Self-Esteem (16 page)

Eventually, however, Carnegie’s “Cooperate with the inevitable” didn’t offer the same comfort it once did. Then it didn’t offer any comfort at all. Perhaps it even made Crawford’s worries multiply. What was “the inevitable” after all? And how would you cooperate with it?

Okay, Cal is going to experiment with marijuana. That’s inevitable. Cooperate with it. Okay, but what if he moves on to harder drugs? Ecstasy, then speed, then cocaine, then crack, then heroin.

Naw, that’s not going to happen. That’s not the inevitable.

Or is it?

Crawford had thought Dorothy was right, that he hadn’t been thinking of his son enough. But what could he do? Every time he thought about Cal it started a conversation in his head that disturbed him. And such a disorder was what made him want to drink. And drinking didn’t help the promotional appearance on the Hershey show, writing the novel, working things out with Lee, trying to be happy, and stopping the nuts of the world that think they are Happy Pappy.

And the more Crawford thought about Cal — especially his ability to avoid discipline — the more helpless he felt. Suddenly Cal’s last words were eating at Crawford’s fragile pride: Maybe you should worry about yourself.

Crawford mimed the words in baby talk.
The little prick.

Dorothy came out of the bathroom combing her hair. She was wearing that nightgown he loved so much. Crawford started to think how beautiful she looked, but the thought went away.

“Don’t worry about him, Dorothy. He’ll be just fine. Just let him get through adolescence. That’s all. We all went through it.”

“He’s my son. I’ll always worry about him.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and Crawford rolled on his side away from her.

“Worry is just a part of life, okay?” he said.

Silently and blankly, Dorothy mimed Crawford’s words.

Part II:
The Harmful Things

CHAPTER 9

CRAWFORD’S EYES SEEMED TO FORCE THEMSELVES OPEN. He thought he heard a noise but now there was piercing silence. He had fallen asleep without knowing it and now he was awake and alert and oddly so. His sleeping patterns were always a befuddled mess while he was “on one,” and this moment was what he theoretically thought of as the
Strange Alertness After Initial Sobriety While Sleeping Past Liquor Store Hours
Syndrome.

It was impossible to know whether he had heard a noise or not, but he could have sworn he did.
Yes, it was a car. A car squealing away.

So what? he thought.

The digital clock next to his bed read 3:40am.
Thank God
,
the liquor stores are closed
.
I made it. I made it without drinking.

Oh God, he thought,
the liquor stores are closed
.

Crawford carefully got out of bed and went to the window, pulling the curtain slightly aside to take a peak outside and spy the source of that strange noise. The street looked normal and peaceful like it always did.

Just a noise. That’s all.

Crawford was just about to close the curtains when he noticed something at the front door — just a corner of something that wasn’t blocked by the awning. It looked like it could be another package, just like the first one, sitting in the same place on the front steps.

A package? Another package? Again?

His first inclination was to wake Dorothy, but no,
bad idea
.
I’ll take care of this myself
.

He put on his robe and slippers and quietly stepped into the hallway outside the master bedroom, looking over his shoulder to watch his wife sleep.

“I can’t even handle a practical joke, baby,” he whispered. “You deserve so much better.”

He closed the door slowly then looked down the hall, standing up straight, extending his chest.

I can do better. Yes, I can.

Crawford walked down the dark steps in time with the ticking of the grandfather clock, which sounded curiously loud. He pressed his ear against the door then looked through the peephole.

How ridiculous this is, he thought.
You cowardly piece of shit.

Crawford opened the door, and the wind felt curiously warm, like the hot breath of a dog but dry as a bone. He stepped onto his front porch and stood in front of two packages at his feet. Both were wrapped like gifts — one the size of a videotape, the other bigger and flatter.

Crawford looked beyond his dark front yard to the silent neighborhood around him to see if he noticed anything unusual — a car, a light, something. But there was nothing. Same old neighborhood, safe and sound. Apparently they had come and gone.
They? He? Her?
There was no way of knowing.
If this is Berry
,
he’s more ambitious than I thought.

