Premeditated Chapter 10
In modern organic synthesis, two experimental strategies dominated the field. One was target-oriented synthesis (TOS), the construction of a single organic molecule through a long linear series of reactions. The other was diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS), the construction of a library of organic molecules through a short branching tree of reactions. In TOS, the chemist synthesized a few milligrams of a single product after much agony and ecstasy, mostly agony. He did it to see if he could do it. In DOS, the chemist synthesized a few milligrams of many products after much ho-humming and hem-hawing, equal parts each. He did it to see what would happen. In the realm of suicide attempts, TOS was like shooting oneself in the head to see if one could do it, and DOS was like overdosing oneself on a combination of drugs to see what would happen. In both chemistry and suicide, one strategy was more perfect than the other.
Reid stood over the kitchen counter, looking down at the items that he had arranged into two groups. In one group were his FBI-issued revolver and his FBI credentials. In the other group were a box of Tylenol, a bottle of gin, and a pot of coffee.
"TOS or DOS?" the super-ego deliberated.
The super-ego judged, slowly this time, this time different from that time, an hour ago, in the empty lot, in the pouring rain, when it had judged quickly for the respite of an end. At first, when the urge had come upon him, Reid had believed that it had sprung from the subconscious id. Over time, he had realized that it had sprung from the subconscious super-ego. The urge of the super-ego was different from the urge of the id. The id wished to hurt the world. The super-ego wished to hurt the self. Unlike the id, the super-ego was perfect. It knew right and wrong.
Reid checked the number of bullets in his revolver. It was fully loaded, so there were six. He removed five, leaving one, the only one he needed.
Reid checked the number of tablets in the Tylenol box. It was a new box, so there were a hundred. He removed eight, grouping them into a pair and two trios, the pair for the frail old man he had killed, twice, in fantasy, and the trios for the muggers and the prostitutes he had killed, once each, in reality. Each tablet contained 500 milligrams of acetaminophen. Together, the eight tablets contained the 4000 milligrams of acetaminophen that was the maximum daily dose of Tylenol. Below the maximum daily dose, acetaminophen was a safe effective pain reliever/fever reducer. Above the maximum daily dose, at only twice the amount, acetaminophen was the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States, accounting for three times as many cases as all other drugs combined and for 39% of all cases. When taken with alcohol and/or caffeine, acetaminophen was even more dangerous, causing acute liver failure at the maximum daily dose, with symptom onset delayed until 24 to 48 hours after administration of the drug, when the antidote was no longer effective. Acetaminophen overdose and acute liver failure, if left untreated, caused death within days, and Reid hated going to the doctor.
He stood over the kitchen counter, waiting for the judgment of the super-ego. He waited for an urge to come upon him. He waited for the super-ego to guide him towards one strategy or the other. It was not a question of if, but how.
As he waited, he wondered why he waited at all. The result was the same. He was sure that he could shoot himself in the head at point blank range, and he had no doubt that he could swallow enough tablets of Tylenol and drink enough shots of gin and cups of coffee to send himself into acute liver failure. Why wait? Why not go ahead and do one or the other? Why not do both?
"Both," the super-ego decided. "TOS and DOS."
"Overkill," Reid stated for the benefit of the ego. "DOS, then TOS," he plotted out the reaction scheme in the only way that he could do both.
Calmly, so as not to spill anything, Reid poured himself a cup of coffee from the cold stale pot that he had made on Monday morning, the day that he had given his inaugural case briefing, the day that now seemed lifetimes, and was soon to be another lifetime, away from him. Monday morning had been so much better than Tuesday night, but Monday morning had been far from perfect. After Monday morning, there had been Monday night. Before Monday morning, there had been Saturday afternoon. Before Saturday afternoon, there had been Thursday night. Before Thursday night, there had been Thursday afternoon, and Thursday afternoon had been the last time that things had been perfect, unless he counted the dreams of the frail old man, in which case the chain of imperfection linked back to the previous Friday morning, then to the previous Thursday morning. If he counted the other two times when he had killed someone and felt nothing, then the chain of imperfection linked back farther still, back to the graveyard, back to the hospital, and back to the question that, having no answer, he had already answered and was about to answer again.
