The Punishment of Mr. Rousseau

First, Mr. Rousseau lost all feeling in the pinky of his left hand. Try as he might he could not bend it, twist it or shake it. It was a very peculiar feeling, not of numbness but of absence. Though he could still see his left pinky, for all intents and purposes it had turned into a ghost. A strange obsolete relic still hanging on to his body.

Then, he lost all feeling in his left ring finger Try as he might he could not bend it, twist it or shake it. Then, it was his middle finger. Then, his index finger. Then, his thumb. An invisible force slowly but mercilessly amputated his fingers one by one. The fact that this separation came without blood or screams intensified that feeling of loss, of absence. Mr.Rousseau was not surprised when the loss, the absence, started crawling up to his palm, to his forearm, to his biceps. He accepted it gracefully when it jumped to his right arm and started its meticulous process all over again with his right pinky.

My father didn’t weep when I was born. He didn’t weep when he heard grandma broke her neck after she slipped in her bathroom. But he wept when Mr. Rousseau told him about the illness.

I remembered his tears flooding the meatloaf my mother baked. A clear moat of mourning formed around the now soggy thing. I was surprised a single man could produce so much tears especially a man so stoic and solitary as my father.

“But what’s wrong with him?” my mother asked. She took his hand in her’s. The unusual warmth and concern told me she hadn’t ever seen him like this either.

“Those darn doctors! Those useless fools! T-They…. they don’t know,” he said.

 His voice had a slight tenor of rage. However, more than that it was seething with despair. But then he looked into the distance. Beyond me and my mother, for a moment it seemed like his soul had drifted out of his tired old body. Where it went, I did not know but in those few seconds, he seemed calm, at peace. Serene. But then moment passed and my father resumed weeping.

When he calmed down, my father explained the situation. His voice was clear and collected but listen closely and the smoothed over edges of anxiety would prickle your ears. This was normal. In any case, he clinically explained that the doctors had clinically explained that Mr. Rousseau was beset by a mysterious unknown illness. He had completely loss muscular control of both arms, now he was losing control of his legs. They tested and they proded, with x-rays, MRIs and all manner of high-tech medical equipment. But still they found nothing. No abnormalities. No foreign invaders. No damages. By all intents and purposes, Mr.Rousseau should be free to dance and frolic. They didn’t think the problem was psychological either. It was too elaborate and specific for that. Simply put, the doctors were baffled. They delivered the diagnosis of “We don’t know.”

 I wanted to ask my father if this meant Mr. Rousseau would have a disease named after him. The Rousseau Syndrome had a certain nice ring to it but I knew this would invite either some furious yelling or more weeping.

#

When I visited Mr.Rousseau, he was staring off into the distance listening to some recitation over his speakers, completely absorbed in it. His personal nurse had let me in. It took a while before he noticed me.

“Richie! It’s so good to see you!” he beamed with a big beautiful warm smile.

 He looked so strange sitting there in his wheelchair, he had always been a tall man, taller than me and my father but stranger still were his arms. Those arms beset by the mysterious disease hanged stiffly to the sides, tense and taut like they were petrified. His fingers were all closed together and completely straight. He looked like a deactivated robot.

I looked away from him to pay attention to the words coming out of his speakers.

“We, in civilized societies are rich. Why then are so many poor? Why this painful drudgery for the masses? Why, even to the best workman, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the midst of all the wealth inherited from the past and in spite of the powerful means of production….”

Very strange.

“What are you listening to, Mr. Rousseau?”

“An audiobook of The Conquest of Bread, a classic of anarcho-communist literature. I’m sorry, I’ll just turn it off,” he said. The voice for the oppressed became silenced.

“Anarcho-communism? You thinking of throwing off the chains of capitalism and enacting a bloody revolution, Mr. Rousseau?” I asked.

“No! No!” he laughed jovially. “Not in this state! Books are my favorite companions these days, audiobooks at least. Funny, I’ve never been much of a reader before but now I’ve realized here are so many ideas out there, answers to questions I haven’t even thought of before, there are worlds of thought I never knew existed. I just can’t get enough of it.”

“I see, that’s good. Books are good,” I said. “So, what’s it like?”

Mr. Rousseau gave an amused chuckle. “That’s what I love about you Richie! Always straight to the point, just like your father,” he shook his head. “You know what phantom limb is, Richie?”

