by Sean May
Before they took me to the jail to await transfer to prison while they gathered up evidence for the trial, one of the cops who picked me up, Lt. Rodriguez, asked me one question: “Why didn’t you just give us a call? We’d probably have seen this as an open and shut self-defense case.”
I sat there for a minute, brooding over the question, wanting to tell him that, no, they wouldn't have. But it was too late for what ifs. “I guess I was just trying to protect someone.”
Becca completely disappeared, and I didn’t see her past that night. She still has a warrant out for her arrest, and if she would ever happen to get pulled over by a cop she’d probably be brought in, but when the police had the man who actually did the deed in custody with a rock solid case against him, it wasn’t exactly on their high priority list to bring down a mere accomplice.
I didn’t put up much of a fight at the trial, and neither did the public defender that was assigned to me. Everything pointed to me being guilty, and the jury agreed. There’s not really thing I could have said to try to get my way out of it, because the fact was that I did do it. I killed Jay, I dumped his body, and I had to live with it. I guess in a way to put a fucked-up silver lining on things, they only found me guilty of manslaughter, so in fifteen or so years I’ll be out, still in my thirties, and ready to go into the world as an ex-convict.
And when I get out, I’ll find Becca...but I have a feeling our next meeting won’t be as intimate as our last one.
Chop
Plates clattered, glasses clinked, hashbrowns bubbled and cracked on the grill and Frankie Valli was crooning about his sherry baby on the jukebox. It was this combination of noises that reminded Edwin why be loved places like this, diners where he could do his work and really be appreciated for it. It reminded him of what seemed to be a hundred places, just like this, that he'd worked at over the years.
He took his spatula and hacked the edge against the fleshy part of a pork chop, cleaving the bone clean from the meat. Donny, his manager, always told him to leave the bone on because it made the chops look bigger...but Edwin didn't care what Donny said. Edwin didn't like bones. To him they were reminders of death, and he was sure the diners didn't want to be reminded of death. So no bones about it, Edwin thought. He laughed to himself a little too loud, enough to draw a quizzical look from Tina, the black waitress who was working with him for the overnight shift. Edwin always thought Tina was pretty, for a black girl. He liked her skin, thought it looked like a Hershey's bar, with her red lips and her white white teeth and her long legs, and those ripe beautiful...
No! He thought to himself there's no way he could. He thought of the consequences and then took all of it out of his mind as he brought the spatula down once again, tearing another cut of pork from bone.
Edwin threw the pork chops down into batter and tossed them into the deep fryer basket, and he was getting ready to go to the back to the freezer for some more french fries, then he turned around and saw her coming into the diner, her arrival signaled by the chirping bell jingling above the door.
At that moment Edwin thought he was seeing the most beautiful woman in the world, right here at three in the morning at Rudy's Diner. Her sleek black hair was pinned up into a tight knot at the top of her head, and it made Edwin think about the librarian at his elementary school, the one who let him stay in the library and organize the books when he should have been on recess. Edwin had always hated recess, hated the other children, children that were cruel to him, called him names, tore up his secondhand clothes, and split his lip more times than he could count. He liked that woman, the librarian, even though now he couldn't for the life of him remember her name.
But Edwin didn't have to think about that librarian anymore, because here she was, once again, just like he remembered her but a lot prettier. She was wearing a dark blue dress that hugged every last one of her curves to the point where Edwin almost let the pork chops scorch in the oil.
She sat down at the bar and laid a black leather briefcase down by her feet. Edwin looked over at Tina, who was already occupied with a table of four teenagers with orders they kept changing their minds on, so Edwin took it upon himself to go over to her. He wiped grease and a little bit of blood on his apron and grabbed a notepad.
“What'll ya have?” Edwin said, but the lady didn't even look up at him, she just kept her eyes locked on the two dozen selections Rudy's Diner offered. He watched her eyes flick back and forth behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Edwin stood there, waiting for her to say something, not wanting to be rude and yell at her, but he wanted to help her, more than he wanted anything right now. He didn't even want it, he needed it, needed to help this woman. Edwin inched closer and waited some more, but when he saw Tina turn away from the table she was working on, he knew he had to strike while the iron was hot "'Scuse me, ma'am, are you--"
Her face shot up instantly from the menu "oh Jesus, you scared me." She touched her hand to her chest, let her finger trail along the edge of her breast...No, no, Edwin needed to stop this, this woman was an angel, perfect, he didn't have to have dirty thoughts about her. "I'm sorry, sorry, I'm just a bit on edge right now. Long night."
"No worries, ma'am, take your time." He said this, but he couldn't let her. If she waited, he'd lose out. Tina was walking over to his side of the diner and would likely shove him out of the way once she got over there to be able to gobble up any tips that she could net.
"I'll take a, uh...OK, I have no idea what I want. What do you like?"
"I like..." he wanted to say you but he was worried she would get up and run out of Rudy's as fast she could. For all the time he'd worked at Rudy's, he hadn't actually eaten at the place, more content with bologna sandwiches and Kraft macaroni, so he just looked at the top line of the menu and read it upside down "...I like the turkey dinner."
