The Sociopath and the Psychopath

         My brother and I were standing in a pothole ridden driveway taking turns apathetically throwing a dirty basketball into a broken hoop. My brother Thomas picked up the ball, but this time he just held it in his arms and stared at me.

         "What do you want?" I asked.

         "We need to deal with father," he said, "how much longer are we going to put up with his abuse"?

         "Until we can move out on our own I suppose. There's not much we can do about it until then. Besides why are you bringing this up all of a sudden," I asked.

         "We've been reading Greek and Roman mythology in school." "Have you noticed the pattern in the father son relationship among the gods" he asked as if it were obvious.

         "No, I haven't ." "Care to enlighten me?"

         Thomas sighed in frustration. "The children are always eaten by their father and then they must defeat him in order to become the new set of gods." "Once we kill father, we can rule in his place over our home just as the Olympians became the new gods by slaying the titans."

         "You must be out of your mind" I said, completely astonished by my brothers insane rambling. Usually he was quite intelligent, and would have been the first to point out the complete absurdity of such a plan had someone brought it up. "You think they will let us just live by ourselves"? "We're just two kids Thomas"! "How will we make a living"?

         "They don't have to let us do anything. We will take what we want just as we always have! We need food? We will steal it. People come asking where our father is? We will make them disappear too," he said viciously.

         "Please tell me your not suggesting we kill every person who comes to the door asking for father. This plan of yours is getting worse by the minute. Not only do you want us to commit patricide, you want us to become the local pick pocketing, serial killing children," I yelled back at him.

         "Look, you don't have to help me with this. I am doing it regardless unless you wanna try and stop me," he replied. "I just thought since it's benefitting you too, that you might want to do this as a team."

         I turned away from him and paced for a few steps. Thomas was putting me in a very bad position. If he went through with this and it failed we could both be in a lot of trouble. We'd be in trouble if he succeeded for that matter, but at least we might have a chance of covering it up.

         "We'll, what's it going to be" he asked, interrupting my train of thought. "Are we doing this as brothers or are you going to wimp out like you always do"?

         I turned back to face him and said "I'm not going to directly help you with this because I don't want there to get in any trouble, but if your going to do it anyway, then I'm going to make sure you have a sound plan. After all it would be a disaster if you only injured father. We would both have to deal with his wraith."

         He grinned ear to ear. It was a face a child simply shouldn't make while planning the murder of his own father. "What kind of sound plan have in mind," he asked.

         "Maybe we ca-" The sound of glass shattering against our apartment floor pierced the air. Just as he does everyday our father opened the apartment window and yelled "You kids get back inside"! "Dinner isn't going to make itself"!

         Thomas and I both ran back inside to attend to fathers needs. I walked to our small dirty kitchen in the back of the house to find what we had to make for dinner, while Thomas grabbed  the broom out of the hall closet and proceeded to sweep away the broken beer bottle father had used to get our attention. All we had left was soup so I began cooking it for us. I could hear father mumbling to himself as he watched my brother sweep the shards of glass.

         "I bet I could hire a maid to clean better than that, and I wouldn't have to pay half as much as I pay for you two."

         "Oh, stop flattering me father," said Thomas sarcastically, "I wouldn't be nearly this good without your constructive criticism"!

         I caught father smirk out of the corner of my eye. Thomas knew how to play father like a fiddle. He was always able to amuse him even in the worst moods. He got us out of many beatings that way.

         I unfolded a small table for father in front of his chair, and then served our meal. Thomas and I sat on pillows thrown haphazardly onto the floor, as father had the only chair in the house. As usual he stared at the food in disgust for several minutes before eating.

         "You have been cooking for what four years now"? he asked.

         "Yes," I replied quietly.


         "I'd think you would've learned a bit of skill by now," he grunted.

         After that comment we finished eating in silence. Later that night Thomas and I were in our room discussing how best to kill father. Failure was not an option. If Thomas managed to maim father instead of killing him, I wouldn't put it past him to beat and murder both of us in revenge.

         "I say we just chop his head of quick and easy." "No screaming, no struggle, just a quick and easy death."

         I shook my head in annoyance at my brothers ridiculous plan. His impulsiveness was going to get us in trouble one of these days.

         "No, no, no! Can you imagine the mess that would leave? The blood from a small cut can make a stain in the carpet. All that blood gushing out of his neck, would get everywhere! And exactly how do you plan to explain that one to the police? He somehow picked up a butcher knife, held it in front of his neck and accidentally fell into it with enough force to severe layers of bone and muscle? I'm sure the cops won't question that one." I thought for a second. "You would have better luck cutting his vocal chords, then some major artery. He wouldn't be able to scream, and he would eventually bleed out. If you catch him in the shower we could just rinse out the blood."

         "But your forgetting one problem... I don't have any idea where his vocal chords or arteries are!"

         At this point I was getting frustrated. We couldn't come up with any plan that we were both confident my brother could enact without screwing it up for both of us. I was beginning to consider doing it myself when I heard father get up from his recliner to go to bed. We both immediately stopped talking as he lumbered past our open door to his room. Normally he doesn't even spare us a glance, but he must have noticed something off about our behavior. He stopped when he was next to our door, and turned to look at us.

         "Why so secretive?" he asked with a smirk on his face. It sounds like your planning a murder in there he laughed. It was only a joke, but for a second after he said that I was petrified with fear. My brother decided to take advantage of it, and he smiled back engaging father in conversation.

