Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 4, October 1977

Chains by Dana Lyon

Seeking to set in cold type what makes a “Different” story different is like trying to carry quicksilver in a sieve — somehow, the essence of explanation sifts through the openings to vanish in cracks of the floor. Take the last two such stories that have run — Sarah Randall’s TO MAMA WITH LOVE in last March’s issue, a study in rural. matricide with its eerie outcome, and George Chesbro’s THE FINEST OF FAMILIES, a horrifyingly updated vampire story — and compare them with this one, a paean to old fashioned education that somehow becomes fatally entangled with the primeval scream. But what the hell — if any two of them were alike, how could they be different?

Miss Clara Palmer was watering the petunias in front of the great old house where she lived alone, hoping that for once she might be left in peace. She liked to think of the past as she worked in her garden, since there was nothing in the present worth thinking about and no future in particular to look forward to.

She liked to remember the days when she had taught English in one of the junior high schools in town, and how lovely her dear children had been in those days — the quiet halls with just a few boys and girls wandering from class to class, giggling over their private affairs but always polite and amenable. There was no noise or confusion — or danger — in schools in those days.

If a child was naughty, he or she was ordered to the principal’s office — and went. The children dressed nicely and behaved nicely. They learned their lessons and minded their manners. She supposed she was lucky to have been retired all these years when young people had become rowdyish, sloppy, ill mannered and rough. Therefore, she could think about the past with quietude, untouched by the turmoil created by the young of today.

Or had been able to until recently, when the neighborhood had gone downhill to an alarming extent and the young people who passed her house on their way home from school had thrown incredible insults while doing so.

“Ha, old Pickle Nose, how’s your garden doin’ today?” and “I’ll bet you got some guy stashed away in there, may be in your bed, ha?”

Raucous laughter from the motley crew of young ruffians, children she was growing to hate and fear. They shouted obscenities at her, laughed at her, ridiculed her rather protuberant nose, cast reflections on her ancestry of which she was so proud (a governor, a Supreme Court justice, a hero of the Civil war, far back of course, but there, nonetheless) and always the obscenities, the coarseness, the wretched grammar that never failed to grate on her ears.

“I bet you ain’t got nothin’ that we want!” “Between you and I and the gatepost.” “Those kind of flowers make me sick at my stomach.” “Where’s all the cats old maids are sposed to got?”

Outraged, she would reflect that at least her own students in years past had not only been polite and well dressed, they had learned the grammar she had taught them, the English which was so vital to their future lives. They could write compositions and they could quote from Shakespeare. They learned to modulate their voices and do their elocution lessons — Whereas these young ruffians would turn out to be nothing but criminals or welfare recipients for the rest of their lives.

Five of them came along now and, rather than face them again, she laid down the hose and went to the faucet to turn off the water. As she bent over, one of the young voices bellowed, “Christ, what a butt! How about that — hey, Tony? How’d you like to—”

More obscenities. She turned around and recognized them. She had been subjected to their vulgarities more than once before. But this was the final time. Everyone, she reminded herself, has a breaking point beyond which he or she cannot endure. No one can be pushed beyond that point without disaster!

She stood up and turned to them and smiled. “Hello young people,” she said. “How about coming into the house for refreshments?”

They stood stock still — the tall, towheaded youth of thirteen and his younger companions, Tony the Chicano, Ezra the little black boy, the slyly grinning Eurasian girl, Iris, the fiery haired (and tempered) Irish miss, Maggie — they stood in wonderment at the pleasant response to their comments, then relaxed, grinning.

“What kinda refreshments?” asked Frank, the towhead.

“Lemonade and cookies!” He turned to the others, they grinned and echoed, “Lemonade and cookies!” and burst into wild laughter, finally falling on the ground in. their ecstasy and beating at the soil. Lemonade and cookies!

“That all, Grandmaw?” yelled the dark-featured Tony. “No pot? No booze? We’ll come in your house for some real chow. Refreshments? Lemonade?” The others howled in glee.

