The Teen Tragedy: The Pop Music of Death

On September 30, 1955, famous movie star James Dean crashed his Porsche 550 Spyder on U.S. Route. He was killed by the collision with another car at State Juncture 41. His posthumous fame rose with the release of the popular Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and to this day, Jame Dean, like Marilyn Monroe, became tragic icons of the 1950s. For the next ten years or so, Popular music turned grim: fatal accidents, suicides, murder became the topic for hit songs. This era became known as the Era of Teen Tragedy. 

There are many songs to choose from, but I selected the ten that I most like as opposed to the most popular ones.  Songs range from the sublime to the ridiculous, so I'll explain a bit about them. But the best way to experience them is to hear them and read the lyrics, because those lyrics, they're from another age where death was the most precious expression of love.

Let's get to our songs.

1. Teen Angel--Mark Dinning (1959)

Teenage couple's car stall on railroad track as train approaches; they get out of the car safely but the girl runs back for the high school ring that he gave her. The ring was still clutched in her hand when they pulled her corpse from the car wreck. Song ends with a burial.

2. Tell Laura I Love Her--Ray Peterson (1960)

Youth races his car in a stock-car tournament to win enough money to buy his girl a wedding ring. He crashes and is fatally injured. His final words as they pull him from the burning wreck, "Tell Laura I love her". Song ends with a burial. 

3. Strange Things Happen (Laurie)--Dickey Lee (1965)

Boy meets girl at dance, walks her home, lends her his sweater. Leaves her at her door, forgets sweater, returns, and man answers door. Turns out the man's daughter died a year ago this very night. The boy rushes to the graveyard and finds his sweater on her grave. This is more a popular local legend ghost story that has traveled around to many towns and neighborhoods. Not really Teen Tragedy. He did get his sweater back, after all. 

4. Patches--Dickey Lee (1962)

This Dickey Lee tackles a true Teen Tragedy. Boy from the rich side of the railroad tracks loves girl from the poor side of the tracks. His parents forbid him from seeing her again. After he doesn't show up to see her for a while, she drowns herself in the river. When he learns of her death, he vows to commit suicide to join her. 

5. Running Bear--Johnny Preston (1959)

Thought about excluding this song for its outdated view on Native Americans, but it's such a great Teen Tragedy song, I had to include it.

Boy and girl from different tribes across the river from each other are forbidden from seeing each other. They swim out and meet each other in the middle of the river and drown. 

6. Last Kiss--Wayne Cochran (1961)

Teens are in a car crash. He survives; as she dies, she asks for one last kiss. Pretty simple and straightforward. This song has been covered by Pearl Jam and Taylor Swift, thus legitimizing the Teen Tragedy genre. I think. 

7. The Water was Red--Johnny Cymbal (1960)

Young teen boy meets young teen girl by the seaside and fall in love. They go for a swim, and a shark kills her. No gory details, just the water was red. The boy retrieves the girl's corpse from the water and sets it gently on the sand. He then grabs a knife, and he kills the shark. The first chorus (the water was red) refers to the girl's death, and the second to the shark's death. The title gives away the story right off. Beach, swim, red water. Ingredients for a Teen Tragedy song. 

8. Call Me Lonesome--Arthur Alexander (1962)

Young teen boy at a dance party with his girlfriend sees another man dancing with his girl. He interrupts the dance as the man gets aggressive with his girl, and he is stabbed to death. What makes this Teen Tragedy song different from the others is that the narrator tells the story of his death and the song fades as he dies while he tells the girl that it's all right with him the way he dies. 

9. Jimmy Love--Cathy Carroll (1961)

Young woman narrates the story of how she met Jimmy, her fiancee, and describes how they will marry at the chapel. As they walk in stormy rain, lightning hits a tree, and it crashes down and crushes Jimmy to death. She completes her walk to the chapel and vows to love him forever. 

9. Oh, Susie Forgive Me--Kenny Karen (1962)

Narrator, young man, describes his reckless driving which results in his driving into a telephone pole, paralyzing his girlfriends legs. The operation to fix her will cost a lot. The youngster robs a store to get the money, but the police arrive and shoot him. As he lays there dying, Susie, his girlfriend, runs up to him, and he says, "Susie, forgive me." So, could she walk or not? The song doesn't explain. I hear there's other versions of this song, but, sorry, no deep dive for me. As Teen Tragedy, please forgive me for including it. 

