Collecting Cooper: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  When lunch came he went up to the boy who had started the laughing.

  “I want you to leave Katie alone,” Adrian said.

  “You what? Fuck you, you’re kidding, right?”

  “I mean it.”

  The boy, his name was Redmond but everybody called him Red, was holding a rugby ball that he was about to start throwing with his friends. Redmond was one of those fat kids with fat cheeks who later on in life would call himself big-boned. “You mean it?” Red said, then pushed a fat finger into Adrian’s chest. “Little Aids,” he said, because that’s what they called Adrian, “doesn’t want us teasing his girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  Red pushed him again, only this time one of Red’s friends had knelt down behind Adrian, so when he moved backward he tipped over, the ground knocking most of the fight out of him, the rest being knocked out a moment later when Red jumped on top of him, punching him hard twice in the stomach, and then rubbing his face in the dirt. There was nobody to help him. Other students started to come over to watch. Including Katie. A couple of the bigger girls brought her over. Adrian looked up at her. He tried to smile at her but couldn’t. He was in too much pain, and he was using all of his effort just to keep his bowels in check.

  “He’s not your friend is he?” asked one of the girls, a big girl, one of those rapidly growing girls with big jaws and mean eyes and curly hair. It was common at school that if you grew faster than the majority you became a real bastard.

  Katie didn’t say anything.

  “Because if he’s your boyfriend, then you’re about to be on the ground next to him,” the girl added. “That’s your future.” They were deep words for a thirteen-year-old girl.

  Everybody fell quiet as Katie thought about her future. “He’s . . . he’s not my boyfriend,” Katie said.

  “Then who is he?”

  “I don’t know. Just some . . . some loser in my class,” Katie said—there were tears in her eyes but they didn’t fall.

  “A what?” the girl asked.

  “A loser. A loser,” Katie said.

  Adrian can still remember it, word for word. He doesn’t have problems with those memories, only with the ones he’s developed over the following years. That day he fell out of love as easily as he fell into it, or at least that’s what he thought at the time. His life at school got worse. The girls began to tease him as much as the boys. Katie became popular. To her credit she never teased him directly. Sometimes he’d come home with a bloody nose and grazed elbows and knees and his mother would call the school and complain, and the following day the bullying would be worse. Bullying was like that, the more you complained the bigger the problem became, the teachers never able to do anything about it. His classmates took any chance he had of becoming a confident student and squashed it. It was months after Katie called him a loser that he learned the only way to find happiness was to take it from somebody else.

  He also knew how.

  In the morning, while his mother was making him breakfast, he would go into the bathroom and urinate into a plastic bottle that would hold half a liter. He would screw the top on really tight. The bottle would be warm when he put it in his school bag but cold by the time he got to school. He would take one of his many moments of isolation between the taunts and the beatings, and he would go into the locker rooms and unscrew the plastic bottle and pour the contents into the bags of anybody who hurt him. There was a time, about a week into it, that he had to pour it over his own bag so the others wouldn’t think it was him, but he diluted it with so much water that it wasn’t really that bad and he took the things out of his bag he didn’t want damaged. If he couldn’t pour it into their bags, he’d pour it into their desks, over their uniforms while they were in gym class when he could manage it. He lasted a full month before he lost the courage to continue regularly. By then there were too many people watching out for the Urinator as he was called, with a promise from the principal that the Urinator would be expelled. It didn’t matter, because by then school was nearly over for the Christmas holidays. He carried on when they went back seven weeks later, not as often, only once or twice a term. He never soaked Katie’s bag, but he soaked some of the other girls’ bags. The occasions lessened. Once a month became once every three months. Then only a couple of times a year.

  It all ended three years later when he was sixteen. He doesn’t know the boy’s name who walked in on him during the act, he was pouring his urine through the grill holes of another boy’s locker, a boy who had walked past him the day before in the corridor and slapped him in the face for no reason. In that moment of being caught his future flashed ahead of him, it would start with his mother finding out, he would be expelled, he would carry the Urinator name with him wherever he went. He was old enough to know his astronaut fantasy wasn’t going to pan out, young enough to have no idea what he wanted to do in life, and old enough to know that whatever dreams he would have were now over. The boy stared at Adrian, said nothing, and then walked away.

  The rest of that afternoon was the worst. He couldn’t concentrate in any of the classes. He thought the teachers were giving him a funny look. He kept waiting for somebody to bring a message for the teacher, asking for Adrian to be sent to the principal’s office. The school bell rang and it was time to go and still nothing. When he got home, every time the phone rang he knew it was going to be the school talking to his mother, that expulsion was next, but the call didn’t come.

  If the first day was bad, the second was by far much worse. He didn’t eat breakfast that morning. He felt sick all day. On recess breaks and during lunch he would sit in the bathroom with his stomach holding what felt like a bucket of water.

