He still did not respond, and she felt herself heat up.
You bastard.
“Lights out.”
She marched up to him. Still he did not turn or say anything, but continued stippling away. She glanced at the easel.
At first, she thought it was another of his fantasy characters. But as her eyes adjusted to the figure on the sheet, she felt a shock of recognition. It was a self-portrait, except that Julian’s face looked like that of a snake or lizard. The thing’s head had the same general shape as his own, just as the mouth and eyes were clearly Julian’s. But the features were all somehow stretched into a distinctly reptilian impression. The face was elongated, and there were scales covering its head and body. But it was Julian for sure. It was grotesque, but like all of his works it was precisely crafted.
What struck her was the color—reddish—brown, not black, his usual color.
He took out his mouth guards and laid them on a dish. “It’s a self-portrait,” he said. “Like it? I mean it’s not Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte or anything, but it has a nice likeness, don’t you think, Mother?”
He had said Mother as if he’d spit something up. She was forming a response, when Julian slid back.
Vanessa let out a gasp. Julian’s right hand was a bight red mess of pinpricks from his knuckles up to his elbow. He was stippling the portrait with his own blood.
“What are you doing?” she screamed.
“Ms. Fuller says that I should work in different mediums.” And he took his point and jabbed it into the back of his wrist.
“Stop that!”
But he continued stabbing himself with the point so that beads of blood rose up. He then dipped in the pen tip and began tapping away on the picture.
“I said to stop that!”
But he continued.
“STOP THIS MINUTE!”
Slowly Julian turned his face up toward hers. And in a scraping whisper he said, “I can’t.”
A bright shock froze Vanessa in place.
“Because of what you did to me, Mother.”
“What? What do you mean what I did to you?”
“What you let them do to my head.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My head, Mother. They did something to my head. My brain.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about or why the hell you’re doing that to yourself. But I want you to stop. Do you understand me, Julian? It’s goddamn sick, and you’re going to give yourself blood poisoning.” It crossed her mind to tell him not to drip on the wall-to-wall carpet she had spent a fortune on.
Julian laid down the pen and raised his bloody hands to his head and parted a section of hair above his hairline. Then he stuck his head under the lamp. “Look. Look at the scars, Mother.”
Vanessa felt as if she were suddenly treading on barbed wire. “What about them?”
“Where did they come from?”
“You know perfectly well. I told you that you fell off your stepstool in the bathroom and hit your head on the radiator when you were two.”
“These are little spots, not a regular scar,” he said. “You’re lying, because I remember. Besides, how could I fall from a six-inch stool and land on the top of my head?” His eyes fixed her.
“You don’t remember anything.”
“I remember going to a hospital and having some kind of operation. I remember being bandaged up and seeing things. And taking tests and stuff. And other kids.” Then his voice became a bizarre falsetto: “‘Mr. Nisha wants you to be happy. Just relax and watch the video. For Mr. Nisha.’”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You took tests to see if there was any brain damage. And, thank goodness, there wasn’t,” she added, feigning motherly relief.
“But there was, and it wasn’t because I hit my head. It’s because you had me fixed.”
“Julian, I’m in no mood for your crap, okay? This conversation is over.”
As she started to leave, Julian shot to his feet. Because he was still small for his age, Vanessa towered over him by a foot.
“What if I did that to your head, huh? What if I operated on your head to make you smarter? Huh?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I remember being tested. Aptitude tests—intelligence tests. Three years straight of tests. I’m still taking them. And why? Well, I put it all together. I wasn’t supposed to remember, but I did. How would you like it if I did that to you?”
She did not respond.
“I asked you a question, Vanessa?” he said, in perfect mimicry of her. “I’m speaking to you. Answer me. Count back from twenty, Vanessa!”
She turned. He was standing there with one of his pens in his hand, the point aimed at her. “Don’t you threaten me, you little—” But she stopped short.
“What? Say it. ‘Little creep,’ right? Is that the expression you’re searching for, huh? LITTLE CREEP. That’s what they all say. ‘Julian the little creep.’ Why should you be any different?” He took a step toward her. “How would you like it if I operated on your head because I didn’t like how your brain worked? Huh? How would you like it if I cut you up to make you smarter? HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF I MADE YOU A FUCKING LITTLE CREEP?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice like acid. “And don’t you speak to me that way. Not after what I’ve put myself through for you.”
“You know what I’m talking about. You had me fixed because I wasn’t good enough for you and your fancy friends at the club and university. You wanted a little superstar to parade around. Well, you got him, Vanessa! You got yourself your little genius, and his teeth are all ground down, and he’s taking five different medications because he’s a little GENIUS.”
As he screamed at her, his tongue flashed against the row of yellow stumps in bright red gums and spittle shot from his mouth. His face filled with blood and his eyes bulged like hens’ eggs. He looked positively grotesque. “How would you like a little brain surgery, Mother? Then you’d know what a miserable hell it is to be me—what it’s like to be possessed. What it’s like to hate you the way I do.”
As he approached, his face filled her vision. “HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, MOTHER?”
As if to the snap of her own mind, Vanessa felt herself lurch forward.
“You little bastard!” she heard herself scream. “Because of you I’m ruined. They did this to me. They set me up. Because of you. Yes, because you’re such a fucking monster. BECAUSE OF YOU!”
Her hand shot to the jar of tools and pulled up a long sharp metal ice-picklike thing. The next instant, she buried it in the crown of Julian’s head.
Instantly blood geysered out of the boy’s skull as he let out a faint cry.
For a telescoped moment, she watched in numbed horror as Julian jerked about and rose in place on his toes as if trying to follow his own blood, his eyes widening in utter dismay, his mouth slack-jawed and moving wordlessly like a marionette’s trying to form a question. An involuntary pocket of air bubbled out of his throat as blood streamed down his face and onto his shirt. Then just as he seemed about to gain stature, his mouth spread into a hideous grin, and he collapsed backward onto his tilt board, the long instrument still stuck in place. Because of the internal pressure, blood shot out across the self-portrait picture, bedewing the paper in a postimpressionist spray.