Living With Murder

1.

The Midwest, 2039

Her eyes were the cloudy blue fish-eyes you might expect a psychic to have and sometimes, at night, she forced them open and daydreamed that her own vocal cords had strangled her.  She could see the ropy things pushing through the skin of her neck.  Then, she imagined nothing but a half-gasp before death.

Late that afternoon, she woke up with a film of sweat covering her.  Mary Miller deliberately made each muscle move, at least a little bit, because she wasn’t used to the strange angles that the couch impelled her into.  Her neck ached, cracked, crunched.  Yet, when she woke up, it was always to the same reality.  Her husband never let her forget.  “Your son is dead,” he told her every morning, every night, every moment he was home.  And tiny glass needles of sadness stabbed her.  One day blurred into the next.  She slept on the couch as a silent vigil for her missing son.  Soon, he might be returned to her. 

Costumed in moonlight-colored lingerie made to resemble an angel’s gossamer wings, she waited for her husband to get home and then ignored him, turning her attention, instead, to a martini or her so-called imaginary struggle to find the son that everyone else believed was dead.

Numerous times, she heard the details: her son was hitchhiking down a deserted road in West Virginia, wearing a sequin-covered gown, and some no-account hick killed him.  The man pulled off the road and dumped his body in a hard-to-find location.  D-e-a-d is a four-letter word and its smallness shows what a large word it is, a word with impact.  But not for Mary.

Her son was dead.  The officer told her; her husband told her; and his dead body on that cold-looking table told her.  But she would not believe it.  “No,” she keened and repeated.  She couldn’t believe it because she didn’t dream it.  Why was there no warning?  Not a single vision?  Brandon and she got along okay enough, but they were never as close as Kirk and him.  Yet, she dreamed about everything.  She saw almost everything. 

One day, they woke up to footsteps clacking on their stone walkway, the only thing to mark the location of their house aside from the mailbox.  The doorbell, which was affixed to the solar panels that comprised the top of their house, buzzed and their home quickly pushed up from underground.  Mary looked out the peephole, suspicious.  “Who is it?” her voice sang politely.

“Mary Miller?  Are you Mary Miller?”

She opened the door two inches and looked at a man with feminine features who wore the standard black and silver colors of police officers.  “Yes, I’m Mary Miller.”

“What’s going on?” her husband asked and hovered behind her.

“I don’t know.”

“You are the parents of Brandon Miller.  Is that correct?”  He took his hat off and bowed his head, almost in tears.

“Yes,” Kirk, her husband, replied.

Mary’s world spun like a merry-go-round moving too fast.  She had to get off, to tell the kids pushing her to stop, just stop already.  Then she fainted in the doorway.

“Can I see where he died?” Mary asked when she came-to.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The couple walked side-by-side to the police-issue airmobile, the officer in front.  Once they reached some switchback dirt road, they hiked into the woods single-file.  Mary wrung her hands.  Her eyelashes and skin chilled by the deeply wooded air, it was as if the trees breathed.  Kirk kept his head bowed low so no one could see his tears.  The officer looked sad but purpose-driven.  The wind was cold and strong that afternoon when they arrived at Brandon’s place of death.  To Mary, this was a holy place where his spirit might decide to return.

“Right there,” the officer said and pointed.  He walked farther away, up to the old dirt road, probably to give them some privacy.

Mary bent and touched the ground where the officer had pointed.  Her ballerina-like shoes crunched over the thin layer of snow that had recently dusted the autumn leaves.  The spot on the ground that the officer referred to seemed warmer than the surrounding area.  She pushed the leaves aside, her hands slimy with their mitten shapes, until she reached the warm earth.  There was blood.  Not much blood, but it was there.  She touched her fingertip to the drop and held it against her lips.  That might seem disgusting to someone else, but to her, it was all they had left of their only son.

Kirk stood over her and watched.  “At least it wasn’t cancer,” he said.  “It was faster than that.”

Mary turned around, face contorted in confusion.  How could he be so glib about their son’s death?  “He probably writhed in agony for three full minutes.  It’s not as if he was shot between the eyes.  He was strangled to death.”

“I know,” he mumbled, and moved the dirt around with the right toe of his work boot.

Mary expected to fall into her husband’s arms and weep.  She expected that he would rub her back and tell her everything was going to be okay.  She expected that through their tears and willpower—she did have psychic abilities, after all—maybe they could bring him back.  Instead, they stared off in different directions and didn’t speak until Mary looked up and asked, “Can we get out of here?”

“Yeah.”

