Last Day on Earth (12 page)

SAW 4 OPENING NIGHT,
Friday, October 26, 2007. Steve is excited. He’s seeing it with Jessica and Susan. A chance to make up with Susan, perhaps, and Jessica. Just had one of his fights with Jessica. He wrote to Mark, on October 24: “Crap on a stick! Jessica is flipping out tonight after too many drinks + prescription medication, so I won’t be on until 11:00 pm [to play first person shooters online].” Jessica knows when he goes out to have sex, knows what’s going on with Kelly.

But Susan is the one who really hates him. Maybe things can be better. Maybe they can get along. Susan is talking with a friend on the phone, though. Steve asks if she can drive, and she starts telling her friend how he’s a jerk, and then he gets angry.

So no Susan after all. He gives away her ticket outside the theater. He doesn’t know why it hits him so hard, not getting along with her. Family has always made him want to die. But to hell with them, he’s going to enjoy the movie.

When he and Jessica enter the theatre, they smell puke. Someone has projectile vomited in the previous showing. Should be good.

The movie begins with an autopsy of Jigsaw, gruesome, sawing into his head, removing his brain, sawing into his chest, slicing through fat, removing his stomach. They cut open his stomach and find a tape. “Did you think the games would end with my death?”

The “games” are a kind of therapy. In all the SAW movies, Jigsaw is a pseudopsychologist, a man who doesn’t have long to live (dying of terminal cancer), who is going to help his victims appreciate the value of life. He tells a rare survivor, “Congratulations. You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore.”

“He helped me,” the victim then tells investigators.

All of Jigsaw’s killings are strictly regulated by time limits and “rules.” In the Cole Hall shootings, too, timing and strict control of behavior will help provide order to an insane act. Steve will walk calmly
down the aisle shooting his victims, some of whom will be too paralyzed by fear to flee, then he’ll turn around and march back to the stage to kill himself, with no hesitation. Like the military, the world of SAW offers behavioral control without any reference, grounded on absurdity. Unmoored from society, parroting the rules.

Later that night, Steve writes Susan an email, parts of which are meant to instruct: “Susan, I just wanted to let you know that I’m actually quite relieved knowing that things will never change with you, as it is clear that you do not want a change; only negativity and drama. I will leave you to your own narrow perception of the world, and wish you the best of luck without holding any ill will towards you. With that being said, I really need to let you know that I’m often shocked and appalled by your disrespect towards me, and always am disgusted by the way you talk to me. It’s funny, because I’ve received more respect from hardened gang-bangers when I was in the group home. You are without a doubt the most rude and disrespectful person I have ever known, and it is unfortunate that you don’t even realize it. In fact, I’m shocked that we are even from the same family, because we couldn’t be more different. I mean, when you talk trash about me to your friends on the phone, simply for politely asking if you could drive to the movies, I know that we are not family; because family wouldn’t treat each other in that fashion. Talking to you is analogous to walking over a mine field, and I was always constantly on eggshells when around you, for fear that I would say something that would trigger some negative reaction from you. What’s most disturbing to me is that you don’t see these issues at all and are therefore not getting the help you need. Even if ignorance is bliss, something has to give, Susan. Now don’t get me wrong. I am far from perfect, and have never claimed to be. Perhaps I’m the most flawed human being in the world but that is irrelevant. The bottom line is that you need to accept responsibility for your actions and attitude.”

Hints of Jigsaw, trying to teach Susan, letting her know she needs to help herself, just as Jigsaw makes his victims help themselves, whether that means crawling through razor wire, stabbing out their own eyes, or jumping into a pit of syringes. “Save as I save,” Jigsaw says. “Judge as I judge.” The flesh of no consequence.

“This is not about me at all,” Steve continues in his email to Susan, “but rather deals with issues that you have ignored for too long. I really feel as though you have a lot of pent up hatred towards me due to our childhood, which is something that you need to seek professional help for. I am being serious and direct when I say this to you, Susan. There is obviously something seriously wrong when you feel the need to scream and yell at me for the most minor of things. I know a great deal of attention by our parents was diverted from you to myself when I was going through some rough times, and I often think you have issues with hostility, jealousy and self-worth, even today. Please don’t take any of this the wrong way, as I’m just telling it like it is.