Crawford took the two packages down to his fortress of solitude and sat at his desk, placing them in front of him. He sat back in his chair, hesitant to do anything. He knew the smaller package was probably a videotape. But the other? There was a small envelope on top of the smaller package, and he picked it up and opened it.

“To Dr. Crawford from Happy Pappy. Your program works!” Crawford read aloud.

Fucking clowns. And Dorothy will never believe it. Never.

Just like college days.

There were never any whoopee cushions. There were never any saltshakers with the lids unscrewed, never any super glue in door locks or laxatives in drinks. No itching powder or stink bombs. Nothing that could be defined or recognized as a practical joke. Which alone could drive the average person completely nuts. But that wasn’t the worst of it. This subtle approach to harassment had a far subtler cousin: the absence of a finale.

One pestering thing after another never had a prank’s logical resolution, never the coda, never the laughs of having embarrassed or humiliated, never the adolescent gloat of having caused frustration or inconvenience, never any explanation of payback, retribution, or revenge, never any indication of whether that revenge was served hot or cold (if, in fact, it was revenge) or even if it existed at all. There was never even a denial, which was not surprising in the absence of an accusation. And there was never an accusation because there was never any solid grounds for one. What Crawford believed his classmates Albert Scott and Jay Berry were doing to him was so brilliant in its variation and irregularity that he could never bring himself to confront them about it. Crawford was certain they were put on earth to drain him of his energy, make his life more difficult, and cause him endless aggravation. But he could never prove it. He could never catch them. He could never make a distinction between their silent assault and the tribulations of everyday life. Truth was, he could not know for sure.

But I do know, yes!
That was the slap he always gave himself. “They’re fucking with me constantly!” he would tell Dorothy. “I know it, I know it!”

Dorothy was always unconvinced. “How do you know? You’ve never seen them do these things. You’re just paranoid.”

“I know I’m paranoid. But I’m still right,” he once said after some research data disappeared. “Those guys are trying to break me.”

Dorothy’s rosy assessment would not be challenged. “Oh, please. You just have bad luck sometimes. We all do. Life is full of these little things.”

And “little things” they were. Occasionally they were bigger, but mostly they were just little things. And oddly, the smaller they were, the more annoying: keys lost, phones unplugged, notes and books misplaced, bookmarkers changing locations, clocks changing times, oddly coincidental misinformation, half truths, misunderstandings, and confusion. Bigger things generally meant less trouble. Crawford discovering a flat tire or that an important book was missing was an end in itself. But the small things always came at a bigger cost: distraction, loss of focus, schedules not kept, late work, late bills, people pissed off, more work, and (worst of all) more drinking.

And thus it went on for the entire duration of Crawford’s college years with Berry and Scott. Always there. No pattern, no consistency. Never ending. Never resolved. No closure. And Berry and Scott were responsible for all of it. Crawford was sure of it. And it never went away until graduation.

Apparently it never went away at all.
Apparently.

Crawford put the note down and grabbed the second one from the larger package. Crawford again read aloud. “To Dorothy from Happy Pappy. A little something for your self-esteem.”

“Fuck it,” he said, tearing open the smaller package. He was right: a videotape. Crawford had resolve. He wasn’t drunk this time, and he was going to look at this thing square in the face. He clicked on the small TV next to his desk and shoved the tape in the VCR.

“It’s the fucking
Happy Pappy Show
,” he said, shaking his head. The video the night before wasn’t just the drunken nightmare he had hoped it was.

The insidious theme song plays and the title scrolls across the screen, but it looks different. The puppets are in the background, but they aren’t moving. Then the head pops into the screen: Crawford’s monster, Happy Pappy.

“Yesssssiiiiirrrrreeeee. Good morning, Dr. Crawford! We’re moving right along with your self-esteem!”

Berry and Scott wouldn’t go to this kind of trouble.

The ghoulish marionette holds up a new hardback copy of
Self-Esteem
just to the left of his head.

Would they?

“Time for stage two!”

