. It is the easiest tie to break—my Friend consoled me—the tie that was badly frayed to begin with.

  You could say that Mother and I were “close”—in the way of two actors on a TV show who have been together on the set for many seasons, reciting prepared scripts, uncertain of the direction in which their narrative was moving, what would be the fate of their “characters”—yet not anxious, not quite yet.

  I was twenty years old. Soon then it seemed, I was twenty-two years old. No more than one found doll a year seemed necessary, or prudent. At the time Mother wanted me to sell our house, I was twenty-three years old. I had not attended college after all. In an alternative life, I would have majored in science and math at a good university—perhaps Princeton. In an alternative life I would be a graduate student now at Cal Tech perhaps, or MIT. I might be engaged, or even married.

  No, probably not: not engaged, and not married.

  Quickly time passes if you don’t keep up with your generation of high school graduates. Where time seemed to have virtually stopped for my mother, who continued to see a small circle of women friends, several of them widows, and older female relatives, over the years, time moved rapidly for me. I was not unhappy, though you would have to call me reclusive. I did not consider myself a dropout from society, or a failure, in the way that my father considered himself a failure, and that had poisoned his life; my relationships with the world were primarily through the Internet, where I’d established a website under the name The Doll-Master, through which I’d made many acquaintances; here I posted shadowy, oblique, and “poetic” photographs of the found dolls, images too dark and irresolute to be identified, though visitors to the site found them “haunting”—“eerie”—“makes me want to see more!” My website visitors have become faithful correspondents and my emails take up a large part of my life for it is thrilling for me, as I believe it has to be for them, and some of these females—(I think)—that we skirt the edges of our essential subject, and seek metaphors and poetic turns of speech to express our (forbidden) desires. For it has been revealed to me as a fact, that where the dull-essential nature of our lives is eliminated, such as age, identity, education, employment, place of residence, family ties, daily routine, etc., the thrilling-essential is revealed.

  Mother believes that I have contacted a real estate agent in town, and have met with her; Mother believes that the house is listed tastefully, with no ugly sign at the foot of our lawn, and only “serious home-seekers who can afford the property” considered; but Mother does not ply me with questions about the house sale, for Mother would rather not think of where we would live if the house were really sold, and what our circumstances would be. And I am comforting to Mother by saying, with a smile: “One step at a time, Mother. The real estate market is ‘flat’ now—we might not have any serious interest until spring.”

  Yet, that domestic comfort has come to an abrupt end.

  My Friend has abandoned me, I think. For my Friend has no advice to give me now.

  It was the occasion of a new found doll. I had not brought a found doll back to the carriage house for thirteen months which I believed was a sign of fortitude and character; for I could not be called impulsive, or reckless; rather, over-scrupulous, I think. For when I brought my new found doll to the carriage house, and lay her in her little crib beside the others, I lingered too long, in a state of infatuation; I lost track of the time, as dusk shaded into night, and I gazed at Little Farmer-Girl in the beam of my flashlight, and marveled at her uniqueness. Of all my dolls, with the possible exception of the
rag doll Evangeline who lacked a substantial body, this doll was soft, will-less, hardly more than fabric with a hard doll-head, yet strangely appealing; not beautiful, not even pretty, but winning; for when I washed away the grime on Little Farmer-Girl’s face, she was revealed as a sweet homely cousin-sort-of-girl, with stiff pigtails, a funny mouth, wide unblinking marble eyes of an amber hue; her body was made of cloth, from which some of the stuffing had leaked out; she wore denim bib-overalls and a red plaid shirt beneath, and on her spindly legs red tights, and on her tiny feet boots. Her costume was dirty but yet colorful—for she had not been discarded for long, it seemed.

  I’d pulled Little Farmer-Girl out of the trash behind our suburban train station where there is an old, unused railroad yard with a fence around it, long fallen into disrepair; no one comes here, though passengers awaiting the train are gathered on the platform only a quarter-mile away, except children, sometimes, or “runaways”—it was plausible to think that Little Farmer-Girl was a “runaway” whose difficult life had brought her to this place and to my discovery of her in the peaceful interregnum between trains when the depot is virtually deserted. It was a game of kidnap, I decided, since Little Farmer-Girl was so soft-bodied there was no effort involved in lifting her, folding her, and carrying her beneath my hooded jacket; when she struggled, I tied her wrists and ankles and stuffed a rag in her mouth so that her cries were muffled and could not be heard by anyone farther than six feet away.

  No effort then to place Little Farmer-Girl in the trunk of the station wagon and to drive slowly back home to the top of Prospect Hill.

  Why Little Farmer-Girl exerted such a spell over me is a mystery but I suppose, as my Friend would say, with a laugh—Robbie, you’re so funny! Each of your dolls was enthralling to you, initially.

  I thought, too, that I would begin taking pictures of Little Farmer-Girl that very night, to record more conscientiously than I had the others, before the inevitable incursions of time, decomposition, and decay intervened; my experience was that flash-photos were particularly effective, in these circumstances, as more “poetic” and “artistic” than photographs taken by day, even in the shadowy interior of the stall.

  “Robbie? Is that you? Why are you here, Robbie?—what are you doing?”

  So absorbed had I been squatting over Little Farmer-Girl, I hadn’t heard Mother approach the rear of the carriage house; too late, I saw the groping beam of her flashlight, moving upon me, and upon the row of found dolls on the floor of the stall, that occupied now most of the stall.

  “Robbie! What is . . .”

  In the crude light of Mother’s flashlight the found dolls were revealed as small skeletons with rags of clothing and wisps of hair on their battered skulls; their faces were skull-faces, with mirthless grins and eyeless sockets; their bone-arms were spread, as for an embrace.

  This was Mother’s crude light, not the light of the Doll-Master.

