Dahmer's Not Dead

Help me, help me! she squealed amid the REM-sleep turmoil. Get it away from me!

It was the insuccinct face of any cop’s fear, the face of the symbolic death that waited around every corner.

“Helen? Helen?”

The jostling felt earthquake-like. The walls of her dream vomited sound akin to echoic demolition. The hand, from another world, continued to nudge her.

“Helen?”

Her eyes slid open. Now, another face, just as obscure, hovered above her, just as pale and as inhumanly defeatured. Her mind seemed to slide with the unbidden opening of her eyes. Then the real world cleared as did the visage. Of course, it was Tom.

Immediately she caught herself rubbing the silver locket between her fingers. It was a big locket, big as a Bicentennial dollar, and deep. It had her father’s picture inside. Through a variation of necklaces, it had hung around Helen Closs’ neck for close to three decades, a present her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday. “Welcome to teenagerhood!” he’s celebrated. He’d died the next day, a massive coronary at the realty office he owned.

“Honey, are you all right?” Tom asked.

Why shouldn’t I be all right? her first thought hastened. If I’m not all right, it’s only because you just woke me up.

“You’ve been sleeping since eight this morning.”

“I know,” came her graveled reply. “I worked a nighter last night.”

“Well, so did I but…”

Her shoulders jerked, as if to verify she was no longer asleep. “But what?”

“Well, I worked a nighter too, but, Christ, honey, it’s past seven now. I got up hours ago.”

And what did that mean? Her attitude, as always, honed to knife-sharpness fast as current through a copper wire. What’s he implying? “What?” she challenged. “I sleep till seven and that means I’m just a lazy, over-the-hill cow?”

Tom’s countenance gave up its expression of concern and immediately reverted to something terribly weary. But of course, she’d seen it many times before. “Aw, come on, Helen, get off that, will you? I’m not saying you’re lazy, I’m just a little worried. You never sleep so long. I was worried that maybe you’re sick.”

Helen’s gaze focused upward.

“You really are making this hard,” he said. Then he walked out of the bedroom.

She simpered were she lay. A conflux, then, of more realities. I slept for eleven hours? Jesus Christ, get a life, Helen! And she’d screwed it up again, hadn’t she? It seemed miraculous that Tom hadn’t written her out of his life months ago, considering her bitchiness. I snapped at him again, she realized, and all for what? Because he was worried about me. How many past relationships had provided the exact opposite? One rough spot after the next; after so many rough spots, they’d cut you loose. And why shouldn’t they? Who needs a bitchy headache like me?

Now the rest came back. She’d gotten off her shift at seven a.m., and come to Tom’s, to sleep with him. Staggered shifts didn’t make things easier, but the state medical examiner’s office had swing shifts too. Tom was number-one deputy at the M.E.’s; he’d pull nighters one week out of every three. They’d been “dating” for a year and a half, whatever “dating” meant.

It’s always the same. What was wrong with her? Pre-menopausal Anxiety. Or maybe I’m just a genetic bitch, she considered. Her hormones and mood swings weren’t Tom’s fault. “Menopause can be interpreted as the physical death of a woman’s femininity,” Dr. Sallee, the state police shrink, had told her. “But it’s important for you to realize that this is a misinterpretation, rooted in fear. It’s something women constantly fear only because of the basic tenets of fear itself.” Sallee’s face often appeared similar to the face in her recurring nightmare. “Yes, you will be menopausal soon, but menopause does not signify the death of your womanhood. All it signifies is a new stage of your femininity, a new stage of life. Not a negative at all, but a positive.”

At least he had a way with words. But it was hard for her to perceive Tom as anything but her last hope. She was 42—how much time could be left? Her first husband turned out to be such an asshole she was surprised she didn’t kill him. And the relationships which followed? One botch after the next. She knew that if she ever hoped to be married again, Tom was the one. But if she didn’t get a rein on her “pseudo-natal hostility,” as Dr. Sallee called it, she’d blow it with Tom too. And that would be the last straw.

She dragged herself out of Tom’s bed, scurried to the bathroom to gargle and fix her mussed, off-blond hair. Then she scurried just as hastily to the den. Tom sat behind his new Compaq computer, playing one of his CD-ROM games. He was so immersed that he didn’t take note of her entrance, and—

Who could blame him? Helen wondered. I wouldn’t notice a bitch like me either…

The X-Wing Fighter crashed, just short of knocking out the Demon Planet’s power duct, when she came up from behind and put her arms around him. Terrifying explosions resounded from tiny speakers. “Well, you just killed Captain Quark,” he said.

“You can bring him back to life in the next game,” she reminded him. “Besides, he’s not as good-looking as you are anyway.”

Tom chuckled distantly.

“I’m sorry,” she leaned over, whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch all the time. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You didn’t snap,” he said in a tone that actually meant, Yes, you did but I’m used to it now, so I forgive you. “I was just worried. I thought you might be sick. Are you all right?”

“Except for the case of Acute Bitchism, I’m fine.” She kissed the top off his head. “How about I treat us to Chinese? You can even bring Captain Quark back from the dead, and I’ll go pick it up.”

“Wow, a woman who pays for dinner and picks it up? Now that’s a woman!”

“Don’t forget the part about being good in bed.”

“Well, of course, but that goes without saying,” he admitted, jiggling his Mouse Systems joystick. “I could go for some Kung Pao, and those little shrimp things.”

“I believe the shrimp things are called Shrimp Toast,” she corrected.

“Yeah, right, but… What time’s your shift?”

She pressed her breasts against the high part of his back. The pressure seemed to send a gust of sensation to her loins. I’ll jump his bones good tonight, she avowed. I’ll make it up to him. “I’m off tonight,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” He looked around. “That’s great—”

And then her beeper went off. I’m also on call, she remembered. When you make captain for VCU, you’re on call for the rest of your life.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” he asked.

“I really don’t want to. Goddamn it, I fucking hate this shit.”

As usual, Tom recoiled a bit at her profanity. “You better call in.”

“I know.”

She padded to the kitchen, hesitantly picked up the phone, and called Central Commo. Waited. Listened.

“Goddamn it, I hate this shit!” she reiterated.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got a 64 in Farland.”

“The boonies. Is it bad?”

“If it weren’t bad, Dane County wouldn’t be calling me into their juris. Shit!”

“So…what’s the 64?”