Tamara is already out of bed and beside him, checking for bruises. “What happened?”
“Eli…?” I sit up, bringing my feet to the floor.
The boy retreats into himself as soon as I reach out for him, as if he were—
As if I—
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Tamara hisses at me, shielding Elijah.
“I didn’t…” I start to say, still stunned. “I didn’t know…”
Tamara picks Elijah up from the floor before I can finish and rushes out. I hear her footsteps as she carries him to his bedroom, slamming the door.
I remain on the bed. I can see the weeping willow just outside. The severed rope from the tire swing sways in the breeze like a pendulum. Ticktock.
I spot my studio beyond the tree. I can’t see much from this angle but when I slide up and lean forward, I notice the soft glow from the garage.
The light is on.
—
I stand in front of the television.
Someone turned on Tamara’s old TV/VCR combo, the one I couldn’t bring myself to throw away over the summer, resting dormant for months in the corner of my studio. Someone found it, plugged it in, and left it on in the middle of the night for me to find.
A flurry of gray static casts a dim glow across the garage walls. The paper wasp’s nest glows dully from above, almost seething. Pulsing. The volume is cranked up, filling the small space with the crackle of static. It sounds like I’m stepping into a burning building.
There’s a VHS cassette waiting for me in the deck.
I pull out the cassette to inspect it. There had been a label stuck to its spine at one point, but it’s been torn away, leaving behind an adhesive residue. A single strip of masking tape remains on the top. In childlike scrawl, someone has written sean in Sharpie.
I slip the cassette back into the VCR.
And press play.
The tape has been recorded over several times. There’s no single image at first, but a distorted residue of several shows recorded on top of one another. Phantoms of programs that I can just barely glimpse before the image morphs into another. I hear the ghost of Alex P. Keaton for a moment before it overlaps with a jingle for low-calorie Coke.
Tracking lines drift over the screen, splitting the images. Michael J. Fox’s melting face. A woman sipping from a soda can, smiling for the camera, her oversaturated lips bleeding red.
The recording finally settles. It cuts a few seconds into a program that’s already commenced. Whoever recorded this didn’t press record until the opening credits reached the costume designer.
The credits are superimposed over a ring of candles. The pixelated image is dark, any detail lost on this degraded cassette, decades old by now, but I can still make out the flicker of flames set up in the shape of a pentagram. The soundtrack leans heavily on the synthesizers. The ominous drone intensifies the further into the credits we go, as the camera pulls back. That ring of candles grows smaller. Now I see several hooded figures standing behind each candle, holding them. Their eyes are hidden within the shadows of their black hoods while their mouths remain illuminated by candlelight. Their lips move. They’re all chanting in unison. The electronic score suddenly strikes a higher note on the keyboard.
An anemic boy enters the circle. It’s difficult to tell if he’s really that pale or if it’s the desaturation from the degraded recording, or the poor production value. Whatever it is, the boy’s skin is sallow. All gray to me. He’s guided into the center of the pentagram by a hooded man. The child glances up at the surrounding adults, fear all over his face. But he doesn’t run. He simply sits and stares at them as the ring closes in.
We’re on to the producers now, a long list of executives that require three separate title cards. As the credits rise and fade, I’m transfixed by the dimly lit scene behind them. The boy is handed a chalice to drink from. A bit spills down his chin. An accident. Just before he wipes the dribble away, we see that it’s orange. Hi-C.
The digitized strings sting as the gray boy’s eyes grow heavy. His chin dips. He’s unable to hold his head up any longer. He’s woozy. So sleepy. The hooded man guides him to the floor so that he’s resting on his back now. The low drone of voices intensifies. Grows faster. They’re repeating the same words over and over again. Nonsense words. Latin by way of Ozzy Osborne.
Executive produced by…
The hooded man now reaches into his robe and pulls out a warped dagger. At first I think it’s the tracking on the VCR distorting the image—but no, the blade is shaped like a winding serpent, slithering to a sharp tip. It comes to me instantly: Tamara’s tattoo. The chanting escalates as he lifts the dagger overhead, a breath away from bringing the blade down and stabbing the boy in the heart.
Directed by…
Just as the knife drops out of frame, the screen goes black. The chanting stops, halted in mid-hymn. We hear the boy scream in the darkness, his voice heavily reverbed to echo forever.
A final title card materializes: What you are about to watch is inspired by true events. Though it is based upon real people, their names have been altered to protect the innocent.
It’s the made-for-TV movie based on the trial. I remember hearing about it, but I never saw it. I wasn’t allowed to watch it as a kid and I certainly didn’t seek it out as an adult.
I can’t stop myself from watching it. Watching it all. That’s what it’s here for, isn’t it? For me to witness. The woman playing Mom looks nothing like her. I recognize her from her guest role on The Facts of Life, but nobody would ever mistake her for my mother.
I feel
