I remember my mother.  When I moved out at twenty, she wore a peculiar look.  At the time I thought it was just what you might call a mother’s heart — missing her son.  But now I’ve come to think she might already have expected something.

It was my mother’s idea all along — taking classes at the community college.  I was just out of high school and didn’t have any idea what I was supposed to do.  So it was her idea.  Although I don’t want you to think I’m blaming her.  But if she’d never suggested it, I don’t know how things would have gone.  If I’d never met R., maybe none of this would have happened.  Things could maybe have been different.

I wonder sometimes what would have happened if R. had worn red that day.  Would I have felt differently, done things differently?  Would I have maybe asked her out?  Could I have been different?  Or would I simply have put things off until I found somebody else?  I can be honest now that I’m older:  I might have done the same even if R. wore red.  Imagining what could have been is such a game.

I had never eaten liver before.  It’s easier than I thought — easier than meat.  Red meat.  I ate her liver raw.  I’ve heard this is how it’s often eaten in other countries.  Just not from people.

Everyone who talks to me asks me that.  And everyone is always disappointed.  It’s never enough, what I tell them.  And I always tell them everything.  But they’re never happy there isn’t more.  That there weren’t more women or secrets.  But I have no secrets.  That’s all anyone wants to hear.  No matter what they say, people don’t care so much for the truth.

Is wanting to hear what I’ve done so different than wanting to do it yourself?  When you want to hear someone else’s story, isn’t it only because you want to live it, too?  What’s that word?  Vicarious.  But then maybe this is my purpose, so nobody else has to eat R., too.

If I am only some kind of symbol, such as of right over wrong, then my purpose is finished.  My reason for being.  If that’s the case, then I no longer need to exist.  I think this quite often:  that I might as well die.  Who does it serve if I still live?  I seem to be without purpose.  Or is it that I’m a symbol, but once I die, the symbolism dies with me?

I didn’t have the right kind of knife in my kitchen.  Because I wasn’t a cook.  So I left my apartment and stopped at the hardware store, where they sold mostly tools, but they sold kitchen utensils, too.  So I bought a knife.  A long one, for butchering.  A knife like that doesn’t come cheap.  But I decided to splurge.

I would prefer if you didn’t mention where I was born.  It’s not a very big town, and the people there, it upsets them whenever someone associates them with me.  Every time they’re mentioned in the news I get letters with insults and death threats.  One time someone sent me a box containing a dead cat.  Small town people are very emotional.

I’ve never felt like a real person.  I feel like a fake — a doppelganger.  Like I don’t belong among other people.  That’s how I feel.  Artificial.  Like a copy.  My whole life.  Like I come from another planet and was left here as a baby.  Dropped from space.  And my mother found me by accident.

I have no secrets.  Everyone asks me, but I don’t.  No confessions.  R., she was the only one.  There were no others, before or after.  Don’t believe what anyone else says.  Although don’t get me wrong — I still have the urge.  But don’t worry.  It’s nowhere near the obligation it used to be.  Because of the drugs and counseling.  And, anyway, I’ve always had a preference for women.

You play games.  You think things like, if she wears red, then I won’t eat her.  Anything — clothing, necklace, ribbons, socks.  Anything with red.  Not makeup.  Makeup doesn’t count.  Red makeup is ordinary.  But when women wear red, it means they want you to think something.  Although that’s not how I thought that day.  That was just the game.

We don’t eat heads in this country.  So I didn’t either.  Eat her head.  It’s just the custom.  And that’s why I killed her the way I did:  beating her in the head with the rock.  It was all about eating, you see, and if you don’t eat the head, then that’s the way you want to do it.  Because hitting a person in the head leaves the meat alone.

When I was a boy, I remember the first time I felt it.  It was the first hot day of the year, and this certain girl came to school wearing shorts.  She was very pale and would later have freckles, but back then her legs were pure white.  Her legs were dazzling.  I wanted to eat them right there.  We were seven.  That was the first time.

When I was a boy I used to dream about eating both boys and girls.  Especially in summer, when nobody wore so many clothes.  That skin!  But after a certain age, the urge for the boys went away.  It was always only girls after that.  Girls and women.  I suppose that was puberty.

I got caught because she’d left a note with her roommate saying she’d be at my apartment to rehearse for class.  I didn’t know anything about it.  If I had, it would have been like she had worn red — I wouldn’t have done it.  But she didn’t wear red and I didn’t know about her note, so I ate her anyway.

By the time they started the investigation I’d already moved the rest of the body.  The best parts I’d saved for myself in the fridge.  The rest, I’d wanted to take it to the ocean to dump it.  That was my dream, to tie her to stones so her body would sink.  So I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.  But butchering a person is harder than people think, and people are heavy, so I just dragged her to the woods instead.  Which wasn’t easy.  Torsos are heavy.  By the time I made it there, I didn’t even have enough energy left to dig a grave.

