Organ - Chapter 15
ORGAN
Chapter Fifteen
Mary was beside herself; Oscar had not only slipped through her fingers and back into the dangers that would plague him, both in her mind and in reality, but her son assaulted an officer right at the doorstep of their family home. This was not her son. The grieving mother kept repeating this to herself as the evening grew cold and baron with light, it was hours before another police officer showed up to darken her door. The knock woke her from the various nightmarish threatening daydreams that clung to her aura, like blood thirsty mosquitoes on a perspiring face.
“Good evening Mrs Rubens” the attending officer said as he stepped confidently into her home without invitation.
“Have you heard anything? Has Oscar been found?” she began unloading her questions before it even crossed her mind to greet the man with the shiny badge of power, his thick, uneven brow furrowed momentarily but the reality was that this woman was not a criminal, and her son was likely more of a danger to himself than to anyone else.
Even if his feelings on her family member attacking his colleague had been clouding his emotions.
“Let’s have a seat and we can go through the details again” he instructed gesturing Mary to the kitchen table, her ghostly mindset left very minimal room for constructive discussion, and she complied without as much as a huff.
After they found a seat and the officer finally cleared his throat away from the disgusting blockage that kept interrupting his sentences in oily gargle, he began unloading the questions that Mary answered previously in an attempt, Mary guessed, to see if she had missed something in her ‘hysteria’ fuelled state.
“Did your son mention anything that could give you an idea of where he might be going?” he asked without looking up from his notepad, Mary swallowed a throatful of saliva.
“No, he was home and seemed relieved to be here before I called the police” she replied with annoyance creeping through her gums that held her ready teeth as scabbard and sword.
“Did Oscar seem coherent, was he showing any indication that he might be intoxicated or under the influence of a substance?” once again the officer never lifted his head from the scribbling pocket notebook.
This question was almost a step too far, Mary bit her tongue in frustration and slapped her hands against the table top, the officer jumped but seemed experienced in the venting outbursts of the distraught.
“Oscar was himself; he was upset that I called for help, and he ran. Something is making him do this, he is scared and acting manic, he needs mental help!” she barked the words back through gritted gnashing bones, before he could reply she added another barb to the hook, “my son is sick, he needs to be in a hospital, not being accused of being a drunk or a drug user” the officer finally gave up on the exercise and shut the notepad.
“Thank you Mrs Rubens, let me call in and find out if there are any updates” the officer offered before stepping out of the home and back into the safety of his car, away from the angry mother he had been poking with his shaved down pencil and leading questions.
Mary moved from the kitchen table to her living room couch, the room still lingered with the smoke of Oscars filthy clothes from his arrival the previous night, the wait for the officer to return was irritating her and moving rooms was her passive way of protesting the delay. When he did finally lumber back in and after his second long search for the occupant, Mary sat back up but refused to speak hoping he would dive straight into any news he had on her sons whereabouts.
“Mrs Rubens unfortunately we haven’t heard anything from our patrol cars regarding Oscar, they are still searching but with it getting dark it will likely be more difficult” the officer explained, Mary dropped her head into her hands cradling her skull in a soft shake of disbelief.
“Do you know anywhere he might have felt safe….besides your home?” he asked with caution, not wanting to unleash the mothers rage for a second or perhaps third time that evening.
Various ideas ran through her mind, parties they attended when Oscar was a child, his favourite restaurants, the shops at which he would often stop. But nothing was jumping out, leaving Mary feeling even more useless and disconnected from her boy than she already did.
“He worked at a small shop on Caneland Street for a while, but he hated it” Mary explained thinking out loud, “Do you think he might have gone back there?” the officer asked.
Mary shook her head and got to her feet placing both hands at the back of her head and breathing deep wobbling inhales.
“I will head back to the station and see if I can get some more officers in to double up on our search before it gets too dark, if we hear anything you will be called immediately Mrs Rubens” the officer said, considering with an awkward misstep for a moment of placing his hand on Marys shoulder, sensing better he swiftly left and shut the door to her home behind him.
