It is very late at night as I write this. The wind is howling outside my window and the branches are scratching at the pane. As always when I think of him, my hand trembles, and a chilly terror hovers over me.
He was my best friend in our little backwater draw school where we both grew up. But that was many years ago...before the tragedy changed our lives forever
We were both about 6 years old when he started taking my lunch money from me. Well (as I later found out), he was taking money from all the kids.
"Your money is not yours and it is not mine", he would say. "It belongs to US". Then he would flash that charming smile as I ponied up.
"Always remember, Solon", he would say to me, as his eyes peered searchingly into mine. "God created wealth for the use of everyone: not for you, not for me, but for US". He would then squirrel the money into a special snake skin bag that he always carried.
It wasn't very long after this that he taken to calling himself Doctor. "Solon", he'd say, as we speared water snakes under the burning Southern sun. "I am curing people of their money; I am healing them of the burden that they carry. Therefore, I truly am a Doctor; hereafter you may--indeed, you must--call me DOCTOR US.
My hand trembles violently as I write this; the sweat rolls off of my brow. I dare not revisit these memories, but oh God, I must!
It was a horrible fire. The whole community was there beating at the flames with potato sacks, and passing buckets of water down the line...
Even we children helped, and my breath was ragged from the horrible smoke, which followed me wherever my head was turned; and the exhaustion made my heart pound as I beat the flames and they sprang up ever quicker. I sobbed and tried to suck air into my aching lungs.
Then I saw DR. US (as I had now taken to calling him). He was siting up on an old tree branch, about 100 yards off from the wicked flames, and mostly hidden by the dense foliage. His eyes glowed with an eerie light and a thin smile curled around his lip.
In the house they found dead porcupines and other animals of all kinds. Nobody ever was able to explain this bizarre finding, and what is perhaps stranger still...everyone stopped trying too, as if the truth that might be found was one far too dark, and much too sickening, to ever be examined and faced in the cold light of day.
I talked to DR. US later that day, and asked him (not for the first time) where his parents were. I had never been in his house, and I had never seen a father or a mother (after all these many years we know that there were school notes, proper recording documents for the school, the county, etc.; but I was never able to find any human being who had ever seen DR. US'es parents).
He ignored my question, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. His face still had the glow I had glimpsed earlier, as he strode around the outskirts of the destroyed house and land, seeming to admire the handiwork of this horrid venture of Mother Nature.
"Isn't it glorious, Solon!". He rubbed his hands and reached toward me with affection. I drew back in horror.
"What are you saying, DR. US? This is a horrible tragedy; and look at all the innocent animals that died when they got confused and ran into the flames".
Suddenly, his whole being transfixed, and a look of utter contempt ran across his face. His next words were spit at me with a venom that still leaves me shuddering.
"You, Solon, are a bloody fool! I thought that YOU, at least, understood me. Do you think I need money or wealth? Do you think I can eat more than 3 meals a day"? Spital rolled off his bottom lip, as the upper one curled into a snarl. "Good bye, Solon".
And that was it. He simply turned and walked into the woods and out of the community. I did not see him again for 15 years. By that time he had rolled his name together and was known to all as DRUSS. I was never again allowed to see behind that brilliant poise or that thick polish, that he always wore like a garment for the public eye; that warm, engaging charm that made him the darling of Wall Street, and the sweet heart of countless ballroom belles.
But as the years rolled by my door, and as I fought and struggled to overcome an endless series of hardships and deprivations, I often thought of DR. US, and I was often drawn, to see again, that horrible vision of those malignant eyes driving into me.
I think now I understand part of it: certainly not all. The world was witness to the Russians retreating before the Germans--burning crops and destroying infrastructure as they went. Then the Germans did the same as the world marched inexorably toward Berlin. They call it a scorched earth policy.
Well, I don't know where DR. US came from. I don't know why there were no parents; and I don't even know what he IS. But I have figured out one thing: DR. US didn't need the money. And it was NOT a scorched earth policy that he followed...and follows still. It was a scorched SOUL policy!
And that is why I tremble here in this tiny room, with the night noises clacking outside my window, and the groans of death undulating in my head: I know that he will soon come to see me again...his oldest and dearest friend... |
