Gorging Out

By Robert MacNeill

Two days after graduate student Roger Froehlich fails his thesis exam and resigns from Berkeley, he finds himself dividing his worldly goodsincluding his young sonwith his wife. Left with nothing but his shattered dreams, Roger escapes to his hometown and to the only person who means anything to himhis aunt Alicia.

Terminally ill, Alicias last wish is to reconcile with her estranged son, Fritz, a graduate student at Cornell who has suddenly disappeared. Despite his disdain for his cousin, Roger agrees to travel to Ithaca to look for him. After failing to find Fritz, Roger soon learns more than he ever wanted to know about the subject of his cousins perverse thesis projectthe sexual nature of men who contact women whose names are scrawled on bathroom wallsand how it has led to extortion, suicide, and murder. Suddenly in the midst of a driving desire to serve his aunt and his cousins sinister secrets, Roger is forced to do things he never could have imagined.

In this suspenseful tale driven by the unscrupulous intentions of a graduate student, Roger finally confronts evil under horrifying circumstances and soon discovers how quickly hate can transform into revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462036875

Robert MacNeill

Robert MacNeill attended Yale as an undergraduate and earned a PhD in animal ecology and behavior from Cornell. He recently left a successful career working for conservation organizations in order to concentrate on his writing. Robert currently resides in suburban Washington, DC.

Book preview

Chapter One

In my spare time—and I’ve got a lot of it right now—I’ve decided to set down, as precisely as I can, the events of the last month: February 1988. Should the police ever come looking for me, it will serve as a justification for my actions and should perhaps even free me from the threat of criminal prosecution. The key and the tape that accompany this account will confirm my version of events.

It all started with the collapse of my graduate career as a student in literature at Berkeley. Two days after I failed my thesis exam and resigned from the university, my wife, Nora, and I discussed the division of our worldly goods. It was all quite dispassionate and reasonable. She would take the car, the furniture, the books, the dishes, the sheets, the towels, the curtains, the rugs, the bank account, and our three-year-old son, Howling Gomez, named for the penetrating shrieks he delivered on the very first night he was home from the hospital. Nora would also keep my clothes, on the grounds that she’d paid for them. I was to receive my last fellowship check and what I happened to be wearing that day, plus a few toiletries, provided I had them out of the house by noon. She sat on the sofa, totally cold, like an oracle, saying those things to me, while I said almost nothing. But I’m the sort of person who thinks ahead. Fortunately I’d had the bank book and both sets of keys to the car in my pocket since early that morning. On the way to the bank, I parked in a tow-away zone and dropped the keys down a sewer; then I emptied the account, over $5,000, and put the money in a daypack. That done, I left Berkeley, I hoped forever, and took the bus to my hometown, Milwaukee, to get my head together, as they used to say. It was February, and it was cold.

Milwaukee is a factory town, with lots of cheap furnished rooms for single men. I took one near the Oakland Avenue bus line and looked around for something to pass the time until I calmed down. Somehow I knew that was going to take a while. I really felt low. The split-up had changed me in ways I hadn’t expected. It had made me morose and evil-minded. It had made me think of nothing but death and revenge. It had made me ready to do things I’d never done or even thought of before. It had left me with only one character trait: extreme irritability. Maybe I was wrong, but it seemed to me that I’d been a better person once. In fact, it seemed that everything good about me had slipped away. I’d been a good father, and, for a while, I’d even tried to be a good husband. But it all hit the wall, and now the anger welling up inside me had flipped me into the pit.

As for taking my mind off it, nothing quite worked. Reading was a complete bust. Everything I picked up seemed like meaningless crap. Alcohol makes me sick, so that was out too. I spent a lot of time in bed—probably ten hours a day. The weather was bitter, way below zero at night; I had to tape up the windows in that crummy room to keep from freezing to the sheets. To drive away dark thoughts, I spent at least four hours a day at the movies. Money was no problem—after my little visit to the bank, I had plenty. I saw every shitty show in town, the more blood and gore the better. I ate every day in the same cafeteria. Just to fill the time, I bought no more than one or two items at a time, so I had to go through the line three or four times every meal. I spoke to no one, and no one spoke to me. Everywhere I went, I took my daypack, with some underwear and socks on top of the money. I spent part of every afternoon in the public library, looking at picture books about famous murderers and the rise of Nazi Germany. Soon, even these little entertainments began to break down. I decided to do what I’d gone there to do. I decided to go see my Aunt Alicia.

