Joan lies in a puddle of blood on the bottom of her bathtub, on the verge of rigor mortis. Her last ounce of mortal strength is thriftily invested in turning the shower off. She was on a tight budget, and to leave the shower on until someone found her dead body would be a terrible waste.
On the other side of the smoldering shower curtain was Bob. He was a flustered young man of about twenty. the still smoking sawed-off shotgun clashed with his fashionably conservative dress, but even more so with his Rocky and Bullwinkle wristwatch. He was deep in thought as he paced nervously reassuring himself, "She was a bitch. She deserved this. I had every right." he thought further, "She didn't have to do this to me. I mean things didn't have to come to this. She had to ignore me. She couldn't just talk to me about it. I'm usually a pretty reasonable guy. We might have been able to talk things out. But NO, she had to sneak around like I was dumb to her game. Well I was, maybe that's why I'm so fucking pissed!" These were his exact thoughts. On the other side of the Singed shower curtain the bleeding remains of Joan's body lay wondering, "What have I done to deserve this? Who the hell did this to me? What's Debbie going to say when she sees the mess I've made?"
Debbie was Joan's roommate in this small but comfortable two flat that was nestled in the picturesque hillside among other quaint early colonial style townhouses. It's convenient location is a five minute walk to the mall or post office. But unfortunately their apartment was without laundry facilities. The nearest Laundromat was an inconvenient car ride away. However -
"Excuse me." Joan interrupted.
"Yes, Joan?" I replied politely.
"Mind if I die?" She asked irately.
"Sorry, you still have a few more lines, don't you?Well, go ahead then."
She continued to think, "I will never see Don again." Don was Joan's only TRUE love. She thought about his deep blue eyes, his long blonde hair, and his darling little bald spot she would tease him so tenderly about. She thought about his skin-tight tank tops that he wore several sizes too small so they would make him appear more muscular, and the cute space between his two front teeth like David Letterman. She wondered if he would sell the gold chain she bought for him. The one she worked and slaved doing pedicures, and manicures, mowed lawns and took up two paper routes to earn the money for. The one she gave up her social life, body waxes, and a two hundred dollar a day habit, as well as her hair to a wig maker, and maxed out her Visa card for, just in the name of love.
"H-hgm!" Joan cleared the blood from her throat bitterly... Oh, I'm sorry again, Joan... The thought of him selling that necklace was unbearable, but she couldn't help but think that he might. After all; he wasn't very well off, and the recession had hit everyone pretty hard. These thoughts were making her want more than anything to be dead. She only has a few more minutes what an impatient bitch!
On the other side of the perforated shower curtain Bob's shaking hand lit a cigarette while realizing how much easier it is to actually kill somebody rather than just thinking about it. He might make a hobby out of this yet.
Joan felt curious, refusing to die without knowing who had done this to her. While Bob was contemplating his final melodramatic statement to the wench on the floor of the shower. Joan thought that she might be able to crane her head with a terminal effort just so she could see the asshole that had done this to her. On the other hand, she thought of how she was nude. Thus contemplating if she was more curious than modest. Finally determining she would live without knowing. (Not for long, of course!)
At that precise moment Bob thought of the words that could truly state how he felt toward the person that screwed him over. He ripped down the tattered shower curtain, and blindly began ranting.
"I can't take it anymore, I've been so jealous! Couldn't you wait until I got out of therapy? You knew I ran out of those little green pills they were giving me. You..." He hesitated momentarily to note that Debbie (love of his life, and intended TARGET) looks a lot like Joan with her hair wet like that.
Joan rolled over on to her back with a distant look on her face she said repulsed, "Bob, you are an idiot. Next time at least look to see who you are killing." Her head dropped to the floor of the tub with a painfully loud thud. Dissatisfied with this just past chain of events she impatiently waits to die.
"Joan!" Bob shrieked in horror, accidentally swallowing his cigarette. Just then he realized his mistake. Today was the second Tuesday of the month, so it was Debbie's turn to do laundry, and of course, that he should not swallow cigarettes. His "I meant to do it" nonchalance was hardly credible as he walked down the stairs in a daze saying, "I need a drink, I really, really need a drink..." He continued this chant all the way down to the kitchen.
Arriving in the kitchen Bob stopped his chanting, and grabbed a plastic shatterproof bottle of one hundred and eighty proof grain alcohol from the cabinet above the refrigerator. Yes, that's right folks, the good stuff. Upon opening the bottle he began to nurse on the opening for a long three minutes like a starving calf. With an unsure hand Bob placed the bottle on the counter. It fell to the floor. Bob spun Earthward in a slow motion spiral fastening his face to the linoleum.