Mary dropped back to the cushions with a soundless crumple and allowed herself to weep deeply into her hands, Oscar needed her, but for the time she had alone Mary allowed herself a moment to get these pilling slabs of distress off her chest.
Mary sat alone for the following four hours; unaware she was watching as the sun went down through the living room window behind her. It loomed heavy on her mood that Oscar was out, alone, frightened, and likely in pain at night somewhere she could not reach him, driving herself mad with worry. The itch to move was no longer bearable, Mary ventured upstairs and changed into her more comfortable pyjamas, shutting her bedroom door firmly as she entered out of habit despite her son being off across the town doing god only knows what, no longer stood the risk of him catching her changing. It was nights of emotional turmoil like this one that dropped Mary back into the whirlpool of depression, those memories of her lost husband and the months that followed would slither their way into her daily thoughts like parasitic leeches on her joy, they fed off her will to climb away from the sorrow with a needless crave that she often struggled to overcome. Oscar was her saving light, but that shine was diming as the young man she had raised went from bumbling clumsy toddler who would wait on the porch like a bus stop for his father and turned into an angsty young man who seemed lost himself for purpose. Often it crossed her mind if her sons directionless path was her fault, perhaps simply the unavoidable path of her husband’s death and the chasm that man left in both their hearts, but Mary had lost her lantern and in the world of darkness that she now blindly stepped through it was likely to prove fatal to her last chance at happiness in this swallowing story of her life. And yet, through the years of torment she inflicted upon herself, the memories that shinned warming yellow and embracing orange in her mind still kept the boat afloat. The face of her husband never faded, the beautiful heart-wrenching relationship that her son and husband shared while they could and the strength that Oscar had shown her during her weakest moments, Mary Rubens was not a quitter and the sobering look in the mirror confirmed this in her resolve.
“He needs you” she spoke to herself in the dark of her solitary bedroom, this was the three words that rang out until Mary would take her final breath in this world and that breath would not be today.
On her wedding day Mary was already pregnant, she had told her mother that they had been waiting for marriage but the love between them both was raging faster than they could quell the flames with the antiquated notions of their parents sense of morals, they had lived together as an unwed couple for a long time, “Living in sin” their grandmother would jest. Mary was certain she was not joking. She remembered the dress being snug around her stomach, Oscar was a heavy baby, and he sat densely on her organs, ironically she believed with all his goings on that her boy still sat crushing her insides without awareness. Thomas Rubens walked down the aisle first and Mary could hear her future husbands family all roaring in applause as he did, they had a strange tradition of celebrating the grooms entrance more so than the brides in their family, but Thomas was playful enough to enjoy the attention for half a minute as he shimmied his way down the carpeted aisle and took his place at the feet of the officiate, adorned in his fanciest penguin suit for the happiest day that far in his life. Mary insisted it was unimportant whether they had a religious official at the wedding and despite her families nagging, she eventually won the debate, and they went for a non-traditional wedding involving a minister who spoke only of their love, future together and sanctity of marriage in the form they chose, it was beautiful, and Thomas even dared let a trail of small glistening tears trickle down his beaming ruggedly handsome goofy lovable face. Mary danced on the memory of his vision that day for a moment as she lay in bed covering her legs with the blankets, Thomas much like Oscar was an obviously good-looking man. With a chiselled jaw line and almost irritatingly good looks despite never taking care of himself in any deliberate way, he caught the eye of every girl they spent time together with as teenagers, but Thomas chose her and whisked her off her feet with his nonchalant charm and embarrassingly glitzy clothes that would make the Encino man shy away in indignity.
It was not often that Mary thought about her husband’s death, it was always there, lurking in the darkened corners of her mind curled up like some disfigured spider of a memory. Oscar and her work keeping her busy since his passing she had become somewhat more trained in the art of burying the feelings when they attempted to rise from the grave, regular mental zombie killer she had become,
“Oscar loved that joke” she said remembering his attempts to cheer her up over the years.
