Silence, Pt. 5: First Words

The moment he sees her he knows he’s dreaming. This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare and he doesn’t know how to wake up. She’s sitting in the chair where she died, this nameless woman with her red hair and her pink robe over pajamas. Sitting in the chair where he strangled her.

He’s had this dream before. He asks her question after question: Who is she. Why would Cheryl King want her dead. She doesn’t respond to any of them. She just sits there crying. Innocent. And Jason knows he’s going to kill her. Because he always kills her in these dreams, just like he killed her in real life.

He knows it’s time for the deed when she finally says, “Please.” That’s his cue. He doesn’t want to move forward, but he moves forward. He doesn’t want to place his hands around her delicate neck, but he does that too. 

He wants her to fight him. She doesn’t.

He wants her to scream for help; he wants help to arrive. He wants someone to stop him. 

This dream always ends the same way. He becomes aware of the baby–the woman’s baby–in the room. This part did not really happen. The baby as he is now, a year old, stands in his playpen, watching curiously as Jason murders his mother. 

Jason wants to stop. He wants to wake up. But he does neither. It is as if some spirit other than his own has taken over his hands. And the moment lasts forever.

Jason feels the mother die. Just like he felt it in reality.

Always, at the end of these dreams, the boy begins to cry.

And always the boy says, “Mom.”

Jason opens eyes.

The baby is crying. How long that’s been going on, Jason can’t say. Did the crying wake him up, or was he finally allowed to wake up–the dream is a cruel prison–like always, when the boy spoke?

Jason pushes himself upright in bed. The baby is standing in his crib with the help of its railings, bawling. He reaches out to Jason and nearly tumbles over.

After a few moments trying to orient himself in the waking world, Jason blinks his eyes clear and steps out of bed, stretching, sniffing. He covers the distance between the bed and the crib in a couple of long strides and sweeps the boy up into his arms and holds him close to his chest. The baby continues to wail.

Home, these days, is a rented, two storey house in Dempsy, where Jason continues to attend wrestling classes with students he has turned into makeshift babysitters when he’s on the road.

Wails and wails.

“HEY WOULD YOU MIND SHUTTING THAT FUCKIN THING UP!?” 

Jason and the baby do not live alone. There is a housemate.

“I’VE GOT A WICKED FUCKIN HEADACHE DOWN HERE!”

Rexton William Bader lives downstairs. Although that’s not his real name. Nor is Jerry Smith, which he used the night Jason met him. No, Bader’s real name is (probably) Richard O’Neill. Or at least that’s the name on his bank account.

For all intents and purposes, Bader lives on the ground floor while Jason and the baby mostly stick to the upper level. But the agreement is loose, and there is plenty of cross-over. Most mornings, like this morning, Jason trudges downstairs with the baby in his arms and heads to the kitchen.

The baby has stopped crying but is still sniffling, nestled against Jason’s chest.

Bader is in the kitchen, at the island counter. His wheelchair, along with the rest of his Rexton-William-Bader-costume, is nowhere in sight. He stands with his arms posted on the counter, bald as an egg, in a plain white t-shirt and sweatpants, watching a video on his phone. Jason can hear Nick Stuart and Richard Parker’s voices faintly from its speaker.

“Jesus,” Bader says. “This Hessian guy. Have you fuckin seen this?” He picks up his phone and holds it out to Jason just in time for Jason to see, upon its screen, Hessian toss Steve Lemieux, by his throat, into the corner of the ring. “This ain’t no fuckin human being. This is a monster.”

Jason knows all too well.

“Here’s what we do. Okay? You want money, right? This is money: You just go ahead let him drop you on your head a couple of times. Then? Boom. Next show you’ve got a neck brace. You can use mine. And hey. Hey. Maybe it’s you in a wheelchair now. And now you can’t work for life. If that ain’t a lawsuit, it’s at least an insurance claim. And I mean…” He pushes his phone closer to Jason’s face. “Who wouldn’t believe you?”

Jason just shakes his head and bounces the baby.

Bader says, “Okay fine, whatever,” while turning his phone back toward himself. “You want to kamikaze your own ass into Godzilla, that’s your business. And your funeral. I know, I know, they say size don’t matter in a fight, but–”

That’s bullshit. Size matters more than anything in a fight. And anyone who says differently has either never been in a fight, or, at the very least, never been in a fight with a seven foot monster.

