The Joy of Killing (22 page)

In the few years since, I've kept mainly to myself, except for an occasional appearance at a college forum, or being quoted in an article about the origins of violence after some ghastly crime. I have an occasional lunch with my few remaining friends on the faculty, and now and then I attempt a game of golf at the city course. I swim every morning. But gradually my outside world has grown smaller, as my inward world has intensified.

In this state, I've sought to accept all the circumstances of my life as they were, including the fact that my mind would never settle out into a lasting, stable narrative. The lack of linear progression, the constant susceptibility to intrusion by vivid images, was simply the way my mental neurology worked, it was who I was, and that should have been that. But the shadow created by the lack of understanding became darker and more distinct after I left the college. I think the time I spent with the Professor's memoir may have amplified the discomfort. The man pulled you all the way inside his mind and left you there. I watched him approach his end at peace and with an open heart. It became clear that peace for me would come only with clarity, or at least a version of events that would hold up from one day to the next. I came to believe, without acrimony
or bitterness, that once I achieved that understanding there really would be nothing left to live for.

One needn't be angry or depressed to let go of this life. It could be a moment of random harmony itself, and yes, you could argue that in this night here and now I might be trying to create such a moment of harmony, which would not be random and therefore not possible. Perhaps. I don't claim consistency in thinking or the application of principles. But what have I to lose? Even without blessed clarity, Aurora will bring the dawn to this curvature of the earth.

I
SEE FROM
the new lines on the paper that I've been typing for some time now. Going on about my thinking, rather than the night on the train. I turn back to the task at hand. The girl, of course.

She had fallen quiet. Her exotic eyes had grown dark. Seconds expanded. I asked her if there was something the matter. If I'd done something wrong. She shook her head.

“I hate this time of year.”

“Christmas.”

“It's more than that,” she said, turning to me. She hesitated, seemed to study me for a moment, then, “I want to tell you something.”

I wonder now if the whole night had been about this. From the moment she invited me to sit by her to her touching my hand in the bitter cold on the rear platform of the train.

I
FEEL A
sharp pain in my calf. I stand and try to kick it out, but it cramps up tight. I cry out in pain. I press my palms on the table
and lean forward, until my knee snaps back. I massage the muscles. I see now that the boy on the train is beginning to remember something about what happened that afternoon at the lake. He's being manipulated by the girl now, by her need, her breasts, and I suspect there's little good that will come from that. Except, perhaps, the very thing I've been seeking, the very reason I'm here.

JOY

S
UDDENLY THE HOUSE
shakes, the windows rattle, in what appears to be a violent windstorm. The treetops are bending and swaying. A shutter slaps the side of the house. Over the lake the sky is still clear, the moon pulsing its waves of light into the turbulence, pulling my blood to the surface. I turn to the back window overlooking the drive, the porch where the box left by Sally sits, and there I see the trees are unmoving, still as grass. I step to the window, and my left leg crumples beneath me. I fall to the floor, on my side, and shout a curse. My head has banged into the edge of the chair, knocking the briefcase onto the floor beside me. I lie still.

The boy on the train, I see, is in the thrall of the girl, her need to reveal something of herself.

A
FEW WHITE
flakes hit the window, slid sideways on the glass, and then a few more.

The girl looked at me full on, her eyes reflecting struggle, aloneness. She turned, pressed a finger into the window. “You won't like me,” she said.

“Try me.”

“I've never told anyone the whole story.”

She closed her eyes as if to gather herself.

“Smoke?” I finally asked.

A faint smile appeared.

I pulled out the pack from my pocket and extricated a weed. I put it between my lips, and she fired up the Zippo and leaned in to light it. I passed her the weed. She held it in between her thumb and
forefinger, like a boy, and puffed. Her eyes watered as she handed it back to me.

“Let it cool down a little between drags,” I said.

People around us rustled and groaned in their sleep.

“Let's move to the back,” she said, “where there's nobody else.”

I nodded. I slipped the Luckies in my shirt pocket, glanced around for the Zippo. The girl stood, leaned over her seat, and took her purse and coat. She held the Zippo up for me to see, then slipped it in a side pocket of her skirt.

We passed the lady with the crying baby, and the old lady in the shawl who had swiped one of my Luckies, bent up in the seat without an apparent head. The last four rows were empty. The girl picked the second one from the back. She settled herself by the window, lay her coat over her lap.

I waited for her to speak. Time floated by.

I can hear her voice now, as she finally began to tell her story. Low, unwavering. She looks steadily at me, although I catch a moment of hesitation. I am caught in the sound and vision of her, barely able to hear the meaning in her words.

“I had a happy family, once,” she began. “There was my brother, Alex, my mom and dad, two cats and a golden retriever, and me. We lived in a large house in a suburb outside Chicago.”

