The Joy of Killing

by Harry MacLean

  SALLY COULD HAVE gone across the lake with Joseph that afternoon, the last day of his life. Maybe she would have convinced him to stay on the opposite shore, at the girl’s camp, until the storm passed. But he wouldn’t have been able to hustle the brunette with her around. Which is why he wanted me. I wouldn’t get in his way. So I went, I’ve no doubt of that now. I can feel the muscles in my shoulder pulling as I stroke from the front seat of the canoe. The sun was hitting my forehead, which meant it was early afternoon (which resolves that question). I’ve pulled the straps so tight on the vest that it constricts my breathing. “Switch sides!” Joseph calls out from the rear seat every few minutes or so, and we manage without missing a stroke. The water is smooth, and we slice through it like a knife. By the time we arrive at the camp, I am feeling better about my decision to cross. Standing on the shore, as if they knew we were coming, are two girls: the slender brunette with the dark eyes and flirty smile, and the shorter redhead, with freckles and blue eyes. I hadn’t counted on this, on her. I couldn’t think of her name. The brunette waved as we approached. Joseph stood up and lifted the paddle over his head, as if we had accomplished some miraculous feat in crossing the lake. The brunette clapped her hands. The redhead smiled.

  Joseph’s girlfriend was carrying a blanket and a small basket, and the redhead had a brown paper sack in her hand. I could only imagine the promises that had been made to get her here. Joseph winked, said they would be back in about an hour, and off the couple walked, down a path into the woods, hand in hand. The other girl and I stood there awkwardly for a few moments, until she explained that the rest of the camp had gone on a field trip and that her friend had claimed she was sick so she could stay behind. It was her day off from the kitchen. Her lips moved quite deliberately as they formed the words, and her eyes stayed right on mine, as if to make sure I was following what she was saying.

  “How’d you get roped into this?” I finally asked.

  “When Jeannie asked me to come with her, I said I would but only if she promised that you would come with Joseph.”

  I flushed. “That’s really nice,” I said finally, thinking that explains why he was so insistent that I come along. This girl must like me.

  “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry.”

  “That’s OK. JoRene. One word, with a capital R.”

  JORENE, I SAY aloud. JoRene. I repeat it several times and then type it in all caps. JORENE. I push the scene along in my head. She told me that her dad cut down trees for a living and her mom was a waitress. She had two brothers and one sister. Do they all have red hair? I asked. She blushed; no, she was the only one in the family. She wanted to go to college, become a school teacher, and move to Minneapolis. I liked her attitude: life need not be complicated, just make a plan. After eating our sandwiches, we walked along the shore. She reached for my hand. When she stopped and turned to me, with chin uplifted, I began talking about the tree swing back at the river and how best to jump off. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. She knew it wasn’t there, would never be there.

  I remember feeling terrible then, and I feel terrible now, thinking about it. By the time we returned to the dock, we were out of words. We sat in two wooden chairs and waited for the others, and finally, with tears in her blue eyes, she said it was time for her to go. I tried to kiss her good-bye, but she would have none of it.

  I watched with concern as a patch of darkness appeared in what had been a bright blue sky, in the center of the lake, right where we would have to paddle. Joseph and the girl finally appeared from the path, unconcerned about anyone but themselves, Joseph wearing a cocky, self-satisfied smile, she with her blouse half-unbuttoned and carrying a basket. “She got away?” he called when he noticed I was by myself. The girl laughed.

  I pointed toward the sky. A bad sea was coming. “Look.”

  Joseph shrugged. “You gotta drive, man. I’m beat.” The two exchanged flirty glances.

  By that he meant I would take the steering seat, in the back, which was the more difficult position and which he always took.

  “We can’t go out there,” I said. “It’s gonna get bad. Someone needs to come get us. I’ll call my dad.”

  “Easy, boy, easy. We’ll make it with no problem. I’ve been through worse.”

  The girl, now not so happy, chimed in. “They’ll kick me out if they catch you guys here.”

