by Michael Pool
"Holy shit," said Liz. "Holy shit." She was the only one without a gun. But only one shot killed Janet, and it was from the psycho she’d met at the bar. Jesus, she should trust her instincts. She stood still, feeling like an idiot.
Rich looked freaked. "Oh baby. Oh baby," he said. He actually hopped around.
"C’mon. Do it," said Cary.
"Christ almighty. Fuckity-fuck," said Rich.
"Calm the fuck down," said Cary. "There’s no splitting. And you pussies can’t do the shit work."
Liz stood still in the cold, unable to stop considering how stupid Rich sounded for saying 'fuckity-fuck.' She didn’t want this to be her last thought, but she couldn’t help herself. Fuckity-fuck. Fuckity-fuck. He even stuttered.
"We have somewhere to be," said Cary. "And it’s going to suck to bury these bodies in the dark. Ground's frozen enough."
"Wait," said Rich. Had he somehow had a change of heart? Even Liz knew they would shoot her no matter what.
Cary raised his gun, shot her in the leg. She could hear screams, but they were Rich’s, as if he had been the one shot.
"Nope. Done deal," said Cary. "Like so many other things, lost in the river."
Again, Liz regretted that this blowhard’s words would be the last she heard as she lay in the snow, thigh on fire and fighting the slip towards passing out.
"You fucking crazy asshole," said Rich.
"Too late," said Cary.
Derek stood above her not looking like himself. He aimed at her chest, as if he couldn’t stand to mar her face. How stupid. It would feel like a force, a hard weight crushing her. Her death wasn’t even her own, like a movie, however cliché that thought was—just another girl not reading the signs properly, partially to be blamed, no better or worse than anyone else. She came to the realization, she'd been bored for months, and now she wasn't. She began to regret.
Rich was shivering, holding his gun loosely as he slowly drew his skinny arms over his chest. He stared straight at her. He grew dimmer as she imagined some bitch getting the money before he did, his optimism finally meeting an end. Thank god. They’d never bury her body in this frozen ground either. Both women would be found in the river by the police force, its members more numerous than the fish. That seemed fine, preferable even. Goodbye to Gary. But she felt bad for her mom. She was finding peace floating away from the pollution, except for the lunacy of Rich’s warped high-pitched voice, screaming like an idiot.
X
by Angel Luis Colón
Matt’s kind enough to offer a drive to work this morning, which is weird, but welcome. Normally, he’s the prototypical doting husband, but he’s usually in a hurry and I’m the patron saint of perpetual tardiness. We aren’t morning people, so at least it would be a quiet drive. Better yet, it’s my first time in the new Beamer. Always loved the new car smell—glad it isn’t gone yet.
“You mind some music?” He turns the radio on before he finishes the question.
"Whatever.” I’m in a mad dash to finish grading the last few papers on my pile. The only reason I accepted the ride was to catch up. If I’d taken my own car, I would be doing these five minutes before the kids started piling into homeroom. Geraldine, one of my coworkers, can always drop me off on her way home. Whatever, that’s for later. Papers now. The outside world and the fact that my panties are more than likely on backwards need to come in second and third respectively.
I do my best to keep from looking at Matt. That’s been the case all morning. “Sorry I’m so anti-social. I need to concentrate on finishing up.” Not even seven in the morning, and a bead of sweat forms on my neck and crawls down my back. I tied my hair up, but it doesn’t help. I need to chop it all off as soon as I get a chance. “Air conditioning would be great.” I mark another wrong answer with a red X. “These kids never read the material thoroughly.” I’m talking more to myself than to him.
“Well, you’re good with them, Michelle. It’ll get through.” Matt’s words come out robotically—his volume lowers when he hits the end of the sentence. He pulls the car out of the driveway. He keeps clearing his throat.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
I lift the graded sheet—a 60 out of 100—and place it on the center console. It folds over the faux black leather. Move my pen to start grading the next paper, but the sheet underneath isn’t one of the tests. My throat and mouth go dry. Feels like I’m chewing on cotton swabs.
