The Headshrinker's Dilemma

Chapter Nine

He hated leaving her. Especially there. Outside in the alley, in the dark, on a cold early morning. Even though there would be police surrounding her to keep her safe and to ultimately take her to the hospital to tend to her gunshot wound, the idea that he left her made him queasy and sick to his stomach. Cashier girl had become a very important person to him, someone he had just met that night, but singly had become the most impactful person in his life. The way that she looked at him, spoke to him, and was just there for him had all been more than what anyone in his life had ever done. Some would probably consider that to be a very sad fact, and in some regards maybe it was, but for Dale it was just a testament to cashier girl’s greatness. She possessed something as a human being that no one else had – something that made her the perfect fit for him, the ideal woman. In life, he doubted he would ever find another person like her.

Walking the street early in the morning, Dale thought about his life. Truthfully, there really wasn’t that much to think about and the few thoughts that turned over in his mind, he did so again and again.; it was all about loneliness, which eventually led him back to thinking about cashier girl. He needed to get back to her someway, somehow. When everything seemed lost back there in the grocery store and he seriously thought they were all going to die, it had been the sight of her that brought him back from a grave that he had already dug for himself. There was just something about her. He needed her. She was Robin to his Batman – or was she Batgirl to his Batman? No, Catwoman to his Batman. Something like that. Dale decided that once he figured out exactly what the hell was going on with him, then he would go back for her, even if that meant living a life on the run, which given the way things had been going, looked like a for real possibility.

Fortunately for him, the streets were clear for right now. It was still dark and with his hoodie and jacket, he felt pretty covered. But in the coming hours, that wouldn’t be the case. With daylight came the reveal of everything and he knew that the police would be looking for him, especially after they saw the tapes. And how would he explain it? He couldn’t. He didn’t understand it all himself. But he was beginning to get an idea: His strange new power to shrink heads had something to do with judgement, more specifically meting out judgement. He wondered if he had somehow been chosen… And if so then by whom? God? Goddess? Deities? The Universe or just some random other super person? Whoever or whatever that had caused this to happen to him did so for a reason. That much Dale was sure of. He remembered the feeling he had back at the grocery store, how whatever it was communicated with him. They weren’t words but what he felt he understood and they were just as good as words, like a voice speaking but not really a voice, more like a notion, a deep intuition within himself. It had compelled him to act, to kill that thug and he knew it was because the thug deserved it.

But did Felicia? That’s what he had to find out. Did his very first victim also deserve it and was it that deep intuition that compelled and pushed him towards her to ultimately shrink her head and mete judgment out on her? Dale was hopeful. If that was the case then this thing that had happened to him was for a purpose and therefore it definitely had meaning: he would be a vessel, a chosen one among men and women to punish people in the most strange and ridiculous way: shrinking heads. The thought was ridiculous and convoluted, he knew, hoping and wishing for another person to be bad just so he could live with himself. It was selfish. But honest.

***

The morning was coming. Dawn was breaking. Orange and yellowish hues were peeking out from behind the clouds in the horizon. Suddenly, Dale was beginning to tire. His mind felt thick and swampy as if he had to wade through his thoughts; nothing was moving fast, a trudging along both mentally and physically. He needed sleep but didn’t know where to go to get a couple of hours. His place was going to be out of the question. After the police watched the tapes at the grocery store he was sure to be a wanted man. Family was out of the question. Too far away and even if they were closer, he wasn’t that desperate. And he didn’t have any friends. Well, one, but she had just been shot and was hopefully on the way to the hospital with a police escort. There was nowhere for Dale to go.

***

Dale ended up on a park bench. He thought: The best place to hide was in plain sight. No one would recognize him, layered in his hoodie and jacket for the cold. Everyone would probably assume that he was just another homeless person. They would let him sleep, feeling sorry for him, that he had nowhere to call home. The irony of course was that to a degree that was true. He didn’t have a home anymore. But he still wouldn’t call himself homeless.

Dale stretched out on the bench. The coldness of the metal could be felt through his clothes. It was soothing more so than bothersome. Dale just wanted to rest. He closed his eyes and then lifted his legs to his chest; the fetal position seemed to be the most comfortable for him. And in seconds, he was asleep.

