by Mark Nutter
“Yes, Officer Daniels. What crime did you think of?”
“Um... “
“And by the way, and this goes for everybody: you don’t have to raise your hand, you can just shout.”
“Sorry sir.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Yes sir.”
“You can shout out ethnic jokes too.”
“Yes sir.”
“What crime did you think of?”
“Pneumonia.”
“That’s not a crime, that’s a disease.”
“What if you mailed it to someone?”
“Mailed pneumonia?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t that make it a crime?”
“No.”
“A mail crime?”
“No, Daniels.”
Someone else called out: “Depression?”
“That’s more of an emotional state.”
“Double pneumonia?” said Daniels.
“No. Look, I’ll write a few crimes on the board just to get us started, okay?”
I turned my back to the group and wrote Burglary... Arson... Kidnapping... Murder.
I turned back to the group.
“Any of these ring a bell?”
I could see they were thinking hard.
“Captain?” someone called out. “Basketball?”
“Okay,” I said, “I’d better just assign the crimes. Then it’ll be your job to go out and commit them.”
Heads nodded. They were clearly comfortable with having assignments.
“We’ll start with burglary. Butler, I’m giving you burglary.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Butler.
“You do know what burglary is?”
“Is it like shoplifting?”
“Well, in a way. Break a window somewhere — “
“Is that what burglary is?” interrupted Daniels. “Breaking a window?”
“It can start with breaking a window, yes. Then you enter, take something that doesn’t belong to you... “
“Like a napkin?”
“Something more valuable than a napkin: money or jewelry.”
SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH as they wrote money or jewelry.
“Then come back out the window and run away.”
Butler was still writing, “.... doesn’t... belong... to... you... “
“Now we need somebody to chase Butler and arrest him.”
“I’ll do that,” said Anderson.
“Anderson, you’re not the best choice for a foot pursuit.”
“I’m a thirty-year veteran of the force,” he said, frowning.
“Yes, but the leg thing... “
“Sir?” said Butler. “I don’t have to run. I could walk, or hop on one foot, or lie down on the ground, if that helps.”
“That’s very kind,” said Anderson.
“Not at all,” said Butler. “Thirty-year veteran of the force, you deserve respect.”
“You’re a fine young man — “
“Yes, yes,” I interrupted. “You two work it out.”
I assigned arson (“Starting a fire? But doesn’t that damage property?”) and kidnapping (“But what if the person doesn’t want to come with us?”). Anderson volunteered to make every arrest, and everyone promised to commit their crimes and then lie down on the ground and wait for him. I thought burglary, kidnapping, and arson would convince the city council that the police department was still necessary.
“Sir?” said Briggs, raising her hand.
“Briggs, I told you, you don’t have to raise your hand.”
“Oh hell,” she said. After she made another trip to the swear jar, she continued. “What about the last one?”
“Murder? We don’t need to do that one.”
“I’d like to do a murder,” she said.
I was taken aback. “Who exactly do you want to murder?”
“You, sir.”
Briggs slowly advanced on me. Something in her eyes made me nervous.
“A murder is not necessary.”
“You’re the one who wrote it on the blackboard.”
“Is murder like pneumonia?”
“Be quiet, Daniels.
“You’re doing a terrible thing, sir,” said Briggs. “You want to undo what we’ve spent three years creating: a crime-free city.”
Briggs kept advancing. Others rose and followed her.
“So what if there’s no police department anymore?” she said. “We have the uniforms. We can sell ice cream or something.”
This was met with a chorus of hearty agreement.
“Thirty-year veteran of the force, I get to pick the ice cream truck song,” said Anderson.
Briggs backed me up against the blackboard.
“I’d rather murder you than see you destroy what we’ve worked for. Hold him!”
Many hands grabbed me and restrained me.
“Briggs, stop!”
From inside her jacket Briggs produced a can of spray paint. She shook the can and spray painted my chest.
“Briggs, you’re not murdering me, you’re painting graffiti.”
“Hold still. I’m trying to write words on you.”
“What’s it say?” said Butler.
“It’s supposed to say, ‘I have been murdered.’”
Butler squinted. “It doesn’t look anything like that.”
“Shit,” said Briggs. “Oh, there I go again.” She pushed her way back through the crowd to the swear jar.
Anderson body-slammed her to the floor and held her down.
“You’re under arrest for murder.”
***
And so our city was plunged into the worst crime wave it had seen in years. Napkin theft was rampant. Handicapped people brazenly parked in handicapped spaces. Prominent city officials received pneumonia in the mail. A special squad was created to clean the unsightly murder off buses and billboards.
I had had enough. I retired from the force. Oddly enough, the day after my retirement, someone set fire to the police station, and it burned to the ground.
