The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(48)
“Eddie!”
“And fuck you, too.”
I slapped him. I couldn’t help it. It was something I shouldn’t have done, but the emotions and fear and confusion were too much. As soon as my skin struck his, his eyes grew wide with anger. I thought he was going to hit me. Instead, he leaned his head back and howled like a wolf. Loud and scary. He didn’t stop. Just kept howling as people stopped and stared. I left him on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, went back inside, and asked to use the phone. I called 911 and asked for an ambulance.
He was still outside, on his knees and howling at the sky, when the ambulance arrived. He got violent and struggled with the EMT personnel, but they finally subdued him and took him away.
The keys to his car were in his pocket. I was stranded. I didn’t want to disturb my father, so I called a taxi and went home.
The evening left me with the shakes. I knew I couldn’t stay in Limite. It wouldn’t be wise to be near Eddie. The following day was Christmas Eve. I told Dad that I would be going back to Illinois the day after Christmas.
I never spoke to Eddie again.
19
My life went on, without too much drama, for the rest of the nineties and beyond the turn of the millennium. I thank my lucky stars for the success of my books; sales have remained steady and I don’t believe I have to worry about retirement. There are no plans to stop writing any time soon, but someday I will want to simply relax and live off my nest egg.
Oh—there was that feature about me that appeared in People magazine in 2004, the year I turned fifty. I had been elected as one of those “50 and Still Hot” women, which was embarrassing and flattering at the same time. I would have been mortified, except that the article was a great one, covering my entire career and presenting me in a good light. I sat down for an interview with Alice, the woman who wrote the piece. She may have spent a little too much space on the fact that I was single and preferred to live that way, and there was an attempt to compare me to Patricia Harlow. Somehow, Alice had also managed to dig up information on what happened to our family in the summer of 1966. During the interview, Alice asked some uncomfortable questions about baby Michael, and I did my best to answer them truthfully. “It was a long time ago,” I told her, “and I was only twelve at the time. The subject is very painful even still, so I’d prefer not to talk about it.” To her credit, Alice replied that she understood and went on to other topics. The accompanying photographs were shot in Chicago on Michigan Avenue on a beautiful day—the sun was shining and fall was around the corner. I have to say I did look pretty good. Alice begged me to let her print a photo or two from my childhood, and I reluctantly relented. Warts and all, I now consider it to be perhaps the best piece of PR about me that I’ve ever seen. My book sales experienced a nice surge after the magazine hit the stands.
But what about Eddie? Upon my return to Illinois at the beginning of ’95, I was still worried about his health. He had been hospitalized when I left Limite. I figured it was just a case of him not complying with his psychiatrist’s orders and going off his meds. Some time passed, and I heard from my father that Eddie had been seen around town and that he still lived in the black house. I assumed that meant he was back on his meds and was doing all right.
Although we didn’t speak, I received a letter from him in November 1996, written in the familiar printed block letters, with bad spelling and grammar, on what appeared to be Big Chief tablet ruled paper. The letter was sent to my publisher and forwarded to me. Eddie had written to say that his mother had died earlier in the year and that he was now all alone in the black house. That he missed me, but that I was right to have left him. That was it. I sent a sympathy card to his house, telling Eddie that I was sorry to hear about his mother and that I hoped he was feeling better. I didn’t acknowledge anything else. He never sent a reply, and I was glad he didn’t.
The next time I heard about Eddie was when my father sent me a newspaper clipping from the Limite Observer, dated April 30, 2000, which featured an interview with “Evil Eddie,” the notorious Satanist living with a “witch” in a house in east Limite. A photo showed Eddie with a shaved head and a devilish goatee. He was obviously emulating Anton LaVey, who had died in 1997. That same year, Eddie officially founded The Temple, which was designated as a not-for-profit “religious” organization that funded various activities associated with his newsletter, website, and “church.” A congregation of sorts gathered at the black house once a month. Eddie was known as the High Priest of The Temple. He had completely converted the Chicory Lane home to run his business—writing and publishing Godless Times and utilizing eBay to sell Satanic-themed jewelry (pentagram necklaces and the like), T-shirts, and other atheistic literature. Whether he still used the fallout shelter as a “sanctuary,” the article didn’t reveal.
Atheists, self-professed witches and magi, and other characters with dubious backgrounds came from all over Texas, Mexico, and sometimes from out of state. The largest assembly he ever hosted counted to seventeen. That didn’t sound like a lot, but when one considered that Limite was a small town in Bible Belt Texas, it was remarkable. I was surprised he hadn’t been run out of town and lynched.
“I’m the most hated man in Limite,” he was quoted as saying. “My neighbors think I eat the corpses of babies and sacrifice virgins at the altar. That’s what people think of when the word ‘Satanist’ comes up. That couldn’t be further from the truth. A black mass is simply a parody of a Catholic mass. It doesn’t involve blood or children or violence of any kind. It’s an intellectual—and very funny—exercise.”