Bad Monkeys

white room (v)

“INTERESTING,” THE DOCTOR SAYS.

“What is?”

“In addition to my duties here, I sometimes conduct interviews at a facility called Red Springs, out in the desert. It’s—”

“A jail for sex predators,” she says, her cheeks coloring. “I know. I saw a sign for it on my way into Vegas.”

“Violent sex predators,” he says, but the correction does nothing to soothe her indignation. “I’ve spoken to over a hundred of them now, and they break down into two main categories: sociopaths, and a second group I like to think of as malefactors.”

Still flushed, she says: “Sociopaths are the ones who don’t feel guilty.”

“Very good. Most people think that sociopaths are the ones who can’t tell right from wrong, but of course that’s not true. They know the difference—enough to understand they have to hide what they do—they just don’t care about it.”

“Bad monkeys.”

“Oh, the malefactors are bad monkeys, too—and in some ways, they’re harder to take. Sociopaths are like Martians: their moral indifference is very strange, but at least their behavior is consistent with it. Malefactors, on the other hand, possess a normal sense of conscience. They experience guilt, and are capable of remorse. But they don’t let any of that stop them.

“Which brings me to my point,” the doctor says. “Another way of distinguishing sociopaths from malefactors is through the types of lies they tell. Sociopaths lie to other people. Malefactors do that too, but first they lie to themselves. In order to justify their actions, they often construct very elaborate fantasy scenarios…”

Her ire finally dissipates. She snorts. “So this is your new theory? I dreamed up the organization to help cope with my repressed guilt about the pet boys?”

“You think it’s a silly idea?”

“That Dixon was some kind of enabler? Yeah, I do think it’s silly. If you’d met him, you’d know why.”

“He did clear you.”

“No, he didn’t.” She starts to get angry again. “Did you not get the point about the phone call? Dixon didn’t clear me. Dixon wanted to burn me. At the very least he wanted me kicked out of Bad Monkeys, and if he could have sent me someplace like Red Springs, that would have made his day.”

“But that isn’t what happened.”

“Because Cost-Benefits overruled him.”

“So you were cleared. By very smart, well-informed people.”

“But why would I do it that way? If I were just imagining the whole thing to ease my guilt, why would I put myself through the wringer? Why not just have Dixon say, ‘Hey, so you crossed a line, it’s no big deal.’”

“Because you don’t believe that,” the doctor says. “You think it is a big deal. And before you could accept absolution, you wanted—needed—to be taken to task for what you’d done.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”

“Not all. By your own account, your involvement with the organization goes back long before your involvement with the pet boys. And while you may have been carrying a significant amount of guilt over what happened to Owen Farley, I doubt that incident alone was enough to give rise to such an elaborate coping mechanism. It’s too little, too late. So that leaves me with the same question Dixon had: Is there something else you’d like to confess?”

“No,” she says firmly, and then again: “No.” She leans back in her chair and looks away; her lips move as if to shape the word “no” a third time.

But what actually comes out—after a long pause, and in tones so low as to be barely audible—is: “Not yet.”