Authors: Lourdes Bernabe
“Might as well tell you.
I think you can handle it. We’re not too far from your place actually. We’re in Central Jersey. Maybe an hour or so from your apartment.”
“Are you kidding me?” I replied
.
“Yeah, I know. You’re pissed
. I can see that. And…technically, I did kidnap you. But I’m not gunna hurt you and neither are they. You’re safe. Just try to relax and enjoy your new friends because you never know. You might actually grow to like ‘em. Just give them a chance will ya?”
Derek had a knack for convincing people. He knew just what to say to get you to do exactly what he wanted you to do exactly when he w
anted you to do it. It was an admirable skill I had long ago acquired myself. Unfortunately, I did not appreciate the way in which it was currently being used against me instead of by me.
I sighed as it appeared
I had no choice but to simply acquiesce. I pulled myself into the creepy white minivan that Santa was driving. Under normal circumstances, a young woman such as me should never ever enter a plain unmarked white mini van and expect to exit said vehicle at a later time. Chances were that the young woman would be dead within a matter of hours, no more than a day or so at the latest. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances, and I was fairly certain, well… as certain as I was going to be at this time, that I would make it out alive. As creepy as these guys looked, they appeared to be tamed. Tame enough to not kill me. At least, not now. I couldn’t say much about later.
I slid into the middle carriage of the white mini van and Derek slid on down next to me. Santa drove while one of the other men sat in the passenger seat next to him. Two more even scarier looking men sat behind us and then Santa stepped on it and headed straight onto the Garden State Parkway.
I felt like I was taking a joy ride with Motley Crue.
I must say that the only unnerving part of this current situation was the fact that two creepy black men were sitting direc
tly behind me. It made me uncomfortable and I took solace in the fact that Derek was sitting in the seat right beside me. In an extraneous circumstance such as this, a person will find anything to take comfort in and for some reason I took comfort in Derek. It was probably due to the fact that he took his time and wasn’t as overbearing or as creepy as the others. The reasons didn’t matter; it was something that kept me sane as I continued on this endeavor with these five strange men.
We pulled up to a Red Lobster in
some far off town of which I had no familiarity. It looked quiet on the outside but once we walked in the place was a madhouse. Derek asked the tiny hostess for a table for six which meant a very large table in the back corner. It’d be a good place for the six of us to chat and “get to know each other.”
Luckily for me, we sat at a table and not a booth. Logically speaking, I didn’t think three of us would be able to sit comfortably in one of those booths. I just met these guys and a booth may have been a little too up close and personal for my comfort. I sat at the middle of the table. I figured I wanted to fully absorb everything everyone said and I really wanted to get to know everyone as much as possible. Hey, I was here, might as well dive on in.
I didn’t want to be sent home with a bunch of questions as to what the fuck just happened. Once everyone was situated, I sat still reading everyone’s facial expressions. What else was there to do? I listened as well, but you could learn so much more from looking at a person’s face and studying their emotions and nervous ticks than simply listening to the words that spewed out of their mouths. Words do help, but usually what people say is merely a distortion to what their face is really trying to convey.
A general fact in life, peopl
e were liars. And while people
could
control their emotions and facial expressions it really was not all that easy to accomplish. Maybe I couldn’t gather that much information from these men doing something as simple as ordering drinks from a menu but there was definitely something to see. These men were tightly wound. They were…apprehensive, to say the least.
I took a moment to glance at the menu and order
ed the first thing that appealed to me. I didn’t want to dilly dally on the menu when I needed to be fully immersed in every sight and sound. Let’s not forget that I was taken here unwillingly. Well, I was willing once we were leaving the library but I
was
taken from my home.
Knowing
that we were somewhere in the state of New Jersey I did feel some ease but it was not total. I was still taken by Derek and then taken here to Red Lobster where I’m supposed to get to know five strangers who apparently knew all about me. I was still unsure about what they knew exactly and it didn’t help that I knew nothing about them. That lack of knowledge was unnerving to someone like me. I thrived on knowledge and while yes curiosity thrived on not knowing it was still rather uncomfortable. Shit, it’s fuckin’ scary.
For all I knew they
were crazy or psychotic or even cold-blooded killers like me. That much wasn’t much of a stretch. I simply tried to mentally prepare myself for whatever it was that they were going to lay on me. Then I realized that I couldn’t prepare myself. I had to let go of all preconceived notions, no matter how difficult that might prove to be.
Derek cleared his throat as if demanding the attention of the table and began to speak. “Alright, I know you guys wanna get to know Jolene but how bout we answer some of her que
stions before we start bombarding her with questions of our own? Agreed?”
Everyone around the table seemed to agree in unison without saying a word. Derek went about introductions as if he were announcing the starting lineup of the New York Yankees. “Ok so to your right is Jimmy Jack and to your left is Ramos. Directly in front of you is Murph and that right there is Orlando. And then there’s me, Derek, but you already knew that right?” I nodded and as if on cue I s
aid, “Hello. Um, I’m Jolene…to be honest, I still don’t get why I’m really here. I mean…Derek mentioned something about me being some kind of Queen and all but I just don-” but everyone seated at the table started talking at once.
They
blurted out questions left and right and made comments but I couldn’t catch on to anything concrete being said. I sat silently with a bewildered expression on my face that said nothing of how utterly confused I really was.
Derek slammed a ketchup bottle on the table and yelled, “
QUIET!” Then he brought it back down to a whisper after taking a look around the entire restaurant to make sure he hadn’t drawn too much attention to our table and finished with “for the love of God.” I glanced around the room myself but no one was really paying any attention to us at all. That’s when the table erupted in laughter.
I
didn’t get it. What was so funny? Hey, I thought…I wanna laugh too. I didn’t particularly enjoy being left out.
