There’s blood on my sheets. A lot of it. For a moment I’m full of panic. What happened, where’s… then the pain in my arm comes back and I remember. I let out a lungful of air and relax. It’s okay, it’s my blood.
There’s no way it’s coming out of the sheets, so they go in the trash, double bagged, along with the mattress pad too. After the bed is remade I pull on my slacks from the night before and head to the kitchen. There’s strong coffee waiting for me on the stove. I fill a shallow ceramic mug and walk out the sliding glass door of my apartment to my tiny ground floor patio.
The wound on my arm burns. The bandage is soaked through and dried to a crusty rust color. It needs cleaning, but it can wait till after the coffee. It’s my ritual, sipping java on plastic lawn furniture. Staring at the morning sun hovering over the lifeless retaining pond. It’s the suburbs.
It’s hard to feel more than two dimensional living in the burbs. They’re flat and endless with no character or energy. The parking lot of my building, packed with blue and gray sedans and minivans at six a.m. is virtually empty by seven. The residents parade out, single file, like it’s some sort of national holiday celebrating mediocrity. At six in the evening they shuffle back in and you’d never know anything had happened.
It makes you feel small. It makes you feel invisible. That being said, sometimes in life it’s not about how you feel. Sometimes it’s just about knowing who you have to be and then making yourself be that. For example, when I wake up in the morning I don’t feel like a killer, and yet…
The day is slow and long. A kind of tortured purgatory, like being drawn out on the rack for twelve hours. The boredom manifests as a physical pain, compounding the discomfort of my wounded arm. There’s tightness in my chest and a knot in my shoulders. I don’t like the person I am, but it’s the only person I know how to be, and besides, I don’t have much choice in the matter.
Still, I can’t do it anymore. I need more from life. I need to feel human. I need— what I need is to be able to sleep at night without the nightmares. I need peace. So this is it. After tonight, I’m done. One way or the other. I’m through.
At eight p.m. the cool evening air begins to roll in, and with it come the clouds. I shower and shave. Vodka from the freezer goes into a rocks glass over two garlic stuffed olives. I set the glass on my dresser. Drinking helps me deal with the trauma, but it’s a fine needle to thread. Too much, even a little too much and I’ll be foggy and unreliable when I go to work.
My uniform is exactly what you’d expect. Black slacks, white shirt, black tie and jacket. My hair is short and clean cut, parted neatly and free of product. I have a Beretta .45 in a hip holster under my jacket and a small four inch switchblade in my right pants pocket.
By nine o’clock the sun has dipped below the horizon and the moon is a washed out blotch of cream colored light halfway up the sky. The thunder started half an hour ago and now the rain is falling in huge aggressive drops. I’m soaked to the bone by the time I reach my car, and even with the wipers on full the windshield is a streaky watercolor of yellow and black.
When the engine of my twenty year old Cadillac starts up, the cassette in the deck clicks on and Johnny Cash announces that God’s gonna cut me down. I nod my head in silent agreement and brush the wet hair back off my forehead. My reflection in the rearview mirror stares back at me with disdain and I wipe the palms of my hands across my face. They’re rough and gritty even though they’re wet. I grip the steering wheel at ten and two and inspect my worn out knuckles. It’s about making yourself believe you are who you need to be. In my case, it’s about remembering that I hate myself.
The open flesh on my arm burns and draws my focus. I’m damaged goods, broken and unwanted. Crimson from the wound seeps through the white fabric cuffs of my shirt and rain pounds the thin steel roof of the car while the hillbilly on the radio shouts at me about God’s wrath. Suddenly I slip into the person I’m looking for. The transformation feels oily and sick, like a fever about to break. Anger churns in my chest and tension tightens up the muscles in my back in anticipation of what is coming.
I drop the car into gear and feed gas to the engine. It growls and kicks and bucks, but I hold the wheel tight as it surges out of the parking lot and heads east towards the lights of the city.
# # #
I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and what I’ve come up with is this. I wish it was harder. It seems to me that killing a man should be difficult, and I wonder what it says about us, as people, that we’ve worked harder and harder to make it easier and easier. The time and resources that we’ve put into simplifying the act of taking another life… well, it isn’t hard and it only takes a moment.
I park my car in a concrete tower a few blocks from my destination and walk in the drowning rain. The drive took time, and that anger I worked so hard to achieve at home has mellowed into a melancholy ache in my throat. I’m going to have to get that feeling back before I can do what needs doing.
When I get to his building I stand on the stoop and stare up at the flat brick face of it. He lives here, I assume. He has a sofa and a television, plates and bowls and probably breakfast cereal in a cardboard box. He thinks he’s just a guy and tonight is just a night. I hate that it’s me that has to prove him wrong.
A half a block further I walk into the alley between his building and the next. There’s a quiet spot just inside the shadows where I crouch down and wait. The rain slows down and I watch it peter out to a sad little drizzle in the yellow glow of the street lamps. It isn’t long after that.
The steps come slow and casual, splashing lightly across the wet cement with a patience I wish I felt. Then his profile breaks through the edge of my field of vision and for a moment he’s perfect. A beautiful dark silhouette on the oil painting of my city. I want nothing more in that moment than for him to live. Moments like this are painfully short.
I step forward into the light and before he can turn his head, my switchblade snaps open like a thunderclap and the blade is between his ribs. He gasps and chokes and my left hand is around his throat, holding him up. I pull him in against me, like a lover, and whisper in his ear.
“Relax Chris, I promise this will be fast. I don’t want to hurt you, at least not for long.”