At this point the author would like to apologize. Due to reasons beyond my control our main character Bob has decided to step out of character and to address you the reader (or listener, depending on your literary skills) personally. If only to avoid the humiliation of being depicted as a totally flipped out psychotic dude that talked to himself to help carry this story.
"Excuse me," he began, you're probably wondering why I did this after all; you have been observing the events of my life for the past little while. My side of the story goes like this: I want Debbie dead.... Confidentially, she's been sneaking around on me. She denies this of course, but what happened last night was the last straw... I called her up on the phone. I asked her if she wanted to go with me to see a movie. She said "No." Truth is I didn't want to see a movie either (that was just a rouse to get into her pants, see?) Now don't get me wrong here, I am that kind of guy. The only reason I'm telling you this is because I do not choose to be depicted as some totally psychotic flipped out dude that talks to himself so that you don't have to work too hard when surmising my motives..."
As your narrator, I the author, would like to humbly apologize for this rude assault on your intelligence.
"...It all started back when I was four," Bob began to reminisce. "I'd get beaten by my older brother when ever I did something right... You see, if I did something that deserved praise he would get really jealous. So to make himself feel better he would bash in my face, or make me embarrassed, or something, you know? Needless to say this gave me a very warped sense of right and wrong, good and bad, holy and-"
"Get to the point, Bob." I interrupted.
"Well anyway, this is the fourth time this week that she has turned me down. She's never turned me away before this. Hell, she's never turned anyone away before this.
I had this gut feeling that there was some one else in her life. Somebody that must be pretty darned special to her if she's gonna go around turning me down. My low self-esteem could not stand up to such a challenge. You see I had to kill her. Now, the fact that I blottoed the wrong person I admit this was a snare in the plan. I can adapt."
At this Bob resumed his usual character forgetting that he left his usual character drunk, he plummeted to the floor without resistance. He reached up for the countertop and hoisted himself up to a position somewhere between standing and lying flat on his face. Struggling to stand with the aid of the counter he pushed himself upright. Then he attempted to take one step forward he fell on his side, rigidly like a tin soldier.
5:00 p.m. Eastern Time
The concept of reality was beyond the reach of Bob's grasp at this time. Even more so the concept of consciousness was beyond him. He swooned to the sensation of being on one of those revolving car displays. You know, the ones Bert Wymen always had on his car commercials that would air during the Lone Ranger on Sunday mornings? In the distance a car door slammed. A moment passed, then another. Don entered the apartment through the kitchen door all rapid and excited. "Joan hurry uUuuuuuuuup." his holler turned into a yelp as he slid on a puddle of drool that had been streaming out of the corner of Bob's intoxicated mouth. Don slid across the linoleum floor over Bob and through the door at the opposite side of the room. He regained traction so abruptly on the dining room carpet that inertia hurled him over the table and settings, right through to a smashing standstill in the center of Debbie's twelve hundred dollar soon-to-be-antique display cabinet. Moments later Don came about to his senses. He climbed out of the now decimated early American frontispiece, and quickly made a clumsy attempt to restore the shelves to their original state. Within seconds he realized this to be impossible. Turning to the kitchen Don yelled, "Bob you're an idiot! What the hell are you doing? What's Debbie going to say when she sees the mess you've made?" Bob was out cold. Don went to him and quickly panicked as he realized Bob might be dead. Just to make sure that he wasn't Don delivered a swift kick into Bob's kidney. bob did not move. A wave of remorse swept over Don as he now figured that Bob was really, truly, absolutely without a doubt dead.
"Oh my God, he's dead!" Don exclaimed, grabbing Bob by the shoulders picked him up. "Bob, please don't be dead." Don pleaded as he hugged the limp body. Don began to cry, "Oh man, you can't be dead - Mom is gonna think I did it. I get blamed for everything." He began shaking Bob's flaccid body vigorously. (He never was very good under pressure.) (And yes Don is Bob's older brother, you know, the one that used to beat him)...
Suddenly Bob was conscious.
"ST-o-O-p SH-aa-a-k-i-i-i-ng m-EE-e," Bob demanded feebly.
