Hard Bite and Other Short Stories (6 page)

I finally read about Franklin in the Del Mar Tymes-Journal, and decided he was the one. Didn’t know him, didn’t have to. I figured that a man with his business achievements, and home, and family wouldn’t have a personality I couldn’t get along with. I was right on the money.

Once I had Franklin in the crosshairs, I came up with a plan, nothing fancy, and pushed his wife down the stairs at the Del Mar Auberge & Spa. I mean, how hard could it be to kill a housewife from Del Mar, for God’s sake? I was right, it wasn’t. She was leaving a fund raiser for children of the homeless, wearing an ass-flattening pant suit and no eye makeup, at the Auberge for Gawd’s sake. The fall didn’t kill her, it just laid her out so I could get a good pinch on her carotid artery. Not enough to bruise the skin. People saw, came running, called an ambulance, and the whole time I kept leaning over her like I was helping, keeping that carotid pinched off. She went to hospital and never woke up.

You shouldn’t waste any time thinking what a shame she must’ve been a good person and didn’t deserve to die. All the time that woman wasted on crochet when she could’ve been fixing herself up and romancing her husband? The husband who paid for the house and everything in it? Right down to the yarn in those god-awful afghans? She was no saint, let me tell you.

I met Franklin at her funeral. Figured if I hadn’t actually met the man before his wife croaked, I wouldn’t look suspicious. I was just an attractive gal who happened along at the right time for a brand new widower. Wasn’t long before sleepovers with Franklin in that big, empty house of his, and it didn’t take much convincing to get him to sell it—even if the kids did do a whole heap of whining, right up to the time Franklin bought us a snappy new condo with a workout room, quadruple Jacuzzi, and Friday night cocktail mixers with the neighbors. Yeah, it was good times alright.

It was a total freak accident that Franklin died. I truly wanted him to be my husband forever. We were making love in the afternoon, like always, and the big one struck his ticker. Maybe I overdid it on the daily Viagra in his OJ. But he died happy and we sure had fun while it lasted.

The last sixty days have been hell in the condo. I needed to get out, do something positive, so I started carrying arsenic with me, just in case I spotted someone special. And sure enough, he’s right over there, about to be unattached. Yessss, she’s raising the glass to her lips...I’ll sip my coffee to make it look like I’m busy, fiddle with the empty Sugar Lo sweetener packet. Shit, it’s not the Sugar Lo. It’s not the...OH FU— †

Eating the Deficit

Another harried day in Sacramento. The California state budget was short a trillion dollars. Again. The governor projected a weary numbness as his aides hustled him through the capitol building corridors on the way to a press conference. He patted his suit pocket to make sure a copy of his speech was in place. Speeches were getting harder and harder to deliver these days—especially the parts declaring that the economy was looking up. Keeping a straight face wasn’t easy.

A small waiting room was situated beside the press conference stage, and the governor stopped there to have a last minute hair-comb and nose-powder, before facing the cameras. He sank gratefully into a folding chair and waited for the groomer to arrive.

A moment later, a smartly dressed lady rushed in. “Governor, it’s urgent,” she hissed. “Cannibalism has broken out. It’s not limited to the consumption of unwanted children anymore.”

The governor stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it about. “I don’t think I heard you,” he said, as a man wearing a ragged suit rushed by the door, gnawing on a severed arm.

“
That’s what I’m trying to tell you, sir. It’s an outbreak.”

The governor poked his head out the door. The senate chamber was a scene of depravity as members tore the flesh from a fallen man. They all seemed gaunt under their fine business clothes, and the energy they summoned to tear at the man betrayed ravenous hunger.

“
Has the world gone mad?” he shouted. “Stop this at once!”

“
That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you sir, there’s no food. People are starving. Even politicians!”

“
What?’ he spluttered. Tap the emergency fund─”

She spat back at him, “Every cent is gone. We were trying to spend our way out of the recession.”

“
Then raise taxes,” the governor howled, as a great spray of blood and fluids flew out of another victim’s neck ten feet away.”

