Murderland

by Garrett Cook

  Then, without fail, Cass does it. There are those who call addicts inconstant and unreliable, and that might be true about the addict, but the addiction is like clockwork. Every time she gets content and relaxed and stops thinking, she does it. And it always gets us talking. Even when I’m on the outs with Jeremy, he starts to listen to me. Cass turns on the TV. I always see a sinister smile on its huge blank face as another anchorman is spawned from the pits of god-knows-where. The magic lamp is rubbed and the slick-haired genie emerges to share the latest juicy gossip. Funny thing that now the anchorman and I have become unlikely allies. He works for the Dark Ones and I for the light, but we move toward a synchronicity not unlike the one I just witnessed. Only that one was just dawdling and denial, and this one is part of the crusade.

  “Today, the Reap world was rocked by news of the death of one of its luminaries. Thomas Gennaro, 34, also known as the Cabana Boy, was found in his hotel room having overdosed on a variety of pills. Among these pills were antipsychotics, antidepressants, sedatives and MAOIs; a fatal cocktail of nineteen different medications. The authorities and Gennaro’s friends and relatives have declined to comment on what might have caused him to take his own life.

  Gennaro’s exploits and merchandise have been a Reap sensation recently, paralleling such big names as Mr. Right and Hacksaw Sally. During the course of his career as a Psychopomp, Gennaro killed prostitutes in all fifty states and managed to kill a record seventeen police officers during a chase into the Safe Zone with only his wits and a Molotov cocktail.

  Members of the Bundy Awards panel say to keep this in mind when you remember Thomas Gennaro, since this accomplishment and the ambitious spread of his killings more than overshadow his meager fifty-five victims. Seldom does a Psychopomp get a Bundy nomination and so much respect from the awards committee in spite of so few kills. This is what separates him from other Psychopomps with similar figures such as the late Karl Edward Pratt, alias Kris Kringle. In Ian Sterling’s popular reapchic.com newsletter Gennaro was called “classic,” “sublime,” and “an American original.” Thomas Gennaro, the Cabana Boy, you will be missed. Here are a few highlights from Gennaro’s five year career…”

  Jeremy is getting riled up and Cass is starting to cry. It couldn’t be more perfect. Opportunities to wrest control like this one come along far too infrequently.

  “God, I can’t believe it…”

  Jeremy wraps his arm around Cass and her tears are flowing as his had been earlier.

  “I just can’t believe it, the Cabana Boy…”

  Jeremy is somehow sympathetic. I watch him have so many feelings but I don’t understand half of them. Nonsensical. Insincere. Inefficient. Compromising. A pillar of strength, but not always one of integrity. I don’t respect this at all.

  “I know,” he tells her, “You have the t-shirt, the crime scene DVD, the interviews taped and you preordered his book on Amazon. You loved him, and you loved his work so much. I know.”

  She looks up at him, face like the confused child she is, “And now he’s…”

  “I know.”

  Suddenly she’s angry. Juvenile. Stupid and juvenile. Not even angry at him. Inefficient. Silly. Angry at God, for taking away the precious little dancing bear that filled her days with carnage and joy. I don’t get it, but he does. Maturity and saintly patience are what he has to offer to this absurd mess. He doesn’t listen when I whisper “robot,” but maybe because that’s me being immature. Not as grounded as it could be since robots aren’t so sensitive and erratic. I don’t know what she is. Fuck her. Fuck the little cunt. She’s blonde on the inside, somewhere in there. Robot mess, organic mess, just a mess I say. She glares, and the glare hisses like a cat.

  “No, Jeremy, you don’t know.”

  And now it looks like he’s going to start to implore her to be reasonable. Does that to me a bit too often. Meek little shit. Cat’s hissing glare falls on timid little mousy and Mr. Mousy says “oh, miss Kitty, please don’t eat me!” And all the important things, all the momentous events on page h8 are paling in comparison to this tantrum. Priorities, goddamn you, no priorities. I’m getting rather hot under the collar, even though I know in the end he’s going to start listening to me again and remember what he’s for. Good for him. Good for mankind. Good for me. Can’t I be selfish sometimes?

  “Cass,” he says, “I know what it’s like to…”

  His words are buffeted out of existence by an angry Cass’ violent interruption.

