Kill Me Now

by Timmy Reed

  “Oh my, I'm sorry,” she laughs at herself with this cute little shrug, like her right hand just caught her left hand stealing. Then she goes back into the kitchen and I hear her turn on the stove to light a cigarette.

  But a few minutes later I can feel her watching me again. I don't even have to look to know she is there. I can just tell. I change the channel a few times. I pretend not to notice. It takes less than a minute before I can't handle it anymore. I fake sleep. I slip my head behind one of the couch cushions, which my mom knows I do for real sometimes when I want to sleep. I lie perfectly still like that. Pretend she's not there. After a few minutes I hear her cough and she asks me if I'd maybe like to visit the zoo with her sometime soon. I keep quiet and pretend I'm asleep. I can tell she is still there. Watching me. Eventually I start to make snoring noises.

  ~

  I have this booklist I'm supposed to read by the end of the summer to get ready for my freshman year in high school. They sent out this letter that says I'm supposed to be tested or something. And I have to write a personal essay about myself. My past and future, hopes and regrets, all that kind of bullshit. See, I'm signed up to start at this lousy Catholic high school in Towson where I won't know anybody in my class except for this one greaseball from the school I went to last year and, whatever, I try not to think about it. I've changed schools like three times in three and a half years so it's not that big of a deal or anything to be going someplace new. Besides, this school I'm going to next year starts in the ninth grade so everybody in the whole freshman class is kind of the new kid. But seriously, fuck this reading list I have to go through. Lord of the Flies for one thing sounds like a book on mosquito abatement. Which might be kind of cool actually, now that I think about it . . .

  ~

  Since I've switched schools so often in the last few years I've had to make friends at each one and now it's like I have multiple sets of friends or acquaintances or whatever you want to call them, all from different neighborhoods and like social classes. For example, the city school I went to in seventh grade was what's called a “magnet school.” The kids came from all over the city, so there was a metal detector at the door and we were required to wear clear plastic book bags. Everybody was black for the most part except me. And this kid in the grade above me that became my friend. His name is Robby, but he calls himself the Beaster Bunny. We still hang out sometimes. He sells me weed. The Beaster Bunny lives near my dad's place on the edge of Homeland and the black neighborhood next door called Govans, which is where my mother grew up before what I've heard my dad refer to as “white flight” started happening.

  Before I went to city school, I did elementary at this ultra-wealthy private school in Guilford that's been around for like more than two hundred years or something. The teachers hated me there. Really. Hated me. Even though I was just a little kid. They thought I was out of control or something. The kids liked me all right though. That's where people started calling me Retard. Most of them were jerks from either Roland Park or Homeland or Ruxton or Guilford, which are all very nice neighborhoods with mansions full of monogrammed silver and whale print ottomans and Labrador retrievers. Everyone was blond or had freckles. There was also a contingent of rich kids that rode in every day in this cheesebox school bus from out in the valley. That school was pretty far from what you might call diverse. Everybody was practically related. That's how it is in Baltimore.

  And most recently, like just this spring even, I was going to a small Catholic middle school on Harford Road. That's in east Baltimore. Some of my cousins who are older went there before me and that was how come I knew about the place. It was probably why they accepted me too, especially considering that it was past the registration date when I started there last fall.

  The school was attached to this little church in Hamilton where my grandparents used to go, back when they were still alive. Hamilton is a lot different than where I live, but it's kind of cool too, with gritty sidewalks and vinyl-sided front porches and nearby is this nursing home full of loonies who hang out at the bus stop outside Dunkin' Donuts with chocolate all over their faces. All the other kids in my class were parishioners and I'd never really been to much church until I went there, which felt kind of weird in a way. I was like the only kid who wasn't going to confirmation classes, which is apparently where a lot of the action was happening. Whatever. I just graduated last week. I wonder if I'll ever see the kids in my class again, since it was kind of far away. See, I had to take a long ride on the MTA bus to get home every day. But that turned out all right because the bus trip usually gave me a lot of time to think about stuff. Or zone out at least.

