Thursday, May 24, 2007
The Thanatos Journals (Part 2)
Never let it be said that I don't keep my promises. I told you that I would be happy to talk about the first time I killed someone, so here I am to tell you that sordid story.
Truth be told, the first murder I ever committed was a crime of passion. I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong: I've never killed a woman. Now, the other thing that just popped into your head? That's wrong too. You can be passionate about something that you're not in love or lust with.
Look at the definition of the word "passion" for a second. It's derived from the Latin passus which is the past participle of patī meaning "to suffer." Along with the Catholic definition of the suffering Jesus went through on the cross, it also has come to be associated with "strong sexual desire; lust" and "violent anger" as well as "any powerful feeling or compelling emotion or feeling, as love and hate." So when I say that my first kill was a crime of passion, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a Lifetime story with Valerie Bertinelli, okay?
It did involve a girl though... they usually do.
I was in high-school and dating this great girl. She had beautiful dark hair and alabaster skin, the most soulful eyes, and was so loving. I think I must have gravitated towards her because she just seemed so... lost. We got together and had what was the first and last purely chaste relationship of my entire life. I looked out for her like a brother, but we knew there was more to it than that. She meant the entire world to me, which as most will tell you, is a daunting feeling. I can honestly tell you that when she killed herself, any semblance of caring I had inside me vanished from me forever.
I just jumped ahead of myself, didn't I? Sorry. I haven't talked about Carrie in a long time and I don't like how it makes me feel. Lemme suck it up for a few more minutes and I'll go on.
We were together for about a year when, seemingly out of the blue, she slit her wrists after school one day. Her father actually delivered the news to me at my parents' house and I can't even remember what he said. Shit... I can't even remember what he looked like anymore. I do know that he shoved an envelope in my hand and stumbled back to his car.
I'll never forget the envelope.
It had my name in it in Carrie's deliberate cursive and my throat went instantly dry. The only thing I could think of was that I had something in my hand that she had left for me before killing herself. The imagination was in overdrive and I was terrified of what I was about to read.
I would have laid money on the fact that I did something wrong and this was her rebuking me for making her take her life. I couldn't have handled that. I knew that then, and I know that still to this day. If, when I opened that envelope, and I read anything that sounded even remotely like "It was your fault," then a lot of people would still be alive and I would be dead. I would be dead because I would have followed Carrie.
I can't live with guilt. Maybe that's why I'm so good at what I do.
But I digress...
I barely remember getting to the couch, but I remember every interminable second it took to open the envelope. I swore I smelled her perfume as I did, and I remember things going blurry. The tears I cried right then were the last ones I ever shed.
Unfolding the letter carefully and wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I began to read it.
I won't write it here because, frankly, it's none of your fucking business what the exact words my girlfriend wrote to me in that letter were. What you should know, however, is that my tears dried up and I felt a burning rage begin to smolder in my stomach. I had gotten angry before that and I've been angry since then, but that was the first time that I knew that someone should be very afraid of me.
Carrie had been raped. Worse yet, she found out that she was pregnant and knew her parents wouldn't have dealt with either piece of news well. She actually told me that she knew her attacker and even named him right there.
I couldn't think straight.
The sensory overload of losing the girl I loved because of someone's impulse control and anger management problem, it was too much. I remember trashing my room and breaking anything I could get my hands on. I remember collapsing on the floor, exhausted, and coming up with bare-boned ideas of what needed to happen.
To this day, that first kill was the fastest I ever went from planning to execution. I prefer to be thorough and anal about things, but Carrie's killer (and make no mistake about it... while she did the cutting, he gave her the blade) needed to be killed.
Until then, I never believed in guns. As far as I was aware, my dad had a gun for a long time, but I found it when I was 5, my mom freaked, and my dad got rid of it the next day. No... no ballistics in the house while I was growing up.
I preferred knives.
They were shiny, clean, and beautiful. I had a rather large hunting knife tied to the headboard of my bed (which, of course, was now in shambles), so I grabbed that and stuck the sheath in the small of my back before storming out of the house.
Night had fallen (as it was autumn, it was pretty early), but I knew where Tom Rutes hung out. The guy was nothing if not a total douchebag. He liked the baseball field behind the school because the dugouts were literally "dug out" of the ground. There wasn't a fence behind them, so there was no way to see in. When I got to the school, I wasn't surprised to see him sitting there, beer cans littered here and there at his feet.
He smiled drunkenly and offered me a beer, but I pulled out the knife and didn't return the smile.
