Your Place Is Here Now, page 16
The only other night-viewing was Harriet’s Walkman. I should have known better, and I did, but I thought I might catch a glimpse of Barbara, Harriet’s buxom best friend, when they did dance aerobics together. So, I fixed the tape-playing machine after she sat on it. If I’d known that Harriet sometimes kept it in her bra when she went walking, I would have bought her a new one and saved myself a lot of trauma. As I watched those enormous sweaty melons swinging, the hardest part was that I could still see the awful broadcast, even when I closed my eyes. That was when I learned that, although I could receive transmissions, I had no control over the connection.
As I said before, you get addicted to other people’s lives pretty quickly, so I had to find a way to fill my nights. It had gotten to the point that I got anxious when I saw reality in front of me. That prompted me to look for a way to increase the frequency between five and midnight.
This was what brought me to the video store—the first real job I ever had. I was hired as a clerk at Galaxy Video, and within a week, I had access to the rental VCRs.
It was perfect. My main job was hunting down movies for the customers. This was a small operation that had tags beneath the cardboard artwork instead of the actual VHS tapes, which were stored in the backroom behind the counter. Whenever it got slow, I would sit in the back and tune up the rental machines, whether they needed it or not. Within two weeks, I had a full-night schedule going.
I learned a lot about people at night. One of the biggest things I learned was how perverted they were. Half of what I saw at night was weirdos watching porno flicks and enjoying themselves. It was a lot of fun when it was couples imitating what they watched, but there were far more guys jerking off alone. If I’d thought watching Harriet was bad, it was nothing compared to watching some hairy-ass a-hole go to town on himself.
I really thought I’d learned something about cheating with the Lenny event, but I guess I was a slow learner. Of all the people to have a pervert in their family, I was shocked to find out that Mary Louise’s dad had a peculiar fetish. It was during my Thursday 10:00 p.m. viewing that I got to watch the dentist jack himself off with a plastic bag over his head while watching one of Galaxy Video’s nastier pornos. Some of the stuff that came out of the back room with the beads over the door was downright disgusting. None of the teenagers who worked there were allowed to check them out, but we would when no one was looking. I have never been one to judge others, but if you need to watch that kind of stuff to climax, you probably need some help.
Unfortunately for Mary Louise, her dad was one of them. I didn’t have a choice, but it was mesmerizing to watch him get started, and then a minute in, place a plastic bag over his head and start sucking on the clear plastic until he passed out. The guy must have been some sort of jack-off genius to time it out like he did and to know that he was going to wake up. Then again, maybe that was the rush—thinking that maybe you wouldn’t.
It really wasn’t my thing, so I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. The whole deal lasted less than ten minutes, and my own TV was occupied by my dad watching some boring-ass documentary, so I was stuck looking at the balding naked dude with his shorts dangling around his legs, sleeping off the jizz high he was on with my dad next to him.
As I looked around the room to avoid him, I saw something that interested me. Next to the bed was a small makeup table. I kind of hoped it belonged to the dentist’s wife and wasn’t another fetish. On the table sat a huge magnifying mirror. In the reflection, I saw a dresser and a wall safe.
The safe should have been hidden behind a painting. There was a dirty outline on the wallpaper where the painting should have been hanging. On the safe was a Post-it note with a series of numbers in scribbled ink.
Jackpot!
That night, I went back and forth a couple hundred times, trying to decide how much could possibly be in the safe. I told myself I was just daydreaming, but to be honest, I knew I would find a way to get in there and clean it out.
The next morning, before leaving for school, I found their address in the phonebook. If I went a half mile in the wrong direction, I discovered I could check it out on my walk to school.
A week went by before I was confident that I could get in and out with relative ease. Mary Louise was an only child, and her mother worked as a hygienist at her father’s office. Calling from a payphone, I disguised my voice and tried to make a dental appointment for Friday after school. Both had other patients but could see me the next week on Tuesday.
I knew Mary Louise was in band, and Friday was homecoming, so she would be out of the way as well. This was no longer a what-if. I had to know what was in that safe. That only left one obstacle: Could I fit in the doggy door? They had a cocker spaniel, but the vinyl flap was twice the size it had to be. From what I could see from their neighbor’s yard, they had an old shed I could hide behind, and I felt confident that I could contort myself through.
I was eager to get going that afternoon but chose to wait until four-thirty because there was a more distracting viewing at four. It was the AV TV that was now in the teachers’ lounge, and on Fridays, the alcohol came out to welcome the weekend. I expected the rented VCR to be blacked out by four-thirty. Everything worked perfectly.
As it turned out, I was right. There was no viewing. I could have managed it if there were, but it was better this way.
My first obstacle was nothing. The doggy door took no effort. With almost no pressure, I slipped right through. The cocker spaniel was asleep. As I tiptoed past, for a brief second, it looked up at me and then went right back to its nap.
I had memorized the combination, but I had a copy in my jeans pocket as backup. With a few turns, the door opened, and inside, sitting next to a few papers, were several necklaces and a pile of cash. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was slightly under ten grand. I know it’s not that much all in all, but it was a real score for a teenager in the early nineties.
