The Good Listener

by B. M. Hardin

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, what about home? Any type of poison around there? Maybe for pest? Rats?”

  As soon as he said the word rats, I thought about Blake.

  Blake told me a story about placing rat poison in one of his foster brother’s food because he was giving him such a hard time.

  He never said what happened to him, but he said that he was lucky that that was all that he had done to him.

  “No.”

  “Well, we will keep running test, but we are going to have to keep you for a few days.”

  The doctor exited the room.

  Joel looked at me.

  “You haven’t been trying to kill me have you?”

  “What? How could you ask me something like that? Of course not.”

  Joel looked like he believed me.

  “Around Blake have you eaten or drank anything?”

  “I haven’t been around him two weeks Hannah.”

  “I know. But I’m just asking. At work, does he offer you food or drink?”

  “He has. He brings us coffee a few days a week. Why? Wait a minute. Are you insinuating that he would have tried to poison me? For what reason? He is my boss.”

  “And I am your wife, but that didn’t stop you from asking me now, did it? And no. I just asked. People and papers lie. You can never truly trust anyone.”

  I sounded like Blake.

  “What? What are you talking about Hannah?”

  “Nothing.”

  Joel was right.

  He hadn’t been to work or around Blake in days so that wouldn’t explain why he was getting sicker.

  I waited for Joel to fall back asleep as I made myself comfortable and prepared for the longest internet search of my life.

  The poison was coming from somewhere and knowing all of the symptoms, I was going to see if anything popped up that might sound just right.

  If the doctor didn’t find the answers first, I surely would.

  ~***~

  “I saw her.”

  “Who?”

  “Her.”

  “And?”

  “And I just watched her.”

  “Who is she?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Do you stalk her?”

  “If that’s the word you would like to use. Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to see what she is doing. I watch. Learning people is what I do best,” Blake said.

  “What are you trying to learn about her?”

  “I learn about all my victims.”

  “So you still want to kill her?”

  “More than anything else in the world.”

  “Then why haven’t you?”

  “Because of you. You haven’t fixed me yet, but the sessions keep reminding me to try to be normal. And normal people don’t kill. Right?”

  “It’s not about what’s right or wrong to say, Blake. I only want you to say what you feel. I only want you to say the truth.”

  “The truth is that I’m crazy Hannah. I’m crazier than you think. A lot crazier than anyone knows. And I always have been. The truth is I hate pretending. The truth is I get some kind of joy out of watching someone die, but afterward, I feel dirty. I love it for just the moment. And then afterward I feel so filthy. I feel so dirty that I scrub my skin in bleach and take two or three showers afterward in a row. The truth is I want to get better. I just don’t know if I ever will.”

  Don’t spaz out Hannah. Don’t show fear.

  “You will. That’s why I’m here. To help you get better.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Blake?”

  “Joel called in to the office. He said that he had been poisoned and had to be out a little longer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you do it? Did you poison him?”

  “Of course not. Did you?”

  He smiled.

  I actually didn’t mean that literally, but his response made me wonder.

  He was probably trying to trick me or get a reaction out of me again so I didn’t jump to any conclusions nor did I appear to be disturbed.

  Thankfully we had gone to the hospital when we did. Although they could never exactly pinpoint the poison for some reason or another, Joel was doing much better and almost fully recovered.

  “Did you?”

  “I did it for you.”

  Was he joking again right?

  He had a weird, disturbing sense of humor and the truth and lies from him always sounded the same.

  “I didn’t ask you for any favors,” I tried to be as calm as possible.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  We stared each other down for a while.

  He knew that I was trying to read him, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “If you poisoned Joel…why?”

  “I didn’t give him enough to kill him. Just enough to make him a little sick. And because he deserved it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he did.”

  “How did you do it?”

  Hopefully, this response would let me know whether I should believe him or not.

  “I put it in his coffee ever so often. Or if there was a time that we went for a drink, I would put it in there too. Not always. Just sometimes.”

  Oh my….

  Blake poisoned Joel?

  You have got to be kidding me!

  That’s it!

  I was done. I wasn’t going to see Blake again.

  At the end of this session, I was going to have Summer call him and inform him that there weren’t going to be any more sessions.

  At least not with me.

  He would have to find some other psychologist to terrify and interfere with their personal lives.

  I was not going to sit around and let him hurt mine.

  I wasn’t going to sit here and pretend that his actions were okay.

  I breathed fast and then slow, while he sat there and waited for my next question.

  “Why would you poison my husband Blake?”

  “Like I said, he deserved it.”

