Walking Off Heaven's Shore

The last time I dated a serial killer, he picked me up at Barnes & Noble. That’s not strange at all—where else do you go in the city centered in a cluster of mill villages when all the jobs have been sold south? At least, if you get picked up in a bookstore, it’s a possibility that the person in question is literate. And he was, along with being tall, dark around his expanding domed forehead, and brilliant with the glitter of mania in his big, green eyes. He had overheard me ranting about how everything I needed to know I had learned from reading Teaching as a Subversive Activity. That’s when he decided to do me. I was swept away. Only the presence of my best friend let me hold on to my senses, however tenuously. I don’t remember the next hour—all prattle and nonsense in the parking lot—until my friend threw up her hands in supplication—or disgust and release when it became clear that I was going to hop into my mommy van and follow this imperfect stranger wherever he would lead me. I’d only been a widow for a couple of years then. A quick, merciful end of the out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the fire marriage of midlife crisis. Then out of nowhere appeared this man who could consider touching my less-than-perfect body with more than his mind. Screeching somewhere behind my left ear, “Are you out of your freaking mind? He could be a serial killer!” I gave it some thought, and more feeling, because the little brains in my gut had long since nudged out the corpus-callosum. I felt safe enough. I was going to be all right. I was going to get laid. Up the Interstate out into the backcountry, I followed him, memorizing the landmarks and the turns to be able to navigate my way back home. His big F250 faded from pearl blue to black as the sun set, along with my conscience. In the indigo twilight, we pulled up a gravel driveway terminated by a single-wide and the 2 x 4 ribs of a storage building, under construction for so long that a fair-sized sapling had grown up through it. The inside of the trailer was brown, though whether leftover 70’s gold or just layers of smoke, I couldn’t tell. He sprawled on the sofa and held out his arms. I sat beside him and began to unbutton my shirt.  “Talk to me, Woman!” he said, taking my hands and kissing them. He peered into my eyes, lightning flashing for me. “You can wait, ‘cause you know you’re going to get it. Tell me your subversions, and I’ll tell you mine.” The language center in the big brain was now completely out of the loop, so I got him talking, telling me all his A material. He told me his secrets—not lies if you believe them—secret military missions, hopped up on hallucinogens, destroying d**g dealers, sterilization from the radiation leak on a nuclear sub. He told the most wonderful stories. I so admired his technique. I called home to tell my daughter not to wait up. The s*x was wonderful, and not just with the hunger for it. For the next two weeks, unemployed between semesters, we rode in his truck, smoked w**d, and stayed in motels, making up for my wasted youth of going to class and working for tuition. A dream vacation. Then it was over. Stoners develop this habit of not going to work, and I'm not ever supporting another man. So that last time, he dated a serial killer. I still hang around Barnes & Noble.  A literate man is hard to find.