The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten

by Harrison Geillor

  “Ah. No, though the bit about serious and foreseeable harm could be arguable, I think, if this letter is accurate, though there’s nothing to say she’d do something like that again… But, technically, Bonnie didn’t tell me anything, so it wouldn’t be a breach of confidentiality to tell Harry—”

  “So you are paying attention,” Levitt said, in his dry voice, like the rasp of lizard scales on sand. “Good. That’s true. So call up Harry and tell him you think his daughter is… what? A monster?”

  “Ah, I guess I’d say… troubled? Confused?”

  Levitt’s eyebrows went up. “Troubled? You wouldn’t go so far as to say psychopathic?”

  David made one of the array of noncommittal noises he’d mastered over the years.

  Levitt clucked his tongue. “Or, in your considered professional opinion, is she more properly termed a sociopath?”

  David nodded sagely for a moment, cocking his head thoughtfully, then gave in to the inevitable. “What’s the difference?”

  The old man sighed. “Trick question. Technically, no one is a psychopath or a sociopath anymore—they’re sufferers of Antisocial Personality Disorder now, and even back in the ’50s the distinction was disappearing, with the terms used interchangeably. But some people say there are two varieties of APD. For instance, maybe psychopaths have poor impulse control, and they’re more fearless, risk-seeking, and incapable of internalizing social norms. Psychopaths are louder and easier to notice. Sociopaths, though, have better impulse control, they can hold their tempers better, and don’t often take unnecessary risks—they can control themselves, and they’re better at passing as… for want of a better word… normal people. Psychopaths are incapable of love, while sociopaths can love, and intensely, though being the object of their love can be extremely dangerous—they might just kill a pretty waitress who flirts with you, for instance, or burn your house down to encourage you to move in with them. A sociopath is a selfish lover—they don’t respect rules or boundaries, and deep down they don’t much care about your needs, they begin to see you as an extension of themselves. Probably sounds romantic, to someone who’s an idiot. Passion and madness are so thinly divided, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’ve… never thought about it,” David said.

  Levitt continued. “Then again, some people flip the words, and say sociopaths are the ones who are obviously crazy and can’t fit into society, while psychopaths are the manipulative con men who cruise through human society like sharks. You shouldn’t use either term, really, though people still do, even doctors, even though neither one really means a damn thing exactly. But psychopath or sociopath, organized or disorganized, both lack empathy, both have a propensity for violence—or at least a willingness to engage in violence more easily than other people do—and deep down, they don’t believe other people are real, not entirely, not like they are.”

  “Ah,” David said. “I… I’m not sure Chief Cusack would like hearing his daughter was a sociopath. Or a psychopath. Or anything like that.”

  Levitt grinned. “You think? I think so too. Probably it’s all a misunderstanding, anyway, the principal’s note is careful to say it’s just rumors and rumblings, nobody’s sure.” Levitt shrugged. He looked at the ceiling for a while, long enough that David looked up there too, wondering if there was a water stain in the shape of Jesus or something similarly arresting, but it was just acoustical tile. “Who are we to say lack of empathy is a bad thing?” Levitt mused, still looking up. “There’s a movement among people with APD, self-diagnosed and medically diagnosed, to be considered just… non-neurotypical. Not crazy. Just… different. They call the rest of you—ah, us—‘empaths,’ some of them. They’re just not like the rest of the human race. Perhaps even superior, their minds unclouded by sentiment, capable of a sort of ruthless rationality. What do you think of that idea?”

  “I think it’s something I’d have to think about a lot more before I had any thoughts about it, if you see what I mean,” David said.

  “That’s what I like about you, Counselor. You fully commit to failing to commit. Well, let’s keep this letter to ourselves—” Levitt plucked the note from Bonnie Grayduck’s old principal from the desk. “—and keep an eye on Bonnie. If any of her friends… meet a bad end… we’ll make some discreet inquiries. No reason to bother Harry when this could be nothing, hmm?”

