You Inherit Money, I Inherit Guns

I stayed in the conference room long after everyone was gone. Sebastian sat with a shaken Logan on his left side.

"You don't smile." I jumped at Logan's voice.

"I'm sorry?"

"You don't... Smile. In fact, you don't really do anything. With your face, that is." I didn't respond. "What I mean is, you look like you've never smiled. When you actually smile, it looks like the process pains you. Why is that?" Sebastian seemed curious. We shared a confused look before I answered.

"It may be because I'm a sociopath."

Logan giggled nervously. "Oh, haha. Shoulda figured as much." I frowned.

"I think you're confusing 'sociopath' with 'psychopath'," I said quietly.

"Like there's a difference?" he asked me as though he outsmarted me.

"Many differences, voi idiota," I snarled. He shrank back into his chair.

"Like what?" he asked at last.

"For one thing, sociopathy can be a symptom of psychopathy. Both are related to Antisocial Personality Disorder. Both are defined as lacking empathy. The differences are sociopaths are characteristically known for having normal temperaments and just comes from being poor, growing up in a negative environment, parental neglect, having either extremely low or extremely high intelligence."

"Can you say that in, er, English?" I gave him a sharp glare.

"I'm not angered easily. That's why I'm not a psychopath." Another pause followed. Sebastian took out the Times from inside his coat.

"You said something about 'extremely high intelligence'." He made quotation marks with his fingers. "You a genius or somethin'?"

"Yes. I'm a member of MENSA apparently."

"Apparently?"

"Yes. My I.Q. is over 140--genius level--I just don't know what it is."

"How can you not know what it is?"

"MENSA knows. That's all that matters." I said so with an impatient tone but he didn't pick up the social queue.

"But why don't you know? If you took a test, you must have wanted to know in the first place."

"I give you props for being deductive, but I didn't want to know. My family did. When I was in first grade I had hyperfocus issues. I was doing high school math problems I found in a soldier's textbook to pass the time because I liked the challenge. I had better comprehension than most and my problem-solving skills were very prominent to the point where it scared my teacher. The school asked my father if he wanted me to take an I.Q. test. I told him I would only take it if I wasn't told the score. I believed a test result wasn't something that should be celebrated. It is, after all, only a number. What was the difference between that and the 100% at the top of a weekly spelling test? I knew I would do well. I also knew that if I knew the score I would only feel more alienated from the rest of the children in my class. I was popular, but I didn't quite fit in as much as I--for lack of a better term--wanted to. I figured that the score would only hinder my ability to do so." I paused. I was playing with one of the rings on my fingers, watching Logan out of the corner of my eye. I let what I had said sink in. He was staring at his knees, nodding very slowly. I continued. "When the results came back, I was immediately invited to become a member of MENSA. The school and my family were quite astonished. When I went back to class, I called home. I felt so out of place I asked to be taught elsewhere. What I didn't know at the time was that I was going to move to America soon. I was pulled out of school sooner than I would normally have been. That was fine by me." I pulled a hair off my shoulder. I waited a moment to speak, but he beat me to the punch.

"Why did you kill them?"

"Kill who?"

"My friends," he sneered. He choked on the last word.

"I didn't kill them, only gravely injured them. I tend to get caught up in the moment. I'm not nearly as accurate as you think. And if I did kill one or two or all? Fine. Less interference from the outside world." Logan stood abruptly and puched me. I fell over. My lip snagged on my tooth, succesfully ripping the cleft. In a flash Sebastian stood at attention, a gun cocked and a finger on the trigger. I put my hand on the barrel and nodded at Sebastian to sit. Logan laughed mirthlessly. The sound was reminiscent of dry heaving.

"They were my friends. They had girlfriends, families, futures. How could you be so indifferent about a human life?" I said nothing. "That sort of thing isn't natural. You were taught that, weren't you? Like how a child learns from his racism from his father or how a dog learns to sit." His analogies were somewhat upsetting to me. I took a moment to gather my thoughts.

"I'm indifferent about human life because I don't hold my own in high regard. As soon as I'm through with you, you'll understand why." He raised his hand to slap me, but Sebastian had his glock pointed mindlessly at Logan's skull. He lowered his hand, but the gun didn't move. I stood and began to pace.

