Predetermined

The Jones’ lived in a house that was not yet a home. Only purchased a year earlier, work was still needed for it to be truly built in their image. Odds and ends left behind from the previous owners; things left untouched, doing nothing but collecting dust, waiting to be destroyed. The largest of these things was a dark green shed that sat in the left corner of the backyard. The structure was an absolute eyesore. Built for function with no attention paid to style. Years of neglect had turned it from practical to grotesque. Composed of untreated wood and peeling paint, decades without care had left it waterlogged and decayed. Warped boards gave way to rusty nails. Still, it remained, shrouded in the bushes and trees. Blending in with the foliage. They ignored the shed. Kept equipment in the garage. Every once in a while, Mrs. Jones would glance out the back window and it would catch her eye. A reminder that it needed to be torn down, which was always soon forgotten. 

The only thing that ended up bringing the shed back into focus was that tools kept going missing. Simple tools; hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, nails, duct tape and a pair of garden shears. One by one, they all disappeared. Mr. Jones would spend many weekend hours picking apart the house in search of some old piece of equipment. He spent more time rummaging through drawers than actually renovating the place. Nothing ever returned to him either, never found in a position where he could’ve carelessly thrown it. Once it was gone, it was gone. It was as if someone was collecting them slowly over time. Only after he had scoured every inch of his house did he finally decide to check the shed. 

It no longer smelled of moss and mildew. Instead, waves of must and rot permeated the surrounding air. The same smell that radiated off of little Jared after he came back from playing with the neighborhood kids. Small mounds of soil dotted the surroundings, pock marking the ground, patted in as much as possible. An attempt to conceal. A sloppy attempt done by tiny fingers. If you looked closely, you could see maggots clinging to the bits of flesh that peaked out from underneath the mounds. 

 The air was still. Still enough for Mr. Jones to hear the pounding of his own heartbeat. He told himself that there was no reason to worry, but he still braced himself before swinging that rusty door open. 

He found his tools. He also found out about his son’s after school activities. What wasn’t buried outside was scattered across the workbench. Any weak, small, furry creature that found itself within the young child’s clutches ended up subjected to an inspection within that shed.  Mangled mice thrown into a pile at the side of the desk. A strangled squirrel stuck in a leftover vice grip. The neighbor’s missing cat spread out over a towel with its insides carved out. The bloody exact-o knife placed next to it in a cruel imitation of a surgery set up. Little Jared had a very different definition of what it meant to play doctor. 

Mr. Jones, he didn’t scream, he didn’t shout, he just stood there gazing at his son’s handiwork. Anger registered, but no shock. What really sickened his stomach was how little this surprised him. 

A tight pained “What has Jared done?” escaped his mouth as his hands constricted into fists. Not a moment’s doubt about who the culprit was. 

His son’s strange proclivities had reared their ugly heads before. Jared had a habit of getting into trouble. The Jones’ constantly got called to the school in order to deal with his aggression. 

Jared’s eighth birthday party ended with him breaking Jenny Greenberg’s nose with a gardening shovel left out in the lawn. Neither child admitted to a motive. The Jones’s had another medical bill to pay and belt marks were left on Jared’s back as a reminder. The marks stayed there, shifting colors, for months on end. 

The head of the household no longer knew what to do with his own son. What possible punishment was appropriate for a kid that turned the backyard shed into a death factory for small furry creatures? His wife shared in his befuddlement, although she appeared more horrified and heartbroken.

After giving his wife a peek inside their son’s makeshift vivisection clinic, he went inside to find little Jared crouched in front of the TV set. Watching saturday morning cartoons, like a normal boy, like he hadn’t turned their backyard into a mortuary. He dragged the boy by the hair into his bedroom and lashed Jared’s back until it was nearly bloody. Words spewed out of his mouth in a flash of heat, “twisted”, “degenerate”, “psychotic”, “sick”. None of it could be absorbed. A cacophony of anger that didn’t stop until he caught a glance of his wife squinting at him in disgust.

