Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  The Searles thought they would be safe there. But there are no secrets in a small world, and when Mr Harris (and he would never be anything but Mr Harris; he didn't have a Christian name; he didn't have a Christian burial) came for Alex, his mind on violent, bullying revenge, he didn't imagine Alex would have the strength now to stand up to him. He was unprepared; Alex was even less ready. It wasn't blind rage, because in his mind's eye Alex could see each detail; the look on Mr Harris's face as he sauntered towards Alex. Smug, greedy, angry. Alex saw the fists clenched, the heavy boots. He could feel the smile stretched across his face, its foolishness deliberately deceptive. His hands clenched too; his logical brain said, "No, he's an adult, nothing but trouble, who would believe he provoked you, that's if you do win, which you won't because he's bigger than you." Alex found his hands took their signal from a part of the brain he could not control.

  His grandfather saw it all. Saw Mr Harris – though he didn't know it was Mr Harris, not till later, when the papers had his face on their missing person pages – come up the front path, trip over the cricket set left there by Dom. Heard him bang on the door, shout, "Come out, you little shit." Grandfather saw and heard all this.

  He heard the fight downstairs and ventured to help his sixteen year old grandson, but he saw his grandson fell Mr Harris with a blow, the body fall.

  Alex's grandfather alone saw Alex bury the body in the backyard, because it was night and dark and the others were out. He did not help; he didn't reveal himself. He never told Alex what he'd seen, but he told his wife. They loved their Alex. They knew he was the future of the Searle family; already it was clear that Dominic would not be having children. He never told anyone but his wife. They were the only ones who could protect Alex; they could provide him with sanctuary. Alex's grandfather had killed at war; he knew how shallow human life was. So they decided that the best way to protect Alex was to let him stay when he needed to, and they would leave their home, with its secrets, to him.

  Alex wouldn't know that his grandfather knew; that when Alex thought the house was empty, his grandfather was upstairs. Alex's parents never knew about Mr Harris.

  In the margins of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Jessie wrote this:

  CW twenty-nine watch:

  Chew Wang bought the watch from a friend, in exchange for entry into a group of wealthy children-lovers.

  Inside The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy:

  AM seventy-two lighter:

  Albert Mitchell, an elderly man, but age is no defence. War criminal intentions. I fought for you, he says, as if that excuses the pain he inflicts. I fought for you. The lighter came from a grateful mate's will, ooh, they shared some memories. Good times, girls with rotting cunts, like rock-melon left in the sun, all warm and seedy, but cost a pittance and who ever imagined your dick could fall off, make you a mad man, madman, this is what I think of dirty cunts, and this. This is what you get.

  In A Piece of the Night, Michelle Roberts:

  CS thirty-three coin:

  It was lucky, the old coin, very old, very lucky for Chris Stepanos. It was worn thin around the edges from owners rubbing, saying please please please. Please don't let my daughter tell.

  In Immaterial, Robert Hood:

  RR fifty-eight bottletop:

  The bottletop was squashed flat and no longer sharp; it was from Rex Robert's first beer. He liked a beer, did Rex, and his women, though women were not so keen on him. That was fine. At least they moved when he fucked them. Moved and screamed. He was past all that, though. Too old. Just him and the movies, it was now.

  In The Vicar of Morbing Vyle, Richard Harland:

  GT fifty-five ring:

  Alex met him in a milk bar where they were both buying cigarettes. He was first in line, and dithering, deciding. He spun a broad silver ring on his middle finger, a nervous man.

  Alex wanted to be away from there; he wanted to return to life. He considered time spent shopping, waiting, travelling, as necessary but also a cessation of life. He'd rather be rolling the giant blue plastic ball to his daughter, watching in delight as she grabbed and fell into its soft centre.

  "Would you like me to go first while you're gathering your thoughts?" Alex said to the other customer.

  "Well, thank you. That would be kind."

  Alex snapped up his preferred brand, placed money in the palm of the tobacconist. The tobacconist winked. "See you tomorrow, Mr Searle."

  "Not if these kill me first," Alex winked back.

  Alex returned the next day. He changed his visiting times daily, always hoping to enter an empty shop.

  "Interesting character, that one," the tobacconist said. Alex raised his eyebrows.

  "Mr Slowpoke, from yesterday. Wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's the fella who killed his wife and got away with it.