10. The Pickup--Mark Dinning (1962)

Young man has his first date with a girl that he falls in love with instantly, but he is so overwhelmed by his feelings, that he tones down his feelings so as not to scare off the girl. And when he friends make fun of him for acting so lovestruck around the girl, he tells her that he can't see her again. Later that night, she kills herself by jumping off a bridge, and even as his heart is breaking, he keeps up his facade with his friends that she didn't mean anything to him.

Typical man. Such macho bullshit. This was probably my number one favorite from my deep dive into Teen Tragedy Songs. 

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So, there you have it. The Era of the Teenage Tragedy, from the ridiculous to the sublime. I tried to vary the deaths, as the majority were split between suicide and car crashes (one airplane crash). Lots of broken engagements, breakups, and shattered dreams. From revenge on a shark to murder at a dance, there's a lot here to enjoy. 

Till next time, when Anthony Servante will bring you some more forgotten hits. 

 

The Roots of Irony as Language 

Part I.

Anthony Servante, G.E.D. 

Introduction:

Irony is not funny in and of itself. It is no more comical than a noun clause or a coordinating conjunction. It is a grammatical tool for communication. The problem is, however, that not everyone speaks the language let alone understands the language of irony. Consider your own use of the English language. If I were to ask you what a "predicate" is, you might answer, "It is the part of the sentence that shows what the subject is doing", and then you'd wait for me to give you a gold star for your little Kindergarten notebook with Pikachu on the cover, and yet, your answer would be wrong. Sure you earned a gold star because you know what the correct answer the teacher expects, but you don't know what it means. If you look up "give" in the dictionary, you'll find, "to give"; antonym: "to take". And round and round you go. You have the right answers straight from the teacher and right out of the dictionary, but you don't understand what has been communicated to you. You are learning circular answers that avoid any understanding of the question. 

We have the same problem with "irony": What is irony? Not the answer, but the understanding.

I will try to share my understanding of irony from its use as a tool of communication, as I've learned from my studies over the years, and examine the words of the scholars from Soren Kierkegaard, to Sigmund Freud, to S.I. Hiyakawa, to Wayne C. Booth, and, of course, add my middling two cents worth of knowledge. I will attempt to avoid pat answers and circular explanations. Instead, I shall select a direction and head that way, hoping to meet you at the end of the path. So, even though you are on the reading side of the writing, and I am on the writing side, let's try to rendezvous where the two sides meet. See you there.

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The Two Ironies: Concept and Concrete.

What Kierkegaard sought to explain in The Concept of Irony was "the concept". (As we will see later with Hiyakawa, we must distinguish the "map" from the "territory"). For Kierkegaard, the concept is the map of irony. How the map is used gets us to the location we desire to visit. In this sense, we choose to communicate and the other is to whom we choose to communicate. 

The two ironies at work includes the one within our head, formulating, planning, organizing; and the second one, outside ourselves, responding, reacting, understanding. From thought to action. There is the subjective self at work and the objective other as the target. Herein, we communicate. However, because the mode of communication is irony, a unspoken meaning emerges. I think, What a fine morning, and tell my wife, Good morning, my intention being to convey the state of the day as I see it, and my wife can understand that I have have a good opinion of the day; however, she may also understand that unspoken, mysterious meaning: What did he mean by that "Good morning"? beyond the state of the day. 

In Kierkegaard's words, "But just as there is something deterring about irony, it likewise has something extraordinarily seductive and fascinating. Its masquerading and mysteriousness, the telegraphic communication it prompts because an ironist always has to be understood at a distance, the infinite sympathy it presupposes, the fleeting but indescribable I stand of understanding that is superseded by the anxiety of misunderstanding". In other words, the language is comprised of words and sentences with grammatical rules and constructs, yet we see between the lines of the language to acknowledge a "mysterious" meaning at play. Two people communicate yet the meaning of the communication is like a "mask", leaving the subject and the other more distant from each other than before they communicated. Intentions are misunderstood. We cannot see the forest for the trees, so to speak. 

The Joke

Sigmund Freud, in "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious", discussed how words and ideas could be mixed or reformed to create ambiguous meaning, what he called "metaphoric meaning", that is, a mechanism for the joke to travel between the parties. 

