Preston L. Allen

I, Serial Killer

There was this girl, or let me say, I had this friend, Bryce. We had been friends since forever. By ninth grade Bryce had become handsome and I had remained the same, and the school took us on its annual trip to Tampa, to the famous amusement park up there, and Bryce had a girlfriend and I had Bryce. Oh, it was to be a great day of fun and rides, but Bryce wanted to spend the day with his girl, who had a friend—a friend for me, how nice.

So Bryce walked with his girl and I walked with his girl’s friend. We were behind them most of the day, uncomfortable witnesses to their smooches and cop-feels, and this girl who was the friend of Bryce’s girl, she was a head or so taller than I, and I found her to be quite unattractive compared to Bryce’s girl and to Bryce, but I knew her from a math class we had together, well not really knew her, but we were in the same math class and I am sure I must have spoken a hello to her once or twice.

So as the day of fun progressed, we grew less uncomfortable with each other and our conversation, though strained at first, became pleasant, as we watched the smooching of Bryce and his girl and at times made jokes, uncomfortable jokes about it, this girl with whom I had a math class and I. I thought we were making a connection, though I admit that I had no experience in that area at all, and so it is likely that I was wrong, but can you blame me, really? All of the signals, or what I thought were signals, seemed to be pointing in a very specific and intriguing direction. We were standing closer to each other, we were laughing into each other’s faces now. I was finding her less unattractive by the minute and presumed that she was finding admirable qualities in my rather strange and unusual features as well. We found ourselves seated side by side on another ride that lifted us and spun us and twirled us, and Bryce and his girl were seated in the enormous, cheerfully-painted twirling cup just ahead of ours, and of course that romantic pair was smooching deliciously as their cup twirled, and the thought that was growing in my mind was one of imitation and experimentation.

Well, the gawky girl did seem to like me, and her friend was smooching just up ahead with my friend, and though she was not the most attractive girl, her bosoms were large. These were signals, were they not? And here is the truth as it happened, the absolute truth I swear it—I began to lift my arm like so, began I repeat with emphasis, to lift my arm. I did not lift my arm. I only began to—and the girl reared back and slapped me in the face. Hard.

Oh, the story does not end there, though I wish it did. You see, after the cup stopped spinning and the ride was over, the girl separated herself from me and ran to her friend, Bryce’s girl, and whispered something vile and no doubt accusatory in her ear, while Bryce stood beside me shouting,

“What did you do? What did you do to her?”

I could only shrug and sheepishly admit the truth,

“Nothing. I did nothing to her. I don’t know why she is acting like this.”

Bryce held me in his gaze, wonderingly. And his eyes were wonderfully handsome, though I never told him this. Handsome Bryce.

And that girl, that ugly, gawky, slapping beast, she made my last few months in junior high a period of great misery. Where I had scarcely noticed her before in my math class, now I noticed her all the time. She would enter the classroom and shoot daggers from her eyes in my direction until I had to turn my gaze away. My grades in math fell, of course. In a few months, junior high was over, finally. Bryce and I went to one high school, and she went to another. Separated at last from the slapping beast was I.

Mistakes were made after that, numerous mistakes. There was another girl, well I married her, and for the wrong reason—she was with child, and this was good, but she was bad, the marriage was bad, but more children came, three of them, and then another (is it mine, is it someone else’s?), five children in all, and I found myself delivering the pizzas in addition to folding the boxes and prepping the dough in order to feed these hungry mouths, and this woman, this first wife, she is the only woman I have ever killed, and that is the reason for that. Not only did she laugh derisively at my performance in bed, but she made no secret of having lovers on the side, numerous lovers. And so I took care of that bit of business in a fashion that is quite out of keeping with what is my natural psychological predilection in these matters. Now here is the funny thing, and it is funny indeed. One day, while my first wife was still alive, I was delivering pizzas to an address near the college campus, and when I knocked on the door, to my surprise it was opened by, of all people, the gawky, slapping beast.

