American River Review 2019 - Flipbook - Page 46
The engine exhales as we come to a stop. Keys jangle,
feet hit the dirt, a car door slams and Josh says, “Let’s get
this over with.”
A voice I recognize replies, “I brought five of the
bastards. Man, she ain’t goin’ anywhere but down.”
I stand outside and watch Josh make his way toward
the trunk and am only half surprised when I see Bruce
standing next to his gray Dodge pick-up. The back tires
partially in the lake. A small silver rowboat floats in
the shadows as if maniacally eager to participate in my
disposal.
“Man, I don’t know about this,” Josh says. “How do we
know some dumb-fuck fisherman isn’t going to hook a
piece of the canvas?”
“Josh, we’ve been over this a thousand times. She’s
gonna sink to the bottom and, besides, ain’t nobody
fishin’ around here. I mean, look at it.”
Bruce is right. The water is a stagnant, murky brown,
a film of greasy toxins floating on the top, circling a few
dead fish whose scales are wiped away, their pale bluishpeach skin now similar to my own.
Josh wipes the sweat off his forehead and heads to the
back of the car, popping the trunk with the remote.
“See. She ain’t even bled through the tarp,” Bruce says.
He holds his hand up for a high five and Josh reluctantly
complies.
Together, they lift my body, much easier now that there
are two of them, and lie me down on the wet dirt. Bruce
kicks the lump that is my body so the tarp will unroll.
“Easy, Bruce,” Josh says.
“Really? You killed her and I’m the bad guy?” Bruce,
for some insane reason, pulls the garbage bag off my
head, the ends of my long hair, matted in blood, stick to
the bag. “Jesus, Josh, you didn’t even close her eyes?”
Bruce bends down to shut my eyelids but rigor mortis
has begun to set in and while the rest of my body is still
pliable, my eyelids will not close, my neck and jaw are
stiffening, taking on a perverted form. “Amateur,” he
says, replacing the garbage bag.
Bruce is among a handful of Josh’s loser “clients”. The
deeper Josh got into dealing drugs, the more deviant his
clientele had become. After he met Bruce, Josh began an
isolating path of paranoia to accompany his temper and I
stayed riding shotgun as he closed in our world, turning
our home into a bunker from which to fight his imaginary
war. The red flags waved ridiculously but I was too scared
and oddly too comfortable to leave. I sank with Josh
and even prided myself in knowing how to negotiate his
moods, treading skillfully so the eggshells wouldn’t crack
beneath my feet. Staying quiet as he covered the windows
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American River Review
with foil to prevent “them” from peering in, pretending
not to notice as he drove different routes home, and most
importantly, recognizing the subtle rigidity of his jaw and
the twitch in his left eye that always preceded a violent
explosion, commending myself when I could dodge his
anger and alter the outcome. But I neglected to notice that
while I was laser-focused, playing this dangerous game,
the rest of my world was falling away. And for that I
will become at best a Jane Doe, a dusty manila cold case
folder. But, more likely, no one will even notice that I’m
gone.
Bruce wastes no time and begins to pile cement blocks
on me, tossing some from the bed of his truck. I crawl
inside my body, feeling the blows as punishment for
not leaving Josh sooner. My ribs break and I hear the
hiss from my right lung. One block slams into my nose,
cartilage splintering like lightening followed by a fault
line crack through my skull. Josh joins in and soon all
five blocks lay across my broken frame.
They pull the tarp around me and secure the canvas
with rope, my body tugs as the knots are tightened. I
am heavy. My back digs into the dirt as they drag me
closer to the shoreline. Loud grunts fill the abandoned
air as they slam me into the bottom of the boat. Sweat
on canvas. Plop. Plop. Plop. The rocking is perversely
comforting.
“Shit! She’s heavier than I thought. This is gonna cost
you Josh.”
“It already has.”
I float onto shore and stare at Josh, knee-jerk regret
shadows his face, but I know from experience it will
vanish before the sun rises.
“God Damnit Josh. You done the right thing. She
would’ve killed you first and if she found out about
Twinkle Tits, Melissa’d be dead too. After all this broad
did to you, you’re really gonna question that this was the
right move? The only move?” Bruce pauses, searching
Josh’s face. ”Don’t get soft on me now.”
Josh stares at his work boots.
Bruce claps his hands, inches from Josh’s face. “Snap
out of it! C’mon!”
Josh nods and closes the trunk of his car, then backs
it up about forty feet into a clearance. Bruce leaves me
bobbing in the boat while he pulls his truck forward. I
stare at the NRA bumper sticker until I can no longer
make out the thick black letters. Both men return with
oars and climb in the boat, digging their heels into me to
gain traction as they row.
The quiet nature provides at nightfall is a rare
combination of calm and fear and I know both men
wonder whose eyes are watching them tonight as they