Mary’s family was New Orleans Catholic, which meant that a cup of voodoo had been thrown in with a pinch of the saints.  She wondered if some powerful Mambo High Priestess in her ancestry could account for her clairvoyance.

Brandon was such a good kid, an even better man, that no one could have predicted so much hate at his funeral.  People spit words and raised their fists, their holoslogans[1] glowing above the somewhat circular throng.  On both sides, there was anger.  It seemed that she and Kirk were the only ones who just needed to grieve and remember him well.

Reporters were nearby, waiting to get breaking coverage on them.  She rolled her eyes as yet another broadcast journalist asked the stupidest question of all, “How are you feeling?”  She always wanted to answer the same way: punch the reporter repeatedly in the chest and eventually stop, and then say, “That’s how I’m feeling.”  Of course, they were likely also waiting for the riot that would ensue between the Millers and the anti-gay community if anybody should be foolish enough to speak a mean word about her Brandon.

The day was cold, pretty enough for the time of year.  Had it been summer, more people would have attended, probably wearing skimpy outfits like they thought this was some spring break vacation get-away, all with their young tongues waggling hatred, and all with their own little agendas that excluded her son personally.  She looked at them, and then turned away.  Her only agenda was as a mother.  Her only big agenda, now that his remains lay before her, was justice.  She refused to look at his body, even when Kirk said maybe she needed to see his death for herself or she might always regret it.  She turned away and wept into her husband’s shoulder.  “That’s not him.  I know that’s not him.”

2.

It was a month since Brandon’s death, and nearly Christmas. 

Kirk Miller tired of the lonely, unclean house that smelled like mothballs and dust; he tired of its dingy, closed-up-sarcophagus look.  Then, there was Mary.  She moped around the house with her head hung so low that sometimes Kirk imagined her neck snapping off, head falling to the floor like a withered hydrangea. 

Often, he wanted to hold Mary the way he did when they were first together.  Mary used to squeeze him so tight that her tears crushed his chest, and he raked his fingers through her long hair.  Back then, she knew how to be human.  Back then, they knew how to take comfort in each other.  Back then, they loved each other.  But Brandon was a wound that grew between them; she jumped at his touch, as if so spellbound by the world she created for herself that reality seemed like this frightening pest, a tarantula that kept crawling up her arm. 

He went to their bedroom and daydreamed about the perfect Christmas.  The taste of old-fashioned treats like eggnog, peanut butter cookies, and his aunt Cyndi’s fudge rushed his imaginary senses.  He could smell the pine inside their home, red cinnamon candles sparkling everywhere around the house, flickering with warmth, life.  The tree itself would be a glittering majesty.  The Perfect Christmas: the impossible dream.  Brandon made it impossible.  His wife made it impossible.  His family, none of which bothered to call on Thanksgiving, made it impossible.  He had to make the effort.  He had to try to move on from the memory of his dead son.  Once, he was alive too.  Brandon was always on Kirk’s mind, but he wanted to do normal things.  He thought that by doing normal things, maybe something, anything, could feel normal again. 

But Mary had other ideas.

This year, Christmas was forbidden.  Mary forbade most things that marked time.  Kirk understood.  He hated to think of the days and weeks and months without Brandon that would soon add up, the snowball accumulation of time that would eventually end in his death too.  He wanted to be happy.

Every morning, he decorated in mock-glee.  The only thing that kept him from being happy was Brandon: he wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas.

One night, he found the perfect tree and decorated it in silver and white ornaments; he festooned it with noisy bits, bubble lights, and subtle amber colors that reminded him of a warm fire.  He put up the icicles and the tinsel, hummed Christmas music to himself and kept moving.  Movement made his sadness almost bearable.  These were the things that his wife should have done because she had always done them.  They were her specialty, but she lived in another part of the house.  She lived inside her mind now.  When Kirk woke up the next morning, the trimmed tree’s tip was smashed in the corner, horizontal on the floor with the skirt smothered into the next room.  By Christmas Eve, it had become a daily routine: put up the cards in celebration; see them knocked to the floor by morning.  Mary wasn’t doing well with Brandon’s death.  Yet, she was selfish.  She couldn’t seem to comprehend, no matter how often Kirk told her, that these things helped him.  And it was hurtful to see Christmas so constantly ruined.

Every morning, they passed in the hall.  For months, he stretched his neck to kiss her and mouthed, “I love you.”  He wanted to do more than that and to be her Happy Place again.  But she stared at her hands folded in front of her.  She looked at something on the wall.  She looked away.  She never looked at him and said, either in words or actions, that she loved him.  Met with constant rejection, he grew disinterested.  Occasionally, he pictured himself slapping her across the face just to see if she would react, but he wasn’t that kind of man.  Not yet.