"Is it any good?"
"Best around."
"Alright, then, I'll take one turkey dinner and a black coffee, Edwin."
The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up and he felt warm. How'd she know his name? Was she sent here for him? Then he looked down and saw that his name was stitched into the top of his apron...still, he thought she had to be something special sent for him, to pay attention to a little detail like his name.
"Well you're so...what's your name?"
"Amy." She smiled at him, a big smile that he wanted to see more of...but then she looked down at her briefcase and opened it up. Even though it seemed like she wasn't paying attention to him anymore, Edwin wanted to stay there, but he had food to make for Amy, and he was going to do the best job he could. He took extra care making sure the turkey was laid on the plate just so, that the mashed potatoes had a perfect semicircle indentation for the gravy, and that none of the peas and carrots rolled around the plate. This was his only chance to make a first impression on her, he had to make it count.
He looked down at it when he was done and thought it was something that could have been photographed for Good Housekeeping or one of those other women's magazines. He picked it up and held it so nothing rolled around, nothing slid out of place, so it'd be perfect for Amy. He laid it down in front of her and she looked up from the papers she was reading. She made eye contact with Edwin, and even though it was only for a split second, he imagined she was professing her love for him right then and there, over a plate of food he so carefully prepared for her.
"You working on getting me that coffee, Edwin?" She said, still fixated on the papers in front of her.
Idiot, idiot Edwin scorned himself for not attending to her...he'd totally forgotten about the coffee. He ran over to the coffee machine and hastily poured a cup for Amy, splashing a little bit of the scalding coffee onto his hand and his wrist. He deserved it, the pain of the coffee, for forgetting it for Amy. He couldn't do something that stupid again, not if Amy was at stake.
He walked over and put the coffee in front of her, and she thanked him for it.
"So, Amy, what do you do?"
She
looked up at him, but this time like most women did, her eyes squinted and pained, a slight scowl across her face "I'm working on President Johnson's re-election campaign. And I hate to be rude, but I'm actually working on it right now." She returned to the papers, writing in a pencil all around a story from the New York Times.
Edwin first felt that Amy didn't want to talk to him anymore, but he knew she was just playing hard to get. He read in a book once that women loved to do that kind of thing, they loved to make men want them, and Edwin was willing to play her games if that's what it took.
"Well you have my vote, Amy, I think President Johnson's doing a fine, fine job." Edwin didn't really care about politics, he'd never voted in his life, but he thought he'd do it now, for Amy...and whoever this President Johnson was, if he liked a woman like Amy enough to have her working for him, well, he'd head to the polls if that's what Amy desired.
"Glad to hear that." She looked up and flashed another little grin his way.
"Are you around here for long?" Amy didn't react this time, and Edwin had to be honest with himself, he was getting upset with her. If she was going to play hard to get, she at least had to play with him. "I said are you around here for long?"
Amy looked up and screwed her face into a ugly, ugly mask that Edwin never hoped to see again. "I really apologize if I wasn't clear, Edwin, but I'm working...I'm sorry, I'm just not up for small talk."
"I bet...guy like President Johnson, probably has you working long hours, running all around." Edwin leaned on the bar and gave her a smile like he saw Clark Gable do in a movie where he got the girl at the end. Edwin had to put his charm on now, as he felt Amy dangerously slipping away from him if he didn't do something fast. "Is that right, Amy?"
"My God, you don't take a hint, do you?" She shoved her papers into her briefcase, crumpling many of them, something President Johnson wouldn't be happy with, he was sure. He thought she was going to talk to him, so his heart nearly stopped when she stood up from her stool and went toward the cash register, toward Tina.
This was just more of her game, Edwin knew, but she was really making him work for this, so Edwin was certain that he had to take things further. Even though Amy may have thought so, this wasn't his first time playing these games with women. He went out the back door of Rudy's into the dark cool night.
He knew Amy's car right away, it was the nicest one in the lot, a brand new Lincoln, a far cry from the broken down Studebakers and pickups that everyone around the town drove. He looked into the car and when he saw the "Re-Elect Johnson" pamphlets sitting in the passenger seat, he knew it was hers. He looked into the window of the diner and saw Amy reaching into her purse to dig out some change. He knew he didn't have much time to make things perfect.
He tried the rear passenger door and felt the latch give way. Amy had, of course, left the door open for him for when she left, and he appreciated that she was so considerate about that. He opened the door the rest of the way and crawled in along the floorboard. He felt the switchblade in his pocket, happy he'd brought it along. And he waited.
He watched Amy open the door to the car and throw her briefcase across the seat and against the opposite side of the car. She muttered some things to herself, mostly curse words, but he thought he heard his name a couple of times. He felt the car lurch forward and he had to brace himself against the back seat to not roll over on the knife...boy, Edwin thought to himself, that would have been embarrassing.
Once they got a couple of miles down the road, he slipped the switchblade into his hand and sat up. He whispered Amy's name, and when she saw her react and gasp, he knew she was expecting him. She was excited.