How had it come to this? The super-ego had judged. Judgment required punishment.
Reid stared into the cup of coffee, visualizing his own reflection in the black liquid that reflected nothing. He brought the cup to his lips and took a sip. It was bitter, a tangy kind of bitterness that was utterly unlike his favorite beverage. A sip turned into a gulp. A gulp turned into a swig. He downed the coffee in three large swigs, puffing out his cheeks to swirl the acrid liquid all around his mouth and tasting the bitterness of the vile brew on his tongue before letting it slide down his gullet. He poured a second cup and drank it in the same manner. He poured and drank a third cup and a fourth before he turned his attention to the gin.
The gin came in the form of a green Tanqueray bottle. Not bothering to retrieve a shot glass from the cabinet above, Reid poured the gin into the same cup that had held the coffee. As with the coffee, he downed the gin in three large swigs, holding the burning liquid in his mouth until it threatened to crawl up his nose before releasing it to burn in his stomach. He poured a second cup and drank it in the same manner. He poured and drank a third cup and was about to pour and drink a fourth before he felt the familiar sensation of nausea creeping its way from his stomach up his throat into his mouth. The coffee and the gin had mixed together in his empty stomach to induce an immediate dyspepsia. He wanted to throw up. To avoid throwing up, he lowered himself to the floor. He leaned against a cabinet and reached up with his long arms to grab the eight tablets of Tylenol from the counter.
On the floor, he felt better, so he began to indulge in his feelings, skimming them, scanning them, searching them, desperate to find the feeling that he most desired to feel. In the nothingness following each kill, he had most desired to feel remorse, and a tiny part of him believed that he would never have killed anyone, not willingly, if he had felt remorse after the first kill, all those years ago, when he, having waited for something to replace nothing, had been terribly distraught that something had never appeared.
Reid swallowed the first tablet for the frail old man. He tried to visualize killing the old man, but found that he could not settle upon any particular method. In the dream, there had been no gunshot wounds to indicate a shooting death or ligature marks to indicate a strangling death. There had been no blood and gore. The body of the old man, though unusually light, had been unblemished, save for the blemishes of advanced age and unhealthy lifestyle, whatever those had been for the old man. In the dream, Reid had not actually killed the old man. He had only known that he done so after the fact. He suspected that the exact events would have appeared in a future dream, a prequel in which he would have found out exactly how he had killed the old man, if only he had been patient enough to wait. He had not been patient enough to wait, so he would never find out how he had killed the old man, the only one he had not killed at all.
Reid was sorry for killing the old man, the only one he had killed twice and not at all. In reality, he felt remorse for the transgressions of fantasy. Tears welled up in his eyes as he visualized the emaciated body, so light and fragile, being flipped, carelessly, over the side of the dumpster. He visualized the gaunt sunken face, eyes closed, mustache trimmed, brow relaxed, in the peaceful slumber of death. In the sleeping face of the old man, there had been no sign of reproach, and the lack of reproach reproached him all the more than if the face had been filled with reproach. He regretted killing the old man, but regret was not the same feeling as remorse. Remorse was directed towards the world, "I'm so sorry for what I've done." Regret was directed towards the self, "I really wish that I hadn't done it." Reid examined his feelings, teasing apart regret and remorse to uncover the genuine feeling that dominated his mind whenever he thought of the old man. He was surprised to find that his initial feeling of remorse held up under scrutiny. He really was sorry for killing the old man. He really was sorry for the old man.