“Yeah, I heard of it. It’s when amputees feel like their limbs are still there, right? Sometimes they feel like it’s still moving or itching.”

“Yes, that’s right but apparently most of the time they feel pain. A sharp intense agony where things once should be. It can last from seconds to minutes, to hours, to days. I would welcome pain.”

“That bad?”

 “I would welcome any sensation. It’s more than just numbness, it’s total disconnection. It’s not just that I can’t feel or use my limbs anymore, it’s like they were never even there. My arms, my legs, they were never even mine to begin with. I can’t even remember what it felt like to pick things up, what it feels to close my fist, to touch with my fingers. Complete detachment.”

“Wow, I can’t even imagine what that feels like.”

One of Mr. Rousseau’s legs was laid taut and flat on his wheelchair’s footrest, he stretched the other one out for me to see.

 “See that?” he said pointing with his head. He wiggled his toes for me to see, the big one stayed completely still. “That toe’s gone, it’ll be the one next to it, then the other. It’s strange but every night before I sleep, I’ve been forcing myself to think of running, nothing but running. So maybe my dreams will be nothing but that. The burn, the rush. Maybe that way I won’t forget.”

“Does it work?”

Mr. Rousseau gave me a sweet smile. “I can’t remember my dreams,” he said. “What about you, Richie? It’s been a long time since we last met. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing alright,” I respond.

“Really?” Mr. Rousseau looked deep into my eyes.

“I’m doing alright,” I repeated.

“Alright,” he nodded. He leaned back in his wheelchair thinking for a while before he said “Say, do you mind humoring me with a game of chess? Smart kid like you’s bound to be a good challenge.”

“I don’t know how to play chess.”

‘‘Really?” Mr. Rousseau said in surprise. “But your father’s a master in chess. He was our high school’s chess club’s president. Always wiped the floor with me. I think he even won a state competition once.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, do you want me to teach you? You’re in luck, just so happens my schedule’s all cleared up.”

#

It would be no exaggeration to say that my father worshiped Mr. Rousseau. He saw the man as his mentor and idol. All this despite the fact they were equal partners in the company they founded together. Despite the fact they were actually the same age. Growing up in this little town, they lived adjacent lives, they had the same barber, they went to the same school, yet somehow these two young boys turned into astronomically different men.

Like many talented young men, Mr. Rousseau left our town for greener pastures. Out to the city and wide open world. The town was slowly becoming a shell, filled with old people in old jobs and families too tied down to leave. Each exodus of the youth, revealed the withering white flesh underneath the town. The factories that had once been it’s backbone, slipped off and attached themselves to countries abroad where both the labor and value of life was cheap.

My father was one of the few that stayed behind. He said it was because of my mother. Where else was there to go was what he said she said. He said she said this was the only place to be. So, here he was.

My father used to teach physics at the local high school. A serious man with a serious face and serious glasses, it was a surprise to many that his passion was making home-brewed beers. I don’t know what got my father started with his peculiar hobby. He wasn’t even much of a drinker himself, he preferred to hand the bottles he brewed at local parties and gatherings. My father beamed in pride when he saw his neighbors and friends drain his glass bottles empty, smacked their lips and moaned “Ah!”

When I was younger, I would sometimes enter his workshop and pester him with questions of what did what. My father patiently explained the process each time. There he treated me not as a little boy but a curious friend. I listened attentively but I would be hard pressed to remember anything save the smell. The smell of adulthood. Misty yet sharp.

Then, Mr Rousseau returned from his ten year pilgrimage with a bag filled with stories and more importantly pockets deep with cash. He had made his fortune as a hedge fund manager of some sorts, something to do with finance. It was all very esoteric to me. My father invited him for dinner and presented Mr. Rousseau with a cold glass of home brewed beer.

“A black stout mixed with chestnuts. I call it the The Pilgrim’s Favor,” my father announced. His eyes were trained on Mr. Rousseau as his lips touched the glass. The way he looked at this stranger made me feel anxious for some reason. I had an urge to dig my fingernails deep into my scalp though I felt no itch.

Mr. Rousseau had something better than praise for my father, he had an idea.

