Edward the Confessor

It’s a summer party at the sprawling Lindorf “cottage”, tucked in among the mansions at Stoneport harbor, and Edward thinks he is in his element, slipping through the bait-fish crowd like a barracuda. A fist-bump here, a bro-hug there, his father’s attorney squeezes his upper arm as he brushes by. It’s all a blur of Brooks Brothers and Tory Burch because he hit the brewskies before lunch, and he’s high on weed. Edward snatches a glass from a passing silver tray, splashing prosecco on the sleeve of the white-jacketed server. “No problem, Sir”. Edward snarls and moves on. He believes he can eat these people. 

Edward is back in Maine for the summer, camped out at Logan’s place on Macanatuk lake, along with a handful of his Tiger team-mates. Good drinking buddies on generous allowances, that keep things dumb and well-funded. They get up late, go to bed late, and navigate daily through a small odyssey of drinking, parties, water-sports, and girls, who come and go.  There are drugs going around, but nothing sinister; it’s a party house, and they keep a good vibe going. 

He dutifully stops by the parents for a couple of tedious minutes, stooping as his mother administers a kiss. She admonishes him for his slovenly appearance and his beery odor, but she is pleased he has emerged from the frat house encampment near the lake. His father, who is shiny and pink, sweating in a blazer under the hot sun, drops in some questions about grades, lacrosse, his senior year intentions. The old man is disappointed by the terse answers. Edward grins, stupidly, and makes an excuse to leave them. 

“Please visit the Lindorfs before you go”, says his mother, tugging on the sleeve of his polo shirt, “they want to see you and we need their help. We need the Lind-O contract”.  

Edward isn’t really thinking straight, he should leave immediately, decamp from the lake-house, and give this place, these people and his past a wider berth, but with his parents monitoring him he has no choice but to follow their instructions. He ditches the barracuda.

The Lindorfs are holding court atop the grassy lawn.  Peter Lindorf, founder of Lind-O Pharma, is an athletic man gone to fat. Sitting regally in an ancient armchair in the sun, he is receiving guests who bow slightly as he regales them with stories distilled from his role on the world stage. Helena, his tall gaunt wife, much younger than him - a bona fide MILF, thinks Edward - interjects colorful anecdotes like acid-drop candies.

Edward approaches them with his best boys-of-summer smile, and Helena Lindorf endows him with space, politely concluding a conversation with an earnest young woman doing the charity ask. Edward gives Helena Lindorf a hug, running his hand down her boney back, longer and lower than he really should, and she smiles, or grimaces, it’s hard to tell which, and he remembers that he is stoned. Peter Lindorf, a giant larva dressed in a pastel-pink shirt and lobster-embossed shorts, is distracted by a teen girl sashaying across the lawn to join her friends in the swim club. Could it be Jeff Simmons’ sister?

In another direction, emerging from the porch of the shingle-style Queen Anne house, Ethel Lindorf is thin and pale, her hair is died black, her dress is dark, and she looks like a creature of the night, not a sun-blest scion of Stone Harbor’s aristocracy. She looks so fine, so beautiful, not the twig of a girl that Edward remembers from school, the 16-year-old waif entrusted to his care with catastrophic results. He felt it wasn’t really his fault, it was the others, but his stomach clenches, forming a knot made of remorse and fear.

“Edward, you are here”, Ethel states, stone-faced. 

Helena Lindorf seems amused by his discomfort, and Peter Lindorf is totally ignoring him.

“I thought I should pay a quick visit”, says Edward, flashing his most winning and hopeful smile, but the charm falls into an abyss. Ethel scowls at him and calls him an ass.

Helena Lindorf intervenes, “Actually Edward, you were instructed to come and see us. So, you can drop the show of bonhomie”.  She cooly gazes at a schooner that is sliding from the harbor. “Your father wants a contract with Lind-O”. She pauses and looks at him, “and it can be had for a price, probably”.

Edward wants to race down the lawn along the wooden dock and plunge into the harbor. He is a low-life thing that scuttles on its belly in dark places, much like the crabs and lobsters crawling around Penobscot bay. 

“Magnus has had an episode”, says Helena turning to Edward.

“Schizophrenia”, interjects Ethel.

“A relapse.”, says Helena, “He is currently receiving treatment at the Pilgrim’s Hospital, near Stroud, and we think he needs to see people, people he knows. We think you should visit him”.