Though she wished it was easier to speak with her son regarding Thomas’s death, it was unclear to her how much information would be enough for a young boy trying to cope with developing in a home missing a father, Mary was always concerned that giving him the full story, with all the destroying details, would not do her son any good but as she sat dreaming of better days and her husband, she wished that Oscar knew more, perhaps then he might feel more attached to what was left of his fractured family and less inclined to see the home as anything but somewhere he is safe and protected. The day her husband died, or was found dead, Mary was at home with Oscar as they usual had been during the day. His routine of coming home for a late lunch with their son and watching the planes overhead was quickly becoming Oscars favourite part of the week day, his enthusiasm to help make the sandwiches they shared on the porch still brings tears of overwhelming joy to her eyes, those pudgy toddler pink fingers grabbing at various ingredients and covering her kitchen in tiny hand prints of peanut butter, jam, or mustard, seeing his face recoil at the taste of the latter made her well up for a moment. Mary let out a large, long winded soul wringing sigh. Rain was heavy on the roof that day, she remembered the smell of it wafting in through the open window in the living room, it faced the seat and Oscar would periodically gaze out of it between mad dashes through the house ensuring everything was ready for his lunch date. The rain had not deterred him that day, the porch was covered, and it would only make hunting for planes overhead slightly more difficult for the pair, then she recalled the tires outside the house.
Clear and distinct tires unlike her husband’s work van stopping at the foot of their path down from the enclosed front porch, Mary called out to Oscar to go check at the window who it was but as much as she squeezed her eyes tight narrowing her nose she could not recall exactly the words she used to summon her little boy. Shortly after the door knocked, it was as heavy hand and slow raps on the door, not the sign of someone eager to have that door answered, it was obvious to her looking back now that something was wrong in that moment of disturbed peaceful family bliss. Two men stood at the door when Mary finally answered it, Oscar hid behind her skirt holding on tightly to the length to keep himself safe from the strangers. The men appeared in clashing outfits, one wearing the easily recognisable uniform of the local police, the other wearing a beige suit with a worn-out fedora and the smell of cigars on his clothes when the wind brought them uninvited into her home.
“Mary Rubens?” the gentleman in the suit asked,
“Yes” she replied nervously.
“We don’t want to alarm you, but we have found your husbands work vehicle abandoned….” He lingered over the words and every stutter or “uhm” left her heart raging to escape her chest with the pounding that she could just about hide without holding herself steady.
“Is he okay?” she asked impatiently.
Oscar now poking his head into view, the officers noticed and seemed now even more reluctant to inform her why they darkened her doorway.
“Mrs Rubens, we have found your husband and need you to come with us” the officer explained now hiding his face from view of Oscars curious big eyes.
The young boy clearly sensing something awful was happening as the emotions his mother felt manifested physically in her body with shakes and trembles in her legs, it made him cry but Mary was unaware if he knew why he was upset, she never dared ask him that day. Mary simply squeezed her sons hand tight and told the officers attending that she would get her coat and meet them at their squad car. Mother and son, now wrapped up in their warm raincoats, followed the officers into their car and after an uncomfortably silent drive in the back, with nothing but the sound of the tires on the road and the occasional crackling of the radio to keep everyone awake, they finally arrived somewhere Mary did not recognise. The officers let her out of the back seat, and she was quickly approached by a female officer who offered to keep Oscar busy while Mary went with the two she arrived with, she agreed with a nod and watched as the officer in her spiffy pressed uniform walked Oscar hand in hand away from the scene and bobbed her head in conversation with her son. It all felt like a bad dream, it still does in her mind, the world seemed to be going in slow motion with the colour being drained from the universe as she fell further into what was quickly becoming a living hell of someone else’s making. Walking across the taped off road,
Mary spotted her husband’s van, her stomach fell into her shoes with a sickening lifeless splutter, as though all the goodness was stolen from her by a passing sentiment thief. Thomas had seemingly left the van parked on the verge of an intersection near a building she was seeing for the first time, it looked like a petrol station but had the exterior of a place unused for at least a decade, weathered signage and windows obscured with dusty cobwebs and pieces of torn newspaper to keep out any nosy intruders. It was not a place she would imagine her husband wanting to visit, nor a place she enjoyed visiting herself with Oscar in hand. The thought of Oscar made her momentarily panic and swivel on the spot to visually confirm he was still around, his little coat could be seen from the distance and the woman still seemed to be laughing and smiling with her boy who sat upon the hood of a police car being entertained by his new friend, from this angle Oscar might have been chuckling back at her, Mary was jealous of his innocence allowing him to become separated from the gravity of this situation unfolding.
