The Fall of Polite

by Sam Kench

  The Fall

  of Polite

  Sam Kench

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons , living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Sam Kench

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design: Kaylee Adams

  ISBN: 979-8-612-93780-7

  First paperback edition

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1. THE END OF NORMAL

  2. A VISITOR UNINVITED - A VISITOR UNWANTED

  3. WHIRLWIND OF TRAUMA

  4. THE DEAD COWS, THE NAZI,

  AND THE GANG OF BASTARDS

  5. AN INDUSTRY UNFETTERED BY THE FALL OF POLITE

  6. A PILE OF DEAD PENSIONERS

  7. A BRIEF REPRISE OF CALM

  8. A SLASHED EYE BLINKING IN FROZEN DAYLIGHT

  9. A STREET FEELING MORE LIKE AN ALLEY

  10. FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, STRYCH, NINE, TEN

  11. A DEPOT OF DEAD CHILDREN

  12. A TRICK PULLED TWICE, A TRIGGER PULLED ONCE

  13. A CHEMICAL ESCAPE FROM A MAN-MADE HELL

  14. A SLEEPY LITTLE TOWN

  15. THE GIRL WITH THE STAINED-GLASS COMPLEXION

  16. A HOMEMADE SWASTIKA HUNG WITH CARE

  17. ONE UGLY CUNT KILLS ANOTHER

  18. THE LONG, COLD HUNT

  19. A DEADLY CONVERGENCE AT KING’S GAS FARM

  20. BRIGHT SIDE KIND OF THINKING

  21. THE SISTER COMES HOME

  EPILOGUE

  The Fall of Polite

  Prologue

  HE STARED INTO THE COLD, GREY SKY, hoping the face of a divine being would push past the haze, and reveal his life to be an illusion. Her hands were cold; colder than when she was alive. He knelt beside her in the field, wanting to cry, but lacking the energy.

  He felt like a specimen encased in amber unable and unwilling to move. Time seemed frozen alongside him, until he took note of the amassing snow. It had risen two inches up his knees in the time he had been immobile. She was being buried, covered up like a dark secret, but in the world post-fall of polite, this atrocity didn't need to be hidden. He didn't have to worry about the force of the law or the judgement of others. He could move on with his life and face no repercussions… but he didn't want to.

  Snow climbed up the sides of her face like moss up the brickwork of an abandoned building left to the ravages of time in the forest of exile. The blood she had lost was already covered by a fresh dusting of precipitation. Now only his own blood shown crimson on the earth's canvas as it continued to leak from the gash on the side of his neck.

  She had missed his jugular, poor thing. An inch higher and it would have been her kneeling over him.

  He wished she had slashed an inch higher.

  Snow frosted his skin and settled in the pulsating wound in his neck. Steam pumped into the air with each breath through his open mouth. He couldn't believe what he had done. She looked so gentle, so innocent. Her hay colored hair spread haphazardly across the snow like the head of an unruly mop. He hadn't thought himself capable of such an act, even in this new world.

  The slice along his neck stung, but he felt the pain of the wound he had lavished upon the woman far more intimately. He could see past the meat of her throat to her vocal cords. He imagined her singing voice, delicate and warm. He dropped her knife into the snow and it disappeared into the powder.

  I should have let her do it, he thought. She was scared, and she had every right to be. He knew he looked scarier than he was at heart, his large frame undiminished by the scarcity of food. How could she have known he wasn't like the others. Maybe she wasn't wrong, maybe he wasn't unlike the others. They all took life just the same. But they don't feel bad about it, he told himself.

  Unable to reconcile his actions, he decided not to forgive himself. He wanted to freeze solid, to be preserved like an early human, awaiting discovery by a future generation who had sorted out the state of the world. But he knew this world couldn't be sorted out. Not anymore. The damage was done.

  In the end it was the blood loss that did him in before the cold or the hunger. By the time he fell dead on top of her there was a thick layer of snow to separate their bodies.

