I never believed I could bring myself to actually doing it all the way, killing someone. Even when I was planning it, it was always kind of a joke. Sometimes I see a dress in a window display, and I save up money to buy it, but I know the whole time that I’m going to spend that money on rent. I’m not one of those girls, the kind that can relate to supermodels and keeps her stuffed animals from kindergarten and wears nail polish with sparkles. I just want to look pretty sometimes. I just want to look at myself in the mirror for once and not have to make an internal speech about women’s lib and ego-security. Just because I want the same rights as any man, it doesn’t mean I have no desire to be feminine. I feel like I have to choose between Barbie and Ken, like if I put on a mini-skirt I’m asking to be raped but if I never wear one I’m invisible. I tell myself I’ll buy the dress, and I laugh, even though it hurts deep inside, knowing I won’t ever really have it. So there I was, with duct tape, and a machete, and a bottle of bleach and some rubber gloves. I was just driving around with all that shit in my trunk for almost a year, I even told myself that I was going to make it into an art project. Some kind of industrial sculpture, I don’t know. But then there was this kid.
I don’t think he was really homeless, because all of his clothes were too clean and new. But he was begging for change, and I figured he had hid himself well enough that no one would find him. He was reading some cheap vampire novel. He was like sixteen or so, blue eyes, brown hair in a long braid down his back. I guess it was because he was so pretty, like I couldn’t let him keep living and being so pretty. It was a disgrace to a world trying so hard to be ugly, having something so pretty just pop up out of nowhere. So I start talking to him, and the more I talk to him, the more I hate him. He’s too full of life, he’s got this whole ridiculous plan for himself, he’s got the whole movie of his life worked out and him the star. And I ask him to come with me to this place I know, and he says yes, just like that, with no apprehension. We get in the car, and I drive to the place, not even thinking about it, like my brain is on cruise control, driving right to the hotel.
What’s weird about it is that I remember when that hotel burned and I distinctly remember thinking how sad it was. I mean, back in the day, it was a gorgeous place. The wallpaper was dark blue with light blue print, and somehow I used to identify with that wallpaper, like I was just an insignificant splotch of light blue on a dark blue background. It wasn’t the kind of place I ever thought about someone dieing in. I always think people die in ugly places. I always think, when people die, the light is too yellow and there’s an ugly little dog barking, and the relatives are there but they’re totally self involved and absent no matter how hard they try to be there. But this was personal, and the hotel was personal, and the only thing absent was some part of myself that wanted me to let this kid go, even though I looked for it. All I felt was how close I was to this kid, suddenly, because I was going to kill him.
If you hadn’t shown up, I don’t know what would have happened. He started in with the whole vampire routine, like he’s gonna bite me and all, whatever. I knew he expected me to fuck him, but he was too young, and I didn’t want that, I just wanted to take him out of the world. I just wanted there to be one less pretty boy around to make the rest of us look bad. So I pushed him a little, and he’s all offended, he starts bitching about how he’s not going to do this without a signed consent or something. Consent, right, like he’s the one who would go to jail. I guess you saw all of this, but what you wouldn’t have seen is that I started to wonder just what the fuck I was thinking, like all the sudden I realized that I had an underage boy in an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere and couldn’t remember how I got there. So I panicked and stabbed him with my pocketknife.
I’m not going to go on a killing spree with you, Mercy. I just can’t do that. Before I stabbed that kid, I never even kicked a dog. I’m a vegetarian, Mercy. I feel guilty for eating eggs. I can’t even use insecticide in my garden. People push me around like I’m nothing at all, and I don’t do anything to stop them. I’m no different than anyone you’ve killed, I’m just as pathetic, and weak, and insecure. Sometimes I get this crazy feeling like I don’t exist at all. Like I get home from work, and I’m just about to open my door, and I wonder if I just walked away and never came back if anyone would even notice. I’m that insignificant.
But I’m not afraid of you. I don’t care that you know where I live. I don’t even care that you’ve been in my house. And it’s not because I think I’m special, or because I want you inside me, but I helped you hide that body. You and I both know why that boy had to die. He wasn’t like the rest of us. He wasn’t ugly, or perverse, or marginalized. He didn’t hate the world for producing more beauty than he could comprehend. He didn’t bend over to accept a mediocre fuck because there wasn’t anything better to kill time with. He didn’t worry that Hemmingway couldn’t be improved on. That boy died because the world needed room to grow, and you sacrificed him for it.
I know where you live, too, Mercy.
-Ingrid
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