I think Vic came to shoot me that night, is what I think.
2
If someone asked me to describe myself in a single word, depraved is the one I would use. The depravation has been useful to me. Useful to what end, I couldn’t say. But I have survived the worst. Survivor is the second word I’d use. A dark death thing happened to me when I was a child. I will tell you all about it, but first I want to tell what followed the evening that changed the course of my life. I’ll do it this way so that you may withhold your sympathy. Or maybe you won’t have any sympathy at all. That’s fine with me. What’s more important is dispelling several misconceptions—about women, mostly. I don’t want you to continue the cycle of hate.
I’ve been called a whore. I’ve been judged not only by the things I’ve done unto others but, cruelly, by the things that have happened to me.
I envied the people who judged me. Those who lived their lives in a neat, predictable manner. The right college, the right house, the right time to move to a bigger one. The prescribed number of children, which sometimes is two and other times is three. I would bet that most of those people had not been through one percent of what I had.
But what made me lose my mind was when those people called me a sociopath. Some even said it like it was a positive. I am someone who
believes she knows which people should be dead and which should be alive. I am a lot of things. But I am not a sociopath.
When Vic shot a hole in himself, the blood leaked out like liquor. I hadn’t seen blood like that since I was ten years old. It opened a portal. I saw the reflection of my past in that blood. I saw the past clearly, for the first time. The cops came to the restaurant looking horny. Everyone had been cleared out of the place. The man I’d been eating with asked me if I would be okay. He was putting his jacket on. He meant would I be okay alone tonight and for the rest of my life because I would never see him again. Once he’d asked me who my group was and I didn’t know what he meant and now I did. The dead man on the floor was my group. I was part of a group that Dartmouth didn’t recognize. After the cops left I walked home to my apartment. I thought I had no carbohydrates in the house, but I found a taco kit. The worst thing about eating too much is that you need more Klonopin than usual. I got just high enough to be decisive. I decided I was going to find her.
Vic was probably cold by then. I pictured his cold tentacles. When someone suffocates you with what they believe is love, even as you feel your air supply being cut off, you at least feel embraced. When Vic died, I was completely alone. I didn’t have the energy to make someone else love me. I was inert. Vuota. A word my mother would have used. She always had the best words.
There was one person left. A woman I’d never met. This was terrifying because women had never loved me. I was not a woman whom other women love. She lived in Los Angeles, a city I didn’t understand. Mauve stucco, criminals, and glitter.
I didn’t think Alice—that was her name—would love me, but I hoped she would at least want to see me. I’d known her name for years. I was almost positive that she didn’t know mine. For the first time in a long time I was going somewhere for a reason. I had no idea how it would go in California. I didn’t know if I would fuck or love or hurt someone. I knew I’d wait for a call. I knew I would be rabid. I had zero dollars but didn’t rule out the prospect of a swimming pool. There were many paths my journey could take. I didn’t think any of them would lead me to murder.