Clear communication indicated, in essence, a direct translation of idea to meaning, such as "that tree" refers to an object that I point to without ambiguity. But if I refer to "that tree" and point to the moon, then I introduce ambiguity. The indirect translation is no longer of the referent (that specific tree) but an unclear or confusing communication of a different object as the referent (the moon). The word "tree" matches "that tree", whereas the word "tree" no longer matches "that moon". The mismatch conveys the joke.

For Freud, the joke communicated contradictions to reach that unconscious level of understanding. The tree/moon mix no longer communicates a clear connection to the right listener. So, the listener is likely to laugh or think a mistake has been made. To the person who laughs, there was some communication at the unconscious level. The person who hears/sees a mistake misunderstands the metaphoric meaning because his conscious interpretation is confused. How can a tree be the moon?! 

Stable and Unstable Irony

Wayne C. Booth in "A Rhetoric of Irony" explains how irony is ambiguous for two reasons: Firstly, "double meaning" can convey a contrast between fiction and nonfiction, or real and unreal. Booth calls this form of communication, "stable irony". For example, if I say, "I will never die", I mean, "I will die". However, the degrees which Booth here calls "distance" comes in the form of circumstances for which the irony is applied. If I were in my 90s, on my death bed, and I tell my loved ones, "I will never die", the meaning "I will die soon" is clearer to the loved ones, whereas, if a teenager told his friends, "I will never die", his youth betrays a cocky confidence that is absent from the old man saying the same thing. The "distance" of meaning for the old man to his bedside family is closer given the circumstances, while the "distance" for the young man and his friends is much farther apart given his age. The phrase "I will never die" has "different rhetorical purposes" for each person who uses it in their particular circumstances. 

Secondly, Booth asserts that "unstable irony" does not communicate its purpose. It is deliberately vague, uncertain, and ambiguous. This definition is closer to Freud view of the Joke, but with Freud, the joke does communicate intent, whereas with Booth, unstable irony engages but does not explain. In the case of saying "the tree" while pointing at the moon, what is communicated? 

To Freud, there was only communication with the person who laughed at the joke (the ambiguity); the non-laugher was puzzled, not deliberately so; they just didn't get the joke. To Booth, true unstable irony does not announce its intentions. Whether you laugh or not, a tree is not the moon. The listener must be willing to have a type of suspension of disbelief for irony for it to be unstable. "Conflicting meanings" holds such irony together for such a listener.  

The Map is not the Territory

S. I. Hayakawa, in "The Use and Misuse of Language", maintains a simple premise for language: Language, in and of itself, is not the intent. Communication is the intent. Just as "the map is not the territory", the language is not the meaning. What we understand is the territory here. For Hayakawa, irony would be the map, for irony was just another form of language. 

For instance, no matter the language, the moon is the moon. La Luna, in Spanish, is not the moon. That thing up in the sky is the moon. In Art, there's a painting that is titled, This is not an Apple (sic), but what you have is a perfectly painted apple on the canvas. For Hayakawa, Art was just another language. 

Irony, in this sense, still must convey meaning. Otherwise, it would be gibberish. But irony does require a sender and a receiver. Irony cannot work in a vacuum. A map of nowhere conveys nothing, no direction, no territory. How then does Hayakawa explain irony as language? One, the referent and reality (that is, the word "moon" and the round thing in the sky we call moon) contrast (just as "tree" contrasts with our pointing to the moon); two, the speaker and listener are "context-dependent" on communication (the listener must understand "joke" when the speaker says tree and points to the moon); and three, the speaker and listener must communicate with the new meanings of irony consistently, for any language to work, it must be consistent whether by map or territory. 

Irony as Paradox: Neuro-Integrity

Buy Here.

As we have seen, irony as language requires similar uses: Ambiguity, contrast, and context in order to communicate intent. But in the world today, communicating intent is not so clear cut. As we've seen, irony is just not understood by everyone. For some, the ambiguity is mistaken for error or misspoken intent. How many times have you made a joke, for instance, and no one understands it. Yet many of these same people understand puns and other play on words. I once told a fellow teacher in the English department that I was working on a paper on the paradox of paradigms. He responded, "Like a pair of doctors?!" The other teachers laughed and said, "Good one." I stood there in dismay, and they misunderstood my dismay by asking, "Don't you get it? A pair of doctors. A paradox!" Maybe I was the weird one there. 

