I say my dad's mantra. "A bottle of Scotch and a sharp Buck knife."
"Who's the Scotch for?"
"Me."
"Good. And the knife?"
"Whoever is the problem."
"That's right. Sometimes you need both." He messes my hair. "Got an early overtime shift at the mill. Enjoy your Saturday. Stay with the fire till it dies down." He tromps through the grass, never spilling a drop of coffee.
The fire is plenty hot, turns everything to ash.
After some sleep I wake and shower and feel hunger stirring me. Mom's in the kitchen, sipping steamy coffee, reading a romance novel at the table. "Long night?" she says.
"Yup."
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
"Want some waffles?"
"Please."
So I eat waffles smothered in butter and thick maple syrup, and watch Garfield and Bugs and later on, the Ninja Turtles. And I feel better, normal.
Mom cleans the house around me and I mow the front lawn, around the oak and under the wisteria. I almost hit the paper but stop and overhand it onto the porch. When I'm done my shirt sticks to the sweat on my back, and I wipe my forehead across my sleeve.
Inside I hear soft crying in the kitchen. Mom's got the paper out, flat on the table. "You okay?" I say.
"Oh Emmett, I'm so sorry." She blinks puffy red eyes, motions to the paper and I read the headline:
Body Discovered At Battle Creek
Alfie Johnson, 12, Presumed Suicide
"Who's Alfie Johnson?"
My mother looks at me, and then cries more. Eventually the tears subside and she says, "Your friend. Blinky. That's his real name."
"No. No way." My mind is too small and I can't make this idea fit. "I just saw him yesterday."
"I'm sorry honey, but he's gone. It looks like he loaded all his pockets down with rocks, and then walked to the middle of the creek and laid down." She starts crying again.
I could see Blinky in my mind's eye, lying at the bottom of the creek. For some reason, his eyes were open in my imaginings. "I need to talk to my friends. Can I go out?"
"I don't know."
"Come on, Mom. Brady and Flynn and Max were his friends too."
She takes a deep breath. "Okay. But be careful."
The ten-speed can't go fast enough, but I just keep pushing the pedals harder. I ditch the bike in Max's driveway. The door opens after my rapid-fire frantic knocks. Max's dad answers, and whatever's on my face is enough. "She's in her room," he says softly.
Max is sobbing into her pillow and it's the saddest thing I've ever heard. I knock on her doorframe and she sits up, her face puffy and red.
"Hey," I say to say something.
Then she's up and her arms are around my neck. We sit on her bed and talk for a long time, about Blinky and the awfulness of the world and how he shouldn't have left us. Max cries and I squeeze her—like if I do it right, I can make it better. I must have been doing it wrong though, cause I ended up crying too.
Monday comes and there's a school assembly. A guy in a tie shows up, tells us through a microphone that it's okay to feel how we're feeling, and that time will slowly make things normal again. He talks about tragedy and sense of loss, and strategies for dealing with them, but whatever empathy he's trying to convey is lost in the electronic sound system.
Off in the corner, by the basketball banners I see Mr. Glass leaning on the wall, arms crossed and nodding sincerely to the speaker's words. My stomach does a summersault.
I find Flynn at his locker. "You bring it?"
"Yup," he hands me the Rubik's Cube and I tuck it in my bag. "Even got some B-nocs. You really think this is gonna work?"
"I think he's gonna be sheet white when he sees it."
"What does that prove? You think Maxine's dad can put him in jail on a reaction?"
"I just wanna prove it to myself."
"Then what?"
"Then nothing. I just wanna know I'm right."
Flynn looks at me for a long moment. "Uh-huh. Sure."
Maxine plays distracter for us. "Just be charming," I tell her.
"What does that mean?"
Flynn laughs. "Just be yourself. Trust me."