Miss Palmer felt quite sick but persisted, nonetheless. “Whatever you want,” she said slyly. “I got” (purposely reverting to their form of communication) “some stuff inside you never seen before. Good grub and a lot of gold coins. A collection. I figured maybe you’d want to take a look.”

They gazed at her more respectfully. Frank looked at the others. “Old Grandmaw’s maybe got something. Wanta see?” Gold coins glittered in the eyes of each child: Easy to grab them from the old dame.

They followed their leader through the gate of the picket fence and into the house behind Miss Clara Palmer, who had finally reached her individual breaking point. It will be a long time, she assured herself, before these ruffians ever see daylight again — and led them into the big old house where she lived alone...

“Now,” said Miss Palmer, “here you stay until you learn the rudiments of language and deportment which the Board of Education has not seen fit to bestow upon any of its students for the last ten years. Here you stay! Do you understand?”

She was sitting at a worn wooden table in the huge windowless basement of the old house. Ranged around one end and part of the adjoining sides were her young charges, chained to things that were firmly embedded in the concrete walls. They were terrified and, for once, quiet.

The least terrified was the young Mexican boy, Tony. He spat at her and shouted, “My father, he kill you for this!”

“Quiet,” said Miss Palmer, and her voice was the cold tip of the iceberg. Beside her on the desk was the old-fashioned pistol with which she had herded them into this room, a bell such as was used in schoolrooms in her day, and a long buggy whip. “There will be no talking without my permission — just raise your hands if you have something to say.”

They all started walking at once, and Miss Palmer banged her hand on the bell and raised the whip. “You-will-not-interrupt,” she said in her icy voice. “I will tell you what you need to know. Now!”

She stared at them and they were quiet again. “At present,” she said, “You are illiterate young ruffians. You have no manners, no knowledge whatever, and a culture that belongs back in the caveman era. Before you get out of here you are going to be well-mannered, cultured, moderately educated young people, a credit to the future of your country.”

The Eurasian girl, Iris, said, “I’m scared. Why you do this?”

“I just told you,” said Miss Palmer. “Parents and teachers alike are responsible for the way the young are growing up these days, and I am going to prove that decency and intelligence can be brought out in young children if enough attention is given to them.”

“You are a God-damned old bitch!” shouted the Irish girl, Maggie.

Miss Palmer rose quietly from her desk and, whip in hand, approached the redheaded spitfire.

“One more remark like that,” she said, “and you will feel this whip against your legs. I do not wish to hurt you but if that is the only way you can be taught, then so be it. Is that clear?”

She looked around at the young, grubby, frightened faces and thought with satisfaction, The first step taken.

Back at her desk, she said in her pleasant, no longer icy-edged, schoolteacherish voice, “Now, children, I will explain how you are going to live down here. There will be no more privation than is necessary. Your chains are long enough so that you can lie on the floor and this evening I will bring down some blankets for you. Hot meals three times a day—”

“Hey, Grandmaw,” the oldest boy, Frank, taunted, “how we gonna pee?”

The bell sounded loudly. “Do you want to feel the whip?” she demanded. “First, you spoke without raising your hand. Second, I am not your grandmother nor anyone else’s. Third, you committed a vulgarism in referring to a natural function of the body. Keep still, all of you!” and now the iciness had returned.

“I mean what I say and you are in no position to argue about it. Now... if and when any of you feel the need to go to the bathroom, simply raise your hand and ask politely to use the lavatory. I will then unfasten that person, and I will have this pistol in my hand in the event there is any attempt to overpower me.

“There is a convenient bathroom at the side of the room, where that door is, with no window in it, like the rest of this place, and no lock on the door. You will then return and fasten yourself to the chain again. If I do not happen to be in the room at the time you need to go, Frank will find a button in the wall behind him which will ring a bell upstairs. I think that takes care of your living conditions.”

Someone started to speak, then stopped and raised his hand. Ezra. “Grand — Miss Palmer, I mean, how come you got this kinda place down here? You keep prisoners before?”