Aunt Alicia was about the only person in my life who had lasted. My father, for example, popped his aorta one summer when I was at Boy Scout camp. My mother got cancer and barely held on until I got into high school. It was all very painful for me, and I dealt with it the only way I knew how; I did my best to forget them. I try not to think of them even now. There are pictures of them, of course, but I haven’t looked at them in years. I always deflect any questions about them by saying they died when I was very young. During the three years until I went off to college, I lived with Aunt Alicia and my two cousins. Things hadn’t been so great for her either. Her husband had died in the basement of some fancy rest home, a hopeless drunk. Her daughter had married some poisonous academic; according to a letter I’d gotten from my aunt a few months before, the marriage had bombed out, and she’d come home.

My cousin Fritz hadn’t done so badly considering what he was like. He was in the East somewhere, a graduate student in psychology or some such nonsense, and supposedly doing all right. What a prick he was. We’d loathed each other since earliest childhood. He’d welcomed me, the destitute orphan, into his house by putting shit in my bed. While my aunt had generally made a fuss over me insofar as her nature would allow, he had put me at ease with remarks like You should have croaked along with your parents. His childhood nickname for me was the tapeworm. I’d had one card from him in the past year, with a typically shitty message. Hi, Tapeworm, it said. I hear you’re in graduate school. Probably fucking it up, right? Not so here. Life couldn’t be better. I’m dicking my advisor’s daughter, and I’m the star of the department. Let me know next time you’ll be in Milwaukee. That way I’ll be sure to stay here.

One other thing I ought to mention: Aunt Alicia’s family had lots and lots of money.

If you know Milwaukee, which you probably don’t, you’ll remember that all the rich Germans built big stone houses on the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan, far away from their factories. Lake Drive looks like a succession of public buildings from the Duchy of Hanover. Some of them are pretty grotesque, with lots of stained glass and arched, barred front doors, like mausoleums. Aunt Alicia lived in one of those.

The day I went over there, the temperature had gone up a few degrees, and a cold mist was coming up from the lake. From the front, the whole place looked so blank you couldn’t even tell if anyone lived there. The garage doors were pulled down, as they always were in winter, to keep the housekeeper, whose apartment was above them, from freezing. The yard was barren and soggy. The elms had all died off and been dragged away years before, and the few saplings adrift in the slush didn’t even reach the tops of the windows on the first floor. They’d put up a lean-to of wooden planks over the shrubbery on either side of the front door to keep the snow sliding off the roof from smashing the plants to pieces.

I wiped my shoes on the mat and rang the bell. I could hear it sounding far back in the house. No one answered. Monday was the maid’s day off. I tried a couple more times and then took out a quarter and began to rap on the glass. After a minute, someone came to the door and let me in. It was my cousin Lila. She was close to thirty and had long, streaked blonde hair. She looked worn-out and a little sick. From earliest childhood she’d had a smirk on her face, and it was still there. I smiled, but I was hardly glad to see her.

Well, well, she said, if it isn’t Fritz’s little playmate. And what brings you to the Arctic Circle?

Just passing through.

Oh? And where’s Nora? And little Edward? Are they passing through with you?

No. Nora and I have decided to cool it for a while.

My, what a nice way of putting it. My husband and I have been cooling it for eight months now. In fact, we’ve cooled it so long that it’s stone-cold dead.

I’m sorry.

You never met him, did you?

Your husband? No.

Too bad. You’re rather like him in some ways.

I let that pass. I hung my coat in the front hall and followed her toward the parlor. She went on talking.

Tell me, Roger, what are you really doing here?

I grew up here, remember? If I have any home at all, this is it.

How touching. Are you here because you’ve heard about Mother?

Heard what about her?

You’re not too good about keeping in touch, are you? Maybe I should have written, but I wasn’t sure you cared. I think you’ll find her a bit changed.

Changed? How?

You’ll see.

Lila walked into the room in front of me. Mother, here’s a nice little surprise for you on a dull day. Remember your nephew Roger? Well, he’s just run away from his wife, and he’s stopped by to say hello.

My aunt was sunk down in a chair next to the fireplace. She didn’t look good. Her cheeks were gray and sunken, and there were bluish shadows I’d never seen before under her eyes. The veins on the backs of her hands stood out like ridges. Her hair looked wrong, too, like she wore a wig. She wore a bathrobe, and there was a blanket over her knees. Near her chair was a wheelchair.

