THUGLIT Issue Twelve (10 page)

"
Have I accused you of something?"

"
It must be so wonderful to have never made a mistake."

"
I've made mistakes."

"
Then why can't you just accept this as mine?"

"
The infidelity?"

"
The marriage! My god, infidelity. Those words."

"
What about the baby?"

Her mout
h hung open, like a marionette. She shifted her eyes to the ceiling, buying time.

"
We have a family, whether you like it or not," I said.

"
That's jumping the gun, isn't it?"

"
No. You're carrying our child. Why don't you get that?"

"
I don't see it that way."

"
You don't see it as our child?"

"
No."

"
So, it's only your child?"

"
There is no child."

"
Call it what you want. It will soon be a baby in your arms."

"
It won't."

I granted her a moment of silence, which she allowed to last too long, like she was preparing herself to pry open a coffin.

"There won't be any baby," she said.

"
You sound crazy.  Six months from now—"

"
I had it taken care of."

I watched as she stirred her coffee with a spoon, which rattled against the ceramic mug.

"I couldn't bring a baby into this situation. I don't want to cry like this every day for the rest of my life. Don't look at me like that! I was happy when you got home, I really was. But you've changed and it scares me, and if I feel scared in my marriage, what kind of life would that be for my baby? I should have told you, I know. But it was the right thing to do."

It
's been a full minute since I've heard a shot. Sirens blare in the distance. Policemen coming to protect us.  Paramedics coming to save the dying. The guitar music has ceased. I hope the guitarist fell asleep on the grass, far away from death. But I fear the worst.

A nearby tree twists upward like a giant claw from the
ground. It reminds me of the Monkey Tree, whose massive boughs dangled over the swamp where I hid for hours when I was a boy, talking to myself or the frogs or God, until my mother rang the bell that meant dinner. I grasp the lowest limb and vault myself up. I'm a warrior. I've kept my Army body strong. From here I can step onto a series of low branches. I pull myself up and over.

The grass
is now a dozen feet below. I straddle the branch and look behind me, but the swirling leafy gowns block out my surroundings. I bring my knees against my chest and rest my head against the trunk. I hear myself panting. In the muffled silence, each breath is like a bomb exploding. Birds sing in the next tree. The guitar plays again—why isn't he running? He's asking for trouble. His strumming is a tease.  I halt the machinery of my lungs to listen for anyone else's sounds. But no soldier snores in the next bed. No collective breathing or marching. No orders. No code of honor. It's gone.

Anoth
er shot and the guitar ceases. Through a hole in my leaf canopy, I spot his body draped over the instrument. One side of his face is red and wet. Above him in the distance is the church steeple. I've been to this church. I took her there after her grandfather died. Surprised her on her lunch break. She prayed with me. A homeless man was draped across the last pew, napping like an infant. I remember a small crowd by the altar, rehearsing for a christening, preparing for another life full of God. Above their heads Jesus glanced downward, his hands and feet blood-specked, his expression not sad.

"Where did you get that?" she asked about an hour ago, her eyes wide and on fire.

I
'd been riffling through my Army duffel bag.

"
What are you doing with that?" she asked again. "What's wrong with you?  Get it out of here."

I heard every word, but she might have thought I
'd suddenly gone deaf.

"
I can't even look at that thing.  Get it out—"

She w
as leaning against the dresser. She opened the top drawer and began folding my undershirts. It was another of her habits. When she got nervous, she either drank wine or folded clothes.

"
Why are you wearing your uniform?" she asked.

Behind her sat
my framed high school diploma. Most people don't frame their high school diplomas, but she did that for me not long after we met. She said I should be proud of it. That not everyone needs to go to college, but that if I want to go someday, it's never too late. That I had my whole life in front of me, and that good things were in store for me. For both of us. She was holding me in her arms as she said these things.

Next to the diploma was the ph
oto of our kiss the day I left. I was in my uniform, and her mother snapped the picture, like one of those images of couples parting during World War II. I told her I was leaving not only to protect a nation, but to protect her and our future family.