She smiled kindly at him. “No, but my father did. He trained police dogs and sometimes he had to get rough with them, so this room is entirely soundproofed. There is no way that anyone can hear you. I don’t doubt there will be people looking for you, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

Another hand went up. “Miss Palmer,” said the small Iris tearfully, “you ever gonna let us go?”

“Of course, my dear.” The teacher spoke benevolently. “As soon as you have learned how to be little ladies and gentlemen. And have learned how to speak properly and acquired sufficient knowledge to function in the outside world and to prove to your present teachers that the so-called old fashioned methods of teaching are the best in training young minds — why, then you may go.”

The tall towhead raised his hand. “Miss Palmer? What’s gonna happen to you if you set us free? The slammer, that’s what. This is kidnapping, you know that? So you can’t let us go, you’re gonna have to kill us to save yourself, you old crackpot!” His voice rose.

A wail went up from the others, and everywhere was bedlam.

Miss Palmer banged on her bell and finally slashed the whip through the air.

“Quiet!” she demanded. “Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? The sooner you learn what I am about to teach you, the sooner you will get out of here! Frank, you will speak to me with respect or you will feel my whip on your legs. Now, I presume by ‘the slammer’ you mean jail or, more properly, prison, since kidnapping is a felony and not a misdemeanor.”

She continued in her pleasant schoolteacherish voice, “I don’t know if any of you have been there, but up in the hills beyond Riverville there is a beautiful group of buildings for the mentally ill — little cottages, trees, benches, arts and crafts and many interesting things to do in the recreation building — friends and companionship quiet and no responsibility.

“My money is gone and my house is almost in ruins by now, so I will be glad to have someone to take care of me. I will not be sent to prison, you can be sure, but to this beautiful home in the hills, for the rest of my life. So do not worry about what will happen to me once you are set free. As you will be; you have my personal bond for that.

“And that is the first lesson you are about to learn today: the question of personal integrity. Do not lie. Do not break promises. Hold yourself always above such demeaning traits. This is what is called ethics. Now. Shall we proceed to our school books?”

It was a rough and stormy voyage. The whip was used occasionally, but lightly, the bell was pounded on often, but heavily. The pistol was used just once, shot into the ceiling to teach Frank a lesson when, on his way to the bathroom, he made a lunge for the door to the upstairs. He was scared out of his wits, and returned to his chains with relief. The little black boy, Ezra, gave no trouble. Obedience was in his genes.

Although they studied the usual school subjects such as mathematics, geography and history (up until World War I) Miss Palmer stressed English above all else. “How will you communicate?” she asked them reasonably, “if you don’t know how to write or speak properly? And without communication—”

“But Miss Palmer—” Remembering suddenly, Iris waved her small brown hand in the air and, at a nod, “Miss Palmer, I don’t want to communicate,” she objected. “I just want to get married, have big family.”

“Oh, I see,” said Miss Palmer. “You don’t adhere to the teachings of the woman’s liberation movement I hear so much about these days.”

“Well, I do,” said Maggie, waving her arm but not waiting for permission to speak. “When I grow up I’m going to be a revolutionary.”

“To what purpose?” Miss Palmer asked with interest.

“I’m going to fight in Ireland and save it!”

“From what?”

“Why, from... from all them people that’s blowing it up.”

“All those people,” said Miss Palmer, her voice sharp. “How many times do I have to tell you? Do you want this switch on your legs? Now where were we? Oh! You’re going to Ireland to fight singlehandedly to save it from whatever they’re doing over there now — it’s just as well I never pay attention to the news, I’d learn more than I care to.

“Well, I see we have a modern Joan of Arc in our midst.” At the blank look on her students’ faces, Miss Palmer now delved into the problems of France’s Maid of Orleans, something apparently new, she decided, in the lives of these culturally deprived children.

Their eyes became glassy as they always did when totally devoid of interest in the subject at hand, but their ears and minds absorbing enough so that they could answer some of the questions they knew would be propounded later. Let’s get the hell out of this asshole at any price! their minds told them in unison. Get it right and let’s get out.

