Ben

By Andrew Moore

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When people find out that I spent time with a notorious serial killer, they always have the same reaction, a mixture of awe and repulsion. They want to know what he’s like. Those possessed of a dark curiosity ask in whispers. The more bashful don’t come right out and ask, saying things like, “I can’t imagine what that would be like,” hoping I’ll spill without too much prompting. Still others won’t say a thing, but you can see the questions in their wide eyes.

He’s just a man, no horns or cloven hooves. No demonic presence, or hungry restlessness behind his light brown eyes. He never sweats, but that’s not due to any reptilian detachment. He was born with hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, a condition that deprived him of sweat glands, fingernails, and hair. He has an unusual look, but it’s far from monstrous. His soft-spoken ways and sensitive demeanor are saintly. People have a hard time believing it, but the most off-putting thing about Ben are his memories.

Ben was a stalker. Some impulse drove him to fixate on a family and obsessively document their lives. He had an insatiable appetite for minutiae, sometimes even digging through their garbage for scraps of understanding. This was the anthropological phase. At some point, after Ben had amassed considerable material on the family, a mental switch was flipped, and he became the hunter.

When the time was right, he’d slip into their home. When it was empty, when neighbors were at work or church or otherwise engaged. Ben prepared the place, moving things around so that he’d have ready access to the tools he needed: blindfolds, bindings, knives. He’d exit the house, waiting patiently in a safe space just outside. Often a shed in the backyard. One time it was a ditch the gas company dug out back but abandoned for the day.

Around two or three in the morning, Ben struck.

At the very end of Ben’s reign of terror, after killing at least twenty-seven people and destroying twelve families, the youngest child and only survivor of a family of five drove an ice pick into Ben’s right orbital socket, damaging his right prefrontal cortex. This act of survival exorcized Ben, leaving him without the need to kill, only the memories of having killed. What sort of a soul he had left, withered through his pursuit of death, was completely broken by the weight of his actions.

That’s the Ben I got to know. He was a profoundly sad man. His eyes rarely met mine, and when they did, they were pleading and watery. He had a nervous habit of touching his ice pick scar. Almost a tic. He took some comfort from television. An escape from his pulverizing distress.

I was working on my master’s thesis in psychiatry and chose Ben as my subject. I was perhaps as obsessed with him as he once was with his victims. I blame it all on being raised by a forensic shrink who worked for the Bureau. I was around this stuff my whole life, as much as dad tried to keep me out of his study. He didn’t think it was healthy for a kid to be exposed to all that death.

Although it pained Ben to detail his atrocious acts, he saw the value in educating future psychiatrists and law enforcement agencies, to head off some future killer. What really fascinated me was his transformation. How could such a conscience lay dormant behind such inhumanity? Why did it take an icepick to the brain to bring that conscience to the fore? How could the beastly desires just disappear?

I never answered that question to my satisfaction. My thesis was accepted, and I moved on towards my PhD and eventual practice. To Dad’s great relief, I abandoned my fascination for serial killers and focused on bored suburbanites. I kept a line up with Ben, sending him the occasional card or letter. He had no one, and even former monsters deserve a little holiday cheer.

Ben would occasionally write back. Most were short letters acknowledging my own, offering little more than cliches and platitudes. He told me about his favorite television shows, recounting plot lines and entire seasonal arcs. A few letters contained additional details about his crimes. I felt almost like his confessor. I was the only person who ever showed anything like actual concern for him.

I received a letter that changed all of that and brought me right back into Ben’s life. The tone was completely different. Even his handwriting, usually painfully measured in capitals and lowercase print, had become manic in all caps. His prose was strained. “COPYCAT. NO ONE BELIEVES. PLEASE COME.”

Sure enough, there had been a series of killings in the news, but they couldn’t have been more different from Ben’s reign of terror. This killer targeted young couples without kids, not families. He struck in the early hours of the morning, not in the dead of night. Whatever other details there might be, no one could know, as the police usually keep such details secret.

But Ben was in distress. My heart went out to him. I made the drive out to the state psychiatric hospital that had been his home for thirty years. It had been quite some time since my last visit, and I marveled at the development that had occurred in the surrounding country. Businesses, homes, schools that didn’t exist a decade or so before. 

And yet the hospital itself hadn’t changed. Sure, the vines were a bit thicker on the walls, and someone had given the joint a fresh coat of paint. But it was nevertheless timeless. I felt for a moment like the self-assured young psychiatrist in training I once was, pulling up to the gate for the first time.

A guard checked my credentials and directed me to the parking lot. I parked and stared up at the barred windows. If the inside was still very much like the outside, Ben should be up there in the rec room, watching a daytime courtroom show or soap opera. What was it he was watching these days? He had detailed it in a recent letter. A game show. 

I made my way inside, checking in with security, and making my way up to Ben. Ordinarily, guests would have to meet with inmates in the family center, but given my credentials as a visiting psychiatrist, I was able to skip all that.

