Short Story / Winnie Brown

Winnie Brown heard the instant messenger go ding. He had the speakers turned up.

The screensaver was of family photos and he clicked the mouse halfway between Katherine’s picture – his wife, and Dean – his son. Taken six years ago, the photos showed a young Dean wearing orange flipper flotation devices while Katherine supervised him in a red, gauzy bikini.

The screensaver blew off the screen.

Winnie positioned his mouse over the taskbar and clicked on messenger.

It blinked into action.

Mr. Fane Is Trying To Send You A Message. Will You Accept?

Winnie accepted.

What are U doing? Mr. Fane typed.

Nothing. Who R U? Winnie typed.

I am your friend, Mr. Fane wrote back. LOL.

Are you a friend of Dean’s? Winnie typed. He was sure he did not want his son talking on the Internet to someone named Mr. Fane.

Mr. Fane logged off.

In the study window grey twilight brushed the glass, lit by a rising white moon. A long branch rustled the window. It was from the old tree he hadn’t the heart to cut down, which, mysteriously, the year before last, had become scabbed, bark red like psoriasis.

Dean was with Katherine.

He had enough time to look at his son’s computer. It was the old family computer, until he had become convinced they needed a new computer.

The old computer was in his son’s room on his son’s study desk. Now a newer, quieter, much more powerful computer hunched in the study. It had more hard drive space and memory than three of the old computers tied together, enough horsepower the salesman told him – to make the old one seem an abacus.

“You’ll be in the top percentile of processor power,” the gaunt salesman assured Winnie.

Winnie had proffered his well-used platinum card.

Dean  strategically piled laundry in his room which made navigation difficult. If there was logic to the mad swirl of jeans and sweaters, Dean was unable to decipher it.

A looming shadow turned out to be nothing more than a black sweater dripping helplessly from the arms of a hanger.

Dean’s bookshelf was faced with junk paperbacks. Some of the titles Dean recognized, but the majority were Dean’s own additions.

Winnie pushed the power button on Dean’s computer. It booted up.

The computer’s fan was loud and dirty. The fan whirred to life with a sound reminiscent of the din in a metal shop.

Dean didn’t have the logon password protected.

Winnie launched his son’s instant messenger. He scanned the names in his son’s buddy list.

Alexp was Alex Protouski. Lord Rule was Doug Edmonds. There was no Mr. Fane.

That you d? Lord Rule typed.

You talk to Mr. Fane? Lord Rule asked.

Winnie took a hard, quick breath.

He typed Y and hit enter.

Lord Rule logged off.

Winnie was left frozen, staring at the monitor. Who was Mr. Fane?

He heard the rattle of the garage door, echoing. Katherine and Dean were back. He shut down his son’s computer and headed to his study. He heard their footsteps. He sat in his study and looked blankly at his monitor. When Katherine came in and put a lazy hand on his shoulder and leaned down and kissed him, he smiled at her, unfocused.

“Still working?” She asked. Her reddish blonde hair was bobbed in the back.

“Yes,” he said. “Unfortunately.”

He returned to his study around 8 PM. Throughout dinner he had wanted to put his fork down and interrogate his son. Dean was fifteen with acne even in his eyebrow and under his neck, even behind his ears. His forehead was like an alpine trunk dotted with pits underneath a bower of smudgy black leaves.

Winnie could not find the words though. He did not want to admit he had been on his son’s computer. He did not want to come clean.

He heard rinsing dishes as his wife worked at the sink, cleaning up. Normally he helped but not tonight. She thought he was laboring hard on his coursework from the Master’s program. In reality, he sat in front of the new computer, fingers spindled out like knitting thread.

9:04 PM. Instant Messenger reported Mr. Fane had logged on.

The software had added Mr. Fane as a buddy. His name was at the top of Winnie’s buddy list.

Mr. Fane (online).
Kathrine (offline).
Dean (online).
Russ (offline).

A busy icon showed under Dean’s name. The same rolling hourglass appeared under Mr. Fane’s a  moment later.

At odds with himself Winnie browsed the Internet. In turmoil, he looked without reading.Finally, when he could take it no longer, he clicked Mr. Fane’s name.