Allow me to break the narrative for a second. Remember when I first started this whole thing, I told you that I stood over my first dead body with a smoking gun in my hand? I didn't bring it, so I'm sure the real sleuths in this bunch will figure out how it came into play.
Tom jumped up, a sight that still impresses me to this day as I swore he was too drunk to stand, and whipped out a pistol from the small of his back. He pointed it at me, but I knew he couldn't have hit me if he tried. The speed from which he got into position proved to be the only coordinated thing he did because his next move was to step back, crack the back of his leg on the bench, and go flying ass-over-head onto the ground.
If I had any humor in me, I might have laughed, but instead a calm came over me, and I took two long steps over to where his right hand was on the wooden bench, trying to prop himself up.
I plunged my knife through the back of his hand, pinning it to the bench keeping him just out of reach of the tossed gun.
The scream he let out was loud enough that, for a split-second, I thought he might have alerted people, but like I said earlier... I was lucky.
I picked up the gun and walked back to his folded up body. His shoulders were hitching as he sobbed for forgiveness. I pistol-whipped him.
You have no idea what you need to be forgiven for.
He just kept blubbering how sorry he was for whatever he had done to me.
I hit him again... and again.
I screamed at him that he had absolutely no idea what he had done, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.
Ignorance is never an excuse.
I told him to look up at me, but he refused. I walked closer and pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head, and he whined like a beaten puppy. I told him to look, but he still didn't do it. That's when I reached over and ripped the knife from his hand.
He wailed like the dead and flopped on his back. He had no choice but to look at me now.
I stood above him, in a perfect position for him to have nutted me if he had the brains, but he finally met my eyes.
That's when I pulled the trigger.
I emptied only 2 shots into his head: right between the eyes.
The sound was absolutely deafening, but what got me was that I actually saw him die. It wasn't a perceived death where I guessed that's where he was going, but it was actually seeing the life drain from his eyes in a moment.
I must have stood there for a few minutes, wrestling with the idea that I wasn't remorseful, but I snapped back into reality when I realized that, regardless of his screams, someone would have definitely heard the shots.
I took the gun, my knife, and did my best to drag all of my footprints out of the dirt on the dugout floor as I left. When I got to the grass, I turned around, half-expecting him to be sitting there again, but he was dead.
Not coming back.
When I got home, I wrapped up the gun in the clothes that I had worn, put them in a plastic bag along with my knife, and buried them in the backyard under the deck. If I was a suspect, I would have been caught, but everyone knew Tom was a world-class asshole and there were so many people of interest, the list really never got touched. Besides... only 3 people knew what he had done to link me to him: two of them were now dead.
When I moved out of my parents' house, I retrieved that package from under the deck and I keep it in a rather morbid shrine. I like to remember that, once, I was a feeling human being. Now everything I affect seems like a disguise. It seems like I try too hard to be normal, but I was normal... once. A long time ago... even if it was only 5 years.
Was it everything you hoped for? Did I blow the surprise for you? I promised, so I delivered. There have been many more over the past 5 years, but that was the one that lives in my memory most of all. I can remember the smell of the beer, the tracks in the basepaths, and the sound of that double-tap echoing off the walls in the dugout.
Then again, I'm guessing everyone remembers every little detail about the time they lost their virginity, right?
Truth be told, the first murder I ever committed was a crime of passion. I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong: I've never killed a woman. Now, the other thing that just popped into your head? That's wrong too. You can be passionate about something that you're not in love or lust with.
Look at the definition of the word "passion" for a second. It's derived from the Latin passus which is the past participle of patī meaning "to suffer." Along with the Catholic definition of the suffering Jesus went through on the cross, it also has come to be associated with "strong sexual desire; lust" and "violent anger" as well as "any powerful feeling or compelling emotion or feeling, as love and hate." So when I say that my first kill was a crime of passion, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a Lifetime story with Valerie Bertinelli, okay?
It did involve a girl though... they usually do.
I was in high-school and dating this great girl. She had beautiful dark hair and alabaster skin, the most soulful eyes, and was so loving. I think I must have gravitated towards her because she just seemed so... lost. We got together and had what was the first and last purely chaste relationship of my entire life. I looked out for her like a brother, but we knew there was more to it than that. She meant the entire world to me, which as most will tell you, is a daunting feeling. I can honestly tell you that when she killed herself, any semblance of caring I had inside me vanished from me forever.
I just jumped ahead of myself, didn't I? Sorry. I haven't talked about Carrie in a long time and I don't like how it makes me feel. Lemme suck it up for a few more minutes and I'll go on.
