Suicide Watch

His son may be a junkie, a dropout and a liar, but is he a murderer?

If you could tell me where Kenny is."

It was a matter of trust. He wanted to believe this. A father, a son in trouble. A father in his mid-50s, with obvious resources. A father who'd terminated a business trip to Seattle to fly to Philadelphia to help a troubled son. A father saying, "It's a matter of trust. If you could tell me where Kenny is."

He was careful not to say If you could tell us. For us would imply that the father was speaking on behalf of others. If you could tell me.

"And where Christa is."

Kenny, the missing grandson, was two years, three months old. He was "missing" in the sense that no one seemed to know where he was. The missing mother, Christa, wasn't a daughter-in-law because she and the son, Seth, weren't married. Seth was 28, Christa was a year or two younger.

"Seth? I mean, if there's any need for trust. If you are in danger...."

Slowly the son shook his head. Slowly his eyes lifted to the father's eyes. There was something wrong with the son's eyes: deep-set in their sockets, bloodshot, with a peculiar smudged glare like worn Plexiglas. The son's soot-colored hair was disheveled and matted, and his jaws were covered in stubble. The father took comfort in the fact that the son wasn't handcuffed or shackled to the table.

None of the other inmate-patients in the visitors' lounge, so far as the father had noticed, appeared to be restrained. Several were very large men. Like them, the son was wearing prison-issue clothing: pebble-gray shirt, gray sweatpants with an elastic waistband. The son was allowed to wear his own shoes, rotted-looking running shoes, minus laces. The son had been taken "forcibly" into police custody and remanded to the Philadelphia House of Detention for Men, psychiatric ward, a minimum of 48 hours observation, evaluation, round-the-clock suicide watch.

Suicide watch. For the son's forearms had been crudely slashed and bleeding when he'd been taken into police custody and it hadn't been clear from his dazed and incoherent account if he'd inflicted the wounds himself.

Both forearms, wayward gashes that hadn't severed any arteries. The father had been informed: In a normal state an individual probably couldn't slash both arms in such a way, but in an abnormal state--drug psychosis, mania--it could be done.

There were also minor burns on the son's fingers, the backs of both hands, his ankles. These were unexplained too.

The father tried not to stare at the son's bandaged arms. The father tried not to stare at an open sore on the son's upper lip. The father heard himself saying, calmly, "I mean, if there's danger in your immediate circumstances. Anyone who might want to hurt you, or...." The father wasn't sure what he was saying. He might have meant that the son might be in danger inside the detention facility or would be in danger when he was released. The father might have been speaking not of the son but of the two-year-old grandson and of Christa. The father was distracted by the son's breath, fetid as liquidy tar in which something had died and was decomposing.

"Hey, Dad: Who in hell'd want to hurt me?"

The son made a wheezing noise like laughter. The son was picking at the sore on his upper lip. Thumped one of his bandaged arms against the edge of the table. It was wrapped in soiled white gauze that looked as if it were leaking blood.

At least the son was speaking coherently. And the son had decided to speak to the father.

For the father had been warned by the resident psychiatrist that the son may not make sense or might refuse to speak at all. The son was joking, the father supposed. The son had, since childhood, cultivated a style of droll deadpan jokes to entertain, confound and dismay selected elders. The kind of joke that depended upon an expression of mock innocence. The kind of joke that hurts to tell (you had to assume) and hurts to hear. In this case the father interpreted the son's joke to mean: Who in hell'd want to hurt me, I'm past hurting.

Or: Who in hell'd want to hurt me, I can do that myself.

Or: Who in hell'd want to hurt me, I'm shit.

Of course it was the grandson, the two-year-old, of whom the father was thinking. On whose behalf the father was anxious. His only grandson, "missing." But believed to be in Philadelphia. Very likely, west Philadelphia. Two-year-old Kenny, whose name the father could scarcely speak without faltering. Halfway thinking Kenny was his son.

His son. As his son was meant to be.

"...a matter of trust, Seth. You know you can trust me."