  “Of course,” David said, delighted to have the decision taken out of his hands. Having Mr. Levitt make decisions for him was almost as good as having the church or God telling him what to do, though his moral compass, David had to admit, was likely a bit more uncertain in its orientation.

  BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVES

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BONNIE GRAYDUCK

  Edwin was in the office, talking to the orange-haired receptionist, when I got out of my meeting with the guidance counselor. He was leaning over the counter, speaking to her in a low voice, and I was suddenly viciously jealous of their proximity: why the hell did that old woman get to be this close to his perfect face? I overhead him say, “But you have to let me transfer, I’ll take any other biology class, any period, it’s very important—” Then his head snapped around, and he stared at me, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowed. It’s taken me a lot of practice, but I’m good at reading expressions, and his said: I’m angry, surprised, and also maybe a little afraid. An odd reaction, especially since he didn’t know me at all—and he’d have nothing to fear from me anyway. “Never mind,” he muttered, turning and not quite running from the office. One advantage of him running away from me: I enjoyed the opportunity to watch a certain portion of his anatomy on the way out.

  I walked thoughtfully out to the parking lot. The logical conclusion was that he’d been trying to get out of our biology class so he wouldn’t have to sit next to me anymore. That sort of behavior might hurt a girl’s feelings, if she had any. I couldn’t figure out why he’d do that, though—we hadn’t interacted at all. I’d never had someone take such an immediate, instinctive dislike to me, and I must admit… I found it an intriguing challenge. Most people are as easily manipulated as a set of children’s building blocks, and I can put them together or pull them apart in whatever combinations amuse me. But Edwin was something I wanted, and he didn’t want me. Maybe this is what they mean by “playing hard to get”?

  But I was being silly. Edwin was a teenage boy. He wouldn’t be hard to get—none of them are, at least, not once I managed to get them hard. Then I’d be the one playing come-here/go-away, playing with his mind—

  My jaw started aching, and I realized I was grinding my teeth, an old habit from my childhood that I’d left behind, like playing with matches. I climbed into Marmon—the parking lot was nearly empty, so there was no danger of me smashing up the cars parked around me as I maneuvered the Great Wheeled Beast—and drove toward Harry’s house, planning my plans, and plotting my plots, and beginning to think I might have some fun in Lake Woebegotten after all. Getting someone to fall in love with me might be almost as much fun as destroying someone’s life.

  And if love didn’t work out, I could always fall back on the destruction.

  Harry brought home more burgers and fries from that diner, and I made a little face. “Eating like this once in a while is fine, Dad,” I said. “But I’d rather avoid the pimples, greasy skin, and thunder thighs, thanks. Don’t you ever cook at home?” Then again, home cooking in Lake Woebegotten probably meant casseroles where cream of mushroom soup and mayonnaise were the main ingredients, with a crust of crumbled corn chips on top.

  He looked a little shamefaced. “Well, I’m pretty busy, so I do eat a lot of takeout, I guess that’s not so good for you. When you used to visit, you loved eating pizza and burgers every night of the week. I guess I didn’t think… I could go by the grocery store and pick up a few things.” He sounded doubtful.

  I rolled my eyes. “Leave me some grocery money every week, I’ll do the shopping.” It was a role I’d taken on back in Santa Cruz, too, since left to her own dev
ices my mom wouldn’t have anything in the fridge but a bottle of mustard and sour milk and some rotting organic produce she’d forgotten to eat.

  Harry grinned. “It’s a deal. I can’t promise I’ll be home for dinner every night, what with the job and all, but I’ll do my best—”

  I waved my hand. “It’s okay, I’m good with the lone wolf thing, I’ll make stuff that generates lots of leftovers.”

  Not long after that, Dad got a call on his radio—somebody got drunk and fell down a flight of stairs, and Harry had to go make sure there wasn’t any foul play—so I had the big old house to myself. I considered trying to find out where the Scullens lived, maybe doing a little judicious stalking, but despite Marmon’s many fine qualities, he wasn’t an ideal reconnaissance vehicle.