The Mrs. didn’t mind corporal punishment. A child needs to understand that actions have consequences. What she didn’t appreciate was her husband yelling his lungs out at the kid. Nor the look of anger on his face. The idea of a grown man screaming at an eight year old sickened her. In her mind, every action that a parent took had to be intentional, well thought out, logical. Frustrated displays of emotion were selfish. The kid should be totally aware of the fact that even the violence was for their own good. So previously, Mr. Jones had always retained a degree of composure, even when he was striking his son. That was the compromise they came to.

Mrs. Jones believed that in order to properly exercise authority, you had to remain in control. Never let the people under you feel as though you don’t have everything handled. Never let them believe that they can shake you. But even she had to admit to a degree of fear after looking upon that shed. She wouldn’t let her husband show that to Jared though. So she sent the boy off to his room while the two of them continued their spat. 

Even the ever-composed Mrs. Jones showed cracks in her demeanor as she shoved her son into his room. Her voice tensing up. Stating that they would keep him there until they “figured out what to do with you”.

They bickered about what needed to be done. Jared listened through the cracks as his parents tore into one another, tore into him. His father was fuming, he wanted to lock the boy up in that shed until he feared he might rot in there like the things he had killed. The mother, well, she had the wherewithal to admit when a situation was beyond her ability. She figured that maybe a good child psychologist could sort the boy out. First, the marks would have to heal. She let her husband have at him for the time being, but she insisted that he contain his activities to those that wouldn’t leave evidence. 

Mr. Jones dragged Jared back to the shed. Told him to clean up the mess he had made. Deadlines were established. He had three weeks to make the place spotless. When the boy wasn’t at school, he spent every waking hour scrubbing the room raw. Scraping dried blood off of mossy wood, placing rotten corpses into garbage bags, attempting to get rid of the scent of decay. The bleach caused his eyes to well up. Hands were rubbed dry and prone to cuts. Knees scraped up on the floor boards. A mind filled with dread. Worrying about what would happen if his father wasn’t satisfied with the state of the place. Pangs of fear and rage displayed clearly on his face as he scrubbed and scrubbed.  

Time passed, and soon the father would perform his inspection. Making sure that he had rid the shed of any trace of its past.  The boy had spent the last hour frantically running a cloth over every surface one last time, making sure every ounce of blood or bile was gone from the room. Working until the last second.  When he could finally hear his father’s work boots clonking their way through the backyard, slowly making their way towards the shed.

Mr. Jones opened the door and started marching around the room, examining each area for any signs of impropriety. After every surface proved sanitized, he caught the eyes of little Jared and gave him a nod of approval.  Then he let out a “Wait, boy” as he grabbed the kid by his shirt collar. He turned his son around, lifted the boy’s shirt and began examining his back the same way as he had just done to the bloody countertops. When it was clear that there were no visible marks, he turned the kid around.

A hand was placed on the boy’s shoulder as his father expressed approval “Come on boy, your mother’s in the car, we’ve got a surprise for you”. 

As they exited the shed, Mr. Jones turned back for a moment, reached his hands into his pocket and pulled out a padlock. Then placed it into the door, locking away Jared’s corner of the world.

Ice cream was the story that got Jared into the car.  No hesitation. Assuming his father had been proud of the shed, he carved his buck-toothed mouth into a smile and climbed into the car with unrestrained joy. Snap a photo, in that moment and you’ve got a picture perfect glimpse of childhood innocence. Wait ten minutes and the fear begins to set in. Both parents sat in the front of the car, stone silent as each turn proved an unfamiliar path to the kid. Jared kept asking where they were going. First in curiosity, then in panic. Mom and Dad remained still. 

A pit began to form in the boy’s stomach as the car began to slow down in a section of the town designed for office buildings and medical facilities. He began to scream when they started to park the car. 

