Maxwell Treat’s Museum of Torture
for Young Girls and Boys
by Carole Lanham
“If
you turn the lever the wrong way, you’ll hear a click and a
pitchfork will swoop down and skewer your big dumb head
like a meatball,” Maxwell Treat said, pointing to the
La-Z-Boy recliner cordoned off with hot-pink jump ropes in
the back of the museum. Lumbar support aside, the machine
was pure Spanish Inquisition. “You’ll hear a click if you
turn the lever the right way too, only the buckle will snap
open and you’ll get to go free.”
“Which way is the right way?” Hayden asked. At the time,
Maxwell only smiled. “Hop in and find out.” That was two
weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, Hayden Finch had no intention of putting
Max’s chair to the test. But sometimes things change.
Sometimes a boy can’t help but find himself with a pitch
fork aimed at his big dumb head, and no way out but to make
a choice.
* * *
It began with a railroad crossing, a flashing light, and a
red and white gate. Hayden wondered if his father had
looked at his mother to get her input on the matter. Did
Mom stick up her thumb and say, “Go for it, Larry?” Or did
she shake her head? Maybe Dad didn’t look at her at all.
Maybe instead of looking at Mom, he’d looked at the 8:15
barreling toward them and made the decision all by himself.
Hayden wished he knew so he could decide where to put the
blame.
In any case, after the railroad crossing, he was sent to
Bible, Iowa, to live on a turkey farm with his cousins in a
house that smelled of pee, stale Oreos, and dirty socks. He
was handed Power Ranger sheets and told to sleep where he
liked. He was introduced to three boys with a hobby so
peculiar that things could only lead to a rusted lever and
a right or wrong click.
His first day started with a demonstration. “A good
guillotine will dump the head in the basket for you,” Max
said, pulling the release. The blade shot down and split a
grapefruit in a spray of pink blood. A drip of juice hung
off the tip of Max’s nose. It quivered when he breathed.
“Want to try it?” he asked, the drip quivering fast and
furious.
At fourteen, Max was the oldest and most obsessive of the
brothers, but Merkle was no less inclined to split things
open and anyway, his name was Merkle. Merk,
they called him. Or Merky. It was a family name. Merk was
thirteen like Hayden. The youngest was called Minor. Max,
Merk, and Minor were building a torture museum in their
garage. Hayden took one look at Maxwell’s guillotine and
cursed his parents as he had never cursed them before.
When they weren’t tending turkeys, everyone had a job to
do. Minor made signs that said things like TEN MORE MILES
TO IOWA’S MOST TORTOROUS TORTURE MUSEUM or LAST CHANCE FOR
TORTURE – TAKE EXIT 210 AND TURN RIGHT AT MCDONALDS. He
tipped the signs so the red letters would run. Merkle was
transforming the tomato patch into a parking lot. Max was
in charge of the devices. Seeing how Hayden was the only
torture novice in the group, he did duty with each of the
brothers in order to learn the ropes.
“What’s Uncle Tommy say about you having a guillotine?”
Hayden asked after the grapefruit execution. “Isn’t he
worried you’ll hurt yourself?”
“Naw. Daddy thinks tourism would be good for Bible. Would
you believe it, there ain’t a decent torture museum for a
hundred miles around?”
Max was an enterprising boy, there was no disputing that.
He’d set up a website asking people to donate their
medieval torture devices to the cause. Hayden laughed at
first but the packages kept coming.
“Now what is that one, dear?” Aunt Tawny would ask.
“In-step borer, Ma.”
The new in-step borer made Aunt Tawny giggle and bury her
face in a dish towel. “You be careful with that, Maxwell.”
The brothers wanted the place to be a family museum with
something for everyone. They had grand ideas. In the lobby,
families would be able to dress in rags, climb in the
stocks, and get a Polaroid for three bucks. For five bucks,
the Treats would jeer at them and bounce cabbages off their
skulls. There would be Hands-On exhibits for the little
ones as well: a tongue-curb, a finger-straightener, a
Spanish Tickler. Minor had created an educational
Paint-by-Numbers for the bigger kids. Grown-ups would enjoy
a pictorial history of the devices in action.