  It didn't take Alex long to discover this allegation was founded. The report called it death by misadventure, but it was clear to Alex that deliberation played a major part.

  Gordan Truman wept in court for his wife, but there were strange things the jury didn't hear. This was his third dead wife. The first one had died in a car accident, the second in a farming accident, now this one had fallen off the roof. The jury also didn't know she had gone up there because he sent her. He wanted her to fiddle with the aerial, and if he'd been asked, the little boy next door could have testified the husband said, "Back up. Step to the right. Back further. A bit further," and that the wife had then stepped trustingly off the roof.

  It was this evidence the jury of the street heard.

  Alex waited in his car across the road from the tobacconist, and eventually Mr Slowpoke, Gordon Truman, appeared. He was a slow smoker as well; the tobacconist said he only came once a week or so.

  Alex followed. Truman drove to the other side of town, where he made a purchase from an adult video store. He emerged with his brown paper bag, lit a cigarette, and continued his journey.

  He went home.

  Alex liked to know people before they knew him, so he studied Truman, followed him, read his file, got to know him.

  Alex parked two blocks away and walked. It was dark enough so he would not be noticed.

  He knocked on Truman's door, knowing that Truman would be comfortable by now, perhaps naked, and he would be disoriented by any intrusion.

  And so it was. Gordon Truman answered the door with a robe on. He said, "What is it? I'm busy."

  "I'm afraid you are," Alex said. He showed his badge. "May I come in?"

  Truman was terrified. He had bought his tapes legally, but he wondered what he could have done wrong.

  "There is an alert on the tapes you purchased," Alex said. "We're interested in the sort of person who would purchase such things."

  Truman sucked saliva down the wrong way; choked.

  "But these aren't bad ones. Not really. Not compared to some of the other things they have there. They have some terrible things."

  "Everything's relative," said Alex.

  Truman passed the two covers to Alex. A classroom scene, naked teacher, glaring, legs spread as she perched on the desk. Called School for Punishment. And the second: two women, pink tongues, called The Clit Sisters. Alex clenched his teeth to keep from vomiting. Who would believe this could lead to the murder of an innocent woman?

  Clenched teeth, eyes staring, Alex looked insane.

  Now Alex smiled. "Is that what you said to your wife? That these aren't so bad?"

  "Sorry? But… my wife's dead."

  "Not dead. Murdered."

  "No, no. She died."

  "That's what the court said."

  "It's what I say. It's what she'd say, too. It was terrible."

  "What did your wife think of this business?"

  "She… liked it."

  "Of course she did."

  "She didn't mind it, anyway."

  "Did she really know about it?"

  "Not in detail, no."

  "That's not a good excuse."

  "What f
or? What are you on about?"

  "Why don't you pop one of those in and I'll point out what we find so offensive about them."

  Gordon Truman smiled. He thought he had Alex figured. Just a cop who wanted to get his rocks off.

  He bent to the video player, cocky now.

  And Alex shot him in the back of the neck.

  The removal of the body was always a challenge, though it wasn't necessary in every case. And with the blood there, it was clear something had gone on. Alex knew he was just trying to avoid a nasty and difficult task. His own backyard was the only place he could control the situation.

  He always liked to take his people home, where he could look out onto the backyard and think about the lives he'd saved, the futures he rescued. He never left any of his people where they fell.

  Truman was not a big man. Alex had entered the home with a large overcoat, three pillows tied beneath. If anyone noticed these extra pillows on Mr Slowpoke's marital bed, they did not say.

  He strapped the body into place and left. The neighbourhood rested, even curious little boys and inquisitive citizens.

  And this. Jessie wrote this in Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry:

  GG seventeen chain:

  The gold chain belonged to a teenaged boy, George Gazel, who beat to death an old woman.

  In The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard:

  PC sixty-three heel:

  Percy Court had been meaning to get his shoe heel fixed, but it was hard to get out of the office. He didn't ask his secretary to do it because he was scared of her. She had stopped asking him questions about his wife, though she was clearly dissatisfied with his answers. He would sort her out, though.

  In Great Unsolved Mysteries of Science, Jerry Lucas:

  MR twenty-six wallet:

  Max Rankine's empty wallet was bought at a local craft-market at a secondhand stall and held photos of loved ones who didn't love one in return. Who didn't deserve to live.

