Sociopath? (2 page)

Renny, who admired achievement, didn’t
realize that Rafe was the most accomplished of his children. He
could run the fastest but he never did because he wouldn’t go off
and leave Lane. And he could swim the farthest but he wouldn’t go
beyond where she could go. He was the most fearless rider but he
kept his pony down to a trot because Lane was always on the saddle
in front of him.

* *

When Rafe was five, he had to start going to
kindergarten in the mornings. He would lay out her clothes for her
before he left and make sure there was food in the frig for her
breakfast. He’d taught her to turn on the VCR and he’d load one of
her favorite movies so all she had to do was press the “Start”
button. He left her messages on a recorder on the playroom table
too.

“Laney, don’t go downstairs while I’m gone
and don’t ever try to go outside alone. You wait ‘til I get home.
I’ll take you swimming or to ride the pony or whatever you want to
do when I get back but don’t try to do any of those things by
yourself. Do you hear me, Lane? I’ll be really mad if you don’t
mind me.”

And, more than anything, she didn’t want Rafe
to ever be mad at her so she always paid attention to exactly what
he said.

She still remembered the one time she’d
ignored him and went downstairs and on down to the basement and
then couldn’t remember how to get back so she just had to stay down
there until he got home from school. It scared him half to death to
find the empty nursery. He’d gone racing through the house calling
her name. What if she’d gone outside and been kicked by one of the
horses or was floating drowned in the pool? When she finally heard
him and called out to him, he was relieved but he was also quietly
furious.

He took her right back upstairs and got a
ruler and made her take down her panties and spanked her bottom
hard ten times, until she was sobbing for him to stop. And then
after that, it was even worse because he told her he wasn’t going
to speak to her anymore that day and he didn’t, even though she
told him over and over how sorry she was and promised never to
disobey him again. She lay in bed and cried and cried but he acted
like she wasn’t even there.

He was gone the next morning by the time she
woke up and there was no message on the recorder and no clothes
laid out and no movie in the VCR and nothing to eat in the
frig.

The half day until he got home seemed endless
and when he appeared in the doorway, she went running to him,
throwing her arms around his waist. He took her hand and led her to
one of the rocking chairs, sitting down and pulling her onto his
lap. Then he looked into her blue eyes with his dark ones, “do you
understand, Lane, that you must always do as I say?” And she said,
yes, yes, she understood, just please don’t be mad anymore,
Rafe.

And after that, she always followed his
orders. If he told her to swim to the end of the pier and back, she
did it even though she was afraid it was too far and she might
drown or a shark might get her, because neither drowning nor sharks
was as bad as Rafe being upset with her. And besides that he’d told
her he’d save her if anything happened and she had absolute faith
that he would. Because there was, after all, that time when she got
attacked by the stray dog and he fought it off with only his
pocketknife, stabbing it in the eyes and mouth. He had some bad
bites on his hands and arms but he smiled his fleeting smile and
said at least he didn’t have to be put down like the dog.

* *

When Rafe was in second grade, his teacher
asked one of her colleagues if it was possible for a 7 year old to
be a sociopath because she swore that’s what Rafe Vincennes
was.

“I’ve never had a student who made me so
nervous. I don’t see or hear him move and yet the next thing I know
he’s behind my desk. You look in his eyes and you don’t sense a
trace of emotion. The person in there doesn’t seem like a child at
all. I think he has a photographic memory. If he sees or reads or
hears something, he never forgets it. He rarely smiles and never
laughs. When he plays with the other kids, it doesn’t seem like
he’s making an effort to dominate them but he just does, almost
like he mesmerizes them.”

Her co-worker laughed. “Dee, I can’t believe
you’d let a little kid spook you like that. You’re over-reacting
big-time.”

“All I know is, I’ll be glad when this year
is over and he’s out of my classroom and someone else’s
problem.”

What she didn’t know was that Rafe had, in
his silent way, come up behind her and overheard their
conversation.

Her colleague started, “oh, Rafe, we didn’t
know you were there. Did you need something?”

“See,” Miss Dee hissed when he was gone,
“that’s exactly what I mean!”

