The Joy of Killing Read online

  My belief that telling the story of the night on the train, the night with the girl, would somehow bring me closer to the truth, while irrational on its face, seems to be playing out. One of the reasons I had only written a novel about a murder and denied myself the experience of it was the belief that the crime would ruin the rest of my days. The joy of killing would be smothered in remorse and guilt. This ability to predict what I was going to feel after the act, whatever it was, was primarily a curse. It didn’t necessarily stop me—like stealing dollar bills from my father’s wallett on his dresser while he sat in his robe at the breakfast table—but it prepared me. So the boy knew from instinct what it would be like taking the truth of that afternoon with him through the rest of his days. He didn’t know it; he understood it the way he understood that he was left-handed. If I could modify my design, I would delete this predictive ability. In fact, I would delete the wiring for shame and remorse altogether. Not to mention guilt.

  I jab my thumb into the wound on my thigh, and a bolt of pain brings me to life.

  I SAT ON the bench in the vestibule in a soft stupor. I’d been on the road for over a day by then and had close to another one to go. The girl already seemed to be turning into a memory. A shadow fell over me. I opened my eyes. It was her. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

  “There you are,” she said.

  Her hands were on her hips.

  “I got really tired,” I said, slumping even further.

  “Poor baby,” she said, turning back and throwing the bolt on the door. Her skirt, I noticed, fell just above the knee.

  “Do you know where we are?” I asked.

  “Right here,” she said, “you and me.”

  Not me, I thought. I’m gone. The heat and the wet and the stiffness and the sounds and smells—it was over. None of it seemed to bother her. She flicked off the overhead light, and in the reach for the switch her skirt pulled up a little, emphasizing the gentle rise of her bottom. I looked away, out the window. We were racing over the plains now, the no-man’s-land of corn and wheat fields long since shorn of their produce. A blackness speckled by lights here and there, but no cars, no moon in sight.

  I felt the seat depress next to me. The girl placed a hand on my neck and kissed my forehead.

  I looked at her, felt the depths of her eyes.

  “I’m shot,” I said.

  Her face sweetened. “I understand.”

  She stood and walked two steps across the tiny room to the sink. She flicked on a light over the mirror and looked at herself. She loosened her ponytail, ran her hands through her hair, and fluffed it out. Her eyes dropped a fraction, to look at me. I sat up. Tiny white lights flashed on the periphery of my vision. She pulled her blouse down and tucked it in, never taking her eyes off me. She adjusted her cupcake-like tits under the sweater. The white dots began flashing. I could feel the blood pulse through my fingers. As if sensing it, she dropped her eyes, and I sucked in a deep breath. The barest of smiles hinted at her lips. Retrieving a gold tube from a small purse at her side, she glanced at her mouth in the mirror. She twisted the tube until a red stick appeared. She leaned over slightly, and the back of her skirt rose an inch. She opened her mouth and tugged at her upper lip with the stick, then rubbed her lips together. She leaned in a fraction more, which caused her bottom to push out and the center of her skirt—and I assumed her bottom—to separate a little. She gave me a look. The upper lip was red as a cherry. My lungs seemed to have stopped inflating. She leaned a little further forward, and her skirt rose nearly to the top of her thigh. The train lurched to the right and she caught a handrail and took a small step. The tiny lights were exploding in color.

  Her hand dropped to her side. In scrawled red letters on the glass was written:

  NOW

  I TAKE A deep breath, snap my eyes shut, and lean back in the chair. Her hand is holding the golden tube by her side. The red stick has disappeared. Her eyes hold no challenge, only invitation. Over the years, the scene often stops at that very moment. I dwell on the possibilities of it, rather than the realities. But tonight, I want it to continue on, through the heat and the explosion, to the other side, where we’ve returned to the seats and are in each other’s arms. I want to listen for any words between us. Hear the screeching of the wheels and feel the jolts of the train as we pull into the Chicago station. See the colors changing in her mysterious eyes in the gray light of morning.