  It was the third day the boy came for him. He didn’t come alone. They took him at the end of the school day and dragged him into a park. Together they held Adrian down and tied him up. They didn’t kick or punch him, not in the beginning, and when he was securely bound they stood around him in a circle and they all pissed on him, eight of them in total. It splashed over his skin and ran down his body. It pooled beneath his back and buttocks and soaked into his clothes. They strapped a stick in his mouth so he couldn’t form a seal with his lips. They aimed for his face, it streamed into his eyes and burned them, it rained onto his tongue and felt like acid at the back of his throat. He gagged and coughed and spluttered and it stuck in his throat and he felt like he was drowning. It felt like it lasted forever. When they were done they laughed at him and one of the boys kicked him in the head. The kicking caught on the same way fads tend to sometimes, because then another boy did it, and another. Soon they were all kicking him, and when he finally blacked out, their laughter followed him into the darkness. He dreamed of Katie. He dreamed of better times.

  When he came to, the ropes were gone. He couldn’t stand. The world was off balance. A passerby found him. An ambulance was called. He was in hospital for six weeks. His brain had swelled and holes had to be drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure. He was put into an induced coma for two weeks. Six of his ribs had been broken. So had his right arm. When he came out of it, he didn’t name the boys who had done it to him. He told the police he couldn’t remember who they were. Only he could remember.

  His balance came back after a month. It took him a couple of days to start walking straight. Things he’d learned at school no longer made sense. The simplest things were no longer that simple. He didn’t like listening to his music anymore. He hated it. The comics didn’t make him laugh anymore, and he hated the stories because they were about people who had unique abilities he could never have. Instead he started to make his own comics. He wasn’t a good artist, but he was good enough, and he’d draw those kids who had hurt him, and he’d draw himself standing over those boys, and he’d draw different types of weapons and different ways to use them. Sometimes, when he wasn’t drawing, he’d sit in his room snapping the doors and wheels off his model cars. He heard his mother telling his aunty that he had
changed, that something inside his head had been broken. He didn’t know what. His mother knew, and she’d explain it to him, but it just didn’t make sense. He was the same person, he felt the same—and yet he knew he had changed. Sometimes he’d forget things. Things before the beating were locked inside his memory for good, but some new things struggled to stick. He was always losing things, he couldn’t remember people’s names. But he didn’t forget the names of each of the boys who had done this to him. The police were still asking questions, only not as many now. They had moved on to other things. People forgot about what happened to Adrian.

  He got his strength back. His balance came back. His mind started to heal. He would never be a hundred percent, but at least he could remember new things if he tried hard enough. However he saw things differently now. The kicks to his head, the swelling to his brain, it changed his perspective on life.

  School was over for him. Even if he could have gone back, he wouldn’t have wanted to. What was he going to do, study to become an astronaut? The worst part was he couldn’t pour urine into the lockers of the boys who hurt him.

  The best thing was it gave him more time to think about what he was going to do to them. Ever since then, he’s struggled to make friends. Now it’s looking like it might be the same with Cooper. Before the beating he wasn’t popular, but there were a couple of equally unpopular kids who would at least speak to him on occasion. If his mother were here, then at least there’d be somebody to comfort him, to calm him, to care that he’s upset. At least that’s the fantasy. His mother would do no such thing. She used to, a long time ago, until he started waiting outside his school and following those kids home who had hurt him. That’s when things got bad. It wasn’t long after this that his first mother sent him out here to the Grove and stopped being his mother.

  It’s not fair, but things never are. Collecting Cooper is supposed to be the most exciting thing he has ever done, and these thoughts, along with Cooper’s actions, are bringing him down. There has to be a way to make Cooper like him. Cooper likes other people, which means it’s possible. He should go downstairs and ask Cooper who else has ever shown him such a respect as to want to own him for a collection! Who else thinks so much of Cooper’s work? Nobody!

  He tries to tell himself Cooper just needs time to adjust, and remembers what it was like for himself when he was first brought out here, what it was like being in a foreign world, only for him it was worse, for him he was locked out here with dozens of other patients, some of them crazy, some of them mean, some of them crazy-mean, all of them set free three years ago when Grover Hills was shut down. He reminds himself he knew Cooper’s anger was always going to be a possibility.

  Tomorrow his gift will go a long way to fixing any problems between them. For now, he should rest for the remainder of the day, and then sleep on it. Like his mother—not his real mother who abandoned him, but his second mother who looked after him and the others who were different—used to say, “A problem with rest becomes a solution most best.” He’s not so sure if his mother was right on that one.

  He paces his bedroom, counting the footsteps, finding comfort in the familiar. He used to pace this room a lot as he grew from teenager to man. Sometimes he’d have the room to himself, other times he’d have to share it and there would be less room for his footsteps. The higher the number, the calmer he becomes. He prefers even numbers over the odd, and makes sure he always finishes his steps on a multiple of ten, having to either shorten or lengthen his stride to make it happen. He pushes everything from his mind until he reaches a thousand. A thousand is a good number, twice as good as five hundred, half as good as two thousand. A good, solid number, a multiple of ten and also a hundred, which itself is a multiple of ten. He sits down. He thinks about second impressions. He thinks about what he can do to make Cooper happy, and decides that giving the serial killer some books to read might help. It’s a great idea.

