Tell Me All Your Lies

A condition of the human experience is to unwaveringly crave to be remembered.

How we achieve that is perhaps the weightiest choice we must make.

We each must ask ourselves: when we become nothing but a story, will we be a hero or a villain? And, in the scheme of things, does the distinction even matter, even exist?

We all crave to be remembered...and for some of us, that leads

to extraordinary means to achieve the end.

Part I

There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.

~Edgar Allan Poe

Chapter One

Iwish I’d been in the room to see my mother bash in his brains. I wish I didn’t have to imagine how his skull sounded when it cracked under the pressure or how the coagulating blood contrasted with the whites of his eyes.

Unlike most children, you see, my first memories are not of ice cream or a childhood book or petting a stray cat in the street–although she loved to pretend they were.

My first memories are of the blackish red splatters marring my mother’s sunshine yellow dress, her bright red lips seeming to match perfectly. My memories are of the odd, metallic smell that filled the apartment only to be stripped away by the stinging chemicals. My first memories in that Parisian apartment are about how sometimes a person enters through the front door and leaves in pieces.

These are my memories because when I was three, my mother slaughtered the first man as I sat outside the room drawing. But all I saw, all I knew, was the aftermath. The red.

Red splatters, red dots, red all over her just like the crayon in the box she’d given me.

Even all these years later, I sometimes like to conjure up the actual act. I imagine the stunned look on his pathetic face as my delicate mother, pixie-like in her demeanor, turned his brains into mincemeat. I imagine her silky white hands gripping the wrench or the vase or whatever it was she used that day–I never asked her–and smashed his head once, twice, three times for good measure. I’m certain there was no hesitation, just pop-pop-pop, dead. Done. She was never one to wait around once she’d made up her mind. She also wasn’t one to be reckless, however. Three violent hits, an examination to ensure his death, and that would be it.  She would take inventory of the iron smell in the air, the red splatters on the bedspread, on her cheek, on her dress. And then, before she got to cleaning, she would have studied his face like I’d seen her do when I was older.  All men are fools, in some sense of the word, she would say to herself before retrieving the bleach.

Of course, it’s all speculation. I did not dare ask my mother too many details about that first one. She was closed off about him, perhaps because her incompetency back then embarrassed her. Killing then wasn’t the sport it later became, the masterful showcase of her expertise and wisdom.

Thus, speculation and my limited recollections of the day aren’t of how the skin flapped around the flesh wound or how the blood caked his eye sockets. Back then, I was different. Removed. Innocent perhaps.

My mother, after all, was a good woman. She did not let her young son witness such a grizzly act firsthand. She, like any good mother would, gave me crayons and placed me in the front room with instructions to leave her and the man alone in her bedroom. And somewhere between the moment she seduced him and the moment she murdered him, I colored a picture of the sun, the moon, and the woman I adored.

My mother killed her first victim when I was three–at least that’s the story we’ve decided on. For aren’t our memories, our family stories always a bit jaded by the truths we want to shine through? Time and circumstance distort reality sometimes. The blacks become reds and the screams become silences.

When I finally ensnare my first, however, it won’t be up for debate. You’ll know it was me because I’ll leave a trail so dark and winding, you’ll have no choice but to follow every perilous step. I’ll splay the truths out for you as I splay open one after bloody one. You’ll know how the carnage unfolded, how the skin felt slicing underneath my knife. You’ll know how the blood splatter tasted on my lip when it splashed from her open skull and how the brain matter reminded me of that casserole Denny’s wife made one time.

You won’t have to fill in the blanks or paint the scenes because you’ll bear witness to the diced skin, the pouring blood, and the mutilated body parts.

You just won’t begin to understand why.

To uncover that, you’ll have to know my story. The entire, bloody fucking mess of it all. But I’ll warn you—it isn’t for the weak who walk the streets of our society now. It’s for men of a bolder time, of a stronger time. It’s for men who aren’t afraid to come face to face with a little darkness.

We’re all made of stories, past and present. But the future relies on our choices. And my choice? Blood. Dizzying, bedazzling blood in all its sickening glory. In some ways, you might think I didn’t have a choice at all after everything that happened. Sometimes, I tell myself that’s the case. However, I know within my blackened soul we always have a choice. And this, well, this is mine. I own that, relish in it even.

