2 Ghosts

After I drank my coffee, I dressed her. There was blood all over the walls and floor. I never realized how much blood could come out of one girl’s body. The light shone on the metal buttons on her fly, and I wondered if they would hold fingerprints. I used a steak knife to cut out the fly and threw it in the fireplace.

I washed and dried my clothes and put them back on. I had to be extra sure she didn’t wake up, so I went to the garage for a piece of half-inch nylon rope and cinched it as tight as I could around her neck. I heard one of the ghosts rattling around, and I hollered, “Now you got company, you bastards!” I sat with Taunja for a while, halfway enjoying my power over her and halfway wishing I could bring her back to life. But pretty soon I realized I had to get rid of the body and establish an alibi or I could end up at the end of a rope. I was no criminal, but I watched Perry Mason every morning and knew how important a good alibi could be. I said good-bye to Taunja and drove straight to the B&I Tavern to start laying the groundwork.

I drank a Bud Lite and talked to the barmaid and some customers till about 9:30 P.M. I made sure they saw me leave alone. Then I drove ten miles east to the Vista House, a tourist attraction with a view of the Columbia River Gorge. I found plenty of good places to hide a body.

By now I was beginning to think a little straighter. On the way back home I told myself, Don’t make stupid mistakes when you dump her. Don’t run out of gas. Don’t throw up. I had a sensitive stomach. Dirty diapers could make me sick.

At the A.M./P.M. Market I filled my tank and checked my lights. I didn’t need some cop pulling me over for a dead taillight and finding a dead woman in my car.

I backed into my driveway to block off the neighbors’ view when I loaded the body. I switched off the dome light so it wouldn’t go on when the doors opened. I was feeling unreal, a little woozy. I went inside to take another look. Was this really happening?

 

The girl was right where I’d left her on the mattress. I’m still in a state of disbelief. I’m saying to myself, Why? Why? Now look what I’m in for!

I decided that I’d just wanted to see what it was like to kill, to see if I could do it. My girlfriend Peggy had wanted me to kill her ex-husband and I told her I couldn’t. Now maybe I could do the job and get her back.

The phone rang. My heart jumped. Who would be calling at midnight?

It was Peg. I asked, “Where are you?”

“In the East,” she says. “I’m working my way back.”

What a relief! For a second I thought she was in town and on her way home. My heart slowed down.

She said, “Nothing’s working out here.” She asked me to send money for her to come home. She said she hated her codriver because he wouldn’t let her drive when he slept. Plus he wanted to jump her at every stop. And he was a “male chauvinist bastard.”

I knew the real reason she wanted me back. She was finally seeing long-distance trucking for what it truly is: hard, tough, demanding work. There was no nice-guy Keith to be patient with her and cover up for her mistakes and let her crash in the sleeper most of the time. She said her codriver estimated her true miles, and it was never more than three hundred per day. Substandard. But she’d always been a lousy trucker, even when she was driving with me. Driving trucks is no job for a ninety-eight-pound ditz that doesn’t know her ass from her elbow.

I kept her on the phone while I stared at the body on the mattress. I said, “The ghosts are scared of me now. They know I’m badder than they are.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. “Are they still keeping you up?”

“No! They aren’t making their moves and I don’t think they want to. Not now.”

She let that pass and told me that she was headed home—promised to call me when she got close. She said she loved me, and I said I loved her too. I wasn’t sure if it was true, but I loved our sex life together, that’s for sure. Peggy was an Olympic athlete in bed.

That little conversation revived my hard-on. Would I abuse a dead body? I felt the dead girl’s skin. Her tits were clammy and turned me off. After a while I masturbated on her to clear my brain. For a lot of years after that, the memory of her dead body spurred on dreams and fantasies, and I could always masturbate at the thought of Taunja. She became my favorite fantasy.