Prelude – Duncan’s Diary, Birth of a Serial Killer

Once an animal takes its first bite and the tongue has been saturated with that initial drop of blood, is it possible to ever go back and forget the appetizing spice of living life as God had originally intended. Hunt or be hunted, is that not a saying from some book or something.

The newness of my separation from my wife was hanging over me like the plastic vault of a new toy that has been recently pried opened with those damn metal ties still clinging to its contents. You try painstakingly to unravel each one only to find there are still more hidden from the back. I was looking for a release for my new found freedom. Sitting in a bar with my close Irish friend Martin, I was contemplating what new adventure I should embark on. He casually suggested the Dominican Republic which I myself would have never thought of but from the picture he painted sounded like a good idea.

The Dominican Republic is an island filled with sandy beaches, a warm tropical climate and a calm serenity afforded an undiscovered oasis of tranquility. The clouds seem to float in the air like cotton balls randomly strewn about the sky. The beaches are not crowded and the ocean is a bluish green tint and as warm as in LA. Sharing its small locality with its close neighbor Haiti the island is approximately split in half between the two although they are governed in widely different standards. Added to the scenic atmosphere it is widely known that the locals (both men and women) have a tendency to freely open up to travelers showing them the warmest welcome imaginable and have an island sensuality of exotic abandon afforded a third world country. Everything comes with a price though as STD’s are rampant in third world countries so buyers beware.

I must admit that now on my third Stella and listening to his tales of basking in the warmth and intensely soothing heat while bathing in the nude with supple twenty year old women had me intrigued. Martin had purchased a couple of lots down in the Caberete area and had the intention of building some homes down there at some point for retirement. I realized that I might not ever have his financial standing but the thought of spending a few days with beer and women on the sandy beaches had me convinced that this could be the perfect spot.

Martin was a big burly guy you might imagine as being typically Irish with his oversized arms and protruding belly. He was his own general contractor and had been in the construction business for all his life. He spoke with an Irish accent and at times it was difficult to understand him. I found the closer he and I became that most people mistook this as a lowered level of intelligence. They discounted him rather quickly upon first meeting him but in reality he was smarter than anyone I knew. Well read, politically active and there were very few current or historical events that he did not have an in depth knowledge of.

I will always remember a trip he and I had taken to Las Vegas where we entered a cab and he stated to the driver that he could guess the general locality of where the driver originated. The driver accepted the thrown gauntlet and Martin commenced to tell our foreign born guide what country and region he was from. Upon the agreed acknowledgment he then commenced the discussion of the recent elections in said country and what he felt about the political views of the winner. I spent most of the time wondering how I had never even heard of this country and had no idea who or what elections were exuberantly being discussed. Luckily for me most cab drivers are Indian so nationality prediction in those situations rarely is a challenge.

Martin was the one friend that I had been left with in the parting of ways with my wife. He was somewhat cast off with me from the group of alcoholic coastal socialites that teamed up with my wife. There little group felt they were the upper echelon of society’s standards for a coastal SF community. It is odd that the one intelligent person in our group was too intimidating to be included in the drowning cliquish circle of self importance that their cellophane world had created.

So when Martin said Dominican Republic was a great place to sew my renewed wild oats and forget about the hulkish grip my wife was imposing on me I swallowed the bait and hook in one gasping gulp of renewed vigor. With my destination in place I immediately kicked into high gear making my arrangements and found myself on a plane preparing to land at my desired destination a short few weeks later.

Martin had hooked me up with a friend of his that had helped him acquire the property he had purchased and had informed him that I could be a potential buyer. With this introduction I was soon to find that I now had a five day personal tour guide that would be my butler for a few drinks and some inflated exchange rate purchases but made the navigation of this little third world island country much easier.

I arrived at the airport in Puerto Plata and was engulfed by the blanket of heat being smothered over me immediately upon stepping out of the confined air-conditioned airport enclosure. It was like walking form civilization into a generic concrete construction site containing a row of rental car attendants and various vendors strewn randomly about selling beer at every available corner including the ice cream stand where Jean stood.

