THUGLIT Issue Sixteen

by Devon Robbins

  He pried open the tarp as far as he could until the plastic bunched at the hem of the woman's blouse. In an impulsive burst, Jerry reached inside the bundle to determine if she wore pants; that was suddenly very important to him. He only probed for a moment before the cold, brass nubs of her button-fly stung his fingertips. The fact she was clothed relieved him immeasurably. Yet at the same time, as he pulled his hand away, he was horrified. Not by the discovery of the body necessarily, though that was bothersome, but horrified because he'd become aroused. It was like part of that old Jerry, the one he'd done his damnedest to suppress, was returning.

  His mind flashed to two instances as a young boy. Two instances that had occasionally crept into his head over the years. Things that had made him wonder if maybe something was wrong with him. Things he never dared share with anyone, lest they think him a freak. Or disturbed. Or both. Maybe the first instance was sort of normal. Just curious little boy stuff. But the other? No, something was most definitely off with that one.

  In his father's trophy room were various deer heads, a red fox, several bass and trout. Also a television where Walker watched his football games. On the paneled wall was a poster of Farrah Fawcett in her bathing suit. It had always been there, even back when Jerry's mother had been alive. It was still there now. Jerry often stared at that poster as a boy, imagining removing that iconic one-piece to see what was hidden beneath, to get a glimpse of that perky right nipple that teased him. One day he took a knife from the kitchen, stood on a wobbly chair, and made a slit beneath Farrah's strap. He thought if he was careful, he might be able to separate that suit from her tanned body, like skinning a rabbit, and sneak a peek at those beautiful breasts. He realized quickly that things didn't work that way, and for years he was petrified his father would notice. Jerry had been five years old.

  The other instance had been in the first grade. The teacher's name was Miss Brandice. She'd been blonde, her hair always poofy, lots of makeup and very pretty. He loved her. She often wore short skirts with matching heels, usually without pantyhose, exposing her bare legs. Jerry wanted to strap her down to a conveyor belt, much like the old movies where the damsel in distress inched ever closer to a buzz saw. But in Jerry's fantasy, there was no buzz saw, and Miss Brandice wasn't necessarily distressed. Her chest heaved and her large breasts moved on the inhale, nearly busting from her button-down blouse. Jerry wanted to rip that blouse off her. But he didn't want to hurt her. He had no thoughts of violence or harming her in any way. He just wanted to see those breasts.

  For a while he'd worried about himself. Even at such a young age, he realized the thoughts and fantasies were "bad." Maybe every little boy had such thoughts, and maybe every little boy, just like Jerry, understood they shouldn't talk about them. As time went on, those ideas faded. Mostly. As he'd matured, he'd had several serious girlfriends, and sure…he'd had a dark thought here or there, but he'd always stifled them. He'd had plenty of relationships, and they'd been overwhelmingly normal. Nothing weird, nothing crazy, nothing kinky or misogynistic. He'd never gotten violent, never hurt anyone.

  So why now, in the most precarious moment of his life, upon the discovery of a dead, frozen woman who his father had obviously murdered and hidden… Why now, of all times in his twenty-seven years, would he get an erection? Because if there was ever a time not to get a hard-on, this was it. And yet his jeans were swollen at the crotch, the head of his dick dangerously close to the zipper teeth. He felt guilty. He knew it was wrong, just as he'd known as a boy that strapping his teacher to a conveyor belt was very, very bad.

  "What exactly are you doing?" Doreen stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her face, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt that reached her knees. She walked directly to the coffee maker and poured a cup. It was reflexive, no thought involved.

  Jerry sat at the table, looking at the trees of the backyard as their silhouettes slowly came into view. Those woods where he'd played as a boy. He imagined that old fort he'd built out of pilfered 2x4s and plywood from abandoned deer stands. That fort, hidden in a copse of poplar and rhododendron, was where he'd gone to sit and be alone shortly after his mother had died. Terabithia he'd named it, after the book. Had even taken chalk and written that word on the inside walls.

  A pair of crows cawed as Jerry mumbled, "Nothing. I'm doing nothing."

