Artificial Obsessions by Lee Richardson

Artificial Obsessions by Lee Richardson

“Why don’t you send them back?” Katie, the social worker, asked.

“I can’t,” Ray answered, peering at the menacing-looking, overdressed middle-aged couple lurking on the other side of the Catholic Charities window.  “They haven’t belonged to me since right after I got locked up.”

Ray had purchased Bill and Joan, the two human facsimiles, from Faxo, Inc. eight years ago after the last of his drinking buddies had sobered up and outgrown him.  They had been programmed to be his constant companions and had performed their duties with unfailing commitment–so much so that they did not wish for a change of vocation now that he, in turn, had sobered up and outgrown them.  Other than the serial numbers engraved on the backs of their necks just below the hairlines, they were supposed to be impossible to tell apart from other human beings.  But something must have gone wrong during their manufacturing.  Faxos, as most people called the artificial people, mere meant to age and adapt alongside their owners.  These two had not changed a bit since the day he met them.  They were as insufferable and demanding as ever.  He just hadn’t noticed it as much until he quit drinking.

“You know the judge isn’t going to give you custody of Gretchen as long as they’re hanging about,” Katie said.

“What can I do?” Ray helplessly asked.  “It’s not like I can throw them in the trash.”

“Daddy,” a little girl, who sat playing in the floor beside his feet, called.  “Look, it’s me and you.”

Ray looked down at Gretchen.  She had found two dolls, an adult male and a little girl, in the nearby toy bin and had them playing together on the floor.  In a moment like this, Ray could not help but think of Alice, Gretchen’s mother.  If only cancer had not taken her away from them.  He could have shown her now that this time, things really were different.  This time, he really had changed.

“Play with me, Daddy,” Gretchen said.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Katie said before Ray could respond.  “Your foster mom and dad will want you to come home soon.  And remember, I offered to take you for ice cream first.”

“Can Daddy come with us?” the girl asked.

“Not today, pumpkin,” Ray said.  Gretchen’s foster parents, the Whites, had refused to have anything to do with him ever since he had presented Gretchen with a toy water pistol on her last birthday.  Ray did not understand what all the fuss was about.  A little bit of water never harmed anybody.  Still, he was in no position to press this point.  Any change in routine now would have been disastrous for both him and Katie, the one person at Child Services who felt he had a chance of gaining custody of Gretchen.

As Gretchen gazed up at him with her six-year-old bright blue eyes, Ray realized he probably looked more like her grandfather than her father.  He was only 43, but more than a decade of alcohol abuse had left his eyes tired and his hair prematurely gray.  Ray wished he had more memories of Gretchen growing up, but he had hardly any memories from the eleven-year bender that had formed most of his married life.

“When can I come live with you?” Gretchen asked.

“Someday, pumpkin,” Ray softly answered.  “We’re just going to have to wait a while longer.”

& & &

Ray gazed out the window of the taxicab as it pulled out of the Catholic Charities parking lot.  He no longer saw Bill and Joan.  This did not, however, provide him with any relief.  They had always managed to find him no matter how many times he had tried to give them the slip.  In eight years, the only vacation he’d had from them was the ten months he had served in the state penitentiary. Like most everything else in life, he had no memory of hitting the Camaro head on.  The driver, little more than a kid, had made it out with nothing worse than a fractured shoulder.  That’s why his sentence had been so light.  When he was released, Bill and Joan were waiting outside the prison gate, eager to pick up right where the three of them had left off.  Where they had gone and what they had done during the separation, Ray still did not have a clue. 

It was in prison that he had decided to change his act once and for all.  He thought long and hard about why he drank.  Was it because he was trying to emulate his father and uncles, who all drank excessively on Saturday nights?  Was it because of his boring accountant job and his sociopathic supervisor?  Was it because he never felt adequate no matter what he did?  It definitely wasn’t because of Alice, Ray thought.  She had been the one bright spot in his life.  Ray remembered how, in the early days of their marriage, he had fooled her into thinking he was just a social drinker.  He would have an occasional glass of wine at dinner, or champagne during a time or celebration.  Perhaps he should have been more up front with her.  It might have helped.  He could almost control himself back then.