He hesitated. Then typed, are you talking to my son, Mr. Fane?

What do U think LOL?

Leave my son alone or I will contact the authorities.

LOL

Who are you?

Mr. Fane.

No, who are you?

A friend 4 Eva. LOL

I’m calling the police if you don’t tell me who you are.

The cursor paused. Got you now you fucking bastard, Winnie thought. A little bubble said Mr. Fane was typing something.

Mr. Fane typed, www.fane.com all your answers will be revealed, Winnie Brown.

His chest felt constricted. His father had died of a massive heart attack in his late thirties. A couple more years, Winnie thought. I’ll be the same age he was…

A white moon glared into the study window. Winnie smelled his sweat, heard his heart beat in his ears. And the night was just beginning.

He typed the web address into his browser. Hit enter.

His heart took up a loud hymn.

The website had just a high school photo of his old friend Robert Martin. The Robert Martin dead almost two decades. The Robert Martin, who, the day he got his license went joy riding on a set of back gravel roads and flipped his car. The Robert Martin, who, half-falling out the driver window to his shoulders, flattened his head, burst his brain pan like a ripe grape. Robert Martin smiled in the picture. His senior picture, Winnie remembered.

Ding! A message waited.

Robert says hell, I mean, hello, Mr. Fane typed.

Who are you? Please. Winnie Brown haltingly typed.

Ding. Another message. A new friend wanted to be added to his buddy list.

A friend named Robert Martin.

Mr. Fane is the devil, Robert Martin wrote. He added a ;0.

Who is this really? Winnie typed.

It’s me Winnie, Robert typed.

Winnie Brown considered himself a good man.  Katherine did not have to drag him to church on Sundays. He went of his own free will, shaking hands, clapping backs, meeting men and women like himself. He was no saint but he was a Christian. He was no philosopher but he was devout.

Mr. Fane messaged. I know you Winnie Brown, my Good man. I knew your father. Would you like to talk to your father?

Instant messenger dinged. It asked Winnie if he would accept a message from Harold Brown. He chose Accept.

Son, Harold Brown typed. I miss you. I’m sorry we were never close. That was my fault because I always thought we would have tomorrow.

Dad? Winnie typed.

Son. Your mother’s down here, too. Remember uncle Slim? He’s here. In fact, everyone’s down here. Hopefully someday you and Katherine and Dean will be here, too.

Katherine came into the room. She had on her silky red pajamas.

“You almost done, Winnie?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Almost there.”

Dad, he typed. Where are you?

You know where I am, son.

A bubble appeared. Mr. Fane would like to start a group chat. Will you accept?

Winnie hesitated.

Will you accept?

Yes, he clicked.

Catching up on old times? Mr. Fane asked. Hate to interrupt but I just wanted to tell Winnie I updated my website. Go check it out, guy!

Winnie chose the address from his browser’s history. It took forever to load and when it finally did, he was rewarded with a streaming video. The footage, grainy, like it had come from an antiquated security camera, showed an orgy.

Winnie couldn’t make anyone out. Then the camera zoomed in. He recognized his dad, nude, chest and groin covered in salt and pepper hair. Harold Brown was stitched with black thread from ass to armpit. When his father moved the thread looped and in a breathless moment Winnie realized the thread was making faces autonomous, he thought, of any intent on his father’s part. No, one face. One single face resonant in loops of flesh and thread. The pudgy flesh of his dad’s abdomen became the impression of a mouth. The eyes were the bellybutton, split down the middle by a dark thread.

Winnie’s father was looking at something.  He must be looking at a computer just like I am. There’s computers in hell, maybe. Sure – Why wouldn’t they have an Internet Connection? The networks have spread everywhere, right? Winnie realized that his dad was looking at him on a monitor just as Winnie was looking at his father on a monitor.

It was a direct connection.

“Dad,” he said.

He watched his father type: son.

Harold Brown. His father.

His father in hell – could it be? No.

Winnie shook his head. The threads woven through his father’s front lunged into a grin. There was no sound but Winnie was forced to watch his father’s real eyes widen in anguish.

