Notes on an Execution(42)

The world is bristling, magic. And soon it will be yours again.

*

The van is waiting by the chain link fence.

You expected a flock of correctional officers, dopey and power-drunk. Instead, you find half a dozen men in business attire—you recognize the senior warden, and the deputy executive director. They are flanked by a mass of sanctioned peace officers, sent by the Office of the Inspector General: a small herd of hulking men in fatigues, armed with assault rifles. You think of the little pistol Shawna has described, her husband’s old Smith & Wesson revolver, and something shifts uncomfortable in the pit of your stomach.

You approach the grumbling vehicle, surrounded on all sides. The warden slides the door open, and a lingering second of utter panic engulfs you—the gun will be waiting on the floor beneath the front seat. The anxiety eases slightly as they push you toward the far window of the van, right where Shawna has promised, just behind the driver. The van smells like rubber boots and old vinyl. You knew that these officers would ride along, that the armored cars would follow, a police motorcade, but you did not expect it to feel so menacing.

Gravel crunches. As the van bumbles from the parking lot, you take a long exhale, extend your legs beneath the seat, where Shawna has planted the pistol. Your shoe brushes something hard. Metal. But the reassurance does not come. You picture Shawna’s face, the self-conscious blush of her flaky skin, and it occurs to you that the plan is not perfect.

The plan is hardly a plan at all.

Soon, you will reach the river. The highway will take you past scattered homes and dry plots of land, swampy ponds and old manufacturing plants. Eventually, you will pass the Sam Houston Monument. The signal.

Until then, you wait. The driver’s window is cracked slightly open. Outside smells like April—the scent filters through the inch-wide slit, a promiscuous hint of floral summer. Teasing, fresh.

It brings you back.

*

The third Girl came right after the second. A test, that bottomless summer.

You went alone to a bar, where you ordered a Coke and scanned the crowd. The disappointment hovered, looming. You suspected you would not find that stunning relief again, but you had to try, just one more time. You did not care what it meant, that peace came only after violence, and then only sometimes. It felt less like a choice and more like a need—you had to chase the quiet.

There was a punk band playing, a shrill screech that distracted everything, sweaty bodies grinding through the heat. When you noticed the top of her bobbing head, retreating through the side door for a cigarette, you followed, asked if you could bum one. The third Girl looked obscurely familiar—she had hair dyed blue, a ring like a bull through the cartilage of her nose. Don’t you remember me? she said. Her eyes were inquisitive, a joke and a dare. You nodded. You lunged.

The music played on in the bar, a deafening squall that drowned out her wheezing. You hoped maybe the danger would heighten it, the possibility of capture, the fact that she gasped only feet from the door. But no. This last one was a bad idea; she fought back, kicking you so hard in the eye you saw stars. A scuffle, a shriek. At one point, she had you pinned against the wall. But in the end, you were bigger—it took so long to tighten the belt around her neck, you dragged her to the car still twitching, afraid someone would see. Pure luck: no one did.

As you shoveled the dirt over her limp and useless form, you felt a wide, furious nothing. She was dead, and you were the same, and nothing mattered at all.

In the sour moonlight, you examined the ring you’d plucked from her finger.

You knew this ring. Miss Gemma’s. You remembered how those girls had laughed through the door, when you gifted those cookies. It seemed impossible that the same Girl splayed limp before you, that the world had served her back to you like this. The recognition felt like a slap from a parent—standing over all three of those Girls, you wished you could take it back.

You shouldn’t have done it. You were sick and wrong. Most devastatingly, you were unchanged.

Your Theory grew then, expanding, a truth proven as the moonlight jumped off purple amethyst. You can do the vilest thing. It’s not so hard, to be bad. Evil isn’t something you can pinpoint or hold, cradle or banish. Evil hides, sly and invisible, in the corners of everything else.

After, you stumbled through the thicket of trees. You got into your car, hands trembling deranged, the ring in your pocket poking jagged against your thigh. Four in the morning, and furious tears flew down your cheeks as you swerved onto the highway. You drove, resigned, to the hospital.

You have never told this part of the story. You don’t know where it came from. Maybe it came from that little girl’s smile, laughing in the glow of Miss Gemma’s television. Or maybe from the fact that it did not even feel good anymore—and if it did not feel good, then you had no idea why you’d killed them.

You left the car running in front of the emergency room. The hospital was lit up bright, all whites and blues, daunting and sterile. You walked, stunned, into the searing light. You knew how you must look, shaking and covered in soil, the welt of your black eye already swollen to a soft oozing purple.

Can I help you? a woman called from the reception desk. The waiting room was empty, and it smelled like latex and disinfectant.

Please, you whispered.

Sir?

Please, you said. I don’t want to be like this.

The woman stood. She was wearing pastel scrubs patterned with smiling teddy bears. She gaped at you with the confused and vaguely alarmed eyes of everyone you’d ever known, all the social workers and foster parents and concerned teachers. You realized it then. If you could be helped, they would have done it long ago. The singular truth of your life seemed to rise from your chest, unignorable, as you backed out through the ER’s sliding doors. You were impossible. Beyond help. You would never be more than your own creature self.