She paused, rearranged her coat.

“My father was a lawyer. Weekday mornings we drove him to the commuter station, where he caught a train to Chicago, and then my mother drove us to school. She worked part-time as an interior decorator, but she was always there waiting for us at 3:15. Every
Sunday night we practiced in the living room for our annual spring concert on the grounds overlooking the lake. Dad played the piano, I played the cello, and Alex played the clarinet. My mother sang. It was the way we started the new week. There was a feeling in the house like we were all in this together.

“Now, I can see things. My father worked constantly, and when he was home he stayed a lot in his office, where we weren't allowed. He and Alex did things together, but I think Alex was closer to my mother. Still, we were happy. I dreamed of going to medical school, Alex wanted to be a pilot or a policeman. Our parents loved us. When I looked around at my friends' families, I felt blessed.”

I felt it coming, yet I could not look away.

“Alex was a shy kid who wanted everyone to like him. He kept to himself a lot, but he had an incredible butterfly collection. He would bring it in my room and tell me stories about each one, where they came from, why they were this or that color or had a certain marking. He would hold them in the palm of his hand and blow to raise their wings as if they were flying.

“One day when we came out of school our dad's car was parked at the curb, where our mother's should have been. The back door was open, and our father was inside waiting. He didn't say a thing on the ride. At home, he took us in the den, sat us down, and told us that our mother had left. He didn't know where she had gone, but he didn't think she was coming back. He handed us letters, sealed, with our names written on the front in her writing.

“Alex threw his letter on the floor and ran to his room. I opened my envelope. Inside was a single page. My mother wrote that she
was very sorry to have to tell us she was leaving. She loved us more than anything, but she didn't love my father anymore. One day we would understand. It would be better this way, if we went on with our lives, rather than being torn between two parents. She would love us to her last breath.

“Dad walked from the room. He let the dog and cats out, made himself a drink, and turned on the TV in the kitchen. I don't think he ever spoke of our mother again. Her clothes and things were taken away the next day. Even her jewelry. He got us to school every day, but mostly he stayed in his office with the door closed.

“Alex never read his letter. He insisted that our mother was coming back. Or that she would send for him.”

I
KEPT STONE
silent. We haven't got to the crux of the matter yet, I saw. It would play out in her head by itself, without interruption. The girl glanced out the window. In the reflection her eyes were strangely cool. Beyond the glass were shapes and shadows.

I
FLIP THE
light on and begin clacking away on the Underwood. The story is laid out minutely in stained-glass panels. Tap tap click clack bing! My fingers dart over the keys. I move the ribbon back to black; the letters are slightly faded, which is fine, things are on the verge of getting away from me. A warning flutters on the edge of the screen.

T
HE GIRL TURNED
back to me. “Months went by,” she continued. “Our father barely spoke at all. I was the only one Alex would
talk to. It got smothering. He slept on the floor by my bed, and he would pray out loud for our mother to come home. I would wake up to the sounds of him crying.

“One day two school counselors came to our house. They asked a bunch of questions. Alex wouldn't answer them. Three days later Dad hired a live-in nanny, who cooked, cleaned, and looked after us. Then one night almost a year after our mother left, my father announced at the dinner table that in the fall I would be going away to prep school in the East. I wasn't doing well; they had smaller classes. Dress codes. It was fine with me, actually. Anything was better than staying in that house. But poor Alex, this screwed him up even worse. He began screaming at me. One night after dinner, he set the papers on my father's desk on fire.”

The train rocked back and forth, the soft lights dimmed, went out, then flickered back on.

“But I left for school anyway. I called home when I could, but Alex wouldn't talk to me. When I came home a few months later for Christmas, things had changed. The nanny had moved into our father's bedroom. Dad told us at dinner on Christmas Eve that the two of them were getting married in the spring. Alex spit a mouthful of food onto his plate.”

The memory made her smile.

“Alex begged me not to go back to school. I told him I had to. Our mother had wanted us both to go away. There was a panic in his eyes. He still held out hope for her, I could tell.

“You know she's not ever coming back, I finally told him one morning. He shook his head, he knew she was. She's in love with
another man, I said. That's why she left. It was in the letter she left for Dad. I hadn't meant to tell him, I just blurted it out.
Ever
, I repeated as he left the room crying.

“I went to Christmas parties with my friends. I bought new clothes. A boy picked me up at the door for a country club dance in his new car. Alex stopped talking to me. He refused to come downstairs Christmas morning. The day before I was to leave, he came in my room, while I was packing. He pleaded for me to stay.

“I have to go back, I said. It's the best thing for me.

“That night, he huddled on the foot of my bed. I could feel him shaking. You have to be brave, I told him. Go back to your own bed.”