A Queer Killer

The interrogation room was small and unadorned like all interrogation rooms that fear the truth of who we are. We hope to unearth motives, to bury them before they see the light of day. An unjust society must hide the killers it creates at all costs or lose its assumed moral authority. But simply asking for the right to control eschews any possibility of morality.

INTERROGATOR: Therefore you believe no one is born homosexual?

PERPETRATOR: Correct. You got a dick then the rest of your life revolves around pleasing a woman. And whether you think you can or cannot do that is what will drive you.

INTERROGATOR: But you believe it's a sin for someone to let themselves be driven to the same gender?

PERPETRATOR: Don't really know about that. Not interested. Just making an observation, not a judgment.

INTERROGATOR: So you weren't seeking to punish your victims?

PERPETRATOR: What would I be punishing them for? That's God's problem.

INTERROGATOR: Then why did you attack only homosexual men?

PERPETRATOR: Because they're easier. They're more fearful than the usual desperate male. They carry a lot of shame and guilt. Don't ever see straight pride parades do you?

INTERROGATOR: What you're saying is you just want whomever is easiest to kill?

PERPETRATOR: Bingo.

INTERROGATOR: You couldn't kill a straight male just as easily?

PERPETRATOR: Of course not. How would I get as close? For me, it's about the final betrayal.

INTERROGATOR: You seek to betray their trust?

PERPETRATOR: Exactly. See, if my theory is right then these guys have already betrayed themselves and I'm just fulfilling the final execution of that act.

INTERROGATOR: How is it they've betrayed themselves?

PERPETRATOR: No women! Gotta have somebody in the end, I know, so you'll take what you can get but if it's not real then you've betrayed yourself.

INTERROGATOR: Have you betrayed yourself?

PERPETRATOR: Undoubtedly.

INTERROGATOR: So you see your role as expressing homosexual men's self-betrayal by getting close to them and killing them.

PERPETRATOR: I never really bothered to figure it out that much but that sounds about right. I mainly just wanted to kill.

INTERROGATOR: And you gravitated this direction because these men were the easiest to victimize?

PERPETRATOR: Yeah...yeah, I'd say it happened like that. It all just sort of fell together, it just fit.

INTERROGATOR: No other ways crossed your mind?

PERPETRATOR: Well, the military did, sure. I could get a medal there. But there's something about me getting to choose who gets killed.

INTERROGATOR: You need to choose your own victims. But wouldn't you prefer to have your acts sanctioned?

PERPETRATOR: Not really, no. I mean, I know those army guys think that way but what does that mean? You're out there killing you're doing it for a reason, including me. I have to admit it would have been a lot easier for me had I had a socially accepted reason. But killing is killing no matter how you try to justify it. Those stupid ass generals have no more idea who to kill than I do - or anyone for that matter. How are they qualified to judge who is good or bad? There's no morality to it. Why do you think half of them soldier boys come home and kill themselves?

INTERROGATOR: Are you saying you see your killing the same as any other? You have no remorse?

PERPETRATOR: Everybody's doing it. It's not just me. I just don't hide the fact I'm doing it. I'm not some politician cutting off people's lifelines saying it's the right thing to do. They call me a mass killer but the big shots are the mass killers. They can knock off millions. That's just too impersonal for me. I gotta see their eyes.

INTERROGATOR: So your rationale is that everyone is doing it so why not you? No specific trigger.

PERPETRATOR: The trigger was the money.

INTERROGATOR: The press is calling you the Millionaire Murderer. Most would assume your money would prevent you from killing.

PERPETRATOR: That's because most don't have it. But I knew in order to have the women I wanted I couldn't just be me and hope to get them. I knew I had to be rich. But once I got what I thought was sufficient money...well...I realized I could never have enough, that I'd have to earn my happiness on my own. That's when I gave up.

Ain't no poor man touching them!

INTERROGATOR: Your answer then was to kill??

PERPETRATOR: Yes. I had - have - no hope. I need others to have no hope. That's what I mean by needing to see the look in their eyes, that I know they feel the same hopelessness as I do staring death in the face.

INTERROGATOR: But you know that's not an answer.

PERPETRATOR: How do you mean? I can't make the impossible happen. My needs can never be met.

INTERROGATOR: Many people have feelings of hopelessness but do not resort to killing.

PERPETRATOR: That's on them. No one's ever paid my rent but me.

INTERROGATOR: But why do you feel you have some special right to kill?

PERPETRATOR: Dunno. Never thought about it. Just do.

INTERROGATOR: You never thought about it!? Somewhere along the way you decided you had the right to take life as you please. We're trying to find out why, and maybe - just maybe - get you back on the right road. So I'm asking you, at what point did you decide you have the right to kill?

PERPETRATOR: Honest to God, I have no conscious memory of ever making a decision like that. I always took it for granted. Guess you'd have to say I was born this way.