I stepped gingerly onto the carpet and walked over to her. The carpet was so thick it was a menace. At Christmas, if you got too close to the tree, the tinsel would reach out six inches and give you a good zap. As a child, Fritz used to rub his feet on the rug and then sneak up and touch a victim with a little metal rod. It was enough to make you pee in your pants. I grounded myself on a lamp and leaned over to give my aunt a kiss. Then I sank into a chair across from her. Lila spread herself out on the floor. She kept giving me funny looks, as though she’d been around the house too long. I decided to avoid her.

Hello, dear, said my aunt. We haven’t heard from you in a long time. She sounded distant and preoccupied.

No. I’m sorry. I meant to write.

How are your studies going? It was a question she’d asked many times before. This time my answer was different.

Not so well, I said. I quit.

I see. And your wife?

That’s not going so well either.

So what Lila said is true?

Yes, I’m afraid so.

Your wife—she seemed like such a sweet girl. What happened?

Lila looked at me with interest, as though it were she who had asked the question.

I didn’t much like being called to account. For reasons of convenience, I decided to blame it all on Nora.

I never really knew her, Aunt Alicia, I said. She let me down.

I see. And how is little Edward? Your wife sent me a picture of him. A darling little boy. He looks like you at that age. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to send him.

He’s fine. I did feel bad about Howling Gomez. It was painful to think about him. Everything else—my wife, my thesis—was nothing by comparison. Only a swine abandons his child. It was hard to believe—how could I have done it? I’d loved him from the moment he was born. He was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I spent hours and hours with him. I changed his diapers. I bathed him. I fed him. I read to him. I taught him games. I used to get him up in the middle of the night just to hold him. It was like I wanted to be everything to him. But now what? In a few more weeks he’d probably forget me—just what I deserved. He was just learning really to talk when I took off. That was fascinating but a little depressing, too, because it made me realize that all I was too was a collection of everything I’d heard everyone else say. I vowed right then that someday I would go back and steal him. Meanwhile, my aunt went on relentlessly.

What are your plans now?

I think I’ll go to New York and look for a job. This hadn’t occurred to me before, but it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Money, infinite possibilities for those willing to cut a few corners … the stock market, that sort of thing. Certainly I was smart enough for that kind of work. Maybe I’d even be good at it. And what else was there to do?

My aunt adjusted the blanket over her lap. So there’s no hope of a reconciliation? she said. There was no hint of disapproval in her voice or even expectation that things could be otherwise. Rotten marriages were a family tradition.

No. I don’t think so.

Where are you staying?

Over near Oakland Avenue. I’ve got a room there.

Lila put on a look of great distaste. "Oakland Avenue? That’s a first, Roger. No one in our family has ever lived there before."

You can stay here, said my aunt. We’ve closed up your old room, but you can have Fritz’s.

That’s very kind of you, I said. The mention of Fritz shut us all up for a while. He had always been a real skulker. You could never be sure quite where he was. He was forever behind a curtain somewhere, spying. As a child, he used to pull himself up between the floors in the dumbwaiter and sit there for hours, listening. He used to wander around the neighborhood at night, hiding in the bushes and looking into people’s windows through a pair of binoculars. When he got older, he showed a real bent for electronics; he bugged the maid’s room and used to listen to her in bed with her boyfriend. It all made people reluctant to talk about him. Still, I really wanted to know.

How is Fritz? I said finally.

My aunt let out a little breath and waved her hand in front of her face, as though it were too hot in the room.

He’s still at Cornell, she said, looking toward the window. We don’t see him often.

He’s found himself a woman, said Lila.

Oh? I said. I gave her a blank look. Fritz had found himself lots of women. All kinds of women: waitresses, high school girls, intellectuals, and dumb-dumbs. His style was to fuck them and forget them.

This time it’s different, said Lila. He’s going to get married.

This greatly surprised me. It seemed impossible. To whom? I said. I wondered if it was his advisor’s daughter.

We don’t know. We haven’t met her.

My aunt said nothing. Something had made her slip into some sort of deep reverie. It seemed as though nothing would get her attention, not even if cracks were to appear in the floor. We sat for several minutes while she stared at whatever people with second sight stare at.

Finally Lila said, Mother? Would you like to go upstairs? She bent forward, and my aunt put her arms around Lila’s neck. As Lila lifted her up and guided her into the wheelchair, the blanket slipped from her lap and slid to the floor. It gave me a real start. Her left leg was missing above the knee.