  I settled for locking my door—it didn’t have a lock originally, but I’d brought a few hook-and-eyes and sliding bolts with me in my luggage, along with a battery-powered screwdriver, so that was okay—and plugging in my vibrator (the battery-powered ones are way too weak, don’t believe the hype) and thinking about Edwin, wondering if he was that pale and smooth and perfect all over.

  Tomorrow, the games would begin. Tomorrow, I’d start winning.

  Except tomorrow came, and Edwin wasn’t there. I spent the whole morning living halfway into the future, half-flirting with baby-faced Ike by rote, playing some little Queen Bee games with J and Kelly—backhanded compliments, subtle undermining, setting them at odds, really basic stuff, but essential for shifting around the social pecking order to favor me—but mostly just thinking Edwin Edwin Edwin. Then lunchtime came, and he wasn’t at his table. His semi-siblings were all there, but no Edwin, boy of my waking dreams.

  In the middle of some stupid babbling Ike was doing about taking a trip to the lake I stood up, strolled over to the Scullen/Scale table, and gave them my biggest wide-open smile. “Hello,” I said. “I’m Bonnie.”

  They all stared at me. Their faces might as well have been carved in marble. They were all so pretty. Was Dr. Scullen secretly a cosmetic surgeon, practicing at home on his foster brood, making them into images of perfection? I let my smile drop. “Anyway,” I said. “I need to talk to Edwin. Is he here today?”

  Rosemarie and Pleasance rose to their feet, picked up their trays, and walked away like I wasn’t even there.

  Blood rose into my cheeks. Cut dead by those pretty bitches, in public, in front of everyone? Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Not okay. There would be consequences.

  Hermet the giant got up, glanced at me, grinned like a moron, and lumbered out. That just left Garnett, who sighed. “Sorry about that,” he said. “They’re just… Edwin had to go up to Canada for a little while.”

  “How long?”

  Garnett shrugged.

  “Very helpful.” I went back to my table, where the convocation of lesser beings stared at me. I sat down, and went back to eating, and J finally said, “What was that all about?”

  “I just wanted to borrow Edwin’s notes from biology class for the week before I moved here,” I said. “But he’s not around.”

  That answer didn’t seem to satisfy any of them, but they didn’t push, and fell back into their mewing and bleating routine soon enough.

  So Edwin had taken a sudden trip to Canada. Interesting. It was insane to think he’d left town because of me… but in my experience, most things in the world do seem to revolve around me. And if they don’t start out that way, they get there eventually.

  Biology class with no partner was a bit of a bore. Indeed, the whole week was pretty useless. No Edwin meant nothing of interest. I used the time well, of course. I discovered that the grocery store—Dolph’s Half Good Grocery, “It Isn’t Half Bad!”—was immensely easy to shoplift from, as the cash register was either run by a profoundly stupid and inattentive teenager, or by the owner, Dolph, who spent most of his time flirting desperately with various housewives. I learned the faces, and very nearly the names, of every other kid in the school, and put together a mental map of the school’s social network, with all the fault lines and exploitable components marked red in my mind’s eye. A fairly simple and typical structure: jocks and cheerleaders, rich kids—around here I gather that meant their fathers owned lots of pigs—nerds, “slednecks,” the general slush of unremarkable losers, a lone goth, a pair of hippies, some band geeks, etc. All easily comprehended and exploited.

  But the Scullens and the Scales didn’t fit in. They were a little island off to the side, sharing connections only with one another, not hooked into the greater organism that was the school culture, and that meant they were essentially untouchable by all my preferred methods. Character assassination was pointless when they obviously didn’t care what anyone thought of them. Humiliation was out of the question; Rosemarie and Pleasance couldn’t be humiliated any more than the sun could be frozen: they embodied dignity and grace, which should have made them easier to topple or tarnish, but, frustratingly, somehow didn’t. I couldn’t turn them against each other because I didn’t have any leverage, or any way to get leverage. There were more direct approaches to comeuppance—I’d used them in the past—but increasingly, direct acts of violence seemed to be best used as a last resort, and probably indicative of a failed imagination. Far better to lead your enemies to destroy themselves.

