by Jen Sacks
Anyway, Sam likes me no matter what I do. Or say. So, he's a conscienceless killer. And apparently a voyeur. I'm not perfect myself. You don't toss love back in just because it's not big enough. Because the other person has a few flaws. There aren't a lot of fish in the sea like him. Or me.
40
Sam
One night, not long after our latest tête-à-tête, Grace and I went out to dinner (Italian) and a play (inscrutable). Both were in her neighborhood, which explained much but not all. As we strolled along toward her apartment, I was still reviewing in my head everything that was wrong with the little piece of experimental theater to which I had subjected us. It was not entirely unreasonable that the leading man was a woman. But the leading woman was a terrier. And the Greek chorus was a heavy-metal band. How long had I been out of New York?
On the Lower East Side, euphemistically known as the East Village, it was possible to observe many aspects of life that in other neighborhoods more typically remained hidden from view. As we passed by a parked car along the way, we noticed inside it a middle-aged couple arguing vituperously. His voice was harsh, low, and intense. The woman was shrieking. They were both cursing viciously, in two languages. I glanced at Grace, expecting to share a superior smile, but she looked surprisingly uncomfortable.
"What is the matter?" I asked, naturally. Perhaps she was still cogitating on the play. Not that she had been quite herself since the latest death.
"It's funny. It just kind of took me back," she said after a few moments.
"Back where?" I felt I had to be careful here.
"Home," she said simply.
"Did your parents fight often?"
"That's all they did."
"Not like that."
"No. Worse. It's just so funny, because even though I saw that every day of my life, there's been nothing like that in my life for the last ten years. Whatever else has gone on, nothing like that. Mostly, I don't even remember it."
I said nothing. I wanted her to go on.
"The only times I ever really remember it are, occasionally, in dreams when I'm back there. And the tension is so thick, constant tension, not knowing at any moment what will set them off. And no way to escape."
"So you did not have a very happy childhood," I offered, somewhat inanely, I confess.
"Did I ever say I did? Did you?"
"Yes," I chuckled a bit. "As a matter of fact, I did."
She looked puzzled. "Everything is not easily explainable," I added. In answer to her unspoken question, I made the effort, even so. "I was always very inventive. And that talent eventually came to the attention of those who had many ideas as to how to utilize it. I did not start out killing. I was a planner, a strategist, but it eventually became apparent that I was the man most capable of carrying out my own ideas… And it was war."
"Hmmm. That war is over," she noted.
"And I am still killing."
She said nothing. I changed the subject.
"So in your dreams, you can never escape."
"Well, I couldn't, could I? I was a kid. But I can't really remember the sensation except when I'm in the dream right then. But I know the tension was always there. And I did try to keep people calm. I don't know. I don't remember much."
She shook her head—to herself, really. Or perhaps not.
"Sometimes," I said, "you are a little hard to read."
"No," she said. "Sometimes I'm just gibberish… Like that play." She smiled. The moment was over. I would get nothing more out of her. Nor she from me.
41
Grace
Sam didn't follow me inside that night, and I was glad. He keeps pressing me. I don't want to describe my past.
I don't want to remember it. Death threats, violence, fighting, blah, blah, blah. I just want things to be civilized. Controlled. Quiet. That's all I've ever wanted. I stayed away from men (and my family) because of the potential for noise. Noisy emotions and noisy violence. Noise and confusion and people's feelings getting hurt. God, the only thing worse than the noise was the silence. When they would stop talking to me, have nothing to do with me; I had done something wrong, hadn't put them first. After a few days, I would have forgotten what it was I had even done to bring it on. And they would act as if I didn't exist. Until they got their way. That silence was even worse than the fighting.
I would never do that to anyone. And I will never let anyone do that to me again. Anything but that.
42
Sam
For a moment, I was frozen, even though I should have expected it, given the neighborhood. I was walking down Fourteenth Street, heading toward her home on a late Saturday afternoon, when suddenly a swarm of police officers materialized directly in front of me. My first thought was that they had somehow found out about her. My second was to calculate, with the basic materials I always had on hand, how many of them I could disable. Then I saw several poor local specimens being handcuffed roughly and shoved against the walls of the buildings that lined the street: Marijuana dealers, I realized, were the targets here, not my girlfriend.
A great wave of relief washed over me.
How little they knew. My little flower, deadly as she is, seems uncomfortable with dissension. Uncomfortable with what happens when unstable humans come into close contact with one another. I can understand that. Perhaps her nerves were shattered at an early age and now she has no patience left. Endless patience, it seems, and then none. The world is not kind to young females. It places so many demands upon them. She simply does riot seem to know how to turn down the volume of those demands. She only knows how to turn it off.
She would be happiest, I suppose, with some sort of calculating machine, rather than an all-too-fallible human. At least I hope so.