Only she was not so gawky anymore. She had grown into her long limbs and large bosoms. Instead of daggers launching from her eyes, there came, of all things, the twinkle of joyous recognition. She was happy to see me, this girl, and she took me in her arms and hugged me so tight the pizza nearly spilled from its box. She was happy to see me and asking questions about life, how has life been, how, how, how, and oh, I haven’t seen you since junior high, and you have grown up so handsome, this is what she said to me, though I was still a head shorter than she was—well, I was wearing a fashionable moustache at the time which my first wife, whom I later killed, had encouraged me to wear, so maybe I was handsome in her eyes.

At any rate, I agree that I was more attractive than I had been in junior high. Furthermore, I had been working out with weights, so my upper body had a powerful look. But, to be truthful, I have always been one to look outward, not inward, so perhaps my assessment of my physical features is not exactly correct. Bryce has always been my model of what handsome looks like, and I did not and have never looked like Bryce. Bryce is an angel. A stud. He shall always be my one true love. Well, this girl, to my further surprise, invited me to sit down and share the pizza with her and talk about old times. Of course, I declined, explaining that I had to get back to my deliveries and pointing out that the company had a rule strictly and explicitly forbidding drivers to eat any of the pizzas they delivered. I made my way out of her tiny, cramped college apartment after that and took my befuddled self back to my automobile, where I laughed and said over and over again, you never know, you just never know. Well, you just never know.

Then I went back to the pizza parlor and took another delivery, but I got there late, as I had stopped off to kill another of my first wife’s lovers, and so in accordance with another of the company’s rules I had to give the lady with pink rollers in her hair the pizza free of charge because I was more than forty-five minutes late in delivering it to her. I hated that policy. All the drivers hated that policy. We worked all night trying to earn a living on minimum wage and tips, killing our automobiles with all of that driving, and if we were a few minutes late the money for the free pizza came out of our pockets. I am a Republican, but I understand why unions are a necessary evil. This guy’s name is [X3], you will find his body in Hialeah in Amelia Earhart Park, not too far from the other guy [X2], in fact, I am surprised that you didn’t find him at the same time as the first guy. Sloppy, sloppy police work. I think that I would make a great police officer. My mind works like a detective’s. I understand the true nature of the human soul. What it longs for, what it craves. I can look into your eyes and see the corruptions of your soul. What it craves, what it kills for, where it buries the bodies.

Life is so funny. After my first wife died—well, after she disappeared and before they found her body—I told my mother that I would never, ever, ever marry another woman, and she thought I was saying this because I had five children (one of which perhaps wasn’t mine) and a whoring wife who had run off, probably with some other man, which was the story they all believed because no one had seen her for more than six months, nor the lover she had been flaunting in public to humiliate me before I disappeared them—that’s a funny way to use that verb, you can use it in the transitive sense today, you couldn’t do that when I was growing up, but you can do that today.

I disappeared them. I disappeared my wife and her lover [X5]. I disappeared them. I disappeared them. You found her remains, but you will never find his. Tehehe. Tehehe. But to be sporting, I shall give you a clue. On second thought, I shall give you two. The first: somewhere remote and damp. The second? Paper please, and a pen, and a lead pencil. Thank you. There, now. I drew a circle and a square. Note how the circle subtends the square. Note how the square is drawn in pencil, but the circle in ink. See? Well, these are the only clues you need to find him. At any rate, these are the only clues I shall give. Detectives all, are you not? Good riddance to [X5], defiler of the sacred marriage bed. May his face be forever hid from the surface of the world. Alas, another clue.

I was in the drugstore with my oldest boy, the other three kids and the one that might not be mine were out of town with my parents visiting relatives in New York, I had kept the oldest because he was sick and now he had gotten sicker and I was seeking additional medication for him and contemplating taking him to the clinic as my mother had advised because you can’t be too careful with children and the flu, and at this drugstore I heard someone calling my name over and over. I looked up to where the voice was coming from, up to the raised platform behind which the pharmacists dispensed medicines, and I saw the vision of an angel in a white pharmacist’s coat—it was she.

