Eddie had lost more weight. He didn’t feel sick, only weak. He continued to insist that it was the hospital food. Dr. Melon wrote a note to order a complete metabolic panel and CBC. And a PSA — he hadn’t told Eddie about the tumors near his prostate. He wondered how much time Eddie had left.

“I checked about the buses,” Dr. Melon said.

“I figured you would.”

“Anyone beside your brother know?”

“Peter wouldn’t tell. Knew I’d kill him if he did.”

“So you were never punished?”

“Not for that.”

“What do you mean?”

Eddie held his hand out, palm up. Brother Ravinas raised the ruler. The other boys watched with wildebeest eyes, drawn to lions when they feed. Brother Ravinas held his breath, an engine gathering steam. He struck with such force the rosary beads in the side pocket of his black robe jumped and clattered.

The ruler tore Eddie’s palm, but he didn’t flinch.

Brother Ravinas studied Eddie’s face. Another whack would make no difference. He took Eddie to a dusty room in the basement.

“You think you’re as tough as your brother Arthur?” Eddie barely remembered Arthur. He died when Eddie was three. “I broke Arthur and I’ll break you.” Brother Ravinas removed a tarpaulin from a large machine. Eddie stared at the many gears, smelled the worn leather and dried sweat, the sharp reek of urine smothered in bleach. Brother Ravinas squirted oil on gears and turned a crank. He located a squeak and squirted more oil. He worked the crank again until the only sound was the warble of the spanking machine’s stiff leather paddles.

“I made Arthur a good boy,” Brother Ravinas said. “He never sassed again. I took his side when he played hooky, but Brother Andrews expelled him anyway. I tried to get Arthur into Boys Town. Ask your mother; she’ll tell you. Wasn’t my fault he ran away from home. Got killed.”

Arthur had died in an alley holding a gun and carrying a portable TV. He’d shot at the policeman and missed. The return shot exploded the picture tube and tore through Arthur’s intestines.

Brother Ravinas fastened Eddie into the heavy leather harness. It kept Eddie bent over, butt high. Brother Ravinas moved the paddle wheel so it just kissed Eddie’s pants. Eddie heard the crank and thought his pants had caught fire. He held his breath for what seemed forever. The paddle wheel stopped turning. Eddie breathed greedily. He’d beaten the spanking machine.

Brother Ravinas put a finger under Eddie’s chin and raised his head. “Just a taste.” He moved the paddle wheel closer. This time he put his full weight into the crank. The thick leather paddles struck Eddie with loud cracks like shots from a small bore rifle. Sparks flickered in Eddie’s eyes. His legs jerked. He hopped from one foot to the other. Eddie moaned, whined, bawled. A mixture of tears, snot, and mouth drool spilled over his chin to pool on the floor with his piss. He begged Brother Ravinas to stop.

Brother Ravinas let go of the crank.

Eddie’s left hand shook so violently his cast rattled on the table. He laid the hand out of sight on his lap. “I could use a cigarette.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Guards do.”

Dr. Melon went to the door and returned with a pack. “Floyd wants it back.” He gave Eddie a single cigarette.

“I need a match.”

Dr. Melon made another trip. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t blow smoke in my direction.”

Eddie lit up. He took a deep drag and blew rings toward the ceiling, perfectly round and evenly spaced like the smokestack puffs of a cartoon locomotive. His left hand stopped shaking.

“Back then I hated Brother Ravinas, but now I understand him. He was like Dostoevsky’s cardinal.”

“You mean the Grand Inquisitor?” Dr. Melon had read Brothers Karamazof his freshman year in college. The novel was a vague memory.

“Well, you know the story.”

“People interpret things in different ways. I’d like to hear your version.”

“My view is the cardinal was actually kind. He hadn’t always burned people at the stake. Most of his life he’d been a wandering monk. He fasted, did good works, and preached the Gospel. But he didn’t change a single person. They still sinned. The cardinal chose Christ of his own free will but saw he was about the only one. Most people couldn’t do it. It broke his heart that he wasn’t able to help people be good. There had to be a better way. That’s when he began to burn people at the stake. It was the time of the Inquisition.

“In the story, Christ comes back, and the cardinal arrests him. The cardinal knows Christ is going to ask people to follow him of their own free will, and he knows they can’t do it. The cardinal cares about people. Christ doesn’t, or he wouldn’t ask them to do what they can’t.