         "Oh, but we are!" he said with a smile on his face, "What do you think is the best method: decapitation, or severing the vocal chords before cutting open an artery." He knew that father would take it as a joke based on Thomas's playfully sarcastic relationship with him.

         Father laughed. "Never get your hands dirty if you don't have to, poison works just as we'll!" He then walked off into his own room chuckling all the while.

         Once he was gone Thomas turned to me and grinned.

         "You scared me half to death"! I said, "we could've been caught"!

         Thomas laughed and said "It worked though. We now know how to kill father! He will die by a method of his own choosing. It's almost poetic!"

         "Don't get too carried away with this. We can poison him, but let's be sure we do it right." "We need a poison that he won't detect and that will appear as an accident."

         "Fine, but choose one quickly", said Thomas ", if I have to wait too long there might be an accident with a knife after all."


         The next day I spent most of my school classes pondering how best to poison father. It wasn't until just before the end of chemistry class that it hit me.

         The bell rang, and everyone except for me began to get up before Mr. Philips was even done talking.

         "Class is dismissed, remember to turn in your periodic table assignment on Monday. If you need help researching an element, come ask me. I can point you in the right direction. Can I help you Thomas, something about the assignment?"

         "No, I was really getting into chemistry the last few classes and I had a few questions for you" I replied enthusiastically.

         He smiled and replied "Shoot. It's nice to see one of my students is finally taking an interest in science!"

         "Well I was wondering about alcohol, I've seen my father drinking it"-now there's and understatement-"and it got me thinking about alcohols influence on the brain."

         "Ah, you mean ethanol then."

         "What"?

         "It's ethanol your wondering about. You see alcohol is actually a broad category of chemical compounds. The stuff people actually drink is called ethanol," he said as he grabbed a small vial of pure 100% ethanol out of his supply cabinet to demonstrate his point. "So anyway, what were you wondering about it again?"

         I already knew exactly what ethanol was, and how it effected the brain but I had to play along in order to gain access. "How exactly does it effect the brain," I asked.

         "Good question!" he said as his eyes lit up and he proceeded to explain the ins and outs of brain function

         While he was talking I slyly tucked the vile of 100% ethanol into my pocket. Mr. Philips was too enthralled in his monologue to notice.

         "Thanks for the information Mr. Philips," I replied when he finished. "It was a pleasure talking to you."

         "Sure, feel free to stick around after class anytime you have more questions."


         After our conversation I walked home as usual, and I told Thomas the plan. Again he grinned ear to ear. It was almost disturbing even to me. I didn't particularly mind him doing away with father, but the sheer pleasure he got out of killing a man made part of me wonder if I was next.

         As usual we fed father his first beer, and a second one when he asked for it. Luckily it was raining outside so we didn't have to make an excuse as to why we weren't playing in the driveway. Instead we pretended to read a book together, while we watched father slowly slide into intoxication. When he was close to finishing his last beer I signaled Thomas to go into the kitchen and bring father the third beer he occasionally asks for. I had given Thomas the concentrated alcohol and told him how to prepare the beer ahead of time. I certainly wasn't going to get my fingerprints on the bottle. After a minute of preparation Thomas came back from the kitchen with an open and unlabeled bottle of beer.

         "Here you go father, this one didn't have a label on it so I think it might be a different brand than the rest." Don't mind if it tastes a-"

         "Do I look like I bloody care"! "Just gimme it ya bastard"!

         Thomas knew better than to engage him further in his intoxicated state so he quietly gave him the beer and took a few steps backward. A few gulps later he had finished the beer and smashed the bottle into the wall as was our ritual. His didn't seem to notice the difference first but then he gagged a bit. The alcohol removed most of the water from his throat.

         "Get me some water now"-cough-"it burns"!

         "I'm sure it's fine father," said Thomas as he casually walked to the kitchen and grabbed the broom. "After all, you were always good at handling your liquor now weren't you?" He grinned as he watched my father struggle for air.

         As father fell to the floor and began to hyperventilate, he stared at Thomas in disbelief and rage, then his head slowly turned to look me in the eye. I could see in his eyes that he understood we had done this to to him. Immediately afterward he lost consciousness. Thomas casually knelt beside father and felt for his breath.

         "He's definitely not breathing." "That ethanol stuff sure did the trick." He felt for a pulse before continuing "his heart is beating..."  "Barely."

         "Give him a few more minutes before calling 911 just to make sure they have no chance of reviving him," I replied.

         "Of course," he said blissfully. "Do you feel it brother"?

         "Feel What?"

         "That satisfaction! It's almost addictive. Knowing he is dead and it's because of us!"

         I had never felt any love for father, but I certainly wasn't entertained by his death the way my brother was. We had gotten rid of father like my brother wanted to, and we weren't going to get caught so of course I was relieved that this whole experience would be over soon, but the satisfaction my brother was getting out of this was somewhat unsettling to say the least.

         "Well don't get too addicted. That bliss of yours requires murdering people. That's not exactly a good hobby. This was a one time deal for you right? Your good now, right," I asked nervously.

         "Maybe..." he said as he stared at me with a strange look in his eye. I knew my brother well, but he had never looked at me what way before. It was the look of a predator. That word and that look was all I needed to know what I had to do. I knew I had to get rid of brother as well.