*

Rafe had always been aware that he had this
affect on some people but when he was seven, he wasn’t quite sure
what to do about it. He knew he tended to move quietly but was he
just supposed to start making sure to clomp around everywhere he
went? And how did you put more emotion in your eyes? He hadn’t a
clue. He guessed he could remind himself to smile more since that
was something his teacher had mentioned. As for being smart and
being picked to be the leader, he didn’t know how that came about
either. He never insisted and he never bragged. It just happened.
Miss Dee had wondered if he might be a sociopath. He looked the
word up in the dictionary - “a person who is anti-social and who
lacks a social conscience.” He shrugged it off. He didn’t know if
he lacked a social conscience or not. He didn’t even know what
having a social conscience meant.

*

He got his black German Shepherd puppy,
Raven, for his 6th birthday. It was the only gift he asked for.
From then on, when he was outdoors, he was trailed by two shadows
instead of only one, the blonde little sister and the jet black
dog. Both seemed equally as worshipful of him.

There were occasional instances when he took
some time away from his responsibilities to Lane. (Although he
didn’t really consider them responsibilities but things he chose to
do).

Even as a toddler, the family’s attempts to
keep track of him were relatively ineffectual. One sister or
another would be told by Magdelene to “watch Rafe” but watching
Rafe was impossible. Take your eyes off him for one minute and he
simply drifted away, like smoke.

A search would be mounted and eventually the
three-year-old would be discovered squatted in the back of one of
the horse stalls, communing, they guessed, with its resident. Or
he’d be napping in the cabin of one of the boats. At age four, he
made it all the way up to the Cabin by himself where they found him
rocking in one of the chairs on the porch. And at five, he took a
pirogue up an inlet to fish.

Renny whipped him for that one, whipped him
hard with his belt.

“Don’t you ever take a boat out by yourself
again. You don’t know where you’re at and you could get lost back
in those creeks and swamps. Do you understand me, Rafe?”

He simply looked at his father with tearless
eyes, having not made a sound during his spanking.

“But I always know exactly where I’m at,
Dad.”

“I don’t care!” roared Renny, who hardly ever
lost his temper and resented this contrary child for causing him to
do it now, “just do as I say, have you got that?”

“How old do I have to be?” Rafe asked.

“I’ll let you know,” said Renny through
gritted teeth.

Rafe was as comfortable wandering in the
night as during daylight. He’d been described as cat-like and it
was as if he could see in the dark like a cat too. His brothers
would come home from a date and find the little boy sitting on the
back step at 3:00 a.m.

“What are you doing up at this time, Rafe?
You should be in bed.”

“I’m listening to the dark.”

Eventually, they accepted it as a lost cause,
trying to keep track of him. He came and went as he pleased and
since he always made it home safely, they quit worrying. As he got
older, he traveled farther and stayed longer.

He read far above his age and his favorite
reading was about the techniques of surviving on one’s own. He and
Raven would disappear into the woods with only some string and a
knife. A few times, they got pretty hungry when his awkward early
attempts at setting a snare or spearing a fish failed but as time
went by, he learned to do those things competently, as well as
building a lean-to that would keep out the rain and starting a fire
without matches. He taught himself, by means of books, to smoke his
extra food and to cook it in a fire pit. He became an authority on
what marine life and flora and fauna and even bugs and worms were
safe to eat in an emergency.

By the time he was 9, he’d added a gun to his
small supply kit. (A hand gun because he liked to travel light and
a long gun was too heavy.) He’d snagged the Smith and Wesson
revolver from Renny’s gun safe, knowing it would mean another
serious thrashing if he got caught but willing to take the chance).
He’d become an expert at tracking, being familiar with prints and
scat and recognizing wallows and antler rubs and urine sprays.
Although, he was a dead shot, he didn’t kill much that he tracked.
He just wanted to prove to himself that he could if he had to.

He asked on every birthday and when he was
eight, Renny finally said, “okay, okay, take the damn boat” so then
he could embark on a more far-roaming exploration of his world.

He always warned Laney when he was going to
be gone for a while. “I’ll be back in a couple of days, maybe
three.”