I lifted it to my shoulder.
Her face was perfectly centered in the scope. It looked beautiful. I froze so I could admire her long neck, her tiny curled lips, her high cheekbones which had always made her seem regal, and just slightly out of reach to anyone other than me. Her skin was that swirling mix of pink and beige paint that could light up a canvas. She stood patiently. I could tell that a thought had entered her mind. That she calculated quietly, and then dismissed it. She knew what she deserved.

In the tree, I remove my shiny black boot and pour out the ro
ck that's been bugging my foot. It falls into the grass below. This was a mistake. I lean back again. My own breathing is under control, soft and silent, my chest barely heaving. So, why do I hear panting? I inhale and hold my breath. The panting continues. It's coming from somewhere else. From below.

There
's something comforting about accepting one's fate. When you hear the click, stillness takes over your body, moving outward from your heart to your extremities, your brain, your dreams. You enter a new body, one that will transport you to your seat next to The Lord. You don't want to sing and dance. You want to sleep, or at least rest, because you understand that peace is all that's left for you.

I hear the click from below.
It's followed by three more, with no pattern or rhythm. Four clicks total, all from different directions. Like a baby bird peeking from the nest, I spot a dark blue uniform in the haze. To the far right I find another. They're wearing thick protective vests and boots like mine. One of the officers shouts something, but to me, it's muffled. I've already entered the dream, where He is honoring me. Another muffled shout. They're calling me. Commanding me to do something, but they sound farther away with each word. Two more clicks with two more arrivals. More shouting. They think I am the evil one.

Look kindly upon them.
They can't help their blindness. They will say that I went crazy. They'll need to believe that. Only then can the doctor's wife, the skateboarder's mother, the guitarist's grandchildren accept it. It's too agonizing to blame themselves. They've dispensed with moral laws, so all that's left is madness. Madness brings comfort, so I must be mad for them. That will be my gift.

I grasp the han
d of The Lord, and He leads me. We place the muzzle in my mouth and I can taste the steel. We place my fingers on the trigger guard. More muffled calls from below. They don't want me to go. Of course not. I am the truth. We rest my forefinger on the trigger, and with a breeze, like a hand stroking my head, we leave my body behind.

by J. J. Sinisi

Dead light bulbs in The Starry Nite Motel
's welcome sign hid behind the foggy Kansas evening until the entirety of the lit portion read simply:
Wel
. I thought about that irony as our van slowed to enter. Certainly I wasn't
Wel
, or well, whichever was more appropriate, but our destination would provide me little opportunity to change that. Just then, the motel's roof swallowed the smoldering sunset. That seemed more fitting, given its place in local lore and apocrypha.

My seat hopped as the van cleared the second speed bump. After pulling into one of many vacant spots in front of the manager
's office, our leader as it were, Connie Mercant, descended from the driver's seat using the kick plate to negotiate his way to the gravel-strewn lot. His small feet landed with a scrape and his short legs escorted him through the front door. With what little humor I had left, I noticed the strip of measurements taped to the doorframe he entered—a tool for witnesses to easily identify at least one trait of a shoplifter, and of course, a definitive sign that the establishment is surely a place your mother told you never to visit. Connie's head just missed the five-foot mark.

"
So what room did the murder happen in?" Tate Durbin asked from the shotgun seat, the euphemism's irony also not lost on me.

"
Murders."

"
What?"

"
Murders," I repeated. "Seven people. Plural."

"
Alright fine. Murders. In what room did the murders happen?"

"
It wasn't just one room. I heard it was at least three."

Sick. That was the word he used then. Sick, as in, murderers are so deranged they are mentally ill. But while he said it, Tate Durbin smiled
as he stared out the window at the growing vapor.

It occurred to me then, like some specter through the fog, Tate did indeed believe the act of murdering seven people was sick. But he meant it in the new colloquial. He meant the word
'sick' the way the people of my generation meant the word 'cool.' At that moment, I felt both divorced from my agreement with these two men but also wedded to my final decision. Much as the term cool typified the sixties but held over to the seventies when I grew up, the term sick was born in the last generation but gained prominence beneath the wires of modern communication and electronica.