Matt looks over to me. “What’s the problem?”
I lift the paper up. It’s a zoomed-in picture of someone’s cock—not just someone—I know whose cock this is. “Where did you find this?” I hold the picture between my fingertips at the top. Can’t bear to look again.
He laughs, turns up the music—it’s Stevie Wonder, the first song that played at our wedding reception—Ribbon in The Sky. “Where did I find it? You’ve got the nerve to ask me where I fucking found that.” Matt stares ahead at the road.
Dropping the picture to the floor, I reach out to touch his shoulder, but I can’t find it in myself. “I was going to tell you about this, just didn’t…baby, this is very much not what you think it is.” I realize he’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday. There’s a faint smell of bourbon I hadn’t noticed before. “Are you drunk?” I lean over and sniff to confirm the smell is coming from him.
“Very.” He swerves the car back and forth with a chuckle—the way he used to in college. “Don’t worry, though, I won’t make any bad decisions. Not like you.”
My ears go hot the way they do when I’m mad or nervous. “Pull the car over and let me explain…” I reach over to the steering wheel and he shoves my hand away. “God damn it, pull over and let me drive. I’ll explain.”
Matt smiles tight. “Explain? What? About how one of your kids sent that to you?”
I rub my eyes. That only makes them burn worse. “It was a prank; I already forwarded it over to Lisa so we can look into the issue.” I feel the first tear slide out and down my cheek. It finds a home under question three of Marcia Adams’ test. She always gets hundreds.
Matt speeds up. Wipes sweat from his forehead. “Bullshit. I read that message a hundred times last night. It was from that little motherfucker you’re always going on and on about. Neil, right?”
This again. “Because he’s a problem student.” The song ends and starts again—a melodic hammer to get the point through my skull. “Can we shut the music off?”
He places a hand over the radio console and side-eyes me. “Yeah, real problem student for you, huh? Is he even legal? Are you some kind of a pervert now? Is it that I’m too old for you?” He spits as he speaks. “What would possess you to do this kind of shit? It’s insane. We’re going to end up like those people in the news.” Matt wipes a hand across his bald head. All that drinking kept him from a shave. I can see the shadow of his monk’s hairline. “What were you thinking?”
“Holy shit, this is far and away not what you think it is.” I look out at the road. We’re going way too fast. Hope to God there’s a speed trap or a nosy old neighbor out walking their dog—something to get this to stop. “Just stop the car and we can talk. I told you…”
The gun is against my cheek in the blink of an eye—cold, steady. I can smell the oil he uses to clean it. It’s his favorite piece, the .45. The safety is off, but his finger’s not hovering over the trigger. There’s still hope.
“How could you?” Tears spill from his eyes. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“I swear to God, it isn’t like that.”
Matt forces the gun harder against my cheek. My head thumps against the window. Pain shoots from the cheekbone up to my eye socket and into my ear. “Then what is it like? Tell me.” He ignores the road. “Tell me!”
Neil Paulsen—class clown extraordinaire, troubled student—stood at my desk with a shit-eating grin on his face. “What is it now?” He had the same look most of the other boys his age did. Semi-long
hair combed to the right, flannel shirt, skater shorts—the uniform of the desperately “individual." He was as fit as most of the jocks, but didn’t play sports. Around the school, I’d heard him pegged as a stoner—a waste of space. Hearing that kind of bullshit pissed me off. All it took was effort and nobody would be a lost cause.
I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “Neil, this is the fourth time you’ve disrupted the class during a test—the fourth time I’ve given you detention.”
“So?”
“So? What is it going to take to get through to you? You’re a smart kid, I see it. You’re not lost with the material, you’re bored.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. Amazing how apathy never managed to go out of style.
“So you’re going to let your grades suffer for it—drive everyone insane because you’re bored?”
Another shrug.