The Jones’ had to drag their son out of the vehicle. Jared burrowed himself into the back seat. Fingers clawed, nails dug into the upholstery as if it were the only life raft in the middle of the ocean. Each parent grabbing an ankle. He flailed his legs around in an attempt to get free from their grip. They pulled him out like a sack of potatoes. When Jared’s struggle proved fruitless, he finally gave in. 

Jared was placed in a room with a stranger sitting across from him. An older man, gazing through him, who spoke to Jared with an heir of clinical kindness. A false mixture of concern and friendliness. Question after question came rattling through his wrinkled mouth; the kid didn’t bite. He didn’t have any respect for the aging gentlemen condescending to him in the corner, but he had resigned to his fate. Deciding that the only way to wiggle free from the situation was to remain incredibly vague, he answered each question with as little detail as possible, yes sir, no sir. The balding head in the corner saw through his act. Realizing that he was making no progress, he switched his methods, cut to the chase.

“What were you doing in your parents' shed?” the psychiatrist leaned forward in his recliner. Those were the first words that actually managed to catch Jared’s attention.

The boy stared at the floor as he meekly muttered out “I don’t know why it’s such a big deal? They were just animals, I said I was sorry”. 

“What wasn’t such a big deal” 

“I was just examining them.” Jared moused out. 

“How were you examining them?” 

“You know, looking inside” he stated as his eyes darted around the room. 

“Did you kill them?”
“You have to, in order to look”

“Do you like killing animals?”

The boy shrugged “a little”

It went on for a little while, the man asked a pointed question and then the boy would respond in a meager way. But instead of the man getting angry or upset like Jared was used to, he feigned approval. 

 He smiled at the boy, “You’re really young, how did you manage to catch all of those critters?”. 

Jared’s eyes lit up “Well, my friend had these cages . . .”

They met weekly from that day on. Jared began to enjoy his meetings. The man let Jared ramble on about his kills, always engaged and never expressing judgment. Jared offered the man his ammunition willingly, never seeing the danger that he was in. It wasn’t until the tests and examinations that the boy had realized the trap that was set for him. Like the squirrels seeing the bars trapping them, only after they had finished munching on the nuts. 

He tried his best to wiggle his way free. Answering every question in the way that was expected of him. Trying to appear as normal as possible. But deep down, he was aware of how pointless this was. The gate had already closed around him. 

Jared completely closed himself off after that day. Car rides became more difficult.  The meetings with the strange man continued weekly but Jared became more defiant, less willing to chat with the man that he now saw as a traitor.

Things changed. His father no longer hit him. The belt was replaced with silence. The parents exchanged more words about the boy than with him. 

The Jones’s waited for the psychiatrists to come to a consensus. Figure out what was wrong with their son. Decide what needed to be done about him. Fix him, so that the two of them wouldn’t find themselves culpable for the person he would become. Nothing ruins a family’s parent’s reputation quite like raising the next Ted Bundy. They told themselves that this man was the solution but they held their breath everytime the phone rang. Stuck still in fear, waiting on the day that they would get their answers. Nothing fared better when they got the call. 

The two of them were sat down on the same sofa where Jared had his weekly chats. They looked up at the man who charged them 150 dollars a week to talk to their boy. Waiting for him to tell them what needed to be done in order to fix their kid. Instead, they were met with disappointment. All that money only to be told that Jared was a lost cause. That their son’s actions only served as signals of what was to come. Jared’s lack of empathy, his fascination with ripping things apart, his violent tendencies, these would only intensify as he matured. 