“Honestly, I think you need to sit back and re-evaluate your life, attitude, and the way in which you treat people. You are a mean and cruel person, and even if you surround yourself with dozens of superficial (and somewhat token) friends, you will still be that same person, no matter how obfuscated you wish your character traits to be. This can change over time, and I hope for your sake that it does. With that being said, I don’t wish to be around you or converse with you any more than is necessary to conduct the business of the family, (i.e. at funerals and such). I really don’t want anything to do with you at all. I don’t need this stress in my life, and I’m amazed that even though I grew up over the years, you are still stuck as a petty and thoughtless person, trying to compensate for your inadequacies by disrespecting and belittling others around you. I can no longer even fake wanting to try to make amends with you or to make an effort to ‘hang-out’ with you, because I truly do not see the point when you are such an awful person to be around. I hope that you will eventually learn to be at peace with yourself and with those around you, even if it takes a great deal of time. Please feel free to save this email and to show it off to your partner, friends, and family members to curry sympathy and a shoulder to cry on. Play them for the fools that they are for buying into your melodramatic bullshit, because I am done with you. Good luck to you in the future Susan and I hope that you find whatever it is you are looking for in life.”

Steve always lies awake from midnight until 2:30 or 3:00 a.m., so he has hours to mull everything over, to replay this email and all his rage at
his sister, bottled up in his awkward formality and self-righteousness, but tonight, to make things worse, he wakes up at 4:30 a.m. He checks that the door is locked. The stove, too, checks that it’s off, checks the fridge.

Then he checks his email and finds that he has a long one from Kelly. She calls him “oh-so-old-and-wise-one” because he has written to her that “No one’s life turns out exactly the way they want it to, and it’s just part of the human condition to want more for oneself.” He confesses to her: “With respect to being wise, I am far from it, and if anything, I have realized how much little I know over the last few years of college, (yes, that’s probably a totally improper use of commas, but I’m tired lol). What is the perfect, most immaculate life attainable by someone?” The word immaculate must reach back somehow to his mother, to that Catholic upbringing. Interesting that it shows up now when he tries to talk about happiness, and that he goes immediately to family. “The ideal type (of family) is a farce in itself due to the (somewhat) superficial view that normal, fully functioning families exist. I know, I know . . . let the cynicism abound! :-) I mention family when I talk with others and say that they are doing fine, but the truth is I really don’t have much of a family. My justification is that I don’t want to ever let people know this about me so they don’t think I’m strange. It’s rare that I even see members of my family. I’m not sure why I’m telling you all of this, but it’s 4:45 a.m., so . . . let me rant about how fantastic SAW 4 is! My sister didn’t end up going tonight. For Karma’s sake, I gave somebody in line the free ticket to save them circa $8.00, lol.”

The same day Steve found Kelly on Craigslist, he also found “Heather.” Her photos don’t show her face. Only her body, in lingerie. He meets her on October 27, the day after SAW 4, at a bar in Champaign called Phoenix, along with her sister and friends. “I usually don’t drink,” he tells her, which is true. He’s currently on Celexa, after the Prozac didn’t work, and Xanax and Ambien. But he has two white Russians. He and Heather split off from the group to another bar, the B DUB, then go to a hotel, the Econo Lodge. It’s right off the freeway, the “crack and ho” section of town. They have sex. In the morning he’s a gentleman, buys coffee and cigarettes.

Steve confesses everything to Jessica. He calls her at work, tells her he’s not gay, then she comes home to find him a puddle of tears on the carpet. He’s sobbing that she was here all along, and why couldn’t he see that? He tells her about the male professor, about sex with three or four women.

He sees Heather again on October 30. Drives to where she lives, in Mattoon, Illinois, and brings a dozen roses and a couple movies.
Snakes on a Plane
and
Mr. Brooks
, about a good man who’s actually a killer, carefully planning everything. She’s not feeling well, though, so they don’t have sex.

Halloween 2007.

Steve stands in his bedroom dressed all in black, with white gloves. The mask presides over his room, set carefully on top of his bookshelves, centered. Whited face, black hair, red eyes, red lips, like Marilyn Manson, but this is Billy the Puppet, a stand-in for the sadistic killer-narrator from the SAW movies. An old face, protruding cheeks and nose and chin, sunken folds between. A masculinized witch with red target circles on his cheeks. A clown, almost.