I watched him. Understood why he was against anyone over 21. I was a kid too—they forget that—all of their teachers were once kids too. The baby fat was just fading on his cheeks. In a year, he might even need to shave the fuzz that patched his upper lip, cheeks, and neck.
“No answer?” I went back to my ever-static pile of papers. Waved him off. “Go home, then, I’m tired of this.”
Neil turned and headed to the classroom door. He lingered a moment and turned around. “What if I did something for extra credit?”
If I didn’t will it to stay closed, my mouth would have slacked open as if I had a stroke. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “You’re right. I know most of this stuff. What if I wrote a paper or something…on a topic I choose? Would that pick up my grade?”
“Seems fair enough. And yes, it would help your grade.” I placed my pen down and folded my hands on my desk. “Pitch it. What would you write about if you had a choice? What historical event interests you enough to write me a well-researched paper?”
His eyebrow raised and he bit his lip. “I read a story about Lincoln’s kid being saved by the brother of the dude who shot him, that seems interesting.”
I nodded. “That does seem interesting. How about, say, fifteen hundred words by Friday? Email it to me.” I wrote out my Gmail address—separate from the school’s to avoid any BS about “unauthorized subjects” or special treatment. I had enough headaches defending half of my lesson plans because they didn’t meet the “criteria."
Neil smiled and took the slip of paper. “Sure. By Friday. Thanks, Misses Gonzalez.” He jogged out of class.
“Anytime, Neil. This is what I’m here for.”
I stared at my papers for another ten minutes and got nothing finished. I felt great—inspired even. For the first time in my six years at Madison High School, I actually reached one of them. The papers could wait until later. Matt was working late, so I decided to treat myself to a fancy burger dinner—even a beer.
Walking out of the school, I noticed Neil standing with a few of the other misfits in the parking lot. He gave me a nod and went back to talking to his friends in his animated manner. Showed them something on his phone and jabbed his finger at the screen excitedly. Heard them all break out into fits of hysterics over one of his stories.
Good kid, all he needed was a little push.
Couldn’t sleep, so I decided to check my emails. Matt wasn’t home yet, sometimes it worked out that way. No news was good news. I booted the laptop up, snuck into the kitchen for some leftover fries and another beer, then sat down to read the messages. Pretending to get work done did wonders for putting me back to sleep.
There was an email from Neil marked as ‘read,' which was strange, because it was sent around 7:30 PM and I’m damn sure I was watching Netflix in the bedroom around then. I chalked it up to a hiccup in a server somewhere out west and opened the message.
I should’ve stayed in bed. The email read:
Michelle,
Missed you so bad today. Couldn’t stop thinking about us together. How about you have a ‘conference’ next week and get away from that loser husband? Then we can do something about this.
I scrolled down—another mistake. It was a picture of Neil, smiling and nude. His right hand was wrapped around a member that had to be Photoshopped.
Snapped my laptop shut as if it bit me and pushed my chair back. Fries and beer spilled at my feet, but I ignored it. Too busy trying to erase the image from my mind, but it was stubborn, burned into my retinas as if I'd stared at the sun too long. The question kept popping up—why? Why would he do this to me? Why would he think this was a good decision?
There wasn’t time to sit and think it through. I opened my laptop again and forwarded the email to Lisa McAffrey, my principal. I changed the subject line to include a huge warning about the content, and wrote a near novel’s worth of explanation. Hopefully she could do something. I mean, my only mistake here was trying to help. How could I have possibly known Neil would do this? I switched back to the original email and found myself staring at the photo again. At his muscular chest, his abs and the most impressive part of the package—for lack of a better word. I bit my lower lip and felt the skin around my neck getting hot and flushed.
No, this was wrong.
I deleted the original email and picked up the phone. It was too late to actually call Lisa, but maybe I could give Matt a call and talk it over with him. He might know what to do. I realized my hands were trembling when I called him. Wasn’t sure why, I wasn’t scared.