  I have to zone out after school. Or take a nap. Going to school makes my eyeballs hurt. Not the lights or anything. Just school in general. And it ends up sucking wherever you go I figure . . . except maybe college, which probably sucks just as bad but in a different way. And I'm not sure I want to go that route anyhow so I doubt I'll ever find out. It's not just the waking up early or the homework or teachers or bullies or geeks that make school suck in my opinion. Not that my opinion matters or anything since you have to go to school no matter what, but still . . . The way I see it, all that stuff is just DETAILS. What's really important, what I think sucks the most about school, is what it does to your time. It KILLS it. Just the fact that you have to be there fucking blows. Being a REQUIREMENT makes the whole thing feel like a giant weight on a kid's back. I hook school a lot. These are supposed to be the best years of my life, aren't they? Why shouldn't I be absolutely free to enjoy every second of it the way I want? Isn't time the most valuable thing a person can own? Isn't it the only thing? That's why I say, fuck school. Because life is too precious. What if I were to die tomorrow? All I'd know is long division and maybe a couple prayers in Latin. And how to read. Fuck all that, you know what I mean? I think it's a shame that time is so costly, but what are you gonna do? And now my mom keeps reminding me of this booklist I've got to worry about . . . And that essay. About me, Retard, of all things . . .

  ~

  This morning I woke up feeling all sticky and faded from this doozy of a fucked up dream that was banging all around my head last night. The dream was a fleeting one, running away all fast like WOOSH! as I sat up in bed. But I still remember part of it. About an infestation of bunny rabbits. The rabbits only came out at night. I was at this impossibly enormous resort with my family but it was also a school maybe and a summer camp and a city all in one. There were a ton of people I knew there, but also a lot of strangers. The locals were scared of these rabbits I think.

  Anyway I was sticky and faded when I woke up, but I didn't feel like taking a shower yet. I was at my dad's house, so I picked up a towel and wandered up to the community pool. The sun was high already and the glare dodged in and out between the rows of houses, blocking off spots of my vision. I kept thinking about my dream. It began to fall apart even more as I thought about it. I walked up the middle of the road and the pavement was hot on my feet.

  When I got to the pool I walked right past the sign-in sheet on the faux-wood table by the gate and dropped my towel on the nearest chair without looking at anybody. Then I went over to the deep end, still not looking left or right, and dove in. I nearly lost my shorts in the water but managed to catch them from behind by the waistband, thank god. I came up blinking and went back under. I swam froggy-style to the steps in the shallow end. I sat down and leaned back against the metal handrail. It was hot on my shoulder and felt good. I ran my fingers through my hair. I thought about shaving it off.

  See, I usually try not to make eye contact with anybody at first when I get to the pool, especially if I'm all by myself, because I never know who will be there or whatever and I guess I'm secretly shy underneath or something. I mean mostly it's just old people and some gay dudes lounging around and a few little kids maybe or divorcees, but there are also sometimes one or two pretty good-looking females there on occasion. And the communi
ty is only halfway built right now anyway, so there are new people moving in all the time. I always bring a towel or at least a T-shirt to the pool so I can cover up in case I get a boner, which is something that could basically happen at the drop of a hat. Anyway, because of all this, I never know who to make eye contact with and shit like that. So I usually try to avoid the situation completely and just head straight for the deep end.

  Well, today that meant I didn't notice where my sisters had stationed themselves: right behind the steps I was sitting on in the shallow end, where the sun's rays were hitting the hardest. I heard them giggling behind me and in that same second I felt something cold and greasy hit the back of my neck with a fart. Suntan lotion. Without looking behind me or saying anything at all, I waded forward into the pool until the water was up to my chin and the gob of lotion started to peel off and break up in the water. I dunked my head underneath, planning to create a tremendous splash in the direction of the steps when I resurfaced, looking for a revenge by dowsing. I hooked my fingers together like a basket and pushed off the cement bottom. A monster clear-blue fan of chlorine rose up from the pool. I watched the wave, laughter already dripping off my lips as it broke up in the air.