We go to the teachers' lounge, and from the hall, Maxine asks two teachers a question with an upward inflection. She smiles as they both step out. She walks down the hall and they just follow. Flynn and I walk right behind them. Flynn pulls the blinds up all the way and cuts the cord so they can't be lowered. I find Glass's locker, put the cube right on top.
We walk right passed the two teachers and I hear Max. "Thank you so much. You guys are great, really. I gotta get my books, but thanks for the explanation."
Smoker's Hill sits across the parking lot and right in front of the teachers' lounge window. Max catches up. "That was easy."
"What'd you ask them?"
"Just how the class schedule worked. Which classes were for which periods. They were really nice about it."
"It's October," Flynn says and we both laugh. We laugh even harder at Max's frown.
We wait on the hill—Flynn with his binoculars and me with the scope off my dad's Marlin. One of the high school smokers wanders over. "Girls locker room is on the other side fellas," he tells us, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth.
"Gross. Get out of here," Max says, and chases him away with a glare.
There's mass movement after the 2nd period bell sounds. We wait, eyes glued to the teachers' lounge. They file in, drinking coffee and carrying folders. Glass opens the locker and backs away. He shuts the door quickly and turns, looking at everyone in the room.
And he is sheet white.
"Holy shit," Flynn says.
"What?" Max asks. "What'd he do."
I think about what I'm going to do. I think about Max's smile, and how I never want to be out of its brightness. "Nothing," I say. "I thought he'd react to the cube, but he didn't. I musta been wrong about him." Then I drop the scope in my bag, ignore Flynn's frown and go to class.
I wake early, meet my dad in the kitchen. It's still coal-dark outside and he's only on his first cup of coffee. "Morning," he says.
"You were something, right? Before you were a millwright?"
He frowns, folds the paper neatly, puts it aside. "I surely was."
"I have questions."
"I may have answers," he says. And he does, answering them all in his calm manner. It's strange, meeting him for the first time.
Armed with knowledge, I prep my stuff and the following day we go to Blinky's funeral. It's the only time I've ever seen him in a suit. The boy in the box looks like a poor wax caricature of my friend. Max hugs me fiercely and Flynn tries to be tough. Brady cries more than Max.
People stand, say nice things, say all the right things, but none of it unties the knot in my stomach.
Glass even speaks, tears roll down his cheeks. "Alfie was a beautiful boy. He had charms the world will never know and it is a little darker here without him."
I don't cry, I just look at Glass and let the heat of my rage turn the tears to steam.
After, in the parking lot, Glass comes over. "I know he was your friend, but I feel like he was mine too." He hugs us each and I want to crush his spine. I feel slimy and poisonous as I pull away. His eyes are shiny and wet and full of sorrow and I want to put them out with my thumbs.
That night I lay in bed, unable to sleep, staring at my ceiling, waiting. At midnight I grab my special bag, pull on sweats, and walk my ten-speed to the end of the drive before I get on. Then I ride, a river of adrenaline carrying me along. I lean into the pedals, stomp my feet. There's the pressure of the bag on my back and the cool night air on my face and a sense of peace.
I'm sweating when I reach my destination. There is only stillness and starlight with me on the street. When I knock, I see the lights come on one by one as he moves through the house. Something moves behind the peephole. I grip the axe handle hard and the door opens for me.
"Emmett?" Glass says sleepily. "What…"
But I drive the axe handle into his stomach and he grunts in surprise, steps back, stoops to a knee. I bring the axe down on his back and side and shoulders and I go on until my arms are tired and Glass is a curled ball on the floor. I close the door, bind his hands and ankles with fishing line.
He cries the whole time. "Why?"
I move through the house, snapping on lights. There's three bedrooms—a master, an office, and one full of brand new, in-the-box toys. Simon Says and He-Man action figures, and yo-yos. I almost vomit. There's a Polaroid on his nightstand.
Blinky. Smiling, holding a toy.
I toss the picture on the floor in front of Glass's withered form. "This is why."
