Necrophobia
Psychiatrist Lionel Penn glanced into his bathroom mirror, making sure his tie was straight and his hair was in place. He was not normally so concerned with his appearance, but he was going out on a first date with an attractive woman and wanted to make a good impression. Even though they were only going to a hospital fundraiser, he was hoping the date might eventually lead to a more romantic relationship. But only time would tell.
When Lionel arrived at Sarah Ryerson's home, the beautiful emergency room doctor was dressed and ready to go.
"You're right on time," she said when she opened the door. "I like that in a man."
"It's even more unusual in a woman," he replied jokingly.
"It comes with the territory," she explained. "When you work in the ER, you don't have time to dawdle."
The dinner was held at the Essex Country Club, the only establishment in Puritan Falls that could hold such a large number of people. The food was good, but Lionel would have preferred a quiet dinner at the Sons of Liberty Tavern to the crowded buffet.
It was while the psychiatrist was spooning a helping of Seafood Marsala onto his plate that a well-dressed elderly gentleman approached him.
"You're Dr. Lionel Penn, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am. Have we met before?"
"No, but I've heard a lot about you. I understand you're the man to go to if you want to cure a phobia."
It was a sentiment Lionel had encountered before, one that made him inwardly cringe. He was a psychiatrist, not a medical man. He couldn't prescribe a pill or perform a surgical operation to rid his patient of a deep-rooted and possibly lifelong irrational fear. Yet too often people walked into his office expecting to walk out phobia-free. It just didn't happen that way.
"I've managed to help a few people overcome their fears," he admitted modestly. "But these things don't happen overnight. It takes months and often years of therapy for a person to unpack his or her emotional baggage, so to speak."
"God knows I've got plenty of time," the elderly man remarked.
Lionel wondered if the man was being facetious, for he looked well into his eighties or possibly his early nineties. Surely no one that old would believe he had plenty of time left, even if he was in the best of health.
The psychiatrist came to the end of the buffet line and wanted to eat his food before it got cold, so he suggested to the older man that they talk later in the evening. Then he took his plate to a small table for two where Sarah was sitting with her tossed salad and bowl of vegetarian pasta.
"I see you've met the great man himself," she said with a wink.
"You mean the old guy I was talking to? What's so great about him?"
"Don't you know who he is?"
Lionel shook his head.
"That was Nathaniel Graydon, the head of the hospital's board of directors. I'm surprised he's here. While not actually a hermit per se, he's a man who guards his privacy."
When Lionel went to the dessert table for a helping of tiramisu, Mr. Graydon approached him again.
"I don't suppose you could find room in your busy schedule for a new patient."
"As a matter of fact, I can. Given the state of the economy, many of my former patients have decided it's cheaper to live with their problems."
Judging by the tailored cut of the older man's suit, he was not one of those affected by the recession.
"If you want to see me professionally, why don't you call my office?" Lionel suggested, reaching into his pocket for a business card. "My assistant, Judy, will be glad to make an appointment for you."
Graydon waved the card away.
"Not necessary; I already have your number."
* * *
When Lionel walked into his office on Wednesday morning, Judy Stanfield handed him a clipboard with a new patient form attached to it. He glanced at the top line and saw the name: Nathaniel Graydon.
"He's here?" the psychiatrist asked, noticing the empty waiting room.
"I let him wait in your office. I hope you don't mind. I didn't think it was quite right to have the head of the board of directors of the hospital sitting in your reception room."
Lionel frowned.
"Am I the only person who didn't know who Nathaniel Graydon was?"
"What do you expect?" Judy laughed. "When you're not in your office with a patient, you're on that boat of yours. You ought to try getting out and meeting people sometime. Now, you'd better get moving. You don't want to keep Mr. Graydon waiting."
When he opened the door to his office, Lionel saw the elderly man sitting in the wing chair, opposite his desk, drinking tea, which Judy had obviously given him. The psychiatrist crossed the room, and before he could sit down in his own chair, his assistant brought him in a cup of coffee.
"That's a well-trained girl you have there, Dr. Penn," Graydon said after Judy went back to her desk.
"Thank you," Lionel replied, knowing the modern career woman would not have appreciated being referred to as "a well-trained girl."
"This is a nice office, too," the man continued, admiring the nautical décor and the view of the ocean from the bay window.
"I like it. Do you sail, Mr. Graydon?"
"I did—once, a very, very long time ago."
