The Impaler

Chapter 44

Fighting. Always fighting. But what came first, the medicine or the fighting, Edmund Lambert could not remember. The medicine made him feel better, but not as good as the fighting. And when the pain from the fighting threatened to keep him awake at night, the medicine would make him sleep right on through until morning without having to pee once.

However, for almost three years following the death of his mother, Edmund was entirely unaware of the medicine—had no idea that his grandfather was secretly slipping it to him in his food, or sometimes in the milkshakes he would mix up special for him in the blender. The milkshakes were rare, but the medicine was rarer, and sometimes on the nights when his grandfather gave it to him (and even then not every night), Edmund would dream about someone called the General.

The dreams of the General were unlike the dreams Edmund had normally, and only after he awoke and stared for a long time at the ceiling would he remember that he had dreamed of anything at all. Also, the inside of his head, the space right behind his eyes, felt thick and gooey; the memo- ries mostly big gaps of blackness that brought with them pressure in his sinuses and the vague awareness of the passage of time.

Sometimes, the General would appear between the big gaps in swirls and flashes of color—but Edmund could never see his face, could never see any part of him at all, for that matter. Yet all the same he knew he’d been there—more of a feeling of a person than an actual person was the only way Edmund could describe it. And sometimes he thought he could see the word “general” floating around in the swirls and flashes of color, but Edmund was never sure if he had just made that up afterwards because he knew the General had been there. The General was kind of like the air, Edmund thought. You never realize the air’s there until you think about it, and even then you can’t see it.

Early on it occurred to Edmund that the General might be a ghost. Ghosts were like the air. You couldn’t see them most of the time, but you knew they were there because they made you afraid. And the farmhouse was certainly old enough. Edmund had learned somewhere that ghosts liked old houses. And of course there was the attic where his mother died. Ghosts lived in attics, Edmund knew. But surely his mother wasn’t a ghost; she couldn’t be both in Hell and in the attic at the same time.

Edmund understood his mother was never coming back the way she was when she was living, but often he found himself wishing he could find some way to get her out of Hell and back into the attic as a ghost. Ghosts were dead people who got stuck in old houses instead of going to Heaven or Hell; and even if you were dead and stuck in an old house, that had to be better than being stuck in Hell.

“If someday I can find a way to make you a ghost, Mama, I will. I promise.”

Yes, Edmund thought, if his mother was a ghost and lived in the attic, at least he wouldn’t be afraid of it anymore. His grandfather always said he was being a baby, but the old man never made him go up there. Edmund was thankful for that, especially since his grandfather often made him do things he was afraid of—things like making him stand in the fast-pitch batting cages or making him practice his curveballs in the backyard after dark or making him go down into the cellar by himself.

“C’est mieux d’oublier.”

Edmund didn’t mind the cellar when he was with his grandfather. And he especially liked spending time with him down there in his workroom. There were lots of tools in the workroom, but there were also some machines. Edmund loved the machines the best. His favorite was the grinder. It looked kind of like the old vacuum cleaner that they had upstairs but without the hose. And it was smaller; was mounted on the biggest of the three workbenches and had this fuzzy wheel on its side—only the fuzz was made up of thousands of thin metal wires that would cut you if you stuck your finger in them when they were spinning (Edmund had found this out the hard way when he was little).

Sometimes Edmund’s grandfather would let him stick tools or other metal objects in the fuzzy wheel to polish them or to smooth them out. He told Edmund that you could change out the wire wheel for other wheels if you wanted, but Edmund never saw him do that. Edmund loved using the grinder, but what he loved most was how when you flicked on the switch it made a whirring noise that sounded like a jet engine starting up. The grinder also blew out warm air from a little vent on its side. Edmund loved how the air felt against his face; he loved how it smelled, too—kind of coppery, like someone was burning a stack of pennies.

There were other smells in the workroom, however, that young Edmund didn’t care for very much at all; smells that came from all the bottles and jars that were stored on the shelves above the small workbench in the corner. Most of the bottles and jars had labels on them—single letters or combinations of letters and numbers and dashes that made no sense to Edmund. They were symbols for chemicals, his grandfather told him; stuff that “was gonna make them all rich someday,” he used to say. There were also beakers and burners and weird-looking glass tubes, along with stacks of paper and a bunch of books about plants that Edmund couldn’t pronounce.

Wormwood.

That was the only word in the big mess of it all that Edmund really understood, or at least remembered—and that was only because he heard Rally talking about it one time in the kitchen and thought it sounded funny.

“You mean the wood is full of worms, Uncle Rally?” Edmund asked.

“Naw,” he said. “It’s just what they call it. Ain’t no wood at all. Just a plant that you can use for a bunch of different reasons, like keeping pests away and stuff. Gonna make us all rich when we get the formula right, Eddie.”

Edmund knew Rally was not his real uncle, but still he liked him a lot. He always brought him stuff from his auto body shop—toy cars and trucks, mainly, which he said he got from something called a distributor. Edmund didn’t know what a distributor was, but always appreciated the cars and trucks just the same.