  I FEEL A slight chill. My coat is flung on the chair, next to the briefcase. An Irish tweed I wore for the last ten years teaching in the classroom. Jeans and black-and-white Keds, with paper-thin soles, like I wore as a boy when I wasn’t in my cowboy boots. Not the same shoes, of course, although I still had my original Roy Rogers twin pistol set hanging from a hook in the living room of my small apartment. The leather holster is edged in brightly colored glass beads. I used to stand in front of the full-length mirror in my parents’ bedroom and practice a cross draw, staring straight into my own eyes, waiting for someone to flinch. I wore the holster and a felt cowboy hat and boots to cowboy movies downtown on Saturday morning. That was well before Willie. Before Joseph. Before the girl on the train.

  My second wife used to say that there was really never a place for me in this world, that I was always half in it and half out of it. My exploration of a philosophy of violence intrigued and scared her. She was tempted, as were many women, to see it as a moral release to commit mayhem without consequence.

  I lean down and tie both laces. I am lightheaded when I straighten up. I brush the goose bumps on my arms and think of putting on my jacket. I can’t quite track my movements from the moment I saw Willie’s picture in the paper until I picked up the rental car and drove out of town. A particularly violent way to kill an old man, I remember thinking. What was he doing in an alley in the first place? I see the alley now, clear and crisp, with shadows and sounds, and I see where Willie lay dying. A dark red stain a few feet from a row of battered trash cans. A feral black cat licking the edge of it. Willie, Willie, I think. A life as real as any other, played out from cradle to grave, ending on cold cement. Not an unfitting end, really, but one can seek balance in existence, yin for yang, good for bad, without giving into an emotional storm about it. The killer’s arm must have surged as he jerked the knife up in Willie’s throat, filleting it like a fish. Violence based in hate or anger is never clean; it leaves a poison behind.

  A DARK CLOUD spins in the middle of the lake. It quickly thickens. The oak leaves dance. The cloud blackens further and rises until it begins blotting out the light of the moon, like an eclipse. Rain spatters against the window, the moon disappears. I step up and touch the panes and feel the vibrations in my finger bones. Squalls, I remember, usually arise in the afternoons, not at night. They come and they go, sometimes in a matter of minutes, often with vicious force. You don’t fight it; you give into it; you wait it out. If it flips your boat, you stay with the craft. You resist panic. The night is so black now I can see nothing. As if I’m blind. Water slaps the window. I can feel the life jacket tight under my arms, pushing roughly up into my chin. My arms are churning helplessly. My head is smacked by a wall of water. I cough and gasp for breath, sucking in more water. My glasses are gone, but through the black winds I can make out the shape of the canoe, upside down, twisting in the wind-churned water. Hanging onto the end of it is a shadowy form. Joseph. He’s screaming my name. I pull toward the canoe. We’re not that far from the shore, I think. I tug the top strap on the vest a little tighter. Thank God for it. My limbs are chilling. My eyes sting. I hear my name again, fainter this time. I turn over on my back and stroke in the direction of the sound. The canoe suddenly looms on a wave a few yards in front of me. I see Joseph with one hand locked onto the edge of the craft.

  “Joseph!” I call out, but the words wash back in my face. A wave pushes me closer, and through a break in the black wind I can see him. His eyes are wild, one arm is flailing.

  “Stay with the canoe,” I yell
. Always stay with the canoe. My arms pull in his direction. I feel them tiring as the chill hits the bone. I kick. Something is wrong, I think. I hesitate. What is it? I manage a few feet closer to him. I can see the panic in his eyes now. He’s wearing himself out. “Take it easy,” I shout.

  He sees me and flails more fiercely. I can see a white T-shirt. No vest. No need, he had said. I had tossed an extra one under my seat, but it was long gone by now.

  I can’t see at all now. Either my eyes are shut, the squall has blotted out the sky, or I’ve gone blind. I lift the latch on the window and push it open. The wind jerks the window from my hand, bangs it against the side of the house. Water lashes my face. Now I’m out in it. There is no canoe. There is no moon. I can see nothing. It’s a good story. If I hadn’t looked into the caretaker’s eyes, I would still be seeing and writing about the girl on the train. No struggling boy in the water screaming my name. I open my eyes and squint: nothing, not even the oak branches, which I can hear twisting and slapping the house. The vest tightens on me. I push my chest out and hold it there. Joseph’s features are contorted in fear. The squall is pushing him toward me. A few feet away he begins to drop until only his chin is poking out of the water. A hand grasps for me. I reach for it.