On my way up, a familiar voice called out to me. I turned to find an even more familiar face.

“Charles, right? Sure, I remember you. It’s been years!” I shook hands with a muscular man about six inches taller than me, with a balding pate and handlebar mustache.

“And I hear it’s “doctor,” now! Good for you, Doc.”

Charles Peating was now the senior orderly, having outlasted all his coworkers. He had been here since before I made my first visits. “And you’re still here? I would have guessed you’d move on to greener pastures by now.”

“Why would I want to leave? I get to see Big Ben every day!”

I winced at the nickname. It was coming back to me. Charles was a bit of a serial killer groupie, the kind of person who collected things, like John Wayne Gacy’s prison art or the autographs of varied and sundry psychopaths. Come to think of it, I had a rather large collection of correspondence from Ben, but it wasn’t for some sick fascination with the man. I spent so much time trying to understand him, I felt that in some small way I did.

Charles gave me the scoop on Ben. Ever since the news started covering the crimes of the “Woodlake Lark” he had become more and more agitated, until finally the hospital staff had to intervene and keep him away from news broadcasts altogether. (“Woodlake Lark” is an atrocious name. Named for the morning bird, of course, and a bit on the nose. Still, it could be worse. They could have named him “Lucifer” after the morning star.)

“Of course, none of us know how long Big Ben has. Did he tell you?” He had not told me. “Cancer. Metastasized before they caught it. He’s okay now, but… he has months. Damn. Gonna hate to see Big Ben go.”

Charles and I parted ways, and I continued up to the rec room. Someone had given the insides a fresh coat of paint, as well. The old walls were a weird sort of beige, almost like the walls of a smoker, nicotine-stained over the years. The new walls were a soothing baby blue.

The rec room was eerily quiet, save for the low-pitched chatter of the television. A few patients were playing cards in a corner. One older fellow was slowly and deliberately solving a jigsaw puzzle. Then there was Ben. 

Upright in an armchair, hands on the armrests like the Lincoln Memorial. Bald and bare faced. He was ashy, and about fifty pounds lighter since the last time I saw him. He was fixated on the screen, one of those garbage talk shows where they figure out who’s the real father.

I cleared my throat and said his name. It broke his reverie, and he turned to me with a start. He leaned toward me with both hands and began to weep. “I thought you wouldn’t come.” I turned what would have been an awkward hug into a slightly less awkward handshake. I pulled up a nearby chair.

“Of course I came. You sent up a flare.”

“No one believes me. They have to believe me—more people are going to die!” Ben was manic, raising his voice. I glanced up to see if the bored orderly supervising the room had glanced up from his phone. He hadn’t. Not yet anyway.

“Ben, you have to calm down.”

Ben took a deep breath and rubbed his hand across his scalp. “The Woodlake Lark. He’s a copycat. I know his pattern, I can help them catch him, but no one believes me.”

“Ben, how can you be sure? You operated three decades ago. Your crimes are gone and forgotten.”

He just shook his head. “Someone remembers.” He closed his eyes and began rocking in his seat. This is what he did when remembering his crimes. “The survivors,” he whispered. “What happened to the survivors?”

“Your survivors? There weren’t many.”

“The children. I didn’t always… I took mercy on the children.” Ben’s face tensed. “Sometimes.”

Ben never spoke about the children, and I could see why. It was incredibly painful for him to confront. True, he had spared some of them. Usually little girls. “They were given new lives, new names, adopted out across the country. Mostly cops, some military lifers. Households where they could feel safe, secure. They were given daily psychological support.” I put a hand on Ben’s arm. His skin was feverish. “They’re okay, Ben. The children are okay.”

Ben opened his eyes and looked at me. His right eye drooped a little, and up close you could see the damage that ice pick had done. He gripped my hand and gave me a terse nod.

“I told them I was watching them. I told them if they called for help, I’d come back.”

“You were trying to scare them.”

Ben nodded. “But I did something else. In the living room, I’d tie one of the curtains in a knot. And I’d make the kid sit there. I told them…” Ben started crying. I glanced over at the orderly, still consumed by whatever he was looking at on his phone. There was a box of tissues near the TV. I grabbed it and held it out for Ben. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose.

“I told them to sit in the window. And if they moved, I’d know. I’d see them.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The windows. When they show the houses.” Ben pointed at the television. “There’s always a curtain, tied in a knot.”

Like an idiot, I looked at the television. Two big bouncers were pulling the guests apart. “You mean on the news. The news coverage.”

Ben nodded and fell back into his seat with a sigh. “Do you believe me?”

“That’s why you think it’s a copycat.”

“It has to be one of the kids. It has to be.” Ben fell silent, his gaze back on the screen. Talking about his past, diving back into all that death was taxing on him. At his advanced age, it seemed to suck what little energy he had completely out of him.

I found myself staring at the television in silence. A commercial break brought peace from the chaos of daytime talk and the hopeful promise of a color-safe bleach alternative. A mother and daughter shared a heart-to-heart talk about feminine products. A cruise line promised an exotic getaway to the Caribbean. And then the 6 o’clock news anchor appeared to tease new developments in the Woodlake Lark case.