“
Taxes are at a hundred percent,” the aide screamed back. Her pretty blonde hair misted with crimson, but her eyes held the governor’s bulging stare. Her words came distinctly, as though speaking to a child, “Taxpayers left the state long ago. All that’s left is this legislature, and millions of hungry—” Her words were drowned out by cracking and groaning at the senate doors. The wood heaved and buckled under tremendous strain. A massive grinding engine roared behind it all.

The governor put his hands out beseechingly. “What about Washington? A bailout, TARP funds, anything!”

“
That’s how we got here,” she screamed back. “The President kept promising foreign backers would keep loaning—EEEEEYAAAHHHH!”

The great carved doors burst and a military tank rumbled through the chamber. It came to a stop, smoking and chugging, under a pair of gilded Corinthian columns. For a moment, carnage paused. Senators stopped, mid-bite, and let blood trickle down their chins and onto their fancy suits. Above their heads, a Latin motto, lettered on the wall in gold said, “Senatoris est civitatis libertatem tueri.” It is the duty of the senators to protect the liberty of the citizens. But no one was paying attention.

The lid of the tank creaked open and a small man poked his head up, with an AK-57 in his hand. Aiming the assault rifle at the governor, he shouted, “We are the People’s Republic of China. And we want our money—NOW.” The rifle spit red and gold, as screams spiked the air.

A gentle tapping on the governor’s arm coaxed him awake. “It’s time for your speech, sir.” The governor checked the front of his suit for traces of gunfire. There was none. He blinked a few times. No tank, no Chinese military, no cannibalistic chaos—nothing unusual.

The governor reached into the breast pocket of his elegant suit and retrieved his speech. He looked at it for a long moment before tossing it in the trash. Then he walked out to face the cameras.

The Master Bedroom

Mornings, Ozzy awoke in the small upstairs bedroom of the stately Victorian house, threw the covers off his childhood bed, and opened the same, scratchy blue drapes hanging over the windows since he was a boy. The sturdy oak floor creaked a bit, as it did every morning, shuffling down the hall to the master bedroom where his parents were stirring.

Ozzy entered without knocking. Mommy and Daddy lay in their old-fashioned bed with its imposing, carved headboard. They were hogtied and gagged under the covers, but their eyes were wide open, gleaming with defiance. Another few minutes and they’d begin to grunt and struggle. Even in their weakened state, Ozzy was afraid of retribution if they somehow freed themselves. He stepped to the walnut highboy, opened a drawer and withdrew a syringe and small glass bottle.

The needle entered the cellophane seal. He pulled the plunger till the cc amount was met, then pulled a little extra. Turning down the sheets he watched them squirm like fresh- caught fish. The needle submerged in flesh. He murmured, “There, there,” and felt the tension leave his shoulders, watching their eyelids flutter and close.

Mommy and Daddy are safe in their bed.

I am helping them not go to hell.

I am making them clean for heaven.

Quiet hushed the house. Ozzy prepared to leave for work.

***

Once, he’d had an old-fashioned name. Osvald. Now, he was just Ozzy.

“
Ozzy, can you take this over to the plant and get the manager to sign? Now?”

Ozzy dutifully took the document from his boss’s admin-assist. His work was data entry and occasional office errands—for a meat packing company that called itself Farmer Jones. Pigs were slaughtered on-site and processed into sausage, bacon, bologna and luncheon meat.

As he walked the document over to the slaughterhouse, the smell of old blood and rotting by-products got stronger with every step. It took effort not to wrinkle his nose or make a bad-smell face, but Ozzy knew that was an improper thing to do. You didn’t make a face in an area where other people had no choice but to work. So Ozzy controlled himself.

Inside, a whistle blew and people began to file past. Ozzy called to no one in particular, "I have to find the plant manager.”

“
He’s getting coffee with the rest of us,” someone answered. Ozzy followed the crowd to a break truck chugging in the sawdusty yard. A cup of coffee sounded good since he’d have to wait anyway. Before him in line was a plant worker, a Mexican girl. She slipped out of her plastic hair cap and latex gloves, and Ozzy stared at the shiny, plaited hair spilling down her back. When it was her turn to order, she stumbled over the words.