“The cardinal puts Christ into a dungeon and tells him he was wrong to turn down the three temptations of the Devil. The first temptation was when the Devil asked Christ to turn stones into bread. Christ had been in the desert forty days, fasting. It was a big temptation. But he didn’t give in. The cardinal tells Christ he should have seen the bigger picture. If he turned stones into bread for the hungry, they would have followed him, not from free will but from necessity.

“For the second temptation, the Devil took Christ to the top of the temple of Jerusalem and dared him to leap to the ground. Christ knew God would save him if he jumped. But he didn’t want to test God. The cardinal tells Christ he’s a fool. Surviving the jump would have been a miracle. People aren’t rational. They’re superstitious. Had he stayed on earth and performed miracles daily, people would have been good. Instead, he left them to struggle with free will, and they always lose.

“For the last temptation, the Devil took Christ to a high mountain where he could see the kingdoms of the world spread out before him. The Devil offered the kingdoms to Christ, if he would bow down to him. Christ refused. The cardinal tells Christ he should have ruled the world. His might would have awed everyone, and people would no longer sin.

“The cardinal is disgusted with Christ because he asks people to do the impossible — freely choose good over evil. He’s their enemy. The cardinal wants to burn Christ at the stake. But Christ kisses his cheek and the cardinal lets him go. The kiss didn’t change the cardinal’s mind. He knows Christ’s way is wrong; you only save people by forcing them to be good. Is that how you remember the story?”

Dr. Melon’s medical training had taught him the brain has no more free will than the liver. He talked to patients to identify their problem, not to cure them. People don’t choose to be schizophrenic; nor can anyone reason their way out of schizophrenia. Drugs cure disease. When he was a freshman, Dr. Melon had dismissed the cardinal as a comic strip villain. Now he realized the cardinal used fear like a drug. He was brutal, but not irrational.

“You can see how they are alike,” Eddie said. “Brother Ravinas believed he had to break me before I could be good.”

“You’re saying he tortured you because he loved you?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Melon wrote in his notebook: Brother Ravinas a proxy for an abusive mother or father. He needed to get Eddie to talk about his parents.

“I still got in trouble,” Eddie said. “I carved my name in big letters on a chapel pew and lifted a crucifix from Brother Wittenauer when he dozed off during lunch. When I was expelled, Brother Ravinas didn’t give up. He told my parents they should put me in Children’s Village up at Dobbs Ferry. He had the papers ready. But my mother wouldn’t sign. I thought she’d be happy if I left. She didn’t want me around.”

Eddie was going right where Dr. Melon wanted. “Why do you say that?”

Brian Dooley was not generous with gifts, so it was a surprise when he gave Eddie a magnificent present for his seventh birthday — a shiny new red scooter.

Eddie’s mother, Juliana, did not share Eddie’s joy. Brian had not given her a present on her birthday, not even a card. Eddie rode the scooter on the sidewalk, and in the house when Juliana made him come in. She warned him not to bump into furniture. He hit a chair.

“That’s enough,” Juliana said. “You’ve been running into things all day. When your father gets home, you’ll never ride that scooter again. I’ll throw the son of a bitch out.”

Eddie held the neck of the scooter in a bear hug. “Its mine. You can’t take it.”

“I will!”

“Fuck you!”

Juliana showed a monkey face of surprise. Eddie had never sworn at her before. “You little bastard!”

Eddie ran to his room and hid under the bed, scurrying like a ferret from front to back as Juliana poked at him with the handle of a broom, cursing the misses, hissing a triumphant YES when she jabbed him in the throat.

Eddie came out from under the bed, gagging. He searched for his mother and thought for a moment she’d left and it was over. But Juliana returned with wild eyes, swinging a barber’s strap cleaved into nine strips. It was from Brian’s closet.

Juliana first used the strap when Eddie refused to wear a new winter hat. It had earflaps like the hat Johnny Carson wore for his stupid hunter skits. Eddie said it was a ‘dopey’ hat. Juliana had to hit him only once. She used the barber’s strap again when Eddie stole money from Mrs. Romano.

The Dooley’s lived on the second floor of Mrs. Romano’s brownstone. Once when Juliana paid the rent, Peter and Eddie stood in the narrow alley beside Mrs. Romano’s bedroom window and peeked inside. They saw her put the money in a book and place the book in the bookcase. After she left, they tried to open the window but it was securely locked.

Peter was the one who found the defunct coal bin in the basement. He crawled inside. The chute went straight up. Eddie stood on Peter’s shoulders and explored the chute and found a hatch. He pushed it open and looked into Mrs. Romano’s bedroom.

“Go to the book and take some money,” Peter said.

Eddie took five dollars. The theft was exciting. He never felt so good in his life. The next time Eddie took the entire rent — $125.

