Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

When he came to, the ropes were gone. He couldn’t stand. The world was off balance. A passerby found him. An ambulance was called. He was in hospital for six weeks. His brain had swelled and holes had to be drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure. He was put into an induced coma for two weeks. Six of his ribs had been broken. So had his right arm. When he came out of it, he didn’t name the boys who had done it to him. He told the police he couldn’t remember who they were. Only he could remember.

His balance came back after a month. It took him a couple of days to start walking straight. Things he’d learned at school no longer made sense. The simplest things were no longer that simple. He didn’t like listening to his music anymore. He hated it. The comics didn’t make him laugh anymore, and he hated the stories because they were about people who had unique abilities he could never have. Instead he started to make his own comics. He wasn’t a good artist, but he was good enough, and he’d draw those kids who had hurt him, and he’d draw himself standing over those boys, and he’d draw different types of weapons and different ways to use them. Sometimes, when he wasn’t drawing, he’d sit in his room snapping the doors and wheels off his model cars. He heard his mother telling his aunty that he had changed, that something inside his head had been broken. He didn’t know what. His mother knew, and she’d explain it to him, but it just didn’t make sense. He was the same person, he felt the same-and yet he knew he had changed. Sometimes he’d forget things. Things before the beating were locked inside his memory for good, but some new things struggled to stick. He was always losing things, he couldn’t remember people’s names. But he didn’t forget the names of each of the boys who had done this to him. The police were still asking questions, only not as many now. They had moved on to other things. People forgot about what happened to Adrian.

He got his strength back. His balance came back. His mind started to heal. He would never be a hundred percent, but at least he could remember new things if he tried hard enough. However he saw things differently now. The kicks to his head, the swelling to his brain, it changed his perspective on life.

School was over for him. Even if he could have gone back, he wouldn’t have wanted to. What was he going to do, study to become an astronaut? The worst part was he couldn’t pour urine into the lockers of the boys who hurt him.

The best thing was it gave him more time to think about what he was going to do to them. Ever since then, he’s struggled to make friends. Now it’s looking like it might be the same with Cooper. Before the beating he wasn’t popular, but there were a couple of equally unpopular kids who would at least speak to him on occasion. If his mother were here, then at least there’d be somebody to comfort him, to calm him, to care that he’s upset. At least that’s the fantasy. His mother would do no such thing. She used to, a long time ago, until he started waiting outside his school and following those kids home who had hurt him. That’s when things got bad. It wasn’t long after this that his first mother sent him out here to the Grove and stopped being his mother.

It’s not fair, but things never are. Collecting Cooper is supposed to be the most exciting thing he has ever done, and these thoughts, along with Cooper’s actions, are bringing him down. There has to be a way to make Cooper like him. Cooper likes other people, which means it’s possible. He should go downstairs and ask Cooper who else has ever shown him such a respect as to want to own him for a collection! Who else thinks so much of Cooper’s work? Nobody!

He tries to tell himself Cooper just needs time to adjust, and remembers what it was like for himself when he was first brought out here, what it was like being in a foreign world, only for him it was worse, for him he was locked out here with dozens of other patients, some of them crazy, some of them mean, some of them crazy-mean, all of them set free three years ago when Grover Hills was shut down. He reminds himself he knew Cooper’s anger was always going to be a possibility.

Tomorrow his gift will go a long way to fixing any problems between them. For now, he should rest for the remainder of the day, and then sleep on it. Like his mother-not his real mother who abandoned him, but his second mother who looked after him and the others who were different-used to say, “A problem with rest becomes a solution most best.” He’s not so sure if his mother was right on that one.

He paces his bedroom, counting the footsteps, finding comfort in the familiar. He used to pace this room a lot as he grew from teenager to man. Sometimes he’d have the room to himself, other times he’d have to share it and there would be less room for his footsteps. The higher the number, the calmer he becomes. He prefers even numbers over the odd, and makes sure he always finishes his steps on a multiple of ten, having to either shorten or lengthen his stride to make it happen. He pushes everything from his mind until he reaches a thousand. A thousand is a good number, twice as good as five hundred, half as good as two thousand. A good, solid number, a multiple of ten and also a hundred, which itself is a multiple of ten. He sits down. He thinks about second impressions. He thinks about what he can do to make Cooper happy, and decides that giving the serial killer some books to read might help. It’s a great idea.

As quickly as the excitement comes, it disappears, replaced by a feeling of utter uselessness, a feeling he has been intimate with his entire adult life. Giving Cooper reading material is an idea to be proud of, but what he isn’t proud of is the fact it took so long for the idea to come. He should have known all along a man like Cooper needs to keep his mind active, stimulated, otherwise he’ll become stagnant. Collector’s items aren’t meant to be boring.

“Cooper will be so happy,” he says, knowing once he shares the idea the two of them will start to bond. For the last three years he’s been collecting books about serial killers. He loves reading them. They fascinate him. He picks up a handful of books from his bedroom and carries them to the basement. Cooper watches him coming down the stairs, his face in the small window, motionless. He looks gray, hollow, like a ghost who’s moved on to somewhere else.

“I brought you something to read,” Adrian says, holding up the books.

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Cooper says and Adrian is pleased at his politeness. “Are you going to leave the lamp for me?”

“It’s the only one I have,” Adrian says, “and I’ll need it for when it gets dark.”

“Then how am I going to read?”

Adrian straightens up the coffee table and sits the books on them, embarrassed because he doesn’t have an answer. Parts of the sandwich have stuck to the surfaces it hit, and the bread has gone hard. He’ll clean it up tomorrow.

“Are you mad at me?” Adrian asks, not looking up. “Don’t you feel special?”

“I feel trapped,” Cooper answers. “You seem like an intelligent guy, you must be to have accomplished all this by yourself. You must have plenty of friends you can talk to, why do you need to keep me here?”

“I don’t have any friends,” Adrian answers, fiddling with the books so all the spines are perfectly aligned. “I used to, but they all left.”

“Come now, that can’t be true,” Cooper says. “A guy like you, you must have lots of friends.”

“Are you mocking me?” he asks, looking up.

“I don’t mock.”

“You should feel special,” Adrian says. “I mean, you’re one of most special people in this city at the moment. You’re a serial killer, and if that isn’t special, I don’t know what is.”