Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(37)

Maybe Lauren was my last drink of the day.

The tracts blow all over the concrete sidewalk like dead leaves in the breeze.

“You better work on your delivery, Romeo,” the rent-a-cop says. “Now keep moving.”

“Aye, aye,” I say, and give the kid a military salute, making my body rigid and stiff, karate-chopping my eyebrows. “Good job keeping people with guns away from the subway. You really are a fantastic rent-a-cop.”

He looks at me and puts a hand on this two-foot club strapped to his belt, probably because they won’t let the kid carry a gun. He makes this evil twisted face, like beating me to death would really make his day. The rent-a-cop actually intimidates me a little, which is ironic, since I’m going to kill myself. But I haven’t shot Asher Beal yet, and death by rent-a-cop is probably even worse than death by übermorons.

“Here’s me moving on,” I say, and he lets me, because it’s the easiest thing for him to do.

He probably makes what—eleven-fifty an hour?

A rent-a-cop’s not exactly going to take a bullet in the line of duty for that type of wage, and who would?

As I walk away, my backpack feels lighter.

I’ve delivered all of my presents, so now it’s finally time to kill Asher Beal.

Let’s get this birthday party started!

I’m so ready to be done with this life.

It will be so so beautiful to finally be end-of-the-road done.

This will be the best birthday present ever; I’m pretty sure of that.





TWENTY-FOUR


I open my birthday present in the woods behind Asher Beal’s house—feel the familiar cold heaviness of the P-38 in my hand—and then wait for my target53 to come home.

I’ve been doing reconnaissance for a few weeks now, so I know that on Thursdays my target arrives home around 5:43 from wrestling practice, and then usually goes into his first-floor bedroom for an hour before dinner.

The target usually surfs the Internet while waiting for feeding time, at which point the target will relocate to the kitchen.

The glow of the laptop screen lights up the target’s face and makes him look like an alien or a demon or a fish in a lit tank, and watching the target’s dead expression illuminated by the screen has also made it easier to visualize killing him—the weird lighting really dehumanizes the target.

I’ve practiced shooting my target from the tree line, using my hand as a gun.

But today I’m going to creep up to the window, shoot the target through the pane at point-blank range, stick my arm through the jagged glass teeth and pop the target six more times—mixing head shots with chest shots—to ensure the target has been eliminated, and then I’ll escape into the woods, where I will off my second target with the last bullet in the magazine before the local cops and maybe even the FBI arrive.

That’s my plan.

All I have to do is wait for my target to flick on his bedroom light, which will be the first falling domino to set the chain of events in motion.





TWENTY-FIVE


It’s cold and

dark in the

woods and I

wonder if this

is what it’s

going to feel

like when I’m

finally dead—

like a stupid

unfeeling

unthinking

unnoticed tree.

I’m hoping to feel nothing.

übernothing.

I’m hoping that I merely cease to exist.

What dreams

may come?

Hamlet and

Lauren would

ask.54

None, I’m betting.

None.

Hellfire is not in the plans.

Heaven is not

in the plans.

Cold and dark are not in the plans.

übernothing.

That’s what I want.

Nothing.55





TWENTY-SIX


I’ve been watching the target’s mom framed in the kitchen’s bay window, the soft overhead light making it look like she’s in a film and the bay window is like a drive-in movie screen.

I decide to call the movie Mrs. Beal Makes Her Perverted Son His Last Meal.

It’s a boring picture in the literal sense, but it conjures up a lot of emotions inside me for personal reasons.

I remember Mrs. Beal being really stupid56 but sweet on the surface when we were kids.

She would always order us a pizza whenever I was over at their house, regardless of whether we were hungry or not. There was always pizza. Pizza was ubiquitous. It’s like that was an official rule in their house—when guests under fourteen visit, there shall be pizza, pronto.

She was also always singing songs from the musical Cats. So much that I can quote the lyrics of many of the songs, even though I have never seen the show, nor have I ever listened to a recording of the musical.57

“Memory” was her favorite.

Although she also liked “Mr. Mistoffelees,” who was apparently clever.

It’s funny how I’m remembering all of this right now when I’m trying to use military euphemisms, and it makes me sad, because Mrs. Beal has no idea what a Charles Darwin–type favor I’ll be doing by killing her son, mostly because she has no idea who her son is—what he has done and of what he’s capable.