Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(41)
The mouth of my P-38 is almost touching the glass now.
Primary target doesn’t sense I’m just outside his window.
Primary target is approximately five feet away.
If your grandfather could execute an evil man, so can you, I think.
The computer screen casts an eerie glow over the target’s bedroom.
As I hover above my body, I try to move my index finger so that it will trip the trigger and the
P-38
will
dischar
ge and
the
glass
will
shatter
and the
target’s
head
will
explod
e like a
pumpk
in.
But that doesn’t happen for some reason.
The target clicks off his computer and the room goes dark.
It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but when they do I see that Asher has his dick in his hand and he’s jerking off in his chair, only he’s turned sideways so that his pumping fist won’t bang the underbelly of his desk. He’s even thrown back his head.
But, amazingly, even with Asher jerking off five feet away, I just can’t stop thinking about that day we went for that long-ass bike ride and wishing we could erase everything that happened since and live in the space of that one single day.
I remember turning around at the designated time so we wouldn’t be late for dinner, so we wouldn’t arouse our parents’ suspicions.
We were in front of a car dealership and there were all of these red, white, and blue balloons left over from the Fourth of July. We put our feet on the concrete, straddled our bikes, and surveyed the new land we’d discovered.
It was like we were little Christopher Columbuses or Ponce de Leóns.
Like we had left safe land and survived unknown waters.
BMX bikes were our ships.
Asher said, “We made it pretty far.”
I nodded and smiled.
“We can do this every day this summer. Go in so many different directions! Like the spokes of our bike wheels!”
I remember the look on his face was genuine pure excitement—like we had just discovered we had wings and could fly.
His eyes radiated like the summer sun above us.
But we never did go on another bike ride like that ever again, and I’ll never understand why.
Our parents didn’t catch us.
We didn’t get into any trouble at all.
The trip was a complete success.
We just never got around to taking another daylong ride, maybe because of what Asher’s uncle started, and that seems so so f*cking sad right now, such a missed opportunity, that my eyes get all watery and my vision blurs.
My P-38 is
still pointed
at the primary
target, but I’m
starting to realize
that I’m not
going to
complete
this mission.
I’m
a
terrible
soldier.
My grandfather would probably call me a faggot and slap the shit out of me, like he used to do to my father, or so my mother told me at my grandfather’s funeral, when I was in the third grade.
My heart’s just not in it, but I’m not really sure why.
Probably because I’m a f*ckup who can’t do anything right.
My essence gets sucked back into my body and then I’m clicking the P-38 safety back on.
I stuff the gun into my front pocket, pull out my cell phone, and hit the power button.
As soon as it loads up I tap the camera icon, make sure the flash is on, point it at Asher’s bedroom window, discharge an explosion of white light so he will know someone has taken a picture of him jerking off, and then run like hell through the woods.
TWENTY-NINE
As I snake through so many leafless trees, kicking through mounds of dead foliage and fallen branches, I keep tripping and worrying about the P-38 accidentally firing a bullet into my thigh—but I keep laughing too.
I picture Asher jumping up when he saw the flash and then scurrying to the window and seeing someone running for the woods.
I wonder if he knew it was me.
Of course he knew it was me!
Who else would it be?
Although he probably has many enemies and maybe even has a new secret boy, now that I’m out of the picture.
Still, whether he knows it was me or not, he’s probably worried about that photo showing up on Facebook or being posted all over the hallways of our school—and even though I would never do either of those things,66 it’s still kind of funny thinking about Asher’s jerk-off picture going public.
I mean, think of the meanest person you know.
Think of Hitler, even.
And then picture him jerking off alone in a room.
Suddenly, he doesn’t seem so evil and impressive anymore, does he?
He seems sort of hilarious and powerless and vulnerable and maybe even like someone you feel sorry for.
Back in junior high, our health teacher told us that everyone masturbates.
Everyone is a slave to sexual desire, I guess.
And so maybe everyone deserves our pity, then, too.
Maybe if we would just picture our enemies jerking off once in a while, the world would be a better place.
I don’t know.
Somehow I end up by the river and decide to catch my breath under this little bridge where there are endless empty beer cans, shards of cheap alcohol bottles that were long ago thrown against the massive concrete wall, used condoms here and there, and all sorts of graffiti—gems like “Rich f*cked Neda here 10-3-09” and “Super Cock Hero!” and “Tru Nigga 4 life,” even though there are no black people living in our town.