For Seth had been questioned by police officers, and Seth had said repeatedly that he had "no idea" where his son was, where the son's mother was. "No idea" why neighbors on S. 43rd Street had called police to report what appeared to be a domestic disturbance. Why he'd been "forcibly arrested" at three o'clock in the morning, shirtless and barefoot and covered in blood from gashes in both his forearms, outside the row house on S. 43rd Street where he'd been living with his son and the young woman named Christa.

Nor had Seth any idea of what had happened inside the house. The overflowing tub in the bathroom on the second floor, water so scalding hot its steam had caused paint to blister and peel off the ceiling and walls, plastic fixtures to melt. On the landing outside the bathroom, on the stairs, scalding hot water had done more damage, and in the kitchen raw garbage floated in puddles. Police officers reported drug paraphernalia, broken glass and broken toys, sodden clothes. Bloodstains, human vomit. Cockroaches.

Where was the two-year-old child amid the wreckage? Where was the child's mother?

"Missing."

Painful for the father to utter the name: Kenny.

"Seth, if you could tell me. Where Kenny is. If...."

Seth he could utter. Niorde, Seth M. He'd become accustomed to Niorde, Seth M. as a name that might require being stated in the way you might state the name of a recurring illness, a chronic condition. At the reception desk, stating the purpose of his visit. Niorde, Laurence C. Father. Eager to provide a driver's license, a passport. For the father was a businessman-traveler who carried his passport with him much of the time, for he traveled frequently by air. Domestic flights, transatlantic.

Mr. Niorde, wait here. He'd waited.

He wasn't shown the police report, but he was informed of its contents, which seemed to him confusing, inconclusive. He'd been shown Polaroids of the interior of the row house at 1189 S. 43rd Street and he'd been stunned by what he saw. Evidence of his son's madness. Sickness. In one of the photos what appeared to be a small lifeless body broken like a toy amid the water-soaked debris.

"Oh my God. Oh."

Of course, it wasn't. Looking more closely he saw that it was just twisted sodden clothing, possibly a child's.

Still, the father had been badly frightened. He had not expected to be so badly frightened, so soon.

Telling himself, It's just the beginning. This journey.

He was led through the security checkpoint. He smiled; he was eager to comply. It wasn't so very different from airport security, to which he was accustomed. He tried not to observe that he was the (continued on page 143) Suicide Watch(continued from page 94) only white man in view. Tried not to note how brusquely he was ordered to empty his pockets, turn his pockets inside out, remove his shoes and pass through a metal detector. Tried not to mind being frisked by a frowning guard who avoided eye contact.

But never had he entered such a place: the Philadelphia House of Detention for Men.

Psychiatric ward.

This was a fact: Niorde, Seth M. had been a patient at several drug rehabilitation clinics (Hartford, New York City). But the father had not visited the son in these places. The mother had visited him; that had seemed sufficient at the time.

In the visitors' lounge he was escorted to a small table and told to wait, and so with increasing anxiety he waited. Here too Niorde, Laurence C. was the only Caucasian in sight. He was 57--a youthful 57--but he was the oldest individual in the room. In his businessman clothes, he was weirdly dressed. He was perspiring and short of breath and not so immaculately groomed as he'd been 15 hours before in another time zone. Still you had only to glance at him to recognize a man with resources. A man with investments, properties. He had residences in Fairfield, Connecticut; Wellfleet, Massachusetts; Boca Raton, Florida. He was a man not inclined to shift in his seat nervously, to tug at his shirt collar, to wipe his forehead with wadded tissue. A man not inclined to glance up anxiously at strangers.

The son Seth, looking like a stranger! Though of course the father recognized the son immediately.

Now there were two Caucasian males in the room.

A guard was bringing the son to the father, bypassing other guards, visitors. The father stared at the son's bandaged arms held stiffly at his sides. The son's sallow slack face and scratched-glassy eyes. How weak-limbed the son appeared, like an elderly man negotiating a tilting floor.

"Oh God. Seth."

With a twitchy smirk-smile the son acknowledged the staring father. "'S me."

It wasn't clear what the son had mumbled. It's me?

