Finals

by Alan Weisz

  Oh God, what had I done last night? I had drunkenly confessed to my murders. My shirt was already drenched in sweat. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up, I needed to find a place to recuperate and come up with a game plan. A place that wasn’t Father O’Connor’s apartment.

  Silently, I opened the door to the office and tiptoed lightly through the hallway, ever so gently opening the front door and closing it with tenderness.

  I had no clue what time it was, but it was still dark outside so I knew it had to be early. The queasiness in my stomach was growing stronger by the second and I knew I had to find a place nearby before I blew chunks all over The Village walkway.

  Neighboring O’Connor’s apartment was The Village’s church and adjacent to the tiny chapel were the public bathrooms. I grabbed the handle and flung the door open fiercely, racing inside to find an open toilet.

  I’m not sure how long I kneeled over that toilet puking my guts out, but it seemed like an eternity. When my stomach was finally empty, I curled into a pathetic ball around the toilet’s base and closed my eyes.

  Is this what the final hours had come to, wrapped around a toilet, regretting my many, many stupid decisions? In spite of someone learning the truth about my dastardly deeds, I did feel sorry for blasting Father O’Connor. It wasn’t my place to scream at him in such a manner, despite being drunk and coming to the conclusion that life in a jail cell was inevitable. What did I honestly expect him to do? What do you tell a person who murdered his classmates? “Oh, you’ll be fine. I bet no one will even care they’re gone.” There was nothing he did that I wouldn’t have done had I been in his shoes. Miserable disappointments coinciding with shameful sorrow were the final emotions I had evoked from my beloved priest and it really made me feel like a genuine jerk.

  Father O’Connor did not have the easy task of admitting to the police that one of his most beloved students was a homicidal maniac, but I hadn’t thought about Hayley having that same problem. The sappy romantic in me believed my adored ex was going to share her feelings after centuries of bottling up her emotions, but was that the real purpose of our little get-together yesterday? I doubted it. She was going to tell me she knew I was a classmate-killing lunatic, and just like Father O’Connor, she wanted some justification for my killings before turning me over to the police.

  With the support of the seat, I pulled myself up, flushing once more before lowering my bottom onto the white plastic. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and turned it on. After the initial start-up jiggle the phone jumped to life. It was 5:30 a.m. No wonder I felt like crap. Within a few seconds, another little jiggle sounded and the symbol indicating I had a text became visible.

  “Hey!!! Where did you go? I want you to come back? :)” read the text from Hayley.

  Her cutesy act was wearing thin and I was tempted to text back a whole bunch of expletives and ask why she felt the urge to turn the guy she was “in love with” over to the police, but I managed to refrain. Instead of sending back a slanderous message, I texted, “Sorry about last night. Where are you now?”

  I had no clue whether Hayley had talked to the police at this point, but I was guessing Father O’Connor was bound to tell them sooner rather than later given my confession last night. I anticipated I had two maybe three hours until the campus was covered with yellow police tape and my getaway plans were thwarted. As the seconds ticked down until the looming hour of my capture, I decided I had one thing left to resolve before heading to the clink. I had to talk with Hayley.

  †

  In one of my favorite Jack Johnson songs he sings, “I sing ya songs, I dance a dance. I gave your friends all a chance. Putting up with them wasn’t worth never having you.” In many respects, this statement accurately describes my feelings towards Hayley’s roommates. Having a discussion with Hayley’s friends was more uncomfortable than watching a porno with your parents. Simply stated, my experiences were never very pleasant.

  Conceived from two marijuana-loving, tree-hugging liberals, Willow Sanders was one of the most peculiar girls I have ever encountered. Willow was an English major who loved medieval literature, which I’m guessing is stuff like Beowulf but I could be wrong. For my extensive purposes, I never like to read anything over a decade old, let alone a century old. Honestly how often do people mention Beowulf or Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales at a party? Oh, that’s right, never. Thus the reason having conversations with her was usually a mind numbing experience. When she wasn’t reading outdated literature, Willow spent her free time practicing her French conversational skills and playing the piccolo, the reject of the flute family.

  To this day, I still firmly believe that Hayley’s other roommate, Avery Decker, could become an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers. Avery was one of those overconfident big girls who likely gained her ill-conceived bravado from constant parental encouragement. Her scandalous attire frequently made me want to staple my eyelids together. One encounter that I’ve tried to erase from my mind that seemingly won’t go again away occurred when I saw her at a party wearing a bright pink tube top and matching hot pink pants. I believe I puked in my mouth a little when I turned the corner to find her bending over to pick up her purse. I also hated the fact that she called me “dude” whenever we ran into each other. For one thing, she was in half of my classes and I had dated one her best friends, meaning she knew my name. Secondly, I hate girls saying the word “dude.” It’s a complete turn off in my book. To me, a dude is someone you share exaggerated sexual feats with while you stuff your face with nachos and pound back a couple of brewskis, not an overly plump chubster.