  1. THE END OF NORMAL

  IT WAS WINTER, early January, just after Christmas. Maria Dubrek and her brother Mark were now on their own for the first time in their lives. What they had always called a house was no more than an apartment, in truth. They had half of an old farm house to themselves, the upstairs, rented from an old couple whose family had owned the property since the 1920s. The downstairs apartment was occupied by a petty criminal who spent just as much time in a cell at the local jail as he did in his apartment. Only in his 20s, Buddy had passed in and out of the police station enough to know the entire the town’s police force by name. Maria, Mark, and their father had moved in nearly 15 years prior, and would never move out.

  The siblings had just spent their first Christmas alone. Their father had passed away from lung cancer a few days before the holiday. It was a slow, drawn-out affair with plenty of false hope along the way.

  They had an Aunt living a state over who was now burdened with taking them in. She was their only family left, and they were hers.

  Aunt Kim was never much of a people-person. Her little brother had been her only close relationship since their own parents passed away two decades earlier. Now that her brother was gone too, she would try her best with his children but she wasn’t optimistic about her odds. Aunt Kim feared the siblings would grow to view her as an evil stepmother figure, rather than the caring aunt she aspired to be. She viewed it as inevitable. Every relationship she had ever endeavored had fallen apart eventually. She had no friends, and had stopped trying to change that long ago.

  She had, for many years as a young woman, earned her living as a restaurant and hotel critic traveling throughout New England. When the internet caught on, she saw a chance to change careers. She became an early proponent of drop-shipping in time for the E-commerce explosion. To her, it was idyllic. She was now perfectly capable of earning a living from the cozy comfort of her own isolated home. Limiting her need to leave the house was a big selling point.

  Kim had yet to properly grieve her little brother’s death. She had not made the trip for the funeral, nor had she spoken openly with his kids about the matter. She was doing her best to avoid thinking about it and had, thus far, been successful. She suspected that bringing the young brother and sister into her home would make facing his death inevitable. Life was full of unfavorable inevitables. She hoped they wouldn’t need too much comforting.

  For now, the Dubrek siblings were still in the old farmhouse; two teenagers slumming away the days following their father’s funeral, cut off from the outside world; their mourning a form of self-imposed exile.

  Mark was a year older than Maria’s 17, but she often found herself having to act like the big sibling. Mark was always a bit immature. He had a few friends in high school but he had far more classmates who hated him. He would frequently make people angry; usually on purpose. Riling up others was a sport in his eyes. Maria didn’t think he was a full-blown bully because he was bullied a fair bit himself, but he was definitely in the ballpark, and she realized she might have been wrong to think that one negated the other.

  Mark had long, brown hair; straight and with a strong sheen. People would often mistake him for a girl and that would upset him, but he would always refuse to cut it all the same. Maria never understood why, and Mark didn't fully understand the reason himself. He knew it had something to do with it being his choice. Anytime someone told him to cut it, th
at made him want to do the opposite. In a world where people minded their own business and didn't concern themselves with his hair, he might well have cut it long ago. His acne had finally started to clear up by senior year, and he wasn’t in too bad of shape but he had no idea how to handle himself in any of the physical confrontations he weaseled himself into. That’s where Anthony Glandow came in.

  Anthony was a high school senior for the third time. He couldn't seem to make it across the finishing line. The school coaches were glad he stuck around. Not because he had any particular athletic talent, but because his massive frame struck fear into the opposing teams. He stood six foot four and weighed in well over the cusp of 300 pounds. He had a full beard: rich brown, unkempt, and a left arm sleeve tattoo in progress that ran up to his massive bicep. A real intimidating figure to be sitting next to in algebra.

  Mark was beaten up a couple of times in school, but without Anthony Glandow on his side, that number would have been in the double digits. The two of them were best friends. If Anthony wasn’t over the Dubrek’s house, then Mark was usually at the Glandow's.