“Good morning, Mary,” Kirk said loudly.

She ignored him and walked into Brandon’s room.  First, she dusted.  Then, she made his bed.  Afterwards, she vacuumed, turned out the light, and kissed the doorknob goodbye.  Kirk didn’t understand it.  It was as if she expected him to come home soon.

Mary glared at the presents he put under the tree.  The first day, before dusk, she shredded their wrapping the way an animal might: with dents and fingernail scratches and bitter smells.  As she did so, Kirk watched not in anger but sadness.  Slowly, she tore the family apart.  All his memories converged into this one bestial moment when no one could have Christmas.  Mary stole time—she marked the days, weeks, and now a month, in denial.  Brandon would always be dead; and since he was dead, there was no way to be a family again.  They all had to die together.

 3.

Right After the Murder

JONATHON NATHAN MARKS

The delicate neck, which was a woman’s graceful swan neck, crunched under the force of his powerful thumbs.  He used all his body weight.  The blood must have come from the underside of the kid’s neck.  John’s fingernails poked through and he still smelled the blood on his hands, unable to scour it away.  He kneeled beside the “woman’s” body and gazed at what he had done: bruises, purple and blue, around the neck and a horrible stare that reminded him of the deer he shot.  But that was an hour ago and he still smelled blood on his hands.  Where had the blood come from? 

John Marks returned to his log cabin.

A bad winter storm whipped five-pound snowflakes against his windows.  Once, he might have braved the cold to chop wood for the wood burner.  Once, he might have dragged heavy, maple tree chunks on his sled from far off.  Once, he might have done whatever was necessary for him to survive.  Once.  He didn’t wash his hands or do any of the things a murderer should do right after strangling someone to death.  Instead, he curled into a corner and rocked on his tailbone, the wall cold against his back, near tears, and hoped no one would find him.  Eventually, the wood smoke that clung to his flannel shirt took on a strange odor.  What should he do?   

John Marks had rough, leathery skin.  He still shaved with an old hunting knife.  His thick facial hair was reddish-brown and untrimmed.  He wore flannel shirts with holes in the elbows and blue jeans with baling twine for a belt.  Tall and barrel-chested, he might have been mistaken for a lumberjack except that in most areas, it was illegal to kill trees.  His was not a modern “airmobile” life.  He preferred the old vehicles that ran on gasoline, and got himself to town in his 1964 sky blue Ford F-100 pickup.

He dozed in his soft rocking chair for a little bit; Pete, his fifteen-year old yellow Labrador retriever, snored in his lap and kept him warm.  Several days later, when he finally regained his senses, he changed his shirt.

“I killed someone,” he said out loud.  He heated water on the stove, and in the bathtub, he mumbled those same words.  What was the normal thing to do after you had killed someone?  He scrubbed and scrubbed, but couldn’t get clean.  Soon, he had to chop wood and make dinner.

Two weeks later, sweat poured down John Marks’s forearms as he pumped air from the outdoor water spigot.  Pete lay on the front porch, chin rested against a loose board, and watched.  Normally, the water gushed.  The wind beat against his cabin and howled.  John Marks wasn’t a superstitious man, but there was a sour taste in the wind.  He slammed the door shut against evil spirits and the screen door flapped open. 

Pete lifted his head and howled in a way he hadn’t done since a pup.  His tail wagged as if sensing an enemy, and he tiptoed inside, paws scratching the hardwood floor.

“What’s the matter, old boy?”

The dog lifted his head and then let it fall back down, as if it was all too much effort.

John dragged the rotary telephone out of the closet and blew the dust off to call his grandma.  His gut told him they were closing in; it wouldn’t be long before they had him locked in a cage.  Grandma would never forgive him if she had to hear what happened on the news.

“I wanted to let you know I killed somebody.”

“Johnny?  That you?  What’d you go and kill somebody for, Johnny boy?”

 I was scared what might happen when I learned that boy was gay.  I was scared I might turn gay.  “I don’t know why,” he answered.

“I’ll pray for you.”

“I think Pete’s real sick.  You’ll take good care of him, won’t you?”

“Sure, if you need me to.”

Nobody owned telephones anymore so the government didn’t bother monitoring them, unlike other communication devices. 

“Poor Pete,” she said like she cared more about the dog than her own grandson.

“Yeah.”  He hung up.

Later that night, he turned himself in.