"What? I didn't do anything to Alfie. I would never. I only wanted him to be happy." Glass clears his throat, puts some beef behind it. "If you let me go now, I won't say anything to the police, Emmett. You could go to jail…prison even."
I pick up the picture. "Hey Mr. Glass, I have a question. Why do you have a picture of Blinky?"
He laughs. "Don't be jealous, Emmett. Alfie needed extra attention. He was a special boy."
"Why was this photo taken in this house?" I look around. "Right there on that wall."
Only silence answers me, and in the quiet it strikes me that I sound just like my father.
So I gag him, drag him out to his car, put my bike and bag in the trunk. His car is weird, but I've had plenty of practice driving on the farm. The strangest thing is driving on smooth roads. No one passes and nothing moves.
When we get to my home, I drive the last leg with the lights off and kind of coast in. The dome light comes on when I open his door and he screams behind the duct tape. I drag him out despite his struggle and drop him on the tarp, right next to the burn barrel. I think of Blinky, beneath the water, staring up. I hope there was blue sky for him to see. I don't know why.
"This can't be settled with Scotch," I tell him. The snick of the Buck knife opening is loud in the cloudless night.
Soon I have the burn barrel going nice and hot, few logs of oak, and a whole container of lighter fluid. When my dad comes out, coffee mug in hand, gray light has painted the horizon starless. He leans over the barrel. "Jesus." And after a moment, "You're definitely going to need the hammer. Remember—"
"I know. The framing hammer."
"Well a finish hammer with dings on the face is no good," he says reasonably. "Now about that car out front…"
And he tells me that lesson.
A Plea Bargain To Purgatory
by Kenneth Levine
When Sal stuck his hand inside the envelope beside the ashtray and scotch on the kitchen table, he was surprised it contained only two items. In the past, each envelope had held multiple photographs of the target and a fact sheet that set forth basic information: the subject's name, home and business addresses, occupation, age, the contract price, and the date on which the job was to be completed. He remembered he had felt uneasy when Vinnie handed him the envelope at lunch at the Pink Palace, but forgot his discomfort when Vinnie shook his hand and a new stripper appeared on stage. Now he remembered he had thought the envelope was light.
Sal extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray and slid the contents of the envelope onto the table beneath a fog of white smoke. The fact sheet contained no information about the kill other than today's date and the contract price. As he fingered the gold cross that hung around his neck, his heart thudded with excitement. One hundred thousand dollars was more than ten times his going rate and he could use the money to pay down the debts he had incurred playing the horses. He swished the scotch around the inside of his mouth and swallowed while he stared at the amount and date and tried to make sense of them. He figured the target must be important or the assignment fraught with danger, or perhaps the fee was high because there was little time to prepare.
When Sal turned the photo right side up, he was face-to-face with the answers. The photo was of him in his black tuxedo, and his daughter as he walked her down the church aisle at her wedding two weeks ago. A bull's-eye was drawn around his face.
Sal was confused. Vinnie had been at the wedding. Vinnie was his friend. Then he was overcome by fear. They were hiring him to kill himself and the contract could be refused only upon penalty of death. One way or another he would be dead by midnight unless they changed their minds and killed him before then.
Sal's first instinct was to run. He packed a duffel bag and gathered his gun, a box of cartridges, and his bank books, but when he walked out the door he realized he had nowhere to go. There was no escape. He knew. He was one of them. They would find him wherever he went.
First, he jammed a kitchen chair under the door handle to his apartment. Then he waited for them in the living room with the gun and box of cartridges on a chair that faced the door. He would stay put and let them come for him. He was already a dead man; he would kill as many of them as he could.
Forty-five minutes later, Sal heard noise on the stairs below. He blocked out the usual city clamor of horns honking and tires squealing and people hollering outside his open window and focused on the sounds within the building. They were footfalls, the clicks of two heels, of one person going up the stairs. He counted. At thirty, with one click per stair and fifteen stairs per story, he calculated the person had reached his floor. Then the clicks became louder and more strident and he realized the person was walking down the hallway toward his apartment. With gun in hand, he approached the door and waited. Suddenly there was silence. He considered shooting through the door but thought better of it.
