I by Jack Olsen

that morning—or tried to sleep. I wondered if I’d reached the point where killing would never bother me again. I argued with myself over what I was doing. Why? When would my conscience kick in? Did I even have one?
    I finally decided I wasn’t fit to live. I was a monster. All my life I’d been disliked and I’d disliked myself, but now the dislike had turned to contempt and hatred. I had to commit suicide. But I didn’t have the guts.

    For the next week I checked out the parking lots for security officers before I got out of my truck. In restaurants I sat with my back to the wall, scoping everybody who came in. Suspicious movements made me shake. I was sure everybody knew I was a killer. I monitored the CB Smokey reports day and night to hear my name. I dreaded calling into the office in case there was a message from the cops.
    But after a few more weeks of paranoia, I realized I was free and clear again. John and Laverne What’s-their-names were in their third year in the penitentiary for killing Taunja, and I was running around killing more.
    It looked like I would never be punished by God or Satan. I decided there was no God or Satan, and when we died our lives just flickered out. The sooner a person understands that there’s no punishment after death and allows their own inner impulses to take over, the sooner they become an unstoppable serial killer. That’s the point I’d reached. It was scary, but it was exciting, too.

7 “A Busy Little Whore”
    â€¦Future antisocials quickly learn that they are viewed as misfits in society, that their misfortunes will be compounded by the deprecatory and close-minded attitude of the larger community…. They learn it is better to be predator than prey.
    â€”T. Millon and R. Davis, Disorders of Personality—DSM-IV and Beyond
    In the first week of November 1992, it was pouring rain on the Pacific Coast and I had a load of meat northbound out of Selma, California. My first drop was United Grocery in Medford, my last at Waremart in Salem, the state capital. I was nearing Salem with about eight-thousand pounds left when I felt the urge for female company.
    I went to the Burns Brothers Truck Stop on I-5 at Wilsonville to find a hooker I knew named Laurie Pentland. She was twenty-three or twenty-four, not the best-looking girl in the world but a real crowd pleaser. The last three times I used her services, she raised her price every time and I didn’t say a word of complaint. Thirty-five dollars for a date with her was a lot better than taking another woman out and pouring fifty or a hundred dollars’ worth of whisky down her throat for a good-night kiss.
    I parked in back and went on the CB radio—“Breaker breaker commercial!” Nobody answered. It was 9:00 P.M . and still early for action. I locked the truck behind me and went inside for coffee.
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    By ten I gave up on Laurie and decided to turn in. As I walked back to my truck I saw some lizards pulling in. Two of the truckers were signaling with their parking and clearance lights.
    On my CB radio I heard a woman calling for company. I recognized Laurie’s voice and told her where to find me. She climbed in and told me her price was now forty dollars. I paid up front and put on a rubber, and she curled into my arms. She took it nice and slow, and by the end of an hour I’d shot my last orgasm.
    She started to get dressed and I asked her where she was going. She told me she had to find another trick. It was cold and wet outside. I was thinking how snug it was here in my sleeper. Behind closed doors. Ever since I was a kid, that’s where the most interesting things happened.
    Laurie pulled on her raincoat and told me I owed her an extra forty dollars for the long session. Normally, she said, she would get a guy’s nut off in fifteen minutes. I reminded her that our deal was forty bucks. She gave me a line of bullshit that her female pimp