“Now that’s arson,” I said to anybody within earshot.
Unfortunately, Anderson caught me red-handed as I was hiding the empty gas can.
“Stop! Police!” he shouted, hopping toward me.
I lie down on the ground and waited for him. I mean, come on. Thirty-year veteran of the force? He deserved at least that much.
Eight Minutes To Kill
Eight minutes. That’s all the time we had to get to know each other. Then the guy in front of me would move to the next chair, and a new guy would take his place, and a new eight-minute conversation would begin.
Joyce, the woman who organized the speed dating event, looked trim and efficient with her clipboard and stopwatch, and she even had a little gong. She said eight minutes was plenty of time to know if you wanted to see more of somebody. Joyce said we’d probably know after eight seconds.
I was nervous, like everyone else. Oh well, I said to myself, nothing else has worked for me. Might as well give this a shot.
Joyce hit the gong. BONG. “Go,” she said.
He sat down in front of me, far enough away that we had to lean in to hear each other.
First impression: powder blue dress shirt, black slacks, lace-up dress shoes. Everything off the rack. Not bad-looking. Not really anything-looking. Investment banker, probably. Darn, I was hoping for someone artistic. Good thing it’s only eight minutes.
“Hi. I’m Maureen. I work for a PR firm here in the city.”
“Hi. I’m Dave,” he said. “I’m a serial killer.”
Hm. I was sure he’d say investment banker.
“I’ve never met a serial killer,” I told him.
“I’m glad I could
be your first.”
“We had a neighbor growing up who used to torture animals, that’s the closest I’ve come.”
“Ah. I think a lot of people had a neighbor like that.”
“And what you do for a living, Dave?” I asked.
“I work at a used bookstore.”
“Does that pay well?”
“It pays okay. But I also steal from my victims, after I kill them. Serial killing helps supplement my income.”
“Would you say being a serial killer is more of a hobby?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
There was a lull in the conversation.
Great, I thought. Here’s a guy who defines himself by his hobby. I know the type. “I’m a golfer.” “I’m a party animal.” “I’m a serial killer.” Another loser, going nowhere. Get a life.
I took a quick peek at my watch. Seven minutes to go. An eternity.
Was this guy ever going to ask me anything?
“So, Dave, uh... have you killed a lot of... who do you kill, exactly?”
“Women. I kill women.”
“Uh huh. How many women have you killed?”
“Seventeen — no, sixteen.”
“Uh huh.”
“I don’t think it’s right to count the first one. She was half killing, half accident.”
“Mm hm.”
“She was in a crosswalk, and I hit her with my car.”
“I see.”
“Then instead of calling an ambulance, I ran her over again.”
“Mm hm.”
“I realized I enjoyed killing and wanted to do more of it.”
“It’s nice that you figured that out.”
“Yes, it is.”
Another lull. In the chair next to Dave was a dreamy guy with blue eyes and a leather vest and an earring. There’s my artist, I thought. Can’t wait till he’s in my hot seat.
Dave leaned in a little closer.
“I like your dress, Maureen,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“It sets off your hazel eyes.”
Okay, I had to give him credit for that.
“Thanks for saying hazel. Most guys say ‘brown,’ if they bother to notice at all.”
“I notice.”
Another glance at my watch. Six minutes. Jesus.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so,” I said to Dave, “but I’ve heard serial killers are charming... “
“They can be.”
“I don’t think you are. I don’t think you’re charming at all.”
Dave shrugged. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Sorry. We don’t have much time. We shouldn’t waste it by not being honest.”
“I understand completely. I’ve often thought that, if only I were charming, I would be a better serial killer.”
“Well, sixteen kills, that’s pretty good.”
“Yes, but how much better could I be if I were more charming?”
“What’s a number you’d feel good about?”
“Thirty-five.”
“That sounds ambitious.”
“I’d even settle for something in the twenties.”
“That would be impressive.”
“I know I could do it if I just had a wee bit more charm. I keep thinking I should take a course or something.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Maybe something online.”
“There’s probably a lot of those out there.”
“The problem is, I’m lazy.”
“I think we’re all lazy.”
“No, but I am lazy big time. How many times have I just stayed home on the sofa, when I could have been out killing somebody.”
“I do exactly the same thing.”
“You mean stay home instead of killing somebody?”
“On no. Goodness no.”
In spite of myself, I laughed.
“I meant stay at home instead of getting together with friends.”
“I know. I was kidding,” said Dave.
What the hell. I had to tell him.
“You know, you actually are a little bit charming.”
“You think so?”
“Just a little bit.”
“Thank you, Maureen. It’s nice of you to say.”
“You’re certainly not world-class charming. Like George Clooney.”
“Oh man. I could never aspire to that level of charm.”