We were together for about a year when, seemingly out of the blue, she slit her wrists after school one day. Her father actually delivered the news to me at my parents' house and I can't even remember what he said. Shit... I can't even remember what he looked like anymore. I do know that he shoved an envelope in my hand and stumbled back to his car.
I'll never forget the envelope.
It had my name in it in Carrie's deliberate cursive and my throat went instantly dry. The only thing I could think of was that I had something in my hand that she had left for me before killing herself. The imagination was in overdrive and I was terrified of what I was about to read.
I would have laid money on the fact that I did something wrong and this was her rebuking me for making her take her life. I couldn't have handled that. I knew that then, and I know that still to this day. If, when I opened that envelope, and I read anything that sounded even remotely like "It was your fault," then a lot of people would still be alive and I would be dead. I would be dead because I would have followed Carrie.
I can't live with guilt. Maybe that's why I'm so good at what I do.
But I digress...
I barely remember getting to the couch, but I remember every interminable second it took to open the envelope. I swore I smelled her perfume as I did, and I remember things going blurry. The tears I cried right then were the last ones I ever shed.
Unfolding the letter carefully and wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I began to read it.
I won't write it here because, frankly, it's none of your fucking business what the exact words my girlfriend wrote to me in that letter were. What you should know, however, is that my tears dried up and I felt a burning rage begin to smolder in my stomach. I had gotten angry before that and I've been angry since then, but that was the first time that I knew that someone should be very afraid of me.
Carrie had been raped. Worse yet, she found out that she was pregnant and knew her parents wouldn't have dealt with either piece of news well. She actually told me that she knew her attacker and even named him right there.
I couldn't think straight.
The sensory overload of losing the girl I loved because of someone's impulse control and anger management problem, it was too much. I remember trashing my room and breaking anything I could get my hands on. I remember collapsing on the floor, exhausted, and coming up with bare-boned ideas of what needed to happen.
To this day, that first kill was the fastest I ever went from planning to execution. I prefer to be thorough and anal about things, but Carrie's killer (and make no mistake about it... while she did the cutting, he gave her the blade) needed to be killed.
Until then, I never believed in guns. As far as I was aware, my dad had a gun for a long time, but I found it when I was 5, my mom freaked, and my dad got rid of it the next day. No... no ballistics in the house while I was growing up.
I preferred knives.
They were shiny, clean, and beautiful. I had a rather large hunting knife tied to the headboard of my bed (which, of course, was now in shambles), so I grabbed that and stuck the sheath in the small of my back before storming out of the house.
Night had fallen (as it was autumn, it was pretty early), but I knew where Tom Rutes hung out. The guy was nothing if not a total douchebag. He liked the baseball field behind the school because the dugouts were literally "dug out" of the ground. There wasn't a fence behind them, so there was no way to see in. When I got to the school, I wasn't surprised to see him sitting there, beer cans littered here and there at his feet.
He smiled drunkenly and offered me a beer, but I pulled out the knife and didn't return the smile.
Allow me to break the narrative for a second. Remember when I first started this whole thing, I told you that I stood over my first dead body with a smoking gun in my hand? I didn't bring it, so I'm sure the real sleuths in this bunch will figure out how it came into play.
Tom jumped up, a sight that still impresses me to this day as I swore he was too drunk to stand, and whipped out a pistol from the small of his back. He pointed it at me, but I knew he couldn't have hit me if he tried. The speed from which he got into position proved to be the only coordinated thing he did because his next move was to step back, crack the back of his leg on the bench, and go flying ass-over-head onto the ground.
If I had any humor in me, I might have laughed, but instead a calm came over me, and I took two long steps over to where his right hand was on the wooden bench, trying to prop himself up.
I plunged my knife through the back of his hand, pinning it to the bench keeping him just out of reach of the tossed gun.
The scream he let out was loud enough that, for a split-second, I thought he might have alerted people, but like I said earlier... I was lucky.
I picked up the gun and walked back to his folded up body. His shoulders were hitching as he sobbed for forgiveness. I pistol-whipped him.
You have no idea what you need to be forgiven for.
He just kept blubbering how sorry he was for whatever he had done to me.
I hit him again... and again.
I screamed at him that he had absolutely no idea what he had done, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.
Ignorance is never an excuse.
I told him to look up at me, but he refused. I walked closer and pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head, and he whined like a beaten puppy. I told him to look, but he still didn't do it. That's when I reached over and ripped the knife from his hand.
He wailed like the dead and flopped on his back. He had no choice but to look at me now.