“You know where you want to go yet?” the cab driver asked, distracting Ray from his thoughts.

“The Walden Hotel,” Ray answered.  It was where he now stayed on the weekends when he came into the city to visit Gretchen.  The hotel was less than a year old.  No one there knew about the wild times that had gotten him, along with Bill and Joan, thrown out of nearly every other downtown establishment.  Of course, Ray no longer remembered these incidents.  Nor did he remember ever really liking Bill and Joan.  Still, he must have adored them in the beginning, back when he didn’t care what the world thought of him, including the wife who sat at home and waited impatiently for him to recover from the “phase” he was going through.  Of course, even Alice had her limits.  She had kicked him out on multiple occasions, but he had always sobered up just long enough to sweet talk her into taking him back.  If only he could go back in time and turn one of those moments into the real deal.  But that was still not humanly possible.  Scientists could create artificial people, but they couldn’t take away any of the hell they brought to their owners.

“How do you stop a faxo?” Ray asked himself out loud.

“Triple four oil,” the cab driver answered.  “Everybody knows that.”

What the cab driver said was true.  Everyone did know how to stop a faxo. The trouble was that it was no longer legal to do it.  Eight years ago, when Ray had purchased Bill and Joan, owning a faxo had been all the rage.  They were considered personal property back then and could be disposed of by any means their owners wished.  Just before Ray went to jail, all that started to change.  Millions of faxos had been produced by then.  With each new generation of machines becoming more humanlike than the previous one, demonstrators started to protest their “forced captivity” and “unnecessary exterminations.”  In Washington, many members of Congress, looking for new ways to gain votes, pushed through a law making it illegal to destroy a faxo.

Eventually, a constitutional amendment was passed, and all the faxos were emancipated.  They were then granted the same rights as human citizens.  Bill and Joan were now free to go on their merry way and should have been out of his life.  Yet they stuck around, preventing Ray from moving forward.  They allowed him to work at the customer service position his parole officer had helped him secure, but this was only because Ray would have been of no use to them had he been completely down and out. 

Ray had twice gone to the police hoping to have a restraining order issued against Bill and Joan.  Each time, the two faxos, who could be devilishly charming when the situation called for it, had convinced the authorities they were completely harmless.  Ray was the one with the police record, they had stressed.  Perhaps they should be afraid of him.  In the past, Ray had relied upon their ability to talk themselves, and usually Ray, out of almost any situation.  Now they were using that skill against him.

 “But how do you get away with it?” Ray asked the cab driver.

“You’re on your own there, buddy” the driver answered.

“Yeah,” Ray admitted, “I guess I am.”

& & &

Ray sat at the Walden Hotel bar staring down into the shot glass of whiskey in front of him.  He no longer drank, but he always ordered a drink just to prove to himself that he didn’t want it.  As he had expected, Bill and Joan soon entered, each taking a seat at one of the stools beside him.  They always looked and acted like perverted upper crust characters from some 1940s film noir.  Bill wore a black tuxedo and Joan had on a slinky red dress, a complete contrast from Ray’s blue polo shirt and khakis.

“Starting without us?” Bill asked.

“You know I won’t drink it,” Ray said.

“Such a shame to waste it,” Joan said.  “Do you mind?”

“Be my guest.”

Joan raised the shot glass to her lips and downed the liquid in one short gulp.  A look of disappointment soon decorated her face.  “You used to have much better taste, darling.”

“Why do you do it?” Ray asked, wondering why he had never thought of asking this before.  “Why do you keep insisting on following me around?”

Bill let out a deep laugh that Ray was sure everyone in the bar heard.  “We’ve been through this before, Ray.  You signed a binding contract.  We’re yours for life.”

“No, that contract’s null and void.  You’re free to do whatever you want.”

“But it’s you we want, darling,” Joan piped in.

“You could find someone else.”

Joan shook her head.  “No, we’ll always want you.  You were so good at what you did.”

“Perhaps Joanie is misleading you a bit,” Bill explained.  “We don’t know how to want anybody else.”