One day, Max suggested practicing his tour guide skills on
Hayden, offering him The Curious
Boy’s Special which included
a Gatorade and a peek in the Off-Limits Room at the back of
the museum. Max printed his spiel on a set of green index
cards but tried not to look at them when he talked.
“First up we have something called Tucker’s Telephone
donated by Mr. Herman Long of Cotter Arkansas. This phone
might look like a plain old crank telephone but it’s been
wired with two dry cell batteries and it will give you a
shock if you crank it. Tucker’s Telephone was damaging
organs as late as 1968 at the Tucker State Prison Farm.”
Max checked his cards. “Care to make a call, little miss?”
he said.
“On your right, we have a genuine certified replica of a
Brazen Bull, brainchild of the Tyrant of Agrigentum
himself. Prisoners were put in the brass belly and roasted
alive. So as to keep the mood fun during executions, the ox
head was designed with a system of tubes that converted the
prisoners screams into sounds like those of a bellowing
bull. As an added advantage, the victim’s scorched bones
shone like gems afterward and could be made into lovely
braclets…”
Hayden sipped grape Gatorade as thumbscrews crushed the
bones of Virginia slaves and “Judas Chairs” reaped havoc on
the bottoms of luckless Protestants. Max was a real
showman, gesturing grandly and making pop-eyes at invisible
patrons. “Last but not least, we come to the Off Limits
Room. This, girls and boys, is a room that only very
special individuals ever get to see.”
“Yeah, those that cough up five big ones,” Hayden laughed.
“Shhhh. You may think you’ve seen it all, folks, but I warn
you, the devices in this room are far too horrid to be
shown to the public. If anyone is having second thoughts, I
advise you to turn back now.” Max paused, his eyes sweeping
from one side of the garage to the other. “Anyone?” Another
pause. “Very well. Enter at your own risk.”
Some of the hinges had been oiled but not the hinges on the
Off Limits Room door. These hinges screamed like a woman
forced to stick her hand in boiling water. Even though he
might easily have flipped on the lights, Max carried a
lantern for added suspense. The window was too grimy to
ruin the effect and the kerosene glow left the corners
suitably shrouded in darkness. A series of magic marker
words led the way to a “Breaking Wheel,” a “Coat of Shame,”
etc. The dismembered doll hanging from the ceiling seemed a
nice touch, but by now Hayden had grown jaded. “It just
feels like more of the same.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, son. Would you judge
the Lou‑ver without first seeing the Mona Lisa? I think
not! Well, here it is, ladies and gentlemen, the jewel of
the museum: the dreaded Fork in the
Road.”
A giant pitchfork-shaped shadow climbed the far wall.
“The Fork in the
Road was discovered
in the root cellar of ninety-two year old Bible native,
Barton Moonie, after his death in 1989. Seven bodies and a
diary were also unearthed. According to his notes, Moonie’s
victims were strapped into the seat and asked to choose
their fate by turning a lever; one direction spelling
freedom, the other a fork to the head. In his diary, Moonie
claimed the most essential part of the Fork in the
Road was giving the
victim time to labor over the decision. Four people died of
fright before they ever touched the lever. Do you see these
words here on the handle?”
“Yes.”
“Fiat
Voluntas Dei. May God’s
will be done.”
Hayden shivered.
“I only wish I could tell you the secret regarding
the Fork in the
Road. Alas, I’m
bound by ethics to hold my tongue.”
“Secret?”
“Much like magic, there are tricks of the trade that one
must never divulge. Anyway…” Max made a bow. “This
concludes your tour of The Maxwell
Treat Museum of Torture for Young Girls and
Boys. Don’t forget
to stop by our gift shop.”
At first, Hayden barely heard this part; he was so busy
inspecting the jewel of the museum – a pitchfork suspended
over a chair of torn plaid. Then it hit him. “Hey, don’t I
get my name in there somewhere too?”