“--I ain’t gettin within twenty feet of him. His arms are that long. So don’t expect no oxygen tank miracles, because that fuckin thing is a fuckin killer if I’ve ever fuckin seen–”

Jason slaps him. Not hard. Just hard enough to shut him up. 

The baby giggles.

Bader’s eyes go wide. “What the fuck was th–”

Jason slaps him again, a little harder this time.

Bader blinks. “What.”

But Bader knows exactly what. The baby, they both suspect, is getting near to his first word. And Jason doesn’t want to have to murder Bader if that first word is “fuck,” so, really, he’s slapping Bader for his own good.

Bader says, “So I’m supposed to censor myself because this little asshole’s gettin ready to talk?”

Jason lets that one slide.

Bader says, “It’s one thing that all he does is shit and cry, but–”

Jason doesn’t let that one slide. He smacks Bader again.

“Oh I’m supposed to say ‘poop’ now? A full grown man sayin ‘poop.’”

The baby laughs. 

“You know I’m startin to think he ain’t even your kid, because you don’t say sh–You don’t say nothin, and he never shuts up.”

Something must change in Jason’s face. And Bader, a well-practiced con-man, doesn’t miss it.  

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Bader says. “Like whoa.”

Jason steps over to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of formula. The baby reaches out eagerly and Jason hands it over. He’s read recently that babies can switch to cow’s milk after about a year, but given that he’s not sure exactly how old the baby is, he’s playing it safe.

"Hey,” Bader says. “Hey are you sayin what I think you’re sayin?”

Jason, of course, doesn’t respond.

“Is that not your kid?”

Nothing.

“Well whose is it then? Please tell me it’s like your sister’s. Or somethin. Tell me somethin. I know I’ve pulled some shady shit, but please please please tell me you didn’t–”

Jason turns to walk away but Bader dares to grab him by the arm. Jason stops to look. 

Bader says, “Hey. Seriously. I’m gonna need you to talk. Like you used to when we first met. And I don’t give a sh–crap what kind of psychological episode you’re goin through that turned you into a mute.” He points at the baby. “Whose kid is that?”

###

WHOSE KID IS THAT

Matthew Bedford never wanted to be mayor. It just sort of happened. As a child he’d wanted to be a basketball player, but then, after he only grew to be 5’8, he drifted somewhat aimlessly through the next few decades until his mother informed him that it was time her male heir–ironic– made himself useful. So she set him up with a few small businesses (the runnings of which he had very little to do with) and gradually guided/shoved him more and more toward politics.

And now here he was, mayor of Saint Ambrose, standing behind a podium at the latest town hall meeting, where the good citizens of Saint Ambrose blamed him for all their problems. They asked questions he felt woefully ill-equipped to answer. His mother had once advised him, “Just tell them you’ll look into it,” whenever he felt lost. It happened often.

“I’ll look into that as soon as we’re done here,” Matthew said now, standing at the podium. He smiled and gestured for his assistant to make an imaginary note and then moved on to the next question. The next question was about the oil refinery on the city’s west side, and Matthew spun out an answer about the evils of large corporations, and how Saint Ambrose was built on small businesses, like that of his mother, Cheryl King, who owned a well-known, small, used appliance shop. ...Among other things.

“Mr. Mayor,” a new questioner spoke when the room microphone was held out for him. He was disheveled-looking with scraggly blond hair and an unkempt beard. He looked like his fifty or sixty years had been cruel to him, and, cruelest of all, he was confined to a wheelchair.

Matthew had to be careful. The cameras were on. He could picture the view-counter on YouTube videos skyrocketing. Headlines like: “Saint Ambrose Mayor Disrespects Paraplegic.”

He smiled warmly, thinking about all the ways he could accidentally ruin his career here, and, worse, disappoint his mother.

The man’s voice sounded shaky. Weak. “I’m a veteran of the first Iraq war,” he said. “The one in the Gulf.” He paused, and, of course, the small audience clapped for him.

A war veteran in a wheelchair.

Matthew felt a bead of sweat streak from his hairline to the tip of his nose.

He smiled harder.

The veteran said, “Sir, as you can probably guess, I’m on a lot of medications. And it’s becoming harder and harder for me to have my medical care provided for. The amount of paperwork. The amount of phonecalls. After what I did for this country over there in that desert, I think I deserve a little–”

“Of course, of course,” Matthew said, nodding along. “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna make a note–” pointing at his assistant, “--and we’re going to–”

“No. No, no, no, no, no.”