“The whole shebang has to do with farming and tobacco crops,” his grandfather added. “You just mind your own business, Eddie, until the money starts rolling in.”

Edmund wasn’t allowed to go down into the workroom when Rally was around. And after Edmund’s mother died, Rally and his grandfather hardly ever went down into the cellar just themselves—at least not when Edmund was awake. And Edmund certainly never heard them acting funny and playing music down there like he did when his mother was still alive.

True, sometimes Rally and his grandfather would disappear down into the cellar to fetch something, but Edmund was never left alone upstairs for long. And true, sometimes in the mornings, after he’d slept all through the night without having to pee once, Edmund would smell that faint licorice smell by the cellar door in the kitchen. But most of the time, Rally’s visits were uneventful; a night of watching TV that (after they had drank too much of Claude Lambert’s moonshine) usually devolved into them bitching that if they could just figure out the right equations to balance the formula, if they could just get their hands on the right chemicals and the right equipment so they could run the right experiments and get those bastards to listen to them oh blahdy-blah-blah-blah (Edmund had picked up that last phrase from his mother).

When it came right down to it, however, Edmund didn’t give two shits about his grandfather’s farming experiments. But still, the old man always warned the boy to mind his own business and not to go messing with his stuff and to never go down into the workroom alone unless he told him to and if he ever caught him touching any of his stuff he’d get his ass run up against the grinder until it cut him a second butt crack.

All that was fine with Edmund, who never wanted to go down into the cellar alone anyway. The cramped darkness always gave him the feeling that someone was down there with him—a ghost, Edmund was sure; most likely the General.

“C’est mieux d’oublier,” he’d say to himself over and over again, but still the fear and the feeling that the General was with him would not go away.

It was like that for most of his childhood, Edmund would recall. But the first time he told his grandfather about the General was after he’d dreamed of him a second time. Edmund was six years old.

“Did a general from the Army ever live in this house, Grandpa?”

“Why do you ask that, Eddie?”

Edmund explained that ghosts were dead people who got stuck in old houses because they couldn’t get into Heaven or Hell.

“Hmm,” said Claude Lambert after he was quiet in that way that seemed to Edmund like a long time. “So the General’s been messing around in your dreams, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, the General’s someone who died on the property over a hundred years ago in this thing called the Civil War. You ever hear about the Civil War, Eddie?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll explain it to you someday when you’ll understand better. But all you need to know right now is that the Civil War was this war that took place way back when our country was split in two halves—a northern half and a southern half. This property was part of the southern half back then, and the General was fighting for the southern side, and he got hurt really bad in this big battle nearby and they brought him here to try and fix him up. They couldn’t, though, and the General ended up dying.”

“No fooling, Grandpa?”

“No fooling, Eddie. There was a different house on the property back then that got burned down. But the General ended up dying right here where we’re sitting.”

“No fooling?”

“Nope.”

“So the General really is a ghost, then?”

“I’m afraid so, Eddie.”

Edmund swallowed hard. “Is he buried somewhere out back?” he asked. “The General, I mean—near Batman, maybe?”

“Naw. They took his body away. Probably buried him in a cemetery near where he lived. But I guess his ghost decided to stick around all these years.”

“Does he live in the attic now?”

“No. In the cellar. That’s why you’re not supposed to go down there and mess with my stuff unless I’m with you. The General is scared of me, you see. Won’t bother you when I’m with you, or when I send you down there alone to fetch me something.”

Edmund was silent—thinking, terrified.

“You don’t need to be scared, Eddie,” said the old man. “The General ain’t a bad fella if you don’t piss him off. Just nosy most of the time. Likes to poke his nose into your business. Especially when you’re sleeping—but only when you’re really tired and when it’s hard for you to wake up.”

“You swear you’re not making this up, Grandpa?” the boy asked. “You got that look on your face like you do when you and Rally is fooling me. Like that time you told me you guys caught a shark in Randolph’s Pond but then when I told you sharks couldn’t live in fresh water you and Rally said that you was only fooling.”

“I swear I’m not fooling, Eddie. You’re too smart a boy to fool. Besides, I would never fool about someone like the General. The General is one dangerous fella when he wants to be. Can make you do things in your dreams that you don’t want to—or at the very least he can scare you real bad. He’d never try that shit with me, though. Yeah, he’s scared of me cuz I’m bigger and stronger than he is—doesn’t dare come into my dreams cuz he knows I ’d kick his ass. You see, Eddie, only I can control the General.”

“The magic words,” Edmund said suddenly. “C’est mieux d’oublier—you said you can come into my dreams and help me, right Grandpa? C’est mieux—”

“Ssh, Eddie. Remember, you’re not supposed to say them magic words out loud.”

“But you said the General is too strong for me. Will you help me with the magic words? Will you come into my dreams and kick his ass like you do in yours?”

“You’re really that afraid of him, huh?”

Edmund swallowed again.

“All right,” said his grandfather. “I’ll tell you what, Eddie. Next time the General starts messing with you I’ll come in there like I told you and I’ll say the magic words and that’ll chase the General away. Okay, Eddie?”

