Mortenson

A short story based on a dream I had.


“Let's be clear of one thing up front, this guy, this Mortenson Cooper? He's completely harmless.”
Those were Brad's words, exactly. But they were more than that. They became, to me, a sort of mantra. I began to chant it on the drive over, but somewhere between the front door in and the front door out, it became a prayer.
This isn't everyone. The rest of the guys, they didn't see jack. The lighting guys, make up, whatever. To them, Mortenson was something like the most pathetic serial murderer. The rest of the crew, in the living room and the kitchen. Them with the empty bowels. They didn't see a thing.
I remember asking one of the camera guys if the old bag did anything strange during the interview.
“The old pot? Nah, the most he did was rip ass something ornery. Might've set the place ablaze.”
I nodded, thinking that if it was abnormal for an old man to pass gas, I'm a strange in a strange strange land.
This old man, this Mortenson Cooper, the most notorious and evil of the Atascosca County Killers. They tried to put him in the cell next Manson and old Chuck demanded a new cell. Every prison was too afraid to put him in with the regulars for fear he would start a riot that would bring the place down on top of them. No one doubted that he could, no one was fool enough to try.
If it wasn't bad enough trying to house the madman, it was worse rehabilitating him. Or trying to. He went through case workers and psychiatrists like old socks. They'd start with their methodology and his case file of the other twenty who had started the same way. He'd wear him down. After the first three he wasn't allowed in the room alone with them. After the next five, they weren't allowed in the room with him. They didn't finally give up the program until one guy, by the name of Peter “The Butcher” Canon, left one of their sessions together, went home to his house, and, forgiving the pun, butchered his entire family. Including the dog. When they asked him why he'd done what he did, all he could reply with was:
“So HE didn't get 'em first!”
They slammed the door so hard on the old fella, he must have heard the prison shake.
Even though we came to get our spot, we weren't the first to try and interview the old man. Beginning with his interview at the police station in Jourdanton, Texas; the man had been recorded for the press so many times, one wonders if the man served any time at all. For all I know, they might have just walked the man from one reporter to another for the past fifty or so years. At one point, he was interviewed six times a day, for months straight. That old bag Barbara gave it a try, years ago, but he camera crew refused. The men started to swear that he wasn't appearing on their screens. Before our big day, our boss ran over all of these with us.
“The man has been interviewed thousands of times. This may seem like no big deal considering our celebrity fixated culture, but believe you me, it's an impossible figure. Manson has only been interviewed maybe a hundred times, IF he's lucky. The rest, Gacy Jr., Dahmer, whatever, even less because they were either summarily executed or just not that lively on camera.”
The man played at his tie and looked around the room.
“As far as we've been able to look up, this man has been interviewed a lot, but, he's never, EVER, told the truth.”
The boss let that sink in. He heard the muttering and addressed it.
“How is this possible, one might wonder? Well I'll tell you. We've checked every single on on file and off of it. Went to the Library of Congress. Talked to the folks that made their money writin' everything about him, from his favorite color to his favorite weapon; and as far as we can tell, he never repeated the same story. Not once. Every time some young no it all or old sag tried askin' him why he did what he did, he'd up and tell 'em something different.”
He looked around, meeting eyes this time.
“Now if the man never told the same story, we can only assume that none of them are correct.”
At this point our reporter came up, brash 'ole Brad Hanson. Handsome Hanson, they say.
“This is our big sell, we've talked to the prison and cleared everything with the courts. They allowed this interview, not without complaint and a lot of badgering, because we told them we were going to try and get the truth. We are gonna go in and try and get the man to tell us what really happened. It's a gamble, but that's our best bet at selling this piece.”
The boss spoke up.
“It's perfect Brad. No matter what you guys get, the sell works. He gives you a story, even if it doesn't correlate to the rest, we'll spin it as his final confession. They guys in his eighties, how many other interviews can he get?”
So why not put the old cur down? All of America wondered it. Most believed his statements of a vast following, waiting for his word to overthrow every level of government. Some might have believed that the courts couldn't do it, do to the vague nature of his murder spree. None of the evidence could really stick to him hard enough to allow for the death penalty. Partly, because the old dog had been clever as hell about his misinformation; but mostly, because he stood trial in Sacramento, not in good old Texas. But the smallest denomination of those who actually met him, even in passing, had another reason to keep the old man alive. Fear.