She was breathtaking, her face was something you might see on a professional beauty, and she had these legs, she had legs for days, and she was walking toward me, calling my name. Oh, she embraced me, and she was perfume and honey and silky smooth skin, and she kissed me on the cheeks in joyous recognition, on the cheeks but so close to my lips were her lips that I could not believe. I did not want to release her, I wanted to hold her forever, and when she knelt to my son and said, “And who is this little fellow, he is so sick, but we will make him all better”—her shapely figure swelled that bulky white coat and I could only marvel at how she had once been so unattractive. She fussed over my son as I told her his name, expressed my concern about his flu, told her about my other children and the one that might not be mine, told her about my six-months-missing wife, told her that I really didn’t care whether she returned or not. And like that, I filled her in on the true and untrue specifics of my life, and she recommended a particular medication for my son and then advised me to take him directly to his pediatrician and as we embraced one final time before departing, she pressed her business card into my hand, and I pressed mine into hers. “Call me,” she said, her lips in my ear.

Life is so funny, you never know, you just never know, I said over and over as I drove my son to the pediatrician. When we got there, I dialed my mother at my cousin’s in New York (Long Island), but she was out shopping as usual and I didn’t really want to talk to my father—now really, what is there ever to talk about with my father?—so I called Bryce and he was out, and I really did not want to talk to his wife but for sake of politeness I did, and she kept me on the phone for a half hour talking about herself as usual and about my missing wife and hinting so clumsily that I only knew half the story, hinting that there was another man that she knew of that my wife might have been with, as though I was still sadly in the dark about the true extent of my wife’s infidelities and her public humiliations of me, as though I had not kept painfully exact notes of each of my wife’s loves, as though this lover man of my wife that she was so clumsily hinting at were actually still alive.

His name is [X4], and the funny thing is that you already have his body, already have his killer behind bars, or so you believe, and have already closed the case on that one. I don’t really want to discuss that one because it was too easy, dull really, though if you insist I will come back to it later, but if you want quick proof that it was I who dispatched him, let’s see . . . his fingers were chewed off. That’s the only time I did that. He had scratched me, can you believe that? I saw somewhere on the television that if someone scratches you when you’re in the process of killing him, your DNA evidence remains under his fingernails. In the heat of the moment, I chewed off his fingers before I realized that my teeth in his flesh like that would probably leave even more DNA evidence. So I gave up and said, What’s the use? And put the six fingers I had bitten off in his pants pockets. It’s really a dull case, though I am curious to hear what the detectives thought about the fingers they found in his pants pockets. Bryce never mentioned it. There was nothing about it in the papers. Sadly, it is true that this town is legendary for its sloppy police work. How did you convict that other guy? Was he poor? I bet he was poor and couldn’t afford a good attorney. When reasonable doubt goes to the highest bidder, there can be no justice for the poor. So when I got home, my mother had left a message on the machine, and I called her back and told her about the vision of beauty I had encountered in the pharmacy. She said to me,

“This is the girl from back in junior high, right? I have a real good feeling about her. I’m happy for you.”

Mother knows best, right? Wrong.

The pharmacist and I, the former slapper and I, we went out. I called her back and we had this conversation that covered the length and breadth of my soul’s deepest desires, we talked for like six hours straight, which was easy for her because she was a pharmacist and quite used to working 24-hour shifts, but I was only a manager at a pizza parlor, my hours were regular—five p.m. to two a.m. six days a week. So we had a few days of these long conversations and then we went out. We did dinner, we did a movie, we did a few nights of clubs—Hoofers and Hotfoots, Sweet Suites, Strawberries, Howl at the Moon, Howl at the Moon (again)—after that final howl, we found ourselves entangled in my automobile, exchanging body fluids as they say, but not going all the way, not yet, no way, and I could feel her saying with silent urgency, why aren’t you ready, why aren’t you ready?

