Feeling Double
"Two weeks." Mitchell said, sprawled across the carpet of my hotel room. "Two weeks until she knows what it feels like, Tim. She's got to learn." A pause, then a shake of his head as he reiterated gruffly. "She's got to learn."
Mitchell always repeated the things he thought were important. I listened carefully, because I knew he did that to help me understand. Hitching my knees up beneath me on the sofa, I scratched at an itch that seemed to be lodged way down in my ear. My finger, rooting around, sounded like a too fast heartbeat thudding against the side of my head.
"Why are you helping me?" Shit, my voice always sounded so small after his. What was I, ten again? Ten like Cooper next door whose Ma had been evicted two weeks ago. His voice was small like that when he came over to hang out when his Ma was busy. Busy like you know what. At night I could hear her and I wondered where the kid slept. I was chewing my nail when Mitchell answered.
"Because I was just like you not too long ago. Fuck, man. Women used to shit on me all the time. No good. No good." The flat of his palm sliced through the air angrily. "We're friends." A shrug, so casual it seemed to force out the tension that had gone crawling across my back. "That's what friends do."
The nail came off ragged in my mouth and tasted like dirt, some chicken too. I got up and went to take a shower.
****
Two weeks. It took that long just to convince the little twat to go through with it. But we had time. We had time. Tim said he'd never been hunting before, never even seen a gun. He grew up with his Grandma in Kansas, some backwater town whose name I can't even remember. Like it matters.
"What's the knife for?" God, he was always asking so many questions. What's the knife for, what'd he think it was for?
"For cutting her up, Tim, cutting her up. You think we're just gonna shoot her? Nah, that don't hurt at all." I was stuffing the blade into my backpack. I'd've like to bean him with its thick handle, but that'd start him crying. I couldn't help but wonder if this little shift of a man had always been so fuckin' whiney.
****
When it was all done, Mitchell said we'd bury her in that field out by the old Masons' place. She was screaming now, in the bedroom, seemed like a million miles away though. I looked down to see that my nails were bleeding and I shook my hand hard, like to shake the pain out.
"Stop it, Susan. Stop it. Stop crying." I said from the doorway while he did it. "I wish you'd been nicer to me. I bet you do too."
There was a lot of red, and her sheets were white. Candy canes. I saw the little calendar - Betty Boop, of course - that hung by her closet. It'd be Christmas soon. In school, our teachers used to give us candy canes before winter break. I took two one year and the teacher slapped my hand. I clutched my wrist. Had it been my right or my left? She wouldn't stop crying.
****
I could see half of his pointed little face, poking out from behind the door frame. He was like half of a man, one arm, one eye, one leg. Half of a man.
"Are you crying?" I stopped what I was doing, approaching him. I wouldn't have both of 'em crying. "Jesus, Tim, you're such a pussy!" When I slapped him, he winced and it made me slap him again and again. His cheek was red and slick. There was a lot of blood.
"I didn't know there'd be so much." Tim had sunk to the floor, face in his hands. It'd get sticky before too long. "Can we turn the lights off?"
"Well of course there's a lot." No, Tim had never been hunting, never been hunting and never gutted a deer. I should have known he'd be surprised. He didn't understand nothin'. That's why women could take advantage of him. Dirty cunts. I felt sorry for him again and patted his head. "We'll wash it out after it's done, okay? After it's done."
And it wouldn't take much more doin'.
****
Susan was gurgling now, like he'd shoved her head under water and great bubbles of air were escaping to the top. It sounded like the moment before you broke the surface of a pool, glubbing and water snapping.
She had a pool. We went swimming in it sometimes. That was a year before Mitchell. And a year before Rob. Rob. Rob. Fucking Rob. I could taste her blood in my mouth; I'd gone back to biting my nails. Sobbing. Well Rob couldn't fuck her anymore, couldn't fuck her anymore.
The shot ripped a scream from my gut and I stood up, wanting to run.
"Good job, Tim. Good job. She deserved it." My arms were shaking so hard that the gun rattled in my hands. Mitchell's voice was so strong, ringing in the back of my head, even though I was alone in the room. He always helped me understand why I did the things I did. Susan wasn't crying anymore. And neither was I.