Psychological Control

The business district near Bogle Street has changed beyond recognition in the past ten years.The most noticeable difference is that the streets have been nearly twice as wide.The buildings on both sides of the street are not in the style of bungalows made of old wood, but have been changed into board houses.

I stood on the commercial street and looked around, comparing it with what Brian remembered in my mind.This place where he and Dexter used to come together, and the memory of his mother buying them an ice cream to share is the only memory I can find of Brian's impression of this commercial street.

Dexter is a very punctual person, and he appeared across the street just before our appointed time.Obviously Dexter has no impression of this commercial street, so he didn't show any reaction.After all, even Brian himself had a vague impression of this place in his own memory, let alone his younger brother who was not even old enough to remember.

"Good morning, Carl." Dexter trotted across the road, came to me, and raised his hand to say hello.In fact, it is almost noon now, but I didn't mean to say much, I just nodded to signal him to follow.

"I haven't really visited this old city." Dexter walked with me, gradually walked through most of the commercial street, and walked towards the nearby Bogle Street.After the silence between the two of us for nearly 5 minutes, he finally couldn't bear to speak.

Of course he hadn't visited, and Harry had tried his best to keep him out of the area where he lived with Brian and his mother before that incident, in order to avoid him being exposed to memories that would bring back memories of his childhood.Even because of this, when he was still buying a new house, he moved his family as far away as possible from here.

But looking at Dexter, who is not very calm, he is now more immature than I imagined.Maybe only after he actually started those killing acts and turned into an apathetic monster.Under the mask of a hypocritical smile, you will really become lifeless.His performance now shows that it is not too late for me to intervene.

"It is said that the old town has been completely renovated. The scene in your eyes now has no resemblance to what it was more than ten years ago." In response to his words, I did not hide my words, explaining that I am actually interested in The fact that this neighborhood looked like more than ten years ago has some understanding.In fact, this is what I deliberately wanted to make him suspicious.

Lead him through the prosperous center of the commercial street, and gradually approach the end of the street to a crossroad.Across the corner from the intersection, there is a red fire hydrant.Although the sidewalk has long since been resurfaced, the fire hydrant still sits on a familiar street corner.

I looked at the fire hydrant, and Brian's memory flashed in my mind. He and Dexter, two mischievous little bean dices, were in front, chasing and fighting.Then Dexter wobbles and falls next to the fire hydrant, nearly hitting his head on it.In the end, the culprit, Brian, was spanked by his mother.

When I was fascinated by the fire hydrant, Dexter suddenly pushed me and said, "The light is green, let's go. What are you looking at?" He also looked in the direction I was looking at.

Hearing his voice, I subconsciously replied: "You have to look around the car before leaving." Then I suddenly stopped talking, Dexter's face was filled with a blank expression, he looked at the zebra crossing The fire hydrant on the opposite corner of the street, his eyes were a little out of focus.And the words that came out of me suddenly were also words that Brian's mother used to whisper to her ears when she took her two brothers to cross the road.

In the past three days, although I also came here with Dillon and the real estate agent, I came here a few times to redecorate the old house.But maybe it was because the people I followed were different, so I didn't have any special memories.

But on the way back with Dexter today, maybe the people around me and the scene finally coincided, making the memories of Brian in my mind like opening a Pandora's box, and something kept popping up.

I watched Dexter lose his mind for a moment until the green light changed to a flashing red light, a reminder to pedestrians when it was time to change.I pushed his arm in reverse, and said, "Hurry up, or you'll have to wait another round." Only then did Dexter recover from his dazed state, and he avoided my sight , buried his head and took the lead.

Maybe it was because of our eccentricity on the way, or maybe it was because I was waiting for an answer from Dexter, and Dexter was waiting for an explanation from me.So we didn't say a word to each other until we arrived at 103 Bogle Street.

Finally, standing in front of the former home of the two at this moment.Although the old house was already a little dilapidated, the very familiar feeling that made my eyes and nasal cavity sore still filled my five senses.I looked at Dexter's expression, there was some inexplicable and puzzled expression on his face, and a look of panic flashed in his eyes.

He still couldn't remember for a while.But it doesn't matter, I remember every scene here so firmly.Or in other words, during the more than ten years of his career in a mental sanatorium, the memories that kept Brian from collapsing had already been firmly engraved in his soul.