The man got very abstract. Moving the conversation away from their own kid and instead  focusing on various psychological studies that he felt were somehow connected to their son’s behavior. He started prattling on and on about some Stanford marshmallow experiment. In 1972, a man by the name of Walter Mischel led a child psychology experiment on delayed gratification. 32 children between the ages of three to five were placed in a room with a marshmallow. They were told that they could eat the marshmallow now or wait for the researcher to return in order to get another. Kids were then divided up by those that were able to resist the marshmallow and those that couldn’t. The children’s lives were then analyzed over the course of about forty years. The groups only became more distinctive as they grew in age. Those that managed to resist the marshmallow were able to attain more success in nearly every arena of life. Better SAT scores, lower BMI’s, achieved higher levels of education, possessed more wealth and had better job security throughout their lives. The ones that weren’t able to resist faded into poverty and obesity.

 The point is that some things are intrinsic. The kids in that experiment, the amount of willpower that they maintained throughout their entire life could be predicted within a single observational study that they performed as toddlers. We aren’t all as malleable as we pretend to be. There is a rigidity in character that is set up from birth. Good people stay good, and wicked people remain wicked. Change is rare and usually the result of a major brain injury. People can be laid out and picked apart from infancy. 

 The psychiatrist then connected the experiment back to Jared. Taking the boy’s future and laying it out right in front of them. Maybe he could mend his ways but most likely not. Most likely his actions would only become more sinister. His life would consist of  a series of increasingly antisocial behavior that would progress into larger and larger issues. Bouncing from juvenile facility to juvenile facility until he aged into an adult penitentiary. Until he did something worthy of the state sticking a needle into his vein and calling it a day. 

Conduct Disorder, that’s what the psychiatrist called it. A label slapped onto those too young to be considered full blown psychopaths. 

Both of them felt as though they had been bisected.

Jared was their only son. The culmination of all their hard work. Children are the hope that things could get better. That there was a possibility of improvement. This man was calmly extinguishing that hope like it was nothing more than snuffing out a candle. A seventy pound hole was being carved into both of their chests.

The psychiatrist watched their faces change from shock, to horror, to dismay. Waiting for the perfect moment. When it was clear that his words had pulled each of them apart he proposed a solution. 

There was more sympathy in the doctor’s eyes now, as he told the Jones’ that they weren’t at fault. Jared wasn’t either. The boy was sick. Nobody determined his personality. Nobody decided what his impulses and demeanor would be. His lack of empathy was bestowed upon him by nature. He didn’t decide to be born with a defective mind, and therefore there was no point in blaming him for his actions. Just a curse of nature. Similar to being born with childhood dementia. It wasn’t insanity in the legal sense of the word, but as far as the medical community was concerned, Jared’s mind was a degenerative disease. 

He told them other’s would suffer, that their boy would suffer when the consequences of having a mind like his finally caught up to him. He told them it wasn’t a crime to eliminate the damage. Cut it out at its root and create less suffering in the world. 

He needed to be contained before he stopped being just a four foot tall buck toothed kid. Before he grew into something monstrous. One shot in the arm was all it would take to keep him cute forever. It would take less from them. One signature each, the same as giving permission for a class field trip. 

Still, it was their only son, their bundle of joy, their reason to wake up every morning and continue through the draining labor of life. Something to cherish, treat with methodical care, not toss away like a rabid animal. They left the office with a feigned indignation. 

 Composure was maintained within the psychiatrist’s office, but the second the car door slammed shut, they both began weeping. 

The two of them continued on with their normal life. Forcing down the words they had heard. Pretending that nothing had changed. Tried their best to pretend that nothing had changed. That didn’t work. Mainly because Jared remained the same. Calls would come in telling them that he had been beating up the younger boys. He bit his mother when she tried to send him to bed. One day, they caught him walking back home with the Finnigan’s eight week old puppy clenched tightly in his arms. 

Every transgression brought the doctor’s words back into focus. Even rage became a performance. Mr. Jones would muster up whatever fire he could in order to spit his fury back at his kid, but delivering that paternal discipline felt forced. Knowledge of his son’s condition had stripped even his anger from him. After all, this was just Jared’s nature. 

One thought kept trickling back into their brains. All of this could be solved with a simple signature. An acknowledgement of their child’s sickness. 

