18 Dead Read online

  I registered surprise to see him, our class pariah, at our ten year reunion. I had gone with a grade-school girlfriend I was still in touch with, and she said, "There's Ronny." I looked across the room, "Whoa! He grew up well. Cute even." He seemed to be alone, well, without a wife, at least, and he stood out from the crowd, tall and thin. I wondered why he would even come here.

  If I were him, I'd never want to see any of us ever again. I mean, why face a whole group of people who made your childhood a living hell, day after day, year after year?

  A thought struck me now and a chill ran down my spine. Perhaps he had come thinking of revenge.

  I had said hello to him briefly, polite and friendly, admired photos of his wife and children, my adult self having nothing to fear from him, nothing to hide from any of them.

  I thought he might be the bravest person I have ever met.

  I said: I think we're done for today.

  * * * * *

  Nathan's report of chemical use was difficult to believe. I found myself watching him for signs of delay, slowed mental functioning. Waiting, watching. He didn't have the dulled eyes or slack look of a chronic pot-smoker. Didn't exhibit the physical signs I've come to expect from the kind of substance abuse he was reporting.

  Was it a mask? Perhaps he was trying to keep me from figuring him out. But then… why? What purpose would it serve him to manipulate the clinical data in this way?

  He said he blacked out from rage – but maybe he blacked out from drug use, and was going to build a defense of psychosis induced by chemical abuse, or psychosis of withdrawal. But again, to what purpose?

  I gave myself a mental shake. He would never go free, never be released back into society.

  No. He was fucked. By his own admission.

  * * * * *

  Clinical notes:

  Not medication compliant (V15.81)

  Denies delusions, yet is somewhat grandiose

  Cannabis abuse, and/or dependence (305.20, 304.30)

  Unwilling to participate in therapeutic groups (V15.81)

  Rage disorder characterized by distorted thoughts, disturbing images

  Session Three

  What are you hoping to get out of your stay here?

  (snort of laughter) You're kidding, right?

  Well, it's a standard question, actually. You know, with a space on the computerized record for the answer.

  What's a standard answer?

  Reduction of depression. Improvement of coping skills. Medication adjustment.

  What do you want me to say? Fill it in with whatever answer you want.

  It doesn't work that way.

  No shit. It probably doesn't work at all.

  Most systems are broken. That's the trouble.

  I shouldn't even be here. It's a total fluke that I'm here.

  Why shouldn’t you be here?

  I had a grenade. You know that, right? I assume it was in the report.

  What report would that be?

  Oh, come on. You got a report from somewhere, long before you ever met me.

  Only because you refused to see me.

  Yeah, whatever. You admit there's a report.

  You probably had it in your hand before I arrived at this fine facility.

  Of course there's a report. So. Tell me about the grenade.

  There's nothing to tell. I had a grenade. When I ran out of bullets I pulled the pin.

  Dropped it right between my feet.

  Goodbye world.

  You're still here.

  Not by choice. Some fucker tackled me, threw me halfway across the room.

  C'est la vie. Here I am. Still alive, for the moment.

  Enough about me. Tell me what you write.

  I'm not comfortable talking about that.

  Tell me anyway.

  (pause while I thought what to say) It's really not appropriate.

  Fuck appropriate. Are you kidding?

  You want to know practically everything about me. Fair is fair.

  Nathan, this isn't a two-way relationship. You know that.

  Maybe it would help more if it was.

  Ouch.

  He smiled, but it was a sad smile. His eyes were so intensely expressive, flashing bright when he laughed, darkening when disappointed. They were steady on me now, challenging.

  How about a deal? Tell me what you write.

  And next time, I'll tell you something hard.

  Like what?

  Like why I hated them.

  Damn him. Offering me exactly what I wanted. In exchange for what, my professional ethics? My soul? I sighed. He grinned. He'd sucked me in, and he knew it. He waited.

  Romance.