For the old man, the one he had not killed but was sorry for killing, Reid shed a tear, then two, then three, then several more. Whatever life the old man had led, Reid was sure that he had not deserved the death that he had received, whatever that had been. Again, he focused upon the body. Something about its age and its state of deterioration fueled the feelings of remorse that threatened to erupt out of him. He stopped himself before remorse, the outwards feeling, turned into regret, the inwards feeling. Feeling sorry for the old man threatened to turn into feeling sorry for himself, and the super-ego, which had come to judge and punish, would not allow that to happen. Reid swallowed the second tablet, again for the frail old man, the one he had not killed but was sorry for killing.
The third tablet sat in the palm of his hand, in a trio with its two brethren, as he considered the three muggers. He recreated the scene in the alley behind the library, first in his mind, then in the kitchen. He tried to visualize the muggers, but it was dark, and he could not make out their faces through the curtains of rain. Through the falling rain, he heard the clattering of the useless unused knife. He cringed at the sound. It hurt him to realize how mismatched the battle had been, how there had hardly been any battle at all - three vs. one, knife vs. gun. He had held the advantage. He had not been used to holding the advantage. The experience, novel and exciting, had driven him into the predator-prey simulation of the novice killer. At the time, shooting one, then two, then three, had been the satisfaction of an urge that had come upon him as soon as he had heard the footsteps slapping through the puddles on the pavement. He had shot the muggers to satisfy the urge. He did not know where the urge had sprung from, but, in a flash of insight, he realized that it had been exacerbated by the dream. In the dream, he had not killed the old man, because he, seeking to be perfect, had not allowed himself to do so. In fantasy, he had not allowed himself to satisfy the urge. That was why the urge had followed him out of the dream, seeking satisfaction in reality where it had been denied in fantasy. Reid now wished that he had killed the old man. If only he had killed the old man! He was no longer sorry for killing the old man, nor was he sorry for the old man, not even when he visualized the body. If he had killed the old man in fantasy, then he would not have killed the muggers in reality. The urge would have been satisfied, and he would have made up for his imperfection in fantasy by being perfect in reality. The chain of reasoning would have worked if only he had believed himself to be perfect in reality, but of course, in reality, he had not believed such a thing for a very long time.
Sitting on the floor, swirling the tablets around his palm, Reid tried to feel remorse for killing the muggers. Was he sorry for killing the muggers? Was he sorry for the muggers? He thought he was, but when he analyzed the feeling, he found it more akin to regret than remorse. He regretted not killing the old man as much as he regretted killing the muggers. When he visualized the bodies, dead on the pavement, he felt nothing. When he visualized the muggers, alive in the rain, he felt the urge to kill them again. The urge thrilled him, jolting his thoughts into actions, in the kitchen, as in the alley. In his mind, behind his eyes, he replayed the chase down the alley. Finding that it was not enough, he replayed the chase in the air, before his eyes. He replayed the shooting and the missing. He replayed the mugger, instantly dead, flopping face-first onto a pile of soggy brown leaves. As soon as the body hit the ground, he wished that the body would spring back to life, so he could chase him down and kill him again. In the alley then, as in the kitchen now, he had wished the very same thing. The killing had not satisfied the urge to kill. The killing had only shocked it, temporarily, into nothing, and the replaying of the killing had heaved it back up, driving him to replay the chase again and again until he could hardly restrain himself from grabbing his revolver off the counter and firing it into the opposite wall, where the prey weaved as he ran, the prey evading the predator who knew what it felt like to be both predator and prey.