  “No, it’s like when John Lennon and Jim Henson and Vincent Price and…”

  And now Jeremy is trying desperately not to explode. I hate how much I am enjoying this. He now wants to have an outburst. He now wants to tell her that he was the one who killed that monster and that the Cabana Boy was a lunatic, not an entertainer. But he has to push the words back. He has to give them over to me for safekeeping. He needs me to hold him back now. Knew he’d end up on his knees. So, the question returns. Do I feel bad that I’m exploiting the situation? The tender intimate moments where suffering drips off Cass into Jeremy’s arms? No. No. I am doing the right thing. You can’t feel guilty when you are an agent of true innocence. I am ONLY capable of doing the right thing. Anything else would be completely foreign. I don’t have to be in denial to get to sleep each night, but on the other hand, I don’t have to sleep.

  “Cass, I…”

  “He’s gone! He was a great man, a great artist and now he’s gone forever.”

  Jeremy only gets more confused. Well, that is, the ape/child/dog part of Jeremy gets more confused. He did something good to protect people and make things safer and yet Cass feels bad. Could this perhaps be that she’s one of many robot pawns churned out by the vile steaming monster factory? Could it be that? Dense little creature. Doberman turns lapdog so quick. Worse part of all is you were doing this for her and all the others, Jeremy. You took one life to save many and now the bitch is mad that you care so much. The bitch is mad because you put down a rabid circus poodle and it can no longer prance about on the evening news for her, and the animals at Murderland and worst of all for Ian Sterling and the martini-swilling Le Couteau glitterati. But silly old Jeremy fixates on how she feels so broken up. He tries to maneuver around life’s grey areas most of the time, and I don’t blame him. I don’t do grey either. I twitch. I wonder how he’s returning to the necessity to comfort her. He briefly regrets ridding the world of one of the Dark One pawns that slaughters precious lambs. Some of them were real people even and real people are getting rarer. I’ll never understand regret, since after all I can only do the right thing.

  None of his struggling matters, since the television seals the deal for me.

  “Here to further discuss the impact of the Cabana Boy’s loss on the Reap Community at large and his personal reaction to the tragedy is Jonathan “Godless Jack” Cavanagh. Great to have you here again, Jack. It’s always an honor.”

  Jeremy looks up. Yellow contacts, twisting unhinged jaw. It looks as if he’s always chewing on something. Things like babies and the wombs they came out of. Disgusting puppet. Serpentine marionette reeks of evil little things. Horrible positions, revealing horrible filed and sharpened fangs. The mouth is every bit as horrible as the things that come out of and go into it.

  “It’s great to be here, Ted, although I prefer going on the show under better circumstances.”

  “Certainly,” says the anchor with mock gravity and Jeremy wonders which of them is less human. This is like wondering which cleaning fluid tastes better.

  “Thomas Gennaro is an institution. I agree with everything Ian Sterling has said, and I have to say, even such kind words from such a diehard fan aren’t enough. The moment I heard about this tragedy, I asked myself, Jack, what can you do about this? How can you make the world better for Thomas Gennaro, all the people who loved him and appreciated his work, and all the people like him? So, first I called up some of the boys at the Bundy awards. I called them up and I said that Tom…you know he alwa
ys preferred Tom…that Tom deserved some kind of posthumous lifetime achievement award. And I think that the Bundys should have some way to award our fallen comrades in arms. Secondly, I thought about the fact that this is stressful work and mental illness is no picnic. Most of us are sociopaths, schizophrenics, necrophiliacs and these things, well, they’re no picnic. Suicide and mental illness has claimed a lot of us. We’re people with very special needs. Reaping became legal because I was starving to death in prison and could only eat human flesh and organs, and not only that, but my condition made it impossible to take them in when I hadn’t hunted them myself. I could have died in prison if people hadn’t wised up. I think people still need to wise up about Psychopomps and their mental illness, though. We’ve gone far, but we can go further. I need more people to open their minds and hearts to the stressors and health problems that affect today’s Reap professional. That’s why I’ve put seven million dollars into starting the Thomas Gennaro Mental Health Foundation to find ways to help relieve the stress and the bouts of remorse caused by social pressures which, as I said, affect today’s Reap professional.”

  “Wow, that’s incredible,” says the anchor. A smile crosses Cass’ face.

