It was all over the news. My son’s friend stabbed a professor twenty-seven times with a painting knife in the school bathroom. His father, Doctor So-and-So, wouldn’t allow a shrink to testify in court, what would people think? The friend went to jail for being sane while stabbing.
…………………Years later, released, took a job moving gravel with heavy machinery, wound up crushed beneath two tons, losing both legs. In a wheelchair, began to project Satanic visions on the world outside, implicating those few friends left to him in a cosmic plot to drag him under.
He sent recorded messages threatening to take revenge on those traitors and rats who might expose him to the police for thinking evil thoughts. His mother a witch. My son’s, another. And the old lady next door –whom he watched from his immobile vantage– schemed against his life.
………………He wielded demonic power to protect himself from the medicine forced on him. Those who hadn’t quit caring desperately looked for ways to help him. The police refused to get involved till given evidence of homicidal tendencies.
……………………My son, who brings the Bible with him everywhere (Crazy, right?), stayed loyal. He refused to forward to the state police the texts his troubled friend kept sending him— threatening to bash his face in—to which he’d always respond.
Love you brother. You should trust your mother. Please accept the help you need. May God be with you. …………………Your friend, . That brought in reply another screed growled in the devil’s voice.
At the old brick church in Saint Johnsbury, I knelt with my son, who struggled to keep himself physically still, questioning if he’d mistaken his own code of honor for the Lord’s will.
…………………………He left the building shaken when Mass ended, found where he parked his truck and saw the message on his phone. It read: “He’s in the psych ward.”
An answer of sorts.