“Mrs Rubens?” the officer called over interrupting her attempts to drift away in her head,
the officers escorting her across the street towards the strange building had stopped her just at the steep of the curb before stepping onto the property itself.
“Mrs Rubens, I am so sorry to say this, but we believe your husband has taken his own life, he is inside the building, but we need you to identify the body” the words that she deep down expected from the vibe of the moment fell with blunt crippling stones across her body.
Marys knees quaked and she stumbled back briefly, the officer in uniform caught her arm and steadied the mother whose face drained to match the colours of the miserable clouds above, the rain still dripping down in misty excitement.
“Mrs Rubens if you are unable right now we can take the body away and you can come down to the station later on today or tomorrow to identify” the suit wearing policeman explained, his voice clearly attempting to sound empathetic but his years of pulling bodies before families had left him with a soulless dry voice that really could not give comfort even if he truly meant it, Mary stood stunned and looked around with the world swallowing her existence.
“I want my son” the words escaped her lips before she could catch them, the officers seemed disappointed, but Mary paid no attention even if she could, “I want Oscar, can we go home please?” she asked begging the officers to end this cruel practical joke, silently praying they would tell her that this was all part of her husband’s plan to scare her with some ill-designed skit.
“Mrs Rubens if you would like we can arrange a car to get you and your son home, would you like us to come by later on today or tomorrow?” the officer with his silly fedora asked quietly.
The noise of the traffic that crawled by the intersection almost drowning him out.
“Please, I just want to go home” she replied.
The squad car dropped them back not long after, Mary agreed to have the officers come by that evening after she had put Oscar to bed and she would look at the photos they took from the scene of the “discovery” as they called it, she imagined they avoided words that could spiral the grieving families they had the unfortunate curse of handling.
That evening at home Mary treated everything as though her husband would come crashing through the door in apologetic fluster at his lateness at any moment, but the lack of Mr Rubens arrival only further cemented the fact that it was most likely her husband that was found expired in that building. Mary bathed Oscar, gave him some time to play in the tub with the white innocent bubbles as she leant over the side and watched him push around little toy ducks and various plastic boats, she carried him to his bedroom and dried him off, gave him a long lingering cuddle and put her baby boy to bed.
At that time Oscar was a sound sleeper and would very rarely wake during the night, in the early days after his birth she would often find HERSELF waking up in a terror fuelled rush to his crib side to check he was breathing, she let out a sigh in the present day, it felt like a million years ago to her looking back and seeing her sons elegant ornate – expensive white crib that her and Thomas fought over. Mary loved it, Thomas hated it because of the cost and the fact that their son would just grow out of it anyway, Mary won the argument but lost the war knowing that Oscar did grow out of it much quicker than they would have hoped, Thomas never brought it up despite his obvious smiles the day the crib was sold at their doorstep to another expecting young couple with money to burn. This wonderful jaunt through normality was interrupted by the same pattern of knocking from earlier that day, it was the officers back at her doorstep. Mary gently closed the door to Oscars room and made her way down the stairs, through the frosted pain on the window beside the front door she could make out two shapes and the blue hue of a uniformed officer, “You can do this” she whispered to herself reaching for the door handle.