Some of the insane and cruelly violent like to gesture to a lower power, from which their cruelty springs. It's interesting to note, Cooper never did. A demonic nature was, in fact, attributed to him by those around him. The first may have been his mother, but reports from family friends debate the subject. One Ms. Sandra DeBois claims that Mrs. Cooper confided to her that her boy was summoning evil spirits. This report was never confirmed, as soon after, Ms. DeBois went missing.
Many believed Cooper was in league with the unholy, including many of his old gang, including Kevin Luftwaffe, the infamous “Airplane Arsonist”. On his deathbed, the Arsonist was recorded as saying:
“I'm afraid.”
The nurse on hand looked to the police officer with them. This officer, Smith or something, asked Luftwaffe:
“Why?”
“I'm afraid...that...when I die...I'll see Morty...”
The officer looked to the nurse and they both shook their heads.
“Mr. Luftwaffe, your colleague Mortenson Cooper is still alive.”
“He can find me once I'm gone, I know he can. I've...seen...”
It was at this point that Kevin Luftwaffe, aka the Airplane Arsonist, expired.
It is inferred and understood that because of these candid conversations, the small number that has met Mortenson Cooper are afraid to put him in the chair or gas room owing to the shared belief that whatever demon he harbors will be spent upon another. Officers refuse to throw the switch or administer the dose. They feared being the closest to the madman and receiving his curse.
It's these fears that have kept Mortenson Cooper alive so long. That forced the state penitentiary just outside of Tucson, Arizona; to build a private cell for Mr. Cooper. Somewhere were he could be quarantined, yet closely watched. Far enough from the rest of the inmates to preserve order.
Mortenson Cooper.
The most insane killer of his time. Everything he did was subject to discussion, debate, and panic.
But that was then.
Now he's just an old fart living in a cement shack surrounded by razor wire just outside the main building of the penitentiary. They moved him there thirty years back without telling a soul and overnight the number of fights and violent incidences dropped 90%.
When they walk us out there, they point out the cameras. They joke about Morty's personal guard tower.
But then the warden stops thirty feet from the front door.
When we get in, the old timer is just sitting reading with a coffee (lukewarm for our safety). The guards go in first and search the house. They return and stand by the door. The man just keeps sitting there.
We set up the lights and the chair and the room, all while he sits there. Everybody was starting to get spooked when suddenly we hear this loud snore. Some people laughed. The old man just dead away, his coffee getting cold and such.
We set everything up while Brad suits up and runs his lines in front of the mirror on the van. He's practicing expressions. He asked me when I was walking by if I had the keys to the van. I hand them over and his hand is quaking so bad, I suspect he'll drop the keys in the dirt. But sure enough he gets her open and gets after what ever was worth getting.
Finally, we are all set up. Everything is just so. We get one of the guards to wake up the infamous Mortenson Cooper from his morning nap. He wakes up pretty startled at first, kind of flustered, but Brad brokers the interview they had set up with the old guy. Cooper is rather friendly considering, although we, as a group, feel his just sort of luring us in. Looking back, I'm pretty sure he was just having a good morning. I watched the tapes after what happened and I can only conclude that whatever had been bothering him since the beginning of his career had, at least for that small time, left him alone. Some wondered later where it had gone. Where was the evil of Mortenson Cooper whilst he farted uncontrollably and was unabashedly hospitably.
Well if they felt ask me, I think I could tell them.
On the road leading to the prison, there is a gas station where you first pull off. It's a big something or other, just huge. Something like twenty pumps and an ice cream stand. If there is a place for a man to make a fatal error, this is as good as any, I suppose.
We stopped in to load up on supplies, Gatorade, water, maybe some mascara for Handsome Hanson. We'd driven from the airport and most people were hankering for the Lou. My mistake, if any man's collision with fate can be blamed upon himself, was not having to go. I felt dry as a tundra. Plus I was over the excitement of the trip, the flight having leeched it right out. So I got myself something orange to drink and went back to the truck.
Some greater hand at work, I guess. All I can really say, irrefutably, was that we got about a minute into old Handsome Brad's opening questions, when suddenly my bladder starts to shout.
