Normally Special (8 page)

Do not worry, I will never find you. You will be safe. You know I am a coward. You know about my anchors. I did not Google Earth you. I did not look at the front of your apartment building, and therefore do not know it has red brick stones and a blanket of ivy down the right hand side. I did not wonder if that was your car at the curb. I did not stare at the walkway that veers like a stretched comma through a lawn that is obviously meticulously cared for. I did not evaluate the income bracket that it might require in order to live there. I did not think about how you, with your legs strong with boots and its pants maybe jeans maybe shorts on a warm day, and a careless T-shirt so lucky against your torso, with your arms, all of your breathing and being and space you take up without me, walking down that comma, going places in you day to day that I don’t know about, that you never really tell me but that I think of. I did not become jealous of your neighbors, how they ask you how you are every day and how they can just ask you that using any number of words that they want and how they can just look into your eyes and how you can smile at them if you want and how they can just receive that smile and not think anything about that, how they would not lay awake at night replaying that smile in their heads while settling in for sleep, shitting in the face of such a wonderful gift. I do not want to bind and gag your neighbors for this insolence, this rudeness, this chutzpah, this disrespect impudence audacity all synonyms for not valuing that gift and stuffing them into a meat freezer in a basement like I’m a serial killer with a soldier truck and a drive dawn until dusk tunnel vision prizefighter tenacity. That is not me. I did not Google Earth you, so none of these thoughts took place and you can go on speaking to your neighbors who think you are only normally special. Fine. Give me their eyes. Their eyes should belong to me so I can shut them permanently. Undeserving of rods and cones. Complete bitches.

Do not worry, I will never find you. You will be safe. I did not Google Map you. I do not know that, by car, it would take one day and six hours to reach your house. I do not know that, if I take I-15N and I-70 East it will shorten that drive by one hour. I do not know that there are exactly 1,833 miles that I would have to drive in order to pull up in front of that brick building with the ivy. I would not sit in that car with sunglasses on waiting and watching with asphalt burned eyes feeling like an astronaut lady in a diaper. It would be much different. I do not know that, were I to forgo the soldier truck, if the soldier truck stood strong in refusal, that it would take 24 days and 17 hours to walk to where you are. I do not know that if I printed the directions out, I would need 14 sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper because there are 506 points of instruction. 506 pieces of directions that tell me how to get to you; all of them a caring grandfather type holding the sides of my head in his hands, compressing my hair, warm from the sun, kissing the crown of it, whispering, be safe. 506 steps I will cross off one by one, each one a victory. I will not need three pairs of shoes because of the wear and tear. I will not have a backpack filled with supplies and I won’t sleep in forests or dry riverbeds or under bridges and I will not get raped by a vagrant in my walk to where you are. I do not know that, if the vagrant, dry riverbeds, and forests, and shoe wearing are too difficult that I have the option to ride a bicycle. I do not know that if I rode a bike to you it would take seven days and five hours. I do not know what the average speed would be in order to maintain this schedule. I could guess that my intended speed would be the fastest pedaling I could maintain, but this would not be realistic, and perhaps this time frame would be based on an average speed, a manageable one. I do not know the uphills or the downhills or the times I might fall, or the cars that might hit me. Bike riding is a way I could get to you. I do not know the distance or time frame or method of public transportation it would take to get to you because Google Maps did not have options because my location is “outside of their current coverage area” so, this I truly do not know. A bus or a taxi seems too plain to make this quest. Too easy. Baby candy taking. If all of this was something I would do, I’d want my blood in it. I’d want my sweat to show you what it means. I would like the cramp of each of my muscles, and the withering of my fat, and the grind of my bones, and the blisters of sunburn to show you how I strived. Even a truck, even a soldier truck, brave and shaming, seems unworthy now. This I know now. I know this. I want to show you. You should understand. You should understand in your core. You should know what you are dealing with. If, of course, this is done by me.

Which, it most definitely is not.

Don’t worry, I will never find you. Do not worry. You are safe.

Unless you do not want to be safe.

Do you long to feel my approach? I dare not believe this. The thought would rip me in two. Do you look for me at the curb? Do you think of dark roads bringing me closer? Do you want my teeth to tear into you? Do you want me to leave your blood in pools on the floor? Do you want to see me sliding in it, struggling? My hands on you. Will you not fight? Maybe you want to feel my offensive. Everything I brought with me, the journey hard on my form. All for you. You would endure for this. You would let me hurt you in the best way, even if you died, even if I killed you seven times within the dying you would know my depth of love for you, yes love, I said it, because maybe you want, this once, to die from the hands of a woman who would crawl so far to kill you. This death would be the marriage and honeymoon and a becoming you will never have unless for me. I would not disappoint you, if you made this choice. In my killing you would be given as much pain as you wanted and I would take so much from you again and again as I made my way through your skin millimeter by millimeter, tasting it at every moment before letting it make its way inside of me. You’d be smiling, trust me. And I’d drink every tear you give me. Diamonds in my throat. You would love this. If you were not afraid. If you let me.

But you and I both know I wouldn’t.

You are safe.

Do not worry.

I will never find you.

But I could.

If I really wanted to.

About the Author

xTx is a writer living in Southern California. She has been published online in places such as
PANK, Monkeybicycle, Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, elimae
and
>kill author
. Her free e-book entitled,
Nobody Trusts a Black Magician
is available at
nonpress
. Her first chapbook,
He is Talking to the Fat Lady
is digitally available from
Safety Third Enterprises
. She says nothing at
www.notimetosayit.com
.

Acknowledgments

To all of my friends, readers and supporters for making me feel what I am doing is not a waste of time, thank you for every bit of encouragement and every kind word you’ve ever given me. I wish you knew just how much it means to me.

And a special thank you to my editor, publisher and friend, Roxane Gay without whom this book would not be possible. You know.