I left the jewelry—I had no clue how to sell something like that—and made my way down the stairs. If it weren’t for the motherfucking reed for the saxophone, everything would have gone down perfectly.
I must have been half-deaf or impaired by adrenaline because I did not hear Mary Louise walking up the stairs. She wore a tan dicky with a white bra underneath; it was made to go beneath her band jacket.
I rounded the corner, my backpack filled with the perverted dentist’s loot, and almost knocked her over. She had an almost amused look on her face as she asked, “Aren’t you the guy from my algebra class?”
I remember being surprised that she didn’t scream or ask what I was doing there. That was the last emotion I felt as I grabbed the hunting knife, which I’d upgraded from the penknife in case I needed it for the dog, and plunged it into her eye socket.
I didn’t do it to be gruesome. To be honest, I was planning on jamming it into her chest and totally whiffed. Before she could scream, I spun her around and had my hand over her mouth. My only thought was wondering if she liked the oxygen deprivation, like her father. She didn’t struggle much; she just kind of twitched in a half-assed way. I was surprised that I didn’t think of her in a sexual way. I could have done whatever I wanted, but the moment we shared was more important than that.
There was blood, but less than I thought there would be. I was wearing gloves, so I wasn’t overly concerned, but then I noticed the darkened portion of my army jacket with the stencil of the Violent Femmes on the back.
I was pissed. That patch was hard to come by. I knew I would have to toss it, but I really didn’t want to. I left the same way I came, frustrated not only by needing to ditch my jacket before I got back but also by the reed. If she hadn’t forgotten it, she still would have been alive, and I would still get to enjoy watching her in her AP class at my two o’clock viewing. That lazy- ass teacher did little but play videos.
The money came in handy, even though I could only use small portions of it at a time. I kept it buried between the pages of my comic book collection, knowing it would be safe there. The last time anyone but me was in my bedroom was when I had a nasty flu in the sixth grade.
I kept my job at the video store, even though I didn’t need the pay. It gave me the potential for unlimited viewings, which was good, even if I was tired of listening to the other clerks gabbing all day. I never quite understood their need to share every bit of bullshit that went through their heads, but they sure as hell thought they might explode if they didn’t get it all out.
By the time high school was over, I had a pretty good schedule going that ran morning to night. I even experimented during my sleeping hours. I was hesitant at first but tried it for the shit of it, figuring I could always destroy the camera at the Stop & Save gas station if it kept me up too late.
I learned a pretty neat thing with that experiment. I could ignore it if the viewing started when I was asleep, which was great because then there was no risk.
I didn’t kill again until I was twenty. I’m not going to lie; it surprised me. Mary Louise introduced me to bloodlust in the same way she had sexual lust. When I say that, I know it makes me sound like a maniac, but it really isn’t like that at all. I’ve relived that moment in the hallway with her a thousand times. If I’m being honest, and at this point, there is no reason not to; everything I do now is geared toward trying to relive that exact experience, and that’s why I keep stabbing them in the eye.
It isn’t like the reporters say. It isn’t because I see myself in the victims, or better yet, that I don’t want them to see me because I feel shame. It’s simply because her hallway was dark, and the angle wasn’t quite what I thought it was. The a-hole shrinks finally have me convinced that I probably don’t understand love, but that moment with her is probably the closest I’ve come to it. That longing is always there. Only the intensity toward it changes. Once it gets to a certain point, there’s no stopping it. I mean, I guess that’s kind of bullshit because I’ve never really tried to stop it.
I was still working at the video store and living at home two years out of high school. Harriet had roped a poor sucker into marrying her. His name was Sam. He worked down at the grocery store as a general manager. I guess he made decent money. He had a clean apartment, and his car wasn’t even two years old. The dude couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds, soaking wet. In their wedding photos, they looked like the number 10. My parents watched in their quiet, oblivious way. It was just us now, which was good. Harriet was the only one who’d kept an eye on me. With her out of the way, I could come and go as I pleased without having to make up any bullshit.
The video store gig was paying off. The rental VCRs were being sold as newer models came in, so the viewings kept increasing. It was getting to the point where there was rarely less than a half hour per day without a double feature, and in some cases, I was getting triples. Those were rough. I could easily watch two viewings and hold a conversation in my present reality, but when a third came in, I became nearly comatose. That’s what led me back to the old high school. I had outgrown that scene, except for Mrs. Vagle, but I was willing to sacrifice her at that point. The truth was, she’d put on some weight, and her underwear became less desirable.
At the time, I didn’t have the same control I have today, which is why I had to sneak in and destroy the TVs to stop the viewings that had given me so much enjoyment. It was the first time I’d done something sneaky that didn’t result in someone being killed.
I still had the key to the AV room. Dumbass Spence still never unlocked the front doors until a few minutes before class. A minute after he did, I just walked in and ripped out all the wiring in the back of the TVs. It would have been more satisfying if I’d smashed them, but I didn’t want to risk making that much noise. I knew I could have pulled it off. You’d be surprised how getting away with two murders gives you a feeling of complete invincibility. But I thought better of it.