Ben moaned. 

“Naptime, Ben.” The bored orderly was standing behind us, sans phone but no less bored.

“Can I walk him back?”

The orderly shrugged and returned to his phone. I helped Ben up and walked with him to his room. 

“You have to tell someone,” he said, holding his hand to the right side of his forehead. “You have to make them believe.”

Ben’s room was as spartan as ever. I was surprised to find several of the cards I had sent him over the years standing up on the windowsill. “You kept these?” He just nodded.

“You’re the only thing I got close to family.” Ben rubbed his eyes.

I snorted. “I know what you mean.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.” Startled, I turned back to him. Ben was tapping his ice pick scar again. He muttered something that sounded like “so much death.”

“Right. Dad,” I said. I turned back to the cards on the sill. They all looked the same. Was I really that boring? “To be honest, we had grown apart. Our relationship was clinical before that. I don’t think I ever told you, but I was adopted.”

Birthday cards, holiday cards… all the same shade of beige. Anodyne messages in clean script, and my own clean script on the inside, wishing Ben a happy this and merry that. It’s strange how easily you can fall into a pattern without realizing it.

Ben’s muttering had stopped. “Your old man… he worked for the Bureau.” He was licking his lips. Looking at me with those pleading, watery eyes.

“That he did. I’m afraid I can’t really use his connections to let anyone know about your copycat.”

Ben was rubbing his forehead. “You were one of them,” he sputtered. “You were one of the children.”

“Oh, Ben.” I sighed and sat down next to him on the bed. “I never wanted you to know. I know how much this hurts you, and believe me, the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

It was true. I had been one of the survivors. My adoptive father was a forensic shrink. That was where my daily psychological support came from. It was built in. What I lived through, the counseling Dad gave me, being around his profession growing up—all of that contributed to the direction I took, studying psychiatry myself. And eventually getting close to Ben. The man who killed my first family.

“Did I make you sit in the window?”

“You want to know something funny? No. You didn’t.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s amazing. The curtain thing must be completely subconscious. Something I picked up from crime scene photos. I don’t know why I do it, I just do.” Ben’s eyes were almost perfectly round. Even the injured one. “That’s what it was like for you. You just did things.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

I put a reassuring hand on Ben’s knee. “Ben, I tried to do that once, and look at you now. No, I’m not going to kill you.”

I stood up and stuck my head into the hall. Completely empty. I closed the door.

“I don’t want to hurt you. You made him who I am. Yes, I miss my family, but if I hadn’t gone through that trauma, I wouldn’t be the man I am today.” I crouched down in front of him. He was avoiding eye contact. “I wouldn’t have grown up fascinated by what made you tick, and how shoving an ice pick in your brain so completely changed you.”

Ben buried his face in his hands, muffling his tears.

“This latest thing is just the next stage in my evolution. And it’s all because of you, Ben. Thank you.”

“I’m going to tell them. I'm going to make them believe me.” He was distraught. It pained me to see him like that. It was time to leave.

“Let it go, Ben. Please. Just let it go. You’re terminal, your memory is shot… you may not even recall this conversation in a little while. But I’m happy we’ve had this conversation, Ben. I’m finally able to be as honest with you as you’ve been with me.” 

“You’re going to get caught.” 

I stopped at the door. “Your condition was biological. Nature. Sure, there were probably some environmental factors that contributed to it, but you were just wired wrong. Me, I’m wired right. I’m not doing this because of some biological impulse. I’m doing this because I decided to. I chose to. I’m not going to get caught.”

Ben was crying. I couldn’t stand to see him like this. I said my goodbyes and left.

I sought out Ben’s doctor. We chatted briefly about his prognosis. Charles was right, Ben had only months left. I let him know how our visit went, leaving out key details, of course. I told the doctor that I hadn’t seen him like this. Ranting and raving, completely disassociated from reality. The doctor concurred. The plan was to keep him comfortable and sedated until the end came. It wouldn’t be long.

I passed Charles again on the way out.

“How was Big Ben?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that. He’s just a man. A sad, broken man.”

“Ah hell. Big Ben is a rock star!” Charles looked around and leaned close. “Just between us, when he kicks off, I have first dibs on his stuff. If there’s anything you want, any of your old correspondence, let me know. I’ll hook you up.”

“Why do you want his stuff?”

Charles mimed zipping his lips closed. He didn’t have to tell me. The market for serial killer souvenirs was small but lucrative. I can understand fearing and even hating a man like Ben. Not everyone has the benefit of getting to know the man behind the monster. The curious souls who ask about him, about what it’s like to be in his presence, I can understand their ignorance.

But Charles is something else. A vulture with no respect for a man as complex as Ben. I felt the rage rise inside me. Afraid I might say something I’d regret, I simply shook my head and walked to the exit. 

“See you around, Doc!”

I imagine you will, Charles.