Mrs. Romano called the police. Two policemen searched the house, then went into the basement and found a child’s hand-prints at the coal bin. When they questioned Juliana and saw coal dust on Peter and Eddie, they’d solved the case. Peter returned the money and said he was sorry. Eddie wouldn’t apologize. He was thinking how to get up the chute without Peter’s help. After Mrs. Romano left with the police, Juliana gave Eddie three lashes with the barber’s strap.

Now in the bedroom Juliana whipped in a craze, quitting only because she was out of breath. She stood over Eddie on the floor curled into a ball, whimpering. “There!” she said, in a chuff. “What you get for cursing your mother.”

Eddie’s shirt hid the wales on his back, but not the raw lashes on his bare arms and the welt high up on his neck. Juliana knew she’d gone too far but there was no going back. She made Eddie change into a long sleeve shirt and turned up the collar. When Brian returned from work, she was ready when Eddie rolled up a sleeve to the elbow.

Brian knew the marks. “You use that strap on my boy?”

Juliana showed him a broken cup, his favorite coffee mug. “Eddie rammed into the counter with the scooter. I told him to stop bumping into furniture, but he wouldn’t listen. When he broke your mug, I whipped him good.”

“I didn’t break the cup,” Eddie pleaded. “Mom is lying.”

“Don’t call your mother a liar.”

“She is a liar.”

Brian yanked Eddie off his feet. “Where’s that damn scooter.”

“Living room,” Juliana said.

Eddie watched his father lug the scooter out of the house.

His older sister Karen laughed. “Got what you deserve.”

Eddie looked at her with such hate that Karen ran to her mother and held onto her skirt. That night Eddie listened to Brian snoring down the hall and thought about the butcher knife in the kitchen. He rehearsed in his mind getting the knife and stabbing his father in his sleep. He would do it quickly before Juliana woke so he could stab her too. He savored the image of his parents lying dead in their own blood until he fell asleep.

Eddie waited two days to take revenge on Karen. She was in her bedroom, bouncing on her bed as though it were a trampoline.

Eddie ran into her room. “Did you hear it?”

“What?”

“A car accident. In front of the house.” Karen’s bedroom window looked onto Snyder Street. Eddie opened the window. “Take a look!”

Karen poked her head through. “I can’t see anything.”

Before she could pull back, Eddie shoved with all of his strength. Karen screamed until she struck the first floor gable. She lay unconscious draped over the peak. She began to rock and then slide. “Yes,” Eddie rooted. “Just a little more.” Karen tumbled off the gable and landed on her back in a bush. Another two feet and she would have hit the cement sidewalk.

Karen broke three ribs, ruptured her spleen, and bruised her liver. She was in the hospital two weeks. Brian beat Eddie every night until Karen came home. Karen wore a chest brace and limped. She kept her distance from Eddie. She never spoke to him again.

Eddie no longer ate meals with the others. He took his dinner from the table and sat alone in a corner out of sight.

“Did your mother use the barber’s strap again?”

“No.”

The psychiatrist paused to let that sink in. “Why not?”

Eddie was silent.

“I’d like an honest answer, if you can manage it.”

“Okay, she felt guilty. That what you want to hear?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive her.”

“A child wouldn’t. You’re not a child anymore. If you had a chance to be with your family, would you share a meal?”

“My father’s dead.”

“Your mother?”

“Still around. And I wouldn’t eat with her, or my sisters.”

“You have another sister?”

“A younger one. I liked her. Still do. And I like Peter. But I wouldn’t eat with any of them. I always eat alone. In Nam, in the field, I never ate my MRE with the unit. They sat around a fire like Boy Scouts, heating up their MREs in their helmets. I ate mine cold so I could be alone. Maybe it’s why I volunteered for solo missions.”

“What missions?”

“I can’t talk about that.”

Dr. Mellon studied Eddie; saw the tight jaw. “Okay, then tell me about stealing the rent money. You said it felt good.”

“It was my first theft. I’d taken someone else’s money. The big rush was being in Mrs. Romano’s room. I was only five, yet I was an invader. I felt powerful.”

It was the standard reaction of a career criminal; said nothing about homicidal tendencies. Eddie’s five-year-old reverie about killing his parents was not unusual, though graphic. But pushing his sister out the window was different. “Ever feel bad about hurting your sister?”

“She had it coming.”

“What if she hadn’t laughed?”

“Still wouldn’t like her. But I wouldn’t push her out a window.”

“Then you would only hurt someone if they deserved it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

There was a rap on the door. Elroy peeked in.