Honey, You Kill Me!

It's part of the brain's mysterious wiring that we fantasize about the men we never meet. If you're always dating doctors, you fantasize about plumbers, and if you're always hanging out with plumbers you'll fall for guys in suits. If, like me, every guy you meet is friendly, eats at Olive Garden and returns his library books on time, you're going to kneel by your bed each night and pray God brings a mass murderer to you.

I've always wanted to go out with a mass murderer, I think partly because junior high school was so hard. Kids used to make fun of me because I was thin and smart and . . . well, gay as Richard Simmons' flowered fannypack. I kept imagining how much better my life would be if a Hell's Angel had my back. It wasn't that far-fetched, either: a couple guys in my homeroom carried knives, and had more chest hair than my dad. Unfortunately, they were fixated on girls, booze and weed, and I didn't even get one of these until I was twenty-five.

Now that I've got something to offer, it's too late. Killers just aren't what they used to be.

When the first serial killers appeared on the scene, they were totally charismatic, so determinedly weird that you knew they were either in cahoots with the devil or scheming to take over his spot. They weren't anything like the other adults we knew: for one thing, they looked interesting. You sit down to dinner with one of them and you know you're not going to discuss what you did in second period. "Um, first Miss Markie told us about the French Revolution, and then --" "Hey! SHUT YOUR YAP! I'm trying to talk to the dog."

Unlike your dad, they had full heads of hair, and eyes with intelligence behind them. Sure, they were psycho, but when a mass murderer stared at you, you stayed stared at. Today everything's watered down: you can't tell men from women, Republicans from Democrats, Luddites from Libertarians. The left wing is trying to attract conservatives, the right wing is trying to attract women and blacks. And the Pope's been apologizing for so much crap I half expect him to ring me up and offer to return that "facial massager" my Mom confiscated when I was fourteen.

And now we've got mass murderers who couldn't frighten children if they had broccoli behind their backs.

Take the Menendez brothers, for instance. Shooting both their parents, then blowing their inheritance on women and Porsches. They're definitely sociopathic -- and attractive, too, with full heads of hair and the confidence you get from crazy. I'm having flashbacks. I'm about ready to break out the expensive stationary, to get glamour shots taken at the mall. "Dear Lyle, how are you? I am fine. PLEASE LET ME BE YOUR JAILHOUSE BITCH! Best wishes, RomanHans."

Watching their trial on TV, though, I discover that one of them is wearing a toupee William Shatner would have spat on, and the other's dating a lawyer with a Mr. Kotter perm. Then they take the stand and start crying and you think, oh man, these guys are just dumb.

That's so typical of today's killers: you get them in front of the jury and they're all, well, my parents abused me, and I never got a PlayStation, and when I was five I was on a cable car that hit a dog. I'm hyperactive and I've got ADD and I'm real real sorry too!" They're brown-nosing like it's going out of style. Eddie Haskell did it better thirty years ago: "Lyle, would you like to make a statement?" "Yes, I would, your honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you all look particularly lovely today!"

Kenneth Bianci -- one of the Hillside Stranglers -- was the exact opposite. He had that casual coiffure that screamed manliness: unkempt, tousled, always sprinkled with bits of scrub or twigs that bespoke of his love for nature. His body wasn't from vanity or Nautilus: he had the natural muscularity of someone who's spent years lugging bodies around. Plus he used to dress up as a policeman to lure women into his car. How hot was that? Hell, black shoes and an irritated look are more than enough to win my heart.

Charles Manson was by far the craziest, and also the envy of every guy I knew. He was hanging around with rock bands, he had drugs Liza Minnelli never heard of, and he actually understood Beatles lyrics. He knew "Helter Skelter" was about drugs, and "Revolution" about overthrowing the government. Me, I hear "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and think it's about a flight attendant.

Manson must have been doing something right judging from all the hippie chicks he had following him. Hippie chicks were the vacation homes of the 60's, the sign that you were on the fast track to success. To middle-class America they were unwashed young women whose brains were addled by drugs, but all us teen dudes saw hot broads in tie-dye who blew all the guys in the commune in between making macrame belts.

Manson had a string of hippie chicks, trailing him like the Seven Hippie Dwarves: Squeaky, Dopey, Hairy, Stinky. He got to have sex with like twelve different women, one at a time or all at once, and when he woke up in the morning, the chicks would go, like, hey, Chuck -- after I blow you, is there anybody you want me to kill?

Before you write to a serial killer, then, do your homework. Think about how well he'd fit into your life. Is he spontaneous? Is he laid back? I could never date a methodical murderer, because you know how men are: they dig a hole, then all of a sudden they're ambitious. "I'll bet I could build a deck," they say, bolstered by their shovelling prowess. They dump the body in, cover it over with cement, flatten it out. There -- one square done. Big enough to hold a patio chair. Only forty-nine left.

The next time, though, the excitement has waned. They dig the hole. They stop for a beer. The body sits there and rots. The hole fills up with water when it rains, and pretty soon there's mosquitos the size of Shetland ponies in your yard. Just try holding a summer barbecue next to a coffin-sized swamp. It's sure to prompt a few awkward questions, no matter how pretty your table setting is.

And once you trap that man, you've got to forget the lectures, because now you're their partner in crime. There's no "holier than thou" for you. You've got to banish all those distancing phrases from your vocabulary: "You need to stop killing hitchhikers!", "Stop that or I'm leaving you!", and "Honey, can't you PLEASE just toss this one off an abutment?"

Because everybody knows you can't change a man, and nobody -- nobody -- likes a nag.