by Hadena James
There was something I never told the therapists. When I shoved the spoon handle into Mr. Callow, I was hoping that he died. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. I wanted him dead more than anything else in the world.
No one would have understood it then. I’m not sure they would today. But I knew about Mr. Callow. Or at least, I had read about it in the papers. I didn’t have a name to place on the serial killer at the time. I knew what a serial killer was though and I knew the moment Mr. Callow snatched me from the street that he was the one in the papers.
At that moment, even as he was shoving me in the trunk of his car, I was already plotting how to escape. I was already plotting how to kill him.
I believed he deserved it. He might have. Mr. Callow had a pattern. He kept his victims for two weeks. He molested them. Raped them. Tortured them. Then, only after they had endured as much as their small little bodies could endure, did he release them with death.
A few years later, when I realized what serial killers and other criminals did to child molesters in prison, I started to think Mr. Callow had gotten off too light. He should have lived, faced the hell of his own making in a small cell with violent men. I still believe that.
I gave up on therapy by the time I was fourteen. There was no point. They had labeled me “damaged goods”, but I was probably damaged before Mr. Callow had taken me. It wasn’t something they could fix. I had to fix it.
I did. I built my own code of conduct. Thou shalt not kill was not among them. Thou shalt not kill for no reason and without provocation was.
Mr. Callow was just the beginning. I said I should be an easy victim, but I’m not. This is because I am not a victim, I am a volunteer. I invite the evil monsters into my house hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. Mr. Callow was just the first, not the last.
I finished my bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan when I was only nineteen. I held degrees in history, anthropology and sociology at that point.
I had been accepted to the University of Washington and was preparing for the move when the second one struck.
I was out with a few friends; I didn’t have more than a few friends, celebrating graduation and acceptance to the graduate program. I was not old enough to drink, but my college friends were. I noticed him. They did not.
He followed us out of the bar. My stomach flopped only once. There was something about him, something indefinable. I knew that he was like Mr. Callow. He was dangerous.
One of my sociology professors had done a series of lectures on how violence begets violence and how violent people are attracted to other violent people. I understood it in ways that most of my fellow students had not. I had been attracting violent people since I was eight years old. Violent people just naturally gravitated to me. To them, I was someone who needed to be dominated, someone that needed to be taught a lesson.
I don’t think violent people understand it on that level or any level. I understand it. But I have been aware of it for 18 years.
I ensured my girlfriends all got back to their apartment. I even convinced one of the guys in the group that he should stay with them. They were too drunk to be left alone. He agreed, although, he can’t say why he agreed. He couldn’t tell the police why he agreed.
I took the lone stalker back towards my own apartment. I locked the front door. I locked the windows. If he got in, I’d deal with it. If he didn’t, then I would sleep until morning and then go back to packing.
His name was Gerard Hawkins. He did manage to break into my apartment. It turned out I was his prey all along. I looked like his ex-girlfriend, a woman who had cuckolded him and worse. His goal was to slit my throat, it was unrealized.
I took my own knife from the bedside table and plunged it deep into his ear canal. I was told he didn’t die immediately. He lived for a couple of seconds.
I didn’t tell the university police or the local police that I already knew that. I had watched the life drain from him. I had watched his body twitch. I knew exactly what had happened as he had died.
I told them it was all a blank. The knife was a decorative piece, not a weapon of self-defense. I had awoken when he had clamped his hand over my mouth. I had just reacted, possibly badly.
They agreed that I had done what I needed to do. Gerard Hawkins turned out to be my second serial killer. He had killed six others in the Cleveland, Ohio area and moved to Michigan when he thought they were getting on to him.
The FBI had been brought in then too. A serial killer crossing state lines was a big deal. By then, I knew that I was a sociopath. During a lecture on affect in relation to abnormal psychological conditions, specifically Anti-Social Personality Disorder, my professor had noticed something that all the other doctors had missed. I lacked affect a great deal of the time and I was quite capable of being charming, even charismatic at times. He also noticed that I could be cold, calculating and completely void of any affect. He asked me to stay after class, pretending to want to talk to me about a paper I had written. After entering his office, he sat me down and began talking about my past. My professor was aware that I was in his class because of my previous encounters. He was the first to tell me that I was a sociopath.
After several meetings, we agreed that it would be wrong to give me an official diagnosis that would result in society stigmatizing me. Instead, he gave me some coping techniques. They were great. He also told me that I did have an anxiety disorder, but none of it was Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That would have required me to feel guilty.
Since guilt is also not among my emotional abilities, I have never felt guilty for defending myself. Besides, it keeps them from hurting others.
Which brings me back to my current situation and the two men sitting in my living room.
Chapter 3