Jean was Canadian and had lived on the island for the last twenty years. I never completely understood how he had ended up down here but once he had stepped foot in paradise he had designed any scheme possible not to leave. Neither one of us knew what the other looked liked so I was surprised to hear my name called as I walked down the designed pathway in my sandals, Khaki shorts and out of place faded reddish polo shirt. I turned and assumed this was my greeting and held out my hand for an introduction.

Jean graciously said hello pointed to the ice-cream stand and asked me if I would enjoy an oversized Presidente to drink while we became acquainted. We commenced guzzling down three large beers as he gave me the lay of the land and we decided to then move over to the Hertz car rental desk to start the next stage in my journey. I paid for the drinks (expected and common theme of the trip) and we then started the process of acquiring my car.

Jean was extremely thin, gaunt with the sunken eyes of somebody who has enjoyed his alcohol to extreme for several years. I remember thinking upon first seeing him how easily he would fit in with my wife’s circle of friends. They only cared about clouding their pointless existence from one day to the next and alcohol was always an easy choice for aging America. The only difference was his genuine ability to open up and be himself and his casual accepting demeanor which would not fit in well with the plastic society of the hierarchal standing in my wife’s pretentious gathering of acquaintances.

Jean had married a local woman had a few kids (this part was a little foggy to me) and had his oldest son living with him in Caberete. For some reason he and his wife did not live together and from the sounds of their agreement she was not completely faithful as some of her children were not actually the direct product of Jean. Apparently this was easy to see at the birth of their third child when he came out black as coal. Jean laughingly recants the story at his surprise when he held his wife’s and some man’s child for the first time in the hospital.

We rented a little SUV that might not have been washed since it rolled off the assembly line in some foreign country and by way of an ocean going vessel had managed to make its way to this little island. The floorboard was strewn with the remnants of the dietary nourishment from several past patrons and yet we still had to go through the 15 point inspection required by corporate central. It is very odd how dictorial guidelines are established and pushed down to every known location regardless of local customs or even by common sense standards. Have ties cut off the oxygen to corporate executive’s minds?

I decided to let Jean drive as he was familiar with the area having lived here for several years. Although I had now seen him drink three beers and felt pretty confident that these were not his first for the day. He grabbed a couple from the ice cream stand, I promptly paid, and we then popped another couple open for the drive. Not only can you drive after drinking apparently you can drive while drinking in this little island sanctuary.

We made a quick stop in Sosua at a local restaurant where Jean had an acquaintance. Guzzled down a couple of more beers, talked for about 30 minutes and then headed out to the house that he had set up for me to rent. Again, just to hone in on the theme of the trip we stopped at the local grocery store for a 12 pack of beer before heading to the house. I quickly settled in to my second story two bedroom townhouse and was amazed at the view and proximity to the ocean. I had two balconies overlooking the constant ebb and flow of the scenic watery view and was at most 10 feet from the sandy edge where the vastness connecting all continents swirled and churned in chaotic abandon.

The sound alone was amazing as you heard the constant breeze blowing and berating the beaten edge of the brick barricade that tentively held the soil in place which made up the foundation of my beach home. Living here would be an easy transition as the peacefulness seeped into every pore of my being within minutes of arriving. I had already lost track of what time it was and cared little of what was going to happen next.

We hung out in the living area that connected to the main balcony drinking several more beers and after some time had passed decided to move to the local bar where Elvis ruled the roost. I wonder if Elvis is a popular name in the area or if by some odd way the name had made its way from the states several years ago at the timing of his birth. The bar was really an overhang that had 4 to 6 plastic tables strewn about with some seating and beer was poured from behind a bamboo bar like structure. I continued to think how odd it was that I felt so at home in this world that was so different than my confined accounting environment and the iron shackles that I was used to enduring in my marriage from hell.