Chapter Two

Late that afternoon I got back to my boarding house and packed up my few possessions. I put several rubber bands around my money and stuffed it down to the bottom of the daypack. Then I took the bus across Locust Street to Lake Park and walked the mile up Lake Drive to my aunt’s. It was cold again, and the snow squeaked under my shoes.

With the key Lila had given me, I opened the front door and went upstairs. Fritz had a large back room with a view out toward the lake. It was dusty and not well kept up. The bookshelves were bare, and the scatter rugs were gone, but traces of my cousin remained here and there. His rolltop desk was still in one corner, and on it rested an old-fashioned telephone, with an extension cord long enough that you could take it into the closet. His novelty wastebasket with headlines about love-nests and disasters was still in his bathroom. A Nazi sword still hung over the door. There was enough of him there to make me uneasy.

I put my money in an old hatbox on the closet shelf and then unpacked my socks and underwear and the soap I used to wash them. Putting them in his dresser reminded me of something too. Fritz had been a dirty child. With all the smut available on earth, he had to manufacture his own. He used to trace women’s bodies out of action comic books and add the tits and pubic hair—then he’d draw them chained up to a stake or a wall. At night he’d retrieve them, with much ceremony, as props for masturbation. He kept them hidden under the paper lining of his underwear drawer. I checked the drawer. I think that if they had still been there I would have left the house.

That made me think of his other great treasure: his lambskin rubber collection. He’d gotten them from some upperclassman at prep school. He kept them in the attic, between a loose floorboard and the insulation. The one time he showed them to me he made me swear on the Bible I would never tamper with them. I wondered vaguely if he’d used them all up.

My aunt didn’t come downstairs again that evening. Lila took her a bowl of toast and milk, and afterward we ate alone in the dining room. We had canned beef stew in soup bowls, served on red plastic mats on the heavy oaken table. The room had a gloomy air. A bay window, flanked with potted palms, faced out toward the lake, as black as tar.

Lila and I had never been close, but there were things I had to know.

Lila, I said, tell me the truth. What’s wrong with her?

It’s cancer of the bone. They found it right after Christmas. It’s pretty advanced. She had one operation, but I don’t know how much good it’s done. She has a young doctor who doesn’t beat around the bush. He’s advised her to start death therapy.

Something inside me began to slide toward a place I didn’t want to go. My tear ducts, parched for many years, began to moisten. I dug my thumbnail into my index finger to steady myself.

How much time does he give her?

A few weeks or months. Not much more than that. She’d stopped eating and was making lines in the mat with her fork. Her hand had begun to tremble.

Does Fritz know about this?

Fritz, she said. Her voice was full of loathing. No. Fritz doesn’t know. They had a fight. We haven’t heard from him in weeks.

What did they fight about?

Money. What else? I don’t know the details.

Shouldn’t he be told?

Tell him yourself, she said and started to eat again.

I saw Lila once more that evening. She came into the library, where I was having a cup of coffee, and put the moves on me. She’d been drinking. It was an act of contempt, for herself and for me. I couldn’t believe she was doing it. I think she figured I’d been living in California for a while, so I must be corrupt. People out there are different, true enough, but I wasn’t one of them. She began by putting her hand very lightly on the back of my neck. It made me very uncomfortable.

Roger, I’m pretty much alone these days.

I’m sorry to hear that.

It’s hard to meet people in my situation. I’m here with Mother all day long.

Can’t you hire a nurse?

Mother won’t have a nurse.

I see. So you’re not seeing anyone.

No. And you? I guess you’ve had your own troubles.

A few.

I’m glad to see you, Roger. It’s good that you’ve turned up. I’ve always liked you.

Thank you. A strange thing to say, I thought. God knows, she’d never shown it.

You know something, Roger? I’ve never told you this.

What? Whatever it was, I had the feeling it wasn’t something I needed to know.

Fritz was jealous of you. He was so jealous of you.

He was? Why?

Because you’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful. There’s no one like you. When I was in high school, I had a photo of you in my room, next to my bed. I used to stare at it every night. But Mother found it and took it away from me. There. I’ve always wanted to tell you that. My friends felt the same way about you. All my friends who came to the house were in love with you. They never paid any attention to Fritz at all. But they thought you were a god. Didn’t you know that? Couldn’t you tell?

No. I wondered if she was making it all up. Fritz being jealous, that stuff about her friends—it seemed ridiculous. Was my memory that rotten? I couldn’t remember her friends. I couldn’t remember a single one of them.

They were afraid of you. They were afraid even to talk to you. You were always so distant, even when you were sixteen. Are you really like that, Roger? Are you really so distant?

"I don’t