The class we were in was acting, which I only took because I’d seen her there before, so I thought if I signed up to take the same class, maybe I could say hello.  I’ve never been very good at talking to people, and I’m still not now, but I was worse back then.  Especially with women.  But because I was taking that class, talking became easier, because that’s what acting is.  Talking to people.  Or pretending to talk.  So I got better.  You always get better if you get any kind of practice.

I had a tape recorder all set up at my place so we could record the dialogue we were supposed to be rehearsing.  We weren’t all that good, so we needed to practice, and the instructor, he suggested it.  And, just my luck, R. didn’t own a tape recorder.  That meant we’d have to do everything at my place.

It’s not like nowadays, when everyone is so watchful.  Nowadays everyone is so paranoid.  If your kids are late coming home from school, today everyone will call the police.  But back then it was normal to just go off and do things by yourself.  I did it, too — even me.  I didn’t have many friends, but I would wander the town and the woods.  That was just how it was back then.  So even by the time I was out of school, going to a man’s apartment to rehearse was not a big deal.  So, yes, I was surprised to hear she’d left a note for her roommate.  I was even a little hurt.

When the police brought me in, I wasn’t very good.  With the questions.  Because I forgot all the answers I gave them before.  That was how they started becoming suspicious.  Especially once they started pointing out all the discrepancies.  I got nervous and I started making up all kinds of new details.  To try to cover things up.  But it’s very hard to keep a story straight, and in spite of the class me and R. had been taking, I never did become very good at acting.

It was in the bathroom that I butchered her.  In the tub.  Which might not sound so sanitary, given it’s next to the toilet.  But I didn’t have enough space in my kitchen.  The bathroom wasn’t bigger, of course, but at least I could use the tub.

Even though her roommate called the police that night, it took them a long time to knock at my apartment.  The police weren’t very good back then.  I’d already dragged the rest of her out to the woods and scrubbed clean my bathroom and kitchen.  I’d thrown the rock I used to kill her back into the creek.  Although if the police had been faster, it’s not like much would have changed.  Everything was finished.

I don’t have any pictures of her when she was alive.  As beautiful as I find certain women, I’ve always been afraid to take pictures of them.  Pictures are a very personal thing.  The pictures I took after she died, the police took from me.  As evidence.  I never saw them again.

That the tape recorder ran off batteries was just my luck.  Because they were dying.  This was my opportunity.  Because I didn’t want to kill her face-to-face, but when you’re rehearsing a dialogue, that’s how you naturally do it.  So at first I didn’t know how I was going to get behind her with the rock, but when the tape recorder began to slow down, I said I had to look for batteries.  This gave me the opportunity.  When I was rummaging through a drawer, I think she got tired of watching, so she looked away instead.  She was bored.  I couldn’t have scripted it better.

Insights?  No, I don’t have any.  Every time something like this happens somewhere in the world, people like you come knocking at my door.  Looking for insights.  But I’ve never had one.  Not even for myself.  Let alone for these other people who have done these other things.  Because it’s not like we meet together as a society.  We’re all just separate people.  No similarities, except for this.  I don’t know these people.

To me it was like a need.  Like thirst or hunger.  At least back then, before the drugs and the counseling.  There was simply no not doing it.  It wasn’t up to me.  That was how it was.

Some people find fear exciting.  But not me.  It was just biological.  Just something I had to do.  Like sex.  Which is sometimes exciting for other people.  People who watch.  But that’s why you’re here, right?  Because people want to hear about it.  Like sex.

There wasn’t any kind of thrill when I did it.  In fact, at the time, I was scared.  Scared of screwing it up.  What if I hit her head the wrong way and she survived?  What if she looked at me then?  Would I be able to keep going?  To hit her again and finish the job?  This was what I was afraid of:  her knowing.  I didn’t want R. to find out.

Of course I would like to leave these walls.  Who wants to be kept in an institution?  But they don’t know what else to do with me.  Even though everyone is mostly sure I wouldn’t do it again.

If I could do things again, I might study music.  Although in honesty, I doubt I would be very good.  It appears I’m not good at much.  But when you’re young, you don’t know that yet.  So I might have studied music.  If my mother had suggested that — specifically, instead of just taking general classes — would that have changed things?  It’s impossible to know.  I would have still had the urge.  Studying music probably wouldn’t have changed that.

Do you hear that?  Listen to that.  You don’t hear that anymore — music like that.  At least not in here.  Can you still hear it, music like that, outside?  Don’t tell me — I’d rather not know.  But listen.  This is a good song.  I know, because I feel like I’ve wasted my life.  Which is how I always feel like when I listen to great music.  How come I didn’t learn to do that?

Growing up I wanted to be a singer.  Which is funny, because I’m shy.  So I never learned to sing.  I can’t hold a tune.  I won’t demonstrate, so don’t ask.  Although if they had lessons here, I might take a class and learn to sing.  Inside these walls, there’s not much else to do.

We’re not alike at all.  I only did it once.  Even if I didn’t get caught, I might not have done it again.  Given how scared I got.  So this man you're talking about, he’s totally different.  Storing them in his basement — mummifying them in his walls.  We’re not alike.  We don’t hold a candle to one another.