  “After that, I decided to call Penny…you know Penny Dreadful from Penny Dreadful and the Aberrations…I called Penny and I talked to her about putting out a single to benefit the foundation. She just jumped at the chance. She’s such a warm and giving person. She’s just great.”

  “Thank you, Jack. In these tough times it’s good to know that there are people who care. Now, I understand you’ve helped develop your own fragrance.”

  Jack smiles. It’s nauseating. “Yes, I call it Zero for men.”

  “That’s kinda your trademark. It’s your thing, the zero…”

  “It’s a very important symbol. It’s a spiritual focus for me, since it says where we’re going and where we’ve been. My cologne reminds people that the deadliest predators emit the sweetest pheromones…”

  Jeremy shifts a little and he concentrates on all the Dark Ones floating over Jack’s head. That’s when I know that I’m back.

  You Can Rock it, You can Roll it, You can Stomp and Even Stroll it…

  The sign over le Couteau buzzes with blood red neon, intense enough to kick your teeth out for looking at it funny. I marvel at it since this is an exceptionally expensive chemical dye. So perfectly red it feels like the blood is trying to creep out the back of your eyes and you’re just witnessing it. I would tell Cass how rare and costly and potent this dye is but she would give her “what fucking planet are you from” stare and I feel awkward enough. No, not just awkward enough. Awkward enough was when I agreed to come along this time. This is TOO awkward, too awkward by far.

  First and foremost, I am wearing a cape. I am not Christopher Lee and I am not Superman. I have no reason to wear a cape beyond looking cool. The cape, my top hat and my anachronistic and thoroughly un-Victorian boots make me feel like a giraffe on a unicycle. Tall, gawky, perpetually off balance. Usually the musculature and broadness of my frame make me big but this stuff leaves me weaker, more weighed down and comically lanky. Foppish, giraffe on a unicycle, six or seven pounds of Victorian clothing and big, heavy combat boots…masculinity, dignity, and sense of self exchanged for these apparently more appropriate accessories.

  Cass has her hair straight and perfect, her clothes modest and conservative (well, in her eyes.) For some reason, she made me dress Ripper, while she herself is a Bundy Girl. I don’t have the nerve to tell her I might have felt more comfortable if she had at least bothered to do Whitechapel Girl or Rip Chick. The less trusting part of me makes me think that the sign, the parking lot and the clothes might just be part of an elaborate prank and I’m walking into a Denny’s full of old college friends of mine with cameras and six packs in their hands. It would have made me a little more certain that I wasn’t making a fool of myself if she had dressed similarly, but no, she’d been planning the Bundy Girl outfit for a while.

  And it shows. It takes care and precision to do anything good with seventies sorority chic. There is something naturally fetishistic about it, yes, but care needs to be taken to look good. As with most Reap clothing, it’s necessary to bend the rules. Bundy girls used to just wear wool sweaters, but “fashion Messiah” Ian Sterling brought up in his column once that while the wool sweater looks good, fashion designers should try and create a more comfortable and form-fitting wool substitute. Good work as always, Ian. Cass is wearing this wool substitute and it’s tight enough that you can imagine everything that you can’t see with vivid clarity. On top of wearing this sweater, she isn’t wearing a bra. The skirt is a porno parody of the real thing; if the original was made to entice, this was made for outright rape. The thong underneath is every bit the anachronism the Ripper cloak is in this day and age, and the supposedly conservative beige nylons she has on are perforated with strategic tears. The three inches taller that those heels make her certainly doesn’t do her appeal any harm, either. Were I not outside of Le Couteau, I would be excruciatingly turned on. Yet, here I am, outside Le Coteau, conscious of the purpose of every dot of makeup and every tear in those stockings. Conscious of the painfully mixed signals of her clothes: “I am a victim”, but also, “I am my own predator”. Simultaneous unflinching confidence and violent passivity. Sad that she can’t make up her mind. Why can’t I stop judging? I should be looking at this sleek mirage and thinking about how lucky I am to walk into even this place with this woman.

  Alas, my mind is completely stuck on my Ripper garb and the ludicrous expense the club must have gone to for such a perfect shade of neon light. Two blocks down people are starving, but they’re not good for the ambience. And the blinkers on the sign are so lavish and precise. There is no transition time between the blood red and the ice blue that it suddenly changes to. Such a great blue, too. Even though I’m sweating bullets in my ridiculous costume, the blue gives me a chill. The chill doesn’t last long, since the blue doesn’t last as long as the red. Next comes an intense dark indigo, which perfectly outlines a little knife. Does human ingenuity excite or nauseate me? Can I choose a stance? Christ, I think too much. I feel the heaviness of my cloak and boots and God forgive me, I’ve just gotta ask her.

