Jinksey

JINKSY

The thunder shook the floor-to-ceiling windows in Dr. Shelly's office. Lightning flashed briefly afterward, turning the night into day for a second. Bill Franken sat on the edge of the couch, his hands clasped so tightly together that the tips of his fingers were turning white from the effort. 

Dr. Shelly peered over his glasses at Bill. “Feeling tense Mr. Franken?” 

Bill focused on relaxing his hands. He should have known better than to allow the good doctor to see him like this. 

“Not tense Doc. Just…..” he trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts and find the right words. In this case, the right words were simply the ones Dr. Shelly wanted to hear. The words he needed to say in order to convince him that he, Bill Franken, was not insane. “It’s just the thunderstorm I guess. It sounds a little close for comfort”. He gazed out of the window for emphasis.

“We are perfectly safe in here Mr. Franken. That particular window would need a dozen bulldozers to break through it.” Bill always thought it funny how a shrink could use extreme exaggerations like that just to make a point while telling his patients to be as straightforward as possible. 

Bill smiled and he hoped it was a convincing one. “Plus, it’s Halloween, Doc”. A slight, practiced nod from Dr. Shelly. 

“And how does that make you feel?” asked the doctor. Bill hated that question. He thought it was therapy 101. His mother would ask the same question when he came to her with his problems as a child and she was certainly no therapist. There might be something to the psychobabble nonsense concerning things like talking out your feelings, making peace with the past, and speaking your truth but Bill’s truth was so far removed from the concept of reality that he couldn’t be honest. If he were completely truthful he would be locked away in a straight jacket. 

Thunder rumbled once more, much closer this time, and Bill felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin and hide under a table. The doctor sat behind his desk with a neutral face but Bill knew he wasn’t really neutral about any of this. If he couldn’t convince the fine doctor that he had seen the errors of his ways and confess to not experiencing something that he absolutely had experienced, he might spend the rest of his life behind bars. 

Bill sat forward, “I feel…okay”, he lied, “A bit anxious but otherwise fine. I just can’t seem to shake some of those images out of my head. Even though they didn’t actually happen (oh yes they did) they’re still pretty vivid if you know what I mean”.

“And thus this visit. In order to proclaim you cured, we need to go over the details of last year’s Halloween night, Mr. Franken”.

Bill fidgeted on the couch but willed himself to stop. He needed to be convincing. He needed to be articulate. And he needed to lie. The good Doctor was not here for the truth. Oh no. He was here to hear his version of the truth. The version that made sense and didn’t involve supernatural clowns snatching innocent kids.

            LAST HALLOWEEN

“Look, daddy, I’m a zombie princess”. Callie was dressed in a pink dress with a wide sash tied at the waist and puffy shoulder pads that made her look older than her eight years. Coupled with pasty makeup that made her look like a mole person who hasn’t seen the sun in decades and the copious amount of fake blood that she had splattered on the front of her dress and all over her face and arms and she did, indeed, look like a zombie princess. Although most people wouldn’t put that together, Bill thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. He was a lifelong horror movie fan and he had allowed his daughter to stay up with him some nights to watch a few tamer older classics. No Evil Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, of course, but Night of the Living Dead was something they’d seen together a few times and Callie seemed to be less fearful and more entranced by zombies. But she was still an eight-year-old girl and loved Princesses and dolls as well.