by Mic Palmer
“Can I help you?” said the woman by the entrance.
“That’s ok,” said Jack, noticing the shelves of new releases, most of which involved plots about serial killers. Among the protagonists within these books were a detective/zoologist, detective/circus performer, mystery writer/rap artist and politician/sociopath, all of which were not only highly accomplished, but in possession of near eidetic memories.
“What about a not so bright detective/artist with a poor memory?” he ambiguously chuckled.
Seriously contemplating picking up one of the crime novels, he quickly decided against it. Locking himself into a specific plot might hamper him by shaping his expectations, then again right next to him was a whole case of self help books, including one entitled How not to Become a Slave to your Expectations. As for the rest, they all seemed to use some combination of the words “steps,” “secrets,” paths,” or “keys.”
“Where’s the one about being falsely accused?” Jack mused. “Ten Steps to Clearing Your Name. That would be nice.”
More popular than even the self help books were the latest political screeds, which, positioned on a table by the entrance, were surrounded by a group of serious-looking men and women, anxious to learn what they already knew.
Their titles alleged corruption, arrogance, and incompetence, and their book jackets, unprecedented foreign policy blunders, incomparable avarice, and unmatched disregard for the constitution, causing Jack to wonder who they were talking about.
Making his way past the crowd to the computer, Jack sneakily found the books he was looking for, all of which were fortuitously tucked away in an out of the way section of the third floor.
The first book he stealthily pulled from the shelf was entitled, Mass Murder in America. Cracking it open, he glanced up and down the aisle to make sure he was alone.
“Howard Unruh?” he muttered to himself. “Never heard of him.” But according to the author, Unruh, which means “unrest” in German, was America’s first mass murderer. In 1949 he shot up a town for being disrespectful to him, but what Jack wanted to know was what set him off.
As it turned out, the answer wasn’t particularly complicated. Having no girlfriend, he was often mocked as being a homosexual, which may in fact have been the case. On top of that he had no job, no education, and still lived with his mother.
“He was a disaster waiting to happen,” thought Jack. Nevertheless, he was a war hero, which one would think should have boosted his morale. Instead, however, at least according to this particular author, it led to a twisted sense of entitlement, which in the end led to the murders of 13 people. But this wasn’t quite the profile Jack was looking for.
Unruh was an angry loser who one day snapped. Serial killers on the other hand seemed to go about their crimes methodically and patiently, often times with an eye toward publicity.
Flicking through the pages, he next came across Charles Starkweather, who in 1957 killed a bunch of people, not the least of which were the parents and little sister of his more than understanding girlfriend – but again, he didn’t quite fit what Jack was looking for. Sure he was a cold-blooded murderer, but a serial killer?
“What kind of book is this?” Jack grumbled, as he turned to the introduction. There he learned that mass murderers and serial killers were altogether different animals. While the latter acts out against individuals, often times in pursuit of some sort of sick fantasy, the former focuses upon what he believes to be an unjust society, much like some bullied teenager who feels empowered by shooting up his school.
With serial killers, therefore, the murders are more personal, more intimate. With mass murderers, on the other hand, the people are incidental.
Even so, Jack felt obliged to pull out his notepad. Next to “Mass murderers:” he wrote, “bad family history, unhappy youth, life seen as unfair.”
For some reason, however, their poor work history and lack of educational achievement didn’t seem to make an impression on him.
Fortunately, his next selection was more in the vein of what he was searching for. In The Mask of a Killer, he came across a checklist for anti-social behavior, which purportedly characterized most serial killers.
It noted that they were:
Iconoclastic
Deceitful
Impulsive
Irritable
Uncaring
Irresponsible and
Lacking in remorse
Having recorded the words, “guiltless liars,” Jack couldn’t help but think of his former colleague.
If Ed Bundy – no relation to Ted – didn’t fit this profile, no one did, especially considering the stunt he used to pull with STD results.
Through a variety of means, most of which were illegal, he would find out whether a blood test had recently been performed. Assuming this was indeed the case, he’d then contact the patient with the results.
“You have gonorrhea,” he’d invariably tell them, “and by the way we’re going to need the names and addresses of everyone you’ve slept with over the last two years – it’s the law.”
While most refused or at least indicated that they first wanted to consult with their attorneys, enough complied to make the tactic worthwhile, but even if it wasn’t, even if it didn’t scare up a single cheating spouse, one could tell that Bundy enjoyed it, and it wasn’t just the subterfuge. There was just something about hurting people that tickled him.
As for Jack, he had his own little tricks, but unlike Bundy, had his limits, especially when it came to telling people they were sick. Having almost come to blows with Bundy over this particular ruse, Jack felt pretty good about himself, and yet the idea of fooling people with awards and inheritances didn’t particularly faze him; telling himself that this sort of thing was harmless, playful, and for a time even heartening, he at the very least possessed the virtue of hypocrisy.
Turning away from the book, Jack felt as though he had forgotten something. Although not completely tangible, the contradiction between his actions and beliefs left him with the vague sense that he had done something wrong.