  I normally tried to avoid these two mutants at all costs, but I knew they would know where Hayley was if she wasn’t in the apartment. I hoped to high heaven she would be there to avoid a painful discussion with either roommate, and so I wouldn’t have to continue to run around like a chicken with my head cut off looking for her.

  If today was my last day as a free man, and at this point, that appeared to be the case, I was going to see Hayley no matter who or what got in my way. I still didn’t know what I was going to say if I did finally find her. She cared about me, that was certain, but she also was probably the one responsible for informing the police.

  With my rap sheet, conjugal visits were out of the question, and spending my last few hours making love to a beautiful woman was one of my best alternatives. Slowly cutting each of her fingers off as she watched had a nice ring to it too, since her dexterous little extremities may have sealed my fate, if she had emailed or called the police. Still, I needed to locate the short blonde first before selecting the best course of action.

  I am an advocate for beauty sleep and I find it to be cruel to wake anyone before 8:00 a.m. Then again, since these were my final hours and since I hated Hayley’s roommates with a passion, the thought of waking them at such an unholy hour wasn’t too unnerving.

  As I approached their door, I heard a faint murmur that sounded an awful lot like the television, as well as thunderous footsteps, which meant Avery was up at least. Ringing the doorbell, I prayed that Hayley was awake too.

  Willow opened the door wearing one of those atrocious wolf baying at the moon t-shirts that you find in Indian casinos along with black jazz pants. In spite of the early hour, Willow’s dark hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and her smirking face gave off the impression she wasn’t in dire need of a mocha like I was at the moment.

  “Hello, Wayne. I haven’t seen you in eons. Are you having a pleasant morning?” Willow asked, in an unusual upbeat tone, illustrating why she was obviously friends with Hayley.

  “I’m fine and yourself?” I asked, trying to be cordial.

  “You don’t look fine, Wayne,” said Willow, looking me up and down as if she was a mother observing her child before the arrival of the school bus.

  “Thanks for the concern Willow, but I’m great. Is Hayley here?”

  “If I may speak candidly Wayne, you usually appear well groomed and
I imagine you spend time primping in the morning, as to prepare for the day ahead. However, this morning it looks as though you slept with an owl.”

  “An owl?” I said, rather confused. Either Willow’s inadvertent tangent was way out in left field like the majority of her statements or I was way too hung over for this conversation. Whatever the case, I did not like the direction of this conversation because I was not getting any closer to locating my girl.

  “Yes, an owl, Wayne. As I am sure you are aware, owls are nocturnal creatures that hunt in the dead of night. Did you know that dating back from Greek mythology, the owl is also a symbol for wisdom? Kind of an indicative representation since many students have their noses buried in textbooks as they prepare for finals week. And might I add that since your hair looks as ruffled as the owl’s feathers, I would fathom to guess that you were burning a bit too much of the midnight oil last night,” Willow said, letting out a meek laugh as though she actually deemed something she had said to be humorous.

  Feeling as though I was in the middle of a lecture from a PBS children’s television show, I was becoming more and more upset that I was wasting my time talking with this oddball.

  “You caught me, I went out last night to find an owl so I could finally figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of Tootsie pop,” I said sarcastically. “Is Hayley here? I need to see her.”

  “Three.”

  “What?” I asked, more confused now than I was when Willow dove into the history of the owl. “Is that a place or a time? I don’t get it.”

  “It is common knowledge that it takes three licks to reach the center of a Tootsie pop. Even young schoolchildren are aware of that fact, Wayne,” said Willow calmly.

  I had a strong urge to barge into the apartment, detach the towel rail from the bathroom and pummel Willow until she was nothing more than a lifeless mass on the floor. The only thing stopping me from following through with the act was knowing that if I did storm in uninvited, Avery would hit me harder than Brian Urlacher and I wanted to keep all of my ribs intact.

  For once, rather than engaging in violence, I elected to cuss out the childlike Willow instead. “I don’t fucking care about Tootsie pops. I just want to know where the hell Hayley is!”

  “Dude!” Avery yelled, approaching the door wearing nothing but a white tank top and bright yellow shorts with the Juicy logo printed on the back. Had I anything left in my stomach to regurgitate, I’m sure I would have hurled upon seeing the overflowing cottage cheese. I think Juicy Couture needs to establish a policy that states customers can only purchase merchandise that appropriately describes an individual’s physique. For Avery, “juicy” was not an accurate description at all; however, it didn’t seem too likely that “porky” would become a top seller.

  “She’s not here,” Avery said furiously. “Now will you leave us the fuck alone so we can get back to our yoga!”

  Willow gave me a meek smile as if to apologize for Avery’s brash behavior and Hayley’s absence before Juicy pulled her inside, slamming the door in my face.

  Yet another wonderful encounter, but at least I gained one morsel of information. If Hayley wasn’t participating in her roommates’ much needed yoga session, then the lone place left for her to be was the newsroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  From The Village, I had two possible routes. The first was to go through the parking lot and the other was to sneak from building to building until I finally reached the newsroom in St. Mary’s Hall.

