Lyle was born in a hospital in Oregon in the late twentieth century. His mother and father and several doctors were in the delivery room as Lyle emerged. They could not see it, but the devil was there, too.

In gradeschool, Lyle excelled in mathematics and logic. He got very good grades. He made some good friends and had sleepover parties. They would play video games all night long. As Lyle played late into the night, staring at glowing pixels on the television, he felt a growing sense of unease.

In the fourth grade, Lyle developed a terrible crush on a girl in his class named Amanda. He made her a Valentine and included a package of candies that he had bought with the allowance money he earned for doing his chores, like keeping his room clean and walking the family dog, Senator. Lyle exchanged Valentines with all of his classmates, blushing as he paused in front of Amanda’s desk to hand her the special Valentine he had prepared for her. Amanda smiled, and Lyle finally broke a smile. Eventually they would marry and she would miscarry three times, and they would never have children that lived. As Lyle stood watching Amanda’s happy reaction, the devil also watched.

In the summer after the first year of junior high school in the last decade before the turn of the second millennium following the birth of Christ, Lyle drank three beers in the woods with his friends Dave and Ken. They passed a cigarette between them, and they talked about Ken’s recent escapade with a girl named Mindy. Ken had groped Mindy’s breasts beneath her bra as they had kissed. Lyle listened intently. It was just the four of them.

Lyle played the tenor saxophone in the jazz band, and he easily won first chair over several students who had been playing longer and practicing harder. Sometimes Lyle wondered how this could be, but most of the time he didn’t care at all.

Lyle sometimes felt a sensation in his left hand that he did not understand. Sometimes Lyle would not be able to sleep for three nights on end, and he would begin to hallucinate. His parents thought that it was a side effect of puberty. Lyle saw visions of people boarding up their windows, preparing for disaster. Lyle was a white male in the United States of America and as such had every advantage in the world.

In high school Lyle got his driver’s license early because his father had fallen ill and his mother needed Lyle’s help. His father had quickly developed irreversible lymphoma and died at the beginning of Lyle’s sophomore year in high school. Lyle inherited his father’s car, which his friends thought was “sweet.” Lyle’s mother began drinking a lot and didn’t seem like herself anymore. At the end of Lyle’s sophomore year of high school, he lost his virginity to a girl named Devin. Lyle never learned Devin’s middle name.

When Lyle was a senior in high school, he was voted, “Future President” in a mock election. The day after the mock election, one of the school buses drove off a bridge into a gulch. Twenty high schoolers died, including two close friends of Lyle named Dave and Ken. The bus driver, a woman named Karen who had recovered from pill addiction, also died. Lyle had teased Dave and Ken for taking the bus even though they were seniors and most seniors drove cars to school. The local television news interviewed Lyle for a sound bite, and as he spoke the devil was just out of frame.

At the state university that Lyle attended, he began dating Amanda, his old crush from gradeschool. Lyle was taking advanced calculus classes, with a minor in economics. He took a world history class and hated it and stopped going. Lyle ate at the cafeteria and piled mashed potatoes onto his plate.

Amanda was taking a lot of biology courses with plans to pursue medical school. Amanda became pregnant toward the end of their first year there. They decided to terminate the pregnancy, agreeing that it was not the right time to start a family. Had they known what was down the line, maybe they would have kept that first one. They both pretended to be sad about it, but really they were relieved.

Lyle proposed to Amanda on the day they both graduated from the university, and she accepted. They married, and Lyle’s mother seemed distant and insane at the ceremony. Amanda’s parents seemed fairly pleased, stoic as they were. The next year three members of the wedding band they hired would be convicted of raping the singer, who slit her own wrists before their trial began. At the wedding, a very old woman danced with a young boy, which a lot of the attendees found amusing. Lyle did not have a best man.

As Amanda was graduating from medical school, she miscarried for the first time. Lyle was working as an engineer at a facility that manufactured military weapons. Amanda seemed truly sad about the loss. Lyle acted sad when he was around her. But he was too distracted by his planning his campaign for the seat of mayor in the small city where they lived. Amanda’s pregnancy had been publicized, and the loss could get some sympathy votes, he thought. He was right.

