HAMMERHEAD

TODD BRABANDER

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 Todd Brabander
www.todd13.com

License Notes
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Table Of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
It All Starts With Childhood
The Art Of Murder
Brent Walsh Takes A Vacation
Girls, And Other Regrets
Friends
The To-Do List
It’s OK To Cry
Perfect, AZ
About The Author
Dedication
~ ~ ~
For my mom for teaching me that two wrongs don’t make a right.
Acknowledgements
~ ~ ~
Thanks to KK for helping me clean this one up, and to all my readers for all the great feedback. 
It All Starts With Childhood
~~~
My name is Martin. I'm 37 years old. I live in Perfect, Arizona, and I kill people.
I’ve killed nine people, to be precise, and I’m in a little bit of trouble.
I don't really know how it all started. It's sort of like masturbation. Do you remember the first time you masturbated? Do you remember why you masturbated? Do you remember where you learned such a thing? Probably not. It just sort of happened, and it felt good, so you went with it. 
The kids these days pretty much have it all spelled out for them on the internet. You can see anything online. I saw a video of a chick giving a horse a blow job. Who the hell needs to see that? Nobody does. Certainly not a kid. Sick fucks.
I can't imagine raising a kid with the internet around. When I was young we had to get our hands on porn the old-fashioned way. We stole it. And our porn didn't move. It was still pictures in magazines.
Even with all this access to fucked-up shit I believe there's still some sort of magical spark that sets you off. As an example—you could put a three-year-old in front of a porno movie and that kid wouldn't care one bit. It would be totally uninterested. But, somewhere down the line it suddenly is interesting. There is a magical spark. Somewhere down the line all that stuff suddenly gets very interesting. Why? How? I don't know, but for me there came a day that I knew I wanted to kill someone.
I remember once when I was little I was playing alone in a field near my house. I would often play out there by myself. I used to play with little die-cast cars and build jumps for them. I remember on this particular day I found a little snake. I moved a rock, and there it was. It was strangely black and shiny in contrast to the red dirt and yellow grass of the field. I caught it and took it home. I went to the garage, grabbed a hammer, and I smacked it. I hit it right on the head. Flattened it. I don’t remember why. I do remember how it moved in the weirdest way. It was like watching shaving cream expand. It slowly rolled around and coiled until eventually it just stopped. That same year I hit a cat with a hammer. It was grey. It took a couple tries. The first time I clean missed. They are very fast. A few days later I tried again and I hit it. It wasn't a good hit. It was sloppy. That thing made a terrible sound. It was like a siren. So loud I remember. I really regretted hitting that cat. It was the second most horrible sound I ever heard in my life.
The next cat I hit was orange. I killed it in one swipe. I just put the hammer down as hard as I could, and it was gone. Same with a rabbit that my neighbor kept in a cage beside his house. I started to get very good at it. The trick, I learned, was not to flail with the hammer, but to strike with one large and meaningful motion. Make sure not to think about the swing, or to second-guess yourself. Just dedicate to it and focus all your energy into that hammer.
When I was thirteen I was sent to a home for troubled boys. That was the year I hit Bobby Campbell with a hammer.
I remember when I was in the seventh grade. A boy named Peter Randall and I were friends. He was also friends with a rotten kid named Bobby Campbell, and so by default Bobby and I ended up hanging out together whenever Peter was around.
I really liked Peter. He was a cool kid. He had great ideas, and he was fun to play with. He and I would make short movies with his dad’s video camera. He had created a character named Mandroid The Android. The story was that he was a robotics scientist who was in an unfortunate accident, and he used his knowledge of robotic science to rebuild himself. Peter made a cool robot suit out of PVC pipe, speaker wire, and aluminum foil. He was really talented. I remember that he wanted to be a film director when he grew up. Those were fun times. 
He lived with his dad, just like I did. His folks were divorced. His mom was a flight attendant who liked to party. He never really saw her and didn’t seem to mind. He was fearless, but never made fun if you couldn't keep up. When we would spend summers at the river, he would jump off of anything—the tall rock, the old tree swing, the Marjorie Street Bridge, anything. I didn’t like heights, so I never attempted any of the jumps. Some of the guys would tease me. Call me a baby. Peter would always stick up for me. I recall him sticking up for me more than once. Peter Randall was great. Bobby Campbell wasn’t.
Bobby always had to one up your story. He was a liar. He was a bully. He would call people names or try to pull your pants down. Always trying to pull somebody’s pants down. I didn't like him, and I didn't trust him. He was an unfortunate side effect of being friends with Peter.
One weekend in the spring my Dad was working a swing shift at the mill. I asked Peter if he wanted to stay over and watch some movies. To my dismay it turned out he had made plans with Bobby already. After much discussion Peter suggested that he come over with Bobby. Peter liked to keep everyone happy. I wasn't thrilled with this idea, but I agreed.
Peter came over immediately after school and looked through my dad's movie collection. The VHS tapes took up about half a wall in the living room. Looking back, my house was a total bachelor pad. There was a stack of audio gear in a cheap laminate, glass front cabinet. A huge front projection TV was flanked by lousy, but impressive-looking Sony speakers. There was a small fridge next to leather couch. Typical. 
After a lengthy deliberation we decided on Terminator and The Never Ending Story. The freezer was loaded up with frozen pizzas. Dad was good about keeping the freezer stocked with frozen pizza and the fridge full of two-liter bottles of generic cola. We got the pizzas in the oven and then the doorbell rang.
When I answered it I found Bobby Campbell standing there. He looked about as thrilled to be at my house as I was to have him there. He had never been over before. I was hoping that perhaps he might get lost on the way over, but I’d have no such luck. 
He walked in, took a look around and asked in a mocking tone, "What's that smell?"
It was the pizza. He proceeded to explain to us in grand detail that he had just eaten pizza with his mom & dad at Fortissimo's. His parents always got him his own pizza, but he couldn’t ever eat the whole thing. Dick head.
Then he reached in his backpack, and with a smug expression he produced a VHS tape of The Goonies. Peter's face lit up. 
The Goonies just came out on video. Bobby had an uncle who owned a video rental store over by the high school. Peter had told me that Bobby got all the good movies first.
Although I was a bit interested in seeing The Goonies, I didn’t like that I was losing control of the situation to Bobby. This was my house, after all. 
I told Bobby that we had already decided to watch Terminator and The Never Ending Story.
Bobby grimaced and said very matter-of-factly, "Never Ending Story is for fags."
This made Peter laugh for a moment until he saw the irritation on my face. I was angry and embarrassed. Peter quickly went to work smoothing things over.
"We can watch Goonies and then we'll watch Terminator."
Bobby then inquired from the kitchen, "Don't you have any real Coke?"
I loathed having him in my house. I resented Peter for being friends with such a despicable human being. The air was tense. Peter could sense it. I think Bobby loved it. 
We watched The Goonies. 
I sat and gnashed my teeth as Peter and Bobby laughed. The hammer that I had used to kill all those animals was on the coffee table, and I wanted to hit him with it so badly. I hated him. I hated Bobby.
When the movie was over they continued to laugh and joke. I felt very left out. Very irritated. I wished the night would just end.
I got up to eject the tape. Peter got up to use the bathroom. 
I pushed the eject button on the front of the VCR. I silently prayed that the VCR ate his tape, but I would not be so lucky. When I turned around Bobby was standing right behind me. He had a sick and goofy grin on his face. What was he doing? He was going to pull my pants down! After ruining my night and making fun of me in my own house!
I felt like my insides were on fire. I could feel every muscle tense in my body. I lost it right then.
"WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO DO?!"
I roared at him! His expression went blank. He was shocked. He was spooked.
"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?!"
I drew the tape back behind my head and threw it at him with all the might I could muster. He cowered and turned his face away.
The tape sailed past his head, missing its mark. It crashed across the coffee table, taking some paper plates and a drink cup with it before landing in front of the couch. Bobby cursed and scrambled after it. 
Hammer.
It sounds so cliché, but, it all happened so fast. It only took a second.
He got down on all fours to retrieve his uncle’s tape from under the couch.
I took a step toward him.
I took a second step.
He grabbed the tape. I grabbed the hammer.
He started to rise.
I swung.
Dedicated to the swing. All my energy focused into the hammer.
I saw his face as he started to sit up. He was totally unaware. He saw me, but he didn’t see what I was doing. No time to react. The annoyance of his video tape being thrown was fading into a look of puzzlement. He was between expressions. Wondering in that microsecond what I was doing standing over him. He had no idea. I knew exactly what was going to happen. 
The hammer came down.
It came down hard.
I hit him on his left cheek, just below his eye, and it all just ... went away. No more cheek. No teeth. No lips. He wasn't dead. And he wasn't flattened like the snake or all those cats.
I sat there, staring at the horrible face in front of me. It was amazing. The realization hit him a few moments after the hammer did. He grabbed his head and howled. I felt all the tension, and all the anger melt away. It was like I was in a beautiful trance. Everything unfolded in slow motion.
Peter suddenly appeared at my side and took the hammer from my hands. He yelled at me. An ambulance arrived. I don't remember anything anyone said. I just remember watching Bobby laying on the floor, and him watching me with such a broken expression. The carpet looked like it was soaked in chocolate syrup. There was blood on his hands and his hair and the furniture. It was an awful mess. It was very satisfying.
I didn't really have a plan. I admit, I had imagined hitting Bobby with a hammer before that day. It didn't go the way I thought it would. There was a lot of blood. It seemed like it was every color other than red. It was purple on his face. It was black on the ground. It was brown on his clothes. He looked really uncomfortable. The sinuses. His tongue. That eye. I will never forget that night.
Later that week they took me away.
Every year of grade school and middle school I was in a class with a kid named Roy Stone. Roy was a heavy kid. He was unfortunately weird-looking. Light blond hair. He breathed through his mouth. I don't ever recall having a conversation with him.
He would show up to school everyday holding hands with his mother. Even in middle school. They would show up holding hands, and she would carry his lunch box for him. She would pick him and his little brother up everyday after school. He was very uninvolved. Never spoke in class. I don't know who his friends were. He dressed weird. His parents were both immigrants from some eastern European country. He was quiet.
That same year that I was sent off to the boy’s home Bobby came up behind Roy in gym class and pulled his pants down. 
We were all playing volleyball. It was boys against girls. Roy and I were at the net and Bobby was behind us. The girls served the ball. It gently arched toward our side. Roy was focused on the ball as Bobby yanked Roy's shorts down to his shoes. I watched as the ball hit the ground. The impact echoed in the silent gym. It turns out Roy didn't wear underwear. The kids started to laugh. 