Matt didn’t pick up. I waited for his voicemail and spoke at the tone like the lady in the recording told me. “Hey babe, um, it’s almost eleven. Can you call when you get this message? Not sure if you’re sleeping in the office again or if those planning meetings are getting as bad as the last launch did.” I paused. I wanted to tell him about this mess so badly, but over voicemail? No, we had to talk about it in the morning before I headed out to work. “Anyway, love you. See you soon.” I disconnected.
There was no way I could stay next to the laptop or even dream of looking at students’ papers, so I went back to the bedroom. Went back to the marathon of Orange is The New Black and tried to not think of the picture, of Neil’s member and his body. Fucking hell, was he even eighteen? Had to get my mind off of it. Tried to watch Piper chase a chicken for the second time, but it didn’t help. If anything, the chicken made my mind wander to cock, which made my mind wander to something worse.
I jumped out of bed. Tore my clothes off, ran into the bathroom and hopped into the shower. Extra-hot water helped to melt the stress away and I leaned against the cool tile. There were butterflies in my stomach. I closed my eyes and lifted my head, let the water hit my front. Opened my eyes stared at the showerhead. Realized it was a handheld model. I reached up and detached it. I ignored the guilt, set the stream to ‘pulse,' lifted my leg and rested my foot the soap dish. I thought about Neil and aimed the showerhead at the spot that needed the real attention.
“Tell me,” Matt growls.
“I did. I gave him my email for an extra credit assignment and he sent that…that thing as a sick joke. I swear to God, Matt. I was sick when I saw it.” My heart pounds so hard I swear I can see my blouse shifting. “For fuck’s sake he’s a kid and I’m a married woman. I’d never do something like that.”
Matt’s demeanor softens, but the gun doesn't lower. “You didn’t even think of it?”
“Jesus, no,” I lie.
He watches me a moment and his eyes harden up again. “You’re lying.” His foot weighs down on the gas until it’s touching the floor. He sets the cruise control and shifts his weight to press the gun against my face hard enough to push it against the side window. “So maybe you didn’t fuck him yet, but you liked what you saw didn’t you? Maybe you guys would trade a few more snapshots then you could run off behind the bleachers or something. Was that the plan?”
“Matt…please.” A car swerves by on my side—the driver leans on the horn. “Oh God, Matt, please. Just…pull over. Pull over
before we get killed.”
“Stop deflecting the question.”
“Deflecting?” My breath fogs the window. “You’re not watching the road.”
“Did you think of it?” He bites his corner of his lip the way he does whenever he gets mad.
“We’re gonna crash.”
“Did you fucking think of it, Michelle? Answer the goddamn question.”
“Please. You’re gonna kill us.” I look from Matt to the road. We’re swerving between lanes and edging closer to the oncoming lanes.
He takes a long breath. “I swear to god, you don’t answer the question and I’m gonna shoot you in the face.” The barrel of the gun slides down my jawline and rests on the side of my chin. “Right here—so you can feel it.” His finger slowly slides over the trigger. “Answer. Did you or did you not think about that little motherfucker’s cock?”
I clench my eyes shut. “Yes,” I whisper. “It was wrong. Just wrong. I don’t even know why, for Christ’s sake. Maybe it was the shock of it all. I…I’m sorry. I fucked up. I thought I got through to him—really through to him.” I lean my head back on the headrest of my seat. The gun barrel follows. “There’s nobody in this situation that fucked up more than I did, Matt.”
There’s clarity in Matt's eyes that wasn’t there before and he swallows. “I don’t…”
Another horn sounds off. Louder than before—bass to it.
A pop.
My vision goes white.
Matt lets out a loud hiccup.
I feel myself get pulled towards him and then back to the window. My head slaps against glass, and I feel a rush of air. It’s cool against the warm wet on my face and arms. The papers on my lap tickle my neck, lips, and fingers. I can hear glass shatter—staccato music all around us. Stevie Wonder’s hitting the crescendo of his song for the fifth time. None of the noise is in sync with him.