Kill Me Now

by Timmy Reed

  I've never been arrested in Baltimore City, but the county has gotten me twice. One time for skateboarding in Towson, on the ledges outside the courthouse. They grabbed me and a few other kids and confiscated our boards until trial. I had to do community service to get mine back. Lining the soccer fields at some lame elementary school. By that time I already had a new board, but they made me do it anyway.

  The next time I got popped was also in Towson. I was standing outside the movie theater when a fight broke out between some older goth kid and a boy I used to play rec league lacrosse with. I wasn't on either side of the fight. I was just watching. I usually stick around to watch a fight when it happens. They don't last very long. Anyway, a cruiser rolled up and two young police officers got out. The fight stopped immediately. But for some reason, because I'm stupid I guess, I took off running. If I'd thought about it I would've stayed put. Blended into the crowd. I hadn't done anything wrong. But I never think when I'm supposed to. Instead I take off running. When the pig caught me, he had his gun drawn. Like I was some kind of threat. I'm a pretty small dude, for chrissakes, and I was running. Cops are such dickheads. Being in control gives them a hard-on. And they're always looking for someplace to ram it. Anyway, they searched me down and found a half-pint of bourbon that I was going to bring into the movie. Plus a gram of shwag. I had to go to court again. I had the same lawyer as before, he was one of my mother's friends. I ended up getting a P.B.J., but I had to see a case manager once a month and regularly attend Alateen meetings, which is basically the same thing as AA, but for kids.

  My probation officer's last name was PAYNE. Seriously. Payne. Think she was trying to make a point? She was a giant for one thing. A giantess. Like eleven-feet-tall. She lived in a cave behind the county jail. The jail itself was air conditioned, but her cave was hot as hell. She had a fan though. It blew a gentle whisper through the office, which tickled her diplomas up off the wall like water through the gills of a shark. The whole place smelled like a pine forest. Because of this, I suspected her of spiking her coffee with gin. She slurped it from a human skull that had once belonged to her predecessor. At least that's what I imagined. She enjoyed collecting other things as well. Coins, stamps, memorial koozies, framed needlepoint mottos, and rubber plastic trolls. She hoarded them like a dragon. The trolls were static-haired and naked, missing their genitals. You know the ones. They watched me with googly eyes as I gave urine specimens behind her file cabinet, which I always guessed was full of stolen comic books. Miss Payne had tremendous calf muscles, I remember, coated with either leg hairs or parasites. I couldn't be sure. I can never be sure about anything . . .

  Alateen wasn't as bad as all that. There were even a few hot girls in my group. One of them was a cokehead. I had the biggest crush on her. But then she stopped going to meetings. They had the Twelve Steps and what's called the Big Book, but I didn't pay much attention to either of those, although I did enjoy some of the stories people were telling. One kid was like seventeen and he knew about a million beer-drinking games. He was always talking about it. He seemed very competitive. Another girl was this desperate fat-ass who couldn't stop stealing her grandmother's booze. I felt bad for her. One time I thought she was going to cry during her testimony. I wanted to give her a hug. But I didn't. I spent most of my time at those meetings engaged in what they call “cross-talk.” That means speaking without raising your hand. I didn't do it on purpose. I just always forgot to raise my hand. At the end of each meeting we formed a circle and held hands to pray the Serenity Prayer. That's where you ask god for the serenity to accept the things you cannot change and the courage to change the things you can. Eventually I got off my probation and then I immediately stopped attending those meetings. So I guess the prayer worked. At least for me it did.

  ~

  Since my parents moved into their respective places, I've gotten to know some of my new neighbors a little bit. The kind of people that live in both communities are mostly the same. Divorced people, old people, and families. At South Homeland Mews where my father lives, they have a pool, a sauna, weight machines, and a treadmill and stuff. The houses are slightly smaller than in my mother's community. There are a decent amount of thirty-something professional-type people living there and some gay couples too. Probably because of the pool and workout space. But otherwise the developments are basically the same, I guess.