  Doreen, emotionless and zombie-like, opened the refrigerator, grabbed the milk, splashed her coffee. She gripped the mug with both hands, lovingly, as if holding a fragile antique. After a few sips, she seemed to become human again.

  "How long you been awake, Jer? What time is it?" she said as she glanced at the microwave and answered her own question. "Not even seven yet. You okay?"

  Jerry kept his eyes on the brightening backyard. "Woke up about four. Couldn't sleep."

  "You want a refill or something?"

  "Nah."

  Doreen sat next to him, grabbed the one hand he'd left sitting limply on the table, and squeezed. "I know this is hard. It was so unexpected and all."

  Jerry nodded, his chin hardly moving. "Unexpected," he said. "Yeah, that's one word for it."

  "You miss your dad, don't you? I get it."

  Jerry's expression was as blank as the kitchen walls. He didn't reply.

  "He was a good guy. I mean, I didn't know him well, obviously, but he was sweet." She half-chuckled. "I always thought it was cute how'd he'd flirt with me."

  "Jesus, shut the fuck up, Doreen. Goddamn."

  She retreated quickly, pulling her hands back as if snake-bit.

  For at least a minute, the only sound was the muffled caws from outside the window. Doreen kept her head down, staring at her coffee. Jerry eventually said, "I'm sorry."

  Doreen whispered, "I know."

  "I mean…shit. I couldn't have done all this without you. All the packing up, all the cleaning, I wouldn't've known how to even start."

  "It's fine. I'm happy to help."

  Jerry looked at her. "I need to talk to you, Dor." When she met his eyes, he turned back to the window, to the crows in the trees. To the pair of mourning doves sitting on the sagging clothesline. To the colors now visible, the pinks of the blooming redbuds, the whites of the dogwoods. "Need to tell you something."

  "Of course. Anything."

  "About my dad."

  "Yeah, sure, what is it?"

  He hesitated. Sitting at that table for the past few hours, he'd run through a variety of scenarios. A number of options. "I need to do the rest on my own," he said. "The packing up and all. Kind of be alone with him or whatever, you know? Be by myself for a few days, deal with all this shit."

  For a beat or two, Doreen showed disappointment. Showed hurt. But she collected herself quickly. She sipped her coffee, swallowed. "Yeah, sure. I can help out this morning, this afternoon, then go to my apartment. Hell, I need to get back to work soon anyway," she said, though she'd already advised her boss she'd be out for the next few days.

  "No, maybe you better get going now. Like finish your coffee and head out. And I'm sorry, Dor, I really am. I just need some alone time."

  Her disappointment was more pronounced, her voice unable to hide it. She'd thought they'd be together for the long haul, but now she wasn't so sure. "Okay, yeah, I'll get going here shortly."

  He dropped the tarp on the cool slab of the garage floor. He'd tried to be gentle, tried to have respect, but the package was unwieldy and freezing cold, difficult to manage.

  Should he lay her out, get a good look? Or just take the wrapped body, set it in the wheelbarrow as best he could, and push that thing to the deepest recesses of the property? Out near Terabithia most likely. Near that fort he hadn't been to in fifteen years.

  He put his boots on the plastic's edge, holding it in place, and started pushing, trying to unfurl the tarp like a rolled-up carpet. Just as he'd presumed the night before, she was indeed fully clothed. Her legs looked unnatural, crooked and mangled, scrunched and bent at the knee, her open-toed sandals tucked under her
rear-end as if kneeling. Pieces of sharp, splintered shinbone and thighbone poked through her jeans like punji sticks. Her blouse, yellow with a paisley print, had rips along the shoulder, the skin badly scraped and scratched—what his baseball coach used to call a strawberry after players slid on particularly dry infields. Her shattered legs got Jerry to thinking. A car accident. His father had hit this woman with his truck. Most likely he'd been drunk. He'd panicked. It seemed plausible. And as awful as it was, Jerry felt slightly better. To him, there seemed to be a fundamental difference between covering up an accident in a moment of drunken confusion versus brutally murdering someone in cold blood.

