Those were the mornings without the taunts from the others.
Michael the Flood! Michael the Flood! Michael forgot to row the boat ashore!
When he was fourteen, he created a contraption from a plastic Coke bottle and a pair of Ace bandages. He fashioned the bottle into a kind of homemade bedpan, which he held in place with the bandages strapped around his waist and thighs. He became adept at his stealthy subterfuge. He still didn’t drink past noon. He still hated the smell of his body, only more so because of the urine.
If he’d have believed in God or anything good, holy or kind, he would have held hope that whatever was wrong with him would pass.
That he’d never want to hurt anyone again.
But now and then, throughout his teenage years, he couldn’t stop himself from looking for ways to kill someone and not get caught. It was merely a thought, and never put into practice.
Maybe he’d found a way to cure himself?
Michael had only one piece of paper that seemed to give concrete proof that he’d ever had a life outside of foster care or a state institution. It was the small news clipping about when he and Sarah were found at Disneyland. He’d used it to call the police department to see if there was a case file, but the cop who’d been mentioned had transferred to another jurisdiction.
The idea that his mother could dump her children like garbage made the bile rise in his throat like a choking acid.
The Ogilvy Home for Children had a two-bit computer lab of obsolete PCs and printers that didn’t work. It had no Internet access, or he’d have tried to find her. He smuggled a disc from the rickety lab and occasionally kept notes, stories, and thoughts.
He wrote of a staff member who had looked at him with the “evil eye” when he was walking to the cafeteria after morning classes.
He’s a fat pig. He even has a pig nose. I’d like to take a knife, slit him up the middle and spill his smelly guts all over the chemistry lab. I’d do it slowly. I’d do it in front of everyone so that when he cried out, I’d tell everyone to shut up or I’d do it to them.
Another time, after she was gone, he wrote tenderly of his sister.
Sarah deserves better and I know she’s found it. She’s in a sunny place. She’s eating fruit that isn’t soft and mushy from a can. She doesn’t have that weird metal taste in her mouth and she shouldn’t. She didn’t deserve any of this shit that mom dumped on her.
He never included himself in those rants. He never fixated on why he wasn’t worthy of a decent home, the love of the family. He was smart enough to know why. He’d wetted the bed. He was filled with hate for just about everyone. He figured that the rest of the world didn’t care about someone like him.
Not until he did something to hurt them. Then, they’d get it. Too late. But they’d get it nevertheless.
Almost everything with a heartbeat seemed to provoke him. He tried to interest the other boys in the institution in doing what he called “frog stomping.” Whenever the sprinklers ran long into the night during the summer, the cement courtyard would be dotted with the small jumping creatures. He saw no difference in turning them into splat than adults who’d crushed a bug.
“You’re a sicko,” said one of the other kids, a Mexican who considered himself a badass, but who didn’t like the frog-stomping game.
“You’re a faggot,” Michael shot back, using the word that he loathed more than anything. It was the word Mr. Hansen had called him a time or two.
“You’re a good boy,” he’d said as he pleasured himself against Michael’s pale young skin. “Maybe too good a boy. Maybe you’re a faggot and you really like this.”
Michael killed cats and dogs and found that he enjoyed it. Other kinds of animal murder merely brought him a smile. One time, he poisoned the fish in the dentist’s office. When the receptionist turned her back, he emptied a Baggie filled with ammonia. By the time he’d left the dentist chair, he was beaming.
No cavities and an aquarium full of floaters. Who could ask for more?
Chapter Forty-three
The morning light filtered through the café curtains that Olivia Barton had made as her first sewing project with the machine Michael and the kids had given her that Christmas. She hadn’t liked the frilly selection at the Linen N Things that commanded most of the real estate in their neighborhood strip mall. She wanted simple and chic, not country saloon. She smiled at her handiwork and waited for Michael to notice them. She vowed she’d wait a week if she had to. Maybe two.
The smell of orange juice and frying bacon filled the air of the amber-painted walls of the kitchen. The children were still asleep, which was slightly unusual. Olivia didn’t mind. Michael had come in late on Friday, and the kids waited up to see their father. Their slumber meant that she’d have time alone with the man she loved.
But something seemed wrong.
Olivia looked at Michael with her dark brown eyes full of genuine concern as he stared at the screen of the small TV mounted under the white cabinets.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He didn’t respond. He kept his eyes fixed on the screen.
A brunette helmet-headed reporter with a shrill delivery reported on the horrific murder of the girl at Beta Zeta House at the university in Dixon, Tennessee. Michael looked a little flushed. It was more than being tired from the long trip. He just didn’t look right. Out of sorts? Sick?
“…The crime scene was so grisly that FBI profilers tell me that the killer was driven by rage against the victim. This killing, they say, was personal.”
“Fine,” Michael said. He reached for his World’s Best Daddy coffee cup. “I’m fine.”
Olivia looked at the photo on the screen. It was a pretty girl, young, full of life. Under her photograph, the chyron lettering identified the victim: Sheraton Wilkes, dead at 20.
“Sad story. Such a waste,” Olivia said as she poured some creamer into the cup.
Michael looked down at his twin piles of hotel and restaurant receipts and took a swig of his black coffee. “Agreed.” He fidgeted with the receipts, as though he couldn’t find something important. He was really looking for a way out of the conversation. A graceful way out. One that wouldn’t cause worry.
“I’m not feeling so well, I guess,” he said. “Probably food poisoning from that seafood restaurant.”
Olivia felt his forehead. “You know you should never eat seafood if you can’t see the ocean from the dining room.”
He managed a brief smile. It was as fake as could be, but he hoped she didn’t see that. He loved her more than anything. A tear in his facade, and just maybe she’d see him for what he was.
“I know. I know,” he said, excusing himself for the downstairs powder room.
“Oh, baby,” she said, “I’m sorry you don’t feel well.”
“It’ll pass.”
With the door shut and locked, he turned on the fan and ran the sink tap at full force. He flushed the toilet. He did whatever he could to give him a second in which he could let out his anger and disappointment. He paced, but there was barely any room in there to move. He felt the walls move in and out, taunting him.
From the kitchen, Olivia heard the muffled noise and went in search of antacid.
He must be really, really sick, she thought, rifling through the shelf next to the sink that held ten kinds of children’s vitamins, cough medicine, and a few things for the adults of the house.