  Quickly I took the flashlight from Mother’s shaking hand. Quickly I comforted her, telling her that these were sculptures that I’d done, but had not wanted to show anyone.

  “S-Sculptures? Here . . . ?”

  I would explain to her, I said. But first, I would shut the outer door.

  Soldier

  They have advised me Do not open your mail.

  They have advised me It could be a fatal mistake, to open your mail.

  And yet, I am not a coward. I am insulted that anyone should think that I am a coward, to be protected from the mail that comes addressed to Brandon Schrank.

  Therefore, the mail accumulates. It has not been decided by my “legal team” (as they are called) what exactly to do with the avalanche of mail that has been forwarded to me. I would like to open some of the letters, I think. For I am eager for friends. I am not afraid of my enemies.

  Uncle T. has told me—You are a hero to your race. There’s some will want you to be a martyr but fuck that.

  Most of the mail comes to Brendan Schrank c/o Glassboro County Courthouse but of course Schrank is spelled all kind of illiterate ways and Brendan is half the time Branden or Brennen.

  There are many more emails of course—(so I am told)—but they do not come to me because I do not have an email account any longer. I do not have a Facebook account any longer. When you are in police custody you are not allowed the use of a computer even your own laptop is forbidden to you. So this censorship began in early April when I was first arrested. Then when I was released on bail my court-appointed lawyer advised against anything to do with “social media” for the time being.

  “This will not be forever, Brandon. But it is wisest, for now.”

  And she said, “There are many sick people out there, Brandon. We must keep our distance from them.”

  At first before the trial there was a trickle of mail addressed to Brandon Schrank which the lawyer did not show to me. Then through the weeks of the trial there began to be more mail each day as TV and online coverage called national attention to the prosecution of a man who had shot and killed to defend his own life who had no prior record of lawbreaking as an adult and so by the end of the trial there had accumulated by the estimate of the lawyer more than 1,000 articles of mail in her custody, carried in cardboard boxes from the courthouse to a “safe house” in the country to be sorted through by the lawyer’s assistants from the Public Defenders Office.

  In fact the trial would be a “mistrial”—for after twenty-two days of testimonies and three days of jury deliberation the foreman of the jury reported to the judge that they were “hopelessly deadlocked.” And so, Brendon Schrank was released to freedom that is a great relief and yet an ordeal of waiting for the prosecutor has declared that there will be a second trial and again I will be held captive in the Glassboro County Men’s Detention for the duration of the trial and made to endure the humiliation of being charged a rabid racist murderer.

  It was a sign of the race hatred stirred against me, in the Men’s Detention before the trial I was kept in the segregated unit with men like myself (white). I did not have a cell mate. Not even black or Hispanic guards were assigned to me for fear that they would do injury to me or harass me.

  It was my court-appointed lawyer who insisted upon this for there had been many death threats made against me. (And also against her for defending me.) I was not so happy that the lawyer insisted too that Brendon Schrank be placed on suicide watch for this meant that the lights in my cell could never be turned off but only dimmed and that not only would a guard observe me every ten minutes through a peephole in the door but a TV surveillance monitor was turned upon me every moment I was in that cell.

  I tried to protest, I did not want radioactive rays weakening my bones! I did not want cancer cells to be activated in my blood, by the TV monitor that could not be turned off and from which I could not ever hide.

  Dear Branden Schwank,

  You are despicible. It was most disgusting how you sat in the court with hands folded like in “prayr” so the jury would see you & think you are a Christian person & not a despicible murderer of an unarmed Black boy.

  God have mercy on your evil soul, you will not live long it is promised.

  Quickly I thrust away this letter which was written as an angry child might write in ballpoint ink. A hot flush came into my face and there was a ringing in my ears.

  This was a letter that had come to me early in May before the trial before the “legal team” made a decision to keep such letters from me.

  It was self-defense against five of them. I was in fear of my life.

  How many times I have sworn this simple fact. How many times I have made this statement. Immediately to the police officers who were summoned to the scene and again at the police station and again to my court-appointed lawyer and to the officers at the courthouse and many times since then so that in the night I am pleading in my sleep It was self-defense against five of them. I was in fear of
my life.

  They were not boys nor were they men but in-between though taller than I am, and harsh in their speech and faces contorted in hatred of me—of the whiteness of my skin.

  White fag. White fag-fuck.

  See what we gon do with you, white fag-fuck? We gon make you squeal.

  Of course they ran when I fired the first shot—all of them ran except the one who was on top of me attacking me. And it was too late for him.

  Not what I caused to happen but which happened to me.

  Crossing through the empty lot behind the Glassboro Post Office where the old Sears used to be now mostly rubble and rusted iron and broken glass and they came at me from behind there were five of them—they were taunting me saying what they would do to me if I didn’t give them my wallet—one of them had an iron rod he’d picked up swinging-like at my head so I was trying to protect my head and that made them laugh harder like they were drunk or high and the thought came to me—They will kill me, there is only eleven dollars in my wallet—because it has happened, people have been killed for not having enough money to give to muggers. I did not think of the color of their skin for I was so frightened, I could not see clearly—I did not think that they were “boys” for they looked and behaved older and they were taller than me and there were five of them and I was alone—I was in fear of my life—one of them was the loudest and angriest calling me white fuck—rushing at me swinging the iron rod closer and closer to my head like he intended to knock out my brains and I was praying to God to help me and somehow then it happened, I reached inside my jacket, they would think I was reaching for my wallet but it was the gun—my uncle Trevor’s .45 caliber police service revolver . . .

  How many times I shot him I don’t know. Just kept pulling the trigger until he dropped the iron rod and—whatever happened after that, it was God’s will.

  At such times you give yourself over to His will. There is no opposition to God, there is only surrender.