Thus, the brewery was born, White Bell Craft Brewing Co. It was fifteen years ago when their first beer made its debut, Sunset Lion, made from Mueller and Rousseau, an artisan beer, crafted lovingly and locally. Mr.Rousseau had a keen eye and observed the trend of people starting to buck widely available commercialized brands. They wanted personality, history, craftsmanship. Sunset Lion became the number one craft beer in the state and only available in the state. It was on tap on bars, then convenience stores, then supermarkets.

The brewery became our town’s largest employer. Mr. Rousseau started to tout the brewery’s strong immigrant Germanic roots and so did our town. The town transformed from a sad dying remnant of old America to a quaint little hamlet filled with culture and history. Business never slowed down. Last year, the company brewed half a million barrels.

My father stopped teaching and brewing beers, he took care of day to day management of the business while Mr. Rousseau devised plans and stratagems to expand it further. Well, he did.

#

I stopped by Mr. Rousseau’s home every day after my first visit. Most of the time Mr. Rousseau and I played strategy board games, he ordered a stack of games from all over the world. We learned and played everything from the Chinese variant of chess, weiqi to the traditional Nepali hunt game, Bagh-Chal. One day we would be commanding knights and cannons the next day it would be goats and tigers.

It was two weeks in when he finally asked me the question, I was surprised it took him that long.

“So Richie, do you mind telling me what’s going on?” asked Mr.Rousseau.

“Well, right now I’m getting my ass kicked by a quadraplegic in a wheelchair.” We were playing the Japanese chess game shogi as usual Mr. Rousseau was dominating me.

“I’m a triplegic, I still have two toes left. No, you know what I’m talking about. What’s going on with you? Why are you back in town? Why did you drop put of law school?”

After a long pause, I said “I suppose, I just didn’t believe anymore.”

Mr. Rousseau raised an eyebrow “Believe? In what? The law? Your education?”

“Everything I guess. I just didn’t see a point in it anymore.” I stared at the board contemplating my next move.

He nodded sympathetically. “I know what you mean, I’ve felt that way many times before actually. They passed but they were there.”

“Oh, really?”

“Moments where I just feel lost, trapped in a deep dark forest without a compass or the stars to guide me. Like there was no path before me, I keep moving but I never know if I was going the right way or just circling back to the same spot. A deep sense of hopelessness.”

“Oh no, I don’t feel lost or hopeless or anything like that. I’m doing alright.”

“Okay… how do you feel then?”

“Like I said, alright. Nothing in particular, I’m in a ‘default state’ if that makes sense.”

Mr.Rousseau leaned back in his wheelchair his stiff frozen arms swung slightly as he did. “Your parents told me that until your visits here, you only came down from your room for lunch and dinner. What do you do in there all day?”

“I mostly lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling. Sometimes I stretch. I also draw circles a lot.”

“Draw circles?”

“Yeah dad has stacks of papers for the printer downstairs, more than we’ll ever need really. So, I take those and draw circles with a pen. I keep drawing till one piece is full then move on to the other.”

“And do you feel better doing this? Drawing circles? More calm? Or is this some sort of compulsion you need to get out?”

“No, I don’t feel much of anything. I just do it because I feel like it and stop when I don’t.”

Mr. Rousseau closed his eyes and gave out a deep sigh, “None of this sounds healthy or normal at all. So, why the change? What made you come out and visit me everyday?”

“I felt like it.”

“Is that your answer to every question now?”

I shrugged. If Mr. Rousseau still had fingers he could move I felt like he would drum them on the table.

“Your parents tell me you refuse to see anyone about this. Talk to doctors or see a therapist. ”

“Like I said, there’s no reason to. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m doing alright, Mr. Rousseau, I’m not lying.”

Mr. Rousseau scrutinized me closely with his dark eyes. After a moment he looked back down at the shogi board and said “Rook, two steps to the left.”

I moved the piece for him.

Mr. Rousseau laughed out loud. “You really are impossible to talk to Richie but you know what? I like this new you. I don’t know why but I do.” He shook his head and we continued playing the game in comfortable silence after.

When I went home for dinner, my dad asked me how Mr. Rousseau was doing. I made no mention of our conversation and just told him that he was doing fine and we played shogi today. My father smiled and so did my mother.

“Are you going to visit him again tomorrow?” she asked.

