Finally a chance to be rid of you. The bowling alley was dim and the loud music and chatter from the people milling about was the perfect environment to start the plan. I had driven them here, my "friends", I really don't care about them, they just seemed too perfect to be a part of this world. Seeing them laugh and have so much fun during the late hours before the slaughter was just joyous for me. The final frame of the game, I was losing by almost fifty points, but that didn't matter, my mind was already in the backwoods behind this dingy place where I would take them afterward until I was ready to drive them home, or rather ready to dump the bodies and run screaming. The best thing about looking so innocent is it's very easy to play the victim. I thought briefly about what I could possibly do to them, maybe take a bowling ball and hit them in the head....but no, someone may see this. It needs to be inconspicuous. My plan will be fine as long as I can find something long and thin to wrap around their necks...the shoelaces. I look up to see it's my turn to throw. Taking a few steps I line up the shot. The collision of the ball hit four of the pins and a few of them wobbled but didn't fall. I grabbed my ball again and threw it nonchalantly. It hit another pin which knocked over two more. I decided to go to the restroom before we left the building. There I removed the shoelaces from my bowling alley shoes. They were mismatched and one fit much better than the other. The long leather laces were softened by many years of use.
It has been many years since that fateful night. I lured my three classmates into the woods and strangled them one by one. I was slightly surprised it all worked out in the end. After the deed was done, I gave myself a moment to procure the necessary tears to complete the act. But not to my knowledge another man had walked up the path to see me strangle the last of my "friends". He had promptly called the police. We sat waiting, quiet awkwardly, in the lobby area of the bowling alley while the police investigated the scene. They would come in and pull the man aside, ask him a few questions and have him sit again. He was an eyewitness after all. That is what got me here. In cell 24601, where I will be til my dying days. My crime was short and sweet but the list of crimes could fill a book; it ranged from premeditated murder to plain old assault. My track record shows that I am bad, but I didn't feel a thing. I think that's called being psychotic...but I had always affiliated that with Norman Bates type characters who come from unsavory family backgrounds or have a history of mental illnesses in their family. That wasn't me, my family was normal, run of the mill even, the whole shebang, white-picket fences, two kids and cars, a childhood dog and a huge yard to run in. Mom and Dad used to tell me....
Suddenly I hear a call out from the hall, breaking my thoughts up in mid-sentence, I couldn't quite hear him but my cell door slammed open and I was grabbed by the arm. I thought I was done with this in and out shit. Not that I'm complaining, in solitary time is lost. I don't even think I've been here for more than a few days since the last meeting. The officer dragged me up to the psychiatrist who tried to claim my behavior could be deemed psychotic, which basically means I could be off the hook for murdering three people, but that means mental institutions and mind-numbing meds for the rest of my life. We started our session, as usual, talking about how I'd been feeling the last few days and usually, I would spin a yarn about how I was miserable and tired and lonely, but today I just shrugged my shoulders and mumbled "Normal...I guess." He gave me a strange look, prodding me with the question "When was the last time you felt 'normal'?" I was taken aback by such an oddly probing question, he normally stuck to the basic how are you feeling, look at this blob and tell me if you see anything and other bullshit like that. But today he made me actually look back at my life. What's he getting at? "Give me a sec, I -" He interrupts me "Take as much time as you need, just make yourself comfortable and write anything you are thinking about down. It'll make this whole thing easier", He pauses to hand me a thick yellow legal pad, and a black ink pen that looked as if it has survived years of bites and maybe a fight with an animal, as it was indented in many places, especially the inkwell at the top, I felt if I had tried to tip over the pen ink would have spilt out of it like a waterfall, maybe only for a moment, but nonetheless a waterfall. I looked at the officer who nodded and I took them and went to sit in the window.
That was always my place of choice in my house, the window seat in the upstairs room between my sister and mines. It was basically a hallway that was oversized, all of our toys were there and we would play together for hours, but she always was laughing and making her Barbies best friends or her stuffed bear, who was ragged from years of play with my mother before she got him, going on grand adventures around the world. But I just liked to sit and stare out the window or watch her play. Playing was never one of my strong suits, I just preferred silence or just things that didn't require what they all call imagination. If I understand it properly, it's the ability to make things up and just believe in whatever you want. I just think I was born without one. It reflected in my work at school, I couldn't make up a drawing when the teacher would say to make my own creature, I just drew our family dog, because he was my own creature...we did own him, and dogs are creatures. She told me that wasn't the point and I just kept drawing what I knew. Not to say I'm not good at drawing. I could draw realistic faces and people from memory alone. I began sketching them; Angelina Bradley, 16, my girlfriend at the time, James Moore, 17, one of the best in our class...not necessarily the brightest though, and Jenny Davis, 16, James's half-sister who we always had to drag along because his stepmom wanted her to make new friends. It made me think of a night a few months prior to what they were calling 'The Stongham Stranglings', we were all at James's house, his stepmom made us all come over for dinner before we could plan anything out and about with all of the friends and Jenny. We were all sat around a long, rectangular, dark-wooded table, at its center there was a huge pile of toasted hamburger buns, Mrs. Davis-Moore came out of the kitchen with the fixins for burgers and salads, We all began to serve ourselves as she was setting them down. All I remember about that night was the look her father kept giving me, that judgemental look that just burns into your soul. I don't know if I felt normal there.
The psychiatrist came to check on me in his window, a few hours had past and he took the notes and pen away from me, there was more I wanted to write but he seemed intrigued by the drawings. He showed the officer, whispered something to him and he immediately came to cuff me and take me back...I wasn't ready, I hadn't written everything I wanted to. I tried to plead but he cut me off again...God do I hate that- "We need to try and get you an appeal, see if we can reduce your sentence, I finally have enough to prove mental instability!" He said it with such glee in his voice, like he discovered Atlantis or the first dinosaur bones. I just nodded and let the officer lead me back to my cell. This time I sat only for a day and a half, maybe I got 5 meals, so I don't even really know what that adds up to be but, once I was done with my lumpy oatmeal and probably at the end of its shelf life fruit the officer threw on the cuffs and lead me to process, where we then were escorted to a van that then took us on the long windy drive to the nearest town in the middle of nowhere with a courtroom that barely counted as a room. More of a hole in the wall of city hall where they added a stand and jury box. My psychiatrist told me he would do all the talking, so I let him and almost zoned out. At this point, I don't care what happens because no matter what happens I'll be in a padded room or behind bars for the rest of my life. If I live my life to a full potential, another sixty or seventy years, at this point I have lost track of the number of years or even hours that pass in this place. All the sudden I hear my name called and about half of the next sentence, but I didn't understand, he said something about being released to the custody of a mental institution, but that's all basically gibberish to me. I guess I'm out of prison, which is a plus. They said though at some point that I had already served 15 years...how does that much time pass in what seems like months and days? I have spent just under half my life in seclusion, with no awareness of time and other people, how am I going to ever live a normal life again. "Avery Jenkins, this way," My psychiatrist called to me and waving his hand in the direction I was supposed to follow, "You don't want to keep the driver waiting, Hillside Asylum is a long way from here."