From the expression on the man's face, Lionel knew he had hit upon a sore spot. Perhaps the man had once been in the Navy, possibly seen battle during World War II.
"I think we've had enough small talk, Doctor," Graydon said gruffly. "Why don't we get down to business?"
"Certainly, but you needn't worry about the small talk. The meter hasn't started running on your session yet. Now, what seems to be your problem?"
"Death. As the lyrics to 'Ol' Man River' go: Ah'm tired of livin' an' skeered of dyin'."
"Please don't think I'm insensitive to your feelings, but everyone is afraid of death, and—let's be frank—you are getting up there in years. Perhaps it's your clergyman you should talk to rather than a psychiatrist."
"I'm not a religious man. Besides, I'm not just scared of dying. I am terrified of dying. In fact, I believe it's that terror that has kept me alive all these years."
Lionel did not think Graydon's fear of death fell under the heading of necrophobia, but he decided if the man needed someone to talk to, he was willing to listen.
"What is it about death that frightens you so much?"
"Life has been pretty good to me over the years. While I've had my share of tears and the loss of loved ones, on the whole I've been a happy man. I know what it's like on this side of the grave, but I have no idea what, if anything, happens after I take my final breath."
"Do you believe in heaven?"
"I'm not sure, but if there is a heaven, that must mean there is a hell, too."
From the way Graydon's hand trembled as he placed the teacup on the desk, Lionel could tell it wasn't death he feared as much as damnation.
"Do you have reason to believe you'll go to hell rather than heaven?"
"I suppose anything I say is protected by the code of doctor-patient confidentiality?"
The psychiatrist nodded.
"Even given the time that has passed since my crime, it's still one of historical significance, and I'd hate to have my good name tarnished.
Although Lionel never joked when talking with his patients, the atmosphere in the room was much more relaxed than that of his usual sessions. The conversation was more like one between two colleagues than one between patient and psychiatrist.
"Don't tell me you were the unknown gunman on the grassy knoll."
"No, Dr. Penn," the elderly patient said, clearly annoyed by the psychiatrist's making light of the subject, "I did not shoot President Kennedy, but I did commit the first murder by a white man on American soil."
Lionel thought the old man was joking, but soon realized he was serious. While he may not have a bona fide phobia, Graydon might very well be suffering from delusions.
"You obviously don't believe me," the hospital bigwig said, "but then I didn't expect you to. What man in his right mind would?"
"So you agree that your claim is farfetched?"
Perhaps there is hope for Graydon, after all, the psychiatrist thought.
"I know I'm not insane, Doctor. But let me tell you my story, and you can judge for yourself."
Lionel quickly glanced at the clock on his desk.
"We've got the time," the old man said. "I've booked your entire morning."
After a second cup of tea and coffee—courtesy of the well-trained Judy—Nathaniel Graydon began his story.
"My real name is John Billington. Does that ring a bell?"
"No. Should it?"
"Some people have heard of me—but, forgive me, I digress. I was born in England in 1580. I was a man of forty years when I boarded the Mayflower with my wife and two sons and crossed the Atlantic to settle in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Although I signed the Mayflower Compact, I was no Separatist. My reason for coming to the New World had nothing to do with religion; it was to escape creditors back in the old one."
"So you believe you were one of the Pilgrims?"
Graydon narrowed his eyes at the doctor and asked haughtily, "May I continue?"
"Certainly," Lionel said apologetically.
"Life in an untamed land was difficult, to say the least, but I persevered. I was able to build a home for my family and keep enough food on the table so that we didn't starve. For ten years I lived in Plymouth, and then one day in 1630, I went hunting and found young John Newcomen on my land. There's a name for a man who would hunt on another man's property: poacher. It's not as though I hadn't warned him; I had. I made it quite clear on several occasions that he was to stay off my land, but he wouldn't listen. We had a heated argument, and I shot the young bounder in the shoulder with my blunderbuss. Several days later, his wound became infected, and he died of gangrene. I was put on trial, convicted of murder and executed for my crime."
"If you were executed ...."
"I didn't die. I was strung up by the neck, but after several minutes of my writhing and twitching, the rope broke. The foolish Separatists believed it was a sign from God that I was to live, so rather than try to hang me a second time, they drove me from the village. I went north to join Roger Conant in Cape Ann. Roger had left Plymouth and founded a settlement that would later become Salem. In the years ahead, my wife, children and grandchildren all died, but although I aged somewhat, I continued to live. I traveled around the Northeast, staying for a time in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. I fought in the American Revolution and the Civil War, but despite several serious injuries, I was never killed."
