Killing Time

TW: mentions of child and elder abuse, violence, minor sexual content

It is low hanging fruit to talk about the dead. Look at where I work, girl. The dead are my friends. Temporary friends. Sudden Friends. Passing friends. These folks aren’t just clients to me. I care about them - like family. And in a way they are. My real brothers and sisters are always busy. No time for lowly little me, doomed to be the ultimate intermediary. The dead are never too busy.

It’s a good thing that I find humor in their stories. I get little enough entertainment here. Saying too much is bad for business, but you won’t tell, will you? Besides, if you make it back, you won’t have any choice but to forget.

The ones I recall aren’t the simple and sweet ones. Or even the simple and bad ones. Husband cheats on wife and dies of cancer all alone. A tearjerker, but not enrapturing. Old lady trips down the stairs. Boring. A child… No. No children. Too short for a real life lived and too sad for being so short.

Sit down there on the bank. Here’s a dry spot. I don’t leave until the boat is full. There. comfortable? I may only have time for one so let me start with one of my favorites.

Let me tell you about Jelly.

***

Jelly Lawson was not named Jelly after her parents’ favorite sweet. Jelly was named Julian after the hero of a novel her mother read once in college. Jelly Cat was the brand of a toy line that her grandmother favored for stuffed animals. First she was Kitty. Then Kitty Cat. Then Jelly Cat. Then Jelly. More than one boyfriend had quipped that Jelly was short for jealous. This wasn’t completely off the mark.

Her mother liked to play games with Jelly. Hide and seek. Tag. Red Rover Red Rover, come on over. Duck, Duck, Goose. Chutes and Ladders. Her mother would let her get out of punishments if she won.

“Put that paddle right over there, girl. Scrabble it is.“

“Leave the closet door open. Let’s go for UNO this time. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

Jelly became very good at games. Just not as good as her mother.

This pattern lasted until Jelly was old enough to be on the other side of that table and her mother was too old to complain.

“Put the cane right there, momma. You left the milk out again. I have time for a game of Boggle. Don’t cry momma. You might win this time.”

When her mother passed away from what the doctors determined was a stroke, Jelly was not as torn up about it as you might think. Losing her aged playmate was a strain, but her mother had begun to be far too predictable. And given her age, the games were limited.

***

Scoot over, girl. Sit further to the right. We don’t want to get in the way, now do we?

ALL YOU FINE FOLKS, UP ON THE FERRY NOW. TAKE A SEAT. WE’LL LAUNCH WHEN FULL AND NOT BEFORE.

Now girl, where were we? Ah, yes, the need for a new playmate.

***

Jelly didn’t kill anyone, exactly. She enjoyed creating risky circumstances, with enough tools for the potential of success. There was always a way out, a trap door. It was called "accidental". She was the accidental murderess.

She gave mostly even odds for survival. Then she would watch to see how nature would rule. Nature was her Almighty God.

Jelly’s legal fortunes, her freedom, was placed gently into the hands of fate. She took just enough responsibility to take charge of her hobby, while having just enough of a lack of control to claim ignorance. Nature would always have the final say.

Jelly believed that the ability to find the way out of a trap was instinctual. And only people with good instincts earn the continuation of life. She merely gave people the opportunity to prove their worth.

Jeremiah was a little lost lamb when Jelly found him. A virgin and a Methodist, not that the two had much to do with each other. The virginity was laziness, pure and simple. He just never could be much bothered to involve someone else in his life, or his passions. To be fair, he didn’t really have any passions. His Methodist faith was a carryover from his rearing, and fit dully with his grey existence. He worked as an IT guy for the local police department. His position with law enforcement added to his appeal for Jelly. Where was the fun with no risk?

Jelly thought Jeremiah’s smug geek facade was endearing. She did all the work, sucking Jeremiah into a friendship. He didn’t have to put in any effort at all. He just had to fail to resist. If nothing else, he was good at rolling over. She became his friend by breaking down in her car right outside his home, and suffering from a small bladder. As unimaginative as Jeremiah was, he let her into his home with few, if any, concerns.

