In My Father's Basement

by T.J. Payne

Evil can only triumph when good men do nothing,

“Your dad was pretty cool with the whole ‘Handyman’ angle. That’s what you need to do if you want to be a famous killer. You need an angle. A hook. John Wayne Gacy was a clown. That’s real nice and creepy. Ed Gein made lamps out of human skin. Awesome. That’s why these guys are famous, just like your dad.”

The most awkward job interview in the world

In that instant, an image flashed into Isaac's head. He could practically see his hand reaching for the scissors on the desk and plunging them into the man's neck. It would be so quick that the man could only gurgle, not scream, as his blood drained onto the floor.

Each tool told a story.

Isaac needed dull and dirty. Tools that held history within their imperfections.

a bevel-headed chisel of solid forged metal.

he pulled out the box from his dad’s admirer—the box with the framed photos of Walter’s female victims, and the request that someone with the Luce bloodline ejaculate on them.

wondering when he should start drinking for the night.

Become an alcoholic

“Don’t you dare call that man ‘grandpa.’ You didn’t know him. You never met him. He didn’t do nothing to earn that sort of honorific title from you.”

“I didn’t really know him. He was a stranger. We shared a last name and a house, but never a beer nor a kind word. He was an angry sonabitch.”

But I admit, it was fun to have a task. A job. Something to be accomplished.

“We’ve never talked like this boy. It feels good.”

Isaac’s mind flashed to an image of kicking Teddy hard in the kneecap. If he did it with enough force, he could send the big man straight to the ground. Then Isaac would get in his car, and while Teddy was immobilized, he would swerve around and run over the man's head. He wondered if he would be able to feel it pop under the weight of his tires.

Isaac wandered off to inspect the room. There was something about talking about his mom that made his muscles feel the urge to move. To be active. Standing made him uncomfortable.

Walter waited a moment, his arms slightly raised in anticipation of the hug, but Isaac made no motion to rise.

Walter cocked an eyebrow as he looked at Isaac. “You been doing a whole lotta reading up on killers, ain’t ya?”

to throw someone off.” “Exactly. Or has a pedestrian, a total stranger, ever walked in front of your car and every impulse in your body wanted to step on the gas? There’s no reason. They did nothing wrong to you. You don't even know them. You would achieve no monetary gain from running them down. No sexual pleasure. No political statement or religious victory. There is no

reason for you to kill that person except to know how it feels to kill that person. To watch their face as they crumple beneath your bumper. To feel the shocks on your wheels bounce as if you’re going over a speedbump, but knowing that it’s a human head or torso. Has that urge ever struck you? The urge to just hurt someone for no reason other than because you can?”

He couldn't lie to this man. Not to his father. And so, Isaac simply replied, “All the time.”

only one thing on this Earth separates good from evil.”

“Restraint.”

When exactly did that GFCI click off for me?

On a busy day, like when you’d get a whole family crossing the street on their way to after-church brunch, I’d give myself points for how many I think I could kill on one swerve.

was judging those strangers as being worthy of life.

He felt my presence but was too cowardly to actually turn and face this demon that was invading his personal space. I could have reached out and killed him and he was too polite to actually turn around and say, “Back up, buddy.”

took one look at his ivory white basketball shoes, crisp blue jeans, and his brand-new backpack, and I said, “Fuck this kid.”

I’m a professional at household repairs. And now, through training and experience, I was a professional collector of humans.

All them well-manicured lawns and trees and plazas and shit. These kids were living in a park. Tens of thousands of dollars a year of their parents' hard-earned money for them to get drunk and fuck.

“Not from the one person who should know me better. The one person who owes me their respect. You gonna sit there and call your own father a sex fiend?

“I paid you in a roof… bed… heating… electricity… food… Would it have killed you to say, 'thank you'?”

God knew it would come in handy. It would save me. Something was protecting me through all this.”

“If not God, then maybe it was the other end of the coin.” “I think Satan’s got better things to do with his days than to make you too lazy to fasten down a drainage grate so that you could use that grate as a weapon when your life depended on it.”

"Course not. He said they donated them all to charity. I finally squeezed the details outta him. Guess where they went." "Where?" "That damn retard's secondhand store!” Isaac couldn’t help but grin at the realization.

one thing a builder is always striving for—" "—is permanence."

“I had Elizabeth scrape out their eardrums with a flathead screwdriver.”

Tears welled in the old man’s eyes.

“I’ve never felt closer to you, boy,” he said. “It feels good that, after all these years, you and I have something to actually talk about.”

No one in the world is more invested in this story than Joan, I guarantee ya.”

His muscles clenched. An anger rose as he listened to Walter brag about restraining that girl. Teddy wanted to punch the wall. He wanted to punch Walter’s face. He wanted to make his own cattle prod and find every sensitive spot on Walter’s body with which to use it. He wanted to hurt the man who would hurt those kids.

He wanted to jam a screwdriver in his eyes or insert a flaming cotton ball in his nose.

He knew the feeling of disrespect well. From the prisoners who spit at him and called him “retard” and “cunt” and “faggot” to the coworkers who forced him to do the shit jobs because they could.

Was his daughter, his only child, one of those now?

Didn’t they know his dad was famous?

“Sure thing. I reckon it's best if we don't say nothing until our tape recorder shows up anyway,” Walter said, staring off.

"I don't mind you making a little money off me. You know, I ain’t gotten you a Christmas or a birthday gift since you were eighteen. I figured this could make up for lost time. Just be straight with me. How much you getting?”

what tool did you use to finish them off in the basement?” “A sledgehammer.” “Yep. That’s what everyone says.”

“I spent my life tip-toeing around your poor feelings toward that fucking degenerate cunt. No more.”

“So, every night as we locked up shop, in exchange for a few bucks, I’d have my way with her.

She’d run off, not come into work, and then call me up, all in tears, crying about how she was at some abortion clinic right then and there.

And if she wasn't threatening abortion, she'd threaten to start hitting the pills.