  In The Collected Works of Max Haines:

  CT twenty-three coin holder:

  A present from his mother, Colin Thake's coin holder symbolised to him constriction, lawfulness, boredom. He broke the law smash bang, but not the way Alex thought.

  Written in Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen:

  HS forty-three elastic band:

  Hugh Smith used an elastic band to tie back his hair. He flipped it around his wrist when he let his hair fly. When he lost one he found another. He was seen dragging his girlfriend by the scruff of her neck. Alex didn't always need to know too much about his people. A little was enough, sometimes.

  In Dorian by Will Self:

  SP thirty-five tie bar:

  Silver, stylish, Sam Polato's tie bar caused comment. It got him women. He bit women, liked the feeling of his teeth in their warm flesh.

  In The Grotesque, Patrick McGrath:

  MW forty-two shoe:

  Martin Webster, a religious man who marked his skin, his clothes, his shoes, with red crosses to protect himself from evil thoughts. Evil actions were not yet under control.

  In The Third Millennium, Stableford & Langford:

  PM seven lunchbox:

  Only Alex knew that Pauly Murray once lay, strangled and buried, in the dirt in the Searle's backyard, his lunch uneaten.

  In The Map Approach to Modern History, Brown & Coysh:

  FF eighteen squeaky toy:

  Frank Firenze carried a squeaky toy in his pocket. What was he doing with a child's toy? Little more than a child himself, stumbling, destructive and bitter.

  In Day of the Locust, Nathaniel West:

  CL thirty-seven TV dial:

  Claude Loftus had a nervous habit. He carried a TV dial in his pocket like a security blanket, a lucky rabbit's foot. A skinny man, betting type, losing streak, kill for money, kill for it, die for it.

  In The Cherry Orchard, Checkov:

  BK thirty-six squash ball:

  Squeeze squeeze, finding affinity with the small black ball so you could smash your opponent, never lose. Bernie Kerr was good for his age. He was good at smashing faces, noses, scarring faces. He was good at causing offence.

  And in Priests on Trial, Alfred McCoy, this:

  TS forty-three belt:

  Its long dead owner, Tom Sykes, was once a man of very good quality. He was a doctor, one of those men people talked to, confessed things to. He was trusted and loved and he threw his wife off a cliff after beating her to death. Only Alex knew this; only Alex knew the truth. The community mourned with the man, the doctor, and could pity him at last. The pieces of his wife were gathered and buried, and only Alex saw Sykes smirk as she was lowered away from harm. Tom Sykes went through the courts and was washed clean of guilt.

  Alex went to Tom Sykes, the doctor, soon after, for a check-up, and he told Sykes secrets he knew would be of interest.

  "It's my knuckles, doctor," he said. He

  made a fist, slammed it into his palm, made the air punch. "I keep slamming them into things, and they're starting to hurt."

  Sykes' fingers twitched. Alex had been keeping him under surveillance, and he had not hurt a woman for a while.

  "Oh, yes?" he said. He prescribed a musclerelaxant so Alex would have less trouble with jerking limbs. He walked Alex from the surgery, saying, "Please, call me at home if you find the prescription isn't effective."

  He scribbled his first name and his number on a five-dollar note.

  "I'll do that," Alex said. Sometimes he could smooth-talk with barely a word.

  He waited three weeks, because he needed to settle himself, then he called Sykes. Alex was invited to dine; don't bring a thing, Sykes said.

  Sykes wore soft, baggy pants, a sky blue jumper, finely knitted. His hair was deliberately mussed. Alex thought he had drawn dark make-up under his eyes.

  Alex wore thin, tight clothes, which clung to him but did not constrict movement. They nodded when they met.

  "So, how's the medical business?" Alex said.

  "Oh, fine, fine. And how's the…what business are you in?"

  "I'm a cop. And it's fine."

  Alex wanted Sykes to experience terror, because the death Alex had planned would be short and merciful.

  Tom Sykes fingered the loose tongue of his leather belt.

  "That must be interesting work. Do you get involved with a lot of cases? I mean, are you interested in what the other cops are doing?"

  Alex smiled at him. The man didn't see, he was staring at his glass. "Naah," Alex said. "I'm far too self-obsessed." He didn't want the man wary. "If it's not my case, I'm home with my family."