I got mixed results after extinguishing those connections. A week later, my viewings went down by way more than half, but what I didn’t expect was the emptiness. I wasn’t used to feelings like that. I wasn’t used to anything other than the urges. I knew I could feel boredom, longing, and lust, but anything outside of that was new. Knowing what I know now, I realize how unique that is. It’s a lot like when I first saw how to fix that transistor. If you don’t talk about it with anyone, how do you know how others’ feelings or experiences compare to yours?
I read half of a philosophy book once. I read it while working at the video store in between fetching the cassettes. It was boring as shit, but one part really stuck out to me. It was a simple statement that has always stayed with me. It was more complex than this, but the gist was that the only way you can learn about yourself is through interactions with others. I have never read a truer statement. If I thought nothing about killing someone, how in the hell was I supposed to know it was wrong unless someone else could explain why it was wrong? I’m no philosopher, but what I later learned to be sadness—I was missing the connection to the school—is what brought me to my first therapy session, where I began to learn how different I was.
I had enough dough to pay someone but didn’t want to go through that bullshit, mainly because I didn’t want to fill out a mountain of forms. I found a pretty good solution two towns over in Damatson. Every Friday night, in the basement of a church, they held community forums and offered free counseling. That wasn’t completely true. They did ask for donations, but it wasn’t mandatory. I made a big deal out of dropping twenty dollars into the box, so the old bitch at the door would think I was a genuine type of guy. The money never made it into the box. I just flashed it and then palmed it before pretending to push it through the slot.
The rooms were full of a collection of losers who thought hanging in groups somehow elevated them to something else. Of all of them, the biggest group was alcoholics. I hated staring at them as they drank that shitty coffee and chain-smoked.
When I ventured in that night, I met Ms. Stacey, the psychologist who gave free sessions. She was plump but pretty, maybe forty. I was sly and asked roundabout questions, disguising the real questions that I wanted to ask, the way they do on the idiot television shows Harriet used to watch. Honestly, I didn’t know what was considered acceptable or not. To me, there was nothing wrong with saying I had stabbed some a-hole jock because I didn’t want to be kicked out of school. I knew it should be wrong, but I just didn’t feel it. It was kind of like those arranged marriages you hear about. Someone tells you to love someone because it’s in everyone’s best interests, so the couple does it, not for love, but just being aware that they should.
So, I made up an elaborate story about missing my friends from high school, even though I wasn’t close to them, just to see what she had to say. She gave me some nearly insightful answers, but I was growing impatient. I knew, at best, that I could go there maybe twice. I was paranoid about sharing too much, so then I did something that became a pattern in my life. I took a risk without thinking.
I told her that I was picked on a lot in high school and had fantasies about killing some of the bigger kids who tormented me. Over time, I found that lies that were close to the truth almost always worked. The kids in school had picked on me relentlessly, but honestly, I’d never blamed them. I just figured they’d sensed my weirdness. It was like those documentaries I’d get stuck watching with my dad from time to time on Saturdays after the soldering repair so long ago.
There was an order to things in the natural world. Animals had an instinctive sense that gave them a place and meaning in relation to their surroundings, and when they encountered anything that triggered them, they went on the attack.
As I’ve thought about it over the years, that’s what I believe makes me different. That sense is missing in me. I not only have no barometer pointing me to what is right or wrong, but I also have no desire to develop one.
I had a sort of half-assed theory that everyone’s brain would live up to a certain potential based on the geography up there. The area where connection, love, and understanding should be in my brain was filled with the ability to view. It’s kind of funny how the thing that makes me unique is also the thing that alienates me from others.
Now, with Ms. Stacey, I was trying to figure out what kind of bra she was wearing. Her sweater was tight but had a weird, quilted pattern, making identifying it difficult. With her wild smile, she told me that it was normal to feel aggressive like this. Finally, progress. Someone was showing me behind the curtain, which always seemed to be closed. I went a little further and told her that I’d even planned how I would do it. She explained that this was also normal and asked about my parents. Then, I opened up more than I’d planned and told her about the nothingness of our relationship.
I told her about the day they locked me in the closet because I was being too loud, and admittedly, I really was being obnoxious that day. It was the day after my fourth birthday, and I couldn’t get my toy car track to stay together. I also told her how I screamed myself to sleep that night in the dark. I could see she found that distressing.
She had to be wearing one of those Cross Your Heart bras. Harriet had a few like that, as they were the only things that could contain her. Ms. Stacey asked if that was the first time I’d ever spoken to someone about that incident. When I answered yes, she scribbled something down in a notebook. I didn’t like that, but I tolerated it, figuring she had no way of knowing who I really was, so nothing she wrote could follow me anywhere.
She went on to explain that children who were abused in such a way often found it hard to get along with others in their same age group. She said that they usually aren’t able to feel safe or trust anyone because of their betrayal.
I was getting really bored. If I hadn’t been viewing some bald guy laying into his fat-ass wife, I probably would have walked out. They were trying to mimic the porno they were watching, and it was hilarious listening to them repeating back the ridiculous lines that were meant for better-looking people.
