Jack Ketchum - Sleep Disorder

Dallas. The manservant.

"Parachute cord's the best," he elucidated. "Piano wire's too proverbial, not to mention too messy. And nylon's unreliable. Last chick that dumped Roderic, I was doing the job on her with nylon and the damn thing snapped on me. It got ugly."

Clare, locked in stasis, noted exactly what Dallas had done: he'd garroted Fudd, leaving the deadly ligature about her lover's throat such that the face had swollen to a queer balloon. Then one of the manservant's hands displayed the cassette from her answering machine. "You should listen to your messages," he advised. "The old lady's not happy, let me tell you."

Last chick that dumped Roderic , was all Clare could think now. I was doing the job on her … She screamed as Dallas stepped forward. But it was not a garrote that the manservant so expertly wielded, but a chloroform-soaked towel…

Clare awoke in… Roderic's room, she realized. Her senses skittered like autumn leaves in the street. Her head thumped.

"Oh, missy," wisped the familiar voice. Roderic's mother, simpering and rouged, sat erect in a fine cane chair opposite her. "You were supposed to take care of my boy."

Clare's tongue lolled. "But we…broke up!"

"Broke up? Hmmph! You dumped him, you silly, selfish horse's ass. My boy is a gift to the likes of you. Other women have treated him similarly, so Dallas here has always been kind enough to give them what they deserve. But you? God knows why, but I simply didn't have the heart. Roderic loves you so much…"

Clare tremored. Dallas glared at her. Then the old lady, stiff in her frumpy dress, went on, "You should listen to your phone messages, missy.”

“I was on vacation!" Clare blurted.

"Indeed, and making whoopie, no doubt, with that detestable narcotics dealer. Unfortunately Dallas and I were on vacation too. But if you'd listened to your phone messages then you could have prevented all of this."

"All of what?" Clare rasped.

"Poor Roderic. He's a nice boy but admittedly an eccentric one, and he has some strange ideas about proving his love… Dallas found him…outside."

Clare's mind swam in muck. She pictured her nightmares: Roderic committing suicide in an array of ways. "He's dead?" she ventured.

"No," the old woman firmly stated. "No, thank God, he's not."

The scowling manservant, then, plugged the cassette tape into a player and walked off to another room. "Hi, this is Clare! I'm not home right now so please leave a message — beeeeeep!"

An unearthly pause, then Roderic's voice warbled, "Clare, my darling, why don't you believe me? So be it! I'll prove it! I'll prove that I would do anything for you… Listen!"

A pause. A sliding snap! Then a brief scream.

"That," informed the old woman, "was my son cutting off his pinky with a pair of tin snips."

Clare gasped.

Roderic continued on the tape, sobbing: "So be it. Here is my proof. For each day that I'm without you, Clare, I will cut off another part of myself."

Clare did her math, paling. She'd been away for… Twenty-four days! Dallas reappeared, a blanketed bundle in his sturdy arms. He set the bundle on the bed. Undraped it. Stepped aside.

"Clare! You're back! I knew you'd come back to me!"

Clare's eyes bugged. Then she bent over and vomited.

Roderic's bright face enthused, "It wasn't easy. Ten fingers, ten toes, and…well…the rest. I pre-applied the tourniquets and used a hacksaw — the legs and the left arm were easy. But it was the right arm that was the trick. Bet'cha can't guess how I did it!"

Clare erped??? up more vomit onto the plush Persian throw rug.

"I crawled out to the woodpile, tightened the tourniquet with my teeth, and stuck the last arm under the automatic log splitter. It did a nice, clean job."

Clare, for the life of her, could not escape the sight: Roderic swaddled on the bed. No arms. No legs.

Just a living, talking torso.

"Do you believe me now?" asked the happy head atop the trunk. "Do you believe me when I say that I'd do anything for you?"

Clare could only croak a single word: "Yes."

"You've got your whole lives to spend together now," the old woman said. "In time, you'll see it's for the best." She rose and made for the door. "Dallas, of course, will remain for a spell, to see that you comply."

Dallas, ever-so-faintly, smiled. His leather jacket shined. One gloved hand idly twirled the garrote.

"This is your fault, missy, so now it's time to pay the piper," Roderic's mother metaphored. "Assume your responsibilities without a fuss, please. It's only fair." Her stern eyes held fast. "I expect you to take very good care of my boy."

When the old woman left and locked the door behind her, Clare gulped hard. For it took her a moment to realize the full weight of the implication…

"Oh, darling," Roderic spoke. "We'll have such a splendid time together! Till death do us part!"

…there was one part that Roderic hadn't cut off. And that part, now, stood heartily erect for her.

"Get your clothes off and get to it," Dallas directed. "You don't want to keep Roderic waiting."

Collaboration's pretty natural for me.

I'm surprised it isn't for every writer.

What's writing after all but sophisticated, highly organized play? When you were a kid, who did you play with?

Other kids, of course.

Presuming you were lucky enough to have some around.

I sure did. I played alone back by the brook a lot. But I also played with all the other baby boomers on my small-town dead-end street. When they weren't kicking my butt, that is.

But any good game of King-of-the-Mountain or Cowboys `n Indians or Treasure Hunt is all about collaboration. About shared fantasy. Sure, you can argue about the rules now and then but if you're not really on the same page as your playmates, the game just won't work. You're shot down, you stay down. Period. You hope your luck's better next time.

When the fantasy really works it's hell to have to go home for dinner, too. You don't wanna. Same thing with writing. When you're on a roll, when you're inside the fantasy, you hate to have to quit. It's usually only exhaustion that makes you quit. Your body's call to dinner, so to speak.

Then, my first paying job in the arts was as a singer. Since I didn't play an instrument, a good piano player or guitarist was an absolute necessity — as important as remembering the lyrics to whatever Elvis, Jolsen, Beatles or folk song I was singing at the time. What was needed was a fellow traveler, somebody who was not just backing you up but was actively conspiring with you to seek out the meaning of the song and the feeling inside the melody and lyric. With the exception of the occasional a capella tune it was not something you could do alone. You needed collaboration.

Shortly afterwards I did a few seasons of summer stock. I was lucky. My fellow cast members, directors and production crews were good, hardworking people practically to a man. In fact over the course of four seasons I remember only one goddamn diva and nobody could stand her. And I think that there's nothing quite as satisfying as rehearsing a play with a group of like-minded souls whose only real goal is to get it right, to do your best to honor the drama and the production. To share whatever fantasy the author's set in motion.

By the time Ed Lee approached me to do a story together, I'd even collaborated twice on the writing end, many years before. As a young fresh-out-of-college teacher in Massachusetts I'd staged two original musical plays co-written by me and my cast of kids at Brookline High: Springs Comes Slowly Up This Way and The Lord High Teller of the Other From the Which .

Delightful experiences, both.