His normally unexpressive face contorted into a shape of absolute horror. His mouth gaped open and his brow wrinkled like a prune. It was unnerving to see his face twist like that. The overweight 13-year-old boy dropped to the floor and cried. And not a sad sort of crying. This was a cry of loss, like when someone loses a parent. He was balled up on the floor, red-faced, eyes squeezed tight as though we might all go away if he shut them hard enough. He wailed a ghastly piercing scream. The kids stopped laughing. There was a break for air, and then he wailed again. It made me shiver. What could I do? What could anyone do? This was the sound someone makes when the whole world has turned on them, and there is no safety or relief. It made me sick to my stomach. I wanted that sound to end. I felt so badly for him, but there was nothing I could do. It couldn't be undone. Bobby laughed a big showboating laugh. Roy wouldn't move. It was like he had been wounded, but I knew that he wasn't hurt. Not physically anyway. I wanted to cry. I had to look away, but the sound continued. That was the most horrible sound I ever heard in my life.
The teachers corralled us out of the gymnasium and they took Roy and Bobby to the office. I cried myself to sleep that night. Roy didn't deserve that. It could have just as easily been me. I would have been angry, but I would have been OK. Why did that have to happen to someone who was so fragile and so incapable of dealing with it? It wasn’t right or fair. That sound never left me. That was the day I started The List. 
I hated to see Roy suffer. He was innocent. He had done nothing wrong. No one should ever have to feel so horrible that they make a sound like that. Except for Bobby Campbell—and I was glad when I heard that sound come out of him.

The Art Of Murder
~~~
I believe that people who kill other people because they enjoy it are screwed up. The type of person who takes joy in killing other people is totally and obviously dysfunctional. 
I feel I am simply doing what must be done. And also, while I’m thinking about it, I have never really liked the term "serial killer." It makes it sound like these guys have it all planned out. Like it's a TV show or something. 
"The Serial Killer Starring Jeffrey Dahmer." Whatever. 
Those people don't plan. Ted Bundy. Jon Wayne Gacy. They just react. They are animals. No self control. No empathy. No purpose. Animals.
I once read an article about a man in Tacoma. This man was a fairly prolific murderer and he managed to cause quite a stir up there in the mid 1980s. The victims were all men. They were often found in their homes bound to a chair or a bed. He would leave a note duct-taped to their face that read:
“Success... The Surgeon.”
That's how he was known on the news and in the papers, “The Surgeon.” (I have always thought that was kind of cool when the media gave criminals catchy names. It reminded me of comic book villains.) 
The police had assumed that he called himself "The Surgeon" because he would use a scalpel to meticulously cut his victims up. Sometimes he'd skin them or he'd remove parts of faces: noses, eye lids, jaw bone, that sort of thing. One victim was found with his hands completely splayed open and every bone was individually removed. The police speculated that he did this while the men were alive, of course, and the cause of death was often blood loss. He killed a total of eight men this way.
The police caught this fellow two years after the first murder. It turns out this guy was a child psychologist. He had dealt with troubled kids. Runaways. Juvenile delinquents. Kids who had been abused. The unluckiest of the unlucky. 
He spent day after day of his life with them. And these were kids, not just average people who were down on their luck. Kids who had been tortured and tormented. He spent every day with kids who were lost and without hope and lacking the means and the experience to know how to deal with their horrible lives. These kids didn't know how to cope, or that what they were experiencing was not normal. 
This guy, "The Surgeon," was killing pedophiles and abusive step-dads and drug dealers and porn producers who were exploiting these poor kids. 
He revealed in court that he called himself "The Surgeon," not because he would cut them up and remove parts of their bodies, but because he was removing cancer from society. 
Wow. 
I thought that was so beautiful and poetic when I first heard it. Seriously, the guy was a saint! This wasn't mindless killing. This was justice in its most pure and direct form. This made sense. He felt like I felt. That’s why I started The List. 
I had a very clear and complete thought when I started The List. It went like this:
We all agree that there are a lot of different types of people in this world. We are motivated by different things. We appreciate different things. We all look different and act different and that is what makes life interesting. However, there are those among us who really serve no purpose other than to make life hard for the rest of us. Those who do not contribute. They only hinder and impede.
The first item on The List: Bullies.
Everyone gets teased or pokes fun now and again, but there are those who are unhappy in their lives and lack self-esteem, and the way they make themselves feel better is by hurting and demoralizing others. There is simply no place for these people in my world.
Some of us can resist. Some of us can fight back. Many of us can not. I'd seen it first hand. I had seen how one stupid little joke can crush a person. I've seen how one thoughtless act can emotionally scar a person. 
In our society we have police who are there to keep the peace and deal with undesirables. "Serve and Protect," they say. The truth is they neither serve nor protect. Their job is basically to give speeding tickets to the people they can catch and scrape you off the street when someone kills you. This was not enough for me.
I could imagine a world where there were no bullies. Everyone could coexist and be themselves, no matter how mundane or unremarkable they were. I dreamt that I would find those who wanted to prey on the weak and defenseless, and I would bash their heads in with my hammer. And not just me—everyone would. There would be an understanding in the world that it is not OK to pick on those who are weaker or different than you, and if you choose to be be a bully, we're going to kill you. We would be a perfect little hammer-wielding utopia.
This is my hope and my dream.
I remember when I was 19, and I was living downtown with a roommate named Ethan. Throughout high school I was in the boy's home with Ethan’s younger brother. We all used to play basketball together. Ethan and I became friends over the years, and once I turned 18 I moved in with him. 
I had a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant called Pier 21. It was pretty good seafood for Arizona.
While the cooks slaved away, and the waiters were scurrying around like ants, I was tucked away in a humid corner of the back room. I was separated from the kitchen by tall open shelves that held all the plates and bowls. From my little corner I could see occasional slivers of the frenzy happening in the food prep area.
It was a very busy restaurant. Everyone knew their role and their place, and they faced the onslaught of diners every night, together. They were a great team, except for one ugly stain on the otherwise pristine roster. Chris Lutz. 
Chris was the assistant manager of the wait staff. He was 26 and looked like he’d just got out of the Army. He was like a bulldog with a buzz cut and an apron. He would run the show most weekday evenings. The guy had a head for the restaurant business, but he was a bully. 
The first time I saw him pick on someone it was innocent enough. He was hanging out in the kitchen talking to Javier, one of the new prep chefs. As Javier worked at the cutting board, Chris gently placed pickle slices on Javier's shoulders. The other chefs noticed. I saw some of them point and giggle. Javier didn't notice. He kept dicing and slicing. Chris worked very quickly and very gingerly. 
"Javier," Chris announced. "Did you play football in high school?"
The prep chef's hands continued like a piston on a tiny locomotive. He nodded his head.
"What position did you play?" Chris asked, his smarmy grin widening.
Javier's eyes remained on the cutting board. "I was a full back."
"Ooooh," Chris sarcastically sang. "I would have guessed you were a pickle back."
The kitchen came alive with stifled laughs and suppressed giggles. The knife came to a stop on the cutting board. Javier looked confused, and then that moment of realization washed over his face as he reached for his shoulder. Pickle back. The laughs and giggles were unleashed. Innocent enough.
Something like this seemed to happen every day. Sometimes it was funny. Sometimes it wasn't.
There was one day that Chris had put dish soap in the sous chef's water bottle. A waiter named Miguel had seen him do it and told the chef about the prank. The chef rinsed out his water bottle.
That should have been the end of it, but word got back to Chris that (thanks to Miguel) his little stunt had been foiled. Chris picked on Miguel that whole evening.
The best words that I can think of to describe Miguel would be “very patient.” He was small. Maybe 5'3". He was very polite, honest, and a very hard worker.
Chris was relentless. He tried to trip Miguel as he carried plates of food. He reassigned Miguel to a section with less tables (and less tips). He delayed orders that Miguel put in so that his customers would become angry. It was impossible not to feel the tension building between these two that night. Miguel was getting fed up, and Chris was all too happy to keep pushing his buttons.
Around 10PM things had slowed down in the dining room. I was washing dishes and there were only two chefs working. Miguel was in the kitchen picking up an appetizer for his table. Chris walked into the kitchen to place an order. Miguel grabbed a plate of calamari and turned to go back out to the dining room.
What happened next really depends on who you ask.
What I saw through the open shelf that housed all the glassware and bowls was Chris swat the plate out of Miguel’s hand. Some people say it was an accident. Others say Miguel was startled and dropped the plate. I saw Chris knock it out of his hand. 
That was all that Miguel could take. Little Miguel threw his hands into Chris' chest. Chris was momentarily stunned, but immediately retaliated. Chris punched Miguel hard. Miguel stumbled from the force of the blow. He reached back with his hands to catch himself. On his way to the ground his left hand plunged into the deep fryer. He all at once tried to pull his arm from the oil and to get to his feet. He cried out a desperate, panicked whine. Oil burns are the worst.
One of the chefs ran to get a first aid kit. The other chef ran to the office to call 911.
Miguel frantically got to his feet. His arm was so red and blistered. He needed to get it under cold water to stop the burning. I could tell by his posture and the expression on his face that it was hurting, and it was getting worse by the second. His eyes squinted and his teeth were gnashed together. He was uttering something in Spanish. I could sense the terror is his voice. The skin looked like it might just fall off his arm. He scrambled to the sink. What happened next was unforgivable.
Chris punched him again.
My jaw dropped open. I wanted to say something, but there was nothing I could say.
Miguel fell to the ground and laid there on the floor. Bloody nosed, clutching his arm and he cried. He sobbed.
Chris walked out of the kitchen.
I don't know if it was the pain or if it was the frustration that made him cry. I know that when you hurt and someone else wants you to hurt, it makes you feel defeated. It makes you feel less than human. 
I felt horrible for him. I hadn't felt like this since that day I saw Roy Stone cry. I helped him to the sink and got his arm under cold water. It was beet red and very swollen. It looked as though the skin was too small to contain the arm within it. It looked really bad to me. Miguel didn’t say anything. He pulled himself together and sat there with his head hung in the sink. He was embarrassed. 
The next day I bought a hammer. The Fat Max 20oz Anti-Vibe Rip Claw Nail Hammer. $19.95. It was heavy, but had a good feel to it. It was one piece construction and looked like it would take a beating, no pun intended.
That night after I got off work I sat in my car in the parking lot until the restaurant closed. The employees all parked near the rear of the restaurant.
Here’s how a closing shift works at Pier 21: Once the restaurant closes the chefs clean up the kitchen and leave. The wait staff counts their money in the dining area and hands it over to the manager. They quickly clean up the dining room and then leave. The manager does the books, turns off the lights, and locks the doors, then he leaves. Same procedure every night. 
I parked on the opposite side of the lot from the other employee cars. I didn’t want to draw a lot of attention to myself. I waited for a couple hours and listened to the radio as the cars left in little groups. The customers all left. After a while the chefs left. Then the wait staff left.
Finally there were just two cars. Mine and Chris’. There were five parking spaces between our cars. I kept an eye on the back door. 
One hour and twelve minutes later I saw him emerge from the delivery entrance. He pulled his keys from his pocket, locked the door, and turned to walk to his car. 
Chris drove a teal green Pontiac Grand Am. It had the loudest stereo I’d ever heard. He unlocked the driver side door.