It was at Elvis’ that I was introduced to a couple of local girls that were both young and beautiful in a tropical flowered dress sort of way. Both were simple but held the flawless beauty that is afforded only the truly youthful with skin that flowed smoothly almost without blemish that somebody of darker tones seems to be blessed. I had been seamlessly flowing Jean money and he was brokering the purchase of beer (for most of the bar I think) and later found out for my extracurricular activity. He had been made aware of my desires and purpose of the trip and while drinking was high in the priority list it was not number one.

I was asked to simply make my choice and once decided was driven back to my perfectly placed home on the ocean and commenced to enjoy the local culture in a passionate hour of sexual release. I had purchased a local phone with a prepaid card and called Jean once complete and he came over to pick me up, arranged for her to be taken away and we once again moved back into the second tiered priority which was drinking more frigidly cold beer. In retrospect I am unsure how cold the beer actually was but in the 24 hour blazing heat of the tropics anything slightly cold was pleasantly accepted. Satisfied in all ways possible on day one I was content to let the rest of the evening flow in whatever direction it happened to sway.

Jean decided that he would take me over to his place and introduce me to his son and another gentleman who was staying with him for a couple of days for some reason that never completely made sense to me. I spent most of the 5 days of the trip never really sure if what was being told to me was factual or fabricated or completely false. It was a constant filtering trying to figure how to decipher what was real but the company was so pleasant and the environment so satisfying who really cared.

Jean had continued drinking while I had partaken in the sultry palate pleasing taste of youthful succulence and now seemed well into his final stage of daily inebriation. He drove me the short distance over to his small two bedroom hovel that was just one step above sleeping outdoors. I would be negligent if I stated it was sparsely furnished as there was but a couple of beds and a couch and one simple bamboo/wicker chair with a faded out green cushion. I met his son Jean Junior (or Junior for short) who spoke sparingly and knew a few select words in English and Jean’s friend who was easily forgettable.

We sat around for about an hour drank some more Presidente and mixed in a shot or two of the local paper bag covered whiskey that was the preferred drink of the older version of Jean that was close to being passed out on the couch. I finally decided I needed to call it a night and head back to the world of the living and get some sleep. It had been a very long 48 hours in the preparation/flight and arrival activities and was now finally starting to catch up with me.

Jean offered to drive me home and stated that he would come by around 10 AM to pick me up and start the next day’s events which I would soon find out mirrored today and was a recurring agenda for all the days of my stay. We stumbled into the SUV and as Jean was pulling out he thrust the car into reverse hit the gas and with the sudden jolt that rocked the car I realized had rammed a tree stump placing a nice sized dent in the passenger door. This was a rental car wasn’t it? I was beginning to understand the no drinking and driving rules of the US.

As sudden events often do I sobered up instantaneously and promptly told Jean he had lost his driving privileges. I removed him from the driver’s seat saying goodnight and drove myself back to my rental house which was only a short 10 minutes away. There is only one main road that travels through the coastline and it would be virtually impossible for me to get lost. The rest of the evening was uneventful allowing me to get the much needed rest I desired and gather back my energy for the rest of my stay. Jean arrived the next morning around 10 AM as he had stated with beer in hand left over from the night before and we started the pattern anew.

The only deviation in the drunken sexual oriented routine was Jessica. She was a lovely 19 year old dark skinned native Dominican who exuded a self assurance unnatural for anyone her age let alone somebody with her domesticated background. She was vibrant, stubborn and lively and carried herself with an air of self importance that one could only ponder its origin. Her smooth skin and perfectly porcelain smile held only a hint of the tortured background that had been thrust upon her out of family obligations.

I would later find out that she had only recently be severed from her obligation to marry the owner of the house that I was staying in due to the couples inability to come to an agreeable finality on the structure of their mutual obligations. He was a 60 plus year old man that wanted the daily satisfaction of a 20 year olds attention and she was from the Dominican Republic and wanted the monetary rewards that only came from foreign bound connections. For some reason they had not been able to find a desired resolution so she had been forcibly released from her commitment and the two were moving on to other conquests.

While I am by no means rich or even exude the appearance in this country you need very little to vastly leap over the bound of normalcy. I met Jessica at the house I was staying at as she was the local masseuse and on that specific sun filled day a massage on the beach had seemed like the perfect afternoon treat. I spoke to her briefly as she stroked my legs, arms and body pushing on the soft cushiony appendages that were now the combined parts of a 41 year old middle aged man and asked her if she would like to go to dinner.

