Killers
“When I was kid growing up in rural Ohio, there weren’t a lot of options for entertainment. So, one day, when the circus rolled into our area, me, my friends and basically everyone I knew from our tiny town bought tickets for the show.
The main draw of the circus was the lion. He was right there, this bright colored beast, the king of animals, smack dab in the center of every poster, teeth braced, a snarl contorting his nose and a pair of mean eyes that made it look almost as if he was alive. Being just poor redneck boys who never ventured too far past the highway exit to our town, we were all fascinated by the idea of seeing a live lion.
The circus was in town for a week, with a showing each night to maximize their meager earnings. They had a discounted deal for a week-long pass, so we all pooled together all our pocket change and allowance to buy these tickets. We were hick boys in the middle of nowhere, what else are we gonna spend our coin on?
Anyway, the first night of the circus is here. We’re giddy with excitement and eager to see the show. First we have the acrobats, who were pretty cool, but nothing too special. Then the high-wire act. Getting better. Now they bring out the animals. They bring out the apes, I think they were chimps, which were quite funny, but we weren’t looking to be just amused: we wanted excitement. Then, the elephant, a rather ragged looking grey beast, somehow balancing on a small platform, then walking on a rolling drum, amazing! However, we wanted more. It was an hour and a half into the show and we were becoming impatient — we wanted to see the beast for which we bought tickets in the first place. The lion handler finally comes out. We recognize his mustached face from the poster, so we’re all tense with excitement, the show was now truly on.
The lion comes out. His eyes are weary and weak. He seems wrinkled, his fur isn’t even as yellow as it was on the bright colored posters that hang on every street in our small town. He seems so old and rigid as he obediently jumps through a series of hoops, then the handler sets the hoops on fire and he repeats the trick. The circus is oddly silent. We weren’t the only ones to be disappointed with the main act. The king of animals was just a shell of its wild, noble self, eliciting pity more than any other emotion.
Our week-long tickets had already been bought and we tried our best haggling with the lady at the counter to return our money. No luck. So we were stuck with tickets to a disappointing circus act, but with nothing better to do and already having paid for 6 more shows, we went again. And then again, and again, and again.
Yes, we visited all 6 shows. I say six because something happened on the penultimate day.
This was the sixth night in a row and we decided to just come for the animal part, because all the human acts were completely the same each night, but we liked looking at the animals even if their tricks were repeated over and over. It was like a visit to the zoo, something a hick boy like me could scarcely imagine.
The lion tamer seems to be as bored with the show as we were. He is always equipped with a whip, but never has to actually use it. And then it happened. He got careless.
At the last trick of the night, as the lion is supposed to leap through a series of flaming hoops, the beast suddenly sits down. The tamer raises his whip threateningly. The lion hesitates, gets up, but instead of jumping through the hoop it leaps right at the trainer and mauls him in front of our eyes. His powerful frame flexes beyond the shell of his old body. His eyes become as mean and vicious, just as portrayed in the poster. His whole body comes alive with fury that has been building up slowly over years. It’s as if he suddenly remembers that he is a lion, the king of the goddamn jungle, a noble beast that had been, for most of its life, reduced to a circus act at the urges of a puny human. The man now seems little as his face is bloodied with a series of clawed punches, then the lion bites into his neck from behind and snaps his spine with a blood-curdling cracking sound. The lion tamer’s body goes limp and the lion stands there for a second, holding his prey in its jaws like it is holding a dead antelope on the African savannah. Then one of the staff shoots him with a rifle in the head, stunning him, he quickly shoots several more rounds and the lion lays dead besides its tamer, still clutching his neck in rigor mortis.
That lion may have been broken by years of punishment, malnutrition and mistreatment that comes from a life within a circus. It could have been removed decades from when it had last killed, if ever. It may have been born in captivity, never knowing what it could do. But deep down inside, it knew. It knew it was a lion and it could tear, rip and lacerate. It could kill because mother nature designated it a killer. And for a fleeting moment, for one glorious blink in a tamed, wasted lifetime, it realized this truth and it became the force of nature God had intended it to be.