But no. We were just wired differently. That's what I'd like to address here. The neurology of irony. Why some people get it, and others don't. 

The Brain's Do's and Don'ts. 

The thalamic region of the brain is the relay center for receiving and sending neuro signals; incoming from the five senses come via the sympathetic nervous system; outgoing come from the parasympathetic nervous system. A cold breeze passes over your warm skin, and a cool  sensation is transmitted from your skin along neuro transmitters to the brain, namely, the thalamus. There the signal is translated to a chill and send back to the skin via the parasympathetic system. When the point of origin receives the message, you get goosebumps. Yes, very simplistic explanation. Why? To explain the language of irony via the nervous system and why some people get it and others don't. 

The thalamus doesn't work the same for everyone. There are those who are born with a natural curiosity. As children, they take their toys apart and put them back together because they want to know how they work. But some rebuild the toys exactly as it was before it was taken apart, while others put it back together into a better working toy. Both types of children have the same skills, but one has a better imagination. They can imagine how the toy can work better when they understand how it works. Those who lack such imagination rebuild the toys exactly as it was before the dissection. Same skills, different point of view. But the person with imagination for improvement can picture the toy in a new way and proceed to rebuild it that way, whereas the person who sees the toy only as it was before can only rebuild it as it was before. 

So, where does one's point of view come from then? So, where does one's point of view come from then? It comes from the thalamus, but how the brain center is influenced varies in both culture and neurology. If a child is punished for taking the toy apart, his skill at dismantling is suppressed by punishment for "breaking" the toy. The child can put the toy back together, but he will never get the chance since it is considered broken. The child who is given only one toy and no more learns to disassemble the toy and reassemble it into something new, something better. One child fears punishment, the other appreciates preservation as reward. The former learns taking the toy apart is bad, while the latter learns that he can make the toy last longer by caring for it and modifying it. 

The child who fears punishment develops neurological pathways that may lead to pain should he use his skill. The child who rewards himself by using his skill to create new toys from the old develops neurological pathways that lead to pleasure. They are both born with a thalamus but circumstance, context, and emotion influence the development of the pathways that suppress or encourage the flow of neuro input and output to and from the thalamic region. 

A suppressed background of punishment can lead to "defense mechanisms" triggered by fear when certain neuro pathways are crossed. For instance, "denial" and "repression" block unwanted thoughts by calling them false. To recall the spanking we received for "breaking" our expensive toy may prevent us from trying to fix that flat tire, saying it's the job for a professional. Though he may have that skill to fix a flat, change those bathroom pipes, or repair that stove, that same skill is buried beneath a culture of punishment and a lifelong neurological enforcement of avoiding this skill. 

The child who grew up without these type of "defense mechanisms" may have a more developed skill and a more active imagination. The combination of skill and imagination trigger the neuro pathways leading creating something new from the old. He has no trouble fixing a flat, doing the plumbing work at home, or repairing the stove, because, like the improved rebuilt toy, you extend the life of the old toy, just as you improve the car, the pipes, and the stove. Why buy new ones when you can fix the old. 

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Coming soon...

The Use of Irony as Language 

Part II

 

Things Can Only Get Better Tour Review

by Anthony Servante

 If you look closely at the small print on the sign for the Howard Jones, Wang Chung, The English Beat, and Modern English concert, you'll see the words, "Featuring Full Performances By".  With an all 80s music line-up, and a start-up time of 6:30 p.m., I figured that each band would play a traditional set common to what they performed in their time for the fans that have kept up with them till this day. What a treat. 

Instead, we got a typical 80s Pop Band Package concert, that is, 80s bands that tour together for the older nostalgia crowds. Each band does around 3 to 5 of their most popular songs, and the closing band does about a 30 minute set (the headliners tend to have more hits than the openers). 

Richard Blade is the host for these Package shows in Los Angeles as it was his radio show on KROQ (pronounced K-Rock) that first introduced these mostly British bands to the California Southland. Blade played snippets from the top five KROQ songs from 1980 through 1989 between sets. The crowd went crazy each time the opening notes of a song started and booed when Blade cut short the snippet. You'd have thought that this was the concert. 

But the real concert started with Modern English, who performed a rudimentary set that only hardcore fans would recognize. Their final song, I Melt With You" livened things up a bit, but not much, as the band was happy to let the audience sing the song over their instrumentation. Karaoke 101, I like to call it. 