She agreed and after picking her up at her parent’s house which was about a 30 minute drive out of the civilization known as Cabarete into the country dwellings that most locals trekked back to each day we made our way back to a tourist styled dining establishment. We both had a fat juicy blood rare steak and drank some tropical mixed drink designed to sweetly move you into a softened mental state and I convinced her it was time to move back to the house. She reluctantly agreed and we then made the awkwardly silent 10 minute drive grabbed a beer from the fridge upon arrival and sat out on the balcony listening to the waves rhythmically pound the shore in never ending succession.

I moved over to join her in her reclining lawn chair and started gently stroking her coarse jet black hair as I started kissing the sides of her cheeks and neck. She was surprisingly unresponsive and stoically stared out at the ocean as I clumsily started fondling her perfectly hand sized breasts with both hands as I moved over on top of her. She weighed at most 100 pounds and was all of 5.3 in height but possibly from the daily routine of massaging over aged men was extremely strong. It was with a sudden shock of reality when I felt the backhanded slap across my cheek as I waddled backward slightly and stared disbelievingly into her dark brown eyes.

She then cradled my face forcefully with both hands as she violently pulled my mouth to hers and stuck her tongue out like an arrow driven down into the deepest part of the inner recesses of my reluctantly accepting throat. I then grabbed both her hands forcing her back against the chair and reciprocated the exchange in reverse as I explored the inner parts of her mouth with the abandon of a heat seeking missile desperately looking for its target.

She violently grabbed my hair with both hands and yanked my head backwards smacking me again this time with her left hand as she continued to control my head with her right that still had a firm grasp of my hair. My survival instincts took over and my hands went instinctively around her neck. I began choking her and pushed her on her back. A devilish smile slowly crept over her face as I realized she had provoked the reaction she was looking for. I slapped her hard across the cheek, then backed off her and grabbed both of her legs, twirled her over so she lay face down and yanked off her skin tight pants smacking her repeatedly on the ass in the process.

We at some point moved to the bedroom where we continued the sexually violent exchange for another two hours until we both lay spent and bruised exhausted face up on the bed and oddly a couple of feet apart never having intimately connected beyond the sexual encounter. Although I had a tumultuous history growing up I had never physically hit or even came close to striking a woman in any venue. I had never even contemplated hitting a woman nor could I understand the concept of why men would do anything like this. I had trouble finding the reasonability of somebody who could take a physically weaker person and inflict pain for pleasure or simply from a lack of self control.

The exchange that I had just encountered was completely out of character and went against all my natural instincts sending off flairs and alarms that were rocking my very being warning me of the dangerous grounds that I was floundering in. It was like the Hoover Damn that was imposing and huge but once the gates were opened and the water was allowed to rush forth it must stay the course until the calmness would be allowed to return. My only worry in this case was would the calmness ever return.

I was confused and struggling to grasp what had just happened when Jessica got up and started talking in Spanish in a subdued tone that even if I understood the language would have made it difficult to know what she was saying. She got dressed in a quick burst of energy and then left closing the door with a soft click of the latch and I was left alone to ponder the ramifications of my actions. I remember at the time thinking that I should be more prepared in the future. Sexual activity without a condom makes little sense in today’s environment.

I spoke to Jessica a couple of times after I returned home but the e-mails stopped being returned and that was the only physical encounter that we had during my stay. She seemed to move back to her daily activities and from my little knowledge of her this could have been part of that standard routine. I on the other hand felt different somehow. Changed in a way that I couldn’t understand and did not think of much after as I also fell back into my existence in the grind of deadlines and requirements that are part of our hapless existence.

It would only be a few months later that I would realize this as a key that had unlocked and opened an entirely new world that I would navigate to like a Salmon swimming upstream. Life throws curveballs at times and if you concentrate and are prepared you might get lucky and hit one out of the park. You might also strike out so be ready.