Max rearranged his index cards. “It was my idea. Without
me, there’d be no museum.”
Hayden shrugged. He didn’t care anyway. “Are you really
going to have a gift shop?”
“Yep. I’ve been making gallows out of toothpicks since I
was four. I’ve got enough merchandise to fill a Wal-Mart.”
* * *
There was only one thing Hayden shared in common with his
cousins and that was their interest in Minor’s speech
therapist; a wiggly woman with long blonde hair, a bright
blue angel tattoo, and the improbable name of Miss Butter.
Miss Butter was delicious. She came every Wednesday at ten
a.m., beeping her horn three times in the drive to signal
her arrival. If you ran to her car fast enough, you’d get
to carry her picture cards and puppets, earning yourself a
nice pat on the head. While the Treats excelled at talents
like dragging out burps, growing mold, and retooling
devices meant for destroying the soles of feet, Hayden had
been the fastest runner in grade eight back in Pleasant
Valley and this proved handy with Miss Butter. As a result,
the boys had developed a new obsession: Beat Hayden to the
car.
The first couple of weeks, Hayden won easily because he
caught the Treats off guard. Once the Treats put their
energy into out-smarting Hayden, however, running fast
wasn’t good enough. He realized what he was up against the
morning he discovered his Sketchers nailed to the
floorboards in the hall at nine fifty-five. “Heh-heh,” Max
said, as Miss Butter gave him a little pet.
Sad to say, carrying Miss Butter’s puppets was the high
point of Hayden’s week. The following Wednesday, he waited
on the roof and jumped in front of her bumper before she
had chance to beep. “Heh-heh,” he said to Max, who had been
too busy setting fire to Hayden’s shoes on the porch to get
his hands on Miss Butter’s puppets.
* * *
There were worse things in Hayden’s life than guillotines
and unrequited love. At night, he heard train whistles in
his brain as he tossed on his couch bed. The house rattled
with the approach of something he feared to see. In his
head, his father turned to his mother time and time again,
his dark face flashing. Mom’s eyes followed the track to a
white beam of light…
Did they forget he was waiting for them at home? Three
spoons on the counter lined up and ready to dig into a tub
of Cherry Garcia. The next movie on the list on the
refrigerator, Back to the
Future, already
scratched off with a Sharpie. Risk
laid out on the
kitchen table, just in case Back to the
Future turned out to
be dumb. And he’d
waited.
Each evening, tossing in that shadowy place between
wakefulness and sleep, his father prepared to gun it and
Hayden held his breath. Then he’d feel the cat hair and
Cheerio dust creeping out of the couch cushions to remind
him of where he was, and he’d know they’d failed to think
of him again.
Sometimes he stopped the train by thinking of Miss Butter’s
little blue angel. Other nights, Aunt Tawny would sink down
beside him and pat his back. Together, they would listen to
the sounds of clicking and snapping in the garage. “I wish
I had their energy,” she might say.
Then Uncle Tommy would drift in too, scratching his butt
and yawning loudly. “Shoot. I wish I had their brains.”
Weird as they were, Hayden couldn’t imagine his aunt and
uncle choosing a train over their boys.
* * *
“I have sad news, boys,” Aunt Tawny said one morning over
breakfast. “Miss Butter can’t come on Wednesdays no more.”
Three forks clanked against three china plates hard enough
to cause chips.
“Why?” Hayden said, his heart in his throat.
“Schedule conflict,” she said. “Don’t worry. We’ll find
another day for Miss Butter to come.”
* * *
Later that week, they were throwing garbage around the
stocks to make things look more Elizabethan when Merk said,
“You sure do like that speech therapist, don’t you,
Hayden?”
“I knew better girls in California,” Hayden lied.
“I bet she’d melt if you kissed her,” Merk said. “Get it?
Like butter.”
“Forget Miss Butter,” Max said. “We’re onto something big
here.”