  Maria mostly stayed away from them. Anthony gave her the creeps. She caught him leering, slack jawed, on more than one occasion.

  Maria had her little circle of friends. None of them were as close as they acted. Superficial self-gratification seemed to be each of their top priorities. Except for Stacey. Her and Maria were undoubtedly the closest of the group and the only two who spent any time together when isolated from the rest of the group. They could talk to each other about anything, whereas the others had trouble moving being the simplest frivolities.

  The last time Maria had been over Stacey’s house was shortly before her father’s death. They were having a sleepover; Stacey teasing Maria for turning down James O’Doul, a senior boy. ‘That’s against high school law,’ Stacey had said. ‘He’s even one of the cute ones.’

  Maria didn’t see why it was a big deal.

  ‘That’s like the fifth guy I’ve seen you turn down this year. Isn’t there anyone at school that you like?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so,’ Maria answered honestly after giving it serious thought.

  While they did homework on Stacey’s bed, concerns about each of their fathers came up. Stacey’s dad, a local pastor, had recently bought a gun, and it was the subject of much controversy in the Prendergast household. ‘My mom hates him having it.’

  ‘Of course she does. Especially with how young Polly is.’

  All of the neighbors had been gun owners for years, but Stacey and her mother had always been firmly anti-gun. Her dad was too… until all of a sudden he wasn’t any longer. ‘He’s been changing,’ she said.

  ‘Changing how?’ Maria asked.

  ‘He’s been depressed, mostly. Sometimes he gets really angry and yells, but he always apologizes right away and says it’s not us that he’s angry at.’

  ‘What’s he angry at?’

  ‘The world, I think. The way the world turned out. The way people are acting.’

  Maria went down to the kitchen later in the night for more eggnog and came upon Mr. Prendergast crying at the little wooden table. He didn’t hear her come in. It wasn’t until he dried his eyes and looked up toward the crucifix on the wall that he noticed her.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Maria.’

  ‘Are you okay, Mr. Prendergast?’

  ‘Just… grownup problems.’ He dried his eyes further and sniffled. ‘It’s just; what’s this world coming to, you know?’

  Maria gave him an unsure look.

  ‘I guess you’re too young to follow the news.’

  ‘I do a little. I know things are… tense, but… they’ll get better.’

  ‘I don’t know if things can get better anymore. This country’s falling apart. It has fallen apart. We haven’t been this divided in over a century. The marches and the riots-’ He stopped himself, rose to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking to you about these sorts of things.’ He headed for the front door, putting on a coat and hat. ‘You just try to have fun.’ Then he mumbled something quietly under his breath as he opened the door. Maria thought it sounded like: ‘While you can.’

  He left her alone in the kitchen, stepping out into the cold night, going who-knows-where. Maria didn’t mention the conversation to Stacey.

  MARIA HAD LITTLE interest in her other friendships beyond Stacey. It was enough for her. She had a hard time making connections with others that felt genuine. Not for lack of trying. She didn’t understand the ways that many of her classmates acted and felt alienated from her peers when she didn’t react the same way toward memes and pop-music as they did. It seemed to her they didn’t care for anything more meaningful.

  There were a number of boys at the school who had resisted beating up Mark purely because they were interested in Maria. She had a soft face with delicate features and big, bright eyes. Most of the boys found themselves infatuated with her and made that opinion known. Not that she did much with that information. When it came to dating, she completely abstained. That’s not to say that she didn’t use her looks to her advantage from time to time. If she twirled her dyed blonde hair a little and played dumb how the boys liked, she could usually get them to do whatever she wanted. Being wanted had its perks.

  The Dubreks lived in Bristol, a tiny town in the dead center of New Hampshire. Maria’s high school class had 67 kids in it, including her. Mark’s grade had a few more, 80-something, though come graduation there would surely be several held back. Anthony was again unlikely to cross the stage and finally grab his diploma.