Edwin felt really bad about what he had to do next, but he knew that there wasn't an option...it was the only way he could keep Amy for himself. He brought the knife down into her shoulder and stopped when he felt bone. He drew it up again and brought it down on her neck. All the while she was doing her best to keep the car on the road, but not even a woman as perfect as Amy could have done something like that.
"Steady, Amy, steady...don't want us to have an accident." He held her arm and guided the car to the side of the road, then he started bringing the knife down again and again until she stopped fighting and just let Edwin love her.
###
Edwin patted down the last bits of dirt on top of Amy's grave. He pulled his apron off and tossed it into the bushes and looked down at the neat pile of dirt where Amy would forever rest as his love, his everything. When the police came, they'd find the apron, but it wasn't like his name was Edwin in the first place, it's just who he had been for the past couple of months while he waited for another angel.
Edwin got into Amy's car and started the ignition. He knew he'd need to move again, just like every time he found a woman he just knew was sent to him. He thought of the ten, maybe twenty other women dotting this winding highway that he had to have. Some day he would find a woman who would love him for who he was, a woman who he wouldn't have to preserve, to keep in a hole in the ground, waiting for him.
He secretly hoped that day would never come.
Cloverleaf Blues
We moved to Blood Canyon in 1864 to get away from Boston after getting kicked out of Ireland just ten years earlier. We moved here to get away from all the terrible shit me and my brothers were involved in. Fat fucking lot of good that did for us.
They call us The McClure Clan…the clan part I assume because we're Irish and they thought we might like that kind of thing. Didn't matter to me, though. What really got to me was being called a stupid Mick every single day of my life. Treated like a second class citizen because my kind wasn't from around here. I got news for everyone...unless you're wearing feathers in your hair while you dance around a drum you're not from around here either.
The taunting eventually got to me and my brothers one night while we were minding our own business sipping the piss they pass off as rye. A guy comes up to me and taps me on the shoulder says
"Little far from your pot of gold ain't you son?"
I shrugged him off and so did my brothers. Their names are John and Liam by the way and I'm Sam. Figured that'd be important to know.
The three of us kept quiet and drank up a little trying to keep up a conversation between us. We were talking about some old ballads we remembered or how the winters in Boston made it feel like home again. Truth is, I kind of forget what exactly was being said but we were talking and this guy, Ron Stanton, a low rent cowboy with about as much sense as he had teeth, started prodding my side trying to get my attention. Kept asking me the stupidest questions…are them redheaded girls red everywhere? You got a set a bagpipes you could entertain us all with? Question after question until I finally looked over at Liam and we agreed it'd been too much for too long we had to make an example of someone, sometime so this would stop.
I turned around and sneered at Stanton "You got something to say, boyo, maybe you wanna talk about this outside?"
He was scared and I know he didn't want to go along with my plan by the look on his face but John wasn't going to give him a choice since he already had him by his collar and was busy taking him out the back door of the saloon with me and Liam in tow.
It was a bitterly cold night, just like any night out here in this godforsaken place and I remember seeing my breath lit up by the full moon as I stared down at Ron Stanton laying in the dirt behind the saloon. He was crying. He was trying to get away too, but Liam and John were making sure that wouldn't happen.
"Now you looking to say something?" I said to him. He wasn't, he just sat there stammering.
I wasn't planning on doing much to the guy but when I reached back and felt the pearl handle of my father's knife strapped to my belt, I have to admit I decided to let myself go. I told Liam to hold him up and I pulled the knife out. He was crying, for what I don't know because he had no idea what was in store for him.
"You know you have a pretty big mouth to be saying all those things about me and my brothers. Why d
on't we make it just a little bigger so you can go out and tell the whole town about us."
He was shivering, and he should have been at this point. I took the sharp edge of the blade and poked it into the side of his mouth, a bit of his blood running down the groove in the middle of the knife. He made choking, coughing sounds and tried to say something...but ten inches of steel stops conversations cold. I pushed the knife in further until I saw the point of the blade poking out of the other side of his cheek, a good dribble of blood running down his chin and neck. He was coughing up a lot of blood when I pulled the blade forward, slicing open his cheek from the jawbone to the lips. Flayed open like hot butter. He let his head droop down, lots of blood mixing up with the sand.
"Dad's blade's still as sharp, brothers. That's good to know." I flipped the blade around in my hand, throwing some blood onto myself. "It's a good thing for you, you know, Mr. Stanton. If me dad had left this thing all rusty, dull, out of practice....I assure you it'd hurt a hell of a lot more." I took the knife and wiped it on Ron Stanton's shoulder, getting most of the blood off.
Stanton tried talking again, but the flapping sound his cheek made kept me from hearing anything but that. Funny sound.
I had to even up the smile on his face so I shoved the blade into the other cheek and sliced it open in one smooth motion. There was less blood this time, I felt like I was doing him a favor.
"Drop 'em." I said to John, and John let him go. He hit the dirt like a sack of potatoes, blood spreading in every direction. I looked up to see that half the town was looking at the three of us, and at Stanton laying in a heap. We were making too much of a scene, we had to go. Shame we had to leave that rye in the bar. Wasn't that good anyway.