Gerrie decided to sell the boat to the couple standing outside looking at the “for sale” sign posted in one of the cabin windows. She didn’t do much thinking about the possible consequences. She knew only one thing and that was that she wanted their money. It didn’t matter she wasn’t the rightful owner of the boat; she could play that part. She’d done it before, she felt, even though she hadn’t actually ever pretended ownership of anything before.
“Hey there folks, this boat is among the finest to be had in all the dockyards, and for a low price. Can I interest you in a tour?”
They said that she could.
Hours later, after much haggling, the couple and Gerrie had finally reached a deal. They would pay her several thousand dollars in cash. She would take it. They would presume they’d own the boat. That’d be their problem.
While they were ironing out the details, a man in white paints walked down the wooden planks of the pier. It was his boat. He had a bowie knife.
Near where Gerrie was ironing out the details with the couple arrived the man, whose name was Hugh. Gerrie said hello to the man and continued talking to the people. Hugh was incensed and held his Bowie knife tighter. He raised it at Gerrie, who turned to him and said, “Fine, you can keep your old boat for all I care. They’re willing to buy it for a lot more than it’s probably worth. Don’t stab me.”
Hugh stabbed her in the neck repeatedly, anyway. It was probably clear to everyone watching — Hugh and the couple — that Gerrie never imagined Hugh would stab her until he actually had done so, and by that time the only awareness in her eyes seemed to be whatever is acutely attuned to mortal wounding. She was not able to say anything comprehensible and expired quickly. The couple raced screaming from the pier, and Hugh followed them shouting something about offering it for a better deal because of the spilt blood on the deck, which would be hard to scrub out.
An old man was sitting at a park bench next to the jogging and biking path, very near to all the commotion at the pier. He wore a white lab coat. He was a particular kind of doctor. He was particularly skilled at detecting psychopaths, and he knew he’d smelled one in his midst. Rarely did his nose fail him. When he caught this particular scent he knew something horrible would not be far behind, nor hard to find.
“Well, I’d better get moving,” and the man got up, readying his pointing cane.
He saw Hugh chasing after the couple, offering them that really good deal. Hugh was slowed by still holding the knife he’d plunged into Gerrie. The knife was still inside of Gerrie, so he had to drag her awkwardly along.
The old man, Dr. Goldfarb, knew he had a classic example of a psychopath on his hands, here. He began thrusting his cane wildly at the psychopath, hollering that the man, Hugh, was a clear example of psychopathy at its most violent and raw.
He chased Hugh through the streets of the town, hollering about his being a psychopath and waving his cane at Hugh while he hollered about his psychopathy, and then the doctor spoke of the dangers. Hugh was slowly staggering away from Dr. Goldfarb, mainly because he was still holding the knife still plunged into a dead woman’s lifeless neck.
“I want you all to know of the danger,” Dr. Goldfarb hollered, pointing at Hugh. “There is a psychopath. There! You must understand the danger!”
All the townspeople looked their way, they looked the way of Dr. Goldfarb and Hugh. They looked with those stony eyes, those eyes that are glass. Those eyes that are hollow eyes. They made no noises. They didn’t holler like Dr. Goldfarb. They all started ambling toward the doctor and the psychopath.
Dr. Goldfarb pointed at them all, hollering about the danger.
Matt Rowan is a Chicagoan of sorts. He is keeper of Untoward Magazine and he has a short story collection, Why God Why, due out by way of Love Symbol Press sometime soon.