“People do love pain,” Merk said.
Hayden snorted at this. “Not me.”
“That’s on account you ain’t played the game yet,” Max told
him.
Hayden dumped apple cores around the kid-sized stocks.
“What game?”
“The Execution Game.” Merk said. “Max is the executioner.
We get to be the condemned.”
“I want to be an ax murderer,” Minor said.
“You’re always an ax murderer,” Merk complained. “Why don’t
you be a Christian for once?”
Minor stuck out his lip. “No.”
“You could be a saint,” Merk coaxed. “I’m going to be St.
Anthony the Abbot, the patron saint of skin diseases. Do
you want to be a saint, Hayden?”
Max pulled on a black hood. “Hayden’s gonna be Hannibal the
Cannibal.”
“Fffat’s not fair,” Minor said.
Max snapped a horse whip. “Silence! You will all be
sentenced according to your sins. Minor Treat, please step
forward.” Minor leapt from the ranks. “You have been
charged with murdering folks with an ax. As punishment, you
are hereby ordered into the guillotine.”
Max pushed Minor against the teeterboard and tilted him
horizontal.
Hayden gulped. “That can’t be safe.”
“Quiet you,
or
I’ll remove your tongue!”
“That guillotine is old,” Hayden said.
Max swiped the air with a Swiss army knife, the fish-scaler
open and glinting evilly.
Merkle laughed. “I’d like to see you lop off Hannibal’s
tongue.”
“Grrrrrr,” Max said, thrusting the scaler first at Hayden,
then at Merkle, warning them to hush up. “Do you have any
last words?” he asked Minor.
Minor spat.
“Very well then, prepare to meet your maker.”
Max reached for the handle. Hayden shut his eyes and
imagined Minor’s head squirting like a grapefruit.
Ching!
Hayden heard a gasp—a gurgle—a wooden thud. Something
rolled against his foot. Merk let out a scream. Hayden kept
his eyes shut tight. Each beat of his heart exploded like a
cannon in his chest.
“Poor Minor,” Merk wailed. “He couldn’t even say his
th
sounds.”
Swallowing hard, Hayden opened his eyes. There it was,
malformed and gooshy. Wrinkly and rotten. “Grapefruit?”
The brothers laughed their butts off. “You’re so easy,
Hayden.”
“I’m leaving,” Hayden said.
Maxwell’s beefy fingers dug into his arm. “You ain’t going
anywhere until I execute you, mister.”
Hayden had no intention of sticking his head in a
guillotine.
“Hannibal Lecter, for the crime of eating things you ain’t
supposed to eat , I sentence you to the…
Fork in the Road.”
“But that’s my favorite,” Merk objected.
“I’m saving The
Gunner’s Daughter for you,
Merkle.”
Merkle grinned.
“To the fork!” Max shouted, leading the boys to the Off
Limits Room. Merk fired up the lantern.
“Forget it,” Hayden said. “I’m not getting in that thing.”
Maxwell checked his watch. “Do you still want to know the
secret behind the Fork?”
“I thought you had too much ethics to tell?”
“If you’ll get in the Fork, I’ll make an exception.”
Hayden examined the key hole-shaped buckle. He
was
a
little curious.
Max checked his watch as if there was a time limit on his
decision. “There are only three people alive who know the
secret. After today, there could be four.”
Merk clucked like a chicken. Minor clucked too. Max dangled
the buckle key in front of Hayden’s nose. “Well?”
Hayden flopped down on the sagging cushion. “God, it smells
like dead cats.”
Max put the key in the keyhole. “Prepare to meet your
fate!” With that, he gave the key a twist.
Just then, three loud beeps came from the drive. “Miss
Butter!” they cried, dashing to the window.
Max dropped the key in his pocket and smiled. “Heh-heh.”
* * *
There was a clot of hair stuck to one of the tines. Hayden
knew this because they were four inches from his face. He
planned to throw up on Max when they let him out.