“
You’re a nickel short, miss,” said the server inside the truck. He repeated it in Spanish.

Ozzy rummaged in his pocket, and dropped a coin in the server’s hand. The girl smiled shyly at Ozzy. Fighting the urge to move away, he smiled back.

***

After returning home, Ozzy ate Farmer Jones sandwiches for dinner and then administered the nightly lesson.

“
You have to learn,” he shouted, as Mommy and Daddy shrieked and struggled against their restraints. His routine was to let one arm or leg loose at a time, so they could thrash and flail their muscles in a simulation of exercise. “Learn! Learn! Learn!” he howled, just like he was taught as a boy. Back then, Ozzy mostly learned how powerless he was; how useless and unimportant. Lots of alone time in his room helped. Now Ozzy was grown, it was Mommy and Daddy’s lesson-time.

Mommy and Daddy are safe in their bed.

I am helping them not go to hell.

I am making them clean for heaven.

News events affected Ozzy greatly. Greatest of all were the school massacres where young people ran amok, killing fellow-students and teachers. He felt the young killers’ frustration and pain, but had to admit, they were misguided. They always killed the wrong people.

Out of all the massacres starring youths, he felt closest to MacIntire, Kirker and Leng. The duo of MacIntire and Kirker had planned for months to blow up their high school. Leng had shot up the technical institute where he studied information technology and mowed down dozens of students and teachers, including Professor Rosebaum, a senior on the faculty. The white-haired professor survived Auschwitz as a boy and was Leng’s only serious resister during the entire semi-automatic-and-explosives rampage.

Rosebaum’s faculty picture revealed nothing. He had large, sad eyes and a birdlike neck. Frail was the word that came to mind, but the old Jew’s actions disproved frailty. Singlehandedly, he barricaded a classroom door, absorbing bullets with his own body, allowing several students to escape out the windows with their lives. The thought sent a thrill of fear through Ozzy, and he felt secretly relieved not too many people were around with reflexes like that anymore.

Feeling safer, Ozzy lowered himself into Daddy’s big old living room chair and got comfortable. He loved to spend the evening hours watching news footage of massacres on tape, imagining an audience facing him on the couch; the young ones, MacIntire, Kirker and Leng.

“
Such a waste of innocent lives,” Ozzy lectured them. “Yours and everyone else’s! Executing schoolmates—so misguided!” Ozzy raised his voice, tilting his mouth toward the ceiling, so those upstairs could hear. “You have to punish the culprits; the people who rendered you incapable of dealing with school mates, teachers, the world. If you’re going to punish anybody, punish them.”

On the living room couch, MacIntire, Kirker and Leng nodded sagely. They got it. Too late, Ozzy knew, but they got it.

***

The next day at Farmer Jones, when the break whistle blew, he found an excuse to meet the coffee wagon. Juanita was there, and she rewarded him with a friendly smile, still bashful, but encouraging. Ozzy flooded with conflicting feelings that made him want to run away while rooting his feet to the spot. He wondered what she would do if he touched her plait. Instead, he handed the coffee server money and pointed at Juanita. Then he turned on his heel and started to walk back to the admin building. A hand tapped his shoulder. He turned.

Juanita smiled. “You like go for eat? Movie?”

Ozzy swallowed. “When, tonight?”

“
Si, okay.”

Ozzy nodded and walked away before she could see him burn red.

They went to a movie at the second-run movie house. Something neither of them had seen before, even though it was considered old. Juanita hadn’t seen it because she wasn’t even in the country. Ozzy simply didn’t bother to watch movies anymore. When was the last time he’d seen one─three years? Yes, three years. Before…an incident couldn’t quite surface in his mind. Anyway, something that happened three years ago.

He could see Juanita out of the corner of his eye. The light of the movie screen reflected on the planes of her face, highlighting attractive bones beneath her skin. She caught him looking and he dropped his gaze to the floor where he could see the outline of their feet. She had little feet, he realized. His larger ones made hers look even smaller. A strange feeling that was. He’d never felt big in his entire life. But at least from this angle, it actually looked like he had big feet. It pleased him.