  Oh, come on. You can do better than that. Explicit? Sweet? Religious? Bodice-ripper?

  He was laughing at me. I hated calling myself a romance writer, so I told him more than I should have.

  Unusual or impossible romance. Guy in his thirties in love with a boy of eighteen. Vampire in love with a mortal who would rather die than ever drink blood. Nurse in love with a terminal cancer patient.

  Not happy stories.

  No, my stories have plenty of charm, but they do lack the happy ending traditional to the genre. I like to explore complicated relationships. The more impossible the situation, the more fierce the passion. Bittersweet. The people you look back on and know they've changed you, whether for good or ill, and that the change is forever.

  Like our relationship.

  You're lying to yourself about the one-way part.

  (shake of my head) Don't say that.

  (shrug) Imagine if we'd met somewhere else.

  I'd ask you out on a date. And you'd say yes.

  (shake of my head again) Nathan. Don't.

  You want to care about me. Fix me, even.

  But it's not possible.

  Exactly.

  His eyes burned. Maybe not with tears, but with some kind of longing or regret. And then he held out his hand.

  Touch me.

  (touch the hand of a killer) I can't. Nathan, I can't.

  Please.

  His hand was out there, hanging in the air, and his eyes begged me. I stared at his hand. I remembered the photograph. The blood on his face. The eerie smile. His fingers trembled, just a little. And I couldn't stop myself. I reached out. My fingertips matched up to his, a millimeter of air between them. We stayed like that for a long minute. So close to touching. But I couldn't bring myself to close the hair's breath of space between us. Couldn't touch the killer. My fingers burned, like the shame I would carry long in my heart.

  My notes might dramatize the session, sure, but to hang on to my professional hat it had to be done. He wasn't delusional about possible outcomes, but he made me want to be. Delusional, that is.

  I wasn't delusional. I had a pretty strong inkling about how this would end. Still, he was a puzzle, and I was fascinated. I was willing to give up some personal information in order to solve the puzzle. And if that blurred boundaries, well, so be it. Or, in the words of a killer, C'est la vie.

  * * * * *

  Clinical notes:

  Poor boundaries

  Continues suicidal and grandiose

  Past lethal suicide attempt (296.20)

  Delusions about possible outcomes of situation (296.24)

  Session Four

  Your turn. Tell me the worst of it.

  Do we have to do this?

  No. You don't have to do anything. Sit here and rot for all I give a shit. But we had a deal.

  You give a shit.

  (Exaggerated shrug)

  It's embarrassing to tell. Humiliating. Even now.

  Don't be embarrassed on my account. I know how this story ends, remember?

  He winced. I wondered if that meant he was starting to feel some remorse. After all, everything he would now miss was certainly gone for the ones he killed, their families. If he went to trial as a sane person, he'd surely be executed. I couldn't even think about that. I liked him
too much to think about that.

  By now, I knew that when I asked a tough question he would answer. I just had to keep my mouth shut and wait. I think he needed time to put his thoughts in order, maybe distance himself some so he could tell it like a story.

  I was a normal little kid, you know? My parents cared about me. Loved me, even. I went to school in clean clothes. Not the newest, maybe, but fine.

  When it was time to go to Kindergarten I was so excited. I'd learn to read. By five years old, I was already longing to learn to read. I was a happy little guy, though it's hard to remember now. My family says I was happy, anyway. School was good. But in third grade there was this kid, Harry Morisi. Hairy Harry. Real dark kid.

  Italian or something. Had bushy eyebrows and black hair on his arms. Even in the third grade. He'd peed his chair in first grade, so for a couple of years he was getting all the heat.

  But one day he brought a bucket to school.

  He described the scene in stark detail, for the first time ever in my presence fidgeting and pacing and talking with his hands; Hairy Harry gathering a large group of kids around and making a production of urinating in the bucket. Dropping his drawers, grunting and moaning and making exaggerated facial expressions while sitting on the bucket.

