A Loving Murder

CONTENT WARNING: Assisted suicide, descriptions of violence, mentions of war, vulgar language

See, you all think I am about to say I don’t regret what I did. I just did it for fame. But what you don't know is that murder happens all the time under your pretty little noses. Your little gerbil was killed by your cat and you don’t condemn him. You know foxes are killing cute rabbits and yet, you give your kids stuffed foxes and call them sweet names. People do not murder, animal instinct does. Men are full of it, women just like to taste a bit, and in my case, I got drunk on that animal instinct. Part of that instinct is the fact that I do feel guilty. The poor guy had a family, a life, dreams or something like that. I wish he didn’t have to die, I do. 

But let's be honest, you aren't here to hear my life story, you are here to hear what actually happened. So let me fill you in…

The fucker was cute. I can admit that much. He was charming, kind, sweet and somewhat thoughtful too. He bought his girl some flowers at the dolly hop dance. They were apparently her favorite flowers too; the yellow roses that symbolize purity and growth. She laid one on his grave. I was court ordered to attend and I left a black dahlia.

I killed him using some bleach powder. The awesome thing about being a woman is that you can stitch a lot of things into your dresses, little bows and ribbons, or even jewelry. My grandmother passed down this beautiful sterling silver capsule ring with a latch that lifted up the freshwater pearl to reveal a secret pocket for anything. She suggested a love note from that “special someone”.

I didn’t put in just a note- I put a little act of love in there.

I knew the kid from school. Biology, Home-Ec, English, you name a class, he was in it with me. He seemed smart, sharp jawline, toned nose with little to no blackheads, pretty hair, basic brown eyes. He wore simple clothes and there was nothing remarkable about the guy. He was a member of enough clubs that when a high school reunion happened a few years into the war he could come back with his sweet honey and battle scars, shake a few hands, drink some bad beer and then leave to go home to his picket fence and little baby.

This never happened though, because I killed him.

It was around when we were getting draft cards. His number was called. He didn't want to go. I heard about him crying in the boys locker room after PE. Those basic brown eyes went red and everyone knew no class was that ruthless. His girl tried calming him down but he put a couple dents in some lockers and stormed off. He brushed by me, apologizing for almost knocking me over and gave me a look I will never forget; like I could help him if I tried.

Very few knew I was a leader of many anti war protests. War is horrible, but to everyone at this school I was worse because I threatened to do something about how horrible it was. People just didn't know that I actually did anything; my bite matched my bark. I set off smoke bombs in the middle of busy streets, blocked roads to government buildings, worked other protests or helped out literally anything that was against the war effort. I didn't just burn some draft cards, I used blank ones to light my candles. 

I caught the kid after a class and I told the kid it was okay. I told him that his fear was justified and his anger was too. I told him he could hide out with me in my basement or we could injure him badly enough to not be able to go but his eyes flashed with realization before I could finish. I will never forget what he said:

"It's either I die here or on the battlefield. And it's gonna be here." 

His eyes were cool and wide enough that they seemed almost black. I asked him what he meant. He said,

"I either die on the battlefield with strangers in a foreign land or I die here, in my own clothes, on my own soil and my friends get to see a body that isn't horribly mangled."

We had never really spoken before and I told him I didn't know what to do with that statement. He laughed and asked what he should do with the draft card. I proposed burning it.

That was the first time I ever got high.

While drugged up you say shit that you never thought you would mean. A rolled up draft card with pot on the inside was something I never thought I would do so I guess the trend follows. I do think sober thoughts are drunk words. I say a bunch of shit drunk I would never say sober.

But to be clear: my actions were while I was sober. I killed him stone cold sober.

I digress. While high, he started telling me all about his family and how his little sister prayed that he wouldn't have to go to war and could stay at home with him. He made great pancakes and was the only one who could talk their mom off the ledge. He started rambling about Jesus and how he wouldn't want him to go out like this but America was Jesus's baby, or something, and that meant that dying for America was just as bad as suicide. 

I took a long, contemplative puff and then I hit him with this:

"Just do it yourself then. If Jesus doesn't want you doing it to yourself but dying for America is just as bad, then end it now. Less blood that way. A prettier casket."

He took a puff and I saw the lines on his face pull taut with thought. I could see him smile at the image of his sister but that happiness burnt out at the thought of the death message. I wasn't being serious. Death was so close to all of us we mentioned it in one way or another. But the way he hunched over himself like he was already leaving me behind proved that he wanted out.

He took another puff before he said "alright" and started plotting.

Now I want to make something very clear: I am not an angry person. The kid was just as enthusiastic about dying as you would be about planning a party while your parents were out of town. It was all up in the air until it wasn’t. Until he caught my ring and said it could be a murder weapon. Said I could put some poison under the pearl and let loose when he least expected it. Until he kept making me promise I would kill him no matter how hard he begged otherwise. It was in the air until he wrote his notes, said his goodbyes, sold his shit, and made himself look like the loveliest boy you ever did meet. 

It was three days before he was supposed to leave. Four months had passed since our first smoke session. We never talked about the plan again. I stayed up at night wondering what was the good thing to do and if there was even a moral compass in this situation. But I knew what I had to do. We had a blood pact, me and this kid. And I never lie.