“No?” Oh God, it was happening.

“That’s right, I said, no. I’m not gonna have cutesy miss fuckpants over there pretend to write in her phone, and then you move on to whoever you’re gonna fuck over next. No sir. No. I will not. I did three tours of duty for this country and I will not be ignored, I will not be silenced. Sir, respectfully, it’s more than just my legs. More and more as I get older. I got a bad back. I got a bad neck. My dick, sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. I got bladder problems. I got sphincter problems, sir. You know what that’s like?”

Millions and millions of views. Matthew Bedford, humiliated by a paraplegic talking about his dick and sphincter. Headline: Slum City Mayor Gets OWNED By WAR HERO. IN A WHEELCHAIR.

“Sir, we can–”

“I might shit myself right here.”

A billion views.

“Sir, sir, sir. We, uh, we–” He looked at his assistant. No help there. “How about we talk about this at the conclusion of this meeting? And I can make sure each and every one of your concerns is looked after.”

“Hey I’m not gonna let you turn me into some photo op. I ain’t your charity case.”

Matthew waved a hand as if the thought had never crossed his mind–it had–and said, “Of course it won’t be a photo op. Just me and you. One on one in my office."

Slowly, the veteran smiled. “Now that,” he said, “is what I was hoping to hear.”

###

When Matthew got to his office, there was a new man guarding his door. Strange. A massive man, in fact. He wore the same black suit as all of Matthew’s security.

Matthew said, “Where’s Jimmy?” His usual door guy.

“Went home sick. They brought me in.”

“And nobody told me?”

The big kid with a shrugged. He towered over Matthew and must have weighed three hundred pounds. “I’m Mike.”

Matthew frowned. Then he looked behind himself where the war veteran was following along in his wheelchair. Matthew smiled. “All of the concerns of the city on my plate and I barely know what’s going on inside my own office. This way. Please.” He opened the door and held it for the war veteran, who rolled by.

Matthew followed him, and the door closed quickly–too quickly–behind him.

Only then did Matthew realize he and the veteran were not alone. There was a man standing at the office window. His back was to them, his clean-shaven head shining beneath the office’s lights.

Even back-to, Matthew knew who he was looking at.

It was Jason Snow.

And Matthew remembered Jason Snow from his mother’s Christmas party. This was the man his mother had sent to murder a baby. Matthew’s baby. And he’d done it without question.

Matthew said, “No no no no no,” and turned to assist the war veteran in running away from this nightmare. But the nightmare thickened. Because when Matthew turned, he found the war veteran standing–standing–there by the door. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“God ain’t here to help you,” the veteran–or whatever he was–said. “You need to stay quiet.”

Matthew looked at the door. He thought about screaming.

“That man at the door,” the standing man said. He had a thick New England accent. “He’s ours [Ahs]. Your usual guy, he got led away by a lady on, let’s say, ‘empty promises.’ She’s ours too. All through this building, we got our people. All of that is to say…” He pointed at Matthew. “Stay. Fucking. Quiet.”

Matthew began to shake.

The standing man said, “Now, you do a little math, use a little logic, and I’m sure you can figure out who each and every one of us is. Me? I’m fuckin on TV every couple of weeks with my silent friend here. I’ll give you our names right now. The big kid outside? Mike Johnson. A wannabe pro wrestler. Don’t mean shit. You know why?”

Matthew didn’t say anything.

The standing man said, “Because we got something you don’t. Leverage.”

“What do you want?” Matthew’s eyes shifted from one man to the other. “Money?”

The standing man fell back into his wheelchair and laughed. “Money? Well. I guess you’d think that wouldn’t you? A smart man would want money, right? Hell, I want money. And maybe, just maybe, I just spent a thirteen hour cross-country drive trying to convince this dumb fuck that we should extort the shit out of you. Because we know about the baby. Your baby. The one you had with a very eager young woman who worked on your campaign. While your wife was at home writing campaign slogans or some shit.”

Matthew looked at Jason Snow. Snow’s eyes were hard. Unflinching. If ever there lived a man without a soul, this was him.

Matthew said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play that game.”

“If you’d just tell me what it is you want–”

“Well let me do that. Honestly, I think we should be robbing you right now. But I’m dealin with Mr. Silent Sociopath over here, same as you are, and I’m here to talk for him. Alas. What he wants–not what I want, believe me, but what he wants–is information on the baby.”