Personally, I always attend these Package shows, even though they are often hit-and-miss. Karaoke 101 is part of the problem. Some bands are strictly there to accommodate the crowd and encourage the crowd to sing along, but at least they sing too. That is what I paid to hear: The band sing the song. (Roger Daltrey of The Who actually stopped singing a song when the crowd joined in; he yelled, This isn't karaoke!, and the sing-along stopped. I've never heard any singer do that before or since. Daltrey was the only one I know of who did it. And good for him). We can do with less K-101.

On the other side of the coin, we have The English Beat (aka, The Beat, All the Young Cannibals, and General Public). They thought it would be a good idea to play all their five songs in Reggae style with a hint of Rap (not Hip-Hop, but old time Rap). Sorry, but I came to hear 80s New Wave. But the crowd outvoted me and danced along to the music. Right, from sing-along to dance-along. I wisely used my time to refill my Pepsi Zero and bought some Truffle Fries, which were soggy like I like them. 

Then there's the New Wave bands who have new albums out. Wang Chung was promoting the reissue of Live and Die in L.A. and played songs from it. Great set. That's when 5 songs is too short a set. The band used the two huge screens on either side of the stage to showcase clips from the 80s versions of their set to run along with their live set on-stage. That was a treat. That was a real concert set. Yes, of course they closed their show with "Everybody Have Fun Tonight". This was the winner band of the package. 

Howard Jones closed the show. I apololize, but I was unfamiliar with his music. I didn't even know who he was when he played keyboards for the 2001 Ringo Starr's All-Star Band line-up of Roger Hodgson of Supertramp, Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, Greg Lake of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and Sheila E., Pete Escovedo's percussionist daughter. With that strong a line-up for this Prog Man, it's little surprise that Howard Jones was lost in the crowd. A friend of mine who also attended the All-Star concert commented that Jones seemed subdued and didn't play any of his hits. Sadly, I wouldn't have known if he did. The Jones show seemed out of place, you know, like post-Genesis Phil Collins: More syrupy pop than heavy Prog. Still, the crowd liked it. There were singalongs and dance-alongs in his 11 song set. 

So, all in all, it was a Wang Chung show for me, with Richard Blade as DJ playing 10 years' worth of 80s New Wave hits, even though they were only snippets. I enjoyed myself. I really loved the crowd-watching. They were consistently entertaining throughout the evening. Folks old enough to be grandparents (I'm one), and kids in their teens. Blade called a young man over to the front of the stage and asked his age. He was 17. Blade pointed out to the crowd that this kid was singing all the words to all the songs that were playing. 

Great. Another karaoke generation on the way up. 

 

In Dream... #1

In dream..., 

my friend picks me up from work at the factory and drives me north to the university. Along the way, I spot that old corner grocery store where they sell comic books from the 60s and 70s for cover price, still brand new condition. 

I tell my friend to pull over. He tries making a left hand turn, but we encounter some street construction. A large miller clawing up black chunks of the asphalt. 

We U-turn and now head south, back through the factories and the smell of burning tar and smoldering wood. In a few more miles we will be at the beach. We've gone too far. I tell my friend to turn around, but he is gone. I am driving. I U-turn into that damn street construction. 

The asphalt miller has dug away most of the street save for a small thin strip that I carefully drive on. I fear the car will fall if I sway one inch too far left or right, so I stop and get out of the vehicle. I climb down the wall of that thin strip of street, using bits of asphalt as a ladder to the bottom. I look up and see the car balanced on the impossibly thin strip of street. 

I should be by the corner grocery store, so I climb up the west end of the ditch. The store is indeed there, but it is not the same inside. There is no comics section. The lights are too bright. I leave under the suspicious gaze of the owner and his wife, the cashier. 

The ditch is gone. The car is gone. The construction of the street a thing of the past. 

If I turn left, to the university, I may make it to class in time. If I turn right, to the factory, I could work a few extra hours. There is no west. And so I head east, into the glare of the sunrise.

I am blinded awake. My left eye still closed, my right eye glances at the clock. 6:00 a.m. sharp. 

A strange depression settles over me, as if the day were over, and it were time for bed. I get up, turn on the coffee machine, and hope that that first long sip of the hot morning brew will salvage this lost day. Though I know in my heart, it never will. 

