Authors: Christopher C. Payne
I was close, and just as I exploded, I drove the blade home in her back. It connected with her spine, forcing me to plunge it in with all my strength, angling the blade down in order to inject it fully into her spine. As I did so, I held myself inside her with my left hand keeping her mouth fully occupied as I completed the task that I had come for. I removed the blade and drove it home several more times as she grew limp in my arms. She finally slipped to the ground, as I was unable to hold her up any longer.
This was not completely as planned, but very fulfilling. It was exquisite to climax at the point of death with some young beautiful girl. I contemplated how much money I had saved for how many guys that she would not swindle that night and for all the nights in the future. She would have continued this occupation until one day she woke up and realized she couldn’t make money doing this with her haggard old body anymore. She would by then be on several forms of drugs and probably overdose. How long would this process take? Maybe she had five years – possible eight or 10 because she started out so beautiful.
I left the condom on, so I wouldn’t leave my evidence in the room. I pulled up my pants, checked to ensure that I had my wallet, took back the money that I had given her and exited. I walked out the front door, making sure that I did not make contact with anyone on the way out, and admired how I had managed to spill not a single drop of blood on any of my clothes or even my shoes. I was still pretty stupid in this process, but I seemed to be going undetected and unnoticed in all circumstances to date.
I sat in the coffee house across the street for about 30 minutes and watched as floods of strippers, customers and large bulky men ran from the front of the building like ants that have just realized their home is being flooded. Once the police arrived, I left the coffee house and made my way to my car that was parked in a self-service lot about 10 blocks away.
I might have lost my job yesterday, but I felt damn good today.
Sudhir woke up in his own bed and again, as was becoming quite the custom, his head was pounding with the aching relentless reminder that he had drunk far too much the night before. He remembered being picked up at the restaurant by his brother and driven home where he had stayed by his side for a while. Sudhir had wakened at some point to find himself alone and had attacked the liquor cabinet again with a vengeance. This wasn’t the first time that he dove into a drinking binge before even recovering from the hangover caused by the last one.
He fell into the bathroom, catching himself with his hands on the toilet, and threw up on the lid. He violently heaved his insides like a fountain, spraying even the tile surrounding the white porcelain receptacle. He, now, felt he knew what stepping over the edge felt like, as his memory flooded back into consciousness. His renewed disgust mounted at what this life had become. His marriage was over, he felt. They were already in a rocky area before, but the betrayal burning inside him was never going to heal.
He would have to be careful to remain in control, he realized, as the memory of screaming at the top of his lungs in the restaurant that he could kill his wife burned in his mind. He never said he was going to kill her, only that he felt he could, but in court that would only be a matter of semantics. He knew that physically he could never hurt the mother of his children, but the rage had taken control in one of the rare instances of his life—combined with the alcohol, he had been beyond recognition.
The next few hours were focused on bringing reality back to his fragile existence. He showered, drank coffee, showered again, and took another nap. He did all the things you would normally do to give your body what it needed to overcome the intake of too much alcohol. Once he felt whole enough, he got dressed in one of his better pair of slacks and his favorite shirt. He always liked this shirt with its subtle stripes that blended in slightly with the black fabric.
He combed what remained of his hair, and admired himself in the mirror. He wasn’t looking too shabby. The perpetual drunkenness as of late had done him one favor. He seemed to have lost a few pounds. All that vomiting was like a self-induced bulimic diet that resulted in his pants fitting a little looser than they had in several years. He looked around the house, fighting back the tears that started forming, as he reminisced on his kids and their lives and what might have been if only things were different.
After walking from room to room and pausing for a minute in each one, he knew that it was time to leave. He opened the garage door only to find that his car was not there, nor was it out front in the driveway. He remembered, then, that his brother had brought him home, so it must still be sitting in the parking lot of the bar he had visited yesterday. Quite a scene he had played out for the mid-day working shift, he thought. He was on full drama patrol yesterday with the open display and the non-stop crying, as he curled up into a little ball on the floor. Everyone must think he was crazy, and at this point they were probably all correct.
He called for a taxi, as the bar was about five miles away; and the rolling hills of Pacifica didn’t lend well to walking for a hung over, out of shape, middle-aged man. He didn’t like walking, anyway. As he waited, he renewed his stroll through the house, thinking of the memories that were stored away in the walls and with each piece of furniture. They had been married for so long it was as if every corner of every wall contained a small piece of who they were as a couple. He had failed to look at himself individually in so long it seemed foreign to him to even approach the concept.
The taxi pulled up in the driveway; and as Sudhir was shutting the door, he contemplated writing a note, but then decided against it. They would be able to locate him, of that he was sure, and what would he say, anyway? Nothing really mattered. He closed the door to his house and stepped off the front stoop heading to that taxi. He smiled as he saw the Indian driver behind the wheel, and again wondered what his life would have been like if he, too, would have gone that route.
The driver navigated the hills and curves and dropped him in the parking lot of the structure that held the embarrassing event from yesterday’s activities. Sure enough, there was his car, sitting in one of the spots like it was laughing at him. He paid the driver $50 and was thanked profusely for the generosity. What did money matter, really?
He opened his car door and sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, again fighting to control his emotions and keep the tears at bay. His eyelids felt like the Hoover Dam as they worked diligently to keep the liquid bottled up behind their thin enclosure. He felt a few sneaking through, unfortunately, and wiped his eyes with his fingers as he worked his will and self-control, purging the action once again.