You guys, you were born as men. Maybe you’re boys now and you’ve been pussified by years spent as cubs, watching children’s cartoons, listening to censored songs on the radio, being told to repress your anger, your strength. You’ve been told that to be weak is good and to be strong is something bad, abhorrent. But you can’t deny your own nature. Yesterday you were boys, and today you are men, men who can are capable of vicious, violent acts upon others. I want you to physically break your opponents. Shatter their will through pure force and courage. Now come out there and be lions!”
We break the huddle and run onto the field. I feel energized by the story. We lose the coin flip and we’re starting on defense. As a cornerback, that means I’m goin in. I look over at the other team and they look pretty tough. Their linemen are huge. I scout the wide receivers. They don’t look too big. I see my cover: he’s tall, but doesn’t look too built. Probably some JV basketball player who is playing football on the weekends.
The whistle blows and I chase the receiver. He breaks off his sprint towards our end zone and the quarterback throws him a perfect spiralling pass that he easily catches into his mitts. He immediately starts running, but he’s in a tight corridor formed by a crowd of players on one side and the sideline on the other. Only way forward is through me. If I lunge at him, I can take his legs out and stop him, but if I miss, he’s getting past me. Better play it safe. Stand right here and just wait til he gets close enou-
He hits me with his stiff, outstretched hand and I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder as I am knocked onto my ass, and as I lay on the ground I see him sprinting into the end zone. I’m ending up on someone’s highlight reel.
*
I can’t sleep.
I smart my eyes in the darkness, focusing on the rotating ceiling fan above me, its blades slicing the hot, humid air. The air is thick with summer and I roll around on the sofa, my insomnia acting up once more.
Restless, I get up and sit on the couch. I wonder whether I will fall asleep again. I decide to turn on the TV, flicking through a few channels mindlessly. A teleshopping channel with a pushy teflon pan salesmen switches to a cliche hip hop music video with some bitches on a large rented yacht and some black guy rapping, I press for another channel again and pause as I recognize a scene from a crime drama series I saw a few years ago.
On the TV, two middle-aged men, police detectives, are seated in a car that rolls through the coastal marshes of the American deep south. An ominous dark beat plays in the background as one detective asks another “do you… do you ever wonder if you are a bad man?”
“No, I don’t wonder.” the man replies as he places a cigarette in his mouth “The world needs bad men” he says while lighting the cigarette with a clink from his zippo lighter “we keep the other bad men from the door” he concludes his answer, looking out into the distance of the Louisiana floodplains.
I switch to another station, and a news channel comes on, showing a picturesque alley of beech trees. I recognize the street and I realize it’s quite close to my home. I listen to the monotonous voice of the TV anchor’s voice.
“Police reports state that the serial killer has murdered at least 3 victims over the past two months. The first, a gruesome double murder of two young girls, sisters, who were ambushed inside their own homes. The third was a young adult woman whose body was found in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. In all cases, the cause of death was asphyxiation. Local media have dubbed the killer as ‘the Beachwood Strangler’. Police have meanwhile identified a possible suspect, a recent escapee from the Ohio Hospital for Psychiatry..”.
The screen flashed a picture of a fat, unkempt man with messy hair that is balding on top. There is something feral in his piercing gaze, looking unfocused yet dangerous like a rabid animal.
“If you have seen this man, please immediately contact the Cleveland Division of Police or the Sherrif’s-…”
The anchor’s voice is abruptly silenced as I switch the TV off, my eyes registering a burned out image of the anchor’s silhouette lingering for a moment on the empty black screen. Better not freak myself out over some random late night crime news.
I set the alarm for tomorrow, looking forward to practice. If I can’t sleep, it must mean that I have to work out harder tomorrow, as I’ve clearly got more energy than I should have if i’m staying up until 2 AM, watching random news reports on-
My thoughts are interrupted as I hear something rustle through the bushes outside. Neighbor’s cat must be on the prowl in our garden.