  Like I said, the rowhomes are a little bigger at Roland Park Northway, which is maybe why there are more kids, but they're mostly all younger than me. In fact I think I might be the oldest. One kid is this geek who just moved up from DC. Our mothers met and became friends. His name is Donald Diamond and his mother's name is Sandy. Sandy is hot. She goes jogging all the time in a leotard and I just want to kick her son's ass so fucking bad.

  Donald has these big round lips like a girl. I always feel like punching him. He's one of those asshole kids who pretends that they have never masturbated before and shit like that. He's probably not allowed to watch R-rated movies or eat sugar. I hate him.

  The other day, Donald comes over. We're playing video games. He keeps beating me one-on-one in NHL hockey, which is fine except I was already playing a season against the computer when he came in and I didn't invite this kid over anyway. I don't want him to start thinking he can just drop by all the time uninvited.

  Laughing, he asks me if it's true that I used to let all the kids at my old school, which he now goes to, call me “Retard” when I went there. I don't know why this should bother me because it's true, I do let everyone call me that and I even call myself that sometimes, like when I had that jacket made up. But bother me it does when this little pussy asks me about it, laughing all the while like it's FUNNY I let people call me “Retard.” Which I guess it probably is to some people. But at the moment I don't see why it should be

  funny to him.

  Instead of punch his face, which is what I want to do—I decide to let it slide. Then out of like nowhere I ask him if he's ever seen a girl naked before, which I figure he probably hasn't because of his age and the fact that he's so much of a pussy in general. “Sure,” he tells me. “Of course I've seen a naked girl before.”

  “Who?” I'm laughing when I say it. On purpose. “Who was it, you pussy?”

  “Lots of girls you wouldn't even know. I saw a girl from my old neighborhood naked. I used to have a girlfriend.”

  “Of course you did,” I tell him. “All the squirrels in DC let you see them naked, I bet. And they're all hot too, right? And they let you fuck them. And you're good at it. Tell me, Donny . . .” I call him Donny because I know he hates being called that. “Did this girlfriend of yours have a nice fuzzy BEAVER to look at? Did she let you get up close to it? Did it bite?”

  His face goes all red when I say “BEAVER.” It's awesome. Except I actually feel a little bad for embarrassing him. But, fuck it. He sucks, right?

  Donald doesn't know how to respond. He decides to whine at me. “Shut uuuuuup,” he goes in this goofy drawn-out squeal. “I have too seen one.” He starts nodding. Rapidly. I thought his head would fall off. “It was a nice one,” he says. “Really nice.”

  “Well what did it look like then?”

  “Just, you know . . . a . . . hole,” he says.

  I want to smack him. “An a-hole?” I ask. “Psych. Just a hole, huh?”

  “Yup. A hole.” He's trying to sound more confident now.

  “Did it look like a hole for mice?” I ask him. “Or a hole for rabbits?”

  “Neither . . .” He seems confused. “Um, mice, I guess.”

  “That's not what the vaginas I've seen look like,” I tell him. “They don't look like holes that mice would live in to me.”

  “Well what do they look like then? If you know so much about them . . .”

  “They look like roast beef,” I tell him. “The rare stuff. And they smell like tuna.”

  “No they don't,” he go
es. “Prove it.”

  “Go ask your mother,” I tell him.

  ~

  It's not like I even know anything about vaginas from personal experience. I'm not some kind of PUSSY EXPERT or anything. I've never even fingered anybody yet, even though I have gotten a hand job on the bus ride to a ski trip in Vermont with this youth group my mother sometimes sends me to now because she feels bad that us kids never went to church, mostly on account of being lazy but also because of my dad's atheism.

  I've seen plenty of porno movies though and it's not like I don't have the Internet. So I pretty much know all the ins and outs of that area of the female anatomy, if you know what I'm saying. I've seen pretty far up in there and besides the smell which I've heard rumors about but cannot exactly confirm, I think I know about what to expect . . . But sometimes I wonder if the girls my age will be shaved or not when I get to them. Not that I would put up a fuss either way. I just wonder is all.