“Evening Mrs Rubens” the officer in plain clothes from earlier said, stepping into the home without invitation, she imagined he lost the ability to sense slipped manners in his behaviour years ago.
Mary gestured the two men into the living room and they each chose a seat on the couch away from each other,
“I understand this is a difficult situation, but I would appreciate if you were able to identify some photographs we took from the scene today, if you can confirm if they are in fact your husband we can go from there and it might save you an even worse trip to the morgue if they need you to identify him in person” the officer in uniform explained.
His colleague nodded loosely in agreement, stuffing some gum into his mouth, perhaps nicotine she guessed from the stench on his breath. Before her on the family coffee table was a plain brown folder with some red stamped numbers on the corner, they sat in fresh ink from a recent press. Mary stared down at them for a while attempting to somehow manipulate the contents to better suit her desires. The three of them sat in silence while they waited patiently for Schrodinger’s widow to take the file and get on with her task. Mary gently brought it onto her lap, tentatively opened it revealing images on top of her husband’s work van, it seemed more sinister somehow, transformed from a family vehicle that they could all spot from a mile away to this shell of morbid fascination for the future case handling.
“That is his van” Mary confirmed aloud, the officers nodded but did not interrupt, she gently lifted the first photograph away and beneath it was a sight she will never forget.
Her chest pounded with anxiety doing its worst to handle her sentiments. It was a man swinging from a noose, his face puffy and red with burst vessels swelling his features beyond human likeness. Mary paused, her breath shivering, glancing away and sporadically closing her eyes to rid herself of the vicious thing looking back at her.
“That’s my husband” she finally admitted, never taking another look, the words pierced her chest and drove metallic cold barbs through her heart.
That dreaded file fell to the floor beside her feet and the officer rushed forward to scoop it up.
“I am so sorry Mrs Rubens” the uniform said with a level of kindness that only weakened her dam holding back the pending swallowing flood of tears. “We are going to send a case worker round to help you through this, she will discuss your options for support with both you and little Oscar” the officer continued, something in his voice led her to believe that this was memorised from a binder, but the mother still frozen in place simply nodded and took in the murmurs like catching someone’s argument through a hotel wall, nothing tangible crept through.
Over the following weeks, the case worker would come and go at various agreed days, she was kind, great with Oscar when Mary needed to arrange funeral plans or various legal issues at the solicitors office. But that night changed everything, the Rubens ship sank, and her son clung to her for safety and emotional understanding on the lifeboat she paddled through these dark threatening. Mary laid back on her bed, the memories of that day fading in rigidness but still visible with closed eyes. If Thomas were alive today, she thought to herself how likely it would be that he could convince Oscar to stay and how much could have been avoided, but it was a useless endeavour into the uncontrollable flailing depression that tried so desperately to bring her into its taciturn embrace. Oscar was still out there alone; Mary needed her wits about her, and the mother continued her internal struggle against these feelings of defeat.
Flicking through her phone as she lay awake on her bed, sleep being a ridiculous notion to even consider as she knew it would not be possible that night, Mary began wracking her brain and shaking the web of the internet tree for ways she can help the police in their search for Oscar or possibly find an avenue they have yet to try. This was the Mary that Thomas married, someone with resourcefulness and fight to defend what is hers, she allowed, just for a second, herself to smile with her lips unseparated, she knew that her husband was watching on wherever he might be as her own personal cheerleader “Go get this!” she heard his voice call out in head as he often would in his embarrassing but devotedly silly spouts of support. Nothing tangible jumped out to her in the search for help, but Mary saw in herself that night where she had come from, the trouble this family had been through and the absolute certainty that this would not break them. Not now, and not ever she spoke to herself in comforting mumbles at the night grew into new promising day.