Magnus and Edward were in the same class through middle school and into high school.

“I am so sorry to hear about Magnus” Edward says, all thoughtfulness and concern, “I will definitely visit him at Pilgrims, it is on my route to the surf spot at Caumsett. I think I’ve seen the road sign”.

“Oh would you?” says Mrs. Lindorf, with something that sounded like gratitude.

“Yes, would you?”, parodies Ethel, clasping her hands to her throat as if imploring him.

“Yes, for sure”, he replies sourly, and untruthfully. 

“When?” demands Ethel, pinning him down like an insect.

“Tuesday”, he squirms. He looks down at the harbor and observes the position of the tide. “Yes, Tuesday, around lunchtime”.

“Then it’s done.” says Helena, who dismisses him with a small wave. 

Ethel leans into his space as he turns to leave, “I cried every day for a year” she hisses into his ear, “I should have gone to the police”.

Sitting on the deck at the lake, beer in hand, Edward gives his buddies a heavily-redacted debrief, that makes it sound like the Lindorf party was a complete bore. He tells them who he’d seen, confirms with Simmons that his sister had been in attendance, and the boy-men hotly debate whether the girls of the swim team girls should be invited to the lake house (Simmons is opposed).

“Didn’t you call her ‘Ethel, the unready’?”, asks Logan, piercing thick veils of practiced forgetfulness and rehearsed vagueness.  They go silent, recalling things that were best not spoken of. “You were there too”, says Simmons, “asshole”.

It is Tuesday. Edward drives solo to Caumsett Cove, his surfboard strapped atop car.  Maine’s Route 1, the coastal road, laces north in a zig zag across rivers and estuaries, touching the edge of small fjords, threading its way like a lace from Portland to Bar Harbor, through an assortment of picturesque villages and gritty blue-collar towns. On one side of Route 1, the road-signs beckon the traveler “down east” to harbors, ports, and lighthouses at the end of peninsulas that probe like giant craggy fingers into the Atlantic. On the other side of the thoroughfare, less frequent signs point to rivers, woods, lakes and mountains, and dirt-poor townships of Maine’s backcountry.  

The shiny blue and white Hospital sign looms into view. He momentarily considers pressing on directly to the surf spot at Caumsett Cove, but instead he makes the left turn onto the neglected road that disappears into a tunnel through thick pines, spindly maples, and stunted oaks. It feels like the car is no longer propelled by its own engine, but is sucked into the wilderness by the road itself. “Pilgrim Psychiatric Home’, reads a rusty sign of unknown vintage, which is followed by a collapsed wooden barn, abandoned cars, a derelict garage with a broken gas pump, He is idly contemplating the difference between a “Hospital” and a “Home” when the road disgorges him into an open space and deposits him in front of a grand cast-iron gate of what looked like a country estate. “Pilgrim Asylum for the Criminally Insane” is carved into the stone pillar from which the gate hangs.  

Edward cruises into the near-empty, weed-infested parking area, in the center of a cluster of red brick gothic buildings, each four stories tall. The largest of these buildings is still in use, but the others look ready for demolition with broken or absent windows, missing downpipes, boarded doors, debris is strewn around on the ground.   People are hanging around the entrance of the main building, so he parks his Suburu in an exposed position, close to a shiny BMW, the only vehicle of value in the lot. He checks his phone, no bars. He vapes some cannabis, gets out, locks the car door, and walks toward the main building, a gothic monstrosity, with turrets and a mock gatehouse. The sky is clouding over, and a chill runs down his spine.

Are they patients, inmates and prisoners, visitors or staff? 

He ponders this question as he approaches the building and runs the gauntlet of listless people spaced randomly on broken chairs, on balustrades, and at the foot of the marble steps that fan out from the front of the building. He greets them with a wave but gets no response. Hispanic, black, a couple of whites, different shades of gray beneath the bruised sky in this forlorn place. It must be a low-security hospital he thinks, patting his pockets to check on his phone, keys, and wallet. 

“Level four”, says the security officer standing just inside the main door of the building, a black man. He is dressed in a uniform, the only thing that distinguishes him from the zombies outside.  

“I’m here to visit a friend”, says Edward.

“Level four”, says the officer, waving him toward the elevator across a belle epoque lobby. His footsteps echo around the marble interior.