Like a load of damp sand off a shovel the son sank into a grimy vinyl chair. The father's nostrils began to pinch; immediately he smelled something dank, tarry-fetid. So the visit began. Like a small rudderless boat being tossed in the waves of a river too vast to be seen, so the father felt himself dazed, desperate. He had only one question to ask. But he dared not ask his question too quickly. Too emphatically. Too obviously. He assured the son, or anyway tried to assure the son, who might have been listening, that he would arrange for a lawyer for him by noon tomorrow. He would post bail. He would insist upon private medical care. As soon as the son was released.... The father was distracted by a large glaring clock on the facing wall. Visiting hours in the facility ended at nine P.M.; he hadn't been escorted into the lounge until 8:35 P.M. The father was distracted by the busyness and commotion of the place. Tables spanned the breadth of the overheated, low-ceilinged room, and most of these tables were being used. Visitors were facing inmates--blacks, Hispanics--some of them speaking loudly, excitedly. The father hadn't been prepared for so many others. Having to raise his voice to be heard and then uncertain if he was being heard. The father was not dressed appropriately; he'd become itchy-warm and so felt the need to remove his suit coat and hang it on the back of his grimy vinyl chair. The father was speaking to his mostly unresponsive son in a lowered voice not meant to sound anxious. Not wanting to sound as if he were begging.

Each time the father glanced up at the glaring clock the minute hand leaped forward. Twenty minutes remained.

The father hadn't booked a hotel room in Philadelphia for the night. Beyond nine P.M. the father hadn't allowed himself to think.

"Can I! How'd I know that, Dad?"

What was Seth saying? The father hadn't exactly heard. The father wasn't sure if the son was responding to something the father had said or if the son was saying something unrelated, belatedly, in a slurred mumble. The son was partially hiding his mouth with his hand; his front teeth were stained the hue of urine. And there was the fetid breath of teeth rotting in the son's jaws.

"Trust me? Of course you can trust me. If you know where the boy is...."

It seemed urgent to touch the son. Touching by visitors and inmate-patients was not forbidden. Yet the father could not bring himself to touch the son, though the son was slouched in his chair only two or three feet away. One of the son's hands hovered at his mouth; the other was a scabby-knuckled fist on the table.

Impossible to close your fingers in a gesture of sympathy around a tight-clenched fist.

"Seth? If Christa has him, if you know where Christa is...."

"Told you, and I told them. Don't know where'n hell Ch'ista went."

"But...did she take him? Kenny?"

A small trusting face, luminous eyes. The father had not seen the grandson in months, which had been a mistake he didn't recall having made, as in a dream in which something has gone terribly and irrevocably wrong but the dreamer can't recall what it is, still less how to grieve for it.

"Must've. I told them. Must've told you, I told them."

The father wondered if them meant the police officers. The father didn't want to risk inquiring.

Important to keep the son speaking. To keep eye contact. To appeal to the son. Yet not to beg, for begging had never seemed to work.

The father had vowed last time, and the time before that, he would not beg the son again. He would not.

"See, what it's like.... It's like cement, in your gut."

"Cement? What is like cement?"

Seth yawned. Suddenly, a luxuriant yawn. The terrible rotting breath that made the father's nostrils pinch.

This time it was methamphetamine, the father had been informed. Previously it had been crack cocaine. In prep school, marijuana, cocaine. Once the son had been a beautiful boy who'd taken clarinet lessons, had an interest in astronomy, a boy whose high grades came with a minimum of effort; this was official family history.

"...trying to shit cement. In your gut. Time. When it doesn't pass."

"Seth, what are we talking about? Are we talking about.... I'm not sure, Seth, what are we talking about?"

Time. Talking about time. Time that doesn't pass. Or was it time passing too swiftly? The father leaned closer, elbows on the table. The father tried not to glance up at the glaring clock face where another time the minute hand leaped forward. The father had to fight an impulse to lunge at the son, grab the son's slumped shoulders and shake, shake, shake. Slap the gaunt stubble-cheeks. Shout in the son's face instead of trying to keep his voice calm, measured, fatherly warm, sympathetic and yet not outwardly pleading.

"Seth? Try not to fall asleep, will you? If you could just tell me where you think Kenny might be, or Christa. Is there someone she might have gone to, with Kenny? If she didn't have a car, where could she have gone on foot...?"