  When he was done Harry stood and examined the faces of the kids as he fastened his pants around his waist. Nathan stood just to the edge of the group, too horrified by Harry to even laugh, and somehow he became the chosen one. Harry's eyes landed on Nathan. Then Harry grinned, picked up the bucket and shouted, "Get Nate! Get him! We'll make him all nasty!"

  Nathan turned to run, but was caught by a larger boy almost immediately and dragged to the ground. Three or four boys held him down while Harry poured the contents of the bucket over his crotch, chest, and face.

  "Nasty Nate, Nasty Nate, nasty nasty nasty Nate," they chanted, words that would ruin a little boy's life and haunt a grown man's sleep.

  After that I never had a chance. Nothing I did, said, or wore mattered.

  Didn't matter if I let them make me cry, if I laughed at them, if I ignored them.

  I was the pariah, the scapegoat. The smelly kid.

  I didn't have a single friend.

  He finally stood completely still and stared at me long and serious, not even a hint of a smile. Then he sat back in his usual chair, once again calm, relaxed, at ease. I was horrified on his behalf. I wanted him to rage and cry and protest the unfairness of it all. But he exhibited… nothing. Just quiet stillness without emotion.

  It took me many years to determine it was them, not me.

  Until then I burned with self-hatred.

  I don't burn anymore. I just go cold.

  And I don't hate myself. I hate them.

  And I got mine, didn't I?

  Now he smiled. I didn't laugh good-naturedly with him, or even agree. How could I condone what he'd done, how he "got his?"

  I said: But all that was a long time ago. You're asking me to believe that your anger reached across twenty years? That's beyond unforgiving. It's pathological.

  No. There's more to the story, of course there is. I moved on to middle school, then high school, graduated. I started college, but it wasn't for me. I didn't have the concentration for it. I found work with a contractor, eventually became an electrician's apprentice, then joined the National Guard.

  I'd seen a note that his wife had been to visit. I mentioned it.

  Yeah, I grew up and got married. Happily ever after, right?

  She showed up here yesterday. Sat on a chair and cried.

  Couldn't even look me in the face.

  I told her to leave, to forget about me.

  We're divorced now, anyway.

  I was at a loss for words. His pain when he spoke of his wife was so present, so raw, that it threw me, a huge contrast to the ice in his voice and his eyes when speaking about Hairy Harry and the horror in the school yard. Most people act out of hot emotions, crimes of passion and all of that. But not Nathan Kincaid. No. He was the master of revenge served cold. But I knew he wasn't telling me everything. Why would he wait twenty years to strike back? There were many precipitating factors, sure, but there had to be an inciting incident.

  I said: So what, you got invited to a reunion? Was that the trigger?

  He turned his glare on me, and it was so fierce I pressed my spine hard against the back of my chair, feet firmly on the floor, in case I should need to push back fast to get away from him. I wondered at the pain of his anger. Thought about the boy we tortured back in those early school years. Would Nathan hate me if he knew? Would he kill me with his bare hands, move so quick I'd never have a chance?

  No. He just lashed out at me with words, from the safe distance of his chair.

  You fucking people. You want neat little explanations for everything. Let's wrap this story up with a nice little bow and feed it to the media. America's Poster child was grossly misunderstood and begs for mercy. You know, I wish, for your sake, that the world worked that way. Wouldn't that be a treat?

  He obviously wasn't ready to talk about the inciting incident. Or he took offense at my use of the word trigger.

  I said: It's okay if you're not ready to talk about it.

  I'm done talking. I thought you were getting it, Landon, but you're just like the rest of them.

  (use of my name – interesting) What do you mean?

  You want everything to make sense. You want me labeled and put in my box where I belong.

  That's not true. You know what my role is.

  I told you I'm competent. I told you that a long time ago. If that's all you wanted, you'd be done with me by now.

