The Doll Head Incident

Landry House was one of the St. Charles homes that always seemed to have the power to draw tourists from the streetcar. To get them to pull the cord that rings the bell, getting the conductor to apply the brakes. To get them off, to cross over from the neutral ground for photos, and to approach with reverence, as if they were nearing the casket at a wake. But no one was around now.

It wasn’t completely dark. Yet. As Eli walked by the house, light rain was dripping through the oak canopy and the autumn sun was about to set on the last day before Halloween. He walked by the place often. It was his neighborhood since he was a kid. But he had never been inside. Neither had anyone he knew. Mrs. Landry lived there alone. At least that’s what people said. There were only a couple of times when he actually caught a glimpse of her and that was a long time ago. There were lots of old ladies and lots of big houses in the area. No big deal. But there were rumors about Mrs. Landry.

As he made his way along the accordion sidewalk below the steps that led up to the front porch, he was struck in the head. Out of nowhere he took a hard blow to the temple that dropped him immediately to the ground. After a minute, or so, he managed to get up on all fours and check it. He got blood on his hand. At first, he thought he had been hit by a pipe or a bat. But no one was around. Next to him he saw the object that had hit him, and it was still spinning on the sidewalk. It was the head of a doll. Wooden (the kind they don’t make anymore). A cheek was chipped, and the paint had long worn away from one of the eyes. Then he looked up and saw a little girl, about five years old, at the top of the stairs looking down at him. Her matted hair covered most of her face. She looked like she may have been naked. As he grabbed the head and staggered up after her she disappeared beyond the horizon of the edge of the porch.

The porch swing was swinging, and the door was ajar, so he went in. A single deco light fixture on the wall of the foyer cast a dim yellow glow, just bright enough for him to see several dirty children. Naked, nasty-maned and about the same age as his assailant, they silently played with acorns and clumps of Spanish moss. They didn’t look at him or each other. The stench was unbearable. As he carefully made his way through the house over piles of junk and trash, he saw more of the same. One kid had a rat in his fist. Eli called out, “hello”, several times but no one answered. In the corner of one of the parlors (the house was bigger inside than it ever appeared from the street) he found Mrs. Landry. She was twisted on the floor, on a crumpled pile of fallen, moldy drapes, eating rancid saltines from a box crawling with roaches. By now the sun had gone down.

“Mrs. Landry! Mrs. Landry!”, he barked, as she went about the business of gnawing on her crackers. She didn’t pay him any mind. So, he got louder and shook her shoulder. But still nothing. Waving the doll head in front of her face he yelled, “one of these kids threw this at me when I was walking by the house…out front….Mrs. Landry!” After a pause, she slowly reached up and stroked the hard doll head with a gentle caress. Saliva syruped through her dazed, gum smile and over her lip. Then she stared at the floor.

He squatted down and tried to make eye contact. She looked him squarely and solemnly in the face and muttered, “I need eighteen dollars to get my shoes out of the shoemaker’s shop…out of the shoemaker’s shop….the shoemaker’s shop….” Her hands were grotesque and withered. Protrusions from the nail beds of her bare, gnarled feet reminded him of “Where The Wild Things Are” and made him feel sorry for her. A rat broke loose from the grip of one of the little girls and ran between them.

“Here”, he said, as he pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. She snatched it, almost tearing it in half. Two grimy urchins teetered by. He checked his wallet again and realized that the bill he had given her was the one he had just purchased at a coin store earlier that day. He was a collector of rare bills and coins. Technically, a numismatist. This was a rare bill and he had given it to her by mistake. There was another twenty intended for her in his wallet. He tried to explain the error and his wish to make the exchange, but she had already stuck it inside of her muumuu. Plus, she just kept staring at the floor, mumbling, “shoemaker…shoemaker….” He persisted until she finally pulled the bill from her wrinkly bosom and screamed, “this is my inheritance document!”. Eli grabbed it, dropped the other twenty in her lap and ran out of the room. As he headed back the way he came in, he slipped on a pile of acorns. He fell, hit his head on an old wheelbarrow and was knocked out.