I took a deep breath, grabbed the hammer, and got out of my car. He climbed into his car. Walking toward him, he saw the hammer in my right hand. I was afraid that he might drive away, but he didn’t start the car. His eyes followed me for a moment and then I could tell he recognized me. He rolled his window down. I leaned down to his driver side window.
"Hey, dishwasher. What's up?" he said.
There was no remorse in his expression. No worry. Not a care in the world. I doubt the whole Miguel incident even crossed his mind that whole day.
I said nothing.
With the form of an angry tennis player, I back-swung the hammer from left to right and bashed him square across the bridge of nose. It was a devastating hit. His hands clasped his face and he yelled a deep guttural yell. Blood ran between his fingers and down his neck. 
I nearly lost my balance swinging into the open car window. I thought for a moment that it was a lucky thing that I’d missed the door frame. I sat and savored it for a moment, but then his pain began to switch to anger.
He looked at the blood on his hands and then at me.
He shouted. "What the fuck! Mother fucker! God damn it!"
His face was not right. It was dented and crooked.
He quickly opened the car door to get out. I dodged toward the right and leaned against the rear passenger door. 
As he stepped out of the car I smashed the hammer down on his left leg. I felt the bone turn from one solid piece to many smaller pieces under the weight of the hit. He wildly reached out to try to close the door. I brought the hammer down on his left forearm. It folded under the force of the impact. He screamed. I stepped back and again, took it all in. It was surreal how little effort it took. His anger quickly turned back to pain.
There was a cadence to his words, "No! ...Please stop! ...Please stop! ...Please! No! ...Please! ...Stop!"
It was mildly hypnotic, but the realization of what was happening hit me. This had to end or I was going to get in trouble. He was pretty loud.
I looked him over one last time. Blood-soaked and broken in so many ways. His mouth kept moving. His teeth were streaked with blood. 
I stepped closer and readied the hammer. He desperately held out his right hand in response.
There was an intensity in his voice.
"No! ...Wait! ..." he said again and again. Each word increasing in volume and terror.
"JUST WAIT! ...WAIT! ...WAIT!" 
There was such force and conviction in his voice. As though his focused will might be enough to dissuade me from continuing. It was fascinating, and it was pathetic. 
I struck hard at his face.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
And that was how he ended.
Miguel was scarred pretty badly. He had some nerve damage and had to do physical therapy for almost three months.
The police interviewed everyone at the restaurant. Miguel was in the hospital at the time of the murder, so he wasn't a suspect. 
It turned out that Chris Lutz had a lot of enemies. The police found that there were previous harassment suits filed against him. One former employee even reported him for rape several years back. He was a real piece of work.
The investigators discovered that a couple of the waiters had criminal records. One guy had a record which included aggravated assault, attempted murder, and manslaughter. He was their prime suspect for a while, but the case the police put together was weak, and they never charged him with anything. The investigation went cold after that. Looking back, I got pretty lucky.
That was the first time I killed someone. I've never told anyone about this.
Brent Walsh Takes A Vacation
~~~
I talked to my therapist today. Her name is Laura. She’s an irritating, mousy, little lady. She seems too young to be a therapist. I've always believed that wisdom comes from age and experience, not from books. 
She treats me like I'm a story problem. If she just quantifies everything and ignores the distracting parts then she believes she'll come up with a solution. I don't really know that there is a solution. Honestly, I don't even know that there's a problem.
Oh well. It's not my dollar. It's a court-appointed thing. I've been seeing her twice a week ever since I got out of jail. That would make today visit #81.
I sit there for an hour and listen to her go off about my ego, and solipsism, and other nonsense. We talk about my feelings.
“How are you feeling Martin? How are you really feeling?”
We talk a lot about how I ended up in the boy's home and we talk about my dad. We talk a lot about Becky and my time in jail. Same stuff over and over. 
Next week I'm starting group therapy. That will replace one of my sessions with Laura. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
Laura thinks I've hit a wall. She has said that a lot lately.
“We’ve hit a wall Martin. We need to try some different things.”
She doesn't think I'm making any progress. She suggested we try some new options. Group Therapy was her idea. I can not imagine the wackos they're going to stick me in this group with. I am dreading it.
I got a call from an old friend named Doug Robinson. He was the last roommate I had before I moved in with Becky. Doug was one of the few people I stayed in touch with after I got out of jail.
I remember right before I was sentenced he told me that he was disappointed in me, and he wished that I would have opened up and shared how I was feeling with him. He doesn’t think I should have killed someone and gone to jail. He thought it could have all been avoided. Come to think of it, he sounds a lot like my therapist.
I have since tried to explain to him that this has all been brewing inside me for a long time. Me, killing someone and getting caught, wasn't just a moment of passion. My whole life has been a long series of events that eventually led up to that. 
I was convicted of one murder. No one knows about any of the previous murders. There was some speculation when they were investigating me, they asked a lot of questions, but they could never prove anything.
Doug won't ever understand, he said I shouldn’t have killed someone and gone to jail. He was right about one thing—although I couldn't avoid killing her, I could have avoided getting caught and going to jail. I could have been a lot smarter about it.
I met Doug when I was working at the travel agency.
Trent Taylor Travel: The Triple T of Quality (whatever the fuck that means).
This wasn't your discount, name-your-price type travel agency. This was very high-end. We provided an exceptionally high level of service to very wealthy clients.
It was a pretty cool job, and the perks were awesome. I started there about six months after Chris Lutz died.
I had a cubicle near one corner of the office. To my left was Whitney and to my right was Doug.
Doug and I hit it off right away. He looked a lot like Robert Urich. I had heard they even called him "Spenser for Hire" when he was in school. He was really smart and had a very dry wit. Everything he said came straight-faced and he only allowed a glimmer of a smile to let you know when something was in jest. Most people didn't get him, and he didn't mind because he didn't get most people. But he and I got along.
Whitney Cornish was like a mom to me. She was very kind and very genuine. A heavy woman nearly twice my age. She wore very thick rimmed glasses and was nice to talk to. It felt like she spoke for all women when she gave an opinion or advice or made a point. Whitney was a voice of reason. I always felt better and could tolerate all the madness when I had her to talk to.
The whole office was pretty close. I'd get invited to dinner at Shane's house, or game night at Rick's place, or to play golf with Jay. We were like a little family. We had very demanding clients who paid us very well to cater to their needs, and we were all very good at our jobs.
I was really happy with myself then. That was one of the few times I had ever felt normal in my whole life. This state of contentment lasted a couple years, and then, one sunny Tuesday, Whitney got a phone call.
She sounded unusually heated. The whole office could tell something was wrong. A strange hush crept over the room as we waited and listened. She started crying. Something was definitely wrong. This is when people start looking at each other for assurance or answers. Did someone die? Does she have cancer? What's happening? The level of her voice raised. She sounded like she was desperately trying to coax someone from a ledge.
"Don't do this to me Jon!"
The pitch of her voice raised and wavered. "Jon! ...Jon, don't..."
She got hysterical for a moment, she gurgled something that sounded like "NO" and "WHY" and then abruptly hung up the phone. She sat and sobbed as the other ladies in the office comforted her. I was never good at moments like that. I stayed quiet and respectful in my corner cubicle. 
Her husband had been cheating on her.
I liked and respected Whitney. I considered her a friend, but I didn't really know her husband very well. I had seen him at the Christmas party and at Whitney's birthday dinner. He was quiet , stately, in fairly good shape for being in his 50s. He had very grey hair and a very square jaw. I always saw him standing near a wall sipping a cocktail.
He was a history teacher at the community college. There was a student he had been seeing for the better part of the year, and while he didn't really want to be with this twenty-two-year-old slut, he also didn't want to be with Whitney anymore.
This was when I added the second item to The List:
#1 Bullies
#2 Cheaters
When someone devotes themselves, and their heart, to you and you betray that trust, you have forsaken everything in you that was remotely human or good. The deep connections we make with other people and how we honor them are what makes us civilized. When you throw that away you are no different than an animal. You are a barbarian.
That night I sat up in bed and thought hard about what to do.
A compulsion to face him distracted me from everything else. I imagined him out somewhere getting a hand job from his barely legal girlfriend while his wife sat at home crippled by the lies and the loss. Crying like she was crying today in the office. He didn't care.
He was the one person who should be worried and concerned about Whitney. He was her husband. Years earlier he had taken a vow to be there for her. I bet he was loathing the idea of even having to look at her again. Having to listen to her vent her disgust. Then he'd have to leave and listen to her beg and plead again. Oh the bother!
I hated him, and the more I thought about him, the more I hated him. It had been a while since I'd even touched a hammer. I decided to sleep on it.
Dreams of vengeance filled my brain. Dreams of killing. When I woke I had an idea. 
Whitney Cornish didn't come to work the next day. She tried to kill herself. 
She’d taken a large quantity of (barely lethal) pills. It made her sick enough that she wound up in the hospital, and it concerned doctors enough that they want to keep her under watch. She was embarrassed, but alive.
When I got to the office I looked through the files of upcoming vacations that we had booked. I found a reservation that I had made for a customer several months ago. A fellow named Brent Walsh.
Brent was going to Aruba this weekend. He was one of those rich people who doesn’t like to spend their money. He’d booked a stay in an older mid-class hotel. No extras. No amenities. This was exactly what I needed.
I got into the computer and booked myself a stay at a high-end resort and a roundtrip flight to Aruba for the coming weekend. The boss was not happy about this. With Whitney out, it meant I'd be leaving a skeleton crew in the office. I told him that I was really affected by what was happening with Whitney, and I needed to get away for a bit. Almost the truth. I was in fact very affected by what was happening with Whitney, but I actually wasn't going to be going anywhere.
I put my plan into action and secretly cancelled Mr. Walsh's vacation.
I gave Brent Walsh a call that afternoon and explained to him (in a very convoluted way) that there was a problem with his booking and that he was going to have to reschedule. 
Brent had a small voice. He said "Gosh" a lot. I suspected he was from the midwest. Mr. Walsh patiently listened to my lengthy explanation. He initially seemed confused and very disappointed.
I suggested a couple alternate dates for rescheduling. Both times were nearly a year out. This made him furious. His bags were already packed. Poor Mr. Walsh was ready to go to Aruba in just a couple days, and I was about to pee on his corn flakes.
"What?! Hey! Come on! I booked this trip over six months ago! Gosh! Come on!"
"Hmmm," I fake pondered. "Let me see what I can do for you."
I put him on hold while I pretended to do some research.
I rolled my chair over to Whitney's desk. It had sat untouched since the day she got the phone call from her husband. 
I knew that she kept a spare house key in her middle desk drawer. Right between the rubber bands and the M&M's. I needed it. I quickly snatched it and slid her desk drawer closed. We often borrowed supplies from each others desks (or borrowed M&M's from Whitney) so nobody made a fuss.
I returned to the phone call.
"I've checked all the possibilities and I'm really not sure what I can do for you Mr. Walsh, but I do apologize."
This pretty much set him off like a firecracker.
"...Bull shit!" he snapped.
"Bull shit! I have been a customer of Trent Taylor for over ten years! I demand satisfaction! This is bull shit! Bull shit!" he ranted.