  That's when I noticed my sisters were now standing a good ways off, watching me from a few rows back. They had their towels, bags, cell phones, and lotion gripped to their chests and these toothy fucking grins on their faces. My heart dropped into my stomach. See, right in front of where my sisters were standing, between two empty chairs, was the dirty blonde hair, smoothly arched spine, and tiny round buttocks of Ashley Vidal. She had her headphones on. She must've been lying between those two sneaky bitches, sleeping, when they pulled their prank. I flung my arms to catch the droplets as they fell. Kelly and Katie laughed even harder.

  Ashley Vidal is this girl who lives in my father's neighborhood with her mother and her little brother Kevin. Kevin is nine years old and likes to station himself by the entrance to the pool sometimes and put on puppet shows dramatizing hip-hop's most infamous beefs. It's kind of funny. Anyway, since Ashley's only twelve years old and closer to my sisters' age and a girl, she became one of their new best friends this spring after she moved into a house near the front gate. Because of this, she did not become one of MY new best friends. Which is too fucking bad because, no lie, she is like the hottest thing in the entire fucking galaxy. ALREADY. And she's only TWELVE YEARS OLD!!!

  Now, I know, I'm only fourteen myself, right? But I'll be fifteen this fall (Halloween, bitch! BOO!) and in high school and even though I'm not that much older than Ashley Vidal, she still seems kind of young. Like a kid. Except for the fact that she already has these perfect little titties growing out of her chest. And her nipples are almost always rock hard. She never even lets on. She's oblivious. Which might have something to do with the spaced-out look that's perpetually on her face. Like her head is full of helium and could float away at any moment. Plus, she has this flawless jawline and puffy lips and the cutest little scar under her left eye, which I would totally pretend I'd never, ever, ever noticed before if anyone found a reason to ask me about it. Anyway, moral of the story is basically that a blind man could see that not only is this girl super fucking hot but she is about to get super, incredibly fucking hot over the next few years. Like she's growing into her body or something. So my goal in life right now is to get in on the ground floor with her. Except I'm too lazy and way too much of a pussy to do anything about it . . .

  Well, Ashley woke up when I splashed her. Her perfect mouth was shocked wide open and her sunglasses had fallen off. I remember a kind of like mist over her eyes from sleeping. It went away in a flash. Like I'd pulled her through a crack in the side of a giant egg. I felt pretty bad about splashing her. My sisters were giggling in the background like tiny dogs and that seemed to heighten the effect. I got angry. Instead of apologizing like I should have, I pointed over Ashley's shoulder at my sisters, yelling, “THEIR FAULT! THEIR FAULT! FUCK YOU GUYS! I HATE YOU!” But Ashley was still wearing headphones, so I doubt if she heard me.

  Secretly humiliated, I cussed my sisters. I shook my fist at them, kicking backwards toward the deep end with this hollow feeling in my chest. I climbed out of the pool and marched over to my chair and sat down to dry myself off. I desperately wondered if anyone was staring at me. But I was too terrified to even look up and see. And I was too proud to storm off. So I ended up lying in the sun with a towel over my face until it seemed appropriate—four and a half minutes exactly, I counted the seconds—before getting up. I headed back to my dad's. I made a bong from an empty milk carton and smoked it by the window with my Froot Loops. But the first thing I did when I got inside was make sure to lock all the doors, knowing my sisters probably hadn't taken a key.

