I didn't know how to explain what I meant; sociopathy wasn't just being emotionally deaf, it was being emotionally mute, too. I felt like the characters on our muted TV, waving their hands and screaming and never saying a word out loud.
It was like Mom and I spoke completely different languages, and communication was impossible.
"Think about a cowboy movie," I said, grasping at straws. "They're all the same—a cowboy in a white hat rides around shooting cowboys with black hats. You know who's good, you know who's bad, and you know exactly what's going to happen."
“So?”
"So when a cowboy kills somebody you don't even blink, because it happens every day. But when a clown kills somebody, that's new—that's something you've never seen before.
Here's someone you thought was good, and he's doing something so terrible that normal human emotion can't even deal with it—and then he turns around and does something good again. That's fascinating, Mom. It's not weird to be obsessed with that, it's weird not to be."
Mom stared at me for a moment.
"So serial killers are some kind of movie hero?" she said.
"That's not what I'm saying at all," I said. "They're sick and twisted, and they do terrible things. I just don't think it's automatically sick and twisted to want to learn more about them."
"There's a big difference between wanting to learn about them and thinking you're going to turn into one," said Mom.
"Now, I'm not blaming you—I'm not the best mother, and goodness knows your father was even worse. Dr. Neblin said you make rules for yourself, to keep you away from bad influences."
"Yes," I said. Finally she was starting to listen—to see the good things instead of the bad.
"I want to help," she said, "so here's a new rule: no more helping out in the mortuary."
"What!"
"It's not a good place for kids," she said, "and I should never have let you help in the back room in the first place."
"But I—" But what? What could I say that wouldn't shock her even more? I need the mortuary because it connects me to death in a safe way? I need the mortuary because I need to see the bodies open up like flowers and talk to me and tell me what they know? She'd kick me out of the house altogether.
Before I could say anything else, Mom's cell phone rang its tinny, electronic rendition of the William Tell overture that Mom had designated as the special ring tone for the coroner's office—a call to duty. There was only one thing the coroner would be calling about at ten-thirty on a Saturday night, and we both knew it. She sighed and dug through her purse for the phone.
"Hi Ron," she said. Pause. "No, that's okay, we were just finishing up anyway." Pause. "Yes, we know. We've been expecting it." Pause. "I'll be down in a minute, so whenever you can come by is fine. Seriously, don't worry about it—we both knew the hours when we signed up." Pause. "You, too, I'll talk to you later."
She hung up the phone with a sigh. "I suppose you know what that was about," she said.
"The police are done with Jeb's remains."
"They're delivering him in fifteen minutes," she said. "I need to get downstairs. I ... we need to finish this discussion later. I'm sorry, John, about everything. This could have been a nice family dinner."
I glanced back at the TV. Homer was strangling Bart.
"I want to help you," I said. "It's after ten—you'll be up all night if you try to do it alone."
"Margaret will help," she said.
"So it will take you five hours instead of eight—it's still too long. If I help we can be done in three." I kept my voice calm and even; I couldn't let her take it all away, but I didn't dare let her know how important it was.
"The body is in very poor condition, John. He was torn apart. It's going to take a long time to put him back together, and it's going to be very disturbing, and you're a clinical psychopath."
"Ouch, Mom."
She gathered up her purse. "Either it bothers you, in which case you shouldn't go, or it doesn't bother you, in which case you should have stopped going a long time ago."
"Do you really want to leave me here alone?"
"You'll find something constructive to do," she said.
"We're going to go put a body together," I said, "what's more constructive than that?" I winced immediately—dark humor wouldn't help my case at all. It had been a reflex, cutting the tension with a joke the way Dr. Neblin did.
"And I don't like the way you joke about death," she said. "Morticians are surrounded by death—we breath it every minute of every day. That much contact can make you lose your reverence for it. I've seen it iri myself, and it bothers me. If death weren't so familiar to you, you might be a little better off."
"I'm fine, Mom," I said. What could I do to convince her? "You know you need the help, and you know you don't want to leave me alone." Even if I didn't have any empathy, Mom did, and that meant I could use it against her. Where logic failed, guilt might save the day.