So they listened, the information going in one ear and about to go out the other — after they’d passed their examinations.

Miss Palmer did not care for the New Math. Her students were about to be instructed in the traditional arithmetic of her youth. “That New Math,” she told them, “Is a lot of balderdash dug up by some out-of-work teacher who wants to make a name for himself. It is anything but instructive and I won’t wonder that no one can make head or tail of it—”

“I did!” Maggie yelled. “I got A- in it last term!”

“Indeed?” Her teacher spoke coldly. “Well, this term, with our traditional arithmetic, you will get A-plus. Is that clear?”

In her zeal, Miss Palmer did not, of course, overlook either the cultural aspects of life as it was lived in the 1890’s or the proper social amenities.

She was determined that they should absorb all she was able to provide in the way of music and literature, although she did feel somewhat handicapped in her lack of suitable materials. However, she told herself with satisfaction, she had been able to make do.

So, although she had never owned a radio or a television set, considering them a deplorable waste of time and mind-bending instruments that perverted all the cultural potentialities of anyone who used them, she was determined to do her own mind-bending toward culture.

“Therefore, she one day produced an ancient phonograph with a flower-like horn, and an-equally ancient record of Caruso singing Pagliacci. After which, in an effort to improve her charges’ critical faculties, she then produced a newer record of Mario Lanza imitating Caruso,” her lip curled meanwhile.

“Now, do you see what I mean?” she demanded of her charges. “The first record is pure art, the second is trash.”

The children looked at her blankly.

She read David Copperfield to them and their eyes grew ever more glassy. She read Shakespeare and they struggled with their yawns. She told them that their whole futures depended on what they read and they stared at her in amazement — and disbelief. She struggled onward — arithmetic, geography, history, even civics (they knew only three presidents: Washington, Lincoln and the incumbent) in the morning, English and the classics in the afternoon, proper manners and social deportment in the evening.

The five children slept soundly on their hard pallets at night. They were exhausted.

Miss Palmer slept well for she was pleased with the progress that her charges were making.

They obeyed her now, they were learning what she was teaching them, all was right with her world.

But she did not listen, she did not hear.

She did not know that within these children was the silent sound of screams.

The lessons continued until time was forgotten... lessons in everything. At bath time, they took turns — the two girls in the bathroom, then the three boys, with Miss Palmer sitting rigidly at her desk, one hand on her whip, the other on her pistol. After a thorough inspection of ears and necks, they were chained back in their places.

They were watched as they ate, and reminded that little ladies and gentlemen did not eat with their hands and that they used napkins (linen, not paper), the small forks were for salad and the small knives for butter spreading.

They said please and thank you and may I be excused now, although there was no place for them to go. They learned how to extend an invitation, and to accept one, and to refuse one, all graciously, until finally a strange thing came to pass — they all began to look alike.

Not their features, but the fixed pleasant smiles on their faces, their eyes faintly glazed, the mouths slightly curved upward, the skin shining with cleanliness. Their words were mainly, “Yes, Miss Palmer,” and, “No, Miss Palmer,” and no longer did they interrupt to express their own opinions. They echoed her, and she was mightily pleased.

Thank God, she said to herself, my life has not been lived in vain.

So the school term, for Miss Palmer and her pupils, drew to an end.

“Now at last,” she told them one morning, beaming, “you are little ladies and gentlemen, and this is your graduating day. You have overcome, with my help the obstacles of your disadvantaged home lives and the unfortunate ministrations of the present school system and have become what you should have been in the first place — educated, cultured and well mannered young citizens.

“So,” still beaming, “be prepared to leave. And as I relieve you of the chains of ignorance which are no longer necessary, I will ask the little gentlemen to bow from the waist, as they have been taught, and the little ladies to curtsy, in farewell and gratitude to their Miss Palmer.”

She went to them, a happy woman at last, and unfastened their chains and stood back waiting for their obeisance.

When they fell upon her, there was no one to hear the sounds of her screams.