It was Monday, not Wednesday. The little rats must have
learned Miss Butter’s new schedule and planned accordingly.
He watched them disappear in the house from behind a dirty
window.
An hour passed. Hayden sat still as death. He barely
breathed. The boys burst out the front door, laughing and
showing off. Miss Butter gave them each a pat and drove
off.
The boys went back in the house.
“Hey!” Hayden yelled; wiggling so hard, a tine grazed his
forehead. “Hey!”
The lantern worried him. Max said it added drama but what
if they meant to leave him in the Fork all night? He
thought of the rat droppings that pebbled the floor. “Hey!”
he yelled.
Aunt Tawny wouldn’t stand for it. Hayden watched the front
door hopefully. Any minute now, they’d fly outside, Aunt
Tawny whipping their back sides with her chili pepper hot
pad. Another fifteen minutes ticked by before Hayden
remembered that Aunt Tawny had taken his uncle for a root
canal.
“Let me outta here!” he hollered, but there was no one to
hear. He was too restless to just sit still and worry. He
rattled the machine in an effort to shake it apart. In his
fury, Hayden kicked over the lantern.
* * *
At first it only sputtered and licked an oily rag. A nearby
noose sizzled. Hayden pulled at the buckle and screamed.
When no one came out of the house, his eyes fell on the
lever.
No.
He didn’t want to choose! The tines bobbed before his face,
their dull tips blackened with the gooey signs of wrong
choices. “Help me!” Hayden screamed.
The fire was like a little orange squirrel jumping from
branch to branch, only in this case it jumped from index
card to index card, eating them as it went.
The machine was rickety as sin. Perhaps it didn’t even
work? What if he chose correctly and the fork didn’t swoop
but the lock didn’t open either?
Fiat
Voluntas Dei. May God’s will be
done.
The wall was burning now. Black smoke curled around him. He
looked at the lever. What if he chose wrong? What if the
fork skewered him like a meatball but didn’t kill him right
off? It would hurt having it stuck in his face.
“Help!”
He tried holding his breath. His eyes hurt. He looked at
the lever.
Much as he didn’t want to do it, he relived his parents
final moments once more as the time for his own decision
drew closer. For the five hundredth time, the Nissan raced
toward the crossing. The Blockbuster bag sat on Mom’s lap.
Cherry Garcia perspired on the floor. But this time,
something seemed different. Dad looked at Mom, but his face
didn’t flash. Nothing whistled. The arm stayed up.
Could it be?
Could it be that there was no warning? No whistle? No
decision? Maybe they’d hopped in and buckled up, unaware
they were making any decision at all because they trusted
things would be okay. God or fate or chance decided for
them, whether there was a whistle or not.
God’s will
be done.
I was always going to come to Bible, Hayden thought. I was
always going to sit in this chair. Out loud, he said, “The
decision, in essence, has already been made.”
He twisted the lever right. Right for his mom, the only
right-handed person in the family. Right because a fork
went on the left side of a plate. Right, because this
seemed as good a choice as any.
Click.
The fork groaned. Hayden flinched. The buckle opened.
He crawled from the burning museum, blind and choking, five
years’ worth of toothpick gallows embedded in his palms.
Under a sign that read YOU ARE HERE, the Treat boys
descended. “Gosh, Hayden! Did you have to burn up all our
stuff?”
Hayden blinked through the smoke. “This stupid secret of
yours better be good, Maxwell Treat.”
“Secret?” Max said. “Oh right. The secret is, the decision
is the entire torture. That old machine sets the victims
free either way. Of course, after that, Moonie would throw
them down the All’s Well
that Ends Well well, but I
couldn’t get my hands on that.” Max gave Hayden a punch. “I
can’t believe you torched my life’s work.”
A fire truck roared up and began putting out the flames.
“It’s just lucky for you,” Max said, “I’ve always been
fascinated by cockroaches. Would you believe it, Hayden?
There ain’t a decent cockroach museum for a hundred miles
around.”
Copyright
2008 by Carole Lanham