  ~

  By the way, have I mentioned that I'm absolutely addicted to animation? I love it. I wish I could draw. Right now there are about a million cartoons on television but most of them are just a lot of that nonsense Japanese shit with the huge eyes and blinking lights and freak out animals and all that other stuff that supposedly causes seizures. It's true there are still a few good cartoons out there like The Simpsons and stuff, don't get me wrong, but I like the old shows better. Tom and Jerry and Magilla Gorilla and Droopy and Road Runner and shit. Bugs Bunny was my earliest role model. I used to fake his accent.

  Come to think of it, I always wanted to live in Cartoonworld. Where the colors are bright and constant and there aren't any little details to get in your way. You can do pretty much whatever you want and nothing can ever really hurt you, not permanently, and your whole life is this sweet-ass cartoon chase game.

  Personally, I LOVED being chased as a kid. But I knew that if I was a cartoon, running away would be that much sweeter. I'd never look down when I walked off cliffs, for instance. And it wouldn't even matter if I did. I'd just let the wind whistle past my ears until I turned into a puff of smoke at the bottom of some ghastly ravine. Then I'd get up and start all over again when the stars and little birdies were done orbiting my head. Besides, cartoon girls are way sexy. Being a cartoon would rule. The whole thing would be completely and utterly sweet.

  I definitely want to start taking LSD soon or whenever I can find some because I heard that it might make me see cartoons or something like them. Which would be pretty fucking cool even though I doubt if they're going to look exactly the way they do on TV. But anything even remotely close would be cool enough for me. I'd just like the world to get all changed around on me for a while. Into something a bit more interesting. Anything besides plain old real life with its complicated boring everything. I realize that cartoon physics wouldn't actually apply if I took acid, like I wouldn't be able to draw a tunnel on a wall and then run through it and if I stepped off a cliff gravity would pull me down like a stone and maybe even push my bones through my skin on impact. I mean, duh. But I wouldn't mind if things got a little animated around here for a while. Even if it was just on the surface.

  ~

  I'm upstairs right now listening to a punk rock song about panty raids on my boom box because my mother is downstairs running the vacuum. I have the volume up really loud. All my mother ever does is clean. And smoke her cigarettes and sip her light beers and go to work every day, especially now. She bought my sisters a cat this spring to keep at her house, even though she is allergic. So now she cleans even more with the cat around, but also I think she does it because she's nervous. My mom's a very nervous person. And she likes things to be clean.

  Cleaning up after the cat makes her even more allergic because she scrubs things on her hands and knees. That means she has to get down all close to the dander. I tell her this sometimes. But she doesn't listen. I don't like watching her on her hands and knees. I didn't used to mind, but now it bugs me for some reason. I feel bad for her. I wish I was older and rich and could pay for someone to take care of her. Besides, I think all the cleaning noises—the faucet, the vacuum, the scrubbing, the dishes—are extremely fucking annoying, especially if I'm trying to watch TV. So I just lock myself in the bedroom when she starts cleaning. And turn on really loud music.

  The cat himself doesn't bother me. I'd kind of like having him around if it wasn't for my mother's sneezing and coughing and the way her face sometimes gets all puffy and swollen. Seeing her like that makes me feel bad. I wish she could be more comfortable. But I don't blame the cat for it. He never asked to live here.

  ~

  My little sisters are twins, but they dye their hair and dress differently so they can tell themselves apart. Both of them love to gossip and spy. They're actually not that much younger than me, only one and a half years, but at that age you're still sort of a kid anyway. I mean, they haven't stopped writing in cursive for chrissakes.