“Can you imagine if George Clooney was a serial killer?”
“He’d clean up.”
“So good.”
“Who knows? Maybe if the acting thing doesn’t work out... “
This time we both laughed.
I leaned a little farther toward Dave.
“So Dave.”
“Yes.”
“What do you like to do besides killing?”
Dave thought for a moment.
“There’s really nothing else.”
BONG.
“Okay, people, rotate,” shouted Joyce.
Wow, those first two minutes were torture. The last six flew by.
Dave stood up and moved on.
Blue-eyes leather-vest sat down opposite me. He had a cocky look to him. He winked at me. I thought, douchebag.
The way this thing worked, you made a checkmark next to whoever’s email you wanted.
It wasn’t exactly charm. Still, Dave had something.
I gave him a checkmark.
Usually Found In Pairs
I was coming off a bad break-up. You know how it is. You can’t stop thinking about that person. Stupid pop songs remind you of her. The songs don’t even have to be about romance. I wrote a song the morning after we broke up and recorded it on my phone. It wasn’t about romance. It was just her name over and over again. It really reminded me of her.
I had to distract myself. I thought a trip to a museum might help. I knew it would be a bad idea to go to a museum about her life, if such a museum existed. Neither should it be a museum so far removed from romance that it would look weird if I started crying while looking at, say, an internal combustion engine.
Then I remembered I had a coupon somebody gave me on the street.
“15% off admission to the Museum of Things Normally Found in Pairs.”
That might distract me, I thought, and hurried to the museum.
I walked down a long hall with displays of two berets, two baguettes, two mimes, two bottles of wine...
A helpful guard approached me.
“You look lost, sir,” he said. “You do realize you’re in the Museum of Things Normally Found in PARIS.”
“Thank you,” I said and left to find the proper address.
When I found it I said, “this is more like it.” The Museum of Things Usually Found in Pairs was a hundred times bigger and better than the Paris museum.
There was a shoe... a scissor... Tweedledum... a testicle... Tom (of Tom and Jerry)... an ear... a bicycle wheel... Tom (of Tom and Louis, a forgotten comedy team)...
Usually found in pairs. My god. It hit me harder than I expected. What was I doing here? I dropped to my knees, sobbing.
They took me down to the museum infirmary. There were about twenty other guys down there, all of them sobbing. It was a sad sight. We shared a box of tissue and bonded.
Then I remembered, I had a coupon in my pocket for another museum.
“Guys,” I said, “this other museum is probably better and won’t make us cry.”
I led my new friends down the street to the Museum Of Things That Are Too Large to Be Useful.
Finally we were distracted.
We saw a giant Q-tip, much too large to fit in your ear.
“Can you imagine
trying to put that in your ear?” we said to each other, and laughed and forgot our troubles.
We saw a step ladder with the steps fifteen feet apart.
“Nobody takes steps that big. Can you imagine?” we said, and laughed at the image of somebody trying to climb it. We forgot our troubles some more.
We saw a blank check for four hundred quadrillion dollars.
“Can you imagine trying to cash that?” I said.
“Yeah,” said another guy. “And even if you could cash it, where would you put all that cash?”
“Not in normal size pockets, that’s for sure. Hey, let’s see if they have a Hall of Oversized Pockets.”
“Yeah!” everybody said.
We had a great time, except for one disappointing incident. One of the guys in our group, the guy with the biggest head, tried on a hat that was supposed to be too large, and it fit him perfectly. That big hat exhibit needs to be improved.
In spite of the good time we were having, I found myself sobbing again. I don’t know what set me off. It may have been the bar of soap that was as big as a king-sized mattress.
That’s too big to be useful, I thought. Just like my heart.
I guess sobbing is contagious, like yawning, because everyone else started sobbing again too.
I thought I was being a bad influence on my friends, and I offered to leave. I waited for them to say, no, stay. But nobody said it, so I left.
As it turns out, admission to the Large Things museum also got me admission to the Museum Of Things That Are Too Small To Be Useful. I wasn’t impressed. It was just a bunch of toys in doll houses, with not much thought put into the presentation. Plus the museum itself was small, about the size of a bathroom. I could tell the rich donors in the city were more interested in large things.
I made my way home, dejected, thinking about her again. The day had been a bust. I hadn’t been able to distract myself for very long, and I had made my new friends miserable. I admit, the gift shop at the Too Large Museum was pretty cool, but I foolishly bought a spoon the size of a limousine and realized I had no place to put it.
Then I saw it. One last hope for distraction from my broken heart.
The Museum of Things.
Admission was forty dollars, a bit steep I thought for such a general theme.
But it was even bigger than the Too Large Museum, ironically. In spite of the fact all the things there were normal-sized, there were many more of them.