I continued walking down the street, glancing only casually at the events taking place around me. There Grace was, a few yards away, meeting me, taking in the scene. Except for me, she was by far the most dangerous person on that street.
43
Grace
After a concert Saturday night, he invited me back to his place, where I had never been. His place! I thought, He is ready to remove a major barrier between us. Not one we've ever spoken about, but still it was there. His private space. God knows he had invaded mine. He had always managed to act as if I was the one holding back, but we both tended to keep a lot to ourselves. Symbolically speaking, letting me into wherever it is he lives was really letting me in, I suspected. No more walls.
44
Sam
I made slow love to her that night. It was only the second time. She laughed and cried, at different points. I slid inside her so easily.
And when she fell asleep, again in my arms, I felt almost as relaxed as she. Until a few hours later, when, stirring, I reached for her and felt nothing.
I found her, crying very quietly, wrapped in my discarded shirt, in the bathroom.
"They won't be back, will they?" she whispered tragically.
"Who?" I knew whom she meant.
"I killed them. I really did." She took a shuddering breath. "Do you know what the secret to killing people is?"
"Yes," I said softly.
"They never really expect it. It's not fair, really. They don't."
"Yes." I seated myself on the floor, Indian-style. She had the cover of the toilet down and was sitting on it.
"I can never sit comfortably like that." She pointed at my position. "Except me. I always expect it."
I handed her some toilet paper.
"They can always turn against you, you know."
"Who can?"
"You know. People. When I was little, they used to make fun of the weird kids, and I wouldn't. And then they started making fun of me. Just speak your mind, and they make you pay."
"Not always," I said.
"Yes. Always. I'm just tired of it. I don't want to deal with it anymore. Other people and their feelings."
"You chose a rather extreme way to avoid that," I pointed out.
She just looked at me angrily. I went on: "You know, I have been doing a little reading about serial killers."
"I'm not a serial killer. Are you crazy?" She had stopped crying at least.
"You have murdered four men, that I know of," I said.
"Three men. And one of them was self-defense."
"And what about the businessman you had an overstimulating dinner with not so long ago?"
"I didn't kill him."
I said nothing, but my eyebrows rose of their own accord.
"I didn't. I was going to. I felt it. But then I didn't. I said no. And he stepped back." She was staring beyond me, envisioning the scene again, I imagine. Now I was a bit confused.
"You did not kill him?"
"Don't you believe me? Why would I lie?" Why indeed, I thought. "That's the second time I tried to do the right thing, and the result was the same anyway."
"That is not the proper conclusion to reach. You had bad luck."
"I always have bad luck." She glared at me.
I bit my lower lip to keep back the words. How could I argue that I was good luck for her? I referred back to my thesis.
"Very often, apparently, serial killers are attempting to murder the selves or part of themselves that they want to reject. The man who hunts boys reminiscent of himself, young, weak, lonely, or trusting, for example. A replaying of psychic history."
"I'm not a serial killer."
"Then what would you call it?" I asked mildly.
"I had a couple of psychic breaks," she offered after a minute, triumphantly. "And why aren't you a serial killer?" she asked pugnaciously.
"I am afraid that is just the way it works."
"What's the difference between a serial killer and someone who kills remorselessly and unfeelingly over and over for years?" she pursued, somewhat unpleasantly.
"Perhaps the answer is in the question. Unfeelingly. Perhaps the lack of any feeling about the act puts it into a different category."
"I didn't feel anything when I did it," she said.
"But you did before and after," I noted. "You did what you did because of your feelings. That is the point I am trying to make, however unwelcome it is,. I suspect that while you wanted to avoid hurting those boys' feelings, you saw yourself in them. It was you whom you were protecting."
"That's ridiculous."
"What an effective argument." I said nothing for a few moments. She was quiet as well.
"If I'm a serial killer, then so are you," she repeated decisively.
"Does that make you feel better?"
"Do you moonlight as a shrink? I can just leave now, you know."
"I know." I thought for a moment. "Maybe you should go."
"You want me to leave?" She looked about to break into tears again.
"I want you to know that you can… And you can come back."
"I don't want to go." She sniffed.
I could not help smiling, even as I shook my head. "There has to be something for you between saying yes and murder," I said slowly. "That something is saying no. I think you must keep trying."
"No."
"Did that feel better?"
"No."
"All right. That is quite enough of that."
"No."
"Grace."
"What? You said it."
"I think we should go back to sleep."
"Did we solve anything?" She was smiling a little bit now.
"Yes. I am a serial killer and an armchair psychoanalyst, and the latter is the less forgivable of the two."
"Well, it's nice of you to try," she said. I just looked at her. We sat there for a little while longer; then I took her hand and we shuffled slowly back to bed.
45
Grace
It had been a week since I had seen Sam. We talked on the phone every day, though. We were in production at the magazine—long and late hours.
