by Matthew Shepherd
“Wesley’s spending too much time in the electric chair.”
Lloyd kept flipping idly through the front section of the newspaper. He turned a page, and glanced up at his wife.
“He’s in the attic,” Alice said. “In the chair.”
Lloyd took a sip of coffee. His lips moved slightly as he read. Sunlight, drifting through the window, gleamed off his head. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not a real electric chair. It can’t actually hurt him.”
“I still think he’s spending too much time in it,” Alice said. She was standing in the doorway, her arms folded. “It’s not healthy.”
“The boy’s got an imagination. That’s healthy. He…” Lloyd lost his place. He ruffled the paper, drawing it closer to his face. “Huh. Damn.”
“I wish you’d have a word with him.”
Lloyd ruffled the paper again, saying nothing. Another sip of coffee. Alice’s eyes narrowed.
“Lloyd - I wish you’d have a word with him.”
“Why don’t you talk to him?” Annoyance crept around Lloyd’s voice. “He’s your son.”
“Because he - ” Alice bit back the words. “Because I think you should.”
“Fine.” Lloyd stood up, folded the paper into a rectangle and tucked it under his arm. “I’ll go upstairs right now.”
Wesley sat in the electric chair, staring at a point on the attic wall. He was surrounded by clutter - relics of Lloyd’s time long ago as the props master for a film company - but the electric chair was the only thing not thick with dust. It had been built for a low-budget horror film, and had been given to Lloyd as a memento. Nobody higher on the food chain had wanted it.
Small careful footprints led through the attic, picking their way between old trunks, musty cardboard boxes and piles of old clothing to where the prop squatted in a beam of dusty light. Sunlight glinted off the polished chrome. Exaggerated wiring had been dusted off: green loops from the left half of the metal cap, red twists from the right. The wood had been oiled to a dark sheen. The carriage bolts that held the large steel cap and arm cuffs to the frame had been shined.
Lloyd leaned into the attic and looked at his son. “Wesley?”
Wesley stared at the wall. Suddenly he jerked up, the veins in his neck sticking out as his arms strained against the metal cuffs. He flexed like that for a moment, then sank back down into the wooden seat.
“Bzzzzt,” Wesley said, shuddering. “Bzzzzt.”
Lloyd walked into the room and stood in front of Wesley. The boy’s thin arms floated loose in the metal cuffs. He was thin, thinner than Lloyd had been at his age, and his thin brown hair was plastered down with sweat to his pale forehead. It was unseasonably warm, and Lloyd was uncomfortable even in his t-shirt. His son had stacked telephone books on the seat of the chair to get his head up into the metal headpiece. Wesley kept staring, through Lloyd, at a point on the far wall, his dark brown eyes liquid.
“Wesley,” Lloyd said again, “your mother thinks you’re spending too much time up here.”
Wesley jerked and shivered in the chair again. “Zzzzz,” he buzzed, slowly slumping over.
“So, ah, you should maybe go out to play more. With your friends.” Lloyd dusted his hands against each other. “Outside.”
Wesley opened his mouth and exhaled. “Glaahhhhh,” he said, theatrically expiring. His body went limp. Lloyd found himself staring at a trunk behind Wesley and wondering idly what was in it. Maybe slides, the slides from the trip to Cuba he and Alice had taken before Wesley was born. It’d be fun to take them downstairs, Lloyd thought. Memories of good times. Wesley straightened in the chair again, refocusing his gaze straight through Lloyd’s torso.
“So it’s settled,” Lloyd said, looking down at the boy. “Less time up here and more time outside with your pals. ‘Kay?”
“Bzzzt,” Wesley said, his body going rigid. “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.”
The paper under Lloyd’s arm slipped a little. “I’m glad we could have this talk,” Lloyd said. “I love you, buddy.”
Wesley bucked a little in the chair, then leaned forward, his forehead resting on the front of the huge metal cap. He made a small hissing noise, like steam.
“Okay,” Lloyd said. He went back downstairs.
Alice was eating a bowl of cereal and looking studiously out the kitchen window. She was sitting on Lloyd’s stool. “Well?” she asked.
“It’s a phase,” Lloyd said, picking up his coffee. “He’ll grow out of it.”