  A rectangular outline showed through the front pocket of her jeans. A pack of cigarettes maybe. Tentative at first, Jerry slid his fingers into the space. He got ahold of the object and worked it side to side. A cheap flip-phone, frozen shut. When he turned it over, something was stuck to the back. He blew on it a few times, softening the crystallized grip, and pried apart a piece of paper and also a driver's license.

  Sarah Kramer. Date of Birth 5-14-83. Thirty years old or so. An address in Arlington, Virginia. Nearly a four-hour drive from where Jerry currently stood. The picture, though partially frosted over where somehow the cold had worked its way up and under the laminate, looked nothing like the dead girl on the garage floor. Judging by the photo, she'd been reasonably attractive. What now sat crumpled and destroyed on the tarp was anything but.

  Jerry had a face, a name, an address. He had a real person versus some random body. It changed things. It made his decision harder. He set the license down and examined the paper: a ticket stub from the Interlocken Music Festival, dated September 7, 2013, nearly nine months ago. Jerry knew about it. It had taken place a couple of hours north, out in the country. Some sort of four day Woodstock-esque hippie show. Neil Young, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead, Jimmy Cliff, and so on. Not his kind of event at all. But his father had gone. Jerry remembered stopping by the house on that Sunday, the last day of the event, to drop off the circular saw he'd borrowed, not expecting to see Walker. "What are you doing here? Thought you were still at your little 60s fest."

  "Came home early. Guess I'm getting old."

  Had his father seemed forlorn? Depressed? Nervous? Not that Jerry remembered. Had he ushered Jerry out of the house quicker than usual? Maybe. Walker hadn't been overly conversational but that sure as hell wasn't out of the ordinary.

  Things were taking shape. The story unfolding. Walker had been partying. Drinking certainly. Maybe smoking weed. Other drugs? Jerry knew his dad's past to some degree. Walker had done his fair share. Maybe tripping on acid or rolling? Definitely possible.

  So he's all torn-up, gets in his truck for some reason, starts driving. This woman, Sarah, is on the side of the road, probably high herself, maybe staggers out into the lane. Walker plows into her, clips her with his bumper. Freaks out, panics, knows he's in deep shit, lifts her tiny body—hundred and twenty pounds max—and throws her into the bed of the pickup. He busts it for home, heading south on 81, making sure to go the speed limit. The three-hour drive, along with the reality of what he's done, sobers him up. He somehow makes it home safely, without incident, and finds her dead in the back. Or worse, maybe she's not dead, and Walker, in the darkest moment of his life, finishes her off.

  How?

  Jerry doesn't want to know. How he could have been aroused the night before mortifies him. This is real life. Real death. This woman has a family. Parents. A husband maybe. Kids possibly.

  "Jesus Christ, Pops," Jerry said aloud. "What the fuck, man?"

  He'd been smart about it. He didn't search for the info on his iPhone. He didn't rush to his apartment and get on his laptop. No, he'd gone to the public library. He sure as hell didn't type in Sarah Kramer or anything about her. Instead he'd searched for the Interlocken Music Festival. It didn't take long to find multiple links to the missing woman. She'd been there with two girlfriends. Had last been seen leaving the music venue alone and walking back to the camping area, a half-mile from the main stage. According to the various articles, there were no suspects, but it was an open case and had been deemed "suspicious." She was divorced, her mother still alive, a sister also, but no children. And that was the clincher for Jerry. No kids.

  It had been a rainy spring. The property was soggy, but it made for easy digging. He'd wheeled her out there at night, under a starry but moonless sky. Spilled her into the hole as easily as dumping sand into a sandbox, the peepers with their incessant chirping covering up all man-made sound. Burned the driver's license, phone, and ticket stub in the woodstove the night before, on a chilly evening which had produced a frost. Nothing strange about a fire burning last night. Nothing at all. If distant neighbors had smelled wood smoke, they wouldn't have thought twice about it.

  Along with the body, he also buried That Time. Buried the past and all of his father's dark secrets. Also his own urges and fantasies. When he was finished, when the dead leaves and branches and twigs concealed the bare spot as naturally as if Mother Nature had done it herself, he literally, by swiping his hands back and forth to remove the dirt, wiped his hands clean of it all.

