(A foray into fiction. I entered this essay in the Writer's Digest "your Story" contest. The prompt was "A 20-something man sits in a taxi in front of his parents’ house, trying to find the strength to tell them that he (fill in the blank)." Of the more than 1,100 entries, mine was not among the 5 finalists. I tell myself that 6th place is not so bad. You're allowed 750 words.)
10:57. Street lamps cast doubt on a tree-lined residential avenue. A taxi cab idles at the curb. From the backseat, a 20-something man with a thousand-mile stare contemplates the dusky glow emanating from a first floor picture window. They’re settling in now; drawn like moths to the TV’s emissions, he in his jaundiced tee-shirt, she with a never-to-be-finished crossword in her lap. An ever-widening 3-foot chasm between them. They never were too comfortable with each other. At least not that he’d witnessed.
In exactly 3 minutes, she’ll set aside the crossword and he’ll crack another warm Lowenbrau for their nightly ritual, the 11 o’clock news. He can still hear his mother’s clichéd "oohs" and "aahs" whenever footage of a burning house or crumpled car played on the screen, and his father growling, "They’re all crooks," in reaction to disgraced political or religious figures.
What have they been saying lately?
The main story - the murders of four young couples - has been gaining momentum for three months. Do they notice the similarities? Childless newlyweds. The men, prematurely balding; the women blonde and curvy. All arranged the same way, sitting side-by-side in their livingrooms, hands entwined, life drawn out. The experts call it a "signature"; the way a killer arranges the bodies. Rumor has it the 8th precinct refers to him as The Sitting Room Strangler.
Are they close to figuring out how he chooses his victims?
He envisions the closet in the front hallway, can still smell the old shoe leather and plastic raincoats. That’s where they put him, their only child, whenever he made a mistake: spilled a drink, spoke out of turn, did nothing at all. Once, they left him there all night, too terrified even to come out and use the bathroom. There was no lock, but he dared not escape before his sentence was up. The next morning his father opened the door a crack then padded silently down the hallway. No explanations. Ever.
One day, the boy stashed a small flashlight amongst the debris under the shoe rack. That night, he flipped the edge of the carpet to prevent light from escaping under the door and quietly fished through the items in his cell, stopping when he found an old string-bound photo album. Blonde bangs fell away from his forehead as he flipped the pages. Niagara Falls, an old station wagon, pictures of his parents before he was born, all held flimsily in place with black adhesive photo corners. One picture in particular held his attention: they were sitting on a couch, smiling, pinkies hooked in an obvious gesture of affection. He was mesmerized. He’d never seen them smile or touch one another.
He spent most of his time inside under the dim glow studying the picture: evidence of their deliberate withholding. Sometimes he’d hear their muffled voices raised in disagreement, other times he could make out faint squeaks and groans from the bedroom down the hall. He figured they were touching then. But there was no happiness like in the picture. An acute agitation began to penetrate his otherwise calcified psyche.
At age thirteen, he was let out of the closet for good. At seventeen, he left home. And at nineteen, his therapist told him his obsessions were making it impossible for him to individuate.
"Strangulation is an up-close and personal way to kill someone," the lead investigator said during last night’s newscast. "This demonstrates rage. We believe the killer uses a belt of some kind, possibly from a trench or raincoat." He adds that there’s a witness who saw a man fleeing the most recent victims’ residence. A composite sketch will be released shortly.
"Come on, son, what’s it gonna be?"
The cab driver’s voice, his use of the word son, catches the 20-something man in the gut as a flush of red burns his ears. He regards the driver’s overworked eyes in the rearview then looks back at the house. What will they see when the sketch appears at the top of the newscast? Probably nothing. The TV is their way out. Things that upset their comfortable disorder are pushed aside and locked away. He’s certain they’ll never put it together, and as much as he wants them to know, he can’t find the strength to tell his parents that he, their only child, is a serial killer.
"Nevermind," he tells the cab driver, "It’s after 11:00 now. They don’t like being interrupted while they watch the news."
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