A good man your daddy, Mr. Fane wrote. He loved war. Even in church while he prayed, his mind lingered on battle. He celebrated each foreign death. Not even babies were spared in his heart. He sacrificed babies for the greater good in his imagination, Winnie. You’ve sat and watched it too. Grinning and cheering with your beer. A toast to all the beautiful things that give you freedom. You’re a chip off the old block, Winnie Brown.

Mr. Fane typed :)

Winnie recognized the participants of the orgy. Uncle Slim. His mother. They were stitched with the same black thread, but unlike his father, they were not stitched with a face. They were stitched to each other. Hand stitched to hand. Foot stitched to foot. Around them puddled loose thread.

They made love on a carpet of war babies. Newborns burnt by precision guided weapon systems. Older children with missing limbs who lay blinded under their stitched flesh. Collateral damage.

Winnie closed the web site.

There is nothing is there, he typed to Mr. Fane. God is damned. The devil owns the world.

You are my rosy children, the Devil wrote. My music makers, oh what a fell music doth make.

Just as Winnie Brown closed the Devil’s window, his session with the dead Robert Martin flashed.

Winnie come join us, Robert Martin wrote. A kitchen knife would do the trick. Do you have a sewing kit? A dead fetus? Cut open your chest and stitch its blind face to the wound. If Katherine’s not expecting – Dean’s head will do the trick. I recommend a wood axe. You have one in your garage. I know because I just put it there LOL. Winnie Brown, everybody’s doing it. We’ve got all the Governments here.

Winnie Brown realized that Robert Martin was Mr. Fane.

The night was blue in the study window. The tree branch scraped the window, or perhaps it was his imagination. Did Winnie hear piano music? No, it was his heart. It plays a discordant theme, he thought.

Winnie opened a word processor document. This is the Devil’s world, he typed. On Sunday the Pastor talks about God. He shares the word of God. His voice…talks about liberation and success. He does not talk about the dead children but they are there, surrounding him, grinning, and burnt.

Winnie Brown decided he would go get the axe. He would do what his holy fathers said – he would retrieve the axe and murder his family – he would free them with his own Precision Weapon System. A half-moon blade glint, the axe falling, the heads rolling. They were all going to the Devil’s house after all.

Winnie Brown licked his lips.

He looked at the monitor. Dean’s Instant Messenger icon was busy.

He won’t get all the credit, Winnie thought. He thought of his son discussing the spiritual world with Mr. Fane. He was filled with an uncontrollable rage.

He walked out of the study. The lights in the living room were dim. Katherine was sleeping on the couch, her red hair shading her pale cheek.

He went to the garage. He spotted the axe. It was a good sturdy wood axe, the edges brittle and sharp.

He grabbed the axe. It was light-weight. Winnie Brown took a few practice swings on his return juorney to the living room.

He stood over Katherine. He tested the axe with his finger. It was super sharp.

Winnie heard footsteps. His son sleepily wandering toward the kitchen.

“You still talking to Mr. Fane?” Winnie asked.

Dean Brown scrubbed fingers across his eyes trying to knock the sleep out. He yawned.

“Who’s Mr. Fane dad?” Dean asked.

Winnie Brown stared at his son. He shrugged. He waited until Dean had gotten a glass of water and returned to his room. Winnie stared at the axe.

He returned to the garage. It was cold. He got down on his hands and knees and sang to himself. He did not know the words he muttered.

The next morning was the beginning of Winnie Brown’s new life. Yet even as his nightly ritual became a journey to the garage to grab the axe, Winnie Brown had decided he believed in a God that had nothing to do with war and pestilence… A few years later, Winne Brown’s massive heart attack was identical to his father’s. Generally, it was believed that in his final days Winnie Brown had become a despairing man with black, erratic mood swings and a deeply held suspicion that nothing was going to get better.

Winnie Brown’s gravestone was unmarked by salutation. The funeral party, consisting of Katherine and Dean and few others was a solemn affair.

After the funeral a coworker of Winnie’s swore to his disbelieving wife he had seen Dean Brown’s mouth open and a ball of black thread fall out.

(So maybe Winnie Brown was right).

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