My fear of just how fuc
ked up this new generation was became symbolized by this single-syllable word, spoken by a man, a kid, who epitomized the contemporary and all that would get worse in the years to come. And while this realization should have shocked me, all it really did was make me wonder, for what seemed like the millionth time, how the hell did I let myself wind up in the back of this van in the first place?

Connie rejoined us with a small key
latched to a very large diamond-shaped piece of plastic clutched in his hand. He clambered back up into the van, using the door handle to help finish his ascent before again using the wheel as an anchor so his short arm could reach the open door and close it with a firm thud.

"
Room 613. Round back as requested," he said. Connie's voice did his stature no favors.

"
613, that's some evil shit," Tate said, still smiling at the fog.

"
Shut up, Tate. Franny, you okay back there?"

"
Yeah I'm fine," I answered.

"
It won't be long now."

"
Not long at all."

"
Franny says it was seven people."

"
What?" Connie asked while he straightened the van from its reverse pullout. He turned the wheel to guide it to the back of the motel.

"
The murderer guy. Killed seven people here."

"
That's wonderful Tate. Truly, that's wonderful. Now shut the fuck up so I can concentrate."

The horseshoe-
shaped motel complex had rooms throughout its façade, ending in three rooms on the outer half that faced a meager grouping of stunted trees and, knowing Kansas, a vast cornfield just on the other side. Tate and I pulled the three duffel bags from the well in the back of the van and brought them into the room, placing them on the bed. Connie waited outside while we unloaded, busy spying the other two doors and the windows beside each. Once satisfied that the occupants had their own reasons for requesting a back room—or more likely, no one was even boarding in them—he reached into the passenger's seat and took the shotgun and shells. The shotgun he placed against the leg of the small desk beside the old TV, the shells he put in the drawer.

A short while later, we were set up and had nothing to do. Connie and Tate played cards at the desk. I poured myself a tumbler of bad scotch I had hidden away in the van
, but realized there was no refrigerator or ice in the room. I headed to the front door.

"
Where the hell you think you're going?" Connie asked not bothering to glance up from his game.

I held up the glass though he wasn
't looking.  "Ice."

"
Don't wander too far. You know the pigs. They tend to be more than punctual."

I waved my glass towards him and walked out. The fog still hadn
't lifted. I strolled around the horseshoe and watched the parked cars wait for me to approach before materializing. The door to the ice room had long since rusted off at its hinges. I entered ducking because of the step at the entrance. Opposite the ancient icebox was an even older coin-operated washer and dryer set. Though I would have bet neither had been used in twenty years, the dryer rocked and hummed, balancing on unsteady legs. I lifted the flap on the ice machine and stared, for not a short amount of time, at the congealed block of rusty frozen water deteriorating in its depths. Disgusted, I slammed the ice door closed and walked out.

She appeared from the haze then; and though tension from my poor decisions coursed hot through my veins and clouded my eyes with crimson anger, she immediately drained away all that red and poured vibrant blonde in its place, spinning the world in luscious gold.

"Hey," she said, meeting my eyes with a crooked grin.

"
Hello," I topped my glass at her.

"
That scotch?"

"
Not good scotch, but yes, scotch."

"
Warm scotch I bet."

"
You've seen our ice machine."

"
Yup. I told the front desk about it and he laughed at me."

"
Surprising for such an esteemed establishment."

She smiled and the rigid straightness of her teeth
made her look even more perfect with her mouth open than when it was closed.

She excused he
rself past me as I heard the dryer stop. I forced myself to look out into the short gloomy distance, and not behind me where she bent over to unload the machine.

"
What brings you to Leavenworth?" she asked.

"
Business."

"
What kind of business you in?" She sounded like she was yelling though she was only a few feet behind me.

"
Salesman," I lied back to her.

I heard rustling and the aluminum dryer door close. Then she stood beside me, a towel and a small pair of je
ans folded over her arm.

"
And what do you sell, Mr. Salesman?"

"
Good advice."

"
Really? I could always use some. How much it cost?"