  As quickly as the excitement comes, it disappears, replaced by a feeling of utter uselessness, a feeling he has been intimate with his entire adult life. Giving Cooper reading material is an idea to be proud of, but what he isn’t proud of is the fact it took so long for the idea to come. He should have known all along a man like Cooper needs to keep his mind active, stimulated, otherwise he’ll become stagnant. Collector’s items aren’t meant to be boring.

  “Cooper will be so happy,” he says, knowing once he shares the idea the two of them will start to bond. For the last three years he’s been collecting books about serial killers. He loves reading them. They fascinate him. He picks up a handful of books from his bedroom and carries them to the basement. Cooper watches him coming down the stairs, his face in the small window, motionless. He looks gray, hollow, like a ghost who’s moved on to somewhere else.

  “I brought you something to read,” Adrian says, holding up the books.

  “Thank you. I appreciate that,” Cooper says and Adrian is pleased at his politeness. “Are you going to leave the lamp for me?”

  “It’s the only one I have,” Adrian says, “and I’ll need it for when it gets dark.”

  “Then how am I going to read?”

  Adrian straightens up the coffee table and sits the books on them, embarrassed because he doesn’t have an answer. Parts of the sandwich have stuck to the surfaces it hit, and the bread has gone hard. He’ll clean it up tomorrow.

  “Are you mad at me?” Adrian asks, not looking up. “Don’t you feel special?”

  “I feel trapped,” Cooper answers. “You seem like an intelligent guy, you must be to have accomplished all this by yourself. You must have plenty of friends you can talk to, why do you need to keep me here?”

  “I don’t have any friends,” Adrian answers, fiddling with the books so all the spines are perfectly aligned. “I used to, but they all left.”

  “Come now, that can’t be true,” Cooper says. “A guy like you, you must have lots of friends.”

  “Are you mocking me?” he asks, looking up.

  “I don’t mock.”

  “You should feel special,” Adrian says. “I mean, you’re one of most special people in this city at the moment. You’re a serial killer, and if that isn’t special, I don’t know what is.”

  “Why do you think I’m a serial killer? What have I done to make you think that?”

  “For one, you have a thumb in a jar. Serial killers collect things like that from their victims.”

  Cooper smiles. “You think I cut the thumb off somebody I killed?”

  Adrian likes seeing the smile, and he smiles too. “Didn’t you?”

  Cooper nods, the smile still there. “Okay,” he says. “No more lies. You got me. Of course I cut it off one of my victims.”

  “Why did you ask me before if I had sold it to you?”

  “I’m not sure. I woke up feeling groggy and confused. Did you shoot me with a Taser?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then held something over my face. What was that?”

  Adrian doesn’t know. It’s stuff he picked up last week when he got the Taser. He shrugs. “Something that makes people sleep,” he says. “Who did you cut the thumb off?”

  “A man I killed.”

  “You kill men? I thought you only killed women.”

  “Sometimes both,” Cooper says.

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “Because I wanted to. How did you figure out I was a serial killer, Adrian? Lay it out for me. The police don’t know I’m one, so you must be smarter than the police.”

  Adrian smiles. It’s been a long time since he’s had any emotional warmth well up inside of him, and it feels great. This is exactly why he wanted to have Cooper so badly. They will become best friends. Cooper can tell him how it feels to be a serial killer, and Cooper can tell him about all the other killers he’s known. He’s glad he rewound the tape earlier and is recording over their previous conversation. He hopes it comes through clearly—he has his shirt hanging over the radio so Cooper can’t see i
t.

  “I started watching you because I remembered you were writing a book,” he says. “You used to come out here years ago and ask us questions, but you never had any questions for me.”

  “Here? Where is here? One of the abandoned institutions?”

  “Grover Hills,” Adrian says, “and it’s not abandoned because we’re here. And it’s not an institution, it’s a home. You were writing a book about us, and I’ve looked for it but haven’t found a copy anywhere.”

  “It’s not finished,” Cooper says.

  “I’d like to read it.”

  “Sure, I’d like that too. I’m interested in what you have to say on it. How can I give you a copy, Adrian? It’s on my computer. We could go to my house and I could show it to you.”

  “Maybe,” Adrian says, knowing Cooper is trying to trick him, “but not today. You never had any questions for me. Do you remember me at all?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “You only spoke to killers, that’s why,” Adrian says. “They were my friends.”

  “And now they’ve all gone,” Cooper says.

  “Yes, but I’m back, and since I can’t have them, I can have you because you knew them all, you can tell me their stories, and you’re a killer just like them.”