***

Felica. It was restless sleep. In his mind, he couldn’t stop saying her name. Felicia. He was on his way to see her, hoping that she could somehow provide him with some answers for the questions that he had: mainly, was she a sinner? Dale hated the way that sounded, archaic and so judgmental, but he didn’t mean it in its most literal sense but rather on the vast spectrum of what was good and evil or better yet what was deserved of karmic action, cause and effect, a natural progression of reaping what had been sown; in that regard, Dale was like the Grim Reaper, dispensing judgment, meting out the sentence of death, and he was also executioner.

Dale neared campus. This was the only problem: returning to a place familiarity. He could easily be spotted. His saving grace was that it was still early and there wouldn’t be a whole lot of traffic going to classes this early in the morning, except for the students that were biology and chemistry majors, the science guys and gals.

The campus seemed darker than usual. Dale tucked down low in his hood, pulling it closer around his head hoping to hide his face and better cover his identity. It was an extremely cool morning, dew had fallen and it had given the air a kind of icy chill, the kind that went to the bones. Dale didn’t mind it, he liked the cold. But the darkness plus the cold made everything more foreboding than it actually was, or so he hoped. Dale realized that he was on a journey – alone – and that his circumstances were dangerous and for a lack of a better word, bad. By now, he was a wanted man. He had killed two people and had hurt or injured at least one, Felicia, whom he was on his way to see now. His hope was that all these people at least somehow deserved it, that he was some kind of avenging angel by miraculous means and for whatever reason. At least if that was true, then he could better live with himself.

He neared Felicia’s apartment. He had been there before. After the incident where he accidently shrunk her head, he kept tabs on her, small, nothing serious, very trivial in manner; he felt guilty. He didn’t know what had happened. Initially, he had wanted to confess, but he didn’t really know or understand what he was confessing to – everything had happened so fast and with no precursor of how or why, no rationale or reasoning. He felt as much a victim as she did, but that was until he saw her and what had happened. Dale was no victim. In this story, he was the villain. It was this notion that made him seclude himself even more so than he already did, it was the only way for him to survive – not die, not go to jail – and still protect others from him and his horrible and strange power.

Dale walked in the apartment complex. The warm air immediately hit him. It was comforting and feeling it on his skin lightened his mood. He hadn’t realized how cold he had been and for how long. Hindsight, the grocery store had been cold too and then dealing with the dead thug and putting him in the produce section (thinking about that made Dale sick to his stomach – he had truly done some horrible things, more than he could have ever imagined himself doing. He silently cursed himself and wished for a way to undo everything). But the apartment complex was different. The building itself was teeming with life – that was heat. Then there was the actual mechanized heat that was blowing through the vents. Dale knew that he couldn’t be long, that he had to get in and get out as quickly as possible, but for however long he would be in the apartment complex, he would cherish the warmth.

Felica stayed on the third floor. When he came before, secretively, a few days after the incident, he found out that she had one roommate, a girl, very thin and kind of pretty, she was African-American or maybe Jamaican or something, he felt like he had heard an accent. That had been a difficult mission, sneaking around to find out more information about the girl whose head he had shrunken (imagine saying that out loud to yourself!). It was early. He truly didn’t know what to expect but the only thing he could do was knock. Hopefully, she would answer and he could bombard her with some questions and then he would be on his way. Dale realized then that how f****d his plan was, the improbability of him just knocking on her door at the crack of dawn and asking her if she was some bad person that deserved to have her head shrunk. It was a ridiculous idea but what other choice did he have at this point? None. He was a wanted man and sooner or later, he was going to get caught. This was all about him finding peace. Dale took a deep breath and continued up the stairs to the third floor.

Dale stood in front the door. This was it. He remembered being there. He readied himself for the ridiculousness that was about to happen.

He knocked.

No answer. He waited. Still no answer.

He knocked again.

Nothing. Dale’s heart was pounding, the anticipation. But the longer he went with no answer, the more relief he felt. Coming there had been a bad idea. Still…

He knocked again. No answer. Dale decided that that was it. No more. He was going to leave. Not just from there but town. He would cut his hair, grow a thick and wild beard, anything to change his appearance, and try to live his life on the run. Yes. That’s what he’d do. This had been a bad idea. Dale turned to leave. Just as he did so, the door opened. Dale’s heart sunk. He turned back to the door…

It was her roommate. He remembered her. She stared curiously at him and then a look of knowing came over her. She took a step back from the door, inviting him in. Dale didn’t know what to make of it all.

“Come in,” she said, her Jamaican accent stronger than he remembered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”