 

Memory Corner #8

Deaf Woman at the Window

John, my neighbor and friend from Middle School, had big ears, so we called him Ears. He loved his practical jokes, but we were all wise to his tricks and were doubly cautious around him. Still, we liked to hang around him on weekends, especially since he usually had the house all to himself. Except for his senile deaf aunt, who Ears had to take care of while his parents were away for the weekend, as usual. We never did learn where they used to go. But Ears didn't seem to mind. His aunt's meals were all prepared, and all Ears had to do was microwave them, set them on a tray just inside her room, and close the door.

"How does she know the food's there if she can't hear you?" I wanted to know. 

Ears guffawed. "She can't hear; she can smell."

I always went with him when he dropped the food off and picked up the empty tray. He'd then toss it in the dishwasher with all the other dirty trays. I never once seen him turn that washer on. Maybe he did it after I went home. 

His aunt was a short woman dressed in black with a dark veil across her face. She usually sat at the window with her rosary beads, saying prayers and counting off the beads with each hail Mary. She whispered her words in a husky sound, more clearing her throat than mouthing words. She clucked her tongue at Ears when she saw him drop off her meals. "That means 'thank you'," said Ears, as if I were too stupid to grasp its intent. She hissed when she didn't like something, like having the lights turned on in her dark room. The only light she let in was from the street light when she opened her curtains at night. Sometimes Ears would flick the bedroom light on and off quickly just to get her to hiss. Then we'd run outside to play. 

We sat on the lawn of my house while we watched the cars drive by. There wasn't much to do. It was football season, and the rest of our friends were inside watching the game. Ears and I were not big on sports. We were more into comics and horror anthologies. From my yard, we could hear the throaty prayers of Ears' aunt at the window. 

"She's praying again," Ears explained. "She either prays for her voice to come back or for me to stop messing with her lights."

"Why don't you just leave her lights alone?" I asked.

"Then what would she pray for?" he laughed. "Watch this." He pulled his shirt over his head and buttoned it over his hair, so it looked like he had no head. Then he walked over to his aunt's window and waved his arms around like some 50s costume film monster. 

That's when I heard a sound I never heard before. His aunt was stuck between gasping and gagging. She was clawing at the window screen, leaving long white lines across the surface. She contorted her face into different shapes as if looking for the right mask to wear for this frightening occasion. I wanted to tell her it was a joke, but her full attention was on Ears, and he wasn't going to stop till he got tired. I mean, he wasn't laughing under his shirt. He was just going through the motions of scaring his poor aunt. 

Finally, I had enough and pushed him away from the window. We ended up on the side of his house, where he lowered his shirt and asked, "What was that for?"

"Enough," I said.

"Why? No one's being hurt." He looked at me like I was the bad guy. 

Then the hissing started. "See," Ears said, "now she's scared. I better take care of this." 

He walked in front of his aunt's window so that she could see him. With his head. The hissing stopped. Then the clucking started loudly, softening into whispered prayers. 

"See," he told me. "I lost my head but I got it back. She thinks she did it. When I mess with her lights, she prays for bad things for me. And when she realizes what she's done, she prays to make things right again. Man, you almost messed things up. Now I better go inside before she freaks out again."

When he entered his front door and closed it, I heard the clucking begin again. That's when I decided to go watch some TV. At least that I understood. 

The Narrator's Tale 

I am the narrator of this story

About the rise and fall of Banker Bill.

But the sun shone out so full of glory

I left his tale to travel vale and hill. 

Free from the bonds of narrative structure

Without a protagonist or bad guy,

I lived my own life beyond the juncture,

To find love, settle down, and multiply. 

A happy man was I for many years

A home and family inked a new page;

Blessed with a long full life of joys and tears,

I escaped life in the narrator cage. 

I lie in bed at peace with this proud path

As Banker Bill strangles me in his wrath. 

The Listed

Chapter Six

Graduate student Bridget Wallace didn't look like an assistant professor at New Jersey College. She looked more like a first year student. She always carried several text books in her skinny arms, and their weight seemed to knock her off-balance as she rounded the corners of the hallway as she headed for class. She favored the modest outfit of a Catholic High School senior rather than a young professional woman in her twenties. Her large frame glasses were perhaps a poor choice for her round face, which appeared large because of her small frame. It was no wonder she wasn't taken seriously by the students in her freshman chemistry lab who were just out of high school and unfamiliar with the protocol of college classroom decorum. Professors and Assistant Professors were to be treated the same, that is, with respect, but her mentor Professor Leonard Lyman reminded her more than once that as long as she acted professional, the respect would follow. 