"You know what I find really amusing?" I queried. Logan seemed a mess. He looked absolutely awful. His eyes were very red. His hair was greasy from lack of upkeep. His clothes hung from him. He looked small and frail. A fragile creature had replaced the man I saw in the alley. All logic would point to me pitying him, but I really could not care less. I was simply voicing my thoughts. Sebastian wasn't exactly going to say anything and Logan was about as significant to me as the foam poking out of a seat. It was like speaking to a room of mannequins. "You have seemed to have lost all sense of time. Do you have any idea how long you've been here?" Here I turned. I liked having a flair for the dramatic. I stared him down. He looked away.

"Two hours?" he squeaked. I shook my head, chuckling incredulously.

"You've been here closer to two months," I said. His jaw dropped. "I know. Fascinating, isn't it? With your marvelous deduction skills you exhibited earlier, I thought you would have realized that. Oh, well. I suppose traumatic catatonia will do that to a person." Logan stared to the side, shaking his head. He mouthed the questions of what and how over and over again. "Your incredible weight loss should have cued you in. That and your lank hair, your small beard, and the sweat stains all over your clothes. And not to mention the smell." I stood with my arms crossed over my chest.

"What happened to--your friends?" He nodded silently. "They're fine. Like I said, my aim is not that great, particularly when I'm under a great deal of pressure." I leaned against the table. I studied my cuticles.

"You shivved their backs. You slit Jimmy's throat!" he shouted.

"Do you know how much pressure it takes to cut through sinew and muscle, tendons and ligaments?" He shook his head. "Five pounds per square inch. That's way more than most think. The blood loss sent him into shock. He walked away with gauze on his neck and a new penchant for turtlenecks and high collared shirts." Logan moved his lips to say something, but I interrupted him. "Your tallest friend--Charlie, is it?--is going through physical therapy. The other I 'shivved' as you crudely put it is crippled. Daniel, the one I originally attacked, is in critical condition but evidence is pointing to a slow but sure recovery for him. They are all pressing charges against an unknown female menace and there has been a search party for you every week for the past month and a half. I accidentally disobeyed my father's orders, and yes, I was punished for not killing them. Their survivals were accidents. They can go back to their cherished girlfriends and families and futures. You simply won't--can't--be a part of the latter." Anger rose to dangerously high levels inside me. In order to rein myself in I slammed my palms onto the table. The loud bang made Logan jump. "Consider yourself fortunate for not being hurt or killed or worse." I relished Logan's trembling, his quivering lip, his silent tears.

"What could possibly be worse than death?"

"Torture," I said without hesitation. "Not participating in your friends' lives, or even your own life."

"Death is still ugly. It's still terrible. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise. I had to concentrate on softening my tone.

"Death is different things to different people. To me, an honorable death is a reward. Dying of old age is a sign of cowardice. Dying an atrocious, painful death is an awful circumstance. Dying of disease is inconvenient. Death, no matter what, is simply something we all owe each other. Death is an elaborate scheme, and the more detailed it is, the more valuable your life was. Besides, as I see it, we all die two deaths--the first being our physical deaths. The second, the one almost all fear, is when our names escape the livings' lips for the very last time. That's why I'm so indifferent about death, Logan. I'm confident my name will be remembered for a very long time after my demise. I know it will eventually become an incoherent whisper in the wind, but it will still be there." I sat next to him. I took his hand into mine, sensing it was the right thing to do. He didn't pull away. "Do you see what I mean?" He nodded. "Good." I glanced sideways at Sebastian, who was watching our conversation with interest. He nodded in approval.

"The sooner you grasp that concept, the sooner you'll understand your needs and desires." It was mia padre who spoke. "Right now, we seem like cold, cruel people. We can be, definitely. But you're here out of my good intentions for my daughter. You're alive and well and being taken care of, which is more than many people in this city can say right now. As mi figlia had no doubt pointed out, you are fortunate. You may not think so, and you might not ever believe so, and that is perfectly alright. We know the truth and you don't. Don't treat us as imbeciles while you are still naïve. Remember, only those who have been imprisoned truly appreciate freedom." During his speech my father had put an arm around me. He kissed the top of my head. I looked up to smile at him before looking back at Logan. "Come now. You must be hungry. Let me get a soldier to fix you something." He held my hand in his and gave it an affectionate squeeze before leaving.

A hush fell over all of us as we got lost in our thoughts. I was the first to break the silence. "Best not disobey him. Let's go." Sebastian helped Logan to his feet and led him out the door, letting me mull over my father's words. What did he mean by 'only imprisoned men appreciate freedom'? Does that clue me into my father's mysterious past? What does it say about him?

More importantly, what does it say about me?