Carno's Successor
Part 3/7
By Selenite
Three Years Later
Donald Gordon bent over at the sink in his second-floor darkroom, developing some pictures he had recently taken. As the blank pictures swirled around in the developing bath and began to imprint themselves with color, Don thought about how fitting an analogy the photographs were to his own life.
"During that one year after I killed Adrienne, and before I married Betty," he muttered to himself, letting his oily hair fall in his eyes again, "I don't know, but it really seems like--like I stopped acting like a psycho. I didn't kill anyone, I never got abnormally angry, and I even, after much soul-searching, gave--the bodies--a decent burial in empty graves in the crypt. It was like my mind was clean and blank, like undeveloped pictures. Now that I'm married and have kids--" Don swallowed hard. "I've turned psycho again. I don't like my wife, I don't like my kids--I even don't like myself." He sighed heavily, taking the now developed pictures out of the toxic solution.
He looked towards the sink counter, and there he saw the bottle of drain cleaner that Adrienne had bought for him--and had thrown violently in his face--ever so long ago. "If I swallow that drain cleaner," Don thought, "then all this will be over. The truth is--I don't like my life." Slowly, almost stealthily, Don stepped over to the counter and picked up the bottle of drain cleaner.
Suddenly, a loud knock at the door startled him into putting the bottle that would have saved his life back on the counter.
"Don?" Betty's voice called, neutral at first, and then more harshly. "Don!" cried the voice. "Open up this door right now!" A few more raps punctuated it for emphasis. Don heard a baby--his baby--crying, and also the inquisitive little knock of his daughter, Marie. "Daddy?" she asked. "Are you in there?"
Don sighed and reluctantly unlocked the darkroom door. He faced an angry Betty, who was holding his one-year-old son Jason. Marie, a thin, sprightly two-year-old, was standing to Betty's right, looking a little worried.
"Yeah?" Don asked Betty sharply. "What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?" He gestured toward the inside of his cluttered darkroom.
Betty sighed and planted her feet wide apart, her lips a firm line. "I'm busy too, you know," she countered rather bitterly. "Taking care of a toddler and a one-year-old all by myself is a lot more work than piddling around in some stupid darkroom with pictures of landscapes all day!"
Don grabbed Betty's arm fiercely, even though she was holding Jason. "Don't tell me what's work and what's not, you little witch," he growled. "Who do you think gets all the money to put food on the table here, huh? Not the Money Fairies, honey, and certainly not YOU!" Don gnashed his teeth a little. "Now, what do you want, anyway?" he asked. Marie hid a little behind her mother's protective stance.
Betty held Jason out to Don. "Take him," she said firmly. "Please. I just want you to hold him for a minute. He's YOUR son, Don."
Don sighed, reached out, and took Jason into his arms. Despite his father's sudden violent temper, the dark-haired baby calmed down a little, cooing softly. Don looked at Jason without interest at first, then with a tiny spark of affection, and at last with a groan of disgust and a wrinkled nose.
"Agggh!" he gagged. "Betty, this kid smells like a garbage dump! Can't you change his diaper or something?"
Betty smirked. "I can. I've changed every single one of Marie's. But I bet you can't, Donald Gordon. You think you're so smart, but you probably can't change one single diaper. You know, Don, it's time you started being a responsible FATHER. So far, I've done all the feeding, the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, and basically all the caretaking. There's a reason why there's a pair in the word 'parenthood'. And you not only have Jason, you also have Marie, so that means you have TWO children to take care of. So get out of that darkroom, Donald Gordon, and grow up!"
"I AM GROWN UP!" he shouted. "Listen, Betty, if I change this filthy, stinkin' diaper, will that make you happy so that you'll shut up?" he asked.
Betty sighed. "Yes," she answered. "One diaper. That's all I ask. Come up to the third-floor bathroom with me." She gently took Jason back from Don's arms, turned, and started to walk up the steep wooden stairs. Don followed, with two-year-old Marie close at his heels.