Becoming the mayor of an already idyllic city with clean streets and well-supported local businesses was an easy job. Lyle hired a stylist to make sure that he looked like a young politician should look. Amanda became pregnant again, and things were looking up. Lyle was reelected. Amanda miscarried again. Lyle began collecting campaign buttons from old elections. He commissioned a display with his own campaign buttons among those of former Presidents. One time he diplomatically scolded the maid when she tilted the display.

Lyle did not make any new friends, and he spent a lot of time in his office at the city building. He began taking saxophone lessons again, from the daughter of one of his staff. After two months of weekly lessons, the young instructor, Rebecca, was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The lessons continued for a few more months until Rebecca was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer. She was dead by Christmas, and Lyle stopped playing the saxophone. Amanda never found out that Lyle had been having anal sex with Rebecca during their “lessons.” For Christmas, Lyle had a baby’s room complete with an oak crib commissioned, because they were trying again to conceive. Their maid had disappeared, and they had to hire a new one.

Lyle’s campaign for state senate was successful, and they moved to Salem. Lyle sat on the toilet doing Sudoku while listening to Amanda sob in the other room. The third miscarriage had happened. Lyle’s cell phone rang, and an old neighbor called to let him know that his mother had died in a drunk driving accident that had killed a family of five. Lyle tried to get out of going to the service, but he couldn’t without risking the press. He recorded a public service announcement about drinking and driving in front of his parents’ gravestone. It aired in regional markets. Lyle’s left hand became paralyzed while he was stroking his new great dane, President.

Amanda left, and Lyle quickly married one of his staff, Jennifer. Jennifer had been a Miss Oregon. She worked with disabled teens. Sometimes Lyle went to watch.

Once, in the middle of his first U.S. Senate run, Lyle was sitting alone in a hotel room in Baltimore and felt a sudden euphoria. He equated it with heroin based upon movies he had seen. His left hand regained its feeling and operability. Outside his motel window, Lyle saw an airplane fall from the sky, crashing into another hotel. It turned out that this was the hotel where his now-former opponent had been staying. Lyle arranged for a call girl. Lyle had absurd sex with her and then drove her into the woods and made her dig a big hole.

Four months after Lyle was elected to the US Senate, Jennifer’s large family came over for Easter. Lyle had always hated Easter. He found it boring. He wore a sweater and it was itchy and he took it off. He walked across their carpeted living room, and his socks caused static. One of Jennifer’s nephews, Reggie, was a red-headed, freckle-faced kid who liked to try to challenge Lyle with brain teasers. At some point in the evening, Lyle refused to continue answering, and he stared wordlessly at Reggie for one minute.

While searching his own name on the internet, Lyle found an AP article mentioning that Amanda had been found drowned in a river in India. When a reporter called asking for a quote, Lyle asked, “What was she doing in India?”

Lyle began doing Sudoku puzzles incessantly. He could do them at lightning speed. After a while, his success stopped mattering.

His staff presented their plan for his Presidential run, and he agreed, and he was elected President. On the morning of his inauguration, Jennifer had to wipe away tears because she received a call from her sister that Reggie had been beaten to death in an alley by homeless men who had been released from a mental hospital that Lyle’s administration had closed. Lyle was disappointed that there were no mashed potatoes at the Inaugural Ball dinner.

Lyle ordered five illegal immigrants to be gassed to death as a message. When prompted by the press and political opponents, Lyle could not really explain what the message was. A few years later, he was reelected. He started bowling semi-regularly.

In his second term, Lyle thought a lot about the meaning of life. He asked his dog, President, about it. President was old and seemed to be going deaf. Lyle gave the dog away to a poor couple in Florida named Gracias whose son had been living with polio because the family was uneducated and had not known how to get vaccinated. For Halloween, Lyle dressed up like a urine-soaked Bill of Rights. Around Christmas, Lyle found out that President got fleas and leukemia and had to be put down. Lyle called in a favor to one of his cronies at the old weapons manufacturing facility where he had worked his last civilian job. On New Year’s Eve, there was a nuclear reactor meltdown near the town where the Gracias family lived, and seventy thousand people were killed. When the ball dropped at midnight, Lyle bent down to kiss Jennifer on the top of her head, because she was sobbing.

From time to time, Lyle would make prank phone calls to his late ex-wife Amanda’s mother, pretending to be one of her grandchildren.