After a month of a friendship involving beers and dry sitcoms, Jelly took him hiking. They headed into some hills near San Marcos, California. They were on clearly marked paths. The ocean was dim but seen from a distance. Jelly feigned a sprained ankle on the trail and asked Jeremiah to go get something from his car for her.

He got lost on the way there. And on the way back.

Then, it was almost Jeremiah’s time. She had, after all, given him some practice. She even lectured him after the trail incident on locating north. She taught him how to use a compass. She suggested bringing a water bottle on any future such adventures. She was extremely supportive.

A week later, Jelly drove Jeremiah ten miles off the highway, into the Angeles National Forest. They hiked for about an hour, crossing out of a main trail into a side path. She went away from him to take a leak, and left him there.

It was November. Snow was not in the forecast. She had taken his phone. His pack contained a compass, a pocket knife, and a paperback copy of “A Tale of Two Cities”. No food though.

Jeremiah had forgotten his water bottle. He had also forgotten his perseverance.

The National Park Service found him ten days later, a mile from the main trail. Some people are just shit at navigation. Jelly would say that nature weeds out the weak.

***

You hanging in there? I think you might be right on the border. I’m rooting for you. I can continue, if you like. Yes? Okay then.

***

One night, alone and bored, Jelly ended up at a bar in Julian, a little town in the mountains near San Diego. There were only drunk middle-aged townies, whooping at darts, slopping beer, and talking about their women. The two exceptions were Jelly and a little old lady who wouldn't shut up about Wicca. Jelly’s conversation with her was only interrupted about sixteen times by men trying to hit on her. She had to work on her rejection speeches. They were not up to snuff. It was a shame that she would only have time for one game in this town.

The little old lady was named Geraldine. She wore three sweaters over each other for warmth. At least one was handmade. She wore leather sandals with padded soles over her hiking socks. She smelled of old apples and wet dog. She was going out to perform a ritual under the full moon. Jelly volunteered to be a student at her wise and wrinkled feet.

Jelly had read enough Wiccan books to understand how to talk and chant, and above all, how to suspend disbelief. She could make the circle. She could say the words. Jelly dropped at least two hints about hikers lost and selfie takers fallen. She lived to give chances. The little old lady was undeterred.

Jelly encouraged a small hike to the top of a hill where a large tree sat in an open field. There was no one for miles. They were in a park near a cliff where paragliders took off in the summer, floating to the desert below. It was fall, and clouds fallen too low hung as mist around Jelly’s vehicle and up the trail. They smudged out the moon.

Geraldine had drawn the circle and laid out offerings. The ceremony was ready. Jelly coughed several times and said she had to get a jacket from her car. Instead, she drove back to town.

Jelly left the old woman with a cell phone, a mercy not afforded to many others. Her age and the sadness of her frown lines tugged at Jelly’s heart. “Get out of jail free” cards were available to only a select few. And sometimes they made a difference.

Two other old women in town, Maggie and Rachel, received calls from Geraldine that night. The calls both went to voicemail. The last recorded words of the little old woman were “I don’t know where I am. I think I see the mist clearing over here. I’ll call back.”

Geraldine was found 25 feet down from the cliff edge, on an outcropping of dirt just wide enough for a tree to grow. Its roots had caught her like the soft mouth of a mother cat holding its kitten. 

If nothing else could be said about Jelly, she had mastered the art of the low effort kill.

***

We are only a few short. Hang on to hope. Until you set foot on my craft, you have options. No, sit back down. You can be the very last to board. Besides, I’m almost done with my story.

***

Jelly came to me at the ripe age of 50, 12 kills under her belt. Train, starvation, cliff, car accident, and more. A few had escaped, she told me, but never with enough information to find her.

She sat with me, here on this bank, and asked me where she was going. I asked her to first tell me how she had died. I knew of course, but to hear the dead tell it always brings tears to my eyes. Tears of sadness or laughter, well, that depends on the tale.

And here was the story, in all its glory.

Jelly said she met a man, a strong man. He was a survivalist. He tied ropes, hunted deer, filtered water, had thick calves, and waterproof yet breathable clothing. She was too taken up by the charm of his capableness to foist her needs upon him. The excitement of his perceived worthiness satiated her.

