Witch Hunt by Andrew Vachss

Witch Hunt
by Andrew Vachss

The first time I heard a message, I couldn’t obey. I could hear it, but I was
distant from it, the way I am from people talking. They think I can’t hear
them, but I can—I just can’t get close enough to say anything.

The messages don’t come from inside my head, no matter what the
doctors say.

I was small when I first heard them. I couldn’t do anything to stop
them. Any of them. The people, I mean, not the messages. I can stop
people, sometimes, but I would never stop the messages.

No matter how much I screamed, my parents would still leave me with
her. They acted like they didn’t understand, because I couldn’t talk then.

By the time I could talk, I was too scared.

Ellen burned me. Just to show me she could do it. My babysitter. She was
in charge when my parents would go out. Sometimes she would beat me.
Spanking, she called it. She would do it real hard until I would cry. Then
she would tell me I was a good boy.

She showed me how to do what she wanted. If I didn’t do it, she would
hurt me. Sometimes she hurt me anyway. She liked to do it. She would get
all sweaty and close her eyes. Later she would laugh.

My parents liked her. My mother told my father he only liked her
because she wore her blue jeans so tight you could see her panties right
through them. My father got all red in the face and said how reliable she
was. My mother said how hard it was to get anyone to watch me.

Ellen made me lick her. And she put things inside me too. When I got
older, she took pictures of me.

She said if I ever told, they wouldn’t believe me. And then she’d get me
good the next time.

Cut out my heart and eat it.

Sometimes Ellen wore a mask. Sometimes she burned things that
smelled funny.

Her eyes could cut me and make me bleed.

She had a tattoo inside her leg. On the high, fat part where her legs
came together. A red tattoo of a cross, like in church. The cross was
upside down. Where it would go into the ground, it went inside of her.

I told on her. One night, just before my parents were going to go out. I
was five years old and I could talk. I was so scared I wet all over myself,
but I told.

They looked at each other—I’ve seen them do that a lot, ever since I
started watching them. But when Ellen came over, they told her they
weren’t going out that night and she could go back to her house.

Ellen looked right at them. Right in the eye. “Is Mark telling his crazy
stories again?”

“What stories?” my mother asked her.

“His Devil stories, I call them. He told me his kindergarten teacher was
a monster. How she wore this mask and carried fire in her hand. It must be
that cable TV. My Dad won’t let me watch it.”

I could see it happening. I screamed so loud something broke in my
eyes. Then I couldn’t see anything.

They put me in a hospital. A lady came to see me. She was very nice. She
smelled nice too. She came a lot of times. Every day.

After a while, I could see again.

I wouldn’t talk to the nice lady at first, but she promised me Ellen could
never get me. I was safe.

So I told her. I told her everything. She said she would fix it.

Everything would be all right.

When they came back a couple of weeks later, they had the nice lady
with them. She sat down on the bed next to me and held my hand. She said
they looked at Ellen. Without her clothes on. And there was no red tattoo
like I said. It must be my imagination, the lady said. She had a sad face
when she said it.

I knew it then. She was with Ellen.

I was already screaming when they showed me that first needle.

I was in the hospital a long time. Sometimes my parents would come in
there with the lady I thought was nice. After I took my pills I would get
dreamy. But I wouldn’t sleep, not really. Just lie there with my eyes closed
and listen to them.

“We could get sued,” my father said. “Ellen’s father hired a lawyer. He
said false allegations happen all the time. A witch hunt, he called it.”

It scared me, the way he said it. I didn’t look.

They tested me, to see if I was stupid. When they found out I wasn’t, then
they said I was crazy. I had to talk to a doctor. I told him about the
messages. He was the first one. He said they came from inside my head. I
told him “No!” and he pushed a button and some big men in white coats
came in.

Later, they started the drugs. Haldol. Thorazine. All kinds of things. I
learned to take the pills. Otherwise, it was the needle.

Some of the attendants, they gave you the needle anyway, even if you
were good. They liked to do it. But it was the nurse who gave the orders.

She was with Ellen.

They let me go home sometimes. My mother would make me take the
medication. I got older and older, but it didn’t make any difference. I still
had to do what they said.

I cost a lot of money. I heard them talking. A lot of money.

“Paranoid schizophrenic,” my mother would say. What the doctors told
her, like a religion.

Ellen’s picture was in the paper. Her father was arrested for having sex
with his daughter. A little girl. Nine years old. I was eleven then, and I
could read good. Ellen’s picture was in the paper because she told on her
father.

In the paper, they said Ellen was a hero. For saving her sister.

When I asked my mother about Ellen, she slapped me. Then she started
crying. She said it wasn’t my fault—I was born this way. I knew she meant
the messages. Then she called the hospital and they came and took me
away.

The medication has side effects. I know what they call it. Tardive
dyskinesia. My face jumps around. My whole body twitches. My mouth is
so dry and it’s like it is stuffed with cotton. My hands shake. I’m dizzy. My
stomach is upset. I hate it.

When I stop taking the pills, they give me the needles.

They never catch me not taking the pills. It’s just that I act different
without them. And they can tell.

Act. That was a message I got all the time. Act!

I’m an out-patient now. I live in a room. My parents moved away. I don’t
know where. I’m an adult now. Twenty-three years old.

I get a check. From the Government. Every month. It comes to where I
stay. I pay my room rent. I eat in restaurants, but I don’t eat that much. I’m
not hungry much.

There is a television set in my room. I always leave it on. Messages
come through it for me.

I don’t take the medication very often, but I act like I am. Nobody looks
that close.

They send you cues. That’s the message, to watch for the cues. I go out,
looking. The subways are the best. There’s all kinds of crazy people in the
subways. People never look at me that way. I look right. I’m careful.

I look carefully. At everything, I look. There’s a third rail. It’s death to
touch it. If you look down, down into the pit, you can see the other tracks.
Water runs between the tracks, like a river. You can see the things people
throw there. Sometimes you can see a rat, watching up at the people.

The messages are everywhere, but they are never spoken. Not out loud.
They come through things.

You have to watch them from behind because their eyes can burn you.

The first time, in the subway, the train came through the tunnel.
Shoving through, too tight for the tunnel, like Ellen did to me. When the
train screamed, I knew I was in the right place.

From behind, they look alike unless you look close. If you can see their
panties, the outline of their panties, under their skirts or their slacks, then
that’s them. That’s how you know them.

The first time I saw that, the train was screaming in. I was jammed in
behind her in the crowd. When I pushed her, she went right under the
wheels. Then everybody screamed like the train.

Nobody ever said anything to me.

The message comes to me anytime. Especially in my room, where the
medication doesn’t block the signals. When I hear the message clear, I go
out. To do my work.

I’m on a witch hunt.

This story appears in Born Bad by Andrew Vachss.