Lyle kept having to execute contractors until one of them finally agreed to construct a full-scale statue of himself made only of stem cells. It smelled bad, and it had to be kept in a walk-in freezer. Sometimes Lyle would make member of his staff go into the freezer and lick its crotch. If they refused, Lyle would completely forgive them, saying he understood and he didn’t know what he was talking about. Some of them died from apparently self-inflicted stab wounds, and others died from apparently natural causes.

Jennifer committed suicide by hanging herself from a balcony, as Lyle had suggested she do. Their children were too young to understand, and Lyle left it to the White House staff to sort out. He bowled a 300 game that night.

Lookalikes were hired for press conferences, obviously.

One night Lyle looked through an old NASA telescope and he could see Heaven. He consulted the newly-appointed Chief of End Times to look into the logistics of launching something at it.

It didn’t pan out. Instead, Lyle convinced Congress to declare war on Asia. All of it. He did a video call from the toilet to announce it to the world. He thought it was funny. His left hand began to hurt, and for a second it seemed like there was someone right behind him, but he pressed the flashing red button anyway.

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Published on May 01, 2014 07:22

March 19, 2014

Nightmares and Wish-Fulfillment

About three years ago, I began writing a story that would become my first published novel. At the time, I was writing only to amuse myself. I created this character whom I loved to torture.

I gave him a lot of problems that I had, and I gave him more problems than I had. I let him have some basic pleasures, but I also made him miserable and frustrated. I gave him intelligence, but I hampered him with so many other shortcomings. I gave him some allies, but I also gave him an array of antagonists (chief among them being himself).

As I sent Harland through the wringer and stymied him at nearly every turn, I did so knowing that he was going to have to be beaten down before he could grow. I stayed true to the adage that things had to get worse before they could get better.

Last night I found out that my book made it to Round 2 of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. My book and about 400 other books in the “General Fiction” category are still in the running for the grand prize. It’s not exactly what I would call “being shortlisted,” although I’m not sure how many entries there actually were. (The rules state that they accept up to 10,000 entries.) Nonetheless, the potential to win is exciting in terms of getting cash and increased exposure.

At the same time, having the book be recognized publicly is also weird because originally it was just a thing I felt compelled to do. It was me processing some demons through a surrogate. Good old literary therapy.

I think about the hours spent across three years writing, editing, proofing, recording, laying out, distributing, promoting, marketing, and tweeting. Even if you gave me an extra hour to try to tally it, I’m not sure I could offer a reliable estimate of my time investment. It feels like an awful lot. I think my wife would agree.

The thing is, as I sent Harland through the wringer, I was also sending myself through the wringer. I was creating this fictional nightmare world–albeit one with enough lowbrow jokes to keep my interest–and it took so much focus and dedication and passion and other highfalutin terms for things that don’t necessarily come naturally to me. The wish was that Harland was not going through all of the bullshit for nothing, and that neither was I.

It’s interesting that I can make the wish and do my best to fulfill it, but that I’m so reliant upon external forces for the wish to be fulfilled. Because no matter how satisfied I am with the work I’ve done, it will be so much better if the investment seems to pay off in terms of people reading and enjoying my work. And, of course, in terms of recouping some money invested in marketing and maybe even payment for my time invested. Sometimes writers actually make money, right?

The theory here is that I was creating my own nightmare as I created one for Harland; I gave myself a shit-ton of work to do. The end is nowhere in sight. And truth be told, I don’t particularly enjoy or excel at the marketing end of things. But even as I begin new works, I have to keep believing that the investment is worthwhile, that the hard hours I have put in will make selling each subsequent work easier and easier. I have to believe that my future self has my best interests in mind, whether or not Harland’s does.

I created a funny nightmare in my work, and I created a logistical nightmare in trying to get people to read the funny nightmare I wrote. Prosaic justice?

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Published on March 19, 2014 13:19

February 19, 2014

Over Limit

Kathleen wanted so badly to be important. The specifics did not concern her. Maybe she would be an important blogger. Maybe she would be awarded for her terse prose. Maybe she would be a best-selling author in her genre, whatever genre was most popular. Or perhaps she would simply be the best looking at the convention, which would make her the most important. It did not matter how she was to be important. It was only important that she was important.