‘Yeah, I think I will,” I responded. Mom always gave a small sigh of relief when I said that. She thinks I can’t see it but I do.

I returned to my room and laid down on my bed, I deliberated for a few minutes on whether I should turn on the lights or lay in soothing darkness but my thoughts led me elsewhere. I remembered, my mom’s desperate pleads the first few nights after I suddenly came home without warning. She would sit down beside the bed while I lied on it.

“What’s wrong, Richie?” she asked. “You can tell me. Please tell me what’s wrong. Is it school? Is there too much stress? It’s alright if you need a break, I talked with your father, we understand. Did something happen? Did something happen to you? Please let me help you. Please tell me why. Please.”

Her pleads almost always turned to sobs. I didn’t want to hurt her, I really didn’t. I didn’t give her answers because I had none to give. I told her the truth, my version of it. I was fine, there’s no need to worry, I’m in control. Those were not answers she could accept. She looked so happy at dinner. I know the story she and my dad told themselves and each other, Mr. Rousseau and I were healing each other in some way. A lost young man seeing the beauty of life once more after his sick ‘mentor’ shows him courage and resilience at his end of days. A bittersweet feel-good ending.

I hated that I would disappoint her.

#

My next visit started off very unusually for two reasons, Mr. Rousseau didn’t have a board game laid out beforehand and he didn’t smile when I greeted him.

“I lost both of my toes today,” he announced.

“I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Rousseau.”

“They were useless anyway. What was the point in having just two toes, all I could do was wiggle them around. Still, it doesn’t make it easier having another part of me snatched away. The absence grows. Soon, emptiness will be the only thing I feel.”

Mr. Rousseau said all this with a sad little smile. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing.

“Do you know why this is happening to me, Richie?”

“If the doctors can’t figure it out. I can’t.”

“Well, I think I do. Do you know how I earned my fortune? The key to my success?”

“Hard work? Determination? You’re a very intelligent man, you think very strategically about things. It’s obvious from our games.”

He shook his head. “The world is full of smart people and hardworking people. Your father is both and he would have nothing to show for it if it wasn’t for me.”

A slight chill went down my spine for a moment when he said that but I didn’t protest.

“No, what makes me different is this.” Mr. Rousseau opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue for me to inspect. It would have looked comically absurd or perverse, if it didn’t feel so clinical. It looked ordinary to me, a strange pale pink slug.

“Your tongue?”

“Yes, my tongue. I was born with a talent of making people not just listen to me but obey me. It’s a power I’ve honed and perfected. I can talk people into doing anything and I mean anything without them even realizing it. Everyone bends to my will with just a few words. ”

He looked me in the eyes dead serious. Now, it was my turn to be concerned for his mental health.

“So, you’re a really great charismatic speaker?”

“No, it’s more than that. It’s like I have a supernatural mastery of words. Everyone doesn’t just trust me or believe in me. They want to please me . They yearn for it. They will do things, I will make them do things, they could never otherwise do just for me. My tongue, it’s the reason for my success and the reason for my disease.”

“I’m not following any of this, what do you mean?”

“I’ve always been aware of the influence I’ve had since I was little. When I was in high school, though I wasn’t very attractive, athletic or even funny, I was immensely well liked. It’s not an exaggeration that people would fight over my attention.I think the only person more popular than me was Arthur Johnson. He was a classic All-American heartthrob, beautiful blue-eyed blonde, all-star quarterback. He was even humble and kind with a beautiful tragic backstory to boot. His father died in a car accident when he was a kid. So, it was just Artie and his mother, a beautiful woman. So incredibly warm and radiant, I used to love going to Artie’s place just to see her. Artie had a good life and a bright future. He was my best friend. But at the time, I wanted to see what I could do with my gift, the extent of the power I had. So, I talked him into killing himself.”

“That doesn’t sound possible to me, Mr. Rousseau. Talked him into killing himself? What does that even mean? ”

“Oh, convincing someone to kill themselves is a lot easier than you would assume, at least it is for me. All I did was sow seeds of doubt. First, I made him stop believing in himself, then the people around him. I proved they were powerless, he was powerless. The world is a strange place, a land of meaningless chaos. We close our eyes to it to stay sane. I helped Artie open his. I showed him the the truth. So, one cold and snowy moonless night in winter, Artie sat down on his front lawn. He stripped off all his clothes and let the cold inside him. His mother found him burrowed under the snow, curled into a ball, stiff and naked. They say he had a big smile frozen on his face. The cold makes you hallucinate before you die. I always wondered what he saw. ”

Mr. Rousseau stopped to study my response. I blinked.