“Thanks, Grandpa!” said the boy, and he flung himself into his arms.

It was about two years later when Edmund learned of the medicine and began to make the connection between it and his visits from the General.

Claude Lambert kept the medicine hidden someplace in the cellar. Even as a child Edmund thought this strange, as it was labeled just like the jars and bottles in the workroom. M-E-D-I-C-I-N-E it read in big block letters that looked just like the letters with which he had written his name in the dirt behind the old horse barn.

Edmund couldn’t remember if his grandfather had taught him to write the E-D-D-I-E or if he had just picked it up from spending time with him in the workroom. However, Edmund did remember the first time he saw the old man bring up the medicine bottle from the cellar. It was the same afternoon he got sent home from school for fighting—second grade, Edmund got the worst of it—and his head still stung from where his classmate had whipped him with a jump-rope handle.

“What’s that?” the boy asked.

“Special medicine,” said his grandfather. “You don’t remember ever seeing this?”

“No.”

“I gave it to you a couple of times when you was little and your mother was still alive. I been giving it to you now and then in your food without you knowing. When you was hurt or sick or afraid of something so as to make you feel better. Like that time when you stuck your finger in the grinder. I gave it to you in secret then, but you felt better in the morning. Remember that?”

“I think so,” Edmund said. He’d slept like a rock that night, if he remembered correctly. And his finger felt a lot better in the morning—but didn’t the General visit him that night, too?

“But now,” said his grandfather, “you’re a big enough boy that you can take your medicine straight without me keeping it secret. Your mother and Uncle James got the medicine when they was kids, too—James, more so. Your mother usually refused it; liked the pain better, I guess.”

“You’re not mad at me for fighting then, Grandpa?”

“Naw,” said Claude Lambert, taking a spoon from the drawer. “I’m not mad at you, I’m proud of you. Other kid did something to piss you off, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he probably deserved it then.” The old man poured the medicine. “Fighting is good for you, Eddie. Gotta learn to take your licks as well as give ’em—but only when someone gives you shit. Never go picking fights, understand? Ain’t no grandson of mine gonna be a bully. You ain’t one of them bullies at school, are you, Eddie?”

“No, sir.”

“Good boy. Just like your uncle. Next time we go visit Uncle James, you can ask him about how he used to be when he was your age. He was a fighter, too. A good one.”

Edmund didn’t really like his Uncle James. In all the years he visited him at the prison with his grandfather, James Lambert never looked at him directly—would only tighten his lips and raise his left eyebrow now and then to give the boy a once-over. And he hardly ever spoke; would only nod his head on the other side of the visitor’s glass as the old man talked, and always ended by asking if his father brought his chew.

“What he do to get in jail?” Edmund asked.

“I’ll tell you when you’re a little older,” his grandfather said, smiling. “You take this medicine now, Eddie. Only a spoonful. Never too much, never too often. It’s bad for you if you have too much too often. And it tastes shitty, too, but pretty soon the back of your head’ll be numb and you’ll forget all about the kid with the jump rope. Best of all, when you wake up in the morning the pain will be gone.”

Edmund sniffed the spoon. It smelled a little like the licorice smell that was in the den sometimes when Rally was around. But it also smelled like Pine-Sol, Edmund thought, and tasted even worse—although he had never tasted Pine-Sol.

But Edmund swallowed the medicine anyway, and pretty soon his head felt numb just like his grandfather had promised. They sat together watching TV for a while. Then, a blink forward in time, and Edmund woke up in the dark. He was in his bed, under the covers, and it was really late—he could tell by the feel of things around him. His head was no longer numb, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as before.

But now something different was bothering him. Edmund thought long and hard, staring up at the ceiling. He couldn’t see the ceiling, but he knew it was there. Just like the thing that was bothering him.

Then it came to him.

The General, he said to himself. Where’s the General?

Yes, that was it. He had woken up feeling the same as he usually felt after he dreamed of the General, but when he looked for him between the big gaps of black and gooiness he could not find him, could not sense him anywhere.

“C’est mieux d’oublier.”

And with those words, instead of the General’s presence, flickered strange and distant images of him battling what he somehow understood to be a big black blob of pain—punching and kicking it violently until the big black blob disappeared.

Memories of a dream? Most likely, but the boy couldn’t be sure, couldn’t tell the difference between actually dreaming about the blob or just making it all up now that he was awake. No, all Edmund Lambert knew for sure was that the pain in the back of his head from the jump-rope handle was gone.

Grandpa gave me the medicine before without me knowing it, Edmund thought. That’s why the General must be able to get in my dreams—cuz I’m sleeping so heavy. That’s why I need Grandpa to kick his ass out. Maybe the General was there tonight, too, but Grandpa got to him first. Maybe the General is like the pain. Only Grandpa can protect me from them both.

And so the boy would willingly swallow the medicine many times in the years that followed—only after his fights or when he got hurt, and even then not every time.

Timing was part of it, his grandfather said. The timing had to be right.

Yes, in the end Claude Lambert was true to his word.

Never too much, never too often.

“C’est mieux d’oublier.”