Her mouth was warm and urgent on my loins, and I looked down and her head was beautiful, her raven tresses, the broad sweep of her forehead, the whites of her dazzling green eyes as she looked up at me and caught my gaze.

Why aren’t you ready? said her beautiful kitty-cat eyes.

Well, with my first wife, the feelings of humiliation and inferiority—I mean, she always dated men who were taller than I was, and she boasted of their sexual power, how they made her scream out, how they filled her with their impressive penises, and this last was proven when I dispatched them and upon investigation witnessed for myself that indeed these were monstrously sizable beasts—and here was this beautiful emerald-eyed woman sucking my little . . . but she was describing it as impressive, proclaiming it to be large, calling my little penis large, and I am outward, ever outward, I need to look inward, I need to look at myself, but my only vision of myself is that which is compared to Bryce and when we were children urinating in the backyard—now that was an impressive penis! Bryce you lucky beast!

Our passion was too great to wait until we got home. Well, first of all, I wanted her, and I also feared that if I waited too long, I would not be long much longer. Get it? Get the pun? I wanted to be impressive with the beautiful slapper, and because my penis was for a moment magnificent in her eyes, that night in that automobile, I plunged into her. We did the deed, the pizza man did the pharmacist, and it was a good deed indeed. He did not fail me, my little trouser friend. He proved himself as he had never done with my first wife. And when we were done, we did it again.

Thus, we became a couple, with all future entanglements of the sexual variety taking place in beds at either her place or mine. She was not underwhelmed that I was a mere manager at the pizza parlor, not underwhelmed that I had never completed my studies for my bachelor’s degree, not underwhelmed that I had in my care four noisy, energetic children and one that might not be mine at all. In fact, she took to my children, this tall, beautiful woman from my childhood, loving and nurturing them as a mother would, better than their own dear mother had. Life was much improved. I cherished life in a way that I had not cherished it in a long time. Go check your calendar and you will find that there were no murders of my sort between May and December of 19__.

But there is always a “but.” There is always a “but.” Tut-tut.

But I was not happy. Not exactly happy. This thing was moving too fast. There were so many questions that needed to be answered. Like, for instance, why did she slap me that day back in ninth grade? Yes, that was the question that I wanted an answer to, needed an answer to. I had done nothing to the girl. Nothing. I had simply begun to raise my arm. Begun. I had not raised it and slung it over her shoulder promiscuously. I had not raised it and grabbed her large bosoms presumptuously, which is something I would never have done. Despite what I have become, I was a gentleman back in ninth grade. Here we were having excellent sex in our beds at two homes, hers and mine, calling ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend, and sweetie and sweet one, and she couldn’t see that I was hurting.

I told my mother about it, and she said, “Are you crazy? You’re crazy.” But what does a mother know?

I told Bryce about it, and he found it amusing. He was amused. Not concerned, not jealous (as though he had ever loved me). In fact, he said, “Maybe she slapped you because she was in love with me at the time—tehehe. You know how all the girls back then used to love me. Tut-tut, tehe.”

Yes, I know. Yes, I know.

And that thought—let’s be perfectly honest—that thought had crossed my mind a few hundred times over the years. In fact, that thought was right up there at the top of the list of thoughts, just under “she didn’t want you to touch her because she thought you were hideously ugly.” But now she thought I was handsome and that my penis was impressive, and right then and there I wanted to kill somebody, not Bryce, not anyone I knew, not like that, I wanted to kill a stranger, which was a thing I had heard them talk about on the television, just go out and pick a man, follow him around for a few hours and kill him, then carve a cryptic message on his torso or do some other thing to him that the police would be unable to explain when they found his body, like shave his testicles or paint his toenails or brush his teeth with urine (remove his offending member, have sex with what remains), then dump him somewhere remote and damp, a clue, a clue, the inky circle subtends the square, but my mother was not available to sit with the kids that night, and so the stranger survived. I called her at the drugstore and broke it off with her. I was abrupt, just short of being rude. I did not hang up on her. I simply did not allow her to say her piece or to ask any questions. Why should I allow her any questions? I was the one with the question that she had refused all these years to answer!