Now I consider myself a professional, even if my work career doesn't reflect it completely. I wasn't about to stop everything to ask about the can. It was a tiny abode and I didn't have any doubts about being able to find my way.
I wasn't about to do anything terribly idiotic either, so I turned to one of the guys just standing in the back, cupping my hand away from the mikes and such, and told him where I was off to. He nodded and gave me the thumbs up.
I looked over Brad and the old man, just to make sure the guy wouldn't flip or nothing. You never know, he could have rigged some sort of booby trap or something. A guillotine he built from his dead skin. If anyone could do it, old Morty could. But old Morty was just sitting there. If I remember right, he was laughing at something or another, just joshing around with Handsome Brad.
I remember thinking that he looked like someones great grandpa. He might have a few screws loose, but the family would just chuckle and wheel him into the living room on Christmas. It's funny the impression a person gets?
Anyways, I slip out through the kitchen and I figure the old guys blind from the lights and the open door and such, but I pause just in case he makes a ruckus. I don't hear a thing so I figure it's all clear and head down the hallway. I'm on eggshells, looking around at everything just in case it tries to attack me. Here again, I'm surprised. He's got all these pictures taped to the walls, no nails or glass for the old guy. I look at the first and move to the second and then to the third. Each on is in soft water color. The first is of a boat. Then a dolphin. Then a bright fish. Each is better than the last. It's a progression, I'm thinking. His first tries and then as he got better at it.
I'll be damned, I think. The old man is an artiste?
So I'm sort of chuckling to myself, feeling a little silly at everything. The guards and the walls and such. All for an old timer whose bones are like to stale bread.
Then I come up on the last picture. It's a cat with these big yellow eyes. At first, I'm liking it. I applaud his fine strokes. He truly captures the animal perfectly. Then I turn away from it. For a moment, I started to see something I didn't like. So I turned and gave myself a little kick to hurry up my business, realizing I'm not off for a siesta in a murdering man's home.
I wish I hadn't. I can tell you now. Can't run from what scares you. These things are best dealt with.
All this, the pictures and such, it's really just a few moments. I find the bathroom, which is pretty easy as it's a rather small house. I wandered in, thinking it was funny that the lavatory had a door on it. I supposed they hoped to allow the man a bit of dignity. Who knows? A man does silly things in a house he believes is haunted. I know this is true.
I can tell you the truth because, like a moron, I closed that door to take a piss.
Now, I'm standing there. I unzip and let myself out and start to spraying into his stainless steel basin. I got a good stream going and I'm just thinking about the job and trying not to think about the cat picture so hard it hurts, when very quietly I hear a soft meow.
Believe me when I tell you I hit the ceiling. I'm jostling myself and spraying everywhere and I finally turn around. There, sitting on the seat the old man must use for his shower, is a cat. But no, not just a cat, this is the cat. This is the big yellow eyes. This is the soft water colors in motion.
And at first, I will admit, I was rather relieved. I was glad that there was an actual cat, not just a ghost or the devil or a nuclear warhead. All of which, I wouldn't have been terribly surprised to find in Mortenson Cooper's toilet. In addition, I realize that this is the cat from the picture, thus explaining the eerie lifelike quality of the piece.
So I realign myself with the bowl and look over at the cat. It's just sitting there, watching me empty my contents. I'm not bothered by the stare much, as my aunt has cats and I've been around them long enough to know that it's just what they do. It meows again and hops off the seat. I watch it sidle up to me, its tail twitching back and forth. It comes up and rubs against my leg. I look down. It looks up. Pretty standard boring cat stuff.
Then there is a shooting pain in my ankle. I jump and kick my leg. I must have shouted or something, although, as per usual, nobody heard a thing. Suddenly my other ankles on cries out and I look down at it. Sure enough, that furry little bastard is latched on. He's got his teeth in my and his claws going at my jeans.
But, like I said, I've been around cats. So I wind up and kick the furry little freak into the shower. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to think I wouldn't want my member involved in a fight like this. I was tucking my little man back in when I heard the hiss.
It was a strange thing, I tell you the truth.
I figured that stupid cat would be curled under the seat in the corner of the bathroom, but when I looked up to find him, he was on the wall were I had kicked him. I remember muttering something along the lines of 'No Fuckin' Way' when the little fur ball launched itself at me from the cement wall. I stepped to the side, but it was like a pinball. It hit the corner behind me by the sink and shot back up. It slashed at my shoulder and managed to draw blood. At this point, I started to shake terribly.