“You worry too much,” Bundy would often tell him, but Bundy didn’t worry about anything. He lied for the sake of lying, even when he could have easily told the truth. As a matter of fact, he seemed fascinated with the idea of freely violating an already endangered standard of behavior. “Fuck you, society,” you could almost hear him saying. Nevertheless, he possessed one thing his colleague didn’t; Bundy didn’t suffer from contradictions.
Returning to his book, Jack learned that most psychopaths suffer from anti-social disorder, but not all people with anti-social disorder are psychopaths. The latter diagnosis is characterized by
Thrill Seeking
Pathological Glibness
The Pursuit of Power and yet again,
Remorselessness
This time Jack wrote down, “power hungry, guiltless, bullshit artists.”
Mentioned as an example was Jeffrey MacDonald, the philandering megalomaniacal Princeton-educated army surgeon, who in 1970 killed his pregnant wife and two young daughters. Having managed to get a military tribunal to clear him by blaming a bunch of drugged-out, icepick-wielding hippies, he made jokes on the Dick Cavett show, while at the same time narcissistically complaining about having been a suspect. What ultimately tripped him up, however, were his claims that he had somehow warded off the icepick by wrapping a pajama top around his hands; oddly, his limbs remained unscathed. Furthermore, the pattern of holes in the pajama top just so happened to match the wounds sustained by his wife. To this day, however, he maintains his innocence.
Like MacDonald, Ted Bundy – the real Ted Bundy – was not only smart, but well educated. Having earned a degree in psychology, he no doubt took pains to deal with his rather strange upbringing. Until he was a teenager, as a matter of fact, he thought that his mother was his sister and his grandfather his father, but aside from that, there wasn’t much to go on. With some people, apparently, it’s just inb
orn.
Fascinated by pornography from the time he was a teen, he eventually acquired a foot fetish which for some reason developed into necrophilia. By 1978, when he was caught, he had killed thirty women.
“Smart, screwed-up family, porno obsessed,” Jack scribbled.
Most serial killers, the book went on to state, suffer from obsessive fantasies of long duration, especially erotomania, which involves the belief that one is far more interesting to the opposite sex than one really is.
“What’s the reverse of that?” Jack mused, believing that such a condition might apply to him, and yet self-diagnosis would serve as a contraindication. Simply put, it would require that the patient have an understanding that he was liked more than he realized, thereby making the underlying disease non-existent.
“Erotomania,” Jack scoffed. “Ninety percent of the male population must suffer from it, in which case who the hell cares?”
Other fantasies, however, could be a bit more worrisome, such as that involving Richard Trenton Chase, who in the 70s was known as “Dracula.” In addition to sucking the blood of his victims, he’d sometimes eat their organs, in the belief that these types of activities would prevent him from disintegrating.
“Disintegrating how?” Jack wondered. “Just fading away, dissolving into nothingness, losing one’s sense of mass?”
Feeling this way himself at times, he was comforted by the thought that the idea of sucking someone’s blood had never occurred to him.
“This is not at all useful,” he reflected. “I need some kind of common thread, a shared delusion, something that ties them all together.”
But the more he read, the more it seemed that every serial killer had his own crazy way of seeing things, in which case how was he to pinpoint a motive or modus operandi that would be at all helpful to him? For all he knew, the Cleopatra Killer believed he was defending the earth from body snatchers.
Nevertheless, after several hours of uncharacteristically intense reading, what ultimately came across to Jack was that whoever he was looking for was probably smart, resentful, arrogant, and impulsive. Although superficially charismatic, he would most likely lack the social skills necessary to guide his often times narcissistic fantasies into acceptable directions; as a result he’d probably have few lasting friendships and a checkered criminal history. Emotionally damaged as a result of a difficult childhood, he’d not only possess a deep sense of entitlement, but probably see himself as some sort of hero.
“Why do they make these aisles so narrow?” said a passing woman in a blue pant suit and velvet scarf.
Rather large, she forced Jack to press his back against one of the shelves. “That’s alright,” he passively responded, never making eye contact.
“Sorry,” she apologized, while conspicuously attempting to see what he was reading.
Jack practically shuddered. Embracing the book as if it were an endangered infant, he turned his back toward the busybody and began making his way down the aisle.
“Excuse me!” puffed the woman.
Feeling preposterous, Jack pretended not to hear her.
“Weirdo,” she mumbled.
Jack ignored her and before long found an out-of-the-way nook. Looking around for a moment to make sure he was alone, he again began reading. “That’s odd,” he whispered.
As it turns out, the number of serial killers has been on the rise, and according to many experts this is directly due to the cultural promotion of fantasy. Inundated with wild images of wealth, power, and sensual pleasure, people are apparently becoming more and more apt to believe that this indeed is what life is all about, making the real world seem rather humdrum, if not insufferable.
“I don’t know,” Jack thought to himself. “Clearly something’s changed, but was it really just a matter of overexposure to the rich and famous?”
“No,” Jack decided. “What’s different are people; we’re more proud, more demanding, more delusional, and how could we not be? From day one we’re told to ignore our teachers, test scores, peers, elders, even the mirror – the reason being that we’re all special, beautiful, or however else we want to think of ourselves.”