I keep looking at the ceiling fan, the swishing sound of its blades resonating in my head. When you can’t sleep, you become hyper-aware of your surroundings, blaming even the most miniscule noise for your inability to shut your brain off. Right now, my primary culprit is this ceiling fan, that rhythmic, unending swish-swish-swish. I think about getting up and shutting it down with the switch in the living room, deciding to brave the mid-summer heat just to silence the fan, when I hear a twig snap somewhere outside.
What was that? We don’t have many wild animals in the suburbs, at least no animals heavy enough to snap a dry twig like that.
I get up and recline against the sofa, thinking intensely. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of my temple.
Nah.
I lie down on the sofa, desiring the sweet release of sleep more than ever. I think about football practice tomorrow. It’s going to be hell, running timed sprints in Ohio’s mid-August weather. At least tomorrow is Friday, and in less than 24 hours I’ll be at Alex’s house party, his folks have been gone since last weekend, and I heard Laura, a girl I hooked up with during the year-ending school trip, should show up.
I hear a rustling sound of something moving through the bushes and I feel my heart pace up. Any chance of falling asleep vanishes in an instant as my mind goes into overdrive. Is it the Beachwood Strangler? It can’t be, no, that would be a cosmically morbid coincidence. But the stakes are raised as my cousins, 11 year old Jane and 14 year old Sarah, are sleeping in the guest bedroom that has a window facing the garden.
I restlessly stir on the couch and can’t stop pondering about the source of those sounds outside our house. I hear the light clank of what I presume to be a person’s shoe stepping on the metallic gutter by the paved path adjacent to our house.
Now I know exactly where the motherfucker is. I feel my body shaking with fear and adrenaline, but I steel myself, gulping down dryly as I ready myself to defend my home, my family. A switch goes off somewhere deep inside me, and I feel an overwhelming wave of malevolence, my capacity to hurt another human being is heightened in the light of the circumstances.
I carefully skulk from the living room into the adjacent kitchen. I roll out the drawer slowly and take the biggest, baddest chef’s knife from the drawer and weigh it in my right hand. This will do.
Silently, I creep up to the garden door and focus my eyes outside. I spot a wide shape squatting by the tool shed. There he is, the fat fuck, scouting out his next target. He’s a big boy, much bigger than what I figured he’d be based on the TV report. I feel a tension in my chest but I know what I have to do.
Something primordial within me stirs me to action. His back is turned to me as I quietly move towards him, my socks making little noise as they press against the soft, well-watered grass. I hesitate for the briefest second, and right then the motherfucker decides to turn around.
With an iron grip around the big knife I plunge it into him in a frenzy, stabbing him over and over until it gets stuck in his meaty throat. He looks at me in a combination of shock and horror, a sight that is forever burned into my memory. He falls down silently, not making any noise asides from a gurgling sound as he bleeds out in our garden, his dark red blood looking black on the green grass blades. His body twists as I release it and before his soul departs I take one good look into those big, shiny eyes, full of fear and looking almost innocent, surprised.
No mercy for you, scumbag. I watch as he bleeds out, his fat, heavy body slumping down on the rock path in our garden. The adrenaline wears off and I feel weak, sick, and miserable. I sit there with his fresh corpse for a moment, and then I run off inside, into the guest bathroom where I vomit my late night dinner of nachos, jalapeño and cheese dip.
My throat feels parched, sour. I drink some water from the tap and wash my face, staring into the mirror, and a killer stares right back. The cold water numbs my face, and after a while I stop shaking so much and begin to concentrate on the task at hand. Once I calm down, I realize that the police will investigate the man’s death. Even though I was protecting my family and he is, no doubt, a serial killer that would be executed anyway, the police will have to look into it. Curiously, the first thought that I deduce from it is that I may miss Alex’s house party and someone else might hook up with Laura.
I look out from the bathroom window and into the garden. His bloated body lies 20 feet away from our back door, the nearest entry point.
Perhaps I should move the body closer.