  The decision hadn't been as hard as one might think. Sure, the "right" thing to do was contact the police, explain what he'd discovered, and presume everything would work out the way it was supposed to. But shit went wrong all the time. No matter what, no matter how truthful he was, there'd be suspicion cast on him. Most likely forever. Even if his entire story was absolutely, without a doubt, verified, he'd still be linked to his father. People—some people at least—would look at him differently. Would whisper this or that behind his back when he was out of earshot.

  That's the guy who found the dead woman in his daddy's freezer.

  And that was best case. The questioning, the media, the detectives scouring his father's house, ripping it apart, maybe discovering other things. Maybe linking his father to That Time with concrete evidence. What if there were other events Jerry didn't even know about? Other missing persons cases, perhaps. What if rumors started, saying his father had been a monster or psycho or another Jeffery Dahmer? Jesus, did he even want to know that kind of information? And then imagine the scrutiny he'd be under. How people would treat him. He'd have to move away, but nobody would buy his father's house, or if they did, they'd get it for a song. Either he'd have to suffer for his father's doings, or Sarah Kramer's mother and sister would. And they were going to suffer either way. So the decision had been pretty simple really.

  Walker had bequeathed the house to Jerry, of course. Before the discovery, Jerry had been planning to sell it, make some money, move wherever he wanted. Maybe somewhere with an ocean and mango trees. The body now buried on the property changed that.

  Besides the home, his father had left him a modest but surprisingly decent nest egg. He could vacate his apartment, quit his job at the shop and open up his own little garage. Maybe he'd ask Doreen to move in. Start a family, raise a few kids in the same house, on the same land, where he'd been raised. Where his father had been raised. Where Sarah Kramer was discreetly buried.

  In the trophy room, Jerry pulled the tacks from the paneling and held the fragile and faded Farrah in his hands. She'd been dead for years now, cancer eating her up the same as it had his mother. But wow, Farrah had been gorgeous. That smile, that face, that hair and body. As he held the poster up to the residual sunlight streaming through the window, the slit he'd cut all those years ago was painfully obvious. With the poster lit up the way it was, almost like a photograph negative, he imagined he could see beneath her bathing suit. Could finally see the pink nipple of her rounded breast.

  He poked his finger through the opening, coming at it from the back of the poster and wiggling the tip at himself as if it were a curious little worm. How could his father have never seen the cut? How had his father never confronted him about it?

  And then Jerry realized Walker had certainly seen it. Probably knew exactly what had happene
d. He imagined the scene when his father noticed it for the first time. Imagined his reaction, then the slight nod of understanding. Some things were best left undiscussed.

  Jerry rolled up the poster and carefully stuffed it into the tube of an old fly rod carrier Doreen had discovered in the attic. He went to the garage and placed the tube on the top rack of a cluttered shelf. This way he'd always have access to one tiny reminder. Yes, he'd buried all of that a few nights before, but maybe he wasn't a hundred percent ready to entirely forget his past. Maybe he was only ninety-nine-point-five percent ready. Maybe he'd hold on to just one little keepsake, one little connection, which nobody could ever take away from him.

  Nobody.

  Drone

  by Rob Hart

  Richie's head dips back and a snore erupts from his throat that sounds like a weed whacker tossed into a pool. I slap him across the back of the head. My big brother jerks forward, nearly falling out of the metal folding chair.

  "What the fuck?" he asks, running his hand over his slick-backed hair, making sure it's still flat and smooth.

  I gesture forward and ask, "Have you even been paying attention?"

  "Of course I have," Richie says.

  I glance to Melinda, her arms crossed, looking between the two of us. "He hasn't been paying attention," I tell her. "Can you just start from the top?"

  Melinda sighs and walks to the whiteboard. She pulls the sleeve of her black sweater over her palm, clutching it tight with her fingertips, and wipes off the numbers she had scratched out in blue ink. Her tight blonde ponytail swings like a pendulum. Richie goes back to what he was doing before he fell asleep, which was ogling her apple-shaped ass. I kick his leg, tell him, "Pay attention."