Audrey had been nosing around my workstation quite a bit for the past few days, asking questions: What had I been up to lately? Was I okay? I seemed a little down, she said. She assumed I was upset over the horrible accident I had witnessed, which was true enough. She was being uncharacteristically concerned. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was just digging for information in general, experimenting with a variety of tactics. She was still harping on Pete's disappearance. I had zero time for that. How was I supposed to get any work done? I answered her queries with barely any thought.
"Well, where do you think he is?" she tried at one point, just casual.
"I don't know," I said evenly, rifling through some of the countless papers on my desk. "Where do you think he is?"
"He seems to have fallen off the face of the earth."
"Well, maybe he did. Maybe he alienated some Peruvian he shouldn't have. I'm not his keeper."
"You may have been the last person to see him."
"Doubtful. And you're talking like a detective novel."
"Well, this is a mystery to me." ."Men are a mystery to me. Anyway, I'm sure it will be solved someday. Maybe tomorrow when he walks back in."
"I don't think he will."
"Geez, did you ever think maybe he ran away from you? He wouldn't have been the first" It was true; he wouldn't have been. Her jaw dropped for a second. Then she turned away sharply and left.
Wow, I thought. I really got to her, and I wasn't even trying. But I didn't have time to dwell on it, because at that moment, Pete did walk in.
My only thought was, this is what the world looks like when it's coming to an end. Nothing matches. I could see quite clearly through the window behind him that the sky didn't fit with the buildings, and the light outdoors looked completely unrealistic. The clouds ran across the sky in blurry streaks. Or was it me?
Pete spoke.
"I think we need to talk, Grace" was what he said. Oh my God, is he breaking up with me? I thought wildly. I grabbed my head to keep the brains in. And stared at him. He did not look good. There was a nasty-looking scar »on his forehead. His hair was matted. His clothes were the same ones he'd been wearing the night I killed him, but they were very dirty.
"Not here," he said definitively.
Audrey had just missed him. Several others, though, saw him there and just stared. I got up from my chair and followed this blast from the past slowly down the hall and into the elevators. He said nothing. We reached the first floor, and he led me out to the little nearby Mexican place where my colleagues and I typically congregated after work, for lack of anything better. It was deserted in the middle of the afternoon. We sat at a table for two and, finally finding my voice, I began to speak, but he motioned to me to stop.
"Just give me a minute. I'm still a little weak."
I looked around the place, thinking that I could still run. Yeah, but could I hide? From a ghost?
The ghost spoke. "Surprised?" he said.
"What happened to you?" I asked, still in awe and not thinking.
"I thought you could tell me."
He sounded different. But, strangely, he didn't sound angry. I think I would have been. Maybe this was bigger than that.
"I don't know what happened after I pushed you into the river," I said simply.
"Then I'll tell you. I was fished out by some homeless guys who were camped out nearby. While I was unconscious, one of them stole my wallet. But several others took care of me. Apparently I was in and out of consciousness for days. I don't know how many. And very feverish. But nothing was broken, except my head a bit. They've got a real interesting little world down there. I just left them this morning. I'm going back with my laptop later."
"I'm glad you're okay," I said. I really was. I couldn't help it. His eyes weren't the least bit mushy or puppy-doggish.
"Really? That's a little strange, coming from you. I mean, I'm a little bit hazy, but the last thing I remember was your hand reaching out in the middle of our conversation and shoving me into the drink."
I hung my head. "Yeah," I said sheepishly. "Nothi
ng wrong with your memory."
"So why'd you do it, Grace? I thought we were having a good time."
"I can't say."
"Sure you can. And I think you'd better."
Part of me was floundering, trying to think of what to say, trying not to think of my future life in prison. But a little part of me couldn't help thinking that I should have knocked him on the head a lot sooner. This was a different Pete. I liked him much better this way.
"I wasn't" was what came out.
"Wasn't what?" he asked, confused.
"I wasn't having a good time," I said miserably.
Surprisingly, he let out a short laugh. "So you decided to. try to kill me?"
"I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't want to hurt your feelings."
"What did you think, that I wanted to marry you?"
"Well, no," I said, a little bit insulted. "You just seemed to be really into me. Pardon me, if I misunderstood your intentions."
"Well, boy, you really did. It was just fun. I mean, I wasn't in love with you or anything. If you weren't into it, I'd have been a little bummed, but it wouldn't have killed me. I would have gotten over it in about ten minutes."
"Hey, there's no need to be mean," I said, offended.
"I'm not. I'm just being honest. Like I always am. You could have tried. You could have just said something."
"I just didn't know how."
He looked at me carefully. I tried to look him back in the eye.
"Just between you and me, I think you could use a little help," he said seriously.
"Well, I hear they have therapy in prison."
He sat silently for a minute.