"Oh buddy I thought you were dead. Don blurted in relief and earnest sentiment. Then with amazing ease Don hurled Bob all the way across the kitchen angered that he had admitted to caring about Bob. Attempting to regain his composure he called Bob an asshole. Then after a brief pause Don asked, "Where is Joan?"
"Don, listen, we gotta talk...You see, it's kinda like this..." Bob paused while removing himself from the sink where he had landed. "See that gun?" he said slowly pointing at the sawed off Winchester Double gauge Elephant waster with laser scope and motion sensor.
"Yeah, it's Dad's isn't it. God, he would never let me borrow it."
"Look, you know how things haven't been going well between Debbie and me, right?"
"Right."
"And you know how they were giving me those little green pills to curb my irrational temper, or what they call an irrational temper."
"Yeah."
"Well I sort of ran out of them a few days ago."
"Didn't you get more?"
"I was going to, but by then Debbie was really getting on my nerves... I just never got around to it... Here it is, I'll make a long story shorter: After I ran out of pills, and Debbie got on my nerves I decided my life would be better without her. That was when I determined I should shoot her."
"couldn't you just break up with her?" Don Asked.
"Oh jeez, ya know I never thought of that..." Bob was perplexed for a moment. "On the other hand; what if we bump into each other at the mall, or something. Like she drives past me without waving, or making faces at me and shouting embarrassing things. She might start that whiny girl stuff about getting back together. Worse yet, what if she starts seeing someone else. I would have to kill myself then. I think killing her now was the logical thing to do."
"Okay, so where is Joan?"
"That's where things get kind of messy. Follow this; I forgot that this was the second Tuesday of the month. Of course we know this means it's Debbie's turn to do laundry. Knowing that Joan works Monday through Friday it was reasonable for me to assume that the only person that could be in the shower was Debbie."
"But Joan called in sick today so that we could play tennis, and eat dinner at the country club."
"Good timing Don."
Did you shoot Joan? You shot my sweet little innocent Joan?"
"Well, um, yeah,..."
'That's great! THANK YOU little brother. I am forever in your debt..."
Bob stared at his brother in disbelief. This was a strange moment of understanding for him. His older brother was for the first time in their lives praising Bob. Don played it off. "I hate tennis! Hit the ball, some damnfuzzygreenbouncymuthufckn ball! BACK AND FORTH! Back and forth!" Don began again in a namby-pamby voice, "Dinner at the country club, dahling? My aren't we the typical Preppy suburbanite dweebs? We'll be role models for our children..." He was getting obnoxious, nevertheless he continued, "Steak Tartar, my love? Yes, I think we should too. With Dom Perinion to start? Or should it be the Gran Marnier? I HATE IT! I HATE IT! I HATE IT! Prancing around like we're Prima Donnas. When the only reason we can get in is she stole her parent's guest pass. CUNT!" This dialogue was really bringing Bob down. But of course, Don continued..."Next thing you know, we'll be living together. She'd make me sell my motorbike for a peddlebike so that I can stay in shape. Make me eat stuff that's good for me. YUK! High fiber diets, vegetable shakes, then what? Herbal enigma? No way, that's what happened to Dad. Now look at him. The henpecked weasel can't think for himself no more! Can't eat meat, low sodium, low cholesterol for a longer, fuller life. Fuller life? Ha, growing old together, yuck. Feeble burdensome malignant parasites of society. That's not my style, ya know?" Don was really getting Bob upset. Apparently, Don has given this some previous thought, a whole lot of thought. So he continued... "Fuller life? filled with her bitching and moaning - "My back hurts. All you ever do is watch baseball, get a job, do some yard work, or something, do you hear me? It would be like this day after day, forever!"
"Okay, I get the picture Don," Bob interrupted."
"I'm not done yet, not until I die, and age would be a torturous death! I am not dead yet but all of our friends would be dead, or dying in nursing homes. Where all they do is play cards. They'd be playin' cards so much I wouldn't be able to beat them at a game of "go fish."
"Really Don, you're getting me depressed." Bob insisted.
"Depressed, depressed? You want depressed? We won't even remember the last time we did the "wild thing" we'd be too feeble to satisfy each other. In our frustration we would antagonize each other saying "you know you were better when you were young, and ..." Bob shot Don in the chest. Don's carcass flew through the doorway into the dining room landing on the table spread eagled across the center.
God that felt good! Bob said with a sigh of relief. "He didn't want to grow old anyway. I did him a favor. Not like he ever did me any. I've always wanted to do that. Ever since I was four and he-"
We know the story Bob.