When he came to, his head hurt in both places. A plastic doll head had been stuffed in his mouth (the strands of hair grinded against his throat) to keep him from screaming. His body was bound and blindfolded with torn strips of blue Katrina tarp. He was lying on his back in the basement of the house, on what felt like wooden doll heads. Rodents made busy sounds as he pondered how long he had been unconscious.

Later, after defecating in his pants a second time, he figured that about twenty-four hours had passed. Probably Halloween Night by now. He was hungry and thirsty and craved a smoke. Someone was coming down some stairs. Mrs. Landry? One of those kids? Footsteps. Not really footsteps. More like foot stomps….boots…. a man. A big man. Definitely a man, humming, “Let’s Hear It For The Boy”, and shuffling through the doll heads towards him. He made a path to the back door. Then he laid a rusty hand truck next to Eli, tied him to it, wrapped it all in an old canvas tent and righted it up. Then he leaned it back and rolled it out into the black drizzle.

The ride was rough. Bumpy as hell. But Eli knew the rise and fall of the cracks of the broken banquette so well, he could tell that they were headed towards the park. Hopefully, someone would see them and call the police or do something. But no. (What would they say?) Even though it was Halloween no one was out because of the rain.

Eli never did like “Let’s Hear It For The Boy”. Now he disliked it even more. His brain hurt from trying to figure out who this guy was and why he was doing this. Also, from trying to figure out who those kids were and where they came from. There were so many. They were all around the same age and Mrs. Landry had to be around eighty years old.

Eli was right. At the park, the man dragged the hand truck through the grass, mud and the huge puddles, still full from the recent squalls. It wouldn’t roll in the mire. Too deep. Too wet. It was kind of like a dogsled being mushed through the tundra but not as majesticly and not as fast or as smooth or as level. This was an exercise of inclined jolts and jerks. At the edge of the lagoon his driver removed the tent, and pushed the hand truck, letting it go down the bank where it did its best rolling of the night. The wheels and his feet splashed through the lily pads, submerging him from the knees down and facing the water, stopped and stuck. Behind him Eli could hear his captor’s heavy breathing and boots fade away, leaving just the sound of crickets enjoying the drizzle.

After a couple of hours went by, he heard the boots come back. The humming did, too. Same song. As the sounds came right up on him his blindfold was removed by a grubby hand. Fortunately, since it was dark out, the shock to his eyes wasn’t too bad. And although he could smell his captor’s breath, which smelled worse than Landry House, he could not get a look at his face. There was, however, just enough light from a distant streetlamp for him to have seen it had he been facing the other way.

Then the children from the house arrived. About a dozen. Their little cheeks were stuffed full with something. Not air. Candy? Maybe. But they weren’t chewing. Still naked and now wet, each had a tablet of bright orange Post-It Notes. They got on the ground and crawled on him, putting blank notes all over, piece by piece. Because of the rain the paper was soaked and wouldn’t really stick. When three quarters of an hour had passed he was covered in an orange pulpy mulch from his head to where the water covered his knees.

Then they stood up and surrounded him in an oval configuration, facing inward, each only about two feet from him. Some were in the water up to their waist. It was weird the way that they assembled into the choreographed formation without looking at one another or talking. They emptied their mouths into their hands and what Eli thought might have been food in their cheeks wasn’t actually food at all. It was coins. Dimes. Silver dimes. Lots. And they started throwing them at him. Actually, more like slamming them down at him, pelting his body. Ironically, one of his most favorite things in the world, coins, were now raining down on him in a bizarre juvenile assault. When the ammo was exhausted, they dropped their arms at their sides in unison and stared at him.

Slowly they chanted, “assassin, assassin, meet your assassin............”, over and over. Then Eli’s captor reached from behind his head, over his face, and handed a doll head to one of the little girls. It was the same wooden one that had struck him the previous night. It was the same girl who had thrown it at him. As the chanting intensified, she knelt beside his shoulder and began pounding the doll head into his face. After he stopped moving, she joined the rest of the children as they silently walked into the lagoon until they disappeared.