Alice’s spoon made a heavy clink as she slapped it down onto the counter. “It is not a phase, Lloyd. Our son is weird. He needs help.”
“I found those slides from the Cuba trip up there,” Lloyd said. “We should pull ‘em out and take a look.”
“You’re not listening,” Alice said. “Wesley needs to see a therapist.”
“Wesley does not need to see a therapist.” Lloyd pulled the paper back out from under his arm. “It’s a phase.” He leaned against the doorframe and opened the business section.
“Wearing a funny hat is a phase,” Alice said. “Sitting for hours pretending to be electrocuted is unhealthy. You can’t ignore that, Lloyd.”
“Hmm,” Lloyd said, looking at a story on stock prices.
Alice stood up. “If you’re not going to do something, I will,” she said, her voice dangerously level.
Lloyd peeked at her over the top of the business section. “Wesley is not going to see a therapist,” he repeated, slower and louder than necessary.
Alice didn’t speak. Her mouth was set in a small firm line as she brushed past Lloyd and stomped upstairs. Lloyd snapped the paper open and looked for Dilbert.
Two minutes later, the screaming started.
Lloyd jumped, dropping the paper, and looked up. The howling was coming from the attic; inhuman, animal shrieking. He bolted up the stairs.
Alice was outside the attic door, a manic Wesley inside. Wedged in the door was the electric chair, which Alice was trying to wrestle through while Wesley flailed and shrieked. The green wires had been pulled out of the cap and were dangling off the back of the chair, wrapped around Alice’s arm. “It’s coming out!” Alice yelled at Wesley. “Let go of this chair!”
Wesley kept howling, froth forming at the corners of his mouth, his face a livid purple. Lloyd stood, frozen at the sight of his furious wife and bestial son. Alice turned and saw Lloyd standing at the top of the stairs. “Well, help!” she yelled at him.
Lloyd stepped forward and grabbed the chair. It was stuck; rather, it would never fit out the way Alice was trying to pull it. It had taken Lloyd twenty minutes to get it into the attic, without a rabid eight-year-old trying to stop him. He looked at Alice, and seeing her face elected to say nothing. He turned back to see his son lunging at his right hand, eyes feral, mouth open.
Lloyd yanked his arm back, and Wesley’s teeth plunged into his index finger. Lloyd howled and lashed out, driving his left hand into Wesley’s face. It rammed Wesley’s forehead, forcing the boy’s mouth open and snapping his head back. He arced through the air, blood on his teeth, falling onto the hard dusty wood of the attic floor.
Lloyd grabbed his finger and looked at it. He could see white bone at the bottom of the bite, then blood flooded into the wound. Lloyd looked up. Wesley was lying on the attic floor, a cloud of dust settling on and around him.
Alice screamed, letting go of the chair. It thudded to the attic floor on its legs, sitting upright inside the door. Alice shoved it back, running to her unconscious son. Lloyd followed, wrapping his finger in the bottom of his shirt. Alice was kneeling over Wesley, feeling his throat for a pulse.
“Is he hurt?” Lloyd asked stupidly. His brain felt slow.
Alice looked up at Lloyd, her face a ball of rage and fear. Lloyd took a step backwards as Alice picked Wesley up, holding his limp body in her arms. She hurried past Lloyd and around the chair. “I’m taking Wesley to the hospital,” she hissed at Lloyd, rushing to the stairs. “He probably has a concussion. I can’t believe you hit him.”
“I - ” Lloyd began, holding up the finger wrapped in his shirt. “He - I didn’t…”
Alice was already down the stairs. Lloyd stood in the attic door, looking at the electric chair. His finger throbbed, blood creeping up his shirtfront. Osmosis, he thought abstractly. He vaguely remembered a science experiment in grade school. The front door slammed. Tomato juice and celery. Lloyd sank into the chair.
The attic was stiflingly hot. Lloyd rested his forehead inside the metal headpiece, letting the cool of the steel soothe his brow. He stuck his good hand through the left metal cuff. Then, pulling his other hand free of his shirt, he put it through the right one. Blood dripped down the front of the electric chair’s arm, darkening the oiled wood. The steel felt good, cold against his skin.
“Bzzzzzzt,” Lloyd said, alone in the attic. “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.”
