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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Drawing a Blank: Portrait of a Smokin’ Serial Killer by R.K. Finch (Sample Sunday)


I like how I look in wigs; I like how I look smoking cigarettes in them. I like the way a wig, some colour contacts and a little makeup can transform me into an entirely different person. I often go to clubs this way. I also like to wear gloves. Long gloves that go all the way up my arm. I love armbands and belly-bracelets and silver garters. I love anything that lightly binds me. Wigs have this similar effect.

One night about a year after the Silacorp debacle I was at a club in Ottawa called the Bullpen. It was supposed to be an “older” crowd, ranging from about 22-35. I was wearing a blonde wig. Silver makeup. Black vinyl strapless mini-dress. Looked like a kid from the NYC glam party-scene in the eighties. I was slightly buzzing on vodka and feeling the effects still from a line of coke some chick had offered me in the bathroom a half hour earlier. Dancing on the floor with a group of people, I suddenly felt some breath on my neck.

“You’re magnificent,” a deep voice purred in my ear. I turned around and saw who it was. It was time. It was my old boss, Steve Alexander. My old married boss. My old married boss who had demanded blow jobs for paycheques from some of my weaker female counterparts, destroying families and lives, only to get away scot-free with a sizeable settlement package and an intact reputation. My old married boss who had sent me on that hellish journey to China to only result in trying to destroy me for not destroying the Tianjin project. And I immediately realized he had no idea who I was.

“Really,” I looked him deeply in the eyes. “You’re okay yourself.” I blew smoke over his shoulder; you could still smoke in bars in those days. I wasn’t sure what I was planning but I was enjoying going with the flow. I felt hot.

Steve introduced himself as we drew closer and closer together, not actually touching but grinding nonetheless to the music. “Don’t touch,” I cautioned, making him stay an inch away from my skin. “Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. Do you have somewhere we can go?”

“Yes, I live alone, let’s go,” he said, turning to head towards the coat check. Lives alone. He hadn’t even asked me my name yet. I followed him out the door, a thrilling sensation running through me. We walked half a block to his car, a sleek black BMW, naturally, boring, and drove the short distance to his house, a mansion in the Glebe. Walking inside, I took a mental inventory.

Wife – still clearly living there but out for the night.

Silacorp – still too recent to be discounted as having an effect on Steve.

Myself – wearing a wig and high gloves, haven’t touched the man, haven’t touched anything. No prints, no DNA, no evidence.

“Would you like a drink?” Steve asked me as we walked through his gorgeous living room, glass furniture all around. He headed over to a small dry-bar in the corner.

“Why don’t you let me get you something? Don’t you have anything more interesting than scotch and brandy?” I asked. “How about some liqueurs. Blue Curaçao? Ever had a drink called the Genie? It makes it so when you cum the vibrations are amplified ten times over and extended by minutes… care to try?”

Audibly licking his lips, Steve smiled at me, his precocious bar-slut and said, “No, I’ve never had a Genie. Why don’t you make me one? I think there might be a bottle of Blue Curaçao in the kitchen, corner cupboard near the sink.”

“Good, you sit back and relax now.” I walked across the room and through a door into the kitchen. Steve was out of sight. I got to work. First I looked in the cupboard he had directed me to confirm he really did have Blue Curaçao, noticing he also had vodka, gin and scotch. I looked under the sink and saw what I had hoped to find: a bottle of Drano. I poured some into a small tumbler I found in the cupboard. Ha, I thought to myself, it actually does look like a drink. A disgusting one only a frat boy would drink. I went back to the cupboard and took down a tall water glass, filling it about a quarter full with water. I put an ice cube in each glass, picked them up and walked back to the living room, curious about what would come next.

“Here you go,” I said in a seductive voice as I walked towards him. “I’m just having a shot or two of vodka before I have a Genie, to give me an extra edge. Tell me what you think of my creation.” I handed him the glass as he stood to receive it.

Steve held the glass out to me. “Here’s to amplified orgasms.” He tossed the entire contents of the glass down his throat.

Immediately he looked up at me, gasping. Reaching out, he started walking towards me. I backed away with a smirk on my face. He tripped over the leg of the glass coffee table beside him and teetered for a moment before crashing through it face first. A shard of glass punctured his throat and blood began spurting out in a comical arc. I felt as close as I ever had to bursting out laughing as he lay twitching there on the floor amongst the ruins of his table. Taking care to avoid the blood, I walked over to him, took his hand, wrapped it around my water glass and placed the glass on a little table across the room.

Suddenly the scene looked familiar to me. Smiling to myself, I uttered the words “Corn Nuts” before turning and walking out the door. I lit a cigarette, walked a block down to the canal, found a dark corner, took off my wig, turned my jacket inside out, fluffed up my hair, walked a few blocks, chain-smoking, and flagged a cab. When I got home I threw the wig and clothes I was wearing into the incinerator. The shoes I dropped into a bin for Value Village a week later.

It was ruled a suicide. No investigation. That was my first.


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R.K. Finch @IAN

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