“Ok. Ok!” exclaimed Jimmy. “We can get a little out of hand sometimes.”
He smiled as if he was genuinely having a good time. Jimmy must have weighed a good 300 pounds. He was the kind of menacing black man you’d expect to check your ID at the door to a club on a night out. You wouldn’t want to mess with Jimmy. His eyes practically bulged out of his sockets to get a closer look at me. If he was trying to make me uncomfortable it was working. His constant stare gave me the creeps and I diverted my eyes away from him and looked at the group as a whole.
I wondered how these men came to know each other.
If it weren’t for the fact that these men looked like they were from all different walks of life you might confuse them with being brothers. The way they clung to each other physically and the way they spoke to one another suggested they shared a tight bond.
At the very least, they were friends. Close
friends from what I gathered. All I could think about was the fact the Derek had mentioned that somehow these men were like me. I assumed he meant like me in the sense that these men enjoyed the same extracurricular activities as I do. But if they enjoyed the kill as much as I did, what stopped them from hurting me? And if there were no intentions to discard my body like trash into an incinerator, where did I fit in here? The question didn’t surprise me. I’d never truly fit in anywhere.
However, I’d done a fairly good job of making it appear as though I did fit in when I really didn’t. I was
sure I could pull it off with this group right here but I was hit with the sudden realization that I didn’t want to fake my way through this.
Could this really be what I always believed I would always have to live without? Here I was with a group of people who kinda-
sorta knew me and they weren’t repulsed, disgusted or disturbed. I’d never seen that before.
I felt a sudden surge of…what was that? I felt the weight of the boredom that always seemed to linger in my head dissipate and excitement shuffled in to replace the hole that had been left. I felt…good.
How strange and unusual. I could only compare it to what one of my kills might feel like but on a much more subdued level.
Ah, so this was what liberation felt
like. Here, amongst these men, I was free to be me. My thoughts scrambled again. I couldn’t contain the trail of thoughts that rushed through me, so I just said anything I could to move things along.
“Ok, so what do you guys
wanna know?” I asked. I wasn’t sure where to start or what exactly I wanted to know. I just really wanted to start a conversation and I knew the thoughts would flow freely and I could begin to comprehend the nature of this bizarre day.
Jimmy, the big black man whom I was trying to avoid eye contact with
, jumped at the opportunity to say something. He was the scariest of them all, in my opinion. With eagerness dripping from his face, he lowered his head and his neck protruded from the rest of his body and he asked, “How do you do it?”
Huh? I looked straight at him and impulsively squinted my eyes.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. What the fuck did he want to know? “How do I do what? What do you mean exactly?” I asked.
Then the man next to me who had been sitting there in silence turned to his right to look at me and spoke. “He means how do you kill the way you do,” he said softly. “Specifically, why do you do it?” He reminded me of my grandfather who would always speak to me the way a teacher asks a student a question. I looked back at him still a bit confused but still getting a clearer picture of where this conversation was heading.
I dropped my head to look down at my hands. My fingers slowly danced around with my napkin that I had been rubbing together in small soft circles on my lap. It was a coping mechanism I had learned as a child so I could stop biting my fingernails. Instead of biting, I kept my fingers busy so they wouldn’t creep up into my mouth without my brain catching on that I was once again, biting my nails. Playing with the napkin prevented me from annihilating my fingernails everyday. Then I looked up and my eyes met up with all these other pairs of eyes waiting patiently for an answer. They really wanted to know.
“I guess
to answer the question, I just…” I tapered off not quite sure how to convey into words the lifestyle I chose to live. I didn’t want to defend myself nor offend these men but they asked a sincere question. I wanted to give them an honest answer. “I do it because I want to. And when I want to do something, I do it. I do it when I want, how I want, and with whomever I want. I know you’re asking about killing. But the way I kill is the way I live. I don’t talk myself out of it. I think it and then I do it.”
“Yeah, j
ust like I thought. This chick is bat-shit crazy,” said Murph half laughing. His laugh conjured images of Santa laughing,
Ho Ho Ho
. The others chuckled as well, and it was a strange relief to see that they were smiling in response to what I had just said. Were they impressed? How intriguing.
I noticed Orlando being very quiet. He sat across from me and it became apparent that he was
taking it all in. This one was the skeptic. I supposed that was why he just kept staring at me in an accusatory tone. He wasn’t exactly bursting with lovable bubbles and sprinkles begging me to come play along. If there’s a dangerous one to look out for in this scenario my bet would be this Orlando. I just didn’t appreciate that look.
“Are you aware of how few women are capable of what you have just said?” asked Ramos inquisitively. “Uh. No.” I replied. “I’m gunna take a shot and say not too many women do the things that I do.”
“You would be right.” said Ramos. “But to deduce a bit more, almost none. None that I’ve ever heard of and I’m pretty sure these men can say the same.” He stopped talking and looked at rest of the table. They slowly shook their heads in my direction in unison backing up his previous statement.
“Look,” interjec
ted Jimmy. His eyes bulged out of his head and his lips pressed pursed together. “We all do it. Everyone sitting at this table kills people. But you on some crazy shit, girl.” He twisted his neck like a Puerto Rican teenage girl from the Bronx and my lip curled into a smirk. His mannerisms tickled my funny bone.
“Ok
Jimmy
,” I said making sure to put some oomph into his name. “If I’m crazy, how do you do it huh?” I’ve seen the work of famous serial killers and I didn’t really think I was nearly as crazy as they were. Yet here we were. And this man, whom I assumed also killed human beings, thought
I
was crazy. Of course, it was not completely lost on me that most serial killers thought they were perfectly sane when in fact many of them were not. But I really wanted to know how it could be that Jimmy could justify that statement right now.