Page 11 of Trapper Road

I remember watching a video once where someone was talking about justice and said that we shouldn’t be defined by the worst thing we’ve done in life. Isn’t that true for all of us? Even someone like my dad?

We sit in silence for several beats before Kevin asks, “Do you ever wonder what it was like for him that first time he killed someone?”

The question surprises me. It’s not something I’ve ever really considered. “How so?”

Kevin fiddles with the game controller in his hands, turning it over again and again. “He had to have been thinking about it, right? Killing girls — maiming them. Fantasizing about it for a while.”

I shift, a little uncomfortable with thinking this way about my dad. But it’s important that I face the truth about him — both the good and the bad. “I guess.”

“What do you think made him pull the trigger? What made him finally decide to act?”

“Who knows, he was a psychopath.” It’s the answer my mom or sister would have given. The easy answer. But not necessarily the right one.

“I don’t know, though.” Kevin argues. “If he was a psychopath, why didn’t he start killing earlier? He spent years of his lifenotkidnapping women,nottorturing them,notkilling them. And thenbam— one day he decides to go for it. Why? What changed?”

I shrug. There’s something about the direction of this conversation that feels dangerous. I’m not sure I want to know the answers to these questions.

He leans forward in his gaming chair. “How old were you when he killed his first victim?”

He already knows the answer. I’ve shared everything I know about my father. He’s as familiar with Melvin Royal’s “career” as I am. Still he wants me to say it because Kevin can be a jerk sometimes. “What does it matter?”

“Makes you wonder if he reached a point in life where he wondered if this was all there was, and it wasn’t enough for him.”

The way he says it makes it sound like it’s somehow our fault — Lanny and Mom’s and mine. That somehow we weren’t enough for him and that caused him to start killing. My skin itches with defensiveness at the implication. My therapist’s voice echoes in my head, reminding me that Melvin Royal’s actions belonged to him alone, and we don’t bear responsibility for them.

“Maybe he was an egotistical asshole who didn’t think the rules applied to him and he finally decided to act on that,” I counter.

“You ever had impulses like that?”

“To kill someone?” The question shouldn’t surprise me. I know everyone eventually wonders that about me — if I’m like my dad. The truth is, I’ve wondered it myself. I’ve tried to put myself in Dad’s shoes so I could understand him, and while the idea of killing someone horrifies me to the point of nausea, there’s still a small amount of morbid curiosity.

How could my father skin these women alive one minute, and then set down his tools and come into the house, wash his hands, and sit down to family dinner as if a human being wasn’t dying in agony only yards away?

“No,” I finally tell him.

“Really?” He doesn’t believe me.

I shake my head. He looks at me a moment longer then shrugs. “You wanna take a turn?” he asks, holding out the game controller. He’s in the middle of a pitched battle against several of our friends online. That kind of game doesn’t really hold much appeal to me.

I motion to his computer. “Mind if I use your internet instead?”

“Sure thing.” He’s already resumed his game, cursing under his breath as another one of the players immediately ambushes him, causing him to lose half his hit points. “Jesus fucking Christ, that fucking prick!” He mashes at the controller as he growls, “I’m coming to get you, motherfucker.”

I ignore him and bring his computer to life, navigating my way to the dark web and the Melvin Royal message board I found when I started researching my dad a few months back. My inbox glows with several unread messages. I smile. I started off on the board as a lurker, and only began commenting when people posted misinformation about my dad.

Currently I’m one of the most popular accounts on the board and the go-to expert on all things Melvin Royal. People continually defer to me and turn to me to answer questions and settle debates. Of course, there’s been speculation about who I am and how I can know so much, but I’m very careful not to say anything that can identify who I really am. Some conspiracy theorists even speculate I’m Melvin Royal himself, and that news of his death was a ruse. Sometimes I like to lean into that idea just to throw people off my real identity.

The message board is one of the few places where I can openly talk about my dad without anyone judging or shaming me.

I’m in the middle of answering questions about Melvin and teasing the existence of new information about his life when I get a text from Mom telling me to come home. Dad’s words from his letter echo through the back of my head:Does he let you control him? Does he blindly obey you? Do you even allow him to be his own man?

I ignore Mom’s text and go back to posting.

3

GWEN

The next morning Sam drives the kids to school on his way to the airport for work. For some reason, the house feels oddly empty with him gone. I have this nagging gut sense that something is out of place, and I wander from room to room, checking that the windows are locked and making sure the alarm is engaged.

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