At the visions, Reid grimaced, tightening and loosening his face several times in succession as he tried to inhibit the urge. He inhibited the urge by stuffing his hands into his pockets to prevent himself from reaching for his revolver. The inhibition succeeded, so he moved on to elimination. He tried to eliminate the urge by shaking his head back and forth until he felt dizzy and achy. His hair was wet from the pouring rain, so the shaking sent droplets of water flying in all directions. For a moment, the flying droplets distracted him with their beauty, allowing him to recover enough of his mental faculties to think again. He thought, formulating a description for a predicament. Finally, here was a case in which he would rather feel nothing than something. He would rather feel nothing than the urge to kill again. The urge was inexplicable. He breathed deeply to calm himself. He blinked away the images to start over. He visualized the bodies, dead on the pavement. He avoided visualizing the muggers, alive in the rain. He recalled palpating at the carotid artery to ascertain that the muggers had died. He shook his head again, more dust devil than waterspout this time, to clear away the images of the muggers, to replace the images of the muggers with the images of the bodies. He stood up to look down at the floor, replacing the linoleum with pavement and the emptiness with bodies. Standing in the rain, staring at the bodies, he felt nothing. He felt too nauseous to stand up for long, so he sat back down and adjusted his perspective of the bodies. He stared at the bodies, lying a few feet away from him on the linoleum that had been replaced with pavement. The urge melted away, and he felt nothing again. It felt so good to feel nothing. It felt so good to know that the muggers were dead bodies on the pavement rather than live muggers in the rain. A part of him still wished that the bodies would spring back to life, so he could kill them again, but a larger part of him indulged in feeling nothing. The urge had not been eliminated, only suppressed, but it felt good to know that he could inhibit and suppress it, even as he knew that he could not eliminate it. As for the urge itself, he was sorry for feeling it. He was sorry for acting upon it. He brightened at the feeling. Was it remorse? It was not. It was regret. It was regret tinged with panic, and the panic had only appeared, because, in the attempt to distinguish remorse from regret, he had made the mistake of visualizing the muggers again, and as soon as he had visualized the muggers again, he had felt the urge to kill them again. For feeling the urge, he was so singly, doubly, and triply sorry that he swallowed all three tablets in one gulp, almost choking on them as they stuck in his throat, almost coughing them up before the saliva from his building nausea washed them into his stomach. He felt so nauseous that he could barely sit up against the cabinet. He adjusted his position until his head was the only part of him that leaned against the cabinet. He slipped and hit his head against the floor. It felt so good to feel something that was not the urge to kill, so he slammed his head against the wooden surface of the cabinet, once, twice, and thrice, just as he had slammed the head of the prostitute against the wooden surface of the shed. Afterwards, he felt even more dizzy, achy, and nauseous, so he lay down upon the floor, flat on his back, and turned his attention to the prostitutes, hoping that the images of the prostitutes would drive away the images of the muggers, knowing that the images of the prostitutes would heave up their own set of troubles.
The sixth, seventh, and eighth tablets were for the blonde prostitute named Rachel, the auburn-haired prositute named Nancy, and the ginger-haired prostitute named Felicia. Reid spooled their images out of his mind, into the air. He focused upon the blonde prostitute, the one who looked like JJ and was called Rachel. He had found out her name only after he had killed her, laid her out on the ground, and received the phone call about her murder. In the air above him, her face hovered, and he stared up at her, reaching out with one arm, hand, and finger to trace the features that resembled those of JJ. He knew now, as he had known then, that the resemblance had never been important. Only her hair, more strawberry than honey blonde, had been important. As long as she had possessed the hair color that had fit the pattern, he would have killed her, regardless of whether or not she had looked like JJ. By that time, after the old man and the muggers, the urge had been so strong that he had chosen a case for the express purpose of continuing a pattern. The pattern had provided direction. The profile that had emerged from the pattern had provided motive beyond intent. The id had wished to kill, in the form of its urges, but so had the ego, in the form of its needs. The ego had needed to let go of JJ, to keep JJ safe. It had known its needs, and it had felt its needs. The needs had been both intellectual - the knowledge that it was wrong to hold onto JJ and right to let go of JJ - and emotional - the feeling that it was wrong to hold onto JJ and right to let go of JJ. It had felt so good to let go of JJ. It had felt so good to