It was going exactly as I imagined. I couldn’t believe it.
“Let me talk to your supervisor! This is bull shit!”
 I took a deep breath and crossed my fingers.
  "Hey. Hey, Mr. Walsh, listen," I said very calmly and discreetly. "You're a good customer, and I like you, so here's what I'm going to do. I can get you a flight to Aruba on the dates you requested, and I can even get you into a nicer resort than you booked for no additional charge".
He was suddenly very quiet. "Ok, gosh, how's that?" he asked.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. "I have a VIP pass to a gorgeous room at a very exclusive resort in Aruba. I’ve been there. It’s unbelievable. I can book this luxury suite for you... you’re just going to need to check in under my name."
He was silent.
“The VIP pass is for me,” I explained. “They’re not really transferrable, so you’ll need to say that you’re me when you check in. Do you follow what I’m saying?”
"Well... that sounds easy enough. Is it legal?” he asked.
"Completely, but it's very important—if they find out that it's not me that checked into the hotel, they'll boot you right out. They don't like travel agents giving out their VIP passes. You know what I’m saying?"
"Sure, sure," he agreed. "Thanks so much for doing this."
I delivered all his documents and credentials and off he went to Aruba. Another happy customer.
The following Monday the police came by the office to interview each of us. Whitney's husband had been murdered.
The police said that the assailant had entered through the garage. The door was apparently left unlocked, as there was no forced entry. The assailant took a hammer from the work bench and entered the house through the door between the garage and the kitchen.
At this point there was a struggle.
Whitney’s husband had been in the living room, as evidenced by the TV being on and his beverage on the end table. On his way to the kitchen he heard the intruder. He went to investigate the sound and met the assailant in the dining room.
Chairs were overturned and a toppled bowl of faux fruit that had once sat in the center of the table was scattered across the floor. Jon was hit three times: once in the chest, bruising his left clavicle; once in the forehead, shattering the orbit of his left eye; and once in the neck, internally tearing some arteries.
He ran from the dining room toward the bedroom. He stumbled and collapsed about halfway down the hall. Here the attacker hit him in the back and head, severely cracking the rear of his skull, and breaking the C3 and C4 vertebrae.
This is where they found Jon Cornish. Face down in the hallway. He had died from trauma to the head and internal bleeding.
Whitney was still under suicide watch. She was horrified to learn of the murder.
Police questioned Jon's mistress. They learned that she wasn't in the area and didn't have a motive.
The police called each of us into a conference room. The same room that we would conduct training meetings in. It was small and lined with sunny posters of exotic places. I felt confident.  This was all standard procedure. 
Two men in plain clothes sat on one side of the long table. The first question they asked was: "Is it true you hit a classmate with a hammer?"
I felt a sharp spasm of fear jolt through my body. I was mortified that they had even bothered to do that much research! It was too close for comfort. 
I had hit a classmate with a hammer, but that it had happened a long long time ago. I explained that I was in Aruba all weekend. They knew. They had already verified my whereabouts. 
That was the only question they asked me. I felt a bit rattled. Luckily I had a very elaborate alibi, or I might have been in trouble this time.
The investigation turned up a neighbor who was being sued by Jon Cornish over a property line dispute. He had written some threatening letters to Jon at one point in time. There was another guy in my office named Ryan Cryer that the police hassled for a bit. Ryan apparently owed Jon a $2000 gambling debt. While both men had something of a motive, both of them also had an alibi for that evening. 
After three months the police concluded that it was a home invasion robbery that went wrong.
It was at this point that I decided I needed to distance myself from killing for a while.
Girls, And Other Regrets
~~~
Group therapy is fucking terrible.
I feel like I got held back a year in school. These people are a waste of air. It is unbelievable. I wonder sometimes if the only reason they send these people to this group is so that the rest of the world can have a break from them for an hour or two.
The man who runs the group is named Neal. He's like one of the human characters from Sesame Street. Everything is positive and monotone and when people get out of line he scolds them like someone would scold a cat. He wears obnoxious sweaters. The gem he wore today was mustard yellow and had two hands shaking (one black, one white) knitted over a blue and green blob that I assume was supposed to be the Earth. 
Besides myself, there are five others in our group. Travis, Gary, Paul, Trina, and Diane.
Everyone seems to have some sort of anger issue or a control issue. We sat in the room at the community center in a circle of folding chairs. There’s a lot of bulletin boards and a kitchenette that features a sink and a coffee machine that stinks up the whole place. 
We went around the circle and introduced ourselves. Gary, Trina, and Diane were all murderers. Travis manipulated and extorted money from people, and Paul beat his wife and put her in a coma. Just regular folks. 
Today we had to listen to Diane tell us her story. 
She had long straight black hair and eyes that were a too big for her head. She was skinny and her skin was a little too tight. She might have been good looking when she was younger. It was peculiar how much make up she was wearing. She was a con artist. Psychopath. She preyed on anyone who would let her close. No remorse or understanding of what she was doing. People were just chess pieces to her. She reminded me of Becky's mom.
The only time that things were really good in my life is when I was with Becky. I don't know if she was the yin to my yang, or if she just distracted me from the rest of the world, but I was truly happy when we were in love.
After I had been with the travel agency for a year I took a trip to France. I did the tourist thing. The Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, crepes, etc. I didn't know any French. Paris was amazing. Interesting and a little stinky. I had been warned that sanitation and grooming standards were quite different in Paris, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. It was a fun filled week, although I admit, it was lonely being solo in one of the most romantic places in the world. Especially at night. 
On the return flight I was seated on the right side of the plane next to a gentleman who was having a rough time with his stomach. He was getting up to use the rest room every twenty minutes or so. I don't know if he was ill or if he ate something bad, but it was not a good day for this fellow. I felt bad for the guy. 
“Oh boy,” he would say, and he’d give me a knowing look. I’d stand and he’d hurriedly shimmy past and down the aisle. 
Having a guy crawl over you and then crawl back again and again gets a little annoying after the first two hours. I reluctantly offered him my aisle seat, which he gladly took.
Now I had a middle seat. I despise middle seats. Trapped between two strangers. It's unclear who the arm rests belong to. I hate that.
Once I got situated I realized that there was an exceptionally attractive girl occupying the window seat next to me. She was about my age. She wore black slacks and a white tank top. Her light brown hair was choppy and a bit funky. It was hard to tell if she was wearing makeup or not. Her skin looked so soft. Her nails were short and unpainted. I suspected she did some sort of work with her hands. She was reading a magazine. Something French.
Dinner was served. We started talking. She was sweet and had a great sense of humor. I loved her laugh. It was spirited and came in short bursts. We talked all the way back to the States and we had a date the next weekend.
#
In therapy I would always sit between Neal and Diane. Whenever he asked a question he always referred the answer to me, since I was the new guy.
"Diane, why don't you introduce yourself to Martin?” he would say.
Diane spoke as though she were in a high school play. Very animated and rehearsed.
She was the soulless seed of a very wealthy family. Her father was a financial planner. Her mother was a housewife (in the sense that she was a wife that stayed at home; the maid and the staff and the nanny did all the cleaning and chores). Her family was the type that used the word "summer" as a verb, e.g., "We summer in the Caribbean."
Neal nodded approvingly as Diane spoke. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to look at her or look at him. It all felt very scripted. The blank faces around the room indicated they had heard this story before, which just added to my feeling of dread.
Diane didn't have any friends. Not very surprising since she seemed to be a thoroughly unlikeable person, but interesting in that she offered this information in the same upbeat fashion someone might say, "I collect Beanie Babies." 
Except for the fact that I could see her sweating, I would swear that she was a robot.
Her parents split up when she was a sophomore in high school. She would spend a month in Malibu, CA with her mother and then a month in Boston, MA with her father. 
Diane lost her virginity to her mother's boyfriend when she was 16. He was a professional poker player from Reno named Dave Kimball. She and Dave would often stay up and drink wine coolers long after her mother’s sleeping pills had kicked in. Diane would share disgusting little details of their affair that made us all shift in our seats.
“He’d tell me how beautiful I was while he had a finger in me,” she’d say.
Diane’s mother walked in on the two of them fucking on the couch one night. Diane described watching the fight from the couch while she finished her wine cooler. 
He was charged with statutory rape. Diane’s mother never forgave her, and she lived with her father full-time after that. He was a business man. Hardly around and not so interested in being a father. He shipped her off to Dartmouth as soon as she graduated from high school.
#
Becky was five years younger than me. She was still in college working toward a fine arts degree when I met her. She was a brilliant artist. The portraits she drew were astounding. Some of them looked like photographs. She would also paint murals in people's homes and in local businesses. Quite talented.
Becky was in a strange spot when I met her. She had received a partial scholarship to pay for college and that was coming to an end. She wanted to continue with school, but the money wasn’t really there, and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do next.
Becky's mother had money. She had received a large settlement from the equipment manufacturer after Becky’s father died. A machine had malfunctioned and killed him in the fabrication plant where he worked. 
Becky was trying to get her mother to help her pay for the remainder of school, but wasn't having much luck.
"You have to make your own way in this world," she would say. Then she'd show off her new Kate Spade hand-bag. Her mom was a dumb bitch.
Becky and I were inseparable. After returning from France we had spent every day together. She moved in with me a month later. It all went really fast, but we loved each other very much. It wasn’t easy, but Becky and I managed to figure it out. I worked and covered the expenses. Becky was a full-time student.
#
 Diane dropped out of Dartmouth when she was a junior and married her former math professor. He was a freshly retired 64-year-old man named Albert Worthy. Albert was from a wealthy New England family and didn't need the money, but loved to teach. Sailing and philanthropy were his passions. Among his many pet projects, he gave money to museums and programs to get children from low-income families interested in math and science. The world was his oyster and he had a new bride to share it with. It all sounded like a good plan.
Diane, however, had different plans. One crisp September morning Albert and Diane set out on their first sailing expedition. Albert mysteriously drowned. During the trial Diane had claimed that Albert fell overboard and she didn't know how to steer the boat to help him, but the prosecutors had learned that she actually had learned how to sail during all those summers in Malibu. Diane was charged with the murder and spent the next eight years in jail. She never got any of Albert Worthy's money. She now works as a checker at Target.
#
Becky and I were supposed to get married. I still remember that one spring. We had been together for a couple great years, her graduation was a week away, and a lot of her family were in town. I was planning on asking her to marry me after graduation. The ring was picked out. She'd be surrounded by friends and relatives. It was going to be perfect.
One afternoon I went to make a phone call on our old apartment’s land line. I picked up the phone and heard the words, "He doesn't know I'm leaving."
Becky was talking to her mother. Talking about moving out. I heard her say that she loved me, but she wasn't “in love” with me. Once she was done with school she'd be able to get a job and pay her own expenses and she wouldn't need me anymore.
Her bitch mom said "Like I always told you dear... you have to make your own way in the world."
I felt sick. I wished inside my head that it was a joke, or that it could be fixed, but there was nothing I could have done. I started to cry.