Aside from being a singer — which even as a kid I knew was a fantasy — I never knew what I wanted to be.  I was aimless.  But then who isn’t?  Aren’t most people?  Especially at that age.  Having a vision of what you want is no different from having a dream.  The aimless are just more honest.

I always knew it was wrong.  Murder.  And to eat someone.  But by then I’d had a lifetime suffering the urge.  So I don’t know if there was anything anyone could have been done.  Even if I were born today, I think I would still have the same urge.  And what could anyone do about it?

I don’t believe that.  I don’t think it comes down to will.  This was something biological.  Which can still be wrong.  Natural things are sometimes wrong.  So I don’t think it was a question of willpower.  Everyone eats, everyone shits.  It was like that.  Eating R. was something I simply couldn’t avoid.

My mother never came to visit once I was arrested.  Although she was already getting sick, so maybe she wasn’t healthy enough.  By then, I hadn’t seen her in over a year.  She died only maybe two years after I was arrested.  And I sometimes wonder if she felt guilty.  Of being my mother.  Which makes no sense.  But I hear it’s common for mothers to feel guilty for everything.

People tell so many stories.  Everyone pretends they’re an authority.  But I wasn’t that good at it — not by a long shot.  I’m not even evil, I would say.  I would say my need for it was simply biological.  So, no, there was never anyone else.  No matter what anybody says.  Only R.  And even R. almost didn’t happen.  R. would never have happened if all the pieces hadn’t fallen in the right place.

No one’s a sign or a symbol.  When anyone says a thing like that, it’s just their imagination.  I’m nothing like that.  I’m just a person who ate one person one time.  But when it comes to this, people are childish and let their imaginations run wild.

I don’t know.  I don’t know about that.  I can’t speak to that.  Why is this my need?  You’ll have to talk to somebody else, the doctors or somebody.  Maybe there’s a scientific explanation.  Maybe after I’m dead they can autopsy my brain.  Maybe someone will figure it out.  Maybe it was just my bad luck to be born before I could be fixed by science.

Even I think that’s a strange question.  No, I’ve never wanted to have any children.  It seems obvious it would be a bad idea.  What if I had a daughter?

I never learned to develop camera film.  So, of course, I didn’t want to take them somewhere else to develop, since then someone else would see.  So I borrowed a Polaroid camera.  I bought my own film and took the pictures.  After eating R., taking her pictures might have been my favorite part.

I didn’t dispose of what was left over of R. right away.  I didn’t plan far enough ahead.  If I could do it all over again, I would have laid more plans.  But I had to buy duffel bags the next day.  Army surplus were all I could afford.  And plastic, like tarps.  Then that night I had to drag what was left into the woods by myself.  I was too tired to try to bury her, and anyway I’d forgotten to bring a shovel.  And I was just too tired.  So I just covered what was left of her with branches instead.

I have dreams of the ocean.  Have you seen it?  Maybe that’s what I should have dreamed instead of eating R. — taking her to see the ocean.  Which isn’t that far away from where I grew up, but to this day, I’ve never seen it.  White beaches.  Soft sand.  All the color of her skin.  Although they tell me the ocean’s not like that here.  At least not usually.  Up here, the coast is mostly rock, they say.  But I wanted to take her body to the ocean, to dispose of it.  To see the ocean with R.  But I didn’t have a car, anyway.

When I was younger, a little boy, and the urge would come over me, I think just imagination was enough, imagining what it would be like to taste a thigh, taste a shoulder.  And I think this is true for every child:  imagination is always enough.  Things don’t have to be real.  Not yet.  Maybe this is the definition of adulthood:  when imagination is no longer enough.

Courtrooms are ugly places.  Uglier even than jails or institutions.  In a jail or institution, even though you’re being watched, the watching is all the time.  And you’re one out of many.  Like democracy.  This place is democratic.  These walls are the walls of democracy.  But not a courtroom.  In a courtroom, you’re the center of attention.  In a courtroom everyone stares.

What do they call it?  A public defender.  I had a public defender.  But it wouldn’t have made any difference, a different attorney.  There was nothing anyone could have done.  After all, I still had parts of R. in my refrigerator.  What could they have said?  They didn’t even need a jury or a hearing.  What I’d done was obvious.

It’s been so many years I can no longer remember the color of her hair.  Was she blond, was she brunette?  This is why I miss the Polaroids I took of her.  That the police took from me.  Because some days now when I think of R., she’s blond, others, brunette.  But then maybe it doesn’t matter what color her hair was, but what I remember it to be.

Of course, when I was a little boy I didn’t know any better.  Then when I became a teenager, I thought I could control it.  And even after I ate R., I thought I could train myself.  To stop thinking about cannibalism.  To overcome.  But now that I’ve gotten older, I don’t believe that anymore.

When I was younger, I would probably have never admitted it, but now that I’m older, I have to say:  I wasn’t very good.  At killing and eating.  Managing it that first time with R. took luck.  This is probably why I managed it only just once.