Nature or Nurture?

**Sensitive Content: Serial killers**

Nature or nurture?

That is the question. Before today, I thought I knew where I stood on the issue but now, friends, I am not really sure what to think.

To give you context, a few weeks ago, after Mother passed, I was finally able to clean out her bedroom. The medical equipment was, of course, quite pristine but the smell and debris from her glacial demise was simply overwhelming and it took me days to clear paths in the room.

I found the letters in her closet.

Even now, it takes me a moment to adjust myself to the mental impact of those pages and pages of her precise Palmer script describing in the most flowery of language a life-time of barely requited love.

The only mention of me in any of the letters was “it”. As in, “I can get rid of it.”

My cold, sterile, demanding Mother spent decades writing the most passionate, and absolutely painful to read, lurid letters to her one-time lover who never once responded. The wrinkled envelopes I found in an old Avon perfume box each bearing a scarlet ink “Return to Sender”.

Returned from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it just preyed on my mind, and I could not get the thoughts out of my head until I took action.

Perhaps you may relate to this, perhaps not.

So, friends, I eventually found myself in somewhat of a fugue state an hour into the two hour drive up north from Dallas on 75 to US-69 which leads to Penitentiary Street and then to the “Big Mac”. A maximum-security prison once known for its annual prisoner rodeo. Now infamous for its terrible conditions, riots and death row prisoners.

One of whom could be my father.

To visit anyone at the Big Mac takes some time. Visiting someone like Lewis Landry Reese, takes time and one’s absolute forbearance for the most intimately probing of questions and fingers.

It wouldn’t surprise me if you hadn’t heard of Lewis Landry Reese and his swath of known and unknown rapes, kidnappings and killings but you will be able to find all you want with a few searches. Maybe you know exactly who he is.

Driving under the peeling white arched grill “Oklahoma State Penitentiary” sign buttressed by decaying similarly painted white bricks pillars, I pulled into one of the few designated parking spot for Big Mac visitors.

I turned off the Volvo’s engine and sat for a moment. Perhaps a bit longer than a moment with my mind ticking to different thoughts. About how maybe today I would finally learn who my father really was. About how Mother would never talk about him. About how she would punish me when I kept asking and asking. And about how Brandie, my old receptionist, would tease me about Volvo’s being only for short-haired women who shopped at Home Depot.

After a bit, the rising sun – visitors to the Big Mac must arrive very early – warmed up the air in the car to the point my face began prickling with sweat and I was brought back from my reminiscing. I opened the door, swung my legs out and made my way to enter the prison.

As I mentioned, the passage from our daily world to that of people such as Lewis Landry Reese is rife with probing exams, delays and grunting guards who entertain themselves with snickering under the breath asides.

In the Shawshankian depths of the Big Mac, the black and blue rayon bulk that was my escorting guard halted at metal door exactly like the dozen we had already passed. He turned back toward me and asked without much concern, “Are you sure?”

It is true, friends, I am not a physically intimidating person. Not tall. Not wide. Not much hair nor chin. With my decidedly pointed nose and very small teeth, Mother thought it the height of ironic hilarity that I chose the dental profession. A squealing mouse is what she called me.

Although, to be fair, I learned at a very young age that squealing, no matter how much pain or discomfort, only prolonged such experiences so squealing is something I have not done in a very long time.

I stood straight and focused on how I was a respected professional. How I would be walking out of this dank hellhole of sweating bricks and would never ever return while Lewis Landry Reese would only leave feet first. How I would finally find out the truth.

“Open the door,” I whispered.

Greasy tendrils of hair leaked from his scalp down his shiny face onto pale meaty forearms creating a tangled and ripped curtain through which I could see a silver blue eye cutting from me to the closing door of the room and back to me.

As the door shut, he lifted his head up and I was absolutely shocked to see his sunken and caved face with a naval of puckered mouth.

Lewis Landry Reese had no teeth. Literally.

Then, I heard the strangest sound, like a dog choking and barking at the same time.

It was me.

Laughing hysterically.

Lewis Landry Reese did not appreciate my levity, friends, not at all.

He tried to stand but the chains around his wrist went through a steel loop bolted to the table kept him stooped over as he shouted at me. The harsh ratcheting sound of the chains sawing back and forth through the loop assaulted my ears almost as much as his gummy mouthed curses.

The whole episode lasted only a few moments before a phalanx of guards rushed into the room with one picking me physically up and setting me outside.

To be frank, I do not really remember much too clearly from that point. I numbly followed the uniform in front of me and fuzzily collected my belongings before staggering into the Oklahoma sun.

I made my way to the Volvo and began the drive back to Dallas. The shrieked words of my father still ricocheting between my ears.

And, he was indeed my father. One look at his face and those colorless watery blue eyes that were identical to my own left no doubt. At least to me.

I think Lewis Landry Reese thought so too even though he screamed the most terrible things about Mother and how I was just a dentist and not like the others.

Which is why I was so stunned and really driving on remote control until I got back to Dallas and pulled off Harry Hines into my driveway.

The implications of Lewis Landry Reese knowing my occupation meant he knew of me. But what did he know about me?

I was thinking this over as I went to the basement to check on Brandie. She had finally stopped trying to pull her wrists from the restraints but it seemed she had really stopped doing much of anything. Even when I clicked the pliers together, she barely trembled. That was disappointing. But, since Brandie was down to her last three teeth (16, 24 and 41) it was probably time to discharge her and find my next patient.

I tell you all this, friends, because contrary to the rantings of Lewis Landry Reese, I am not “just a dentist”, I am The Dentist.

And, Lewis Landry Reese also said, “the others.”

So, I am posting my story on this dark web site as a message in the bottle to see if maybe I have family.

Others like me.

To ask, what do you think?

Nature or nurture?