On the shelf below the mask, a miniature Billy the Puppet, full-bodied, a small doll. Framed above Steve’s bed, a poster featuring the first three SAW films, along with movie facts.

Steve takes the mask down from his bookcase carefully, holds it to his left side, face turned toward him, a piece of himself, his alter ego. He and Jessica aren’t going anywhere tonight. She’s busy with work, and there’s no love after his night away with Heather. They don’t even get any trick or treaters.

Everything has fallen apart this fall, everything. His job in Rockville. Jim Thomas and his NIU friends on WebBoard. Jessica. Susan. The panic attack. Prozac and side effects. Craigslist. This is the beginning of the end. The final sequence, which will become as carefully planned and timed as any of Jigsaw’s tortures.

Steve dresses up, puts the mask on. He’s Jigsaw now, not only Billy the Puppet. He gets Jessica to take photos of him, arms outstretched, coming to get you, or holding a mallet cocked back, ready to swing. He emails the photos to his friends. Look at me. None of them know
enough of his history, though. They think he’s just dressing up. One of his classmates, Poppy Ann Graham, thinks it’s “creepy—like there were two sides to Steve,” in the one where he’s looking at the mask.

After the photo shoot, perhaps he sits on his bed in his room, alone. Wears the mask, takes it off, studies it again. Gets up to check that his door is locked. Puts the mask back on. Is it sexual for him? It is for Jigsaw, though never acknowledged, so maybe it is for Steve. Does he jack off wearing the mask? Does he think of Kelly, in a cemetery or an empty church? Or maybe just looking at the mask, old witch, Marilyn Manson, mannequeen? Manson’s body smooth, androgynous, shaven, and plucked. Steve plucks his eyebrows regularly, shaves his pubic hair.

Two days later, November 2, Steve has Jigsaw tattooed over his entire right forearm. He’s not covering up an old tattoo, as he was with the skull and dagger. This is something new that he wants. He pays $700 for it. Jigsaw riding a tricycle through a pool of blood, with bloody cuts across Steve’s forearm as background. He’s a cutter, slit his wrists for three of his eight suicide attempts, and he needs to help himself, needs to learn the value of his life. Has he really learned? Every time he looks down, Jigsaw will be there, reminding him. “See what I see. Feel what I feel.” Learning through sadism, through physical pain, through torture. An individual above moral code, like Nietzsche’s superman, or libertarians like Steve, like Purdy who gunned down schoolchildren in Stockton, California with an AK-47.

Steve goes back to Tony’s Guns and Ammo with Jessica. Just checking things out. She buys some pepper spray.

Steve asks Heather if she wants to go to Florida with him for Thanksgiving, to visit his father. They’ve been emailing five or ten times a day and talk on the phone all the time, usually for several hours after 9:00 p.m. She says no, worries he’s becoming overly attached, tells him she’s getting back together with her ex-boyfriend, so that’s the end of that. Heartbreak, it seems, and he takes it out on Kelly, breaks up with her on November 9 by email, even though everything is going fine. The email is titled “Hey, everything is cool, but we were getting too close”:

“Hey Kelly, I really like you as a person, so don’t take me not answering your calls or emails personally, as you are a wonderful person, but
I’m not looking for a repeat with respect to sex; mainly because I’ve been in a lot of terrible relationships over the years and they always begin with sex—even friendly sex—but it always leads to more than I can deal with. Yes, I know it’s dysfunctional, but it’s just the way it is. Relationships and myself never really work out that well, as casual always leads to something else, and since we got along so well, this just compounds the situation. Seriously, I had a great time with you, and I really enjoyed your deviant sense of humor (which is rare in women), as well as the great sex, :-). I’m not trying to be a dick, but I don’t know any other way of telling you these things, as I don’t want you to feel bad or used or anything, but at the same time, I respect you and women in general, and don’t want to be a stereotypical guy, which is why I’m emailing you despite the advice of a friend saying not to. I see that you posted on CL [Craigslist] again, (don’t worry, I will never sell you out or anything, but am good at picking up on writing styles and such), and all I want to say is for you to be careful, and I would recommend getting pepper spray, as there are a lot of fucked up people out there. At least meet up in public next time like at a Coffee shop so you can be sure that the guy is not some basket case who just escaped from state custody or something.”