The Impaler

thought. One morning when he least expected it. With the sunrise. A new dawn through an open doorway that whispered, “Finally, Edmund. Finally.”

By the time he was ten years old, Edmund could not remember much of his life before the day he found his mother swinging from the rafters. Jumbled pictures, mostly, that brought with them the vague sense of someone else—a character on a TV series that he used to watch before bedtime; a happy little boy whom Edmund envied.

But the TV series that aired afterwards? Well, the little boy on that show was someone Edmund Lambert didn’t envy at all.

The series began with an episode about the little boy’s mother, about her funeral and the high collar she had to wear to hide her neck; then, the program focused on the sadness the boy felt in the weeks that followed. These shows would sometimes take place in the boy’s bedroom, in the dark with the boy in bed telling his mother how much he missed her. Those were the toughest to watch, but things really took a turn for the worse when the grandfather on the show found the dead mother’s yearbook.

“So you and your mother had a secret,” he said, pulling the yearbook up from the floorboards. “You known who your daddy was all along, is that right, Eddie?”

“She made me promise not to tell you, Grandpa,” the boy said. “Mama said Daddy was Daddy even though he was dead like Batman is out back. And she said I could kiss him good night cuz I asked her if I could cuz I can’t kiss Batman no more cuz he was in the ground and all dirty even though he was up in Heaven, too.”

“I see,” said the old man. Claude Lambert sat down on the floor thinking for what seemed to Edmund like a long time. Then he opened the yearbook, flipped to Danny Gibbs’s photograph, and ripped out the page. Carefully, he tore out the young man’s photograph—crushed and rolled the little square between his thumb and forefinger until Danny Gibbs was no bigger than an aspirin. Edmund watched his grandfather in silence.

“Come here, Eddie,” the old man said finally.

Edmund obeyed and sat on the floor beside him.

“You remember how I taught you to spit?”

“Yes,” said the boy.

“Well, I want you to fill your mouth just like I taught you when you was little.”

“Why?”

“Just do as I say now, Eddie.”

Edmund obeyed.

“Your mouth full?” asked his grandfather. Edmund nodded. And in a flash Claude Lambert seized the boy’s face—squished his cheeks together with one hand and forced the tiny wad through his lips with the other. Edmund began to squeal, to cry, and then to choke. He tried to spit the picture out, but Claude Lambert’s big hand slapped over his mouth and nostrils so the boy couldn’t breathe.

“Swallow, boy,” was all he said. “Swallow.”

And eventually little Edmund Lambert did.

Later, even though it was hot that night in the farmhouse, Claude Lambert built a big fire in the fireplace. He threw the yearbook on top and sat down on the floor next to his grandson—sweating, watching it burn.

“C’est mieux d’oublier,” he kept saying over and over, until Edmund asked, “What do those words you’re saying mean, Grandpa?”

“You don’t remember ever hearing them before? When you was dreaming?”

“No.”

Claude Lambert smiled. “I reckon that’s a secret under the floorboards, too.”

“Will you tell me?”

The old man was silent again for what seemed to Edmund like a long time. “I’ll tell you, Eddie,” he said finally, “but only if you promise to keep that secret just between us. Like you done with your mother.”

“I promise.”

“And you gotta promise me you won’t cry no more like a baby.”

“I promise, Grandpa. I’m a big boy now.”

“That you are,” said his grandfather. “That you are.” He turned the boy to face him—held him firmly by the shoulders and stared deeply into his eyes. “You see, Eddie, them words is magic words that I invented a long time ago when I was mixing up things in the cellar. It took me a long time to invent them, to get them just right, but them words is a secret that’s never to be spoken in real life except by me, and maybe someday by you in your head. You see, Eddie, with them words, I can talk to you in your dreams.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say you’re having a bad dream. A dream where you’re lost or some monster is chasing you. You ever have dreams like that?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, I can say those magic words in my dreams and then come to you in your dreams and tell you everything is all right so you won’t be afraid no more. And then you can grow stronger. You can fight off all those bad things and become brave like a big boy. You understand?”

“I think so.”

“It’s like, if I say them words in your dreams you’ll forget all the bad things you dreamed about, but at the same time you remember them deep down and they end up becoming a part of you and make you stronger. It’s kind of like you eat the bad things without knowing it. Like, when you eat your dinner—a nice cheeseburger—when you’re eating the cheeseburger, all you taste in your mouth is the cheese and the burger and the bun, right?”

“And the mustard and ketchup.”

“Right, and the mustard and ketchup. But once all that stuff is in your stomach, your stomach does the work of taking out everything that’s good and using it so it makes you stronger. And it does all that without you even knowing it.”

“I learned about that on T V, Grandpa. It’s called digestion. It’s why your poop smells bad, Mama used to say. Cuz once your stomach finishes taking out all the good stuff then it starts pushing out all the bad stuff, right?”

“I keep forgetting how smart you are, Eddie,” said Claude Lambert, smiling. “That’s why I came up with them words. So you can take in all the good stuff and poop out all the bad. Like today. You were really upset and scared, but you can take some good out of it. I can say the magic words to you—or you can say them to yourself in your head even—and you can grow bigger and stronger because you know how to digest the pain.”

“Is that why you made me eat Daddy?”

“Yes. Now you can forget him, but at the same he’ll be a part of you and you can grow stronger cuz you ate him. The magic words help you do that in your dreams and for stuff you can’t eat—kind of like teeth and a stomach for bad memories. I used to say words like that to your Uncle James and your mother in their dreams, too, and look how tough and brave they ended up. Well, your Uncle James at least. Don’t know what went wrong with your mother.”

Edmund felt his throat tighten, the tears welling in his eyes. He swallowed hard.

“C’est mieux d’oublier, Eddie,” Claude Lambert whispered. “Them words mean, ‘It’s better to forget.’ Say the words over and over and see if you feel better.”

Edmund furrowed his brow and did as his grandfather asked of him—repeated the words back and forth until they sounded right—and pretty soon he felt his tears subside and the tightness in his throat leave him.

“You see?” said his grandfather. “Them words is magic.”

Silence, Edmund thinking.

“Do you think God lets you dream in Heaven?” the boy asked after a while.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Well, maybe if I get really good at using them magic words, I can speak to Mama in her dreams the way you speak to me in mine.”

Claude Lambert narrowed his gaze, gripped the boy tighter, and pulled him so close that Edmund could smell the liquor on his breath.

“Your mother ain’t in Heaven, Eddie,” the old man said quietly. “She killed herself. And when you kill yourself you go to Hell. Don’t you ever forget that.”