Every family is a woven fabric of tales. They are threaded together by anecdotes of loss, of hardship, of triumph and dreams. The family crest adorns the quilt that they are all a patchwork piece of. Each generation hangs their hat on the hook above the quilt. They try to make it better, to mend the tattered edges and holes left by the adversities of those who went before them. Every family wants better for their offspring. Every family longs for a more regal story to tell.

My family is no different in this way. It consists of stories of heartbreak, of loss, of triumph, and of success. However, other elements also haunt our tale that most try to abate in their own—lies, deceit, treachery, and murder. It’s so bad, I’m not even sure anymore if our tale is the story of us at all.  Still, it’s what we’ve got. Even if our story is a lie, it’s mine to hold and ponder. It’s mine to make right. And I’ll do whatever I have to in order to set things right for myself, for us.

You see, my mother killed a man when I was three, if the story is to be believed. And from there, a whirlwind of romance, danger, and fear transposed itself on my flesh and etched out the sidewalk I would travel on.

And now I live in the shadow of that choice, of that story. It’s my job to set it right. But the way things are going now, maybe not. Maybe, when the choice presents itself, it’s mine to make wrong, to seal us into a web of infamy that’s the thing of notorious legends.

A better generation, a better life, isn’t always cleaner.

And even the devil has a backstory.

~Elliott Clairmont’s Journal

Chapter Two

Paris, France

1950s

Snow White.

These were his first garbled words in their new Parisian home when he was a chubby-cheeked baby. Not Mama, and certainly not Dada, for there was no one to fit the secondary role. Not no or some other quirky word some children sputter.

Snow White—these were the first words he uttered as he looked up at his mother’s blue eyes, which promptly filled with tears. The name stuck, and more often than not when the boy was young, he called her Snow White. It was partially Lucy Clairmont’s fault because she read him the fairy tale, her favorite, every night before bed, even before he could speak. It was one of the few possessions she’d shoved in that black carry-on bag when they’d boarded the plane and made their great escape to the life she’d always wanted.

It didn’t help things that her curly, thick black hair looked like the woman in the picture book, which Elliott came to adore. It didn’t help, either, that the scarlet red streaks that sometimes tinged her face matched the bright red lips of the fairy tale vixen, either. And so, the name stuck through his first years of life, the name a garbled mess from the remnants of pastries or food stuck in his mouth when he spewed the words.

He said them often. He loved his mother, followed her everywhere around the little flat in the heart of Paris. His bare feet would plod on the splintery floor, chasing her about as she tried to renovate the pathetically boring housing and bring life to it, even as she snatched life out of it as well.

Of course, Elliott Clairmont did not remember calling his mother Snow White or the barren landscape that was their home when they moved in. He didn’t recall pointing at paintings she hung up and smiling, as she told him later. All of those first years in Paris were simply stories passed down by a black-haired woman who looked like Snow White and who filled his life with love. Still, these were tales all the same, much like the words about the forest beauty who escaped into the trees after the Huntsman had let her live and the witch who died in the iron shoes. His mother didn’t believe in the glossy fairy tales, after all. Life was much too dark for that.

His first memory in the Parisian flat? Red. Splatters of blackish red on the front of her apron, down the sleeves of her gorgeous, yellow dress. She’d wiped her forehead, and a smear of the color had melted into her perfectly pale skin as she closed up the suitcase. Elliot did not, of course, understand what the red was or where it had come from. He’d been awake when the shifty, black-haired man had been ushered inside. She’d taken him to the bedroom after giving Elliott some crayons and paper on the living room floor. He’d sung to himself as he colored a picture of the sun, green like the grass because that felt magical.

And then, a while later, she’d come out of the bedroom. The man had not. Snow White had put Elliott to rest on the couch in the living room, singing him to sleep. When he awakened a while later, his mother was streaked in red, standing over him with a couple suitcases in her delicate hands.