In two quick steps we turn and I throw him against the soft weathered brick of his home. His head bounces off it like a rubber ball and the confusion vanishes from his eyes as they roll up into his head. He collapses on the pavement in a crumpled mess of bloody laundry.
The candy apple red from his side mixes with the rainwater creating a cascade of pale pink liquid that pools at my feet. I think of the blood from my arm mixing with his, creating a symphony of DNA on the wet asphalt and feel profound indifference. A pat down of his pockets produces a crumpled pack of Marlboros and a lady’s Zippo lighter.
I pull my gun and crouch across from him, watching the vanishing drizzle dance on his pale face. I light one of his cancer sticks and smoke while I wait for him to come back to me. Towards the end of the butt his eyes flutter and open with a desperate rattled expression.
I level the barrel of my weapon between his eyes.
“Hi Chris,” I say.
He’s bleeding a lot and not quite sure where he is. I know it hurts for him to breathe and the pain in his ribs is preventing him from sitting up.
“It’s okay Chris,” I say. “You don’t have to sit. Just lie there for now. Try and stay comfortable.”
He’s frightened, obviously. Not sure what to make of me. He breathes shallowly and winces when he tries to move. Eventually he takes my advice and settles into a position that seems to provide the least agony.
“I know it hurts,” I say with compassion. “And I’m sorry for that. Believe it or not, I’ve been exactly where you are now. I really do know what you’re going through.”
I reach out and brush his hair out of his face. I hold his cheek in my palm and look him straight in the eyes.
“Chris, I don’t want you to feel like you have to do a lot of talking tonight, okay? I know it’s difficult so I’ll try and keep the conversation centered around yes or no kinds of questions. Okay?”
He looks at me pitifully and I wish I could make it all better for him. This is not the mood I need to be in. After a moment he nods and I smile.
“Good job Chris. You got it perfect.”
He coughs and his lips turn red. I put the cigarette out on the pavement and lean in a bit.
“We’ll start simple,” I say. “Do you know who I am Chris?”
His head shakes no.
“Of course not. There’s no reason you should. Do you know why I’m here?”
There’s a pause, then he coughs again and tries to speak.
“Money?” he wheezes.
I pout and shake my head.
“Oh Chris, no. No, it’s not money.”
I crouch and get very close to the ground. I turn my head and look him deep in his eyes. I want to see his reaction. I want to be there when he realizes.
“Do you know Kelly Phillips, Chris?”
His shallow breath stops and the pupils in his eyes go wide.
“Right,” I say. “That’s what I thought.”
Sitting up again, a tense anger begins to churn in my stomach. It’s coming back, moving through my muscles, spreading into my legs and chest, through my shoulders and neck and down my arms to the very tips of my fingers. It’s exactly what I was looking for.
The man is trying to move now. His breath is back, but short and fast. His face is painted in earthy shades of panic. He’s coughing and I can hear the blood in his lungs. He’s trying to talk. He wants to explain. They always want to explain.
“I—”
I let out a long sigh.
“You what, Chris?”
Tears begin to pool at the corners of his eyes. His choking bloody breaths take on the telltale characteristics of crying.
“I didn’t—”
“Yes you did Chris. You did. Right? I saw it in your eyes. Right now you wish you didn’t, but you did.”
He opens his mouth and his teeth and tongue are covered in blood.
“Can I tell you a secret Chris? I wish you hadn’t too. I really do, and not just for Kelly’s sake. I mean, that poor girl, she didn’t deserve that. But no, I’m being selfish here. For me. I wish you hadn’t for me. Every time I sit here like this I wish for it not to be the guy.”
He looks at me like he’s begging. Begging me to walk away. To let this be enough. To let it be over. It isn’t though. That anger in my belly keeps getting hotter. Foggy rage keeps filling up my brain and clouding out my judgement.
“Just once,” I say. “Just once I want her to get it wrong. For it to turn out that she has the wrong guy. Then I could actually sleep. I could go to Mica and say, sorry you were wrong and I had to let him go.”
He’s outright sobbing now and blood is running down his chin and neck.
“I just want to be done with this Chris. I just want one excuse to tell her I won’t do it anymore. But every time I have one of you pieces of shit like this, spitting blood and asking me to grant you mercy, every time, I mean every single time, you’re guilty. How do I let you walk away when you did what she says you did?”
I stand up.
“How do I pretend that you didn’t hurt that girl? How do I pretend that you won’t do it again?”
He wheezes.
“I won’t. I can’t. I can’t pretend Chris!”
I look down at him for a long time. He’s crying and spitting and trying to crawl. After a minute I feel fatigue flood over me and I lift the gun and click the trigger without really thinking about it. There’s a flash and the air shatters around us. I feel the detonation of the ammunition crash hard against my hand and the pressure wave moves through my arm and dissipates in my back.
When the ringing in my ears stops I’m sitting in my car. I light another of his cigarettes and crack the window an inch to let the smoke out, then drive home on auto pilot, not thinking about where I’m going, or where I’ve been. I sleepwalk into my apartment and stand in a hot shower until the water runs cold, then dry my hair in a soft warm towel and put a fresh bandage over the hole in my arm.
My gun and knife go in a safe in my closet and I slide into a pair of thin cotton pajama pants. I climb silently into my cool crisp bed and lay my head on a firm memory foam pillow. The nightmares will be here soon, like they always are. My mind grows foggy and distant. As I drift towards sleep I feel my wife roll over and wrap herself around me.