The Psychopath Maker

Chapter One

In an office lined with medical books, Benny Lemen sat in a crème fabric chair across from a scholarly man. Benny was a thin, demure, and pale chap with thick black hair ruffled around his head and fallow eyes. His pale skin, a result of spending two years in a facility for the mentally inept since the age of fifteen. At seventeen, he was still confined to a hospital, but at least Kyren Memorial didn't have bars on the windows. Benny drummed his fingers on his thin thigh eagerly waiting to hear the man's answer.

      "At this time, college is not the appropriate move for you." Dr. Fulton sang in a low dull tone peering at Benny over his rectangular glasses he was burdened to wear from reading medical books under a vague desk lamp so as not to wake his indignant roommate. Deep wrinkles lined up around his eyes revealing all the forty-five years of life he lived on this habitable planet.

       Benny shifted in the creaking chair. His pale cheeks burned bright red. He wasn't a fragile Russian doll possible of cracking at the hint of any sign of trouble.

      "It's the right move. When you graduate from high school, the next step is a university."

      "The atmosphere of college brings about stress. A number of college students develop mental disorders and for those like you that have spent time in an asylum it can prove difficult." Dr. Fulton leaned back in his richly lined leather chair.

      "That incident was years ago. I take the meds I don't need. I even go to high school. A private elite prep school! That is more stressful than any university." Benny scooted to the edge of his chair. He tried to control his fluctuating tone, trying to keep it steady. Rash emotions were a fast way to get sent back to the sanitarium. "I got into Brown, Columbia, and Harvard. I'm going to one of them this August. You're not my father."

      Dr. Fulton slammed a manila folder on the desk, "I may not be your father but the governor; your father made me your guardian. So, if I say you're not mentally fit for college you won't be going to college."

      "We all have done detestable things in our past. That's one thing about which you are right." Benny stood up from his chair. "I know the things you do with some of the girls at Dawson. Sometimes it goes smoothly but not last time, no." He walked around the chair and leaned against it's back. "Last time was quite a struggle. The way she ran out of the woods with her shirt ripped and all. You see, Dr. Fulton, I will be going to the school of my choice with our without you."

      "No one will believe a psycho that was shut away in a loony bin."

      Benny erupted in laughter; "I don't need belief because the thing about your little problem is that once the word pedophile slips past anyone's lips sane or not an investigation will proceed. And I'm pretty sure a man like yourself that loves virginal, attractive girls on the cusp of adulthood and assaults them when he gets that little urge has slipped up a time or two."

        Dr. Fulton was speechless, there were no words, no lies he could fathom. He slumped down in his chair, removed his glasses and stroke his rumpled forehead wreak with tension and dread. He stared at the John Hopkins diploma mounted on the wall in the gold frame. He worked hard for that. He avoided parties, stayed away from drugs, and lived at the hospital interning for any doctor that would take on his services. 

But, the boy was right; the hint of this unthinkable act would bring down brimstone on his treacherous soul. These accusations would bring an end to his healthy paydays. He would die alone and lonely in a Maytag washer machine box underneath the interstate. His death which would come to him at the end of a miserable 87-year sentence on earth; miserable lives always last the longest and it will come to an end on a rainy dark day. He will take his last breath and it would be the best day of his life because he wouldn't have to wear the ratty old t-shirt, hole confiscated dress pants, the musty stench that clung onto him like his depravity.

      A high-pitch beep yanked Dr. Fulton from his hallucination of future torment.

    Benny pressed the small button on the side of his burgundy watch, "Medicine time! Do I get my injection from you, or do I have to go downstairs." A bright smile plastered across his face.

   "Downstairs." Dr. Fulton barely moved his mouth; the words just fell out.

    "Oh, Fulton. Good talk. I feel so...." Benny inhaled a deep breath then exhaled it loudly. "Refreshed. Renewed. Awaken." Benny slapped the chair and strutted out the door.

    Benny stepped off the elevator floating on cloud nine so high in the air, he didn't remember getting on the device. He was getting what he wanted. What's a little blackmail amongst cohorts? Well, was it really blackmail or a well-structured business deal; I keep your dirty secret, you give me what I want. Right? That's the way Benny saw it. Dr. Fulton took a business deal of his own two years back; I'll clean up the Lemen family secret take your son, Benny, reform him and bring him back into the world all for a standard fee that's not too small. He wasn't going to feel bad for the man. He whizzed between the dietician pushing a cart of empty trays and a doctor with his eyes glued to an iPad. If Dr. Fulton didn't want to be extorted he shouldn't have done illegal things. Fulton's bad. Fulton's fault. Fulton's problem. Benny's triumph.

       Benny's cloud nine evaporated, he plummeted to earth quicker than a snowball melting in hell as he passed by the recreational room on his floor. He hung his head; his chin in his neck, a string of hair covering his eye blocking his view of his classmates. He whipped his body around the nurse's station bumping his boney hip in an overexerted nurse leaning against the station resting her eyes and stroking her temples.

         Benny dropped his body on the black cushioned stool, he huffed in relief, he wasn't seen, wasn't discovered. His classmates, overindulgent, elitist, trust fund brats knew he was there, lurking around. They wouldn't come looking for him, God No, but if they saw him; they would disperse their words of contempt in fake concern or self-gratifying callousness. He tucked his head down on the Formica countertop, closed his eyes drifting away, back to the past, when he was just like them. Just like the overindulgent, elitist, trust fund brats that spurned his existence. 

Will Benny be able to go to college like he wants to?