Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

Now, I have to confess that I’ve never “done” drugs, fearing the feeling of being out of control, so I have no firsthand experience with controlled delusions, but I have grilled friends about their drug experiences. One friend told me how LSD had turned a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese into a nest of wriggling vipers. After that, he always insisted on al dente .

At the same time, I once knew a girl—an actress—who didn’t use drugs at all, but nonetheless saw a blue-winged demon trailing her whenever she was stressed, which was pretty much all the time. The only good news was that she didn’t always talk about it. Not coinci-dentally, she was my first sexual partner, a onetime thing during which I was afraid to remove my black socks for fear everything else would slip out of place. I simply realized too late that the socks were still on. Logistics can be daunting, and mechanics are nothing short of a curse, but somehow it all comes out in the wash, as they say. Luckily for me, the actress didn’t seem to notice the socks, her eyes staring up intently over my shoulder toward the scalloped, shadow-box ceiling, where the demon no doubt hovered. I didn’t happen to notice the demon myself, but I was grateful for his distracting her.

The point is that the difference between the acid king and the actress was that his hallucinations were misperceptions of reality, while she was seeing something where in fact there was nothing there at all I think.

My sense of Bill Suff is that, like the acid king, his fantasy world is just an alternative view of our own. This means he’s grounded. This means he is conscious of his own imagination. If he is forever seeing vipers, then he can damn sure imagine them as spaghetti—either way, he knows he’s got a bowl of something in front of him.

Accordingly, while murder may not be murder and dead may be alive, Bill is well aware of his acts and he can extrapolate from them or even see them through someone else’s eyes when need be. I therefore knew I could make a point and have him “get it” despite his vocal denials. This seeming “sanity” is why we hate, fear, and are fascinated by certain serial killers—they appear to us to have rationally “chosen” their deadly avocation, and their victims are lured in by the same calm.

“Bill, we gotta face reality here—no one is going to publish your cookbook except as a footnote to your crimes. You want it published, it’s gonna have to go in our book. It’s up to you.”

Only a serial killer would reply as Bill did: “All right, do it— put the cookbook in our book,” he relented. It was more important to be published than to be innocent. Or, viewed from another angle: when you know you’re guilty, there’s a limit to how far you can maintain your act of innocence.

I was quite proud of myself.

“But the guy that wrote this stuff about me—what’s his name and how do I contact him?” asked Bill icily.

Before Bill’s formal sentencing, he was interviewed by a corrections and probation department official who made out an informational report for the judge. The jury had already voted for the death penalty, but the judge had a right to make it life imprisonment if there was some compelling humanitarian reason to do so. Bill had not testified at trial—now he could tell his side of the story to the corrections official, in the hope that he could sway the judge to spare his life.

Of course, Bill protested his innocence to every charge and every bit of evidence on which every charge was based. He was also innocent of killing baby Dijianet.

The corrections official—a woman—listened to Bill’s story, took copious notes, and then eyed him with a smirk as she snapped her notebook closed: “You know something, Mr. Suff, you must be the most wronged man on Earth.”

Bill thought about it for a minute, and then he nodded: “Yes, ma’am, I believe I am.”

In her report, the woman wrote that Bill was unrepentant, remorseless, and a liar. She, too, damned him because he seemed more concerned with his cookbook than with his crimes.

In fact, they were one and the same.

September 12 , 1991 . The lights were on and nobody was home . The big pot was simmering on Bill Suff’s stove . Only one more day to the chili cook - off . Bill had been a whirlwind of activity , dicing and slicing and grating and stirring — a pinch of spice , a tweak of condiment — tasting , tasting , always tasting , no wonder his spare tire now had a spare tire , but now he’d cleaned up all the pots and pans and utensils , cleaned them and hung them on their appropriate hooks , and tidied up the kitchen counter , and all that was left was the big crock - pot on the stove . And Bill was gone .

So was his van .

Cheryl was home , but she stayed out of the kitchen . Even with Bill gone , she could hear the growl he growled if she came near while he was cooking . He was gone , but the crock - pot was his alter ego , and it was there churning on the stove . The edge of blue gaslight watched her as she walked by the kitchen door . Bill would know if she went into the kitchen . He would know , and he wouldn’t like it . He berated her for her cooking which was unarguably lousy , but she knew he would be even angrier if she ever actually learned to cook . He needed her to be incompetent so he could take care of her . And she needed him to stay busy and distracted — anything so he’d stay away from the baby .

Cathy McDonald was having a good evening . It was a weeknight , and she’d just expected to earn enough to pay for food and a motel room for the weekend ( tomorrow , Saturday , and Sunday after church figured to be the big paydays ), but some college boys , a couple of lawyers , and a farmer with a truckload of onions had all welcomed her full red lips to their groins and their wallets , so she was ahead of schedule and pretty relaxed . All she’d done was get driven around the block a few times , and she’d even been able to keep her clothes on except for the top , of course . No AIDS issue either , not that she ever made much of an issue out of it . What would be , would be . The only thing she caught herself wondering as she wandered the street for one last trick that night was how come the onion farmer didn’t taste like onion . “ You are how you taste !” was a cute homily she shared with friends and customers alike . But this farmer — how could you grow and sell onions if you didn’t eat them ? How could you sell a good or a service you didn’t appreciate for yourself ? Cathy liked sex , always had . Paid or not , it was warm and exciting and made her feel in control . Everyone gets off on control , don’t they ?