In her tidy apartment at her neat desk in her ergonomic chair with her compact laptop and her insulated mug, Kathleen surveyed her final entries in the fields in the web form for the First Annual Excellence in Achievement Convention. She was terribly satisfied with her entrance essay, which she called, “A Bright Smile in the Face of Adversity.” Kathleen had found it a bit cumbersome typing in the smallish text entry field provided. In fact, she had almost considered extracting the text into a word processing document, but by the time she thought of it, she had been on a roll and did not want to disrupt the flow. She smiled with tight lips and double-clicked her wireless mouse. The pointer hovered over the “submit” button on the convention’s web form. Kathleen had meant to single click, and she noticed that her double-click seemed to have confused the form. She saw the progress bar halted at about thirty percent. Kathleen was not sure if she should press the X button to stop and re-load the page, or whether if she simply waited it out that the form would send. It was an esoteric twenty-first century type dilemma.

After two minutes of staring at the unwavering progress bar, she got out her phone and browsed to the same site that was stuck on her laptop. The mobile version of the site was different, to say the least. It did not seem to have the same menu options as the full site. Tapping through several screens, she happened upon the public registration list, but she was unable to tell whether the list was organized by submission time or simply randomly. It was certainly not organized alphanumerically, nor did there seem to be any way for users to customize sorting of the list. Kathleen found it infuriating. Carbon dioxide shot from her nostrils.

Kathleen refreshed the list on her phone, and her name did not appear. She held the phone in two hands, looking down disgustedly as if it had suddenly turned to feces. She glanced back up at the laptop screen. The progress bar may have progressed to forty percent, but she could not tell. Maybe it had already gotten there when she looked last time, or maybe it was slowly progressing. There was no percentage displayed—merely an aqua-colored pattern that represented progress. Kathleen projected her own corresponding numeric estimate, but numbers were never her strong suit. She was a person of words, ideas, and image. She was a Renaissance woman, an enlightened mind who could still be playful and sexy and loving and, if required, stern and forthright. Kathleen, if prompted for a single word to describe herself, would have said aloud, “composed.” Internally, she thought of herself as important, but she would have found it distasteful to utter the word about one’s self. Or, rather, she assumed that others would find it distasteful if she uttered it about herself. Once, in high school, Jessie MacBethany—the bitch who won Homecoming Queen—had called Kathleen “conceited.” As far as Kathleen was concerned, Jessie and her perhaps-accurate insult had ruined senior year. Recalling this, Kathleen threw her phone at the wall, where its rubber-cased body thumped and fell to the floor.

These things ran through Kathleen’s mind before she literally swatted the side of the laptop:

This is all stupid.

Why don’t you work, you ridiculous website?

I am not going to hit my computer.

But she did. Her palm smacked the site of the display, spinning the laptop partway around. Kathleen knew intellectually that violence was not going to solve this specific problem. But the building rage—compounded by a sudden, desperate belief in the idea that a physical attack could transubstantiate into a focused result—had overwhelmed her. Kathleen did not have too many firm convictions about life. She was not religious. She was habitual, maybe, but not what she would describe as ritualistic. But she began to feel that even if she did believe in a supreme power over every facet of existence, this situation would too easily coerce her to renounce such an entity if only it produced the result she sought. She was prepared to abandon hypothetical convictions like no one’s business.

The little wheel—the animated graphic on the computer that stood in for the passage of time, superimposed over the apparently frozen web page—spun. It spun and spun, while behind it the aqua colored progress bar did nothing at all.

Then—and Kathleen saw this and her heart swelled almost to bursting—the progress bar began to move. If you had asked Kathleen at this instant to describe what she was seeing, she would have probably murdered you. But if you had somehow plied her and coerced her to step far enough out of her own psyche to reasonably communicate, she might have said this: “It’s moving … backwards.”

Sure enough, the progress bar was going in reverse. The aqua bar was shrinking faster than it had grown it any point in its brief tenure. What had been a stick was now a twig, and barely that. The aqua progress bar shrunk to a nub. A sliver. A speck of countable pixels. It clung to its existence long enough for Kathleen to theoretically renounce her renunciation of a God in which she had no business believing and to pray with all of her soul that all progress would not disappear. Then, without a sound—without any fanfare whatsoever—it was gone.