  I should have stayed there, I think. My dad would have come to pick us up. It was our canoe. Mom would have lectured me, maybe grounded me for a day. It wasn’t my idea to paddle here in the first place. I knew what Joseph would do, though; his face told me he would tell everyone back at the river that I was a chicken; not only that but that I hadn’t gotten anywhere with the girl. The chicken part would ruin whatever chance there was with Sally. Not only that, I would feel like a chicken. That’s what nailed me; that feeling was about as bad it gets for a boy, one to be avoided at all costs, even risking your life.

  “You’re steering,” I said.

  “All right,” he cheered. “Let’s get going.” He moved to the canoe, edged it into the water.

  I tugged on my orange vest, fastened the straps, and picked up a paddle from the sand.

  “You gotta have a vest,” I said. “Get one from the shed.”

  He shrugged again.

  The girl got it. She rushed to the shed and returned with one in her hands.

  “No way to get it back,” he said. “People will think I’m a thief.” His laugh went right along with the shrug. He turned to her, pulled her in, kissed her long and deep, let a hand drift down over her ass. He winked at me.

  I took another look at the lake. The darkness was pulling together into a thick blanket, and it was deepening, so you could no longer see through it, hovering over the water. It was possible to go around it, but it would take longer, and the squall could move anyway. I debated taking the backseat myself. I would take fewer chances than Joseph. If the stern man failed, you were likely to swamp in a storm because you couldn’t keep the canoe headed into the waves. My shoulders had stiffened from the paddle over, and I had taken a splinter in my right hand. We were both about six feet, but he was the stronger paddler. His attitude was the problem. He paused at the water’s edge, holding the canoe in place, giving me a last chance to take the stern seat. He must be tired, to give up center stage, I thought, and that almost convinced me. But I shook my head and climbed over the edge of the canoe and settled in the front seat. I pulled my straps tight and reached for the paddle. Over my shoulder I saw Joseph pause and look out over the water. We’re not going, I thought, but in an instant he was pushing the canoe from the sand and clambering over the edge and into the seat. He raised the paddle overhead and called to the girl, who waved back, the orange life jacket clutched by her side.

  AT ONE POINT, everybody in the room was smoking, I remember that. My parents, the two detectives, and myself. All different brands. River scar had lit a Camel, the other guy a long Chesterfield. My parents had Marlboros going. After the first cop used the silver lighter, I pulled the Zippo from my left pocket and clinked it open. His eyes tracked the Marine Corps emblem on the side, my thumb sliding over the globe.

  “You want to be a Marine?”

  In front of my father I could only say, “Yeah,” although he had never pressed me on it.

  “You won’t make it if we put down here that you lied to police officers.”

  I waited for my father, who had earned a Silver Star, two Bronze stars, and two Purple Hearts in the Pacific, to say something. I put the unlit cigarette in the ashtray, slipped the Zippo back in my front pocket, and looked out the window.

  LOOKING BACK ON that boy, I don’t think I could have told them what happened, even if I wanted to. Even if my mother wasn’t there, there was no way I could describe the scene. Once on my bike, I pedaled as fast as I could, leaning down over the handlebars to cut the wind, whipping down the street, around corners. Now, loo
king out the window, with the detectives breathing down my neck, the images had already grown faint, the edges blurry. Which was another reason, if I needed one, to keep my mouth shut. The second cop, with the still eyes and small ears, leaned forward.

  “I don’t want to be a Marine,” I finally said, still looking out the window.