"Daddy?" asked Marie. "What's wrong?" Her toddler's voice was filled with genuine, but not smothering, concern.
Don turned around, knelt down, and squeezed his daughter's arm a little too hard. "Marie," he warned. "I'm going to ask you to be quiet for Daddy now, okay?" His eyes contained a dangerous light. "Just be a good little girl and be quiet, and Daddy will give you a sucker. Okay?" He smiled, and Marie nodded, wisely not saying another word as she followed her father up the stairs.
"I like Marie a lot better than Jason," Don thought to himself as he climbed the stairs. He could smell his son only a few feet away. "Marie's cute and funny, and at least she knows when to keep her mouth shut. Jason--all he does is eat, sleep, cry, spit up, burp, pee and poop." He winced.
They reached the bathroom, and Betty laid Jason down on the changing table. "Now," she ordered, "take his pants off, and then his diaper." She put her hands on her hips.
Don sighed, wiggled Jason out of his pants forcefully, and then unfastened the tabs on his diaper. Lifting up the baby's legs, Don pulled the soiled garment out from under his dirty son. The smell and sight of the diaper almost made him gag.
"Aggh!" he choked as he reached for one of the Pop-Up Baby Wipes with one hand and tossed the dirty diaper in the garbage can with the other. "That thing stinks!"
Betty laughed. "Get used to it, Bub. One's nose gets accustomed to poop after, say, fifty diapers full of it. By the way, he's much too messy for wipes. Normally, those would work, but his butt needs a good soaping up. Take him to the sink."
Don gagged again, cursing Betty and her stupid demands for being a 'responsible father' under his breath, and slipped his messy son into the sink, filling it up with warm water. Jason cooed and relaxed, and Don held him as gently as he dared. If he would have had HIS way, he would have strangled the poop-covered pipsqueak.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Betty, handing him a washcloth. "Get this wet, soap it up real good, and get to work."
Don gnashed his teeth and did as he was told, grumbling the whole time he soaped Jason clean. This was humiliating. Being ordered around by his WIFE, of all people, and then washing the puny butt of the child he never wanted to have. Actually, he had never wanted to have either child, but apparently Betty had never heard of a concept called ' birth control' or thought it was a sin.
Once Jason was clean, Don began the second terrible ordeal of struggling his baby into a new diaper, which, in a way, was worse than the first because Jason kept kicking, squirming, and going 'Yeee!', as if he delighted in tormenting his father like this. To top it all off, just as Don was about to fasten the last tab on the diaper, Jason peed in his face!
"Ha ha ha!" giggled Marie, stifling her mouth with her tiny hand.
Don whirled around. "SHUT UP, Marie!" he shouted. "No sucker for you! You hear that? No sucker, Marie! Bad girl!" Marie pouted sadly and walked towards her mother.
"Don't you ever tell my daughter to shut up, Donald David Gordon!" Betty snapped. "Now, for the love of heaven, just CLEAN him off again, PUT his darn diaper on, and let's get OUT of here! Honestly!" she huffed.
Don growled, deep in his throat, as he finally finished doing the simple task of changing his own son's soiled diaper. How dare he. How dare Betty. How dare Marie. How dare them all.
"They'll pay," he grumbled to himself. "They'll all pay. I don't care if it takes sixteen years. Every single one of them will PAY for making a fool out of me! I'm sick of it! I'm not a fool! They--will--PAY!"
Meanwhile, Don's family looked on. Betty sighed bitterly, wondering why she had ever married this horrible man, this sorry excuse for a human being. Jason cooed confusedly, not really knowing what was going on except that he had a clean diaper and his daddy was really mad. Only Marie knew that something was terribly wrong, and not because she didn't get a sucker. She may have been only two years old, but she was a smart two-year-old.
"Somefing wrong," she muttered softly. "Daddy reawwy mad. Maybe Daddy need help," Marie concluded, and left the bathroom.
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