For twenty-nine years, Kathleen had lived in a world where there was hope and possibility. Things could be achieved. Dreams could be won. Love could be gained and even reciprocated. The untapped potential of the future had stood as a beacon, a siren calling to the hopeful. That world was gone now. The web page containing the submission form for the First Annual Excellence in Achievement Convention remained impotently on the screen. The entries—first name, last name, and email address all the way through to her essay—appeared gray. As she expected, when Kathleen tried to click and select the text, it was impossible. There would be no copy-and-paste to salvage her efforts. The only part visible from her essay was the closing line:

When we make every effort with grace, the world can do us no wrong.

Kathleen then screamed, “Fuckface!”

Too sick and dehydrated to cry, Kathleen scooted her rolling ergonomic chair over to the corner of the room where her phone lay. She bent down to retrieve it, pulling a muscle in her back. She groaned, leaning to one side and refreshing the browser in her phone as she scooted the chair back to her desk. The mobile version of the site now showed a message that had not been there previously:

Thank you for your submissions. Due to overwhelming response, we are over limit. As we have already reached registration capacity, we have closed to new submissions.

Perhaps it was a ghost, but more likely it was Kathleen herself who uttered the moan she heard.

She thumbed frantically on the list, scrolling through name after non-alphabetized name, hoping she would see her own somehow hidden within the list. She got through what must have been close to three hundred names, not seeing anything recognizable. Following the final entry in the list, Kathleen read this:

Thank you again to our participants. We look forward to meeting you, and we cannot wait to share your insights. Please welcome our keynote speaker, Dr. Jessie MacBethany.

Kathleen’s mouth opened involuntarily and blood-red vomit shot all over her laptop and phone and her lap. Everything turned to liquid, and she passed out.

A buzzing sound roused her. The apartment was dark. He face felt swollen against the floor. Kathleen realized what had happened, remembering. He skin itched from dried vomit. The buzz happened again; her phone’s screen lit up, illuminating a translucent cake of regurgitation covering it. She wiped the puke from the screen with her thumb, seeing a message with the subject, “Confirmation.”

She tapped, feeling drained and sick. The message read:

Thank you for your submission. Your registration is confirmed. We understand that some users were confused due to complications with our servers earlier. We apologize for any misunderstanding.

P.S. Our panel loved your essay, Kathleen, and we would like to have it featured during our “Inspiration Roundtable.” We think it will be a valuable and important part of the event.

Kathleen, on the floor of her apartment, covered in her own vomit, aching and exhausted, weakly smiled.

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Published on February 19, 2014 11:19

February 14, 2014

Valentine’s Day DOs and DON’Ts

In an effort to appeal to you, the Lowest Common Denominator, I have compiled a list of things to definitely try and to absolutely avoid with your Valentine this evening:

Do take your loved one out for a nice meal.

Don’t throw your loved one directly into traffic.

Do gaze longingly into your loved one’s eyes.

Don’t use your X-ray vision to gaze through your loved one’s eyes into their cerebral cortex.

Do offer a token of your love in the form of a gift.

Don’t make your loved one address you only as “My Liege.”

Do confirm your monogamy with tender displays of affection.

Don’t press your privates against the taxi window on the ride home.

Do offer to pick up the tab.

Don’t read your entire enemies list aloud to the waitstaff.

Do present flowers or a nice card.

Don’t poke pinholes in the condom just to prove a point.

Do reminisce about the lovely times you have shared.

Don’t excuse yourself from the table by bellowing, “Gotta go deflower the porcelain princess.”

Do say, “I love you.”

Don’t add, “for now.”

Do your best to make your loved one feel special.

Don’t assume that making your loved one feel special includes fisting.

Do dance to a song you both enjoy.

Don’t throw fistfuls of confetti printed with your loved one’s full Social Security number.

Do enjoy a nightcap.

Don’t push your loved one into the well in your basement.

Do embrace delicately.

Don’t bitterly rattle off your nightmarish history of “better lays.”

Do kiss goodnight.

Don’t slip your loved sleeping pills just so you can sneak back home before your spouse gets suspicious.