  “Cass, are you sure I actually look cool?”

  This place does terrible things. For me, of all people, to let those words pass my lips is a sign of cracking, of surrendering one’s integrity to the postmodern void. Of being on the path to using phrases such as: “postmodern void” with any kind of regularity. I tell myself that it’s just Cass that I want to accept me. Here, it’s a challenge. Outside of my livingroom and my warm bed and a couple restaurants I like, it is often a challenge to feel accepted. I can be calm, cool and calculating, I can fit in, but I don’t feel it. The pharmacy doesn’t even feel like I belong there. Cass accepts this and I need Cass to accept me, so I guess I have to be this. Robot logic. Where’s the humanity? I think I’m patronizing her in a way, but things are different here. More than a TV to compete with. So, I have to know if I actually look “cool” and if I could fit in with this part of her life.

  “Of course you look cool,” she says, “didn’t I design your outfit?” she smiles a bit and squeezes my hand. “Besides, look around you.”

  Here I look down and find that I am standing on empty air. I walk off the cartoon cliff, realize I have done it and I am beginning to plummet. I have tried so hard to cloud the crowd from my mind in hopes that they would go away or melt together into a more slightly amorphous blob of a crowd. Nothing that would remind me that they were human once and that humanity is oh so fragile and can vanish with the greatest of ease. This isn’t humanity, this is Reap. Murderland is bad enough, but Murderland is just a restaurant more or less, only a little café. This is Le Couteau. This is “the knife”, a night out for Murderland patrons, a very special reward for being the social dregs of America. Murderland regulars look forward to their visit to Le Couteau and put har
d earned cash from the town’s drive-thrus and videostores and gas stations into their props, outfits, makeup and the eight dollar “we never card” martini. Of course, it’s not only hard earned wages that go to waste. This is, after all, Reap culture. Just as much of this cash came out of the purses of old ladies and the lunch money of geekier, weaker classmates. It’s a real miracle that these kids aren’t considered geeks themselves. When I was in highschool, guys like these would have been wedgied out of their anal virginity and left in their lockers. The ones my age should have the same done to them.

  The Rippers here all have on variations of my outfit. I find it odd that mine is sort of on the conservative end of things. But then again, Cass did call it vintage. (Which is funny because Reap has been around for all of six years). Many of them have added eyeliner, which even after years of being around Cass and news and Reap paraphernalia I have yet to understand. It seems like they put the Ripper into some nether-realm of German expressionist nightmare to replace all the history that’s gone down the drain. History is difficult, eyeliner is easy. Others have replaced the tophat with a deerstalker in order to somewhat conform to the sightings. Fewer have decided to wear long fake beards and adhere to the controversial Hasidic Jew theory. The most boring substitution and the most common is foregoing the cape in favor of a longcoat. I would still say that in my obnoxious Halloween costume-turned street clothes, I look like the majority of them.

  That’s why the razor in my pocket makes me feel a little sick. Out of all of these waves of disgusting pretenders, I’m the only one disgusting enough to be, at least on some level what they’re pretending to be. I feel like real Nazis must have felt watching Indiana Jones movies. I’ve been waist deep in the ugly they wish they had the guts to be. I’ve cut people open and taken out the organs, and I wish it gave me half the rush these people think that it would. Half the rush and none of the disgust. And as I was doing all that messy, vital apocalyptic business, they’re out streetfighting and playing splat and jerking off to Reap videos and dancing like gorillas on laudanum. So I guess I do look cool, because I look like everyone else. I’m cool because I look like a killer, and I guess I feel like a geek because I actually am a killer. And a fantastic killer too. All these people they worship are nowhere near my equals. I’ve killed over three hundred women, and in such a way that the authorities think I’m several ineffective reapers instead of one great one. And they can’t touch me because my apartment is in the Safe Zone. So, I’m a hundred times cooler than all of these people, except for the feeling that my soul smells like a wet dog and the fact that I’m killing as a good work. So, maybe it makes me less cool, since I’m charitable. No, it’s the boots and opera cape that make me less cool. None of these people are cool.