Then the sex dwindled. Her needs for more adventurous play could not be met in the bedroom, not without sacrifices of control that she was unwilling to make. Jelly had suppressed her needs, funneled them into the push and pull of power struggles and bedroom antics. And it had not been enough.

It was a Friday night when the dam broke. Dinner time came and went. Her man was over an hour late home. Jelly was on her third cup of coffee, and her second microwave popcorn bag. As she waited, she had a gut-checking realization of her dependence. It had snuck up on her and choked her from behind. It was then she decided that it was time for some fun. She deserved it. She had waited long enough.

When her man finally came home, she surprised him with a plan to go camping in Joshua Tree. She had always wanted to go, and wouldn’t he take her? Of course, he said. Definitely.

Here was a man who wouldn’t succumb to anything so mundane as her typical games. A man who would, if pushed, survive them. This would be very difficult. She would be up for it.

She studied the maps and packed. She also carefully procured and measured out the dosages. His favorite morning tea would put more than flavor into the water. The second day of the trip, he would be primed, and the game would begin.

They took off driving north, high heat in the forecast.

They never made it to the park.

Her man had been driving. Jelly had fallen asleep. She woke to the rocking of warm desert air whipping the car. She stepped out and surveyed the orange glowing dirt and occasional brush. He told her that the car wouldn’t start, and could she call a tow truck?

Jelly’s phone had been plugged in the whole car ride, yet somehow was only at 3%. And there was no signal. She walked, holding the phone over her head to catch a bar. She wandered in search of a signal while her man’s head was under the hood. No bar. No bar. 1 bar? Yes!

She heard the slam of metal and an engine whirr to life. Then the sound of a car, rolling down the highway.

Jelly and her dead phone. Two against the desert.

And the desert won.

Jelly lasted for four days until a car finally found her, prone on the road. The driver didn’t see her until afterwards.

Jelly admitted to me that perhaps she hadn’t been fully committed. Not fully on her game. She blamed her death on heat exhaustion, but admitted that in the final accounting, she had just been outplayed. She was nothing if not modest.

What Jelly didn’t realize was that her man, Joey, was more than just a prime specimen. She had seen him as quite strong, in a basic sense. But she had missed his underbelly, and the underbelly will get you every time.

I know Joey all too well down here. And I was more than happy to fill Jelly in on the details.

Joey was a little wrapped up in science as a boy. He liked to know what made things tick. How they grew

How they hurt. How they died. He was a very curious child.

No one was more adept at assisting with Joey’s experiments than Anton Fraser. They were kids together in the sticks, born to hardworking families manning nurseries in North County San Diego. They grew up with thirst and dust and chemicals and hoses that cracked in the sun.

Joey's experiments involved animals mainly. Rabbits and mice and bats. The harder to trap, the more entertaining to play with. But there are only so many types of animals. When Joey got bored one summer, he found other uses for cracked hoses, and Anton helped him experiment one last time.

Joey spent the next 30 years trying to find replacements for Anton. No one seemed a worthy enough asset until Jelly. She was confident and curious. She knew what she wanted. She was loyal. She was smart.

Joey had almost convinced Jelly to live together, but she was harboring some hesitancy. He explored her home in an effort to determine the source of the reluctance. He found a single journal with names. Longitudes and latitudes. Adjectives. And descriptions. Twelve names.

It didn’t take much to put the pieces together. And when the time came, he was ready. He sprung his trap – first.

Data is a partner to dedication. Jelly, for once, had not been curious enough.

***

What’s wrong? You want to know Joey’s real name? Ah. I see. You enjoy puzzles too. Saw a few matching pieces, did you? No, no. I can’t confirm or deny. Besides, if you leave here, you won’t remember a word. Not a word.

I’m sorry girl, I really wish I could help. But my stories stay here, with the dead.

Congratulations! You’ve been given another chance. Turn around. That light by the willow is your way back.

Go now. And remember, finding the way out of a trap is instinctual. Either you have the instinct or you don’t.

Tsk, tsk. I am feeling a disappointing lack of gratitude. No thanks for my thoughtful entertainment? Well, now.

Take your best shot, girl.

I’ll see you soon.