It hurt really badly. The one person who could make me feel better and who I wanted to talk to more than anyone was the one person who I couldn't talk to. I was destroyed. I wanted to scream. My heart was broken. I felt so suddenly alone. So helpless. 
I set the phone back on the receiver and walked out of the house.
That's when I added the third item to The List: Users.
Becky had used me. And as bad as it hurt hearing her say that she wasn't in love with me, it hurt so much worse to find out I was just tool for her own personal gain.
Late that night I returned home. I walked in the front door with a video-cassette in my hand. I found Becky sitting on the couch watching TV. She looked up at me with a half-pissed-off/ half-worried look on her face. She stood with her arms crossed and waited for me to explain myself. No explanation came.
"Where have you been?!" she scolded. 
I tried my best not to cry. I could feel my lip quivering ever so slightly. This would be so much easier if I didn’t cry. There were so many things I wanted to say to her. None of it mattered. Nothing would change. 
"I heard what you said," I whispered. "I heard what you said to your mom."
I could hardly see through the tears welling up in my eyes, but I saw it in her face. She'd been caught. She fretted. She recoiled. Her concern sounded genuine: "Martin. I am so sorry."
I slid the cassette into the VCR and pushed play. I watched Becky's face. She looked at the TV and then at me. She sat back down. Her eyes kept jumping from me to the TV and back. 
"What's this?" she asked.
I said nothing. I stood next to the TV like a child during show & tell. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and took a deep breath.
She watched intently—a hint of panic peeking through her expression. She recognized the room in the video. 
"Martin, what is this?"
I said nothing. Then a distant scream sounded on the audio track. Her eyes widened. 
"What is this?! Martin! What did you do, Martin?"
My eyes turned to the TV screen just in time to watch myself drag Becky's mother into the view of the camera. I looked dangerous. The hammer looked dangerous. I shoved her mother’s face into the camera by a fist full of hair. 
Becky started to cry and shake.
"No God no, Martin! What did you do?!" she sobbed.
I really thought that I wanted Becky to hurt like I was hurting, but at that moment I realized that this wasn't making me feel any better at all. Right then I regretted the whole thing, but it was too late.
“Mommy no! What did you do! Mommy!” Becky screamed and wailed along with her mother on the TV screen.
Then the hammer came down.
Becky shrieked and pulled her hands to her face. She collapsed in her seat.
The hammer came down again and again.
Becky charged at me like a wild animal. Her cries were piercing and terrifying and inhuman. She threw her fists at me. Her face was red. Contorted and covered in tears. She growled and screeched. Frantic. I put my hands over my face and shielded myself from her.
She backed away shaking her fists and stomping her feet. She screamed randomly. She yelled and cried unintelligible words—her red, tear-soaked face cutting right through me. 
"God damn you! Sick fuck!"
She grabbed her keys and ran out the door. It was like a tornado had passed. Becky was gone. 
The sudden calm and quiet was heavy and smothering. I sat and held my head in my hands.  Alone. I had lost her. It was all over.
I rewound the tape and watched myself kill her mother again. It was a lot like watching a home-made sex tape. I didn't look nearly as cool as I imagined I did, and I made a lot more noise than I thought I did.
I removed the tape from the VCR and took it to the kitchen. I set it atop one of the stove burners and turned it up to its high setting. The tape melted and eventually caught fire. The stringy smoke poured from the plastic blob. Blue and sometimes green flames flashed from the mess, as though the wickedness of the tape itself were burning away. .
The police were going to arrive soon. I had made three huge mistakes:
I killed someone I knew.
I had shared the fact that I killed somebody with another person.
And I killed someone for personal reasons.
When I talk to my therapist about The List, "Users" is still the hardest of the five for her to grasp. I'll have to tell her about Diane. She's a user too.
Friends
~~~
What an interesting week I've had.
I only had to go to therapy once this week. Laura is on vacation. She and her fiancé went to Florida for her sister’s wedding. I think her sister is younger. I assume Laura is excited. She doesn't share much of her own feelings with me. I actually didn't even know she had a fiancé until just this week. I think that's why I find it so hard for me to open up to her. I don't trust her. She says she cares, or she says that she is here to help me, but it just sounds like a line out of a text book. Either way, I didn't have to go to my regular therapy this week and I don't have to go next week. It feels like I'm on vacation.
I did have to go to group therapy though.
I kind of felt singled out this week. I know Laura and Neal talk. I think she may have asked him to be extra hard on me this week. Neal had me answer a bunch of uncomfortable questions.
He asked the group, "How many of you have been in jail?" We all raised our hands.
"Martin, why don't you share your experience with the group?"
You want to say something. You want to say, "Oh come on! Why me?!" but you don't. You sort of exhale and sit up straight and let out a long "Well..."
I had a quick trial. The whole thing took about two weeks. The prosecution presented an account of what happened the night that Becky’s mom died, and they pretty much nailed it. At one point I wanted to say, "Wow, that is exactly how it went," but that would have been stupid.
My lawyer argued that no one would ever really know what was on that tape. They knew there was a tape and Becky testified to what she saw, but no one would ever know for sure. If they had that videotape, that would have been first degree aggravated murder, straight to the gas chamber, do not pass Go. My lawyer tried to convince the judge that I was insane and not competent to stand trial. The judge disagreed, but did think that a psychiatric evaluation was in order. After going back and forth for two weeks we finally plea bargained a ten-year sentence.
I spent my time at Safford Prison. Interesting place as far as prisons go.
The building itself is fairly historic. Fort Grant was built back in 1872 to keep the Apache at bay. The troops at Fort Grant were part of the group that were present for Geronimo's surrender. It was also a gathering point for soldiers during the Spanish-American War. In 1912 Arizona became a state and the federal government gave Fort Grant to the new State. In 1973 it became a prison. As you can tell, I had a lot of free time in prison. 
I despised it at first. I felt like an animal all caged up. I was told when to eat and when to sleep. Once the routine set in, it actually wasn't all bad. There was some gang activity and some people you didn't want to cross, but most people kept to themselves.
There were a couple guys I ate lunch with everyday. I called them Mike & Mike.
Mike Hildebrand was a car thief that killed a pedestrian in a high speed chase. He was doing the last half of an eight-year sentence. He had just celebrated his 30th birthday when I met him.
Mike Loweman was a 23-year-old who had developed a cocaine habit in college. He had become accustomed to ripping off his roommates and robbing dorm rooms. Once he got out of school he started robbing homes. During his last robbery he was caught by an old lady who had returned home from the grocery store. He shot her once in the head and left the scene. Somehow that old lady lived and Mike got himself five years for robbery and an attempted murder charge.
I never understood why attempted murder carried a lesser sentence than regular murder. He totally meant to kill that old lady. Why should you be rewarded for being a bad murderer? Makes no sense.
Mike & Mike and I would hang out and talk. I would help in the garden and do janitorial work. One Mike worked in the laundry, and the other spent most of his day in 12-step meetings.
The trick in prison was to pretend like you were very dumb and very harmless. If people perceived you as unthreatening and uninterested they would mostly leave you alone.
There was one inmate who was brought in about a year after me—Joel Reiter. He ran a pyramid scheme. Stole millions from old people. Had five houses, three aliases, and two wives. Total scumbag. The first day he showed up he at Safford he was shooting his mouth off.
"What're you looking at, asshole?"
The white supremacist gangs were pretty much running things as far as the politics and contraband went. Luckily I didn't smoke, and I could live without porn. I just steered clear and kept my head down.
This new guy was picking fights with them. Threatening people. He would end every conversation with "My lawyers got some people in his pocket. I'll be out of here in two weeks." Well, he was right. Two weeks later he left... in an ambulance.
While in line for lunch the white supremacist gang bunched up and surrounded him. It was like a ballet. Really fast and really well-choreographed. From start to finish it took maybe five seconds. They stabbed him over and over with sharpened spoon handles. The crowd dispersed as quickly as it had formed. There on the floor was Joel, looking like he was hugging himself, bleeding, and surrounded by makeshift cutlery. Everyone knew who did it, but no one talked. That's just the way it worked.
I had been there for four years when Mike & Mike were released. I spent the next year keeping to myself, and I was released for good behavior after serving five years.
Neal put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm real proud of Martin for sharing his experience with us. Can we all say 'Thank You Martin'?"
The whole group mumbled a half-assed response, "Thank you Martin." It was like we were in grade school.
He asked the group, "How many of you have been confronted by a victim?" Only two of us raised our hands. Myself and Gary.
"Martin, why don't you share your experience with the group"?
I couldn't believe it. I clenched my teeth and rolled my eyes. 
"Well..."
I never really got visitors in prison. I didn’t have someone waiting for me. Marking days on their calendar, counting the days until I got out. 
I did get a couple letters from Becky. They were very structured and full of feelings and forgiveness. I could tell she had been instructed by a counselor to write them. I never replied. There was nothing I could say that made any difference. Aside from those few letters I never heard anything from the outside world, except once.
I had in been in prison about two and a half years. One day the guard slid my cell door open and barked. "Let's go... visitor!"
"Visitor?" I thought. 
I couldn’t imagine who it could be. I felt a little nervous. Becky wouldn’t come to visit me, would she? I followed the guard down the corridor to the visitation room. I hadn't seen it before, so it was kind of exciting. It was much smaller than I imagined. About the size of a classroom. There were no glass windows through which people talked. Just cafeteria style tables and people sitting across from each other. Scanning the room, I looked at all the faces. None looked familiar.
The guard gently led me by the arm to a table where a man was sitting alone. He was about my age. Short brown hair. An angry expression directed at me. As I sat I noticed a peculiar scar on his face, as though he'd been burned or had a skin graft. Then it hit me. I knew who this man was. This was Bobby Campbell.
His face looked remarkable considering what the hammer had done to it. One side was smooth and expressionless. A strange “Y” shaped scar descended from his eye across his cheek.
He scowled at me as I sat. There was a strange pause as the guard left us.
I stared at him. He stared at me.
"So, you went and did it, didn't you?" he said.
I sat motionless and said nothing.
"You went and killed somebody."
I kept my face very still. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
"Yeah, Bobby. I killed somebody."
His faced moved in a very unnatural way. The plastic surgery looked good as long as he sat still, but when he talked it was evident that something wasn’t right.
"Have you killed anyone else?" he asked.
"If I had, do you think I'd tell you?" I replied.
He smiled a strange half-smile. The more he moved the more evident it become where the damage to his face was. He was afraid of me. I was the devil. He’d always suspected it, but now that I had killed somebody, I had proven it. To him I was the bogeyman. I was the monster under the bed. It remember thinking it was so ironic that this asshole thought I was the bad guy.
After I bashed his face in, Bobby’s family moved to a town called Lordsburg in New Mexico. He had undergone six different operations to rebuild his face over the years. He dropped out of high school and got his GED. Currently he was a groundskeeper at the city hall in Las Cruces. He’d been in counseling for the last ten years.
I sat back in my chair. "Why are you here, Bobby?"
