Patsy Klein
I’m back in the truck, buttoning on my Postal Service shirt for the last time. Matty knows something is up, and she runs back and forth from the truck to Wyatt’s front door. If I could put this nasty shirt on without touching it, I would. I hated it from the first second I felt the cheap, sharp collar against my neck and the scratchy eagle patch against my chest. Now the stiffness is gone, but the essential horror of the thing is exponentially worse. I shove on the mail cap and twirl the camera button between my fingers, wishing I had looked more closely at the one I found spread out in pieces in Alistair Meade’s trailer. What exactly can Valor see and hear on the other end of this connection? How well can it see at night? For now I leave it unbuttoned and flopped over against my chest. These final minutes are private.
I grab my signature machine and the last card, the one for Maxwell Beard. Every movement is familiar, rote, just like putting on shoes and socks and tying the laces in a bow. The last thing I do is tuck the gun in my waistband, the weight now as familiar as a hand in mine. I know exactly how hard to squeeze the trigger.
“I’m sorry, girl,” I say, tying Matty’s leash to the truck’s trailer hitch. She strains against it and whines, and I double tie it just to make sure.
Since my first step onto this cracked sidewalk, I’ve made all sorts of mistakes, all sorts of fumbles. It was unavoidable. There’s a learning curve to killing. Every time you pick up the gun, your hands shake less, you don’t second-guess yourself as much. Each time it hurts less, until it’s just a job, just one more thing scratched off the list, just another justification for something you know is wrong.
But you do it like you do anything: step after step. Because you have to. And with each kill, you lose a little piece of yourself, forever.
I remember when I was little, asking why I had to go to school, and my mom explained that you didn’t have a choice.
“I don’t want to go to work,” she said. “I’d rather stay home and watch TV, clean the house, watch the bird feeder. I’d rather make cookies for you every day and be home when the bus gets here. But adults have to go to work, and it will be that way for the rest of your life, so you might as well get used to it. You might not like it, but for now, school is your work. So do a good job, and one day, you’ll be rewarded for your hard work.”
It feels weird, knowing that I will never go to school again.
That I will never get to wake up and go to a harmless job I don’t like.
That there was never a reward waiting anyway.
My mom said do what you have to, and the world said do what you love, and I ended up a murderer.
I take one last look around the blue truck. I almost miss the mail van, with my old posters and pillows and turtles. But I still have my yarn bag and the scarf that I’ll never stitch around the school flagpole. There’s my old backpack, full of dirty white underwear and T-shirts stained with dirt and blood and nervous sweat. I squat down and hug Matty hard.
“I love you, girl,” I say. She licks my face happily. It’s sweet, how dogs don’t understand good-byes.
I adjust my cap and stand. My fingers are numb as I button the shirt, all the way to my throat, a hug that strangles. The sidewalk stretches out before me like a tightrope walker’s wire, a long straight line that can lead to satisfaction or utter doom with one false step. I do what I’ve done all along, what I’ve done my entire life: I put one foot in front of the other, step by step, until I stand again at the front door, under the porch light. There are two small bloodstains on the stairs, and I wonder for just a moment if Bob Beard will haunt this house forever, restless and dissatisfied and angry at everyone but himself.
I reach out and knock, counting the breaths until the door opens.
“Are you Maxwell Beard?” I ask.
“Yes.”
He’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a black shirt with the Bat symbol on it, his hair side-parted over thick glasses. He shuffles his feet and scratches his back like his shirt tag itches him and looks over my left shoulder like I’m not there.
“Sign this, please.”
He takes the signature machine, signs it, and avoids my eyes as I click the accept button.
“Maxwell Beard,” I say, just a little too fast. “You owe Valor Savings Bank the sum of $18,325.63. Can you pay this debt in full?”
He shakes his head, his hands in fists and his movements jerky. “Debt. Money. ‘You’re garbage who kills for money.’ The Dark Knight, 2008.”
I shake my head and hold up a blood-stained green card. “By Valor Congressional Order number 7B, your account is past due and hereby declared in default. Due to your failure to remit all owed monies and per your signature just witnessed and accepted, you are given two choices. You may either sign your loyalty over to Valor Savings as an indentured collections agent for a period of five days or forfeit your life. Please choose.”
His hands uncurl as his face goes red. He takes a step out toward me, and I take a step back because he’s freaking scary. “Choose what? That doesn’t make sense!”
“Just calm down,” I say. “I didn’t have a choice. But you do. You can either pay it right now or work for Valor Savings as a bounty hunter. Or else I have to kill you.” I look meaningfully down at the bloodstains.
“No! You’re a villain!” he shouts, spit flying from his mouth. Everything about him is off balance, the way he’s moving and the rough childishness of his deep voice. “You hurt my dad. Wyatt told me. Wyatt said you would come back, and I told him I was going to do what Batman would do. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Harvey Dent said that.” He shakes his head like he’s beating it against a wall. “No, No! You can’t just shoot people because a paper says so.”
“Max, c’mon,” I say, holding out my hands in front of me. “Calm down. We can talk about this. Take the deal. It’s not that bad. You can be a hero.”
He steps inside the house and comes back pointing a gun at me with both hands, his arms shaking, his face a rictus of fear and rage. I whip mine out too and aim for his chest, but I’m not fast enough. He looks me in the eyes for the first time.
His gun goes off, and my gun goes off, and I’m deaf as I tumble backward into the dry bushes. Overhead, the sky is flat black poked through with white bullet holes, peaceful and cold. I’m numb all over as I lay there and wait for whatever is next.