"103 Bogle Street." I smiled and said to Dexter, "Although it looks like such a dilapidated old house, it once had youth."

I smiled and pointed out to Dexter that the gate should have been a garden and a lawn, but now there is only an open space of loess. "There used to be little pink and blue flowers here. There were tall bushes, and my younger brother and I, who had already forgotten all of this, played peek-a-boo tirelessly here."

"Then mom would come out of the room and open the door and walk down the stairs yelling... 'Two little bastards, got yourself dirty again. Wash your hands and eat...'" I looked at the clearing in front of me, And the dilapidated old house behind the open space, ignoring Dexter's reaction, talking on his own.

I pushed open the white wooden railing door, which had faded and decayed, and was the first to go in.As I walked around Dexter, I saw his expression.This is the first time I saw such...how should I put it...vulnerable expression on his face?

Dexter just stared blankly at everything around him, and followed me easily.He still didn't say a word until I opened the door of the house with the key.

Unlike the dilapidated and dilapidated appearance outside, the inside of the house is not empty and full of dust.After signing the contract to buy the house, I spent a day with a cleaning company and went to the thrift furniture market to buy as close as I could remember.

So the house presented to Dexter at this time, after I turned on the warm yellow lights in the room, was paired with the bottle of fresh carnations on the dining table.The whole space seems to have remained unchanged for more than ten years.I watched as Dexter ambled past me to the center of the room.

He looked at the decorations and furniture in the living room and dining room in a panic, and then hurriedly pushed open the closed doors one after another in the room.A room that was supposed to be a baby room that became our toy room.Apart from the garden, that room was our main base when we were young.

It's just that there is nothing in the room, and I only had time to decorate the living room and dining room in one day.But the way Dexter suddenly froze and stopped, let me know that the memories that had been hidden in his mind for so many years were finally revived.

Dexter pushed open another room, which was the bedroom where the brothers had once lived.Brian and Dexter's mom bought the brothers a bunk bed.This is still the dream of most boys when they are young, hoping that they can have a bunk bed.

Brian slept on the top bunk, and Dexter's was the bottom bunk.

Brian had teased Dexter once that the reason Dexter slept on the bottom bunk was because he kept wetting the bed.Sleeping under him, afraid of being woken up by the "rain" in the middle of the night.Because of this, Dexter once clamored to sleep on the top bunk.In the end, it was the mother who upheld justice and asked Brian and his brother to share the joys and sorrows and sleep together in the lower bunk.

The other is the master bedroom of Brian and Dexter's mother.The two brothers don't go into the master bedroom very often, because their mother doesn't want them to get closer to the men who come and go in it.

That's right, in fact, the mother of the two brothers is not a gentle and educated woman in the traditional sense.She grew up living in a slum, and drug and sex trades were the source of income that she used to live for herself and support the three-person family.

But the real reason why she was brutally killed was because she was Sheriff Harry's informant!The exposure of the undercover police implicated the mothers of the two brothers.Drugs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were inexplicably lost, making her a scapegoat.

Would Sergeant Harry really adopt a victim's child just out of sympathy?Then he is going to open a welfare home.It's just the guilt in his heart, so he can only use this kind of thing to atone for his sin.This is why, Harry Morgan, who has been upright all his life, will no longer kill his relatives righteously in the end.

Isn't this kind of thing too despicable?It is because of Harry that our two brothers are what they are today.But in front of Dexter, he has become a father who has the grace to nurture Brian's younger brother.The root of the injury is to make people feel grateful to him.

This is the source of Brian's hatred for the Harry Morgan family.

"So, tell me, Dexter." I stood behind him, looked at his back with clenched fists and trembling, and asked faintly: "Have you found the lost thing you were looking for? What happened in the past, you How much do you remember?"

"...Benny..." His voice was too small to be heard, reaching my ears through the warm afternoon air.He turned around slowly and looked at me.I saw the hypocritical mask he had been embedding on his face all this time, torn apart by the teardrops from the corners of his eyes.

"Yeah, you always call me Benny." I smiled but the smile didn't reach my eyes, I could only feel the burning pain in my eyes. "You couldn't pronounce my name when you were a kid. So you probably still don't know that Beanie is just a variant of Brian."