Many years later, he would realize what was in those suitcases that she’d casually dumped on the bank of the river in the middle of the night, Elliott talking animatedly about birds and the green sun as they walked, pulling the suitcases behind her on their enchanting nighttime adventure. He chattered on about fairies, wondering if they’d see any. His mother had been the pillar of calm, and so he’d thought nothing of the jaunt. He would realize later the other nighttime adventures involving dumped suitcases were filled with the same as the first, just a slightly different variety.

It was amazing she hadn’t been caught, he would come to apprise. That first one, she would later tell him, she’d been inexperienced in things like poison, and she didn’t have Frederick in her life, yet, to help her.  Like many flats in the area of the time, they had no bathroom, sharing one with the entire floor. It couldn’t have been easy to clean-up, that first one. In fact, it seemed impossible. A woman so tiny, so delicate, dismembering a body? Awe-inspiring, Elliott would later label the event. His mother was much too humble, though, to adhere to such a title. She’d done what she had to, she would say. And her small frame and womanly curves were assets; for who would expect her to have killed? She’d gotten wiser, of course, later on. She’d found other methods, especially when he was older and could help.

But back then, he was still the naïve boy who believed his mother was Snow White and that the seven dwarves would show up any time to help them. He still believed in magic then, especially in the magic of his mother.

Therefore, after three nights of disposing of suitcases, his mother took him to look at art. Art in the big place, as he liked to call it. Walking around all of the treasures and sights, he forgot about the man and the red, the metallic odor covered by chemicals that smelled like the swimming pool they went to once. He forgot about the night walks and the suitcases. He forgot about everything except the woman who loved him, who admired his green sun drawing, and who saw beauty in the brush strokes, in the pencil drawings, almost as much as he did.

They were, he knew then, the perfect pair. They would always be the perfect pair.

Chapter Three

Once, after a particularly bloody ordeal–I’d heard the man whimper and plead for his life, to which my mother responded with an eerie cackle and another crack on the skull–I remember staring at a splotch of gummy red on her cheek, on her lip. She’d swiped at it, smearing it about on her face. I was mesmerized by how beautiful it complimented her skin.

What does it taste like? I’d asked her, my eyes transfixed by the sight of the drop on her lip, wanting her tongue to flick out and reach for it.

She’d paused and turned to me.

What? she’d asked, sweat already dripping down her brow from the labor as she wheeled out a suitcase from the bedroom. It was a river walk  kind of night.

The red. I gestured toward her face and watched her slink over to a mirror she kept nearby. She gasped, swiping violently at the marks on her. She did not respond, changing the subject to artwork and the river and how beautiful it would be tonight.

But all I could think about was how beautiful the red looked. I wondered what it tasted like. I imagined the strawberry jam my mother sometimes ordered on her croissant, the sweet, savory taste dancing on my tongue as I closed my eyes. I thought that was what the red tasted like.

When I killed the second one, I remember flicking out my tongue to see if there was a speck of red to taste. It didn’t taste like the strawberry jam of my childhood, but it was still satisfying, beautiful.

Delicious. Killing has become delicious. I understand my mother so much better now.

~Elliott Clairmont’s Journal

Chapter Four

Life went on in the Paris flat after his mother killed her first man, as life always did. Housing developments cropped up, but Lucy Clairmont thought it was too risky to leave the flat they’d grown to love together. Sometimes it was better to stay still, to go unnoticed, she told him. And so, they did just that.

Men and some women still filtered through the doorway at night, paying for a look into the great beyond, as his mother liked to describe it. Some of them left through the door they came in. Some did not. Elliott did not understand the difference then but assumed his mother was right and the cards had something to do with it.

Lucy Clairmont kept her work somewhat secretive, and those hustling and bustling on the Paris streets obliged. Dark magic was something to behold and whisper about with morbid curiosity to most; it was not something to actually pay for and take stock in, unless you were wealthy and hosting a tarot reading ironically to flash off your ability to do so. Most who were serious about the artform kept it tucked away, a secret in their family story. Lucy walked the middle line, as she often did. Word of mouth kept her in business, but a lack of a sign, a business, a true establishment gave her the freedom to pursue all of her artistic desires and passions. It made it easier for them to slip under the radar, which was just how Lucy liked it. She’d come from America, after all, so most of the residents on the street assumed she’d come from strange money and didn’t ask questions. That’s how they preferred it, too.