Lyman thought back to meeting Ms. Wallace for the first time in the Graduate Studies program. She had applied for the Assistant Professor position that had opened up when his former assistant transferred to Stanford University for a full-time Professor job. He knew what a genius Ms. Wallace was based on her interview. And she wasn't too bad of a looker as well. Didn't hurt male enrollments in the class. He found that not too many guys signed up for chemistry for the knowledge. It was all about computers these days. And trying to figure out what the next big tech was going to be so they could get rich quick. So, adding a nice pair of legs to the front of the class for the boys to sneak a peek at, did indeed help enrollment. He doubted anyone even noticed she wore Coke bottle glasses, as the kids say. 

Bridget sensed the Professor's bullshit right off. Didn't even bother to open her curriculum vitae during the interview. Just gave her the elevator eyes. Just like dear old dad. Dear old dead dad. She was so glad when his heart finally gave out. He collapsed at the dinner table, and Mom went into hysterics. She swiped her phone and it beeped on. Daddy needs an ambulance now, she thought. What's the number again? I forget. I'm just a dumb girl with some nice boobs and a nice piece of ass, right, Daddy? 

She waited for his face to turn purple before she pressed 911. If they managed to save him, they'd be saving a vegetable. 

Suddenly, Mom grabbed the phone from her and hit 911. Her hands were shaking. She was in shock, but the man she loved was dying. It was mere muscle memory moving her hands. Her eyes were locked on her husband. she hardly recognized him. Swollen face, bulging eyes, purple lips. She gave a quick rundown of the situation and the address to the emergency operator and hung up right as the operator asked follow-up questions. She turned to her daughter and said, "I'll wait outside for the EMTs. You straighten up the kitchen. Your father will be fine. Don't you worry. Help is coming."

It didn't come fast enough though. Daddy was three shades of blue, purple and a color she didn't even recognize before the ambulance arrived. All she remembered was how spotless she had the kitchen when the EMTs rushed to Dad's side. Even Mom was pleased with my clean-up as her face frozen in bewilderment tried to give an approving smile. 

She grimaced at the memory as she brewed the chamomile tea. Professor Lyman was on his way to her apartment. He told her it was his favorite flavor. It was the perfect aroma for the mix she'd prepared just for him. Six months of planning. Seven months she's known about his heart. What is it with perverts and their weak hearts?! It was time for her to change into, as they say, something more comfortable. The order-in Chinese food had already arrived and was being kept warm in the oven. She made sure that Professor Lyman's final night on earth was at least pleasant. 

Wait a minute, she thought, as she entered her bedroom to change clothes. I didn't leave the light on.  

Before Bridget could turn around, Macy Townsend had the girl in a chokehold. Pure survival instinct told her not to struggle. The grip on her throat was strong, potentially lethal. Play along. Survive. Payback will come later. 

Lieutenant Sally Mason stepped in front of the girl's face. She didn't look like a serial killer. More like a bookworm, a librarian from a 50s black and white movie. But she was number nine on the list. No questions asked. Duty was duty. She removed the syringe from its metal box and injected a yellow liquid into the neck of the seemingly calm girl. 

Townsend relaxed her grip. Bridget twisted her neck about, feeling the stinging hot liquid flow across her face and down her chest. "Golden frog or yellow mushroom?" asked the curious chemistry teacher. 

"Chamomile tea" admitted Sally. 

"Why?" she wanted to know as she felt the fire spread across her vitals. 

"Orders," Mason said coldly. 

"That's okay," Ma'am, "we all have our orders. Too bad I didn't get to finish mine. Say hello and goodbye to Professor Lyman for me. Tell him I wish we could have had our last supper together."

Townsend felt Bridget slump into a quivering mass. All muscle twitches and spasms. Then nothing. She released the dead body, and it folded into a pile of clothes and flesh across the floor. She stared at the poor girl on the ground, a twinge of pity at her throat like watching a sad scene at a movie. She cleared her throat, breathed in through her nose, and looked at the L.T. for further orders. A knot of anger clenched in the pit of her stomach as she saw Mason taking notes in Vic Nine's file. The Lieutenant closed the file and told Townsend that it was time to vacate the premises. 