The car started fine, and he felt himself pulled in the direction of the kid’s schools. He first stopped by Matt’s and slowed along the curb, watching the kids playing behind the fenced-in field. Schools are like little fortresses today, with their fences and security guards, and in many locations, metal detectors are a way of life. In most schools, these are all protective measures against the scum of the earth that prey on kids and have no concept of what is right or wrong. In some cases, it is simply to protect the kids from themselves, as so many have now turned to violence at such a young age.
He sat and just watched for a long time, having lost track of what time meant. It had no relevance to Sudhir anymore. He didn’t see Matt, but at the same time felt he had connected with him in some form of conversation by just being here. He would never be able to explain to Matt what was going on. A child should never hear those things about a parent until they are much older and have already lost the innocent view of the world. Every child should hold onto their belief that parents are perfect for as long as they can.
The car seemed to crank by itself, and Sudhir made his way to Tracey’s school now and followed much the same process as before. The kids were not playing organized sports at this school, but were still utilizing playground equipment. They were left on their own to devise what school kid games they might employ to exert the endless energy that every child is blessed with. He was lucky enough to see Tracey in the playground, and that alone broke the barricade he had just recently erected, and he again felt the flood of tears streaming down his cheeks, landing on his shirt and pants. He didn’t attempt to stop them this time.
It was now getting close to time for school to end, and the last thing Sudhir wanted was to meet his parents here or to actually have to talk to Tracey and or Matt in person. He didn’t have it in him to face anyone in his current state. He started the car and headed for The Golden Gate Bridge.
The bridge is a magnificent structure, and in today’s economic times would be too expensive to even build. Isn’t that such a weird thing to say? One of the ills of our worldwide industrial revolution is that many of the wonders we visit and admire could never be built as they cost too much at today’s labor rates. That alone should tell you what is wrong with our economy. No wonder we were facing the worst recession ever seen. It was inevitably going to lead to a depression in Sudhir’s mind. How ironic, really. In his case, he had already bridged the gap to depression. He must be ahead of the curve, he thought.
Sudhir had decided the bridge was as good a spot as any. It might require some walking, which he didn’t enjoy, but it was a beautiful view looking back over the city. The view out to Angel Island or even just gazing in the direction of the ocean with its vast unexplored depths of secrets that might not ever be discovered was amazing. Parking was easy to attain, he pulled into the lot and stopped the car. Again, he felt the floodgates being compromised as the tears renewed their assault, bent on escaping the confinement that so flimsily held them at bay.
He gazed out over the scenery, and just didn’t feel right in the next step of this process. There was an oozing burning inside like something was still left undone. It was like he was jumping from the beginning of Act Three to the end of the play. Even though he knew he was on the downside of the scene, you couldn’t leave out the important parts because the ending wouldn’t make any sense.
Janine, he guessed, was sitting in her self-inflicted fortress, either alone or with somebody. He knew that he would have to confront her and at least bring to a conclusion this charade that was being acted out before he could close the curtain on the play itself. Dusk approached, and time lost its hold on Sudhir. He was wandering from hour to hour with no more time table to drive his actions.
Don’t you love those vacations where you just lay around, and there is no place to be and no appointments. You wake up, sit by the pool or lounge in the ocean-side chairs, as people serve you drinks and food. There are walk-up massages that cater to your every whim, and the only thing driving you to ever move is the fact that there is no restroom built into your lounge of luxury. Sudhir felt himself in that vacuum of time right now. He had purpose and moved forward even though he operated in this void of seconds/minutes/hours.
He started up the car and made the drive back over the bridge, weaving in and out of the congestion that had now formed from rush hour timing. People were hurriedly attempting to move from work to home so they could spend the designated 30 minutes seeing their loved ones before everyone turned on the TV and lost themselves in the world of entertainment.
“I am bored.” How often did kids utter those words, and we annoyingly can’t believe where they come from. We ourselves train them that they must be stimulated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. How pathetic!
There are TV’s in bathrooms and kitchens, and they have now been invading the bedroom for a very long time. The act of making love to your wife or husband has been supplanted by re-runs of
Friends
that are still played non-stop on peripheral channels, endlessly repeating. We, as a society, would rather watch something that we have seen hundreds of times, than spend time with the person that we are committed to for the rest of our lives. Conversation is a lost art form, and yet we ponder why we are so alone in this world that we give nothing to and make no effort to change.
Sudhir was finally pulling into the familiar hotel parking lot that he had only exited yesterday after his stark discovery that had been the final blow, pushing him into his new world. He was ready to explore new adventures and test the water of the world beyond seeing the next step in the evolving cycle of existence. He had only one last thing to do before his journey would be thrust forward in the exhilarating unknown of the next frontier.
It was now dark outside, and he opened the car door, feeling his hand shaking on the handle. He pulled it toward him, unleashing the latch that had held it firmly in place. The metallic click that signaled the movement as he instigated the release from the confined protection of his metal carriage rang in his ears. He didn’t pay attention to little things anymore. He simply took so many things for granted, and it wasn’t until everything was lost and it was all taken from him that he could reflect on what the little things meant.
Who pays attention to the sound of a car door opening? Nobody does, would be the answer. It is simply one of the things that works. You know it works, and it does not garner the magnitude of an event that needs to be contemplated beyond that. We are always lost in the big picture, and it was only now that Sudhir was realizing the big picture was only a conglomeration of tiny events. You had to see the tiny events before you would ever fully understand the picture as a whole.
He started the walk to the front door and in his mind had now memorized the room number. He was ready to face the truth. He was only going to have to deal with it for a short time as the rest of his plan would be carried out quickly afterward. He showed the attendant his badge, received a key to Janine’s room. He, then, made the long walk down the dimly lit corridor where the cause of his happiness and now his demise unknowingly waited.