Crawford felt a jolt of adrenaline course through his body. Happy is smiling at the book like a proud father admiring his infant child. He opens the book like a sacred text and begins to read. “The second stage is to eliminate the harmful things that are destroying our lives.” He turns to the camera. “That’s good advice, Dr. Crawford!” Mr. Pappy moves away from the camera to reveal a woman tied to a chair. She sits flush next to a table, almost like a child in a highchair ready to be force-fed. There is tape around her mouth, and it’s stained.

Crawford leaned toward the screen slowly. He could see it was blood. He could also see that the woman was Jenny Harper.

“Oh God,” he said.

Happy Pappy slowly tiptoes with exaggerated movements toward Crawford’s mistress. Her bound and motionless body is in strange contrast to her tormentor’s bouncing, overjoyed face. Then he speaks again, looking at the camera with the book tucked safely under his arm, his head bobbing grotesquely. “We all know that fucking someone besides Mommy is really naughty. It’s really bad! That’s why a little cocksucking whore like this one needs to be eliminated before she destroys our lives!”

This can’t be real
.
Jenny, is it you?

Happy Pappy holds up the book again. “It’s time to read some words of wisdom.” He leans in. “That’s Dr. Crawford’s wisdom, boys and girls,” the masked head barks.

He turns behind him and whips the tape off the woman’s mouth, making a screech that rivals the woman’s awful scream. She gasps for air.

“No,” she weeps.

“What?” her captor says, his right hand to his ear.

“Please mister,” she gasps, her eyes filling with water.

“My name is Happy Pappy, you little fancy pants.” He lets out a great laugh then puts the book in front of her.

“Now you’re going to read the word. The word! You’re going to read some Crawford,” he says.

“Please, please,” she whimpers.

“You don’t have to say
please
,” he says, shaking his head.

She turns away from him, almost as if she is looking over her shoulder. He puts the book just under her chin, then his yellow-gloved hand points down like a plane crashing into the page.

“I said read, you little bitchy witchy.”

She cranes her neck, turning away as if this would end the nightmare.

The corncob pipe jutting from the left of Happy’s mouth swivels in tandem before he strokes her trembling face.

“Okay. Okay,” she gasps. She looks down at the book then back at her tormentor. She looks at the book again, and her mouth shakes as she tries to speak. “People,” she says, struggling. “People usually recognize right away,” she coughs, “when they’ve created a relationship with bad things or bad people.” She swallows painfully. “But many times we continue these relationships…” She starts to weep. “We continue…” She breaks down sobbing.

Happy Pappy strokes her hair. “Yes. And why is that?” He brings the book to his chest and reads. “Because we’re afraid to eliminate them from our lives!” Then he turns to the camera. “Not unless you’ve got self-esteem,” he yells, his head nodding slowly.

He sets the book down on the table next to Jenny’s chair then leisurely picks something up — a large kitchen knife.

Crawford felt like he was choking. “It’s a hoax,” he said, his right hand coursing through his hair. “It’s a hoax.”

If it’s a hoax it’s a first-rate job, by golly
.

Jenny peers up at Happy.

Crawford saw a look in her eyes that he thought he’d seen before.
This isn’t acting
.
Holy Christ, this is real!

Happy Pappy stands in front of Jenny, blocking her from view. Then he turns back to the camera.

“Stage two, Doctor!”

He turns back around and slowly brings up his right hand, the knife facing downward.

“No,” she cries. “God, No!”

“You don’t need God when you’ve got self-esteem!” he roars. “You
are
God,” he giggles, then thrusts the knife into her neck.

He turns to the camera one last time. “Yes, boys and girls,” he screams, the mask sprayed with blood. “Stage two complete! Stay tuned for Stage three!”

The screen goes blank.

Crawford couldn’t move. He gripped the side of his chair to make sure he wasn’t asleep, staring into the broadcast snow, which reached out and engulfed him.

He turned to his left, where his cocktail would have been sitting the night before, but nothing was there. His fingers scraped the surface of his desk as if he could summon Scotch from its smooth surface. He undid the top button of his shirt, feeling a cold sweat around his neck, then sat back in his chair looking at the snow on the TV screen as if it might hold a clue to the source of this madness.