  I guess if I really considered the two options, the choice was clear. If I went through the parking lot, I’d basically be strapping myself into the chair, waiting for my lethal injection.

  The parking lot was wide open, an ideal place for a police officer or a member of campus security to capture me with minimal effort. From my four years on campus, I knew there was always at least one Public Safety officer nearby and since this parking lot was the largest on campus, the police were bound to park in this lot as well. I would have to run like Usain Bolt to get from one side to the other, and I’d still probably be killed faster than a freshman playing Halo for the first time.

  Trying to sneak like a ninja from one building to another wasn’t a great alterative either. To start, this course was bound to take twice as long as going straight through the parking lot, and the probability of running into people was much higher. I could already see myself stumbling into a classmate, then a, “Hey, York’s over here! Come get him!” would follow before I’d be hogtied with my face in the dirt like one of those idiotic drug dealers on COPS.

  Given those two alternatives, my choice was obvious. I headed down the stairs keeping a brisk walking pace as I made my way towards my old dormitory, Andrews Hall. With my head down, I made my way from Andrews Hall to the all girls dorm, Fraser Hall, before arriving in the lobby of Franz Hall.

  Getting to this point was relatively easy, almost too easy, but next was the difficult part. The distance from Franz Hall to the Chapel of Christ the Teacher was close to two football fields in length. Behind the church and to the left, a stone’s throw away from the chapel was St. Mary’s Hall. On either side of the grassy courtyard were two parallel walkways, both of which led to the chapel. The one on the far right bordered Schmidt Hall, the engineering building, and the left walkway was a straight shot to St. Mary’s Hall. The only threatening problem was that this pathway bordered the Buckley Center. Not only was the Buckley Center the largest building on campus, but many high ranking university faculty members, such as Father O’Connor, had an office there. If the police were to be in any one building on campus, my bet would be on Buckley.

  During most of the stretch, there was no cover, no place to hide. There were small batches of dense bushes growing by the Buckley Center but for the majority of my trip I’d be a sitting duck.

  Gazing out onto the courtyard from the empty lobby, I started to wonder if it was worth it. What was I going to say to my now hated ex, if I found her? “So this was the cheerful news you were going to share with me last night, huh? Here I am thinking you might be apologizing or saying you love me, but no…you’re here to inform me of your discovery, essentially sealing my destiny of becoming some ogre’s bitch in prison.”

  I would enjoy venting before my capture, but I wasn’t going to slice up the blonde midget as much as the dark voices begged. I couldn’t kill her.

  Reluctantly, I pushed the revolving glass door, taking a few short strides until I was once again out in the open. At this point, I decided to go for it. Hayley’s message might not have spread to the masses yet, but it was just a matter of time. Guilty of two counts of homicide, and aiding the mentally insane in a devious scheme to blow up an elderly woman’s car, there was no walking away from my past. By midday, police in the entire city of Portland would be after me. Then if I managed to miraculously make my way pass the police, my trek down to Mexico was surely not going to be any easier. I had cemented in my mind that giving up was not an option, but the chances of arriving in the sweltering Mexican heat a free man looked as probable as winning the Powerball.

  Swiftly walking with my eye on the prize, I headed down the pathway towards St. Mary’s Hall. I was the only soul near the courtyard, but like a zombie in a George Romero movie, a copper was likely to pop out of any corner.

  I was about halfway between Franz Hall and my destination when my nightmare was realized. From one of the rear exits of the Buckley Center came three uniformed police officers. I stood like a deer in the highlights, not believing this was how everything was going to end. Three cops were in my way of ever seeing the infamous blonde who managed to simultaneously steal my heart and my freedom in one fell swoop. The sands in my hourglass had slowly trickled to a stop, indicating my time was officially up.

  All of a sudden, like a snowball clobbering me in the face, the lyrics from my newly purchased ringtone snapped me out of my trance.

  Oh come on, oh come on, oh come on

  There ain't no motive fo
r this crime

  Jenny was a friend of mine

  So come on, oh come on….

  “Yes?” I replied absentmindedly, not looking at the caller name as I launched myself in the nearby bushes. This move wasn’t as logical as walking into the Buckley Center and hiding out in an empty room, but I panicked, sue me. If the cops hadn’t seen me before The Killers song, I was betting they had now. I was so fucking stupid.

  “You’re so fucking stupid!”said the shrieking voice as I placed my phone to my ear.

  Vickie.

  Peeking out of the bushes, I saw one of the officers walking in my direction, staring straight at my little patch of brush.

  “Now’s really not the best time, Vic” I whispered back, barely audible.

  “I can’t fucking believe you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I replied, still too engrossed in the policeman to listen to a word Vickie was saying. He was now only twenty feet from my location as I sat crouched, unable to move. Compared to the pressure of kissing Hayley yesterday, my heart was pounding with an unmatched intensity. Being scared about going in for a smooch was asinine when juxtaposing the two circumstances. This was real fear.