He took a long breath and collected himself. It was amazing how little confidence he had. The cocky little kid I had smashed in the face was gone and in his place sat this strange and nervous little man.
"You're a terrible person, Martin. I want you to know that. I'm going to show up at your parole hearing to make sure you do not get out."
He had a desperate look of satisfaction about him. I smiled. 
"That's fine Bobby. That's just fine. Are we done here?"
He seemed irritated by how unaffected I was. I don't know what he wanted. Maybe he thought I would freak out, or maybe he thought I would beg? I didn't know. I didn't care. Seeing him I realized I had accomplished what I had meant to do. I killed a bully.
He did show up to my parole hearing. I don't know what he said, but his testimony apparently held little weight as far as the parole board's ruling was concerned. Bobby never bothered me again.
Neal didn't much like my story. I think he was looking for a more empathetic example. Something with "I'm sorry" or "I learned a lot" in it. Neal dismissed the group.
There was a bar down the street from the community center called Randy's. I had passed it a bunch of times, but I'd never been in. After being in the spotlight for the last hour I was in the mood for a cocktail.
I ordered myself a whiskey & coke. It was a funny little dive bar. Looked as though it hadn't been remodeled in thirty years. The specials were written on a worn-out old white board. Two Tacos For $1. Today's Soup- Tomato. I’m pretty sure that was yesterday’s soup too. 
A voice spoke from behind me. "That was some story today." It was Gary from group therapy. I was surprised to see him. I had never encountered anyone from therapy outside of a session. Surrounded by strangers, our secrets suddenly felt much more dirty. 
He motioned at the seat next to me, and I nodded. Gary was a good looking guy. His hair was black and curly. He might have had some southern European heritage that gave his skin the appearance of a constant tan. I had never really seen him standing. He was surprisingly short. I’d guess he was just over five feet tall. I didn't know much about Gary except that he'd killed someone and spent some time in jail. I inquired about his story.
He danced around the details, but explained that he was involved with a married lady. Her husband found out about them, and there was a confrontation. They got in a fight and Gary killed him. He had done his time in Phoenix, he had been in group therapy for a month, and he hated it just as much as I did.
Diane and a tall older man walked into the bar. We exchanged uncomfortable glances with each other. They sat in a booth at the opposite end of the room. 
"She's totally doing it again," Gary sneered.
"Doing what?" I asked.
"She's totally using him.”
“Who is that?” I asked.
“That's her lawyer. I totally caught them making out in here one night after group. She's like a black widow," Gary whispered.
The lawyer ordered drinks for himself and Diane. It wasn't apparent whether they were there for business or not. They sat across from each other and laughed loudly.
Gary glared at them. "He's married, you know."
"Really." I had a sour taste in my mouth.
I found the entire situation offensive. I was angry that she was using him. I was angry that I had to go to a group therapy session with such a horrible person. I was angry at the bureaucracy that made me even attend a therapy group.
Gary and I watched them and talked about them. We had a second drink and then a third. He seemed to understand me, and I liked that. Perhaps this is what group therapy was about. Meeting other like-minded individuals who also hated group therapy. 
Gary had tickets to a baseball game next week and asked if I wanted to go. We exchanged cell phone numbers, and I marked it down in my calendar. We had a fourth drink and a fifth drink.
It was nice to find a friend in all this nonsense. In a moment of drunken inspiration I decided to open up to Gary.
"Gary," I said. "I have a list."
He looked intrigued. "A list?"
"Yes. It is a list of people who do not deserve to live," I stated.
Gary's eyes widened. "Am I on it?"
"No, it's not names. It's types of people," I explained.
He looked very interested.
I held up fingers and counted down the list for him:
#1- Bullies- Those who torture the weak to make themselves feel better.
#2- Cheaters- Those who betray the hearts and emotions of others.
#3- Users- Those who use people to further their own cause. 
  Gary sat with a look of anticipation on his face. His eyes were bright and his mouth was crooked in a grin.
"What's #4?" he asked.
"There is no #4."
He furrowed his brow. "That's all the terrible people in the world?"
"That's all I've personally encountered so far," I explained. "Those are the people who have moved me."
A look of understanding poured across his face.
"You've killed all these people haven't you?" he whispered.
I sat stone-faced.
"Well now, what about thieves?" he demanded.
"Thieves?"
"Yeah, #4 should be thieves," he insisted. “Thieves are the worst. I fucking hate people who steal.”
I didn't think he understood the purpose of the list, but then I reconsidered for a moment.
"That does makes sense," I nodded. "But I would imagine that most of the time you wouldn't know who it was that had stolen from you.”
Gary pursed his lips and stared at the ceiling. "That's true." His gaze returned to me. "But what if you did know who stole from you?"
I smiled a wide closed-lip smile. "Yeah, thieves would be #4."
I finished my drink. And reflected on the conversation.
Gary motioned toward Diane. "What is she?"
I held up three fingers. Gary smirked.
I pointed at the lawyer.
"And what is he?" I asked.
Gary held up two fingers.
I was a bit drunk, but certain I could get myself home. I stood up from my chair, pulled my wallet from my pocket, and dropped some cash on the bar.
"See you next week," I announced.
Gary leaned toward me and pointed. "Don't do anything stupid."
I walked out of the bar and sat in my car. The cars drove past the glow of neon in the tavern windows. I started to think about what Gary and I had discussed. For nearly an hour I sat there. 
Just after midnight Diane and her lawyer emerged from the bar. She held his arm and stumbled a bit on the way to his car. They were parked at the end of the block. A late model Mercedes. Nice car.
The Mercedes started, and it’s bright blue headlights popped on. The curiosity was too much. They drove down the street, and I followed to see where they were going—keeping my distance as not to be too obvious.
Rather than going to Diane's house or to the lawyer's home they went to a nice hotel downtown. The Mercedes pulled up front and the valet took the car away as the two of them walked in the front door.
It seemed as though Gary was right. It wasn’t all business with those two. There wasn't much that could be done about it tonight, and I suspected I was going to have a hang-over the next day. I drove home to get some sleep.
The To-Do List
~~~
Laura is still on vacation until Friday, so I had some free time this week.
I spent a good part of Monday researching this lawyer fellow that Diane was with. It turns out he is a lawyer, but I was surprised to learn that he's not her lawyer. 
His name is Gordon Gere. He was born in Hartford in 1960. He graduated from Princeton in 1983. He's a corporate lawyer for a media publishing firm called Hedron Limited. Quite well-connected—and wealthy from what I was able to gather.
Gordon Gere serves on the board of directors for a local charity called GOCAF (Give Our Children A Future). GOCAF helps create after school programs and opportunities for underprivileged kids. Their mascot is a brown and white calf named Greg that wears a football helmet. I don't get it.
It’s pretty clear that Hedron Limited is a major contributor to GOCAF, and they had assigned Gordon Gere to the board of directors to assure their donation is being used as they see appropriate. The internet is an amazing tool.
After Diane was released from prison she was required to do some community service. Last Christmas she was working at a toy drive for GOCAF, and that's where she met Gordon Gere. I don't know who made the first move, or how things progressed, but they seemed to be perfect for each other. A couple of morally void manipulators.
I had decided to spend an evening and investigate the hotel where Gordon and Diane had stayed. It was a boutique hotel called the Hotel Rouge Canard. It wasn't a chain hotel like the Hilton or the Marriott. It was much smaller. Five stories of rooms decorated in a French Provencal style. Not my taste in decor, but very nice none-the-less.
I wandered each floor. It appeared as though there were eight rooms on each floor—seven regular rooms and a suite. One room had its door propped open. It looked as though they had recently cleaned the carpet and were allowing the room to dry. It was basically identical to my room. Queen size bed, bathroom, balcony, phone, no TV.
I sat that night and studied the room. The door locks. The light switches. I sat and listened. Could I hear my neighbor? Could I hear people in the hallway? I looked through the peep hole. "FIRE!" I yelled as people walked by my room. Through the peephole I could see that some seemed they had heard something, most didn't even notice. The room was actually surprisingly sound proof.
I hadn’t killed anyone in a long time. I hadn’t felt the compulsion in a long time. An unusual confidence and satisfaction swelled within me from being in the hotel and from investigating the rooms. I felt prepared and smart. 
That night I slept and dreamed of very elaborate murders.
Tuesday I woke up and checked out. I did some shopping before group therapy. Clothes, trash bags, soap, a hammer, that sort of thing.
I arrived at group therapy early. Driving from the hotel downtown was a much faster commute than I’d anticipated. Gary had arrived early as well. He and I got grabbed some coffee in the hallway. There was an expression on his face. His eyebrows raised and his lips pursed. As though he were waiting for me to say something. I gave him the same expression in return.
"What happened?" he asked.
I wasn't sure exactly what he meant, but since I hadn't seen him since we’d hung out at the bar, I assumed he was referring to Diane and the lawyer.
"I thought you were going to take care of those two?" he whispered.
I held my cup under my bottom lip and blew on my coffee.
We had talked and we both agreed that we thoroughly disliked Diane and the lawyer, but I didn't understand his interest (or his disappointment). It seemed unusually awkward and extremely suspicious. I took a small sip of my coffee. I liked my coffee black. Gary was still adding sugar to his.
"You know, I guess I had a little too much to drink that night," I said.
There was a sudden slouch in his posture. He shook his head slightly and let out a sigh.
I tried not to show it, but I found this all very alarming. Why was he so vested in this result? Why did he want them dead? I decided the best course of action was to appease him and play along. After all, I wanted them dead too.
"It's way too easy to make mistakes when you've been drinking. Just be patient," I assured him.
He seemed to like this and he gave me a solid nod of approval.
I was mercifully spared from having to speak in group therapy. Most of the discussion was about spiritual growth and finding God in the details of our lives. It was good stuff, but I hated listening to Neal talk. Neal could tell me that I had won the lottery, and I'd still be annoyed.
Things went very much like last week after group therapy. I went out with Gary and had a few drinks. Diane and the lawyer showed up. They had a couple drinks. They went to leave and I followed. They went to the same hotel. This time however, I noticed something different. Gary followed me. He may have followed me last time as well. I wasn't sure.
I parked around the block and checked myself into the hotel. I wasn't sure where Diane and Gordon had gone, but they weren’t really my current concern. I really wanted to know what Gary was up to.
I exited out the back door of the hotel, grabbed my car, and circled around so I could see where Gary was. He was still sitting and watching the front of the hotel from his car. 
I kept my distance. Remaining in the car, listening to the radio I watched him. The rock station was doing blocks of songs by the same artist. Three by the Stones. Three by the Doors. Three by The Who. We sat for almost all of an hour. Gary finally started his car and began to drive away. I cautiously followed.
He got on the freeway and drove out to a suburb just east of town. I assumed he was going home, but instead he drove out to a small office situated between a strip mall and a public storage facility. He parked right out front. I parked next door in the U-Store-It parking lot.