  The Dubrek patriarch had worked out a deal with his boss, letting him go into the office a little late so he could drop them off in the morning.

  Their dad was a gentle man. He never raised his voice, even when the children misbehaved, and he never spoke poorly of the mother they could hardly remember. Mark remembered her more than Maria did, and he took care of the badmouthing. Mark thought it was funny to joke about how she should have just had us aborted if she was gonna be such a shit parent. Anthony was usually alone in enjoying Mark’s sense of humor. His “jokes” rarely contained an element of wit, but were always edgy. Nothing was off-limits in his eyes, but their mother was off-limits as far as the Dubrek patriarch was concerned. He wouldn’t allow a bad word spoken about her in his presence.

  He wore glasses with an out of date prescription that left creases on the sides of his head and little divots on the bridge of his nose. He didn't smile much, nor did he frown often, but when he did either, it was infectious… for better or worse.

  A DAY IN THE FALL, before class, Mark leapt out of the car, still in motion, slamming the door behind him, angry about something inconsequential from the night before. He stormed across the parking lot, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. Maria gave her Dad a hug and got out of the car herself.

  Another student came up behind Mark, angry for an entirely different reason, and grabbed onto his backpack. The guy yanked back, tearing the bag open and throwing Mark to the ground. As Mark tried to stand up, a second angry individual stepped forward and knocked him back over. He scrambled to his feet and found himself facing down three angry, camouflage-wearing hillbillies. He knew at least one of these guys would be carrying a knife, probably all three of them.

  Where the peer-pressuring in other high-schools was usually drug and alcohol-centric, the peer-pressure in Bristol often revolved around sneaking weapons into school. Most of the male student-body was carrying at least one blade at any given time. All of Mark’s friends packed knives, except for Anthony, since he would be tried as an adult. The town was full of rednecks and hillbillies who Mark openly despised. Maria could never understand how Mark loved the town so much while at the same time hating so many of its inhabitants. He had a pride in his town, but not in its people. The first time he smoked weed, he declared that when he got older he would clean up the town and make it “righteous”.

  Maria looked back for their car but t
heir Dad had already gone. No teachers around either. Maria tried to think of what Mark did to end up in this situation; something to do with calling this angry trio ‘inbred, hillbilly, pieces of shit’ in front of the whole school at an assembly. And to be fair, his vitriol wasn’t strictly inaccurate. Ben, Adam, and Thomas were “variously” related. Their family tree looked like it was pruned by a drunk landscaper.

  Mark put his hands up in front of his face in a weak attempt at self-defense. He suffered a couple punches and a kick to the back of the knee that sent him flopping back down to the ground. Maria ran toward the scuffle but had no plan in place for once she got there. By the time Mark was on his hands and knees, a semi-circle of students had begun to form around him and the aggressors, enjoying the spectacle. Most didn’t care who won or lost, they just hoped to see a little blood in this schoolyard coliseum.

  Maria looked to the school’s entrance, hoping for teachers to come sprinting out.

  She flinched as Mark screamed out in more physical pain than he had ever been in before. One of the “cousins” had wrapped his hand around Mark’s hand, grabbing onto his palm from the back and twisting. Mark’s hand rotated nearly 180 degrees around backwards by the wrist.

  Thomas was taken aback. He stepped away and looked down at Ben, who had started the scuffle, kneeling over Mark. This had gone farther than Thomas or Adam had anticipated. But they weren't about to abandon their kin. Maria felt powerless to help. She considered throwing one of her books at the most aggressive “cousin” but her actions were preempted by the arrival of Anthony Glandow. He came up behind the first kin-member and power-lifted him into the air. He roared and held Thomas three inches above his head, horizontal to the ground, then dropped him straight down all six feet and seven inches. His whole body hit the cement at once; face, chest, and knees shattering on the hard ground, blood leaking through his jeans and out of his mouth; his entire body broken in an instant.