I am a man and I am not afraid of your general ghosty or ghouly or bump in the nightie.
But when I saw an ordinary house cat, whose eyes were now glowing, of all things, hissing at me from the ceiling of the bathroom; my mental fortitude begins to wane.
What can a man say to a thing like that?
I just looked at it, waiting for a chance to get to the door knob and get the hell out. It was watching me and I could feel it reaching out to try and take hold. I cannot tell you how I felt this, as far as I know mankind does not have a organ that produces this psychic or spiritual reading. But that cat was something else and whatever that 'Else' was, it wanted me.
It jumped to the door and clung to it. I backed up to the sink, thinking of how I was going to deal with this feline terror.
I didn't have much time to dwell on it, as T.S. Eliot's worst nightmare let out a snarl like a tiger and shot towards me. It moved so fast, I could only dodge it on reflex at best. I was turning about and shouting at it, trying not to get pinched when it got a hold of my jeans. Like butt licked lightning it shot up my leg. I was trying to get away from it so badly that the back of my knees it the toilet and I sat down hard.
There we were. It staring up at me with those slitted yellow eyes, fangs bared, but not hissing. No, it was more like smiling. It had clawed it's way up my pant leg, leaving little pinpricks of blood which I found later.
Unfortunately, I hadn't had the presence of mind to zip up my fly.
So this demon house cat is sitting on my lap and it's got its claws on either side of this gaping hole. My underwear is still parted and I can see a little patch of skin and some dark curls poking out. I can feel the wretched pleasure whatever the creature is, is having at the tension I'm feeling. The little litter box nightmare is resonating triumph. It knew it had by balls.
So I'm sitting there and I can feel my own piss starting to soak through were I sat down in it. I think about this for a moment when an idea strikes me. The creature critter starts to purr in my lap and claw at the cotton with its talons.
I knew I didn't have much of a shot, but I figure, what the hell? The room was already growing darker and this thing, this monster, was assuredly not going to get out without performing something truly sadistic to me. I can feel it getting ready, I can tell it's lapping up the moments; preparing to really get things going.
I think to myself, do something or you're as good as dead. This thing will kill you. This thing wants to kill you. Drink your blood. Play with your eyeballs like yarn.
So without another thought, I grab the little demon possessed pussy and toss him as hard as I can into the toilet. I close my legs over him, trapping him in the stainless steel bowl. It goes nuts, ripping my jeans to shreds. Afterwards, it looked like I had hit a chainsaw ass first.
But its psycho slashing and stuff, it just cranks me up; so I start slamming the flush as hard as I can. Most toilet have only got so much water in the back, but that doesn't stop me from trying to drown the gremlin. The water laps at my thighs and I feel wet fur press against my skin. My bloodied and scored back side stings like a thousand hornets equipped with rubbing alcohol.
This lights a fuse.
I telegraph to the door handle and throw open the damned thing. I turn and throw myself headlong into the hallway, I don't bother to look back. I'm running. I run through the whole set and out the door. Handsome Brad didn't even notice.
Later they asked me what happened. They checked my out and all my pain just built more buzz for the special. It made the local paper. Hell, I think the Times may have ran something. They got pictures of my butt and legs, all those little holes where I had been clawed.
The old man, he doesn't know what the hell I'm yelling about.
“What cat?”
I want to yell and swear about his stupid cat, but there's just something about yelling and swearing at old folks. I can't do it. I remember him there, blinking in the sun, him in orange jumpsuit. Same outfit for fifty odd years. He just looked old and senile. He didn't know what was going on. He had no idea. I doubt he even thought he own a cat.
“Must have been one of the feral one's that roam out here from the city.” They told me.
Yeah, sure.
Afterwards, we packed up and I saw a doctor. We got more buzz than we could handle the next day when the old timer died. Us with his last interview and all.
We had lucked out.
Old Handsome Brad was a star. I hear he got an anchor position or a column somewhere. Something good.
Me? Well, I got paid as well as everyone else I guess. But some nights I wonder if I might have gotten a little more than that. Some nights, I think I hear these feral cats everyone's always yawning about.
Worst still, when I get up to check, all I see are yellow eyes staring back at me.