The father had been cautioned: Whatever his son told him, if the son told the father anything, would very likely be confused and incomplete and possibly inaccurate, for the addict son might not know what had happened or might not remember. The child had been missing for at least 48 hours but possibly longer. The child might have been gone before Wednesday. Neighbors on S. 43rd Street who'd called police were not certain what they'd seen. They thought they'd seen Christa leaving the residence at about 11 P.M., running out into the street into a nearby intersection alone. But other neighbors had reported a child crying. A child half carried and half dragged by a young woman. Except it wasn't clear when this had been: Wednesday night or another night. A day earlier. Two days earlier. Residents of the 1100 block of S. 43rd Street gave police conflicting information. The father learned that twice in the past six weeks Philadelphia police officers had responded to "domestic disturbance" complaints at 1189 S. 43rd Street.

Officers had spoken with the adults at that address. No arrests had been made.

"Seth? Tell me about Christa? Were you quarreling with her? Is that why Christa took Kenny away? And where would...."

The father hadn't ever felt comfortable speaking the name Christa.

A wanly attractive girl, very thin, slouch-shouldered like the son, sulky-quiet, at least in the father's presence, something smudged and sly about the eyes. She wasn't a daughter-in-law and she wasn't a girl whom Seth had seemed specially to care for, yet somehow it happened that Christa was the mother of Seth's child, which made her the (improbable, undesirable) mother of the grandson, Kenny, whose name the father can scarcely utter. The father had given the son money from time to time. Not for drugs (of course!) but on behalf of Kenny (that was the hope, the plea), but it hadn't been as much money as the son had wished and in recent months the money had ceased altogether. The father had met Christa only three times. He had no idea who her family was, if Christa had a family, if there were adults, parents, individuals like himself who were providing money, however intermittently. The father had not exchanged more than a few perfunctory words with Christa and never, he'd later realized, apart from the son's presence. In his own household the son had exuded a slovenly and unexpected glower of sexuality, laying hands on his female companion, stroking his female companion's straw-blonde hair, kissing the sulky mouth with the father looking on.

The father hadn't known whether to believe what the son had told him: He and Christa had first met in an economics class at Penn. That Christa had been a scholarship student at Penn. That Christa had remained in school for a final semester after Seth had dropped out, after they'd begun living together in an apartment off campus.

The son had had high SAT scores somehow. The father had wanted to think, He takes after me.

"...know her name, Dad? Never met her."

"Never met Christa? Is that what you're saying? Seth, of course I've met Christa."

"...or him, you met him?"

"Kenny? My grandson? Of course I've met Kenny. You must know that."

"You know his name? 'Ken-ny.'"

The son's mouth began to quiver. The eyes were rapidly blinking. A look of something like hurt, tenderness, regret came into the son's face.

"See, Dad, I called you. Never called back."

"Called me? When?"

"When? That night."

"Which night?"

"That night. That it happened."

"What happened?"

"You should've called, Dad. I told you."

Maybe this was so. The father was having trouble recalling. The father had not always called the son back. The father had sometimes seen Pennsylvania on his caller ID and not picked up the phone. The father had more than once erased the son's rambling message midway.