  ~

  The difference between my two sisters is hard to define exactly, but I'll try as best I can. Here goes: Katie is a Bryn Mawr girl. Kelly goes to Roland Park Country. They mostly have the same friends, a lot of whom go to Maryvale or Cathedral or Garrison Forest or St. Paul's. Kelly's hair is dyed about the color of a wet dog, while Katie's hair is shiny platinum blonde at the moment. Katie's initials are KAL, while Kelly's initials happen to spell out her nickname, KEL, a coincidence I'm not sure she's moved past bragging about yet. While both girls share musical tastes (whatever's on MTV) they usually end up leaning slightly toward opposing sides of the dial in terms of style and whatnot—like, if it's hip-hop and wuss rock on the pop charts this week, Kelly will be slightly more of a rocker chick and Katie will try to play up the urban look or vice versa, in order to avoid confusing people. Kelly still has a thumb-sucking problem that's resulted in a slight overbite for which she uses a retainer and Katie has just undergone hypnosis for her nail-biting habit. (I have the same oral fixation and scabs on my cuticles, but you don't see me complaining.) When we're driving with my father, Kelly always calls shotgun and usually gets it based on a phony complaint about the back seat giving her motion sickness. Katie, on the other hand, is constantly whining for foot rubs. Neither girl is a genius but they both get pretty good grades. A lot better than me at least.

  If they ever had one of those secret twin languages, I never picked up on it. But they do spend enough time together that everyone in north Baltimore says their names in one breath, like they're a brokerage firm or something. Kelly & Katie, Inc. or whatever. I guess that's sort of inevitable when you're somebody's twin.

  When I was a kid I used to wonder if maybe I had a twin brother somewhere, especially after I learned that twinnage is something you get from genetics and family history. I figured I might have one too. Why not, right? It was stupid, I know, but I used to pretend that he might be out there, with some crazy life maybe. Like sold into slavery on a pirate ship in the Indian Ocean. Or just super mega-rich somewhere, like the adopted son of a sterile but very cool Powerball winner in search of an heir or something. It seemed like a pretty sweet idea at the time, something to hope for. Maybe we could find each other someday and discover we had something MAGIC in common, like a sixth sense or a recurring dream that would connect us immediately even though we had been strangers all our lives. We'd even have the same birthmark! It'd be like a fucking movie! But then I thought, what if we had nothing in common but our winespot? What if he was good at things? What if we HATED each other?

  Around that same time—I was just a little guy when all this was going down in my noggin—I learned about cloning and thought that might be a better alternative to having a twin. A clone, or a bunch of them, exactly like you in every way at birth, I thought, HOW WONDERFUL! You could be best friends with them or not, depending on how you felt. Like you could write your clone occasionally to exchange insights on your personal life, insights that only a clone would have. Or you could just be total homeboys with him and hang out all the time. And you could even join up with your clones and live together in groups to form a super-efficient TEAM CLONE, like if you were a brilliant scientist or Michael Jordan or
something. Just think of the possibilities . . .

  But then I realized that even if I were cloned this very second I'd still be a bunch of years older than my clone, so we'd never really look exactly alike at the same time. I'd always look older and closer to death. It might even be creepy to have one of them hanging around, like looking into a living photograph or a memory of yourself or whatever. And some clones are bound to be more popular than others and shit. That would make me feel pretty bad, I think. If my clone was cooler than me. Really, the more I let myself think about it, the whole idea of duplicates started to depress me.

  ~

  Now, I don't usually believe in god or alien abductions or any of that kind of shit, but a couple of minutes ago I saw some stuff on the television that made me feel pretty confused about history and the meaning of life and everything. It was this show on Discovery or the Learning Channel or National Geographic or some shit (those are like my favorite channels). The show was about these crystal skulls that were discovered in Mexico or someplace. The skulls are see-through and they're supposed to be really, really old. Older than the pyramids or whatever.

  Legend has it there are thirteen of them, which is supposed to be this really unlucky number. Only five of the skulls have ever been found though and they're all owned by museums or rich people or whatever, but the legend says that there are eight more out there somewhere. When all the skulls have been uncovered they're supposed to reveal some kind of secret about the universe or something. That's bonkers, I know, and I thought it sounded like bullshit when I first heard it, too.

  But what's most crazy about the whole thing is that they had all these scientists on the program talking about how there are no tool markings on the skulls anywhere. They look like they're made out of liquid. Like ice. It's completely unreal. The scientists say the skulls are made out of this very hard kind of silicon that would need to be cut by a diamond or a laser, which would have been impossible for the ancient Mexicans to do, especially without leaving any marks.