Mrs. Jones was the first one to bring it up. The night after finding a kill kit packed away behind a dresser in Jared’s room. A knife, hammer, pair of rubber gloves and a tiny saw neatly  packed into a bundle of cloth and secured together with twine. She presented the idea as an act of sympathy. Combing through all of the things that could happen to people if they allowed his life to continue. What the punishments would be for him once he was caught. Assuring that there would be no sympathy remaining for him as he grew to adulthood. At least the needle would leave them with their dignity. Instead of waiting years to watch their son end up wasting away in a prison cell. It was what was best for the community, and best for their kid. Jared may have only been a child, but that didn’t mean that she was going to let his own nature rot him from the inside out. 

Mr. Jones stepped in line, and the following week they were once again sitting in that same psychiatrist’s office. This time accompanied by legal representation and staring at a slew of documents in front of them. They both pushed away any idea of what this meant and quickly jotted each of their names down while choking back tears. 

Two months would pass until the date of the execution. They spent their remaining days with Jared absolutely spoiling the psychopath. Entertaining every whim the boy had. Even his darker interests no longer drew the ire of his parents. His tools and traps were returned to him. His dad removed the padlock on the shed door. Jared was still young enough to remain oblivious. Too distracted with toys and a newfound sense of freedom to truly notice what was happening. 

Jared didn’t realize anything was wrong until the night before they took him away. At the dinner table with all of his favorite food laid out for him. A mess of junk food placed delicately on the table as if it were a thanksgiving feast. Pancakes stacked up high next to a pile of ribs across from pizza, oreo ice cream and a candy covered platter. A full on last supper for the brat. At first, Jared was delighted. But he noticed that his mom couldn’t look at him for two seconds without choking back tears. Jared wasn’t stupid. Somewhere deep inside himself he knew that his parent’s change of heart was too good to be true. Everytime his parents treated him as if they were his yes men, a sinking feeling would bubble up inside of him. His mind was seethed with a growing paranoia.

 He laid awake at night waiting to hear the sound of his parent’s door slam shut and lock behind him. Tiptoed out into the house and stood outside of his parent’s room. Keeping his feet away from the doorframe, he placed his ear to the door and listened carefully for the whispers of his parents. 

He heard them quietly sobbing at the mention of his name. Convincing each other that they had made the right decision. Siking themselves up. Preparing to kill their son. A dagger of fear pierced through his heart.

The boy stayed quiet. Quiet enough to hear his own heart racing. His ears focused in on any sounds coming from his parent’s bedroom. Waiting until he could hear the faint sound of his father’s snores and when he was sure that both of his parents were sound asleep, he sprung from his bed and grabbed his tools. Trying to remain as quiet as possible, he started rummaging through drawers until he felt the cold smooth metal of his father’s padlock. In a blind panic, he retreated to the one place where he felt the most comfortable, that old shed. 

Mr. and Mrs. Jones woke up to find Jared missing. Mrs. Jones took a moment to notice how empty the house felt without him. A pang of sorrow reached her as she contemplated the fact that this feeling would last forever. Whatever happened, by the end of the day the boy would be gone forever. Either dying in a hospital or on the streets weeks later. 

The shed was the first place they checked after checking the house. After pulling on the door handle a couple of times, Mr. Jones realized it was locked. He put two and two together, coming to the conclusion that his son must have barricaded himself in. Started calling out his son’s name, trying to coax him out with false promises. 

At first, the son remained silent. A vain attempt at not giving away his location. The same way a normal kid would stand still when obviously caught in a game of hide and seek. But the father kept yelling back till the vocal cords grew hoarse and the words panged with more and more frustration. 

“If you don’t come out, we’ll have to get in” were the last words his father yelled before retreating to the garage, his mother keeping watch over the only exit. 