  Well, last night I barged into the room they share at my mother's house. Mainly because I was stuck in a video game and bored to death, but also because there were these wild giggling sounds coming from behind their door and I wanted to see what was so funny. I popped the lock on their door with a paper clip, which is a cinch on the cheap locks inside both my folks' houses. I threw open the door and stood there with my arms folded across my chest like Mister Clean.

  They didn't notice me at first. They had all the lights turned off and were rolling around on the floor by the window. So I flicked on the lights. They looked up at me, frozen like a pair of startled rodents. Their faces were bright red. They were sweating. Panting. Littering the carpet around them was all sorts of equipment: flashlights, hand mirrors, a pair of binoculars, a magnifying glass. I just waited in the doorway, looking down on them.

  “We're spying,” Katie went as soon as she caught her breath. “We think there's a killer living across from us. Over there. At the end of that row. Where the show house used to be.”

  I took up the binoculars and sat on the edge of my sister's bed. I looked out the window through a crack in the blinds. All of the houses are designed to look exactly alike. It was dark out. There was nothing to see but moths banging themselves against the streetlight.

  “I don't see anything,” I mumbled, holding the binoculars to my face.

  “Well, there's a killer. And Katie has the hots for him. She's into bad boys . . .”

  They started cackling and rolling around the floor again. Laughing until there wasn't even any sound coming from their lips. They were shaking.

  After they got a hold of themselves, Katie wiped the corner of her eye with a sigh. “Ewww. Stop it, Kelly. That's gross. He's like ninety.”

  I called them both ridiculous.

  “Fine,” Kelly umphed. “Ignore the fact that we're living across the street from a psychopath. Me and Mom and Katie can handle the murderer ourselves. It's not like we expect you to protect us.”

  “Yeah. It's not like you're the man of the house or anything . . .”

  I cut them off. “What makes you think this geezer is anything but a boring old turd? Why were you even spying on him?”

  “Well, we were originally watching this really hot guy from across the street and he's like in his thirties but Katie wants to marry him anyway and . . .”

  “I do not,” whined Katie.

  “Do too. Anyway, this guy lives two doors down from the old dude—the Killer—and he drives the coolest BMW SUV . . .”

  “The old man?” I found myself asking, actually curious.

  “No! The hottie. But anyway Katie was practically drooling on the window . . .”

  “You were, too!”

  “Fine. We were both totally drooling. But then we saw this gross old guy that lives at the end of the row. He pulled up in that disgusting Honda . . .” Kelly pointed out the window at a Civic hatchback squatted up against the curb like a tired ol
d bulldog. She scoffed. “It looks like a cockroach,” she said.

  “And when he got out he looked around all sketchy like someone was watching him . . .”

  “And then we saw him take out this huge, like, duffel bag . . .”

  “It was a body bag!”

  “Yeah. A body bag. And he carried it over his shoulder, looking all squirrelly and nervous . . . And the bag was moving.” Kelly paused. She was thinking about something. “Freaky,” she said, biting her lip.

  “It was sketchy,” Katie agreed, slowly nodding her head. They both looked deadly serious.

  I peered through the binoculars again, this time looking directly at the old man's house but the drapes were pinched shut. There was a sort of reddish light coming from inside the curtains. That's weird, I thought, everyone else in this community has Venetian blinds.

  ~

  “Stop staring at me, Mom,” I whine over the sound of the television. “I can feel it.” My sisters are outside running around with a bunch of the brats that live around Roland Park Northway. My mother has been in the kitchen since we got home, smoking cigarettes in front of the evening news and talking on the phone about a problem with the computers down at her work. After she gets off she comes halfway into the so-called family room and just stands there watching me with this loony smile eased across her face. I glance up at her out the corner of my eye and then look back at the television. I try to focus. I can't. Even though I probably shouldn't care whether she watches me or not if it makes her happy. Especially since I'm not even doing anything, just lying on the couch in a practice jersey. But I really can feel her eyes on me. It makes it hard to concentrate on the television, although I'm not actually watching anything in particular. “Seriously,” I go. “I can feel it.”