  I’d never heard myself say that before. Which really is the whole thing, my coming out here, spending the night with the girl on the train: Who knows what else exists beyond the common mind? Things you’ve done or said, or have been done or said to you. You can be scared of them most of your life, but if you really want peace of mind you have to allow them to coagulate and simply hope you can handle what comes up. If you understand the nature of the human being, like I do—although I would never take it as far as the Professor—you accept that there is no self that exists independent of the forces that created it, and thus you cannot be held personally, or perhaps I should say morally, accountable for what you did or didn’t do. I shouldn’t have gone into the apartment building with David and Willie. Perhaps I should have left the minute I saw the leer on Willie’s face. Or the moment he unzipped David’s pants. Was Willie evil? You tell me. Did he deserve to die the way he did? Probably. Perhaps much earlier, even, and in every bit as bad a way. If he’s not evil, then you can’t say the person who gutted him was evil. You can’t even say he was wrong. Perhaps you would say that Willie had a choice. Bullshit. He had no more choice than the chimp who reached through the bars of his cage and peeled the women’s face off. I am always greatly amused by the shows in which the narrator intones profoundly about the great struggle between “man and nature.” As if man weren’t nature himself, didn’t evolve from the same source as the turtle and the typhoon. I understand we have to judge and incarcerate and separate in order to have a chance at a civilized society. It’s the moral labels we place on the Specks and Pol Pots of the world, as if the fact that we’re better than they are is a result of our own doing, that are illegitimate. Pure chance, a simple role of the genetic dice. You deserve no credit or blame for what you do or don’t do in your life. If you can breathe this into your soul once and for all, you will experience the freedom of the eagle soaring high over the water. I saw the look of it on the Professor’s face as the straps were pulled tight on his chest and legs. He was fully awake to every dimension of the experience; he was hungry for it. When the cap was finally secured to his head, he smiled.

  Would I have felt better if I had told the detectives to get fucked right then and there? Perhaps. The good feeling would have lasted until the detectives drove off in their cars and my parents left for a cocktail party at the country club and I was left alone in the house as night fell, and then worse ones would have come over me. Even then, unknowing, I was smart enough to get that. (Not that I give myself credit for it.) Which is where most people fuck up: they mispredict the emotional consequences of what they undertake. Or, more often, more profound, and more sad, they get the feeling they’re seeking but it doesn’t last. It’s faded before a fortnight, and they’re right back where they were, or perhaps, as is often the case, worse off. It’s as simple as the man who steals money from his kid’s college account to buy a BMW with the belief that the car will make him happy. It does, for a while. Then, in a matter of weeks, it’s just another car, and he’s got a residue of guilt to live with. It’s as complicated as the woman who avoids all involvement with men because she thinks she can’t handle the feeling of being demolished when it’s over. The truth is, she could handle it. The anxiety over the possibility rules her; to avoid the anxiety, she avoids any intimacy (which of course leaves her with another feeling, isolation, but one which she judges to be less intolerable than demolishment).

  The Professor was in good shape, you see? I would guess that at the time of his expiration he was reliving the act of killing his wife, letting the motion of the knife zipping across her spinal cord flow into his final breath. What else could account for the look on his face?

  THE LAST FEW words are blank on the page. You can see a faint imprint of the letter, but not the inked letter itself. I punch “O” several times; it strikes and falls back, fainter each time. The ribbon is twitching, but not moving. It’s wound down. As I recall, the ribbon is supposed to reverse itself when this happens, so it starts winding in the other direction, and this keeps on until the ribbon is worn out. This ribbon looks fairly shot. I find a little switch close to the spool, and throw it, and type a few letters, and they are imprinting, but now in red, almost scarlet, bright and sharp. Fitting, I think, and leave the switch where it is.

  I think back to when the girl and I walked down the aisle in the car to our seat, after the scene in the vestibule. The air was heavy, unmoving, glowing slightly. I watched her fingers brush the tops of the seats as she passed by and realized I couldn’t remember touching them, in spite of all the other places I had touched. I imagined the signals transmitting from her brain down through her arms and wrists to her hands, telling them when to touch, when to untouch. Her slender, unpainted fingers had touched my face, my dick, herself, and now they floated onto seat tops only inches from unseeing, unknowing heads. I wondered if the perfume of them would seep into the dreams of the poor devils, light in their projectors strange and erotic, even scary images. I followed her carefully down the aisle, placing my hands just where hers had been. Perhaps now that sex was over we would separate and return to our seats and sleep alone the rest of the night through. Two or three in the morning, I thought. A long way yet to go, with her and the other lost souls on this night rocket. I watched her hips sway, but with a faint sadness at the loss of the intense desire I had for them moments ago. I placed a hand on her right hip and felt the movement of the bones as she shifted weight. She turned her head slightly in my direction, with a slight smile, as if in reassurance: I might not need you anymore, but I still like you.