It looked as though there were a couple offices in the little stucco building. I could see from the street sign that there was an optometrist and a detective on the upper floor, an attorney and an accountant on the lower floor. I watched him enter the lobby of the building and climb up the stairs. There was a long pause, then the lights turned on in unit C. Upstairs.
Gary was a private detective.
The gravity of it all started to hit me. This guy probably wasn't even named Gary. He probably didn't even commit a crime or have to go to group therapy. This was all some big show. That bastard had lied to me.
I snuck up to the building and peered in from behind his car. The office was on a major street, but traffic was light at this hour. The stores in the strip mall were closed. Nothing was happening at the large home improvement store across the street. A lone car passed every minute or so.
I sat next to his car and watched the office windows. I couldn’t tell what he was up to. After about twenty minutes the lights in the office turned off. I hunched down on my hands and knees, tucked behind his rear bumper. The office doors locked and the sound of foot steps approached. Underneath his car I saw his feet stop at the driver side door. His key slid into the lock and the car door opened.
As he started to get in the car I rushed toward him and grabbed him from behind. The handful of papers he was carrying scattered on the ground. I pushed him to the ground and sat on his back. My hands were clutching his shirt, and my knee was pushed into his spine.
He had managed to grab a small handgun with his left hand. His arm flailed about and the gun went off in the air with a loud pop. My right hand pushed his face against the pavement as I snatched the gun from him with my left. I pointed it to his head and he froze.
Until that moment he didn’t even realize who had attacked him. He craned his neck as he looked back at me.
"Hey, Martin," he was panting, "be careful with that piece, okay?"
I wasn't sure what I was going to do. My heart was beating in my ears. I wasn't sure how this could end well. I pushed the gun into the back of his head.
"What's going on, Gary?" I demanded.
"Don't concern yourself, Martin," he said smugly.
"I concerned myself when you suggested I kill Diane and her lawyer! What is going on, Gary!"
He sensed my frustration, and he was certainly aware of what I was capable of doing. It felt like my leg was going to fall asleep. There wasn't any traffic, but that could change very quickly. I couldn't believe he pulled a gun on me.
"OK. Listen. I'm a private investigator. That lawyer that Diane has been running around with, his name is Gere. I was hired by Mrs. Gere to find out what they were up to. It's all in that file."
He motioned with his head toward the papers on the ground next to us.
"What else," I snapped.
"Mrs. Gere contacted me about a month ago. She suspected that something was up with those two. Well, it turns out she was right. Last week I told her what I’d found, and she offered me $50,000 to kill them."
"Oh, she did?" I sang.
"Yes, but I run a legitimate business and there was no way I was going to do that, but when you and I were talking I figured, if you were going to kill them anyway, then that would take care of it."
"I see. So I was going to do your dirty work," I sneered.
"Listen, I'll cut you in Martin," he said.
I hopped to my feet. Still no traffic.
"Stand up, Gary." I backed away and kept the gun trained on him. "Get in the trunk."
He looked a bit stunned. Slowly, he reached in his pocket and grabbed his keys. I inched closer as the trunk opened, and he climbed in. He tossed the keys to the ground. His hands were outstretched, palms open. I stood over him looking into that trunk. Furious. My hand ached from how tightly I was gripping the gun. 
"Listen Martin..."
"No you listen," I interrupted. "You are a fucking liar. I trusted you. I thought you wanted to be my friend. I told you about my list."
“I was just doing my job, man.”
"Do you remember the list, Gary?"
He was slow to react, but he nodded his head. "Yeah, I remember."
"What's number one, Gary?" I asked.
He stared up at me. "Bullies," he said, “which you are being right now!”
"What's number two, Gary?"
"Cheaters," he said. His eyes jumped between me and the gun. Me and the gun. 
"Number three?"
“Come on, Martin.”
“Number three, God damn it!”
"Users," he said.
"Number four?"
"Thieves," he said. He smiled as he recalled suggesting the idea.
"What's number five, Gary?" I asked.
He looked nervous. "There is no number five."
"Yes there is Gary. Number five is liars."
I shot him. Straight in the face. There were five bullets in the gun, and I put them all in his face. I closed the trunk with my elbow. Gathered the papers, the keys, and the gun. Then I left. 
As I drove back to the hotel I came to appreciate how disappointed I was. I had really thought that Gary cared. I thought that maybe I had found someone who understood what I had been through and how the world worked. I thought I had found a friend.
It was late and things were very quiet at the hotel. In my room I read over the files that Gary had accumulated. Gordon Gere was married to a woman named Lydia. Together they owned several houses, but their primary residence was a large home in the hills just north of downtown. Nice place.
Another document indicated that Gordon Gere was part owner of the Hotel Rouge Canard. He and the other two men who owned it regularly used room 505 for private stays. It was the large suite on the corner of the top floor. It was worth a shot.
I put on my gloves, grabbed my hammer, and went up to the 5th floor. The halls were deathly still. The peepholes on the doors lining the hallway felt like tiny eyes on me. I tried to conceal the hammer as best as I could. 
I stood outside the door of room 505 for a moment and listened. I heard nothing. The hum of electricity and air conditioning filled the void. I knocked on the door. I felt very nervous. This was unusual. When I swallowed it seemed deafeningly loud.
The doorknob moved. There was a slight escape of air as the door cracked open.
There, perhaps two feet away from me in the open doorway, I saw the tired and confused face of Gordon Gere. He spoke very politely with an air of sophistication: "May I help you?"
I saw exactly where I wanted to hit him. Right where his nose met his brow. I took a deep breath.
In one powerful motion I threw all my weight at the door, hitting it with my left side. Gordon tried to resist and pushed back. In one fierce motion I brought the hammer down on his head. I missed my mark. I hit him high on the forehead. He dropped to his knees, and then to his side. Diane's piercing scream filled the night calm. It was like an alarm clock that needed to be silenced.
I kicked Gordon's feet out of the way and closed the door. Diane was kneeling on the bed. Her eyes were wide with terror. She recognized me, and she shook as she screamed. I jumped on her. She scratched and kicked her feet at me. I held my hand out to block her attacks and tried to get a swing in on her. A blow landed on her chest and again on her shoulder. The screams turned from terror to pain. Her hands clutched at the hammer. I pulled hard, but couldn't get it away from her. Her fingers wrapped around it. 
She coughed and cried. I reached in with my left hand and grabbed her throat—leaning on her and squeezing as hard as I could. I felt things move in her neck. I could hear Gordon clamoring to his feet. He called out.
Her face turned red and her tongue stuck out as she fought. Desperately her grasp moved from the hammer to the grip on her throat, digging her nails into my wrist. This was my chance. I cranked back with my right arm and brought the hammer down on top of her skull. Three hits. Like cracking open a hard boiled egg. Denting and breaking. She went limp.
I immediately turned my attention to Gordon. He was crawling toward the foot of the bed. The left side of his face was covered in blood from the wound on his forehead. He reached out with one hand and held the other to his scalp.
“You son of a bitch,” he said as he crawled onto the bed. I stood and with both hands I slung the hammer at the side of his head like a maniacal golfer.
It stuck.
The weight of his body hung from the hammer. I put my foot against his head and wrenched it free. The strange hum of silence returned.
I surveyed the room. To say it was a mess is an understatement. I had been in there maybe a minute, and it was destroyed. The blood was on the walls and the ceiling. The bed. The floor. Everything.
I stood in the doorway and put my shoes in a plastic bag. Gordon looked as though he’d collapsed while doing push ups at the foot of the bed. The white carpet held the blood in a tidy circle around him. Diane was motionless on the crimson-soaked bed. 
I walked my way back down to my room and took a shower. It looked as though my hands were the only gory bit, but everything actually gets a fine misting of blood on it when you kill someone with a hammer. Each hit produces a fine mist of blood. In the shower, the water runs red as it pours over you. Aside from the little half moon puncture wounds on my left wrist, I felt great. I impressed myself tonight. 
That night I slept well. It's nice having a clear to-do list.
It’s OK To Cry
~~~
It's all over the news. They found Gordon and Diane the following morning.
I think it's interesting how the news presents a story like this. The TV news reported it this way:
"Local attorney & business man Gordon Gere was found murdered this morning. Employees of the Hotel Rouge Canard found Gere's body in his private suite.
Gordon Gere purchased and renovated the historic hotel in 1990 along with partner William Heckler of the local Heckler's Restaurant chain. Heckler could not be reached for a comment.
Gere's friend Diane Worthy was also murdered. So far there are no suspects, but they may be related to what police are now calling the Hammerhead Killings."
The news makes them sound so innocent. It wasn't mentioned that their heads were kicked in. They didn't mention that neither was completely dressed, and they didn't mention that Gordon is married or that he and Diane were having an affair.
Interesting about William Heckler though. I didn't know Gordon Gere and William Heckler knew each other. Heckler's has awesome buffalo chicken strips. They make their own blue cheese dressing for dipping. I love it. Heckler's is sort of like an Applebee's or a TGIFriday's, but it's local. Anyway...
The Hammerhead Killings. Yeah. I've been busy the last few days. I killed Gordon & Diane. I also killed a couple other people. I’ll have to tell you more about that later. I was on a little bit of a roll.
As soon as the first bodies were discovered, the news started sensationalizing how the victims were all attacked with hammers. They started calling me the "Hammerhead Killer." I kind of like it.
The story of the Hammerhead Killings had the whole state up in arms for like two days. The police instituted a curfew. Everyone was convinced they were next. The police held a press conference on the evening news and announced that they had determined the victims of the Hammerhead Killings weren't random and that the general public was in very little danger. Things quickly relaxed.
To make things even more exciting I then had to go to group therapy. Neal is standing in the middle of the room in a blue sweater with a giant heart emblazoned across it. He’s crying when we arrive, and he hugs each of us.
"We lost a brother and a sister this week," he sobbed. "It's OK to cry."
No one else was crying.
"Why don't we go around and share a memory about our late friends," he suggested.
Paul was very brief, but Trina went on and on. She used the same words that Neal had used.
"I'm very sad about the loss of our brother and sister. They were beautiful people. I know it's OK to cry. I will miss them."
It was pretty disgusting to watch.
Neal turned to me. "Martin, why don't you share a story now?"
I tried to look sincere.
"Gary was a friend. We would have drinks after group therapy and we'd tell jokes. He was pretty cool sometimes."
Neal smiled. "I don't condone using alcohol, but that's nice that you found something you could bond over."
I forced a smile. I didn't really have anything good to say about either of them, but especially nothing good to say about Diane.
"Diane... I remember when she told us that story about how she killed her husband."
Neal's face was blank.
"OK. Good job Martin. She did tell us a story once. Thank you."
Neal made us do a group hug at the end of the session. It was very uncomfortable.
As if the news reports and group therapy weren’t enough excitement for one day, Laura comes back into town and I have to see her for regular therapy. Nothing has ever been so difficult as getting the motivation to go see her. It had been so nice to have her gone.
When I arrived at her office she was sitting behind her desk with her pen and paper ready. Normally she was on the phone and made me wait for her to finish her call before we started, but today she was all business. She began as she always did. Propping her head up on her hands and with a doe-eyed look of concern she’d say, "How have you been, Martin?"