keep JJ safe. Since the latest murder, Reid had not once felt the urge to hurt JJ. Now, when he visualized her face, he did not feel the urge to kill her. For him, murder had been therapy. Murder, like therapy, had washed away the bad feelings to replace them with nothing. Now, when he visualized the prostitutes, he felt nothing. He did not feel the urge to kill them again. In the nothingness, he searched for remorse. Finding none, he searched for regret. Finding none, he sighed in frustration. Why was it so hard for him to feel the feeling that he most desired to feel? What was stopping him from feeling it? Why was it so hard for him to feel any feeling at all? What was stopping him from feeling anything at all? Was it the id? Was it the ego? It was the ego. With the prostitutes, unlike with the muggers, he had killed for a reason, so it was doubly difficult to find either remorse or regret in the nothingness following the kill. The nothingness was so unsatisfying that he wished for the urge to kill again. He visualized the faces of the prostitutes, wishing for the urge to kill them again. If he could feel the urge, then he could practice inhibiting, suppressing, and eliminating it. That would be a worthy exercise in and of itself. In an attempt to feel the urge, he visualized the prostitutes, all of them, both their faces and their bodies, standing in seductive judgment over him as he lolled upon the floor. He felt nothing. Why did he feel nothing? Where was the urge to kill them again? Feeling nothing and desperate to feel something, he rubbed his fingers over his drooping eyelids, then opened and closed his eyes several times in succession to clarify the images of the prostitutes standing over him. The only thing he felt was a desire to look up their skirts. He clapped his hands over his eyes and shook his head again and again. He laughed, unable to control the impulse even as he knew that it was horribly wrong to laugh. He heard a whimper escape his throat, then a sob. He brightened at the sob. Was it remorse? He could not tell. He tested the sob on the images of the prostitutes. He opened his eyes to stare into the eyes of the prostitutes, one by one, trying to apply the sob to each of them in turn, but finding that he could only apply the sob to himself. Feeling sorry for feeling nothing had indeed turned into feeling sorry for himself, so he knew that it was time to act. He swallowed the sixth, seventh, and eighth tablets. They went down smoothly at the same time that the prostitutes popped, mercifully, out of existence.
Alone in the kitchen, Reid contemplated the urges of the super-ego. The super-ego was perfect. It knew right and wrong. It had always known right and wrong, even during his murder spree, but it had never been strong enough to combat the id and the ego, each bearing its own urges or needs and each acting in allegiance with the other. It was only in the nothingness following the kill, when the urges of the id and the needs of the ego had been satisfied, that the super-ego had been able to fill the void with its own urges. It desired the respite of an end. Having succumbed to the id, the ego had fallen hard and fast, but the super-ego still sought perfection. Dangling perfection, the super-ego lured the ego. The ego found perfection beautiful. The ego found perfection so beautiful that it switched its allegiance from the id to the super-ego. The ego, though it had fallen so hard so fast, still sought perfection. More than anything else, Reid wished to kill himself.
At the behest of his wishes, Reid crawled up from the floor and grabbed the Tylenol box, the gin bottle, and his revolver off the counter. He sat back down, now completely oblivious to dizziness, pain, and nausea. He removed the tablets, all of them, from the box. One by one, he popped them into his mouth and washed them down with gin. It took him ten minutes to finish both the tablets and the gin. Afterwards, he was surprised to find himself awake. Normally, the tablets would have sent him into a drug-induced slumber. This time, the urges of the super-ego and the needs of the ego had been strong enough to keep him awake. He supposed that the coffee had helped as well. Remembering the coffee, he reached up to grab the pot from the counter. He fumbled for the handle, almost tilting the pot and spilling the coffee, before he solidified his grip to maneuver the pot into his lap. He poured the coffee from the pot into the bottle that had held the gin. It was easier to drink the coffee from the bottle than the pot. He downed the coffee, all of it, in a series of gulps. In his stomach, the coffee mixed with the gin and the tablets to exacerbate the dyspepsia. The nausea returned with a vengeance. The nausea would not be denied. Reid closed his eyes, covered his mouth, and clutched his throat, trying, with all his strength, to keep the mixture in his stomach, trying, with all his will, to resist the urge to throw up. He could not resist the urge. Doubling over and bracing himself against a cabinet, he threw up all over himself and the floor. Coming up or going down, the coffee looked the same, as did the gin. The tablets looked almost the same, most of them still intact and still bearing the imprint of their manufacturer upon their surfaces.
