American River Review 2019 - Flipbook - Page 45
bought together just six days ago at Home Depot. He rolls
me, ragdoll like, in the tarp. While I can’t hear his angry
words, the plopping sound the sweat makes as it drips off
the end of his nose onto the canvas is deafening.
a bright red. I watch his memories unfold and see him
standing outside my apartment door, excited for our third
date, a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand and a giant box
of Kleenex in the other.
He heaves my body into the trunk, slams the lid,
leans over the car and curses. Somehow, I am once
again causing him undue inconvenience. He opens the
rear passenger’s side door and retrieves three bottles of
bleach. As he pours each bottle over the blood stains, I
realize how long he’s planned this and all that time spent
this morning convincing me to go with him for “one, last
drop” was just another lie.
However, that sense of warmth passes quickly as a
darkness crosses his face, a storm cloud eclipsing the sun.
I submerge myself into Josh’s memories, feel them as if
they are my own. He fast forwards to his company picnic
where Rick, his former coworker, oddly taller now and
more muscular, is laughing with me at some forgotten
joke. I peer through Josh’s eyes, feel his blood pressure
rising, jealousy pumping through his veins, as he watches
me lean forward, release a button on my blouse then slink
provocatively away, willing Rick to watch me go. I feel
Josh’s hands shake as he storms toward the bathroom.
The primal rage building in him chokes me with every
step and once inside, I panic, jumping out and away from
his perspective as his fists punch the bathroom stall door.
I stand in the memory, in that bathroom, so many years
ago, and realize the intensity of his jealous delusions and
touch the company T-shirt I wore to the picnic that day.
He begins undressing, throwing everything, from his
underwear to his shoes, inside the remaining garbage bag
and tosses it in the car, grabbing another set of clothes I
had not seen from the backseat floor. He is working fast
now.
I crawl inside the car with him – sit in the passenger’s
seat and watch him reach for a Kleenex as he searches his
face in the rear-view mirror, wiping away a small splatter
of blood from his left cheek. For a long second, he studies
the tissue, and I can feel him reliving our second date,
him spooning me chicken soup, insisting I’m beautiful
as I shiver with fever, the skin under my nose chafed
Josh sneers as he twists his body, pawing for the black
garbage bag that holds his clothes and tosses the Kleenex
inside. He settles back behind the steering wheel so
abruptly, the car rocks as he reaches into the glove box
where he deposits the gun I now know too well and pulls
out a cell phone I have never seen before.
“It’s done. It’ll take me about an hour and fifteen to get
to Pinto Lake. You know where we’re meeting right?”
I watch Josh’s hands shake, taste the bile in the back of
his throat.
As we pull away, a small olive-skinned boy stares at
me from behind the abandoned warehouse, dry weeds, the
color of straw, shielding him from view. I shout, “Don’t
be scared. Remember the license plate. Tell your parents.”
But the voice of a dead person, I would come to learn, is
seldom heard.
Our drive is silent. No radio. No phone calls. Just the
rhythm of the road beneath us. Josh is calm, taking the
back roads slowly once we get closer to the lake. We
drive through a county slum campground, one door of a
dated RV hanging catawampus, another crudely spraypainted with “Fuck the Guvermet”. A middle-aged man,
with a stained wife-beater tee stretched over his barrel
gut, stares at me from his lawn chair. I pound on the car
window, but once again, my efforts go unnoticed.
Grasses grow taller, the paved road becomes dirt and
narrows as we drive, even the sun is retreating. I crawl
inside the trunk, inhabit my body, feel its weight shift and
roll as we turn. The garbage bag sticks to my face and
smells of gasoline and mold. My right elbow and knee are
shattered and I listen, in the complete darkness, as pieces
of bone shift beneath my skin.
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