"
I'm having a buy-one get-one today."

"
Great deal." That smile again. Her dark lashes twisted upwards, stark against her fair skin. Her hair was fairer, tied back in a tight ponytail, strands of it appearing almost white with lovely yellow accents. "I'll take it."

"
The first is your laundry."

"
What about my laundry?" she pouted, faux-insulted.

"
If the ice machine is bleeding orange, and no doubt you've run the tap in this place since you've checked in, I would advise against washing anything else in this filthy water."

"
But they were muddy," the pouty face stayed, my knees, nearly did not. "Fine, that's the one I'll pay for. What's my freebie?"

"
Depends."

"
On?"

"
What time you're checking out."

"
That's a little forward, Mr. Salesman." She said it the way she was supposed to say it, a little insulted with a pang of disappointment that the nice man she was flirting with just made a pass. It was the reaction of a good Midwestern lady. But her mouth, slightly askew, pointing a jagged tip at me, spoke volumes about what this girl really thought of Midwestern lady etiquette.

"
No disrespect," I played along. "I meant my friends and I won't be here long and I'm contractually bound to only give one piece of advice per day, even in bogo cases such as these."

A giggle.
"Fair enough. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. So maybe I'll meet you at our exquisite continental breakfast."

"
Oh, I hadn't heard."

"
It's wonderful. Baked brioche, croissants, deviled eggs even. I've been to Paris by way of Nice and never have I ever eaten its equal."

"
Sounds positively charming."

She walked away, clothes slung over her shoulder.
"How much do I owe you?" she asked without stopping.

"
For what?"

"
The bogo."

"
It's on the house."

"
You're not a very good salesman."

She was now only twenty paces away and already she began to dematerialize, like a spacewoma
n in some horrible pulp sci-fi.

She continued,
"If I didn't know better I'd think you were lying to me."

"
Good thing you don't know any better."

"
Good thing Mr. Salesman, good thing."

Then, as if she knew it would happen, she disappeared and my world went red again. Nothing stood before me now except the ghost of her voice and an unforgiving wall of dark Kansas night, enraptured by the steam clutch of my own dark thoughts.

Back at the room, the card game had ceased. Connie lay on the bed next to our bags, his toes three feet from its edge. His handgun rested on his chest but the magazine was on the end table next to him. When I walked in, I could see the empty handle of the gun. It made me briefly think how useless guns were without bullets, and conversely, bullets without a gun, like an illness without a host.

"
The hell you run off to? Didn't I tell you not to go far?"

"
Where's Tate?"

"
Taking a piss."

The bowl flushed.

"You didn't even get any ice."

"
Machine's broke."

"
That's a damn—" he stopped mid-sentence and looked past me to the window beside the door.

I turned and saw the police car pull beside our van. Neither of us moved. The sink turned on in the bathroom. A cop stepped out of the driver
's side door. Then his partner did the same from the opposite side. They said something muffled to each other, inaudible beyond the reach of the sturdy door and double-paned glass.

Connie rolled off the bed, grabbed his magazine and charged his gun. He lifted his shirt in the back and slid it into his pants. The shotgun was go
ne from the corner of the desk.

Connie motioned to th
e bathroom when he saw me look. "Never lets that thing out of his sight."

The cops exchanged some more w
ords. They approached the door.

"
Tate," Connie whispered at the bathroom.

"
Yea?" Tate didn't seem to be in a rush.

"
Company. Sit tight in there."

An authoritative slap thumped the front door, open
-palmed; the force of a man who knocked on hundreds of strangers' doors a year.

Connie walked up to it. I held my empty hands before him. He shrugged at me. We had the discussion multiple times on the way here. Connie
's handgun and the shotgun Tate refused to relinquish were our only two weapons. Connie liked the idea. Said I had less culpability if I didn't have a weapon. At least that's how he tried to spin it. I knew there was more. I knew he still didn't trust me. And since he didn't trust me, if things went south, and there was no doubt they could, he didn't want to have to account for another gun in the room he couldn't guarantee wouldn't be pointed at him.