Reid stared at the tablets, horrified at their appearance upon the floor. He considered picking them out of the vomit to swallow them again, but he did not trust himself to keep them down. Desperate, he looked in all directions for another box of Tylenol, another bottle of gin, another pot of coffee. Why had he not anticipated that the coffee and the gin would cause him to throw up the tablets? He should have prepared a backup plan. He had prepared a backup plan. He remembered his revolver. Where was it? Had he grabbed it off the counter? Where was it? Here it was, lying on the floor behind him. He turned, plucked the revolver off the floor, and spun the chambers. Immediately, he realized his mistake. He cringed at his own stupidity. Why had he spun the chambers to obscure the location of the bullet? No matter, there was a bullet in there somewhere, and he had all the time in the world to find it. Holding the revolver in one hand, he shoved the barrel up against his forehead in a motion that was more like dropping his forehead down to meet the barrel. His hand shook, so he wrapped his other hand around his wrist to steady himself. Not bothering to breathe another breath, think another thought, or feel another feeling, he pulled the trigger. Nothing. Damn it! Quickly, before he lost his nerve, he rotated the chamber and pulled the trigger again. Nothing. He accepted the nothingness. It was part of the punishment. He rotated the chamber and pulled the trigger a third time. Nothing. He understood the nothingness. It was not part of the punishment. It was symmetry. This time, like that time, the bullet was located in the fourth chamber. This time, unlike that time, the bullet would not be wasted. Why had the bullet been wasted that time? Because he had been a whore that time. That time, he had given in to the urge to live. That time, he should have let the revolver, the other one, God's Will, fire its lone bullet into his forehead. If he had done the right thing that time, then he would not have done so many wrong things since then. This time, he would do the right thing. This time, he would use his own revolver, the one that had never killed anyone, to fire its lone bullet into his own forehead. Unlike himself, his revolver was perfect. After he used his perfect revolver to kill his imperfect self, his imperfect self would be perfect again.
Reid fumbled with his revolver, the super-ego trying to rotate the chamber at the same time that the id tried to halt the rotation. The urge of the id was different from the urge of the super-ego. The super-ego wished to hurt the self. The id wished to save the self. Neither gave a damn about the wishes of the ego.
Trembling, Reid felt the barrel of his revolver waver against his forehead. His hand, the one holding the revolver, was heavy, and his finger, the one pressing the trigger, was numb. His arms, both of them, were sore, so he let them, and their hands, drop, straight down into his lap. Through the haze that filled his mind and the fuzz that filled his senses, Reid heard the clattering of the useless unused gun. He cringed at the sound. It hurt him to realize that he would never be perfect. In chemistry, TOS was more perfect than DOS, but neither strategy was perfect, just as he himself would never be perfect, no matter how many times he fired his perfect revolver into his imperfect forehead.
Under the influence of Tylenol, Reid felt himself falling asleep, the walls tilting, the floor spinning, the light fading. He had neither kept down or thrown up enough tablets. The main, side, and adverse effects of acetaminophen all did their work upon him. He drooped downwards and sideways onto the floor. He hit his head against the floor, but it did not hurt, so he did not wake up to hit it again. On the floor, he lay with his forehead facing the barrel of his revolver, which, being perfect, had sought and found a perfect position. He relaxed, his sleeping face giving no indication of his advanced state of imperfection. He enjoyed a peaceful drug-induced slumber. The slumber was dreamless, because the mind was exhausted. The mind desired the respite of rest, because, once again, it had worked too hard and too fast, analyzing this and analyzing that, and through its analyses, trying and failing to recognize that the whole process - TOS or DOS, TOS and DOS, DOS, then TOS - had been nothing but an expression of deepest remorse.
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