Suddenly Jack was disgusted, not with society, but with himself.
While Mr. Orlando was a karate-kicking, beard-stroking, insult-wielding son of a bitch, he did achieve something rather extraordinary; he disabused Jack of the childish belief that he had some sort of gift, which in a way was liberating.
Instead of having to live up to some unrealistic standard, which would have no doubt resulted in years of disappointment, he was free to live down to his abilities. Now instead of racking his brains in order to come up with something new, he sketched what he wanted, the result of which was just what he’d thought it would be – utter stagnation.
Plagued with an almost irresistible urge toward the path of least resistance, he’d sometimes try to fight it by shaking things up, even if it only meant testing out some water colors, but inevitably he’d return to that with which he was comfortable.
“So what,” he’d proudly tell himself. “I know I’m not special.”
Indeed, Jack had known quite a few people who had become so invested in their own myth that any evidence to the contrary would become an occasion for deep existential frustration. Explaining away their critics as jealous or stupid, they’d react to the most minor of slights by collapsing into themselves, finding comfort within the tender chrysalis of their pandering yet duplicitous egos.
“Fools,” Jack would often think to himself, but as much as he enjoyed mocking people like this for the unnecessary trouble they’d put themselves through, there still remained a small part of him that believed that if only he had been given the proper break he might have accomplished something.
According to something called the Hare checklist, psychopaths often display the following additional traits:
Grandiosity
A continuous need for stimulation
Unemotionality
Parasitical behavior
Impulsiveness
Promiscuity
Irresponsibility and
Unrealistic thinking
Jotting a few things down, Jack left out the parts about being irresponsible and needing stimulation. They were too common, too innocuous. After all these were the very traits that had gotten him fired.
Becoming somewhat fatigued at this point, he finished up with the section on adoption, which included such luminaries as David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Joel Rifkin, and Ken Bianco, to name but a few.
While most adoptees turn out to be well-adjusted human beings, some apparently never get over the sense that they don’t quite fit in, making every parental indiscretion a matter of intentional genetic discrimination. As a result they grow up feeling suspicious, mistreated, and alienated, again reinforcing the idea that they deserve to be compensated.
Rationalizing that it wasn’t so much being adopted as it was feeling as though one’s family wasn’t particularly fair or loving, Jack wrote down, “parental neglect,” which was just the opposite of his experience.
Chapter Thirty
Jack had done a solid three hours of reading – good reading, productive reading, where he searched for words, looked for ideas, and skipped the pages that seemed irrelevant. As a result he had a dull headache and was anxious to get some air.
“What’s this?” he muttered, as he was negotiating his way toward the exit. Entitled The Unfolding of Art: A Visual History, it was a large glossy tome with a picture of Nefertiti on the cover. Pulling it from the shelf, he randomly opened it to a discussion on Michelangelo, which not surprisingly included a close-up reproduction of his famous creation scene.
When Jack was in school, Michelangelo’s frescos were dark, almost gilded, owing to oxidation and soot, the result of which was a sort of mystical otherworldly quality. Even so he found them to be a bit ponderous for their over fleshy, almost steroidal indulgence.
“What’s with all the puffy cloud pe
ople and musclebound babies?” he had jokingly told Orlando.
Orlando loved opportunities such as this. “Mira, genius-child. Have you seen it in person? If not, keep your opinions to yourself. When you’re talking about the ceiling, you’re not just talking about images; you’re talking about scale, conception, effort. You’re talking about hard manual labor on a canvas the size of a football field, and yet he completed it in four short years, using wet plaster. That means no corrections, no mistakes; you couldn’t paint your mama’s house white in that amount of time; and all the while he was looking up, crooking his neck, working through spasms, day in, day out. That’s what you call intensity, passion, fire.”
“Sounds like a lot of work,” Jack thought to himself, “but what’s that got to do with the actual product?”
Having always been more partial to Donatello for his depth of precision and sobriety of mood, he recalled his hairy, tortured, almost insane-looking Mary Magdalene. Appearing as though she had been trapped in amber, the statue created a sense of immediacy, gravitas, drama; now there was an artist.
Turning the page, Jack liked what he saw, even if he wasn’t familiar with it. Leaping across time was a crushingly realistic carving of a bearded prophet, in whose eyes one could sense the desperation of the hunted. Happily noting that it was again the work of Donatello, Jack felt in a way vindicated. Nevertheless, he had begun to feel that perhaps he owed Michelangelo a second look.
“Movement, strength, lightness, emotion, contradiction – it’s all there,” Orlando went on about the ceiling. “Can you detect a point of view? Who’s higher here, man or God?”
Even now, nearly twenty years later, standing in the middle of a bookstore in lower Manhattan, the sheer force of Orlando’s words continued to reverberate with him.
Having reexamined the creation scene, Jack for the first time noticed something strange. Could it be? God seemed to be wrapped in some sort of placental brain, as if to say he was part of our minds or even a creation thereof, the realization of which caused Jack to recall the lumbering doctor from the bar.