"Right," he responded out loud. Then he realized that he spoke to someone that wasn't really there. He pondered for the first time in his life if he was in fact a stark raving lunatic...After a brief reflection into his own Psyche, "Naw, just too much excitement. Oh damn, what do I do about Debbie? I'm out of shells. What would she say if she saw the mess I've made? Boy, am I having fun? How can I kill her? I've got to think, got to think..."
9:40 a.m. West European Time
Still somewhat inebriated, Bob wept.
"What can I do, what will I do?" Just then he heard a car door slam from the distance outside. He knew the sound of her footsteps on the pavement, checking the mail and approaching the door. "Oh shit!" Bob exclaimed. Quickly he grabbed a towel off the counter with which he grabbed a French cutlery knife from the set about the sink. The kitchen door opened.
"Bob, what're you doiN-gg
EE,EE,EE,EE! With a cruel precision that only Norman Bates could truly appreciate, he stabbed her again, and again, and another time. She fell to the ground making really gross gurgling guttural sounds for a good couple of minutes.
"Bob, yoo-R * Burp an idiot You'll ne-ver get away ughngaa@#... Just lo-o-ook !rawlf! at this place.. What a st..."
"I'll just make it look like suicide, or something. Or something... You sleazy, good for nothing, two-timing, neat freak, Bitch!" Bob had satisfied himself and he was proud. However, hollow was that victory for she was already dead. Quickly, Bob went to work on his alibi. He wiped the knife off on her skirt because he knew it would have driven her bonkers. He delighted in his deliberate spitefulness. Applying Don's fingerprints to the knife handle Bob tossed it over his shoulder to what he had hoped would be an inconspicuous local. Unfortunately, it stuck to the ceiling, and that would be slightly more difficult to explain away. He folded the towel and placed it back on the counter. The gun was left on the floor. He collected his thoughts, walked to the phone, and dialed.
"Hello, Police? I need someone here right away..."
Bob was helping the police get their facts straight. Almost all of the small town's force was in the small, but comfortable two-flat, investigators from neighboring towns were there. This was big city excitement in a small town.
"...Yes, officer, that was when we wrestled and Don dropped his rifle. I threw him into the cabinet, here. Then I jumped, and rolled over the table into the kitchen. I picked up the gun...he came at me like a wildman. God it was so horrible." Bob was losing his composure.
Meanwhile, paramedics were bringing Joan downstairs on a gurney. In the kitchen, two officers were making chalk marks around Debbie's remains. Bob continued his heroic account.
"...I told Don to stop, I even warned him. I guess he was just too far gone. He came at me so fast that I had no time to think. I think I pulled the trigger." He began to cry, "He was such a nice guy. It's really weird how he just changed like that, he just snapped."
"You're a hero, you know? Who could say how many other innocent people he might have killed?" The officer said in a voice that reminded Bob of Superman. At that moment two officers entered the apartment. One of them ran to the kitchen immediately.
"These people must have meant a lot to you for you to react like you did." An investigator, continued...
"Don was my brother. Joan was his girlfriend, Debbie was mine..." Bob began to cry again.
"Come on Bob, I'll buy you a drink. Then we'll go someplace quiet where you can cuddle-up close to my well endowed chest and cry on my shoulder." The officer began coming on to Bob who wasn't quite sure how to react. He wasn't sure what the polite response was. He didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and this strapping young officer was kind of cute. Before Bob could respond to this proposition another officer, the one that had rushed into the kitchen moments ago, approached Don. His nameplate said Sgt. Jones.
"She must have meant a lot to you." Sgt. Jones began, "I heard you killed your brother over Debbie?"
"She and I had many good times together." Bob turned on the crocodile tears even more...
"Really, all she ever did was tease me." Sgt. Jones said in disbelief.
No, she was never like that with me, we had something special going on."
"Yeah you're just lucky she didn't make you work for it. In the end all she would ever do is lay on her back, and moan. she hardly even did much of that last night."
Epilogue:
Sgt. Jones dies instantly from a violent removal of his trachea from the rest of his body. Bob pathetically confessed to everything, pleading innocent on grounds of insanity in court. Good fortune has it that they weren't buying it. Now her serves a life and one day sentence in a high security prison.
Incidentally, Bob still hasn't gotten his hands on those little green pills for quite a while now. His condition is worsening rapidly. To relieve his anal retentiveness he is receiving intravenous treatments of extra strength Ex-lax regularly.