As they walked down the stairs, two steps at a time, the elevator was stopping on the second floor, where Professor Lyman stepped off and headed for a good time with his favorite Assistant. Little did he know that the local police were headed for the same location after receiving a call about a potential murder. A murder of passion between a professor and his assistant. 

"Lieutenant," Townsend said.

"She speaks," scoffed Mason. "What's on your mind?"

"What's in the file? The skinny little girl was a nerd, not a killer." Townsend stopped walking. 

"We'll talk in the van," the L.T. said.

"No, Ma'am," she insisted. "Now. I mean, who's next? A ten year old girl?"

"You get one question, and only one answer, that's it." Mason handed her the file. "Read quick."

The file recorded at least seven poison victims that Bridget Wallace had been responsible for. There may have been others, but there would have definitely would have been more, according to the graphs and tech predictions. No human wrote this file. Some hi-tech computer shit. "But this is a computer giving orders, Ma'am."

"You had your question, and I gave you your answer." Mason took back the file and resumed walking toward the van. "Coming, Marine?"

Townsend swallowed her pride and followed her C.O. 

Chapter Seven

Hinecker read the news on his laptop about Lyman's arrest in New Jersey. He was acquaintances with the Chem instructor briefly during his stay there on the east coast. There were so much prey in college towns. And the cops were fumbling over themselves with so many theories that it gave the news media fodder to take down law enforcement a notch. But there was one smart detective there, just got promoted, if memory serves. Detective Lee Vincent. Grandfathered in to the New Jersey Precinct. He had the instinct of a good detective. I saw that right away. Didn't look for patterns. He followed timelines. Made predictions. At some point, the bastard got ahead of me. I had to give up my hobby for a spell. I got antsy without my side work and so it was time to move on. The body count had become noticeable. 

Before Lee, it was random, but that cop had a gift for the geometry of murder. He was dangerous to people like me. Now that he had his timeline, he was ready to make predictions and start hauling in suspects, persons of interest. And thus, it was best for me to relocate to the west coast. Let the detective do his work. By the time he figured it out, I'd be someone else entirely. A psychology professor. Never did like chemistry. Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you like it. Wonder if Lee liked his work. Maybe someday I'd ask him. Maybe someday he'd ask me.

*****

Hinecker grabbed his laptop and headed for the coffee shop. He liked to watch the students milling and socializing. There was one girl he had his eye on for some time now. Which brings us back to the girl. The girl, the victim Lyman was arrested for. What was her name? Wallace. What were you up to with the girl, you dirty old chem teacher? Did you poison her or did she try to poison you? Murder suicide? On whose part? Did she break your heart? Was she calling the affair off? No, Wallace lured you in, didn't she, once she saw you were an easy target for her hate for dirty old men. Daddy issues, no doubt. 

No, no, no. Wait a second. There was someone else there. Someone beside Wallace and Lyman. Who called the cops? Who? There was nothing in the news article about a 911 call. Hinecker did an internet search for recent kills on the east coast. Damn. So many. How many around Jersey? Where was Wallace from? Hometown. Newboro. Any deaths around Newboro. Nothing domestic, it seemed. Crime related. Wait. A heart attack. Ruled natural causes according to the coroner. Andrew Wallace. Well, well, well. We found Daddy. Did you poison him? Really had to know your chemistry to pull that off and get into a good college. And get a Assistant Professor spot. Did Lyman look like Daddy? Did he act like Daddy. Were you about to give him a homemade heart attack, my dear?

Who stopped you? Before he could fathom a guess, Cailee Price, the freshman student in Psych 101, was just leaving the Coffee Shop. He had targeted young Ms. Price as his next visit, but he had to call that off now. He had other concerns on his mind. There were puzzle pieces forming in his head, and if he didn't put them together, well, he believed he'd be exposed to risk. Cailee recognized the Professor and gave him a friendly nod. He smiled and nodded back, but returned to his thoughts. What was the connection? Why did he feel like someone was looking over shoulder? 

Hinecker needed more information on the east coast death of Bridget Wallace. Maybe he should talk to that nosy reporter again.

Chapter Eight & Nine

Coming soon...