I stood above him, in a perfect position for him to have nutted me if he had the brains, but he finally met my eyes.
That's when I pulled the trigger.
I emptied only 2 shots into his head: right between the eyes.
The sound was absolutely deafening, but what got me was that I actually saw him die. It wasn't a perceived death where I guessed that's where he was going, but it was actually seeing the life drain from his eyes in a moment.
I must have stood there for a few minutes, wrestling with the idea that I wasn't remorseful, but I snapped back into reality when I realized that, regardless of his screams, someone would have definitely heard the shots.
I took the gun, my knife, and did my best to drag all of my footprints out of the dirt on the dugout floor as I left. When I got to the grass, I turned around, half-expecting him to be sitting there again, but he was dead.
Not coming back.
When I got home, I wrapped up the gun in the clothes that I had worn, put them in a plastic bag along with my knife, and buried them in the backyard under the deck. If I was a suspect, I would have been caught, but everyone knew Tom was a world-class asshole and there were so many people of interest, the list really never got touched. Besides... only 3 people knew what he had done to link me to him: two of them were now dead.
When I moved out of my parents' house, I retrieved that package from under the deck and I keep it in a rather morbid shrine. I like to remember that, once, I was a feeling human being. Now everything I affect seems like a disguise. It seems like I try too hard to be normal, but I was normal... once. A long time ago... even if it was only 5 years.
Was it everything you hoped for? Did I blow the surprise for you? I promised, so I delivered. There have been many more over the past 5 years, but that was the one that lives in my memory most of all. I can remember the smell of the beer, the tracks in the basepaths, and the sound of that double-tap echoing off the walls in the dugout.
Then again, I'm guessing everyone remembers every little detail about the time they lost their virginity, right?
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Thanatos Journals (Part 1)
I knew I should have felt something the first time I killed someone, but I didn't. I felt no immediate regret or remorse... not even sadness. I was standing there, a pistol in my hand, and a dead body at my feet, but I didn't feel like anything was out of the ordinary.
I don't think it would have made me feel any different if I had walked to the corner and bought a morning paper.
Maybe that's what was so odd about the whole thing: it seemed patently routine.
Of course that was 5 long years ago and I've been at countless scenes like that since then.
Okay... that's a bit of a lie. I may not have any moral compunction against murder, but I am human. More than that, I'm an American, damnit! I know exactly how many men I've killed, where I killed them, and how I killed them. I'm not dumb enough to keep a log of it, but I think it's only fair that I make mental pictures of each life I've ended.
Before you ask, I don't look at my jobs in terms of "good" or "bad" men. To me, there is no such thing. Good, bad, indifferent... it's just a way that people interpret things. There's no moral absolute in my world - just the job. I mean, let's face it, somebody had to do something pretty interesting to get someone angry enough to hire a killer to go after them! Granted... those reasons are not always intelligent, logical reasons. Sometimes some asshole with enough money to blow gets pissed off because someone beat them at the club tennis tournament. Who am I to argue the anger of people? I get paid either way.
In any case, I look at my job as nothing more than the human aspect of natural selection, only I make a living at it.
It's actually a pretty good living at that.
Sure, growing up Catholic and still practicing (well... sort of) makes for a very interesting dichotomy. I can't really deny that I'm breaking the 5th commandment every time I work, but I seem to be okay with it. Maybe it's because, according to my faith, I'm going to hell when I forget that I'm not supposed to eat a hot dog on a Friday during Lent. But priests who molest little boys are okay.
Yeah. I'm the hypocrite.
Sorry... tangent. I got a little wound up there. Sorry. But where to go from here? There's always the beginning, but what exactly is the beginning?
Would you like me to tell you about how I tortured small animals for hours when I was 6?
I can't tell you that. It didn't happen. I love animals... well. I love dogs. I've never killed a cat, but I don't think I'd pause over the trigger if Fluffy walked across my path.
Would you like to learn how my father used to beat me or my mother used to molest me?
Can't do that either... I have a great set of parents. Married for 36 years and never wavered in their love for each other or their children.
Honestly, I don't fit the stereotype of a mass murderer or serial killer. I think that's because you can't really put me in that category. I mean "mass murderer" is usually defined as someone who goes out and kills people brutally and indiscriminately. I actually am pretty humane... unless they really piss me off. If that's the case, I might make them feel something first.
No, I usually tap them between the eyes, use a fast acting poison, or a short knife stroke to their spine. There's no "kneecapping" or unnecessary torture involved in my kills. I'm a businessman, I'm not a sociopath.