It was a happy childhood, the one Elliott lived. It was simple and quiet. At a time when most families dumped their children in front of televisions or radios, which were all the rage, Lucy Clairmont called them the devil’s work and refused to sully their flat with such a device. Instead, she encouraged him to look out the one tiny window into the sometimes-dismal street. She assured him that if he were to look with an artist’s eye, he would find much more beauty in the real world than on some box. He learned to do just that.

It was lonely sometimes, just the two of them, especially in the evenings when she was working. Infrequently, he played with the boy at the end of the corridor, a child who was quiet and grumpy but did just fine for things like tag and marbles. Lucy Clairmont even talked to Michael’s mom sometimes at the market when they went for their daily trip.

Most days, they walked around the city, his mother noting various structures and pointing out the infallible beauty that was Paris, something he would never get in the states, she assured him. She seemed to be constantly convincing them both that Paris was where they belonged. As the years passed on, they both started to firmly, unabashedly believe it.

The weeks, the years, passed in a flurry of watercolor paintings, childhood fantasies, and laughter—for the most part. There were, of course, skinned knees, questions of where his father was, and wishes for a sibling he could whack over the head once in a while. But for the most part, he was content with his mother, and she with him. They’d grown quite fond of their Paris flat, which he realized later was quite dilapidated but still filled with a hominess he would later long for in life.

By the time he was nine, in fact, the flat looked almost unrecognizable.

For one, there was art absolutely everywhere. Cheap, gilded framed portraits of artists unknown. One piece his mother assured him had been a steal and worth the splurge. A few pieces he thought she may have actually stolen, and a few that had been donated in lieu of payment by her customers—some who left, and some who did not. And, of course, some of the artwork was actually his, watercolors and charcoal drawings she swore were museum worthy. He would turn red seeing his own inconsistent work hanging beside some truly great, worthy pieces, but his mother insisted they were in the exactly right spot. It made his heart secretly swell with pride.

The other thing that had changed in the flat by the time Elliott was nine was he understood more about their circumstances and what she did. The world of tarot had opened his eyes to her profession, and he realized why so many came to see his mother for advice. She had a gift, a way with the cards that spoke to their inner needs. It was more than that, though. Somehow, she saw deep inside, could lure out their deepest fears and intertwine them with their deepest desires. She could make them see these things for themselves, which was the true art of tarot, she told him. She made sense of a senseless world in those cards. People would pay any amount of money for that comfort, no matter how unsteady, in a chaotic life.

At nine, he also realized money was something they needed. Traditional work was not for her, she’d said. She’d lived that life in America. Lucy Clairmont wanted freedom to follow her whims and explore, which was something she hadn’t had before. Besides, she’d assured him they had money from their old life, a life she didn’t like to talk about that often. They had money in the bank. All of the tarot money was extra—as was the other money she made.

Usually, the customers left the way they came in, especially the regulars or those she knew well. They would come, and she would do her work, summoning the future from the cards in her hands. Other times, when men came, it was on the pretense of seeing their future—but in actuality, all they wanted to see was the gorgeous, black-haired beauty who made them forget their present. She would often oblige them for she told him the money was too easy to make to pass up.

Sometimes, though, it was different. Sometimes, the customer did not leave, like that man when he was three who had left a streak of red on his mother’s dress. At nine, he hadn’t sorted out the pattern yet or the why. He didn’t ask questions, either. He didn’t feel the need to because his mother was not the villain; that he knew for certain. It was all he needed to know.

Eventually, though, curiosity got the better of him. Sipping their coffees at a café in the afternoon, he asked her whom she decided to kill and whom to let live. She told him she let the cards speak to that. He didn’t understand that until one day, he did.

Chapter Five

M ama, when is your Prince Charming coming? he asked once when she’d been particularly busy with her bedroom work. He’d been experimenting at the small table in the living room with his watercolors, mastering a picture of the river landscape from memory. He’d even drawn the corner of a suitcase bobbing in the edge