  “Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t think I can help you.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “You can. Are you upset about the poison? Trust me I was doing you a favor.”

  “By trying to kill my husband?”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

  “But you almost did.”

  “Almost doesn’t count.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  I screamed at him.

  I felt like I was the one losing my mind.

  I screamed again, and Summer popped her head into the room, but I waved her off.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Your help.”

  I couldn’t help him.

  No one in this whole world could help him.

  I was sure of it.

  He waited on me to pull myself together.

  Despite all of his confessions, and poisoning my husband, it was as though he knew that I wasn’t going to give up on him.

  I didn’t want to help him anymore.

  “I won’t go to the police about anything you have ever said to me.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. So with that being said, I no longer want to continue the sessions.”

  “She would be dead already if it wasn’t for these sessions you know that right?”

  To say that I didn’t care about what he’d just said would be a lie.

  I did.

  I was glad that his next victim was alive.

  But if helping him was going to make me lose myself or someone that I loved, I have to choose to save myself.

  Right?

  I took another deep breath as he watched me.

  From the looks of it, he wasn’t going to let me give up on him.

  And even though I knew that I n
eeded to…

  “So how long do I have to fix you? To keep you from killing again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you choose your victims?”

  “They choose me.”

  “How?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “If I’m going to continue helping you, there will be no more games. Let me help you. Or let’s just stop here.”

  Blake grinned.

  “Your victims are never random are they? You know them.”

  “Yes. Well, that depends on what you define as know.”

  “Do they do something to make you want to kill them?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So some of the people that you have killed did nothing at all?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then why did you kill them?”

  “Because they had to die.”

  “Why?”

  “Either they deserved it, were better off dead, or just in the way.”

  I was past being freaked out.

  I was past being grossed out or frightened.

  I was petrified.

  I was ruined for life.

  My mind, the way I counseled would never be the same again.

  I could already see the difference when I talked to my other patients.

  My approach to their problems was completely different.

  And maybe even a little more effective.

  Blake was changing the way that I did my job, and it seemed to be helping everyone else.

  Everyone but him.

  I stared at him as though I was condemning him with my eyes.

  “Who are you?”

  He looked at me as if he didn’t understand the question.

  “Who are you, Blake? Really?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I laughed like a crazy person just as he often did.

  Maybe I had to get on his level.

  “The question is quite simple. Let me ask you again. Who are you? The real you?”

  “Oh, so you found it out huh? What did I say? Something I said must have given it away. Or maybe I am teaching you how to be a better listener.”

  What was he talking about?

  What did I find out?

  What did I hear?

  “Yes,” I answered not wanting to take too long to respond.

  I was asking him to explain to me who he was on the inside. I wanted to know his perception of himself.

  Who he saw when he looked in the mirror.

  But from the looks of it, it looks like the question was about to get me something much more.

  “How did you find out?” Blake questioned again.

  I wasn’t sure of what to say, so I used his words against him.

  “People and papers lie. So I had to see what wasn’t there. You taught me that. So, again I ask you, who are you?”

  He looked impressed, but he still hesitated.

  “My real name isn’t important. You know, I heard it one day, and it wasn’t until then that I even remembered what my real name had been all of those years ago.”

  I was completely confused.

  “There have been a few before him. But I didn’t really know him. The real “Blake” that is. The man whose name and identity I stole. But I knew he was the right one; my next “man” the very second that he’d said his name. I look a lot like a Blake don’t you think?”

  Wait a minute…what?

  “We met one night at a bar. He’d just been through a big divorce and had packed what little he’d had left and hit the road. He was far away from home, just like I was. He told me that he was just going to ride until he found somewhere new to settle; somewhere to start over. He talked about how he’d left everything and everyone he’d ever known behind and that he wasn’t looking back. He sounded a lot like me. He sounded like he was running from the past just like I was. But I was always running. I’m so used to moving from place to place that it’s just a part of who I am. It’s hard for me to stay anywhere too long.”

  Oh, my…

  “I asked him all the right questions. Did he have kids? No. Did he have a family? Not any that were alive or that would be looking for him. He had an ex-wife, but she was marrying his best friend. He hated them both, and he was just looking to start over. I almost felt some kind of sympathy for the poor bastard. Almost.”

  “Wait, so you took someone’s name? Blake was someone else? You killed him didn’t you?”

  “All he had was a truck full of possessions, a few thousand dollars that he had been able to salvage, and a college degree that might come in handy. And it did. Look at me. Anyway, I watched him as he got wasted. I kept buying him drinks and for that night, I was his new best friend. I’d never had a friend. Not even one. I didn’t fit in. At school, in group homes, no one wanted me around them, but I couldn’t blame them. If they had gotten too close, I would have just found a reason to harm them. I don’t like for people to get too close. If I keep my distance, I won’t put myself in a position to get hurt.”