It was only three days before he was supposed to leave. He was packing and invited me over to smoke, which happened more and more often over the course of those four months as that draft card started to rise from the ashes.  I think his parents even thought I was his new girl or something because they invited me to dinner multiple times. The kid taught me how to roll that first smoke session and I started to work my magic. I gave him one blunt, then two. In the second one, right before I licked the seal, I popped open the freshwater pearl and let the powder fall like snow. I let him take a puff and turn up the music. He started coughing and choking and at first he was smiling. A big smile too. One of the ones I thought he had at breakfast with his sister over some syrupy pancakes. Then he realized- this was it. I saw his dark brown eyes panic, searching for why, but then the recognition clicked. He started to go down and almost said something. He fell to the ground in one fell swoop.

I always wondered what he said. I bet it would've been a thank you. If it were me I would've cursed myself for being so damn loyal.

The odd thing about being in a room with a dead person is that their eyes don't close. In all the movies and plays their eyes close on their own but I had to do that myself. I didn't want his mom to have to do it for me. I thought, “Already come this far, might as well go down swinging”.

I never thought I would be a murderer but I also thought this country was for the best of them.

This all might not make sense and I don’t really expect it to. It barely makes sense to me. I think I just knew people were going to die. He decided if he couldn't beat death, he would join him. I think even part of me thought I wouldn't get in trouble for it. Like God wasn't condemning these kids with guns rather sending them food and movies and chicks and maybe he would do the same for me.

Your question is why I did it. Now I have a question for you: why do you not kill all the foxes for eating the rabbits? Because that is how nature works. Well war isn't natural and yet to spend millions on it and make poor people give up their food and kids for it. War is egregiously human. You murder an entire country just because you wanted power; a power that if it was natural, would be yours already. 

It made national news. People were all about the war effort at the time and I was being interviewed by every news station in the country.

Little Miss Peace and Love kills

Can you be a war vet if you only had a draft card and no purple heart?

Smoke session gone political

(the last one is my personal favorite)

Now I sit here in a cell with a single notebook and dull pencil that I stole from the bathroom. Someone had left it for someone else but I took it and I'll pay for it later with whatever stale crackers I have left. The Nation hates me, I have angry letters from thousands of people, but none of them, not a single one, is a veteran. I think that’s interesting. I bet it's because deep down people know that I did something good for someone. Or they know that they would've done the same thing.

I regret the fact that the kid had to die. I just don't regret that I did it. I think it was the kindest thing I have ever done in my life. At least he didn't have to close his dead buddy's eyes shut. Considering he asked me to kill him, he would've passed out from just touching some blood. 

HIS NOTE: 

To Whom it may concern, 

My Dear Family,

I am so sorry that it had to be this way. I wish I could still hold your hands like I did when I was alive. She doesn’t even know that I am writing this note. Patty Shriner, I mean. She is innocent in all of this. Her hands might be far from clean but so are mine. 

I didn’t let her do it because I wanted to be far from you. It's because I wanted to be close to you. I was just so scared. I didn’t want to be around kids my age in the morning and then new ones who just got shipped over at night. I was terrified looking at that draft card. I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t. And I didn’t want your last memory of me to be while I was riddled with bullet holes and gangrene in a foxhole writing a letter home about how much I missed you. I wanted your last memory to be of me sitting at the dinner table, all limbs intact. I’m still so sorry. 

Patty did it because I asked her to. I wanted to go. The day after I got the card in the mail, I even stole beers from our fridge and drank myself tipsy before school. I didn’t think anything mattered. I knew Patty from school. She hated the war and everyone thought she was a commie because she openly opposed the war effort. I thought she was a communist too but once I got the draft card I understood her anger like I understand why humans need oxygen to survive. She caught me after class and said that she could hide me or something but I didn’t want to have the option to be physically alive but dead to my country or dead to my friends or dead to you. I knew I would die on the battlefield. Dad, you always knew that I hated sports or anything athletic and I was no good on my own. 

I wanted to die with you guys, not on my own. Please forgive me for not wanting to die on my own. 

The day after I got my draft card and Patty offered me a way out we got high. I was rambling about how suicide was a mortal sin but going into a war I know would kill me was basically suicide so it seems like I had no options. Then she followed my line of reasoning and said that I should just do it myself. Like it was a lesser of two evils thing and she was right. So we started plotting, high, mind you, and I was just talking out of nowhere. I said something about her ring and it being a surprise. I didn’t want to chicken out and not go through with it so I told her to let me have it when I least expected it. I am still expecting it as I’m writing this, I just thought to get this done before she follows through with it. 

I don't know when it is going to happen, or how, or when, or even if it will, but I know we haven’t spoken about it in about five weeks. I am supposed to leave for Nam in two.

We talk about how much I don't want to go but nothing about the plan. I hope she didn't forget. I hope I do.  

I don’t know what I want anymore. I can’t live with the oldies crying about how I “died for them”. I will die because someone else killed me. Please think about that when Patty goes on the stand. And when you do remember all I will be able to do from wherever I am is thank you for that. 

I love you I love you I love you. Please know that. I am sorry that I won’t be at Sam’s graduation but I bet you will be stunning in the cap and gown. 

I love you more than I can say. What Patty did was because of me. Please don't hate her for it. 

• Love, Simon 

Enclosed in the note was a recipe for pancakes dedicated to his sister written in blue ballpoint pen.