Matthew’s mouth felt sticky. It took him a couple of attempts to say, “What baby?”

And then Jason Snow stepped up and slapped him. Hard.

Matthew fell to a knee while the man in the wheelchair said, “Whoa whoa whoa, I told you to let me–” and then Snow hit him again. When Matthew’s ears stopped ringing the voice came back, saying, “--did not sign up for this! You said we’d come in here and maybe make a few threats and–”

He said more but it was lost to Matthew when Jason Snow’s hand came over his face and yanked him up to his feet and led him roughly across the office and together they smashed through the office’s bathroom door and now Matthew felt the wall against his back and Snow’s hand pressing into his face as if he was trying to push through it and now Matthew’s pants were getting warm and oh my God he was pissing himself because this was how was going to die. He was going to die right here at the hands of this quasi-famous mad man. In a bathroom, covered in his own piss.

Matthew breathed hard against Snow’s palm until Snow’s hand slid down to his throat and pinned it to the wall. Now he breathed when Snow allowed him to breathe.

When Matthew heard the wheelchair man hollering through the bathroom door, it occurred to him how easily Snow had manhandled him into this situation. So easily that he had been able to lock the door behind him. The wheelchair man was pounding, yelling, “Hey this isn’t what you said! I swear to shit, Snow, I will call downstairs. I’ll call the fuckin cops! I’ll rat you out like a motherfucker.”

If Snow heard any of this, it didn’t show in his eyes. Eyes of a killer. A man without a soul.

Time stopped.

And then Snow spoke.

Barely a whisper.

“If you’re hearing my voice,” he said, just barely loud enough to hear above all the banging and yelling, “it means one of two things. Either I love you. With all of my heart. Or I am seriously… seriously… contemplating whether or not to let you live.” He paused before adding. “Which of those categories do you think you fit into?”

“Oh Jesus oh Jesus.”

“Your mother sent me to kill a woman and her baby. The woman is dead. The baby… your baby… is alive.”

Matthew felt tears on his face.

Snow said, “Now. Play dumb with me one more time and I kill you. Do you understand me?”

Matthew didn’t say anything.

“Do you. Understand. Me.”

“Yes.”

“I need the baby’s name.”

Matthew sobbed loudly. “Why?” he said. “Call him anything you want.” The truth was, Matthew wanted the same thing as Snow. He wanted the baby–his baby–far away from his mother. And safe. “Give him your own name. It would be better.”

Snow squeezed to shut him up. “I want the name his mother gave him,” he said. “And I want his date of birth. And the hospital he was born in.”

###

Rexton William Bader, or Richard O’Neill (probably), spends a good portion of the thirteen hour drive back to Dempsy crying. Somewhere on the long road behind them are three other cars full of the wrestling students who assisted Jason in his latest felony. The perks of being viewed as a god, he supposes.

Bader sobs, “We could have just taken his money.”

Jason doesn’t want Matthew Bedford’s money.

“We’re goin to jail. We’re all gonna spend the rest of our lives in fuckin jail.”

Jason, driving, reaches out and smacks him–not hard–on the side of the head. Because the baby–Donald Jefferson Wallace, born July 19, 2024, and named after his mother’s grandfather–is in the backseat. Listening.

Bader shakes his head like none of this can be real. He turns to look at Jason. “What are you?”

I am death personified. I am Azrael. I am king of the monsters, a man who brings monsters to their knees. Because although, yes, size is indeed the single most important factor in a fight, there are other factors. And ALL of those are my domain. I. DO. NOT. STOP. I dominate.

Eventually Bader’s sobbing gives up. For miles and miles there is only silence, until finally it’s broken by the voice of Richard Parker: “Here comes the Hess Express!” 

When Jason looks over he finds Bader back to watching video on his phone.

Bader says, “If this fuc–If Hessian saw the version of you I saw tonight, he’d–” He stops and shakes his head. “So okay. You handle it. I’m just saying, don’t expect me to hit that big bast–to hit Hessian with no oxygen tank.”

“Hessian.”

Jason looks over at Bader. Bader’s looking right back. Then they both turned around to stare at the backseat. At the baby.

“Hesh!” The baby says happily. “Hessian.”

Bader turns to Jason and holds his hands out. “Hey that ain’t my fault.” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “That's Richard Parker's fault. [Pahkah's] And, you ask me, that’s way worse than ‘fuck.’”