  I tried to imagine my life in his shoes.

  His loneliness.

  His hurt and neglect.

  His despair and uncertainties.

  Just trying to put myself in his position made me feel pain.

  Focusing on his moving mouth, I knew that he was about to tell me something horrible that he did, so I focused, and I listened.

  “I followed him out of the bar and approached him as he got into his truck. I acted as though I was going to get in the stolen car that I’d been driving from state to state in and then I asked him if he was okay to drive. I told him that it wouldn’t be a problem driving him to the nearest hotel. He declined so I let him drive away and followed him up the road a mile or two. He pulled over to throw up, and I pulled up behind him. I told him that I would leave my car and get him to his destination safely. He still declined, but as I picked his drunk ass off of the ground, I put him in the passenger seat of his truck, while I went to wipe my prints off of the stolen car. I took what little I had in it, threw it in the back of his truck with his things, got into his truck and drove away.”

  A familiar feeling rumbled around in my stomach, but I urged him to continue.

  “And?”

  “You want the details? And I drove with him passed out for miles and miles just before pulling deep into some random woods. I stabbed him so many times that I lost count and then I set his body on fire. I stayed until his body was completely burned, gathered up his bones, covered his ashes with dirt, and for the next two hundred miles, over every body of water that I passed, I threw a bone or two in different areas, scattering them, until they were all gone.”

  I was going to be sick.

  “I’d learned a thing or two from being in group homes, so I knew how to successfully steal someone’s identity. That part was easy. I got everything that I needed, and I took over his life. I’d done it before, so, it was like taking candy from a baby. I have been living as “Blake” for years. No problems. No glitches. I’d done some dirty work before, for people that were scared to get their hands dirty, I did have just a little help. You know with removing most of the dead man’s things from ever existing; except for the things that I needed of course. Birth certificate. Social security number. Swapping out the picture id’s of his with photos and replacing them with ones of me. I kept his college degree. Some job history. Things like that we kept.”

  He took a deep breath and so did I.

  I should have been gone to the police a long time ago but hearing this particular confession assured me that he would make sure that I paid for opening my big mouth.

  But going to the police was the last thing on my mind.

  And he knew it too.

  Besides, I didn’t even know his real name considering that he was living with a dead man’s identity.

  And chances were, if I tried to, he would still go ahead with his plans to kill his next victim, maybe even kill me and be gone in an instant.

&nb
sp; And all of this would have been for nothing.

  All of this time and all of his confessions were wasted moments if I couldn’t fix him and figure out how to get rid of his need to kill.

  It was so much pressure, but hearing him say that he would have killed his next victim a long time ago if it hadn't been for our sessions, gave me hope.

  I was doing something right.

  I was saying something that he seemed to be listening to.

  “How does it make you feel to finally confess that to someone?”

  “Good.”

  He was the most important patient that I had ever had, and I was going to find a way to fix him.

  Or die trying.

  ~***~

  “You were dreaming about Blake again.”

  I’m sure that I was.

  “I don’t mean to be.”

  “He must really be telling you some interesting things. Now that I think about it, you haven’t been quite the same since you started counseling him.”

  I knew that it wouldn’t be too long before he noticed but I still couldn’t say anything.

  I couldn’t even tell him that Blake was the one that had poisoned him.

  Joel would go insane!

  He had never hit me, but Joel had a temper, and he didn’t mind showing it.

  He wouldn’t care how crazy Blake was.

  He would go for Blake’s head, and there wouldn’t be a thing that I could do or say to stop him.

  The only problem with that was that it would probably be the biggest mistake that he’d ever made because there was no doubt in my mind that Blake would be the one to have the last laugh.

  And by that, I do mean Blake laughing over Joel’s dead body.

  And I just couldn’t let that happen.

  My decision to continue counseling after admitting to poisoning Joel was one that even I was surprised by, but Blake was sick.

  And I knew that some of the things that he did, he simply couldn’t help it.

  Although he’d said that Joel deserved it; I wonder what he’d meant by that.

  He hadn't bothered to tell me, but I was sure that soon enough I was going to find out.

  “Sorry.”

  “I think maybe you shouldn’t see him anymore.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he needs my help Joel. All of my patients need my help.”

  “Yeah but he’s the only patient that you are dreaming about Hannah. He’s the only patient whose name you are screaming out in your sleep.”