The elevator smells of urine, and only the lobby and fourth floor buttons are operational, buttons two and three are taped over. He presses button four with his knuckle, which he wipes on his pants. The scratched stainless-steel doors clatter shut, the elevator jolts into motion, the fluorescent light flickers as the contraption rides the rail aloft.

The fourth-floor lobby is tatty, but recognizably the entrance to a medical facility, festooned with health advisory posters, a directory of Doctors’ names, an OSHA notice for staff.  A bottle of Purell and a tray of masks are presented to the visitor on a stanchion in the hallway.

A very large male nurse, also black, admits Edward to the ward through an electronically secured metal door, which slams behind him with finality. They are in a small antechamber, not much room to move and he is overwhelmed by the enormity of this man, built like a pro bowl tight end, and Edward feels his throat constrict, his heart-beat quicken, sweat under his armpits.

“I’ve gotta take your personals”, says the nurse in a baritone voice, “whatever you have in your pockets goes into that locker”, he points behind him. 

“Yes of course” says Edward, emptying his pockets quickly, eager to please.  The nurse takes the items in skillet-sized hands, places the items in the locker. 

“I’m here to see Magnus Lindorf” says Edward.  “Just visiting” he laughs, nervously.

“Yes, we was expecting you”, says the Nurse, who grins, in on the joke. “Go in through that door”. The nurse presses a red button on the wall, the door buzzes, and Edward enters a slightly larger room, carpeted, comfy waiting chairs, a panorama of three windows providing the visitor with a view of the wide corridor leading to the ward, separating the visitor from the patients. 

“I’ve brought you a soda” says the big man, “orange”.

Edward, parched, thanks him, and gulps down the contents of the white paper cup, throws it crumpled into the trash.

A wizened leprechaun dawdles into view, sees Edward and comes over to the window triptych, presses his bulbous nose against the middle pane and stares. He is joined moments later by a lugubrious lurch-like fellow who stands at his shoulder like a mourner in a funeral cortege. Edward feels like a fish in a bowl, so to escape their scrutiny he walks across the room to the small external window at the far end. Under a smoked-glass sky, Maine’s dark arboreal canopy stretches to a mountainous horizon, with no sign of human activity visible for miles and miles. Pilgrim Hospital is in the middle of a wilderness.

Down below, in the parking lot, the zombies are shuffling along behind a sharply-delineated person who is dressed in black. Edward is trying to locate his car and the surfboard when the door buzzes.

Magnus sloughs into the room, sucking at the oxygen in the air. He looks horrible, with an old-man paunch, wispy unkempt beard, and a balding pate over which greasy hair is drawn in a comb-over. Magnus slumps into the nearest chair ignores Edward’s greeting and outstretched hand. “Got any smokes?” he growls

“No smokes, man”, in fact I’ve got nothing”. Nothing! Nothing, thinks Edward, silently cursing the stupidity of giving his phone and wallet to the orderly, of parking his car outside of this strange place. The stupidity of coming here at all, of not informing his friends. More faces assemble at the window. The male nurse towers over them in the corridor.

Magnus removes a smartphone from his pocket and points it at Edward. “Tik Tok, Tik Tok”.

The room spins, the faces, ten or more, become masks. As Edward watches in horror, the masks become a kaleidoscopic vortex. The leprechaun, the ghoul, the fat man, a man with two faces, a man with no face at all, the tight-end, and Ethel. They are swirling in and out of his vision, the room undulates.

Magnus lifts his face and Edward watches in horror as its features move around and reassemble into the most terrible of masks; the posterior of a gigantic maggot, but with two black eyes and an oleaginous fold in the skin, which serves as both mouth and anus. The face-like thing floats in front of Magnus’s body. Edward recoils and falls to the floor. 

No phone, no ID. Nothing. Only the Lindorfs know of his whereabouts.

“I’m sorry for what I did”, mumbles Edward through numbing lips and with a thickening tongue that is now too big for his mouth.

“Doesn’t matter”, says the thing that was previously Magnus.

“Hey Ethel”, it shouts, “take a look at your boy now!”.  

Edward blacks out.

Epilogue.

Edward’s surfboard is found by a beachcomber on the pebbly shore at Caumsett Cove, his Suburu parked nearby.  Police launch a search of the waters, but his body is never found so he is presumed lost at sea, or dead.  Edward wishes it was so.