“So, my experiment was a success. I now knew I had power over life and death. Did it make me happier? Feel stronger? I don’t know, it just was. Everyone mourned of course. He didn’t leave a note. So, everyone kept asking ‘Why? Why would he do this?’ They spun theories, wild elaborate stories but none were good enough to satisfy them. So,they kept screaming ‘Why?’ His mother most of all, she used to be so beautiful. After Artie died, all life drained from her. Her golden hair turned a brittle gray. I still visited her after, she smiled and talked to me but she wasn’t there anymore. She was less than a shell, a fading phantom. I’m sure it was a mercy for her when she died. But that is what happened and that is my punishment. Call it karma, call it divine intervention, call it what you want but that is why I lost my arms, my legs and soon I will lose my life.”

Mr. Rousseau didn’t say anything more when he was done. I couldn’t. We both let silence sink and drown us.

#

I was more unresponsive than usual during dinner. Mr. Rousseau’s story of Artie Johnson kept running through my head. I keep imagining this handsome young man burrowing himself under snow, naked and detached.

“How’s Mr. Rousseau doing today, son?” asked my father.

I didn’t answer. They repeated the question but I just prodded at the fish on my plate.

“Are you feeling well, sweetie?” my mother asked.

I almost automatically said “I’m alright” like I always did but instead I asked, “Did you know why Arthur Johnson killed himself, dad?”

“I’m sorry, who are you talking about?” my father asked brow furrowed in confusion.

“Arthur Johnson, he was in the same year as you and Mr. Rousseau, right? The school’s quarterback, real popular guy I think.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about…. Do you remember anyone by that name, dear?”

My mother shook her head. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“Wait… did anybody kill themselves when you were in high school?” I asked looking just as confused as they were.

“W-What?! No! No, nobody kill themselves. Why are you asking these questions?” asked my father incredulously. My mother looked at me with grave concern. She squeezed my hand and looked at me like she was trying to say something but didn’t know how.

“No reason,” I lied. I pulled my hand away from her’s slowly and went back to eating my dinner.

In the dead of night, I crawled out of my bed and searched for my mom and dad’s old yearbook. Just as mom and dad said there was no picture of a handsome All-American blue-eyed boy, no young man named Arthur Johnson. I returned to bed without sleep. All night I kept wondering why Mr. Rousseau would lie about this, why would he concoct such a strange tale. Was this some symptom of his disease? Was his cognitive functions faltering? Questions upon questions, an endless maze of inquiries.

I got no answer the next day I visited Mr. Rousseau. The mysterious disease had climbed up and claimed the lower half of his face. His jaw was locked shut and his tongue was frozen. He spent his last days in the hospital, a feeding tube pumped nutrients into his body. I continued to visit him everyday. His pale eyes would follow me around and stare at me unblinking for so long I would shiver but I was never sure if he was still there or if he had already left. Still, I sat down and listened to audiobooks with him. Mr. Rousseau had a whole playlist prepared.

I remembered listening to Tibetan Book of The Dead . The sound of his breathing machine made it hard for us to listen to the monk’s drones “Be thou not afraid, nor terrified; the body which now thou possessest being a mental-body of propensities, though slain and chopped cannot die. Because thy body is, in reality, one of voidness.”

I was there when he died. His heart stopped but it was just a formality. His eyes were shut, he laid utterly still and silent. The only difference was the beeping of the heart monitor. It was an inevitability but when my father heard the news he wept and wept and wept.

That night I dreamnt of running.

When I woke up I lost all feeling in the pinky of my left hand. Try as I might I could not bend it, twist it or shake it. It was a very peculiar feeling, not of numbness but of absence.

But then it passed and I was free to move.

Feng Gooi was born and raised in the sunny tropical island of Penang, Malaysia but is currently in snowy Buffalo, New York. He is an easy prey for salesmen of all sorts. You can find his work in Shoreline of Infinity, Hexagon, and Teleport Magazine. Find him on Twitter @FengGooi.