Mr. Jones came back holding an ax and began swinging at the door in front of him. The wet boards caved in further with each blow. Soon he could see his son huddled up in the corner, clutching a knife. An image that only added vigor to his thrashing. In a couple of minutes the hole was big enough for Mr. Jones to crawl through. Further peeling back the wood as he barged his way through. 

Jared resembled the trapped animals that he had tormented, right as he reached his hand into the cage. Cowered up in a stance of frightened violence but too tiny to really make a difference. It wasn’t long before his dad was looming over him. Jared took his hunting knife and began frantically slashing. It didn’t look like the methodical cuts that he left on his prey. The movements had more resemblance to a cornered cat swiping his claws at a much larger predator, clumsy and fruitless. 

The kid managed to wedge a couple of deep cuts into his dad before being thrown to the ground and losing grip on his blade. Hyped up on adrenaline, Mr. Jones wouldn’t feel the sting until they had already dragged their child to the hospital, kicking and screaming. Until a nurse had already plunged a heavy sedative into the boy. 

Jared’s fight switched focus from the outer world to the inner. You could see the boy struggling to stay conscious. Bobbing his head back and forth as an effort to hold it upright. Straining his eyes in order to keep them from closing. His thoughts slowed and his grip loosened but he continued to fight. Fight falling into a sleep that he knew he would never wake up from. 

The drugs won in the end. Within ten minutes he slumped over and lost consciousness. His mother carried him into the waiting area and began filling out paperwork as his dad got stitched up. She hesitated as she looked at him in his slumber. Jared’s calm, tiny, unfinished face made her want to drag him out of that building, make sure none of these doctors could ever get their hands on him. For a second, she believed everything could be better if they just got away from everyone. Stuck him in the middle of a desert somewhere alone where he couldn’t hurt anyone and they couldn’t hurt him. Then her husband came back covered in frankenstein stitching. A reminder of the damage Jared was capable of.

Besides, it was normal enough to block out the doubt. Fluorescent lighting, bad magazines and pamphlets spread out on plain coffee tables, stiff neutral colored couches eased the guilt. The office made the experience feel no different than taking her boy to get his teeth cleaned. A comforting sort of boredom, the kind designed to make people forget that these would be their last moments on earth. Convincing their mind that they would exit the building up until the needle was staring them in the face. A salving balm put over the finality, sanitizing and sterilizing the nature of death. Every soothing nod of approval conditioned her to just keep saying yes. She jotted her name down with tears in her eyes, choking back the nagging pain in her heart. Soon a doctor came around to grab Jared. 

The Joneses walked alongside the stretcher that Jared was placed on. Followed him into a white hospital room where his anesthetized body was moved from the stretcher to a generic hospital bed. Well, not a bed, but a dark blue cushion covered with a layer of sanitized paper. The kind that existed in nearly every pediatrician’s office. 

The doctor performed his job bureaucratically. His movements formed into a routine that made it seem like he had done this a million times before. Measuring the boy’s vitals before preparing the needle. Careful to make sure that no air bubbles got into the syringe. Jared’s limp arm was turned over and an injection point was located. He swabbed the arm with an alcoholic napkin before sticking the needle in and lowering the liquid in. 

It only took a minute for the boy to die. Both of his parents sobbed over him as his heart stopped beating. The doctor’s gave them a moment. Waited for the crying to subside before transporting the corpse to a mortuary. 

The parents drove home in silence, alone. Holes burnt into both of their hearts. The shed was nagging them when they got home. Still standing there with a splintery hole carved into it. The thing was gone within a week. They planned to erect a gazebo in its place. In the following weeks, they looked at each other differently. Constantly getting into fights in order to drown out the emptiness. Through the violence they realized that they were still young, that it wasn’t too late to start over. Create another baby to fill the void. Hopefully the new child wouldn’t be born defective. Then they could put the whole mess behind them. They told themselves that they did the right thing, but secretly they questioned it every day. They could have saved dozens or they could have saved nobody, who’s to say.