I responded in the same way I usually did. I told her I was fine. Told her I was tired. Told her group therapy was going good.
"I understand you lost a couple people in your group," she said, as though I were keeping it secret.
This caught me off-guard and made me feel anxious. I didn't like that she and Neal talked about me.
"Yeah. We're all pretty sad about it," I replied.
"Really? Are you sad, Martin?"
I said nothing.
She looked at my face and took a deep breath.
"Did you have anything to do with those people who died, Martin?"
Had I heard her right? I did my best to hide my surprise. Did she ask if I had anything to do with the murders? I felt hot. My mouth was dry. I tried to summon my most sincere "No. Of course not," but it felt weak.
"I'm here for you Martin. You know I'm your friend,” she said through her unemotive face. “The reason I ask is because these murders you committed in the past sound very much like these Hammerhead Killings that are on the news."
Did she say murders? Where had she been the last two weeks? I know she was supposedly at her sister’s wedding, but where was she really? Had she been following me? Did she talk to Gary? What did she know?
She swiveled from side to side in her chair. Her eyebrows raised, and her head fell to one side. 
"You mean Becky's mom?" I challenged.
"Yes. Becky's mom," she said, "but there were others."
I stood up from the chair. I don’t know why. I felt I’d shown my hand. Sick feelings crawled through me.
“Oh come on, Martin,” she said, “open up to me. Let me help you." She motioned toward the chair. “Why don’t you sit down?”
She didn't want to help me. She wanted to get rid of me. She knew something.
I didn't sit down. I jumped across the desk at her. The look of surprise on her normally calm face was uncanny. She tried to push away, but her chair wouldn't cooperate. I grabbed her arm and her hair and pulled her across the desk bringing stacks of paper with her. 
“Martin!” she screamed as loud as she could. “Help!! Somebody!!!”
With my left hand I pinned her face to the desk. I frantically reached out and grabbed for anything to shut her up.
Stapler.
I bashed it down on the back of her head. Over and over. She screamed and clumsily pushed against the desk to free herself. I hit her as hard as I could until the stapler exploded into its component pieces. With both hands I grabbed her head and slammed her face into her desk. Again. She coughed hard and started to slide onto the floor as her dazed mind lost the will to fight. 
I sat down next to her on the floor. Her face was bloodied and her eye swollen. My belt. I took my belt and wrapped it around her neck. The fear in her eyes returned as the leather tightened around her throat. I pulled a hard as I could. I stood and put my foot against her head and pulled. She beat on my leg and punched at me. She grit her teeth and struggled to get air into her lungs. Gagging sounds. She twisted and kicked. The veins in her face got bigger. The whites of her eyes streaked with red veins. She drooled and shook in a final violent fit to escape. Her mouth opening like a fish out of water. She stopped moving. She stopped breathing. That was the end of her.
I had to do it. She knew something. Not sure how, but she knew. I was fearful and relieved all at once. In her office, I sat for a bit and thought about my escape. If I left now people would know what I’d done. I thought about leaving through her window, but we were eight stories up. That’s when I decided to drop her out the window. 
The following morning I was at home folding laundry and watching the news. No new developments. I grabbed a cola from the fridge. There was a knock at the door. I turned the TV off and went to see who it was. When I opened the door I found myself face to face with a police officer.
He was tall. Built like a wrestler. His hair was cut very short.
He smiled and gave me a polite nod. "Hello, I'm Officer Stone, Arizona State Police."
I said nothing.
"Do you mind if I come in and ask you a few questions?"
A thousand thoughts filled my brain all at once. Of course I mind! This is it. This is how it ends! I’m going to go to jail!
"No, not at all," I answered.
I opened the door and let the officer in. He walked cautiously into the living room and sat in the arm chair. I followed and sat on the couch.
He examined the room and then studied his notebook. The room was an embarrassing mess. The table was cluttered with papers. There were bags of newspapers near the front door. Laundry sat in a pile on the floor. I hadn’t been home much.
"Are you aware your psychologist, Dr. Laura Parks, was found dead yesterday?"
"My therapist?" I feigned. "No, what happened?"
"She fell from her office window," he said. His eyes returned to his notebook.
“Wow. No, I hadn’t heard that.” I sounded stupid to myself. 
I looked around for my can of cola. To my horror I noticed the Gordon Gere files I had got from Gary were sitting on top of the coffee table. The folder even said "Gordon Gere" on the cover. It was literally three feet from the officer. I reached out to move them and then realized that Gary's gun was sitting underneath the files. I pulled my hand back.
He noticed.
"Are you OK, sir?" he asked.
"Yeah, I thought I had a cola, but I must have left it in the kitchen," I explained.
He pointed to the TV. There it was. I’d set it down by the TV. He dove back into his notebook.
"Did you have an appointment with Dr. Parks yesterday?" he asked.
I nodded.
"And what time was that appointment?"
I wasn't sure how to answer. Truthfully, and claim to be the last person she met with? Lie, and chance having conflicting story with someone else? I opted for truthfully.
"I had an appointment at 2 O'clock and it lasted until 2:30pm."
"Did she have any enemies or people who wanted to hurt her?" he asked.
“You think she was murdered?” 
“We have reason to believe that there was foul play involved.”
That’s not good. I had missed something. I’d made a mistake. 
I pretended to think for a moment, shrugged my shoulders, and shook my head. He wrote something in his notebook and pulled a business card from his pocket.
"This is my card. I have several other people I still have to speak with. If you can think of anything that might be helpful to the case let me know. I may have more questions for you later."
I walked him to the door. He thanked me for my time, and then paused.
"I got a weird question for you. Did you go to Preston Elementary School?"
I hadn't heard that name in a long time.
"Yes, I did go there." And then it hit me.
Officer Roy Stone. That poor kid standing there sobbing with his pants around his ankles.
"I thought I'd recognized the name," he laughed.
I smiled nervously. It was pretty astounding. The frightened child that I remembered was completely gone. This man was a pillar of confidence and strength. There was a look of amusement as he searched his memory. Then he pointed at me.
"You're the guy that put Bobby Campbell in the hospital," he recalled.
I wished he would stop talking, but he didn't. "You hit him right in the face with a hammer," he said.
I gnashed my teeth. I could see what he was thinking.
Dead therapist... Bobby Campbell... Hammer... Hammerhead killer.
We both sat and said nothing for a minute.
"Martin," he began to speak, "I had a rough childhood. My dad was abusive. I didn't have a lot of friends. My parents expected so much from me. America was supposed to be this land of opportunity. My dad had a tough time getting work. Even harder time keeping a job. Bobby used to beat me up almost every week. He pulled my pants down in gym class. One time he poured milk on my head. I hated school, and I hated everybody, because I thought this was how life was always going to be. I thought that ‘This is just the way it works.’ But that day when you stood up to him... that was the first time I realized that it doesn't have to be like this. I realized that people do care. I realized that there is hope."
He put his notebook away and he smiled a warm, genuine smile. 
"I am going to have more questions for you," he said.
“Yes, sir.”
"I expect cooperation,” he teased. “You understand?"
He smiled. I nodded. He turned and he walked away.
I had always felt it, but that moment I knew that hitting Bobby Campbell was the right thing to do. I hadn't only righted a wrong. I had created something better. Roy Stone had become an exemplary member of society.
So, this, it seems, is where the story ends.
My name is Martin. I'm 37 years old. I live in Perfect, Arizona, and I kill people.
I’ve killed nine people, to be precise, and I’m in a little bit of trouble. I have reached the end of the road and I’ve found myself cornered. I have always believed in justice, and I’ve always done what I felt was right. But justice is a fickle bitch. Now it’s time to pay the piper.
Perfect, AZ
~~~
I ran.
I don't know why Roy Stone didn't arrest me. Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe he felt indebted to me. Maybe he felt sorry for me. Maybe he didn’t put one and one together, I don't know, but I decided I wasn't going to wait around for the next officer to come by. I ran far away. 
The morning after I had killed Gary, Diane, and Gordon Gere I left the hotel and visited Mrs. Gere at her home. She was a frail old woman who was likely gorgeous in her day. Her steely blue eyes matched her short silver hair. She stood in the doorway wrapped in a red silk robe. 
“Mrs. Gere, my name is Martin,” I said. “Gary had hired me to kill your husband and Diane.”
She looked offended. Disgusted. 
“I don’t know who you are, but you better...”
“Listen. Let’s cut the crap,” I interrupted. “Gary is a loud mouth, and he’s going to get you in hot water.”
Mrs. Gere was silent.
“I’ll make you an offer. I’ll kill Gordon, Diane, and Gary. You give me the $50,000.” 
She loved the idea. Wealthy people love it when you can solve their problems for them. At that point it’s no longer a problem, it’s an expense. I didn't bother telling her that they were all already dead. 
It's actually pretty difficult to get a bank to cash a check for $50,000. It took a long time, a bunch of phone calls. They offered me all kinds of investment options. I told them I had to pay a ransom. I think they knew I was kidding. 
I went back and killed Mrs. Gere that evening. Just like Gordon, she had a lover on the side, and that's not OK. 
I caught them relaxing and sipping wine in her hot tub just after dusk. Every time you kill somebody it’s just a little different. Her lover was no problem at all. He didn’t even see me coming. I walked right up to the hot tub and planted the hammer right into the top of his head.  Like planting a candle in a birthday cake.
She sat there in the bubbling cauldron of blood screaming for what seemed like forever. I couldn’t go in after her. It’s not too difficult to hide a blood spatter, but it’s much more difficult to hide the fact that you dipped yourself in a pool of blood. I decided I’d get a toaster from the kitchen to throw in and electrocute her. She tried to make a break for it while I was in the kitchen, but I caught her. Just about pounded her head flat for that little stunt. 
Reflecting on all of this, I’ve realized that my idea of a hammer-wielding utopia isn't really possible. If we all had hammers, and even if we all followed the same rules, we would all wind up killing each other. One person would kill a bully, and then someone would kill them in retaliation, or because they felt justified, and then they would end up getting killed... it would never end. 
It reminds me of an experiment I once saw. The floor of a room was covered in mousetraps. Each mousetrap had a ping pong ball balanced on top of it. Then a single ping pong ball was tossed into the room. The entire room erupted in a giant chaotic chain reaction of flying ping pong balls. Moments later the room was still. All of the mousetraps were tripped. The experiment was demonstrating how a nuclear reaction works, but that’s also how it would be if we all had hammers. We’d all start bashing each other until there was no one left. 
What is right and wrong is all up to whomever is holding the hammer. Luckily, the one holding the hammer is me. 
- Martin
About The Author
~~~
Todd Brabander is an author, musician, and artist from Portland OR. His projects range in style from comedy, to absurdist, to horror, and usually have a Pacific Northwest flavor.
His work aims to capture a twisted and often humorous view of the normal world.
He has been in several music groups, has had his writing published, and has publicly displayed visual art. 
  He is a big fan of the Oxford comma.
www.todd13.com