“We wouldn’t change a thing even if we could, darling.”

 “Then this is how it’s meant to be,” Ray conceded.  “You are just going to follow me around, and I’m never going to get custody of Gretchen.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”  It was now Joan’s turn to smile.  Ray might have thought she was pretty if he hadn’t known her so well.

“Joanie’s right,” Bill agreed.  “The current situation doesn’t work for anybody.  I need to think about this.”

“Just go away,” Ray ordered.  “That’s all you need to do.”

Bill moved away from the bar stool and extended a hand to help Joan step down.  “I actually agree with you for a change.  Joanie and I are going to take a walk and sort all this out.  When you see us again, everything will be taken care of.”

Ray watched with dread as the two walked out of the bar.  For the first time in quite a while, he did not want to let them out of his sight.  He moved closer to the door to see which direction they had gone, but they were nowhere to be found.  In just a matter of a few seconds, they had totally vanished.

& & &

As soon as Ray returned to his hotel room, he grabbed a manila folder from his suitcase.  Somehow, he had always known that it would end this way, that he would have no other choice.  He could no longer live like this, even if it meant losing Gretchen forever.  As he pulled on the sealed flap, he did not know exactly what he would find inside.  The envelope had been given to him shortly before his release from the state penitentiary by his cellmate, who was serving a life sentence for performing multiple faxo terminations.  For nearly a week, he had kept the envelope under his bed, afraid the guards would learn of its existence.  Upon his release, he had hidden it under his coat.  He was sure he would be discovered.  But the prison officials had let him walk right out without performing a single frisk. 

Ray pulled from the envelope a small green children’s water pistol filled with a clear liquid substance.  It appeared harmless, but Ray had it from a reliable source that a single drop of triple four oil was deadly to any faxo it touched.  Developed by a chemist at Faxo, Inc. back when the artificial humans were considered personal property, its true name was a long string of numbers that no one could remember.  Its nickname had come from the three fours that began that string.  Ray laughed nervously when he saw the pistol.  The liquid could just as easily have come in a spray bottle or a dropper bottle.  But the water pistol seemed more fitting for what he had in mind.

He returned the envelope to his suitcase and hid the pistol in the top drawer of the nightstand near the bed.  When he saw the Gideon Bible, he hesitated for a moment.  For the most part, he believed in everything the book said, including the commandment “thou shalt not kill.”  He did not think all that applied to man-made beings produced in a factory, but what if he was wrong?  Did faxos have a place in heaven?  He certainly hoped not.

 Ray shut the drawer and lay down on the bed still fully dressed.  How long was it going to take?  How long until Bill and Joan showed up with the “answer” to all their problems?  The mobile phone in his shirt pocket began to ring.  Was this it?  Ray asked himself.  No, he decided, it couldn’t be.  A phone call was not their style.  Bill and Joan preferred to handle everything in person.

Ray grabbed the phone and held it tightly against his ear.  “Hello.”

“Mr. Fitzgerald, thank god you picked up,” a shaky female voice immediately said.

“Who is this?”

“Katie Fancoat with Child Services,” the voice answered.  “I don’t know if I should be doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Calling you.  What if you’re part of it?  I could lose my job.”

Ray felt a sudden tightness in his chest.  “Is Gretchen all right?”

“They took her.”

“Who took her?”

“Those things that are always following you around.  Gretchen and I had gone for ice cream like always.  I took her home to the Whites.  We were standing on the doorstep when they just appeared from nowhere and grabbed her.  I tried to run after them, but then I didn’t see where they were going.  Oh god, are they going to hurt her?”

 “No,” Ray truthfully replied, “at least not until they see me again.  Did you call the police?”

 “They’re on their way here now.”

“Good.  When they get there, tell them to come to the Walden Hotel.”

“I’m sorry.  I should’ve been more careful.”

“None of this is your fault.”

Ray hung up the phone.  He had to get down to the hotel lobby.  Bill and Joan were less likely to do something irrational if a crowd surrounded them.  Maybe he could buy some time until the police arrived, maybe even have a drink.  It would ruin everything he had worked for, but he would do what had to be done.  He dashed to the door and jerked it open.