He bent over the tilted chair and, with the barrel of the gun pressed against the door, peered through the peephole at his daughter, Sophia, whose knocking startled him.
"One second," Sal shouted as he hid the duffel bag, the gun, and the box of cartridges in the closet and returned the chair to its place at the kitchen table. He let Sophia into the living room and kissed her.
"Hi Poppa."
"What are you doing here?"
"It's three-thirty. Remember? It's time for our walk in the park."
"I'm sorry sweetie. I was so wrapped up making calls to prospective customers for my next trip, I forgot we had plans." Sophia, like her mother, thought he was a salesman of private waste disposal services. "Can we do it another time?"
Her forehead creased with concern. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"You look worried."
"No. Just tired."
"Can I do anything?" She looked at the dishes in the sink in the adjacent kitchen. "I could wash them."
"No. I'll do it later. You run along and I'll call you tomorrow."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." Sal opened the door and held it in place with his back. "I'll phone you," he said. He bent slightly, she stood on her toes, and they kissed. She walked down the hall and he yelled, "Sophia, I love you. You are a wonderful daughter. A father couldn't have asked for more."
When she turned and faced him, Sal hoped that she couldn't see the tears welled in his eyes. She said, "I love you too, Poppa," and she was gone.
Alone again, suddenly Sal knew he hadn't been thinking clearly. There was no point in fighting the inevitable. There was nothing to be gained by running or by killing any of them. If he didn't do as he was told, afterward they might harm Sophia. The inclusion of his daughter in the photograph presented an explicit threat. Did Vinnie take the photo?
No, if it was his time, it was his time, but first he had to call Vinnie to see if he could fix things.
When Vinnie answered, Sal said, "It's me."
"Hi Sal."
"I opened the envelope."
"I figured."
"I don't understand. I thought we were like brothers."
"We are."
"Then why?"
"Sal, I love you like a brother, but we're part of a bigger family and this is what the family wants."
"What did I do?"
"What do you think?"
"I said you're not."
"Is it what I said about Hines?" Last month Sal shot a Thomas Hines point blank in the head as the man walked to his car. When Sal met Vinnie the next day at the Pink Palace to collect payment, Sal told Vinnie that as he pulled the trigger he wondered whether he and Hines had been saddened by Kennedy's assassination and amazed by Glen's walk on the moon. Whether they had both danced with their girlfriends to "Stairway To Heaven" at their high school proms, and were alike in other ways because they were both fifty-seven years old.
He later realized he had done a good deed by murdering Hines because Hines had been irrevocably scheduled to die. Sal had killed him swiftly and painlessly in accordance with his motto—kill the way you would want to be killed—which was based on the Biblical words of Christ: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
Before he had the chance to add that to the conversation, a stripper buried Vinnie's face in her breasts and Vinnie followed her into the back room.
"What'd you say about Hines?"
"Is it the weight I've put on? I could lose it."
"Sal, I don't know what it is. They said you're getting soft. I asked how. They didn't tell me. I said you're still one of the toughest guys I know. I'm sorry."
"Come on Vinnie. We've had each other's backs for a long time. They're not having me killed. They want me to kill myself. That means I'm going to Hell, not Purgatory. Getting soft isn't a good enough reason for that. This is personal. I think I deserve to know why. You owe me that much."
Vinnie barked, "Why the fuck were you boning Theresa?"
"You know about that?"
"Who doesn't? You were seen grinding your crotch into her on the dance floor at the Christmas party. And then you took her into the closet. Jesus! Sal, what the fuck were you thinking? She's Tony's wife. Sal, Tony's wife! She's the mother of Vito's grandchildren. Vito, Sal. Vito!"
THUGLIT Issue Eleven Page 6