Memories of watching late night crime TV shows are conjured in my mind. The police, no doubt led by a sunglass-wearing smartass detective, would know the body had been moved, and then they’ll cook up some crazy theory about me killing him, and I would go to prison for manslaughter. Panic overcomes me as I realize the very real possibility of being sentenced. I force myself to calm down and I think, staring out into the garden.
The fat man’s body is pale, the full moon illuminating it grotesquely. The blood is pooling on the paved path, most of it is slowly dripping into the drainage. Maybe this won’t be so difficult. I carefully walk into the shed, using my phone’s display to illuminate my way and not knock anything over. I take the tarp we used for our old tents along with a shovel. I get back to his body, sitting down and noticing that I am shaking and my skin is covered in goosebumps despite it being an unreasonably warm night. I watch for what feels like hours but is probably minutes as he bleeds out. I feel a slight chill and I realize I am dressed only in oversized basketball shorts and a wifebeater.
It feels like an eternity as I watch his fat neck bleed thick, rapidly coagulating blood into the drainage. I need to speed things up. Grabbing his shoes, I lift him up by his feet and allow the blood from his body to drain through his upturned, sliced up neck. Nausea overcomes me as the air fills with the sickening smell of iron. His legs are heavy as shit and it takes quite an effort on my part to lift him. It’s nasty, gut-wrenching work, but I have to do it, forcing back gags. I swallow some vomit as it creeps up my neck, forcing it down and shutting my eyes as I hold the big body upside down until I feel it has become a gallon of blood lighter.
I take the tarp and roll the fat corpse into it. Mustering all of my teenage strength, I twist his body around the tarp, covering it haphazardly. I then drag the heavy, tarp-wrapped body towards the garage. I open the garage doors slowly, silently, hoping no neighbors are watching and then I move my dad’s SUV slightly out of the garage, then use the hydraulic jack to lift the tarp-covered body, looking like some bootleg mummy, raising it sufficiently enough to then roll it into the car’s open trunk.
*
The late night drive is surreal. Its about 3 AM and the streets are dead silent. This is a rich neighborhood so there’s bound to be a cop rolling silently, guarding over the affluent white folk that live here. This isn’t good, because with no troublemakers around, my car is more likely to be stopped by a cop.
I get nervous and I feel my hands shake against the steering wheel. I open the glove box and find my father’s cigarettes. Still shaking I take one and put it in my mouth, a drop of sweat on my fingers soaking the orange filter. I recall the words of the grim-faced detective from the TV show I watched just hours ago: “The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door”. I take out the iron-hot car lighter and press it against the smoke in my mouth, taking a deep drag as I light it up.
No patrols, no cars. The night drive is void of any other people. Surreal, like i’m in a dream from which I can’t wake up.
I somewhat calm down as the nicotine kicks in, blowing the smoke into the warm air outside the windows, and the Volvo rolls into the twisting paths beyond the city, nearing Cuyahoga. I feel the car shake a bit. Is it the gravel road or is the fat man still alive, trying to break free from the car’s trunk? That question is answered as I drive the car into a wide forest path for a few minutes and then pull up.
I open the trunk and sure enough the man is dead, unmoving. I drag the bloated, tarp-covered corpse out of the car. The body slumps head-first onto the wild grass with a sickening squelch, thick blood leaving a small trail as I pull it behind the treeline. The shovel hits the ground and I go to work. It’s harder than I imagined, digging a grave. Much harder than putting down a serial killer. Gruelling work, but after about two hours, I finally manage to dig a deep enough hole. I crawl out of it, my tank top clinging to my sweaty body, caked with mud, blood and dirt.
I drive home, chain-smoking as my mind races. I reach my house just before dawn and quickly get to cleaning the blood marks from the garden path. I feel as if im in a trance, exhaustion setting in, I vaguely remember taking a large package of kitchen rolls from the cupboard, hosing down the dried blood with lukewarm water and then soaking the light-red liquid with the paper towels.
*
I wake up to the smell of bacon being fried, lying curled up on the couch. I feel groggy and unsure of whether last night’s events were a dream. My cousins are already up, watching TV in the kitchen while they make their breakfast. I shake my head groggily and get up, taking my time walking into the adjacent kitchen.