  THE SWING FROM power to weakness is immense, I think. From the primitive to the finished. We develop ways of dealing with la petite mort. The old cliché of having a cigarette. Talking your way through it. Telling the other person you love them. Leaving. The boy knew nothing of this; he was captivated by the feeling of loss and aloneness after such passion, and of course he thought it was peculiar to him, to them. He let his hand fall away and dropped back a step, then two, until he could see her complete form. She seemed more untouchable, more alien than when he had first laid eyes on her so long ago.

  I WAS HIT by an intense wave of tiredness. Wobbling between the seats. Water, I thought. A paper cup of water, from the dispenser at the front of the car. I turned back. The conductor was standing at the door, arms folded, staring at me, at us. I lurched back into the darkness. She’ll want to sleep, I thought. Spread out on the seat, with her coat as a pillow. That’s that, I thought, with relief. You’ve got the story, she’s got the story.

  Then I saw her, sitting in my seat. With that mysterious half smile, eyes knowing something beyond what they’re seeing. “I put your jacket up top,” she said. She scooted over to the window seat, left her hand on the empty one.

  THE BOY SEEMS so hapless, always thinking he knows what’s coming next, always wrong, but hanging in there. A likeable kid, occasionally turning his head to see the shadow, but never quite fast enough. Thank God for the girl. That she happened to be there and she was who she was. It’s this next part that is a little sketchy, what happens after I sit down. I know we stayed together, because I can see the faintest light of dawn pass over her face. Images have flitted in and out over the years, but never in a way I could hold onto, from one time to the next. Her hands clenched on her lap, a soft fluttery voice, caught in muted pain. Her lips parted for breath, eyes awash.

  Between there and here is an emptiness and I can’t move into it, not now. I hit the carriage bar and swing it back, and hit it a couple more times to move a few lines down the page. The red ink is startling. I read in the paper not long ago that my first wife had died. We hadn’t seen much of each o
ther since the wedding in Jamaica. Still, it was a shock—to see her name in black letters under a picture taken of her in her thirties, about the time of our split. “After a long illness,” it said, which almost always meant cancer. She hadn’t called to say good-bye, I remember thinking. We had some good years. Perhaps a note, or a word through a friend. I never blamed her for the divorce, or even for fucking David. The night I walked in on them I stood there and watched in silence, absorbing their heat. They didn’t lose their rhythm until finally he moved around from behind her and spread her legs and buried his face in her. She raked her nails up his back as she came. I could have been angry, the double betrayal. But I wasn’t. Not at either of them. What was I, then? Captivated by the images. Impressed at the audacity of it, their mutual skills and enthusiasm. Even when it was obvious it wasn’t their first time I didn’t get pissed. Beyond that, I don’t recall feeling much of anything. A little sorry for her because David was a prick. She used to say to me, when we were married, that I was a black hole into which she could lose herself if she wasn’t careful. “You’re not there,” she would say in frustration. “You seem like you are, but you’re not.” I argued, of course, told her that I cared for her, but without much conviction. How do you tell the person who has attached herself to you in the belief that you love her that you’re with her because the idea of being truly alone is too scary? That you’re playing life in a way to avoid that feeling, and you try to do your best at pulling it off, even to the point of thinking the right thoughts you hope might get you there?

  “What really pisses you off?” she would demand. “What really gets you? Makes you want to scream or hit somebody?”

  “Nothing I can think of right now,” I would say, if I said anything at all, and she would shake her head and mutter, “That’s the fucking problem.”