• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Before I could say anything, Teresa was in my face again: “Don’t let my husband find out or he’ll throw you right out of this house.”

I was Jenn’s first boyfriend, and although her parents tried to accept me, they found me a bit weird, even for an Anglo. They didn’t like the idea that I was a fan of horror movies, or that I’d once written a paper on witchcraft. Jenn was on the defensive most of the time, and I loved her for sticking up for me.

“Enough, Mama!” Jenn put in. “Daddy isn’t going to throw Jason out.” She then turned to me. “But seriously, how come you never mentioned this idea to me before?” She seemed to be more upset that I might have been hiding something from her, rather than by what I was proposing to do.

“I’ve just been thinking about it for a few days. You know how much I’m into this stuff,” I said, shrugging. It was a point of tension in our relationship that I liked going to horror movies and she didn’t.

Jenn cringed. It was obvious I’d embarrassed her in front of her mother. She was almost pleading when she said, “Why can’t I have a normal boyfriend?”

Teresa nodded her head and crossed herself. “Do your parents know about this? Your parents would never go for this. Chica, look, he’s smiling! Es una broma. Why do you play around for?”

“I’m not joking. Someone needs to study and find out about these people. I—”

“What makes you think you can talk to these people?” Teresa interrupted. “You’re asking for trouble.”

I decided to shut up before things really got heated. This discussion hadn’t gone the way I’d expected it to.

As Teresa fled upstairs muttering to herself, I looked at Jenn, hoping for support.

“Jason,” she said, sighing, “you’re not normal. Sometimes the things you say to me, the ideas you have—they’re just so . . . I don’t know . . . strange. Someday I’m going to be on a talk show titled ‘My Boyfriend Writes to Serial Killers.’”

She said that with a smile, so I figured we’d be okay.

5

Research

It was pretty clear to me at this point that I couldn’t talk frankly to anyone about what I was doing. When I looked at myself through the eyes of my family or friends, I really did seem strange. Wherever I was going, I was going alone.

Rather than fear the prospect of single-handedly taking on someone like Gacy, though, I felt a measure of pride that I was willing to attempt something nobody else would. Naively, I believed I could outthink and outmanipulate Gacy and the other predators I intended to write. In my fantasies, they became my victims as I accessed all the valuable things they were keeping from law enforcement and mental health experts.

Though at the time I lacked the self-awareness to see it, I was definitely suffering from delusions of grandeur.

As I thought more about it, I decided the best way to attract Gacy’s attention, given the killer’s homosexuality, was to pretend to be sexually confused and highly impressionable. I would concoct some stories about my childhood that mirrored his own childhood—for example, I’d claim that I’d been sexually abused when I was younger and that my father had bullied me.

One obvious problem was that I understood so little about the world Gacy inhabited. I was going to pretend to be gay, or at least leaning in that direction, and I didn’t know the first thing about what that meant.

I’ve always been curious about things that are beyond my own experience—especially if they’re the least bit forbidden. I remember one time Jenn and I passed a cemetery—a very unusual-looking one—and on a whim, I pretended to be shopping for a plot so as to get a tour of the place. I’ve followed this same pattern again and again, whenever I’ve seen something that appeals to me, or scares me.

The whole world of homosexuality was, to me, foreign, but also, as a culture, fascinating. I’d had gay acquaintances in the past and I admired the courage it took to deal with the stuff they had to face on a daily basis. Like most other kids my age, I feared such a lifestyle, felt threatened by