  I didn't answer. The silence between us grew. I thought about his words. Was he right, did I have an agenda that went beyond my job description? He was competent to stand trial. I had known that probably since the first session. So. I had no real reason to keep seeing him. I had put off writing my official report because it felt like our conversation was unfinished, but I hadn't put it off consciously.

  It wasn't that I wanted to label him, or wanted to be sure the labels fit, or wanted him to fit neatly into a box.

  When I discontinued our sessions and filed my report, I'd be signing his death warrant.

  Releasing him to the broken system.

  I said: You're wrong.

  (sigh) About what?

  About me. I don't want to make the pieces all neat and tidy.

  Then what the hell do you want?

  I just want to understand.

  It's the same difference, isn't it?

  (shake of my head) No. It's not about anyone else. It's about you.

  It's about me. It's become personal.

  (sharp laugh) Well, go make it personal with someone else.

  I'm a lost cause.

  He walked out. End session.

  * * * * *

  Clinical notes:

  Rejection by peers

  Labile moods (296.90)

  History of relationship failure

  Avoidant personality disorder (300.23)

  Session Five

  I want to understand why you've never moved beyond this.

  (shrug) I almost did, once.

  I had a child, and for a minute there I thought I was going to be okay.

  I thought I was going to be normal, even.

  What happened?

  He died.

  That's terrible. I'm sorry.

  Yeah. Don't apologize, it wasn't your fault.

  How did he die?

  Long story. He got sick.

  I waited, because I could tell there was more.

  Hairy Harry was his doctor.

  At the end.

  (no words, I had no words) No way.

  I've never lied to you.

  I don't think he tried very hard to save my kid.

  You don't really believe that.

  I'm serious. It's true.

  I'd think he would have tried harder, to make it up to you. />
  Yeah, right.

  Anyway. Then the kid was gone.

  Turned out his mother and I had nothing but him between us.

  I was alone again even before we called it quits.

  Maybe more alone than ever.

  Bad shit.

  She forced me into a treatment program.

  Worse shit to follow.

  Like what?

  Like everything. I'm no fun when I can't get high.

  Morose motherfucker. And I had reason to be.

  Stewing in your head.

  Totally. My head is no fun place to be.

  It's the loneliest place in the fuckin' world.

  That's really sad.

  Yup.

  I love being in my head.

  I hate it.

  But you've been doing all right here.

  That's what you think. You only see this little bit of me, here in your office.

  And I never feel alone with you.

  That was maybe too intense, but a warm fuzzy feeling engulfed me and I buzzed with it for a second even though I knew somehow I needed to pull back emotionally. Not good. Oh, not good. Things had been building to this from the beginning. I looked forward to our sessions and hated for them to end, and noted that they often ran long – double our allotted time or more. In fact, I'd started scheduling him at the end of my day so we had no time constraints at all. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't stop myself.

  If he got the death penalty, I would be devastated.

  Which was ridiculous – because there was nowhere this could go.

  I said: Even when you're angry with me?

  None of it's your fault. I know that.

  You wanted to know what triggered this mess.

  Yes.

  Divorce decree came in the mail.

  My son is dead. My wife is no longer my wife.

  And there was this postcard.

  "Let's relive the happiness of childhood."

  See? It wasn't your regular variety high school reunion.

  It was an extra deal, elementary school chums only.

  And I stared at it.

  And I read the words over and over.

  "Let's relive the happiness of childhood."

  And I wondered which of them would be cruel enough to invite me to this party.

  Hairy Harry? Lisa Alvarez?

  Maybe it was a whole committee: Anna Ruiz. Toby Johnson. Anthony Tyler. Cory Larson. Monica Martinelli. Thomas Anderson. Kim Caldwell. Kara Hayworth. Paulo Sanchez. Billy James Morgan. Karl Jackson. Damien DeMarcos. Lorrie Holmes. Tamica Jones. Michael Childs. Katie Moon.