“Going somewhere, darling?” 

Bill and Joan stood in the doorway.  Ray looked down to see Joan’s hands resting on Gretchen’s shoulders.

“How nice of us to drop in,” Bill said.

“Daddy!” Gretchen screamed with excitement.  She ran over to Ray and wrapped her arms around her father’s legs.  “They said I get to live with you now.”

“Why’d you do it?” Ray asked the two faxos.

“Isn’t it what you wanted?” Bill asked.

“We’re all one big happy family now, darling,” Joan said.

“She has to go back,” Ray said.

“Daddy, no!” Gretchen clung to him more tightly.  “You said we could be together soon.”

Ray nodded and softly stroked his daughter’s hair.  “I did, but this is not the right way to do it.  You didn’t even get to tell people goodbye.”

“If I tell people goodbye, will we then always be together?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes, but sometimes saying goodbye can take a little longer than we would like.”

“What a performance.”  Bill sneered.  “You don’t think all this mushy talk will really convince us to take her back, do you?  She’s all we have to make you become a part of us again.”

“Besides, darling,” Joan added.  “I think she fits in very well with our little group.”

”Family reunions always make me a little thirsty,” Bill said.

“You’re right,” Joan agreed.  “I could even go for that revolting hooch you had at the bar.”

Ray took hold of his daughter’s hand and moved to the nightstand beside the bed.  The other visitors stepped completely into the room.  Bill shut the door behind them. 

“In the same drawer as the Bible,” Joan said.  “How delightfully wicked.” 

Ray didn’t want to do this in front of Gretchen, but they left him no choice.  He had no idea just when the police would get there.  It was the only way to make sure Gretchen would be safe.  He let go of his daughter’s hand and quickly opened the nightstand drawer.  Before Bill and Joan had time to see what was really inside it, he reached for the weapon and pointed it at the two human facsimiles.

“You don’t think you’re really going to use that thing on us, do you, darling?” Joan asked.  “You’re weak.  You don’t have it in you to kill.”

Ray knew that Joan was right.  He was a drunk and all-around louse, but he wasn’t a killer. He tried to imagine the two beings in front of him as faceless inanimate objects, but he couldn’t do it.  Despite how much he hated them, they still looked far too human for him to destroy them.  His hands began to shake harder than they had ever shaken, harder even than when he had first stopped drinking for good.  He lost his grip on the pistol, and it dropped to the floor.

“See, darling,” Joan said, “you’re one of us after all.”

“I could use a drink right now,” Bill added.

 “You leave my daddy alone!” Ray suddenly heard Gretchen cry.

Ray looked down at Gretchen.  She had grabbed hold of the pistol and was standing beside him.  Without giving it a second thought, she squeezed the trigger.  The chemical hit Joan first.  Her outer synthetic coating melted away, leaving nothing but an internal clockwork, which immediately transformed before his eyes into puddle of gray liquid.  Gretchen next turned the pistol on Bill.  He tried to dodge the stream of triple four oil, but a drop caught him on his lower right cheek.  He fell into the mysterious substance that had once been Joan and in an instant had become a part of it.

Gretchen, realizing what she had done, backed herself into a corner and dropped the pistol.  “They were going to hurt you,” she cried.  “I thought it was just like the one you gave me for my birthday.  I didn’t know it would do that.”

Ray knelt beside Gretchen and gently embraced her.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Gretchen said.

“It’s all right, pumpkin,” Ray reassured her.  “You didn’t know what would happen.” 

They heard a sudden knock.  The police had finally arrived.

“Who’s that?” Gretchen asked.

“Just some people we need to talk to,” Ray said.

Everything was going to be all right, he thought.  Maybe not at first, but eventually.  Ray might have to spend more time in jail for possessing the triple four oil.  At least when they let him out this time, no faxos would be meeting him at the gate.  He would see that Gretchen was always taken care of, even if he could not be a regular part of her life.  Perhaps someday, they could be together as a family.  At least now they had a chance.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Lee Richardson 2025