The Other in Me?

      Sometimes I can see the other in his eyes when he thinks I'm not paying attention to what he says. It isn't always there – no, there are times when I am ready to believe my work here is done. But I mustn't fool myself into believing that he has cast off his shadows and is ready to live his few remaining days on death row in abiding calm. I know this cannot be.

      His shadows occupy whatever corner of the cell they wish to occupy at any time. They may even sit at the small desk or stand over by the door. Sometimes they lie down on his cot. I used to live in fear that somehow he could find a way to cast a shadow outside of the cell to follow me, but now I know that isn't possible. In fact, they can never leave him. And in fact, they really aren't even his at all. They, like myself, are here because they have a job to do.

      It has been fifteen years now since my first visit with him, and I cannot say with any degree of honesty that anything has been accomplished other than marking times and dates on a calendar. I came to offer spiritual solace. But instead, I found myself bearing mute witness to the recounting of his deeds, as I am bound to neither condemn nor condone. If I were of another following I could say that he has confessed before God, with me as his witness; therefore laying his soul bare in hopes of being washed clean and granted forgiveness, redemption and a ticket to heaven after they've flipped the switch. But I'm not in the redemption business, so I can't say that. But I digress. Let me now tell you about the other.

      I had been coming to death row for nearly ten years when he began to tell me about the things he did to small animals when he was a child. He started out catching the occasional neighbourhood cat to take into the wood behind his house. There, he would tie their feet together with wire, pour kerosene on them and set them alight. He enjoyed hearing them scream as they writhed in agony until they died. It was the only time he felt happy, he told me, and it wasn't something he tried and found out he enjoyed. He knew he would enjoy it, much the same way as he knew he would enjoy ice cream even before he had ever tasted any. It was about this time I started seeing his shadows. They weren't so noticeable then – just a little bit of dark movement just outside my field of vision. But I knew they were there. Of course, I did my best to stay centred and focused so as not to show him any sign of emotional engagement, but he must have seen something change in my poise. Maybe a slight shift of my eyes? No matter what it was that alerted him, it bothered him. And that was the first time I saw anything remotely human in his eyes. And so, he began to understand about the shadows and I began to understand about the other.

      His telling of memories continued each visit, and he went on to tell me that the thrill of killing cats soon wore off and he moved on to dogs by the time he was about sixteen years old. He thought their souls were bigger because they were more intelligent than cats and therefore killing them would be much the same as killing a person. They had something he wanted, but he didn't know what it was; and yet he knew that by torture and killing he could get that something from them. And it made him feel something. By that time he had developed more elaborate plans for abducting and killing. He was driving and had his own car, so he could hunt areas farther away from where he lived, looking for the most handsome breeds. They had to be beloved pets or the thrill wouldn't come. He wouldn't feel anything when the mongrels screamed. Only the pretty, pretty ones did it for him. Especially when he skinned them alive. He would tell these things and I would look at his shadows. And the other grew stronger in his eyes.

      I would later find out that he had served an apprenticeship at a tannery and that it was during this time that he had perfected his skills at cleanly and artfully skinning his victims. He could do it in such a way as to cause as little blood flow as possible. That way the victim lived longer, thus prolonging their agony and his delight. It was in the years following his apprenticeship that he skinned alive a prize winning Appaloosa mare and had his first orgasm as he watched her unborn foal fall from her as she fought in terror and agony against the tethers he had so artfully trussed her in. He had thoughtfully brought along a video recorder that time and enjoyed many orgasms thereafter as he replayed the video time and time again. But, as with the cats, the thrill eventually evaporated and he had to move on. And more shadows came, and the other continued to grow.

      And so began his experiments with young girls and when they no longer thrilled him he moved on to women. His torture and killing moments were all that kept him going. For without them he was nothing. With the women it had to be the same as with the animals – they had to be intelligent and beautiful. No homeless street women for him – no, they had to be pretty, smart and rich. And then when defiling them got boring he moved on to men. The euphoria he felt when he mutilated their genitals was beyond anything he had ever felt before and soon he had to have a woman and a man. Sometimes he made the boyfriend or husband watch while he raped and then mutilated the sex organs of the wife or girlfriend and sometimes it did it the other way around. No matter which way he did it he always kept his tapes. And still, through his telling the other grew more and more while the shadows multiplied.

      As fate would have it, it was a nosey landlady and those tapes that finally brought him to this cell. And fate brought me here too. I was called upon to visit him by my Abbot, who had been contacted by the prison chaplain. It seems that several visiting ministers and priests of varied denominations had given up on him after making the discovery that he had underlined certain chapters of the Bible, and the prison chaplain thought perhaps it was time to call in the Buddhists. 

     Time and time again he was given a new Bible by an unsuspecting visiting clergy who would be impressed during future visits when he or she would see the Bible showing signs of wear from being frequently read. The pages that were worn and underlined would always be the same. Anything to do with violence was his reading choice. Particularly the ones advocating the killing women and unborn babies, such as 2 Kings 15:16 Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.

      Of course, Ezekiel 9:5 was his favourite: And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:   6Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.  7And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. 

      Being a novice monk at the time I had no idea of what I was embarking upon and had no preparation or teaching to guide me in how to proceed, so let us just say that things evolved as they should. Mostly he would talk and I would listen, but there was a time after I had given him the Tibetan Book of Living and Dyeing that he began asking questions. 

     He wanted to know about Bardo – about the afterlife, and was it possible that his victims would see him there and if so, what would it mean. Could they harm him? He wanted to know. It was then I had to tell him I really didn't know, that no one could know. But I knew. I had seen the shadows. And it made me glad, and after tonight I'll go back into cloisters and live the path of contemplation.

      But for now, I'll go with him to the room and I'll stand on the other side of the glass with the shadows when they strap him in. And before they put on the hood I want him to look into my eyes and see the other in me. 

 

 
This work by Rima DeFord is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.