“Remember when I said I was thinking about getting into psychology?” he asks me.
I’m not even half listening because I’m trying so hard to get out of the tape. I don’t care if Easton sees anymore, but his back is to me while he focuses on Miles.
“I told you about how quickly, and sometimes slowly, the world of psychology changes. I did my final paper in my psych course on antiquated treatments in the psychological field. Less than seventy years ago, you know what they used as a treatment for insanity? They would lobotomize people.” He turns to me and grins again. “Hey! Also for homosexuality! Fun fact, huh?”
He stands and takes a few steps back. The tape sticks tight around my knuckles as I try to pull my hand free.
“Now, for the first lobotomies, what they’d do is drill holes into the skull at certain points of the frontal cortex....” He points to several spots on his own skull using the ice pick. “Then they’d inject ethanol into the holes to burn away all those pesky little synapses that gavepeople their personalities, thoughts, feelings—basically everything that makes you a ‘functional’ human.” He uses rabbit-ear quotes around the wordfunctional.
“The problem with that is it’s messy. You’ve got all the bone dust and flesh and blood to deal with. And then the ethanol might accidentally burn away some motor skills and what have you. So they found a new way.”
Easton holds out his right fist in demonstration. In his left hand he holds up the ice pick.
“What they’d do is, they’d slip the end of a thin metal spike—” He drops his hands slightly to look at us. “It looked like an ice pick but wasn’t one. These were real doctors, so they had their own tools, but for all intents and purposes, it’s an ice pick.”
He holds his hands back up and I freeze. No longer pulling at my restraints as I realize what he’s telling me. My heart starts to race.
“So they take the ice pick and slide it right in...” He slips the ice pick between his fingers slowly. “Around the eyeball, into the socket. Then they’d go up...” He slides the ice pick and it slips out between his index and middle fingers. “To the underside of the skull. And they’d take a little hammer...”
Easton takes his left hand away from the ice pick and turns it into a fist.
“And tap!”
He uses his fist like the hammer and gives the base of the ice pick a tap. He clicks with his tongue as the edge of the pick slips farther between his fingers. Then he pulls it out with a flourish.
“And there you have it! No surgery, no blood or bone dust. And a nice little desensitized homosexual with no more desires, fears,worries, or real purpose in life. Or a desensitized woman, because that’s who psychologists chose to mutilate back then. Women and homosexuals. Which...”
He gestures at the three of us and laughs.
No. He can’t possibly be thinking about doing that.
No no no no no.
“Easton.” Valencia’s voice shakes. Across from me, Miles screams against the tape covering his mouth.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m killing you and Fake Nate.” He focuses on Miles. “But you, I just want to see what happens. Lobotomies went out of vogue in the fifties because people said they were ‘inhumane.’” Again, the fucking bunny air quotes. “But I’m curious to see what it does. I think it could really change your life.”
“No!” I scream. I pull my arms as hard as I can, straining every goddamned muscle in my body until my shoulder cramps.
“Yes.” Easton walks across the boathouse and grabs one of the chairs that he brought down from the deck and puts it in front of Miles. “Let’s see what the history of medicine can still do in the present, shall we?”
“Stop!” I yell. “He has nothing to do with this!”
Easton turns to me as he walks to the workbench and picks up a bottle of vodka. “Of course he does. You two started the investigation—which, by the way, I assume means he knew you weren’t Nate or that you told him. You really shouldn’t have done that. Then you’d have been right. He would have nothing to do with this. But as it stands...”
“Don’t do this, Easton, please!” Valencia says.
He uncaps the vodka bottle and pours it over the ice pick and hishands. “Even if I didn’t want to, he knows way too much. I can’t let him go.” He shrugs and looks back at Miles. “So think of it this way: You get to live. You just won’t be able to talk or tell anyone what you know. You’ll go off to a nice medical center to live, and when it’s time for me to do my clinicals, I’ll come visit you and see how you’re doing.”
Miles screams and screams under the tape. Tears stream down his face.
“None of that,” Easton says. He leans forward, reaching up to hold Miles’s head steady against the back of the chair. “Now, I don’t have a little hammer, so I think we’re just going to have to push harder than normal. You’d better hold still. I’ve never done this before.” He gives a rueful chuckle. “To be completely honest, I’m a bit nervous.”
Valencia is yelling at him to stop. I’m yelling at him to stop. Miles is squeezing his eyes shut and screaming behind his tape.
“This isn’t helpful, family!” Easton yells over us. I’m thrashing in the chair, trying to get loose to do something. Anything!
Easton reaches down with the thumb and forefinger on his right hand and pulls Miles’s eyelid open. He fights against him, and Easton sighs and leans back.