Graydon spent the balance of the morning detailing his long life—not that Lionel Penn believed a word he said. Finally, as the noon hour approached, the old man ended his narrative by stating that he had just lost another wife.
"My only living relative is a great-granddaughter from a previous marriage who is suffering from Alzheimer's. I'm tired of life, Dr. Penn," he said as though the weight of four centuries was lying on his shoulders. "I feel like I'm on a treadmill, and I want to get off."
"Yet by your own account, you've been hanged, shot twice and seriously injured in a car accident. You must have been exposed to any number of life-threatening diseases in your four hundred plus years, and here you are, still alive. You either have an amazing constitution or you're immortal."
"There's a third option, Dr. Penn. I might be damned."
"For argument's sake, let's say your story is true. Do you really believe you would be damned for all eternity because you killed one man in the heat of an argument?"
"John Newcomen could hardly be called a man; he was only seventeen years old, but that's beside the point. The Plymouth Colony represented the New World, untouched by Europeans. And along comes John Billington, a sinner fleeing from his debts in England. Oh, I know Roanoke and Jamestown predate the arrival of the Mayflower, and there might very well have been Scandinavians on these shores before the English, but I am credited as being the first murderer in America. I brought down the curse of Cain and Abel on the North American continent. I ask you, Doctor: wouldn't you be afraid of dying and going to hell for such a crime?"
"I think you're asking the wrong man. I'm an agnostic. I don't know if there's an intelligent force in the universe, but surely if there is a God, he's capable of understanding and forgiveness. All the same, my beliefs are irrelevant here. If you believe in divine justice, then perhaps that explains your longevity. If I had to walk the earth for four hundred years, loving and marrying women and producing children, only to see them die, I would believe that I had received punishment for my crime."
"Life ... a punishment?"
The idea had never occurred to the old man.
"But life is God's greatest gift. Isn't it? Religions and legal systems around the world value life about all else. Why, the taking of life is always the most severe punishment society can mete out."
"I'm a doctor, Mr. Graydon. Suffice it to say I've seen people who were better off dead. Unfortunately the laws of our country don't allow us to show humans the same mercy and compassion we show our pets."
"Could death then be a sign of God's forgiveness?"
Lionel raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. He really wished Graydon had contacted a priest or a minister, someone who could give him the answers he sought, even if those answers were based on faith rather than fact. The psychiatrist looked at the clock on his desk; the three-hour session was about to come to an end. There was no ninth-inning closer waiting to come in from the bullpen; Lionel would have to finish the game himself.
"If all that you say is true, that you are John Billington and are damned for the murder of John Newcomen, then I'd say you have served your sentence, and you can die in peace without fear of going to hell."
A look of bliss—that's the only word for it—came over Nathaniel Graydon's face, and for a moment he looked like a much younger man.
"Thank you, Dr. Penn. I believe I'm cured of my phobia."
No sooner did these words pass through the old man's lips than he began to age rapidly. Lionel watched the amazing transformation from man to skeleton to dust, as though he were viewing a horror movie clip created by a Hollywood special effects department. Dazed, he stood up from his seat, walked around the desk and stared at the mound of dust that soon disappeared as well, leaving no trace of John Billington behind.
Lionel was startled by a knock on his office door. He glanced at the clock on his desk. It was exactly twelve. Judy knocked again and opened the door.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Lion, but I'm going to pick up something for lunch. I was wondering if you wanted me to bring anything back for you and Mr. Graydon." She peaked into her boss's office and asked, "Where is he?"
"He's gone."
"Gone? Gone where? He didn't walk past me."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Judy had heard those words from Lionel before.
You're wrong, she thought. I would believe you.
"Why don't you sit down?" she suggested. "You look a little dazed. What would you like? A burger? Fish sandwich? Salad?"
"Nothing for me," he said. "I think I've just committed an act of euthanasia. I don't feel much like eating."
Without asking any questions, Judy closed the door and went to lunch. One thing she learned from being born and raised in Puritan Falls was to turn a blind eye and deaf ear on the bizarre things that happened there.
Although this story is fiction, a man named John Billington did come over on the Mayflower. He later killed John Newcomen, in what was to be the first case of murder in New England.
Never mind the curse of Cain and Abel. Did the Pilgrims bring the curse of Salem to the New World?
