Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

“Okay, Goddamn it, okay!”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I said I was okay,” I snap, rubbing at my head. I’m starting to worry that I’m in the process of filling out the ER doctor’s prescription.

He slows down and starts looking at the street signs, takes a right, and picks up some speed again.

“Just look for the For Sale sign he says. Number ninety-two.”

“Okay,” I say, but all the numbers look blurry. Everything does as the thing inside my head continues to wake up.

Ten seconds later he spots the sign staked into the front lawn. I see it after he’s slowed down. He pulls up outside it. I rub at my eyes and my vision clears a little. I shouldn’t have washed the damn pills down the sink.

“No point in trying to sneak in,” he says, “he’s expecting us.”

“So what do we do?”

“We go up to the front door and we knock. It’s that simple.”

“And then?”

“And then we do it the Schroder way,” he says, and before we get out of the car more cars show up behind us, and the media joins us to come and arrest Caleb Cole.

The father is awake. The police are going to be here soon. He considered not letting the police know, and only calling the media. He didn’t need the cops here-but ultimately he decided they wouldn’t be able to stop what was happening. They are coming into a situation they know nothing about, and they’ll have to be cautious. Their inclusion won’t be a problem-if anything it’ll just confirm Stanton’s fate.

Caleb leans over and removes Stanton’s gag. “I enjoyed killing your daughters,” he says.

“You’re an animal,” Stanton says. He’s crying and his face is red.

“Get up.”

“What?”

“I said get up. We’re going for a walk.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you, you. . you. .”

“Animal. You said already. You want me to kill you in front of your last remaining daughter?”

“I said ‘fuck you.’ ”

Caleb likes it. Stanton is getting braver. He’s angry. “Unless you get up I’m going to strip Katy naked and put photographs of her naked body all over the Internet.”

Stanton gets to his knees. “I’ll kill you,” he says. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Caleb nods. “If I don’t kill you, Doctor, will you stand up at my trial and tell the good people of the jury that none of this was my fault? That I’m just a man who snapped?”

“You’re insane,” Stanton says.

“Good.” He reaches down and grabs a handful of Stanton’s hair and starts to pull. “Now get up.”

He leads Stanton out to the living room, past the bedroom with Katy who is still asleep. He switches on the lights. He holds the knife tightly in his hand and he waits, standing behind Stanton with the knife against his neck.

“What are you waiting for?” Stanton asks.

“Shut up,” Caleb says.

He only has to wait a minute until the cars start arriving.

“Move,” he says, and he pushes Stanton toward the door. Stanton stumbles, but he moves, reaches it, and stops. He turns them both around so his own back is to the door and Stanton is facing the hallway.

“Now what?” Stanton asks.

“Now it’s time to beg for your life,” he says, and he cuts through the binds on Stanton’s wrists.

The doctor immediately brings his arms in front of him and starts rubbing them. “I’m going to kill you, and then your other daughter,” Caleb says. “Now turn around.”

Stanton turns around. There are a few feet between them, nothing more. Cole steps toward him, and as he does, he drops the knife. It thuds onto the carpet maybe a little closer to Stanton than to him.

Both men pause as they stare at each other. Caleb waits for Stanton to react. And then he does, swooping toward the knife. Caleb reaches out and kicks it, it goes behind Stanton and further down the hallway. Stanton goes after it. Caleb smiles. He reaches behind for the door handle and opens the door. It’s all perfect. Just perfect.

Stanton gets the knife and points it at him. “I’m going to kill you,” he says triumphantly, shaking his head. “I’m going to fucking slice you apart.”

Caleb steps through the doorway. He steps onto the porch and faces the street. There are two vans, and standing in front of them are people with cameras. He raises his arms in the air, palms facing front, hands well away from his body. On the footpath coming toward him is the detective and Tate. He keeps his back to Stanton and he waits, he waits for the fucker to stab him, he waits for the death that comes with it, and in front of the cops, in front of the media, Dr. Nicholas Stanton is going to kill an unarmed man. He’s going to kill a man who he thinks killed his daughters. He’s going to have to answer for that, and there’s going to be a trial. He’ll be found guilty, the same way Caleb was guilty fifteen years ago. And then he’s going to go to jail and he’s going to get beaten and raped and he’s going to get his fingers broken over and over by those same assholes with the aversion to symmetry, and then Nicholas Stanton is finally going to know what it’s like to walk in Caleb Cole’s shoes.

“How the hell did they figure it out?” Schroder asks.

We step out of the car. There are media vans behind us. We don’t know if Cole is in there, who’s dead and who’s alive, we don’t know if Cole is going to come quietly. As if on cue the front door to the house opens. Cole comes forward four steps, and then he raises his arms. He stares toward us, but there are lights in his face from the vans and the cameras and I can see he can’t tell us apart from the journalists. People start moving forward. Cole’s shoulders are shrugged up around his neck as if he’s cold or expecting to be shot.

Schroder raises his gun. I move off to the side. Cole doesn’t turn toward me. He doesn’t take another step forward. He keeps his eyes forward, squinting hard to see.

“Don’t move,” Schroder yells at him.

“I’m unarmed,” he shouts back. “I am turning myself in. Don’t shoot.”

“Detective,” one of the reporters yells, “what right do you have to be here?”

I glance back to make sure Schroder isn’t about to open fire on the reporters before running onto the lawn. I reach the front of the house out to the right, out of Cole’s line of vision. I stay against the side and start closing the distance to the front door. Then Dr. Nicholas Stanton comes through it. He’s staggering, taking long strides. He’s wearing pajamas similar to Schroder’s, only his have splotches of blood and vomit down them. His eyes are large and wild and his face is in a tight grimace. He’s holding a very large knife in his hand, which comes into view when he raises his arm to shield his eyes from all the light. The light is helping to spotlight him, making him look like a madman. He flinches a little at all the commotion, at all the people, and he seems unsure of himself. Then he sees Cole, focuses on him, his face gets even tighter, and he moves forward. His feet land heavily on the ground. Cole must be able to hear him, yet Cole doesn’t look back, he doesn’t move, just keeps his shoulders shrugged up around his neck as high as they will go.

Then it hits me. The endgame. Cole wants to be stabbed. He wants Stanton to kill him in front of all these people. He wants Stanton to go to jail for killing an unarmed man.

Schroder is still yelling at Cole not to move. From Schroder’s angle, Cole is blocking his view of Stanton. I keep moving forward. All of us are in the lights of the cameras. We’re all being recorded for history. Schroder has to yell to be heard over the gaggle of reporters. My head is throbbing but I know in another minute this will all be over.