My phone rang all night, and then it stopped ringing and that was the worst sound of all. I thought that maybe she would come by the next day to see her pizza man, but she did not. Why should she? I was a mere manager of a pizza parlor and she was a pharmacist. How dare I break up with her? She had degrees on her wall. I had worked my way up from driver, to pizza maker, to assistant manager, to manager. But I was beneath her. I was to be spit upon. I was to be despised. I did not hear from her for two months, though I did see her outside the pizza parlor nine times, always on a Tuesday night around 11:00 p.m. after she had finished her 24-hour shift. She would sit in front of the pizza parlor in her fancy pharmacist’s automobile. What was she doing? What were those small, regular movements? Was she shedding tears? She would remain only a few minutes and then drive off.

The final Tuesday night was in April. It was raining when she arrived and raining when she drove off. When I got home at 3:03 in the morning, as I was waking the sitter to send her home, the phone rang. She said,

“I love you and all I want to know is whether there is a chance for us. I don’t even want to know what I did, or what you think I did. I admit I did it and I apologize for it without knowing. I’ve never been in love like this before and I want you back.”

“But why did you do it? I meant you no harm.”

She said, “I do not understand.”

“I meant you no harm. I didn’t even raise my arm.”

“Your arm?”

“I did not raise my arm.”

“Your arm?”

“I began to raise it, but I did not raise it. And yet you slapped me.”

“What slap? What slap are you talking about?”

“The slap is precisely what we are talking about.”

“What slap are we talking about?”

“When you slapped me in ninth grade?”

“I did not slap you in ninth grade.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I did not, and why are we talking about this anyway?”

“In ninth grade when we went up to Tampa and we were on that ride, the twirling ride? When Bryce and [Bryce’s Girl] were smooching?”

“I remember that ride, the twirling ride, I remember I liked you, I remember you did not like me, the way you were looking at me, I remember wanting to slap you for not even trying to kiss me, but I did not, because I was not that kind of girl. I would never slap anybody. I do not hit.”

“You slapped me.”

“I love you.”

“You slapped me.”

“Oh you!”

“You slapped me.”

“Goodbye!”

And she hung up the phone.

I called my mother, but she was asleep—at least, no one answered the phone, not even my father. I called Bryce, and his wife answered and said, “What is it now?”

“I need to talk to Bryce, I need to talk to my best friend,” I said.

She said, “Look, he’s sleeping, I will only wake him if it’s an emergency. Is it an emergency?”

“This is an urgent police matter. A white male of average height, weight, and hair color may be killed.”

“Come on. Come on. You know you’re not going to kill yourself. We’ve been through this before.”

“Tehehe.”

“Come on.”

“You’re right. It’s not an emergency,” I said, though it was.

“Go to bed, call back in the morning,” she said. “We all know how this thing with your wife is hurting you, but Bryce needs his sleep, he works hard, you know?”

“Sleep well, Detective Bryce.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Sleep well.”

“Good night.”

After that, I went to their bedrooms and looked in on my children and the one who might not be mine. They were all sleeping soundly. They would sleep through the night as they always did, but I would not. I gathered my tools, put on my coat and hat, and went out into the night. I killed my first stranger that night. One year later to the day, I was married to my second wife, a gentle lady who was faithful and true and who gave me two more children, both of whom, I am certain, are mine. I never spoke to the slapper again, though I did pass through the drugstore now and again, feigning the purchase of medicine, but really to watch her graceful movements as she did her work. She was a stunning beauty, that one. In retrospect, I think I loved her. You never know.

You just never know.

© 2008 by Preston L. Allen

Cover Design: Joseph McNair