Okay... maybe I can be considered a sociopath, but I leave that for the court-appointed shrinks to discover.
I'm also not a serial killer in the strictest sense. Sure, my kills are singular murders that occur, but they don't feature ritualistic taking of souvenirs or sex-related compulsions. I kill because I'm paid: pure and simple.
Is that enough rationalizing? Do you get a picture of who I am? I'm the guy sitting next to you at the bar. I'm the guy joking around with his friends (yes, I have friends... another reason why I'm not a serial killer) and his girlfriend about everyday, mundane things. I'm the guy who visits his grandmother once a week and talks to his parents almost everyday.
In other words, I'm frighteningly normal.
Maybe that's why people don't suspect. As a matter of fact, no one in my life knows what I do. I basically take "business trips," recon my mark, end their life, and I'm home on the redeye. Bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom...
Maybe next time we'll get into my first one... but I'm frankly a little spent from trying to make believe I'm normal. I know I'm not... I strive to be, but I know I'm really not.
I don't think it would have made me feel any different if I had walked to the corner and bought a morning paper.
Maybe that's what was so odd about the whole thing: it seemed patently routine.
Of course that was 5 long years ago and I've been at countless scenes like that since then.
Okay... that's a bit of a lie. I may not have any moral compunction against murder, but I am human. More than that, I'm an American, damnit! I know exactly how many men I've killed, where I killed them, and how I killed them. I'm not dumb enough to keep a log of it, but I think it's only fair that I make mental pictures of each life I've ended.
Before you ask, I don't look at my jobs in terms of "good" or "bad" men. To me, there is no such thing. Good, bad, indifferent... it's just a way that people interpret things. There's no moral absolute in my world - just the job. I mean, let's face it, somebody had to do something pretty interesting to get someone angry enough to hire a killer to go after them! Granted... those reasons are not always intelligent, logical reasons. Sometimes some asshole with enough money to blow gets pissed off because someone beat them at the club tennis tournament. Who am I to argue the anger of people? I get paid either way.
In any case, I look at my job as nothing more than the human aspect of natural selection, only I make a living at it.
It's actually a pretty good living at that.
Sure, growing up Catholic and still practicing (well... sort of) makes for a very interesting dichotomy. I can't really deny that I'm breaking the 5th commandment every time I work, but I seem to be okay with it. Maybe it's because, according to my faith, I'm going to hell when I forget that I'm not supposed to eat a hot dog on a Friday during Lent. But priests who molest little boys are okay.
Yeah. I'm the hypocrite.
Sorry... tangent. I got a little wound up there. Sorry. But where to go from here? There's always the beginning, but what exactly is the beginning?
Would you like me to tell you about how I tortured small animals for hours when I was 6?
I can't tell you that. It didn't happen. I love animals... well. I love dogs. I've never killed a cat, but I don't think I'd pause over the trigger if Fluffy walked across my path.
Would you like to learn how my father used to beat me or my mother used to molest me?
Can't do that either... I have a great set of parents. Married for 36 years and never wavered in their love for each other or their children.
Honestly, I don't fit the stereotype of a mass murderer or serial killer. I think that's because you can't really put me in that category. I mean "mass murderer" is usually defined as someone who goes out and kills people brutally and indiscriminately. I actually am pretty humane... unless they really piss me off. If that's the case, I might make them feel something first.
No, I usually tap them between the eyes, use a fast acting poison, or a short knife stroke to their spine. There's no "kneecapping" or unnecessary torture involved in my kills. I'm a businessman, I'm not a sociopath.
Okay... maybe I can be considered a sociopath, but I leave that for the court-appointed shrinks to discover.
I'm also not a serial killer in the strictest sense. Sure, my kills are singular murders that occur, but they don't feature ritualistic taking of souvenirs or sex-related compulsions. I kill because I'm paid: pure and simple.
Is that enough rationalizing? Do you get a picture of who I am? I'm the guy sitting next to you at the bar. I'm the guy joking around with his friends (yes, I have friends... another reason why I'm not a serial killer) and his girlfriend about everyday, mundane things. I'm the guy who visits his grandmother once a week and talks to his parents almost everyday.
In other words, I'm frighteningly normal.
Maybe that's why people don't suspect. As a matter of fact, no one in my life knows what I do. I basically take "business trips," recon my mark, end their life, and I'm home on the redeye. Bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom...
Maybe next time we'll get into my first one... but I'm frankly a little spent from trying to make believe I'm normal. I know I'm not... I strive to be, but I know I'm really not.