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Published on February 14, 2014 12:18

February 12, 2014

The Go-Again

The shovel hits something solid, and it clangs in way that makes my teeth hurt. I dig out around the lockbox, throwing more dirt on the pile next to my dead accomplice. The firelight from the torch planted in the ground flickers over his cold face, an orange glow morphing against black shadows on dead flesh. I exhale condensation, but none seeps from Randall’s corpse. The heat has already left him. His clothes are pooled around what remains of him.

Kneeling, the cold dirt beneath the worn denim covering my kneecaps, I pull off my work gloves. I dig into the dirt around the box. The dirt goes under my nails. I shiver. My thumbs rub the rusty metal of the box, freezing cold and damp. The thing smells like well water.

Randall had said it more times than I could handle: Be sure.

Somewhere in the trees above, a bird cackles. My throat still hurts. I had screamed when it happened to him. I had screamed until I couldn’t.

The box comes out of the dirt easily enough. It cannot weigh more than a heavy book, and I hear something slide within it. I scrape weeds and roots from the top, brushing it clean. By the light of the fire, it looks golden. But I know that in daylight it would be the color of blood.

I fall back to a sitting position, still holding the box in both hands.

“The devil,” he had said, “will let you live your life all over again.”

“Especially if you got it wrong,” I had said.

I set down the box next to the planted torch. Bending down to open my pack, I open the flap and draw out the bottle of Myser whiskey. I twist it around in my hands, studying the label.

“Thirty-five hundred dollars,” I mutter. A single chuckle escapes me. “Ridiculous.”

I tear the foil from the bottle’s mouth and twist the corked cap. The cork pulls from the mouth with a shallow popping sound. I tilt the bottle to my lips. An initial sting is quickly smoothed over by a rich flavor. A healthy dose falls down my throat, and a warmth hits my stomach.

The box glimmers, reflected firelight on its lid.

Randall had been fifty years old. About my age. The dead body draped in his clothing appears to be a boy of grade school age.

A tingling sensation runs through my limbs. Once again, I bring the bottle to my lips, tilting it and enjoying the second gulp. When I was a child, I thought that this must be what magic tastes like.

****

In the dingy little tavern, Randall had said, “When you open it, you will have it all to do over again. You can make better choices, fix your mistakes, and love the the ones who got away. It will all happen quickly. But every wish you have ever had–every desire–will come true.”

I had said I did not want to risk my soul.

“What have you got left?” he had asked.

A muted television hung from a cobwebbed corner showed a science program, the Big Bang exploding into the Universe, continually expanding in a fractal pattern.

“How do you know?” I had asked. “How do you know it works?”

He had smiled at me. The evening before, in the motel, sirens wailing from outside, he had sat in the corner chair. “What does it matter?”

Sitting on the corroded, split cushion in the booth furthest from the entrance, I had looked up through wet eyes. “It matters because I do not want to go through torture again if it fails.”

Randall had said, “Greg, that would be up to you. Wouldn’t it?” He had paused, looking away. He had turned back to meet my eyes. “Be sure.”

“I can’t do worse than I did in this life.”

Randall had smiled, neon light through the blinds slashing his face like war paint.

“How do you know about this thing?” I had asked. “The go-again?”

Randall had said, “This wasn’t my first time around.”

****

My grandpa’s den smelled like cigars. Grandma washed dishes in the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner. My belly was full of turkey and potatoes and corn. My gut stuck out beneath the suspenders my ma had strapped on me. I climbed onto the office chair, my legs wobbling, my sneakers scuffing the cushion as the weight shifted. The casters snagged on shag carpet, and I caught my balance. My hands slapped against the glass doors of the locked cabinet. My young breath fogged the glass, seeing the ornate glass bottle within. I had been to enough school that I could make out words now. I made out the word “Myser” through the fog. I turned to see my grandpa scuttling down the hall toward me, swearing.

****

At the casino with my wife on our honeymoon, she placed a black chip on the felt square wearing the number 7. A rosy-cheeked rogue came between Sherrie and I, dropping his strong palm on my shoulder, squeezing it. I smelled the familiar stink of drink. His other hand, I could see, squeezed my wife’s shoulder.

“It always stops where you’re most happy.”

I met my wife’s eyes, which glimmered in the colorful lights all around us. She guffawed, and the head between us squinted with a stupid grin. I laughed, shrugging as he squeezed my shoulder again.