“I hate it when you’re not here, Rafe. Why do
you have to go?”

“Sometimes, I just have to get away from
people. Not you, Honey. Everyone else. Where I don’t have to keep
my guard up all the time.”

She didn’t understand it but she had to
accept it because that was just Rafe.

* *

Because of when her birthday fell, Lane
didn’t get to start kindergarten until she was six but this morning
she would be getting on the big yellow bus with the other kids. She
was beside herself with excitement. She’d hardly left Heron Point
in her life and she almost only got to go to the basement or out on
the grounds when Rafe took her. She barely felt like she knew her
older brothers and sisters. Sometimes she’d meet them in a room and
they’d ruffle her hair and ask how she was doing but not like they
really cared. But now she was finally going to get to go off into
the world like everyone else.

Last week her mother had taken her on a
shopping spree and she had all new clothes. It had taken Rafe to
make that happen. He’d gone to Magdelene and reminded her that Lane
would be starting school soon and she had almost nothing fit to
wear.

“Most of her things are raggy and too small,
Mom. Unless you want to be ashamed of her being a Vincennes, you
probably need to buy her a new wardrobe.”

Once it was brought to her attention,
Magdelene was happy to take her youngest daughter shopping.

“Oh, Rafe, you’re absolutely right, Darling.
I guess I just hadn’t realized Laney was growing up so fast and
here she is five years old already.”

“Six, Mom, she’s six.”

“Six, then, and starting school. My last
baby. I’ll take her this week.”

Of course, Magdelene had spared no expense so
Laney had all new jeans and tops and dresses and skirts and
sweaters and blouses and sox and underwear and shoes and a new
winter coat, red with gold buttons!

Rafe helped her pick out her first school
outfit - a denim jumper embroidered with flowers on the bib with a
knit pink top and her new pink sneakers. She held his hand walking
to the end of their lane and sat beside him on the bus. Once at
school, he took her to her room.

“Remember, your room is 110 and your teacher
is Miss Prince. You’ll like her. She’s nice. I’ll meet you when
it’s time to go home and make sure you get on the right bus.”

She loved it, oh, she loved it. It was so
much fun being around all the other kids and Rafe was right, Miss
Prince was so nice. She loved learning things. The only stuff she
knew was what Rafe had ever taught her. Thankfully, he’d made sure
she was able to tie her shoes and write her name and say her
alphabet and count and tell time or she would have been embarrassed
since the teacher tested them to make sure they all knew how to do
those things. She never thought to wonder how he had learned to do
them.

When the morning was over, he met her like he
said he would and watched her until she was safely on the big bus.
She couldn’t wait until the next day when she’d get to come back
again!

* *

She woke him up crying. He looked over at the
clock and saw it was after 1:00 a.m.

“What’s the matter, Honey?” he asked
drowsily.

“E-e-everyone is going to h-h-h-hate me,
Rafe,” she sobbed.

“Why are they going to hate you, Laney?”

“C-c-cause I’m s’posed to bring c-c-cupcakes
for Refreshment Day but Reba left early. S-s-she was gone when I
got h-h-home and you know it w-w-wouldn’t do any good to ask
M-m-mom.”

For a moment, they both pondered the thought
of the elegant Magdelene whipping up a batch of cupcakes but
neither could begin to grasp that exotic concept.

“No,” he finally said, “Mom wouldn’t have
baked them herself but she most likely would have had Bannings
deliver some.”

“I never t-t-thought of that. It’s just
g-g-going to be so a-a-awful tomorrow,” she wailed.

He got up and patted her on the back. “Just
go back to sleep, Sweetie. I’ll make sure you have cupcakes in the
morning.”

“Will you, Rafe, really?”

“Yes, Lane, go to sleep”, which she did in
complete assurance that Rafe always did what he said he would
do.

He padded down the stairs barefoot and in his
blue-striped pajama bottoms. Flipping the switch inside the door,
he looked across the enormous kitchen. “Bloody ‘ell, Mate,” he
muttered to himself, “you better be getting some organ-o-za-tion
goin’ or you’ll be here all night.”