  I STEP BACK from the window. I glance around into pure darkness. Images like those of Joseph and me in the squall are not what I would call trustworthy, certainly not a literal recitation of an event, but neither can they be dismissed simply as the products of an unstable mind. As old narratives fall away, new ones take their place. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say. That I have no memory of paddling over to the camp, or talking to any girls, means nothing. The look on Joseph’s face as he reaches for me—I can’t see making that one up. But nothing of the event for all these years, nearly a lifetime? I wouldn’t say I forgot about the detectives at the door, or even Willie, for that matter; it nibbled at the edges, never in story form, and I would say, standing here, apparently blind, for the moment, that I’m still not clear as to what actually happened that afternoon, except that it wasn’t my wallett on the floor.

  I raise my arms. I step sideways until my hand brushes the wall. I stare in the direction of the window. Willie’s room was damp and musty. David sat in one chair and I in the other. Willie sat on the edge of the bed. The window was open to the sounds of children on the sidewalk. Finally, I said: “Where’s the girl?”

  THANK GOD FOR the night on the train. Finally aroused, I rose from the bench and stood behind her. I felt her bottom. I paused at the heat of it, even through the skirt. My hand slipped under the material, my finger pushed in, and she gasped, and another finger pushed in. Her bottom pressed back into my hand. I glanced in the mirror: her eyes were shut. With my other hand I lifted up her skirt. The flesh was white as alabaster. I stared at where my fingers disappeared. I moved them in and out, once, twice, then pushed them in hard and watched the white flesh jiggle. She tossed her head back until I could see the ripples in her throat.

  There was a loud rapping on the door. We froze in place. How were we going to explain this?

  “WHAT’S GOING ON in there?” a woman’s voice called. “I have to use the toilet.”

  The door knob jiggled. I pulled her skirt down, but left my hand where it was.

  “I’m sick,” the girl called out toward the door.

  Pause.

  “There’s two of you,” the voice muttered.

  The girl smiled wickedly at me in the mirror. “Just a friend,” she said.

  A snort sounded from the other side of the door.

  “Next car,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Just through the doors.”

  Pause. A final twist of the knob. The car doors hissed open.

  “She’s gone,” I whispered.

  IN THE DARKNESS I hear Joseph’s voice, calling my name. I consider searching for a light switch I remember seeing on the wall by the door. The light in the lamp was on, and yet now there is only darkness. I turn toward the chair; no visible briefcase, no jacket. I stamp the floor. I hold my arms in front of me. The window bangs against the house. Water whips across my face. Joseph’s voice is in my head, not out there. This blackness is in my head, as well. The girl on the train is in my head. Was I even on the train? I grasp the wood trim of the oval window. That’s real. Willie was real. I can smell his cheap aftershave. Willie was an Aqua Velva man. “Where is the girl?” I ask. I see the red splotch on the cold cement alley. The cat’s paws are brightly stained. There never was a girl; there was never supposed to be a girl. From the beginning I knew it. Someone should have hosed the blood down. I take a step toward the splotch. It is crusting around the edges, but there is a bright crimson gash in the middle.

  I’m getting chilled. I rub my arms. Suddenly, the pressure seems to drop. The squall winds begin weakening. On top of the blackness is a golden shimmer. The moon is shining down on the storm. Bands of stars appear. I lean out the window and reach for the oval frame. I grab it, and for a moment hang there in the balance. Below me is the garden and the lake-stone wall and the sharp cliff and, barely visible, the inky water below. The blackness of the squall evaporates. An eerie silence takes its place. A dark form seemed to be working its way to shore, sliding in on top of the waves.

  I lean an inch further and pull hard; the window gives way so suddenly that I lose my balance and almost tumble backward.