In a loud, aggrieved voice Seth was saying, "She took him! Fucking junkie, know what she did? Wrapped him in this stuff like a mummy shroud. Wrapped him in tinsel like Christmas. Like, you shake this stuff, it shoots sparks. I never wanted to. It was her." The son's outburst was so sudden, one of the guards approached him. Without glancing around, instinctively Seth hunched his shoulders and lowered his head, protecting himself against a blow. He crossed his bandaged arms tightly over his chest and clamped both hands beneath his armpits rocking forward in his chair. The guard told the son to keep it down and told the father visiting hours were almost over, but the guard did not touch the son. The terrible minute hand on the wall clock leaped forward. The father dared to reach out to the son, hesitantly touching the son's arm at the elbow. The son was hunched over, breathing heavily. "Seth? What are you saying? She took him where?" and the son shivered and said, "I said to her, she's a bad mother. And she's trying to get past me and open the door. There's this steam from the tub. The bathroom. I wasn't high, I hadn't been high all day; my mind was clear like glass. The thing is, the kid isn't in the bathroom. He's shit himself, puked and shit himself, and she never got around to cleaning him. She is such a bad mother! Should've called the cops myself. What I did was, I hid him out in the back, the car. My car, I had. I hid him in the backseat. I know I did. I said, 'It's a game we're playing with Mommy. You stay here and keep your head down, and if she calls, you don't look up, okay?' and Kenny says, 'Yes, Daddy.' He's a smart kid; he always trusted his daddy. Couldn't trust his junkie mommy but trusted his daddy. It's a responsibility, a kid like that. How the world keeps going, the human race, it's like cement in your guts you have somehow to shit, how the human race keeps going is a riddle. So she comes in--this woman she's been out and she's high and she comes in; I'm waiting for her. And rightaway she says, 'Where is my baby?' and I'm like, 'Your baby is in the tub having his bath that you should've done last night,' and she says, 'I want to see Kenny, let me past,' because I wasn't letting her past me, had hold of both her wrists like these little sparrow bones you could break like snapping your fingers. I'm like, 'You can't, he's having his bath,' and she's excited, saying, 'If you hurt him, I'll call the cops,' and I say, 'Call the cops? The cops are going to fucking bust you,' and now she really gets excited, all this while the steam is coming out beneath the door. I was sleeping in the front room, and it must've been the tub got filled and the damn hot water keeps pouring out and there's water condensing on the walls even downstairs and dripping from the ceiling and hot water starting to come down the stairs--it's a wild scene--and she's screaming, 'Get him out of there! Open the door!' The door was locked from the outside, this berserk woman on the stairs clawing at me, and the bathroom door is hot like fire, the doorknob so hot you can't touch it, all this steam all over everything, I'm sweating like a pig, and somebody's screaming, you'd think it was Kenny screaming, 'Daddy! Daddy!' but it can't be Kenny. I know this because Kenny is outside hiding in the car, and Christa's fighting me. Christa gets the door open, the steam is burning us, and I'm waiting for you, Dad--for you to call. And you don't call, and you're not here," and the father said, "Me? Waiting for me?" and the son said, "It was a test, Dad. To see how long it would take you to get here," and the father said slowly, "I don't understand, Seth. You were waiting for me here, in Philadelphia?" and the son said, "You had your chance, Dad. Hell of a lot of times I called you, left a message, and now it's too late," and the father said, "But I'm here now. Where is Kenny? If he was in the car, where is the car? He wasn't in the bathroom but in the car, was he? Seth, please tell me," and the son said, "Hey, Dad: You tell me. You're the one with all the answers, I thought," and the father said, trying not to beg, "You didn't hurt him, did you? Did you hurt his mother? Where are they? Please tell me," and the son said, "Her, how in hell'd I know where she is! Damn junkie you can't trust behind your back. Him, I told you: He was in the car. Sleeping in the backseat. I was telling her: He isn't in the bathroom, he's in the car. She's clawing at me to get past me. She's got the bathroom door open, and there's the cloud of pure steam and hot water on our feet, our ankles. It's burning us. There's noise from the water rushing from the faucet, now the water's coming out like a flood. What I do is grab a chair to stand on, would've been scalded if I hadn't. And Christa is on the stairs, and she slips and falls, and she's screaming, the water is so hot. And there's so much steam you can hardly see. And there's the kid, there's Kenny in the water! There's Kenny in the bathroom, on the floor. Kind of wedged under the sink. These pipes under the sink, he's kind of wedged there. It's hard to see in all the steam, I'm thinking it isn't him; I'd been sleeping downstairs and wakened by her coming home and making so much noise, it's like a dream, I'm thinking it's some other thing under the sink that crawled in there, a squirrel, like, or a dog the size of a Pekingese, the fur is scalded off this poor thing, it's got to be dead, boiled dead, the skin is all red and blistered and coming off in my hands and the eyes are popping. I'm thinking somehow the kid got past me and hid up in the bathroom. Why'd he do that and lock the door behind him! He was naked, like somebody was giving him a bath but went away, and the water got too hot. So I'm thinking maybe Christa did it, somehow. When I was asleep. I know this: I left Kenny in the car. It had to be her; it wasn't me. Think I'm going to call 911, try to explain to the cops or anybody, like hell they'd believe me. They would not believe me. The hot water ran out finally. Now it's cold water so the steam wasn't so bad. So I got the faucet off. So I tried to help Kenny, but it's too late. Splashed cold water on him but anybody can see it's too late. I picked him up, he was so hot! His little body, the skin was all red and peeling off on my fingers, and his face red and wizened like a little old man, it was a terrible thing. Must've been calling me--'Daddy! Daddy!'--but there was so much noise from the water, I couldn't hear him. Christ, I'm feeling so bad about this, what happened to Kenny, it's like...like there are no words.... Later, we're downstairs, and there's water here, too. We've got Kenny on the kitchen table, and Christa is crying over him, wrapping him in cold soaked towels, ice cubes from the freezer, thinks he's breathing but he is not breathing, then she wraps him in some stuff like gauze and tinsel paper that's sparkly and she said would 'preserve' him from decay for a while at least. And it's my idea to send him to you."