“Wow, you look beat, had a rough night?” my cousin Sarah asks.
I look into the reflection of a glass-framed cabinet. I sure do look like shit. My hair is a tangled mess and my eyes look red, my gaze a thousand-yard stare.
“Couldn’t sleep, bad dreams” I grumble as I sit down without an appetite.
“And now please excuse our interruption, we have a breaking update in the case of the Beachwood Strangler”.
The TV is on and I focus as the screen shows the photos of the three victims. For a brief moment, all I can think of is that it’s so strange to see the photos of murder victims looking so cheerful, happy, not knowing that their life will be cut violently short.
“Carl Eisner, a 57 year old widowed Caucasian man, was apprehended in the early morning hours after police found a matching tissue sample in one of the victim’s car, which was later traced through a police database to Eisner, a violent recidivist. After police found the murder weapon in an unmarked van unlocked with Eisner’s keys, he readily confessed to all 3 murders and police believe he may be implicated in more….”
The announcer’s voice keeps going on, but I stop listening. My stomach drops as I watch the screen, where a wiry-thin old man with a cantankerous gaze is being led by two serious-looking policemen.
It’s not him.
My mind races and I question reality.
It is not him.
I get up abruptly and cautiously walk to the garden, peering at the rocky path. It’s spotlessly clean. Surely all the blood would have left something?
I walk outside in my basketball shorts and I realize that I’m wearing a different pair than last night.
The garden hose lies on the neatly-cut grass, pressing the blades away from it. Did I pull it out last night?
Clothes.
Now I am half-running into the house and inside the bathroom. It’s spotlessly clean. The shower curtain is extended.
I hear the sound of the washing machine turn idly and I turn slowly, breathless and with a dry mouth.
Inside the machine is my tank-top and the shorts I fell asleep in. Clean, semi-dry from being tumbled after the program had finished, which was probably a few hours ago.
*
Several sleepless nights later I read that the man I murdered was a certain Raymond Kassel, an asylum inmate with a history of petty crime, indecent exposure and trespassing. Initially, he was a suspect as he had escaped a nearby psychiatric ward some weeks prior to the first murder, but since the real killer’s apprehension police figured out it was unrelated. He was reported missing by his family, but they never found him. A theory was born, claiming that he was Eisner’s last victim, possibly crossing paths with the killer sometime before they caught him.
Kassel’s mom did her best to get attention for her son’s disappearance, pressuring the police into an extensive search for her missing son. I remember about a week after the events of that dreadful summer night, she appeared on a local TV station, and I had the misfortune of seeing her address the viewers:
“Raymond, please, wherever you are, please come home” the tear-stricken woman spoke, looking straight into the camera. I am sitting on the same sofa on which I failed to fall asleep the very night when I cut her son’s throat out, feeling nervous, as if her glance is piercing right through the TV screen and into me.
Apathy. I can barely reach out to switch the channel, let alone get out of the house. I am becoming numb to all of it. The days turn to weeks. Time passes at its own sickeningly slow pace. The search for Raymond continues, but the media interest slowly dissipates and the police are called off soon after. Even volunteers slowly begin abandoning the cause. If he was a little blonde girl, the search would continue for months. Luckily for me, he was a fat and ugly man, and the disappearances of such people elicit much less sympathy from the public.
Raymond is dead. I know it. I dragged his body to a shallow grave in the woods. His body is decomposing under a layer of forest topsoil. And now the world moves on, absorbing my crime in its ignorance. If you murder somebody and no one else knows about it, have you really committed murder?
I feel like time slows down around me. I’m stuck at home, either on my bed, or on my sofa. I can scarcely eat, only going for dinner to put up an appearance with my parents. Retreating into the bathroom, I fight a haunting feeling that brings out cold sweats and nausea.
It will all be over soon, something deep within me tells me.
Eisner is going to die in prison and they’re never gonna find Raymond’s body.
I wash my face and slowly my head angles upwards, staring into the reflective surface of the mirror, staring into a pair of dead eyes, and a killer stares right back at me.