  I couldn’t say how long the detectives stayed that morning, so many years ago, but now it’s so fresh in my mind that I can feel the smoke fill my lungs as I drag on the fancy weed and sense but not see the terrible judgment in my mother’s eyes. My father had returned but was sitting on a chair across the room, waiting for it to be over. A lawn mower started up outside, and I tracked its sound as it grew closer and then moved on. The second detective leaned in and said: “David told us what happened. You didn’t do anything wrong. We just need to hear it from you.” Suddenly, I got it: David had lied to them. Told them I was involved. It fit him; he always saw things the way that suited him best, and in this case that meant pointing the finger at me. My neck grew hot. Through the front window I could see a neighbor’s car slow as it passed the detectives’ vehicle. The detective lay a photo of Willie on the glass table. “You know him,” he said. The lawn mower grew louder, as if it had moved into our yard. It was David, not me, I almost said. His idea. He tapped David’s photo without taking his eyes off me. That’s right, him. The two of them. Him and Willie. I felt myself nod, and words formed in my mind. If they wanted to know what happened, I would tell them what happened. Starting with the wallett.

  “Tell them,” my mother said. I looked up. The revulsion in her eyes was really saying the opposite. She understood that whatever I had done would only get worse if I admitted it. (Not that she ever doubted that I had done it.) The detectives got her message, too. The heavyset one with the river scar spoke: “We’ll be filing a report with the juvenile probation department.”

  “We just want to get Willie off the street,” the first detective said, “put him in jail where he belongs.”

  They needed a witness, someone to take the stand and testify as to what happened. Both of us needed to tell the same story. They didn’t care who had done what, as long as it matched up. My mother must have seen it, too. It would get out, around town, before the sun set on the day.

  “My son doesn’t lie.”

  The detective broke a cynical grin. “He’s already lied.”

  It was over. You didn’t challenge my mother. The second detective sensed it, tried to pull it out. He put his note pad away and sat back in his chair. I could have told him it was no use. It was over for them. I finally had a protector. “We can handle this quietly,” he said. “It won’t go to court. Willie’s been in jail before; he knows how it works.” The lawn mower suddenly quit, and the room fell silent. My mother seemed to look at both of them at once. They were now intruders on her turf. And they knew it. The river scar sighed. My mother walked in the direction of the door. He picke
d up the two photos and stuck them back in the wallett. He folded it shut, held it out, and started to say something.

  “Call first next time,” my mother said. She pulled the door open. The detectives rose in unison, my father stood up.

  THE AIR IN the room was heavy. The window was open a foot, but the gauzy white curtains hung straight and still. In a cheap gold frame over the bed was a picture of Jesus with a radiating heart in his chest. A brown nubby spread covered the small bed. No girl. There wasn’t even a bathroom in the place. Willie shut the door and snapped the lock. Have a seat, he said, pointing to the single wood chair against the wall. David motioned for me to sit, but I stayed where I was. Willie sat on the edge of the bed. His pale forehead was shiny.

  “Where’s the girl?” I asked again.

  “She got held up,” he said. “She’ll be here soon.”

  David didn’t seem surprised by this. A look passed between them.

  “She’s a piece of ass,” David said. “Red hair, up and down.” He twirled his hands in front of him, meaning big tits.

  I wanted badly to believe him.

  “Tight pussy.”

  “You fucked her?” This wasn’t part of the story he’d been telling.

  “Just felt it,” he said, grinning.

  I would have heard of this earlier if it had happened. The whole thing was a story. Willie’s small, dark eyes darted between us.

  “She’ll suck your dick,” he said.

  David looked out the window, as if she might be coming up the walk at this very moment. The curtains jumped in a puff of air. I could feel the heat.

  “There needs to be something in this for me,” Willie said.

  THE CLICKING OF the typewriter keys reverberates in my head, as if to remind me of steel wheels spinning over steel rails and to get on with the story of the night on the train. I twist the knob and slip the paper out, stick a new one in behind the roller, and twist the knob again. I lay the page on top of the bloodstained one. Let it go, I thought. There is nothing to fear now, and maybe there never was. Joseph is long dead; you owe his father and Sally nothing. Willie is dead, too. I glance at my briefcase, wherein still lies the article. Let the thin thread snap. I suck in a deep breath, let my chest collapse. The squall has passed. The blue-black sky and yellow moon fill the window. David, I realize, is a blank. I can’t pull him into my mind. I pick up the top page from the stack. As I feared, it is stuck to the one beneath it. I shake it, and it separates. On the back of the page is a vague imprint of blood. I study it for meaning, like a Rorschach card.