During this torrent of words, the father was staring at the son. Pulses beating in his ears, barely could he hear the son's terrible words. It seemed crucial to watch the son: the mouth. The smirk-smile, the sore on the upper lip. The father laughed suddenly, a sound like fabric being torn.

"None of this is true, is it? Seth? You're making this up, are you? My God."

"Fuck I'd be jiving about my own son! Not like you, Dad, that doesn't give a shit about your son." Seth spoke shrilly, like a hurt child. He continued to rock in the vinyl chair, hands clamped in his armpits. "So--we got high, we were so stressed. And Christa says, 'We will bury our son ourselves. A decent burial.' For Christa saw the folly of summoning help, any kind of help, as I did and always have. And I'm like, 'We can send him to my father. He can bury him.' So we got some garbage bags from out in the alley that our neighbors had put trash in, and we dumped out the trash and put this little tinsel mummy that hardly weighed more than a cat would weigh in the bags, more than one bag for safekeeping. Then we wrapped it all tight with wire. Then there's cardboard cartons in the cellar, we bring one of them up and put Kenny inside, it's a tight fit. And we wrap this all up tight and secure, and what I can remember of the address in Boca Raton is just Prudhomme Circle. So I make out the address label to 'L. Niorde, Prudhomme Circle, Boca Raton, FL' and lock the box in the car trunk and next morning I take it to the post office and mail it, parcel post. And the guy behind the counter says, 'Are the contents breakable?' and I say, 'Yes. The contents are breakable.' So he stamps it 'fragile' like they pay any fucking attention to 'fragile' at the fucking P.O.--don't bullshit me. However long it takes for the package to get to Boca Raton, I don't know. Might be a week. I figure it's time that's stopped. For me in here, like for Kenny where he is. Because nobody knows where my son is. Because the damn package might get lost. And nobody's staying at the Florida place now, right? Not you and not Mom. So Kenny is like 'nowhere'--'no time.'" The son smiled a slow sly stained-tooth smile. "See, Dad. It's a test."

"A test...."

"You've been believing this! That's the test."

The father heard himself say, "I...I didn't believe you. As if I would believe such a--"

"Don't bullshit me, Dad. You believe it! You still do, I can see it in your eyes. That's the test, Dad."

"...a terrible story, from my own...."

The father's feet were tangled in something. His suit coat had fallen to the floor from the back of the vinyl chair. Stooping to pick it up he felt his face pound with blood. His heart pounded strangely. The son was jeering at him; the son was on his feet preparing to leave the visitors' lounge. The father was pleading, "It isn't true, then? Kenny isn't...." It must have been nine P.M.; visitors were being asked to leave. There was a scraping of chairs, commotion. Loud voices, emotional farewells. The son was being led away by a guard, and the father tried to follow after him but was restrained. At the doorway the son took pity on the father, called back over his shoulder, "Hey, Dad: If the carton shows up where I mailed it, then you'll know. If not, you'll know too."

He'd been shown polaroids and been stunned by what he saw. Evidence of his son's madness. sickness.