The white ball tumbled into the Roulette wheel and skittered until settling into a groove in number 7, red.

Sherrie shrieked, tossing the man’s arm from her shoulder and lunging to embrace me. That night, we bought him more drinks than I could match. That was the first night I remembered meeting Randall.

Now I’m sure I met him before.

****

“Greg,” Sherrie had wept. “It’s gone. All of it.”

The store had closed. Everything we had sold could now be bought for less money through a computer.

Already, I was thinking, crocodile tears. She never wanted the store to work. Our partner, Randall, seemed to have unlimited funds. He would brush it off. But it was a huge blow to my savings and to my ego.

This was before I found out that Sherrie was sleeping around.

****

I watch my reflection distort on the lockbox. The dead of night has cut through me, and I feel nothing but the awkward heat before the onset of numbness.

I pull the work gloves back on. The work gloves are mostly silhouette. Even so, I can make out stray droplets of blood in the fabric.

I set the box back down, again grabbing the bottle of Myser, pulling the corked cap and tilting it to my lips. It tastes of anachronism. I was never supposed to have it.

****

Killing my wife was easier than I thought it would be. Once I got my hands around her neck, there was no turning back, and I just tried not to look at her eyes as they went red and dead. Even though I was fairly sure she was dead, I stabbed her in the chest with a kitchen knife a few times for good measure.

The police would look for me first. I didn’t make much of an effort to cover anything.

I met Randall at the car he had waiting around the block. I slid into the passenger seat, pulling the door closed with what felt like the last of my energy.

“You want the go-again,” he said. He was not asking.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure I got it wrong this time.”

He sniffed. It might have been stifled laughter.

“Be sure.”

****

In the dingy little tavern, Randall had said, “I got him. The son of a bitch Sherrie was sleeping with.”

“He’s gone?” I had asked.

“He’s gone,” he had said. “One more victim of this faulty cycle.”

“Who–?” I had started.

“He’s gone,” Randall had cautioned. “Now let’s go get that drink you always wanted.”

****

The reflection is almost impossible to see now. Wind ruffles the clothing on the small body that was Randall. The torch is burnt down to a flickering ember.

I toss the bottle into the woods, watching it tumble, spilling thousands of dollars worth of whiskey into the pine needles and dirt.

I pick up the box, not even saying a prayer, and pry it open.

****

The doctor pulls me from the womb. I’m screeching. They chop the cord.

****

When I’m seven years old, I meet a boy in my class named Randy. At recess one day, Randy tells me that he’s in love with Sherrie.

****

I gulp the Myser whiskey stolen from my grandpa’s den cabinet on Thanksgiving. It feels like poison in my belly. I toss the rope up around a tree branch and pull both ends, looping it and pulling a knot. Fading sunlight pours down through the limbs.

“We’re going to fly!” Randy yells. “We’ll be like superheroes. We’ll live forever.”

“Be sure,” I say.

I offer Randy a gulp from the bottle, but he says, “I’m not supposed to.”

“Do you remember me?” I ask.

He looks worried. Then he grabs both strands of the knotted rope, hoisting himself off the ground and swinging forward, his knees bent and legs lifted off the ground.

While he swings, I drop the bottle. I pull a rock from the ground, dirt getting under my fingernails. The rock is cold and sharp and heavy. As Randy swings back toward me, I swing the rock with both hands and hit him in the face. The noise is a dull crack. He goes to the ground, blood all over.

I crouch over him and pound his face again and again, screaming until I can’t, knowing that if I let him live, he will grow up and ruin my life.

When Randy is well dead, I toss the rock to the ground. I reach into my bookbag and pull out a red lockbox that I got for my birthday. I open it, and stow the bloody rock inside.

I dig a hole with my bare hands and shove the lockbox into the dirt, covering it and burying it completely.

As I tie the noose, I think about how Randall had said that the last time hadn’t been his first time around. Maybe next time, he’ll kill me.

I pull the noose around my neck, tip-toeing on Randy’s fallen body. I step off, gritting my teeth painfully as the rope constricts around my throat, imagining the bodies of two dead seven-year-olds in grown men’s clothing in the dark woods in a future that may never come around.

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Published on February 12, 2014 08:49

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