  But I didn’t give up. I like a challenge. And I can be very patient.

  I just wished Edwin would come back. Plotting to destroy Rosemarie and Pleasance was fine, but when you have your heart set on seduction, assassination is a poor substitute.

  RETURNITY

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BONNIE GRAYDUCK

  My first weekend in Lake Woebegotten was also uneventful. A girl can get sick of uneventfulness. I mostly concentrated on making myself at home in Harry’s house, re-organizing the cupboards in the kitchen to better suit my preferences, and taking over the upstairs bathroom completely, quietly exiling all Harry’s crap to the smaller downstairs bathroom. He didn’t object. He struck me as a remarkably easygoing guy, which made me wonder how he’d ended up with my train wreck of a mother in the first place—though it did explain how he’d managed to put up with her for seven years before they broke up. Harry wasn’t around much. I tried to plot more against Rosemarie and Pleasance, but I couldn’t see any way to get to them that didn’t involve going through Edwin. What if he never came back?

  On Monday, people greeted me by name at school, Ike nipping at my heels, J becoming increasingly cold toward me—she liked Ike, for some reason, perhaps a fat-cheeks fetish, and his obvious fascination with me bothered her. She kept spending time with me, though, in the best frenemies tradition, and for my part, I stopped flirting with Ike, and the other boys, too. Not to make J happy, though—mostly because I didn’t want Edwin to get any mixed messages… even if he wasn’t here to receive them. Word could get back to him through his luminous siblings, after all.

  But that day, when I went into the lunch room, the Scullen and Scale table was full again: Edwin was back, chatting and laughing with his family as always. I didn’t stare—I didn’t—but he happened to look over at me just as I looked over at him, and our eyes met, and this time, there was no mask of hostility on his face, and he even gave me a little half-smile. I ignored him, pretending to pay attention to the prattlings of my tablemates, until Kelly whispered, “Edwin Scullen is staring at you.”

  “Doesn’t cost anything to look,” I said breezily, and bit into my chicken sandwich.

  “No, he’s really staring. Wow.”

  I shrugged, but I was secretly gratified. If he were fascinated with me, for whatever reason, that was something I could use. I very deliberately didn’t look over at him again. No reason for him to know I was fascinated, after all. Ike went on about the trip to the lake again. I gathered cases of cheap beer and bags of undoubtedly skank weed would be involved. Typical teenage stuff, but not unpleasant, in a provincial way, and I found myself agreeing to join them. I just wished I’d brought some good stuff with me from San
ta Cruz—my mom had an old back injury that got her a medical marijuana card, so she always had plenty in the house, and was sufficiently scatterbrained that I could take more or less as much as I wanted. Not a luxury I had with a cop as my dad. Though maybe if I could get access to the evidence locker…

  After lunch I sailed out of the cafeteria, the gears in my mind locking and meshing and spinning beautifully. A lot would depend on how Edwin reacted to me in biology class. If he put up his wall-of-silence again, it would be tough; the Scullens were a tricky bunch, but if I could find a crack, I could exploit it.

  Our lab table was empty when I arrived in class, even though I’d dawdled so I could make a nice entrance, and I had a flash of worry—was Edwin ditching? I sat down, looking without much interest at the microscope set up in the middle of the table. Just when I was ready to give up on him, Edwin burst in, looking like an underwear model late for a shoot, his hair beautifully tousled, his cheekbones so prominent they could have been handholds on a beginner’s climbing wall.

  I looked away from him, down at my notepad, and ignored him thoroughly, though of course I noticed when he sat in the chair next to mine—and didn’t drag it as far away from me as possible this time. I continued ignoring him, doodling, though I realized I was doodling skulls, so I quickly started transforming them into flowers and other innocuous things with lots of dense little pen-strokes.