Poor Marvin

Mable was murdered on accident. If you can plan a murder where everything went wrong, you’d end up with her death.

Marvin and Hazel had a whirlwind romance and eloped in Vegas to the surprise of everyone they knew. People misinterpreted Hazel to be cold and calculating, but she was just one of those people who relies heavily on logic and reason instead of emotion. For her to suddenly get married with no planning shocked those who knew her. Marvin is a super sweet guy known to be a player. He never meant to be. Women are drawn to him for how sweet he is but quickly get bored with him when the next woman swoops in and scoops him up. This repeating pattern has made him appear as a playboy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He’s compassionate and caring, and not what most 20-year-olds are looking for, yet.

They met on a Friday night at a club. Marvin was there to celebrate his friend’s birthday. Hazel was there to scout out men. She knew of him and his reputation. He was exactly what she was looking for, so she asked him to dance. He is a great dancer and legitimately blew her away. She dazzled him with all of the superficial wiles she cultivated with practice along with her displayed curves. They remained in each other’s company until they had to part for work Monday morning. That next weekend, they flew to Vegas and got married. At first, both of their families were in disbelief and didn’t take them seriously.

“Quit joking, bro,” Marvin’s brother Lyle insisted.

“It’s not a prank,” Marvin explained. “I can show you the video of our wedding and the marriage certificate.”

“Cap,” Lyle declared. “Quit, joking, bro!”

Hazel got similar responses from those who knew her. She just wasn’t the settling down with a nice guy type. She was the 50 year plan type with variable scenarios accounted for and accommodate type. Spontaneity had never been used to describe her.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said to her family. “He swept me off my feet.”

He did not in fact sweep her off her feet. Hazel remained a cold and calculating woman. Morality was not something that concerned her, but she understood that she had to appear a certain way to exist and function in society. She married Marvin and pretended to be in love. The first thing she did after the marriage was to take out life insurance on her new found hubby. A lot of life insurance. She didn’t need it yet and was willing to wait a few years before her husband died. In the meantime, she was prepared to play the part of a doting and affectionate wife.

Unfortunately, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Hazel never read Of Mice and Men in her high school because they had done away with reading entire novels. The district mistakenly deemed excerpts were enough to pass standardized tests and there was no other purpose for reading novels. Perhaps, things would have gone better for everyone if she had read the whole book.

Marvin came home from work early one day because he had been laid off. Without his income and insurance, they would struggle. He applied for several jobs, but everyone who was laid off was vying for the same positions. It was hard to even get an interview. Though they had only been married a few months, Hazel had decided it was time for Marvin to die.

He had no clue his doting and affectionate wife was planning his demise. No one did. Everyone bought her act believing she was completely in love. Had she murdered him, everyone would’ve stated, “We never saw it coming; they were so in love.” However, she wasn’t going to murder him. Before they even got married she had hired a hitman who would make it look like an accident when she wasn’t home. Using a burner phone, she reached out to him:

It is time.

Who is?

Who is what?

You?

I’m the one who bought

you this phone for

corresponding!

I am

You are what?!

Yes, this is Chen

Don’t use your name!

I’ll send you a new phone.

And she did with instructions on how to use the phone. Apparently, Chen had been using the phone every day as his regular phone. Eventually, she felt they had it worked out. She and Marvin lived in a bordertown. Chen was staying across the border where he would return after the murder. Then he could go on to live his life however and wherever he wanted. If there ended up being an autopsy, Hazel was counting on people’s xenophobia and hatred of border crossers to work in her favor. Her main obstacle (which she hadn’t planned for) was Chen’s lack of English skills. She didn’t know that he was using Google translate for every correspondence.

On the selected date, Hazel was at work as usual while Marvin was supposed to be home applying for jobs. Instead, he received an interview and they asked him to come right away. When Hazel got home from work, there he was making his famous spinach enchiladas and waiting to share his good news. Hazel had been practicing crying and being shocked all the way home. All for nothing. She congratulated her husband on his new job and carried on as normal until the police knocked on the door.

There had been a murder next door and they were inquiring if anyone had been home around 2 pm. After giving their alibis, they asked what happened.

“It appears to be a home invasion gone wrong,” the officer stated. “Were you close to the couple?”

“No,” Hazel answered honestly. “Occasionally, I’d see someone working in the yard or wave to someone in the driveway, but that’s all I know about them.”

“I’m sad to say it’s about the same for me,” Marvin said. “I always meant to introduce myself but kept putting it off, and now it’s too late.” The officer noted that he truly seemed remiss.

That night the news reported about the death of an Asian couple in town. People were torn between it being a hate crime or a bungled burglary. In the meantime, Hazel failed to reach Chen.

In a shocking twist, it turned out that their murdered neighbor was a single woman named Mabel. Her friends and family had no idea who the dead man found in her house was or why she was not at work. The news suggested she had a planned rendezvous with her lover and they were just caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. Rumors abounded.

Mabel’s name was dragged through the mud as Marvin lived in ignorance of his survival. Though Mabel was born and raised in Texas, people were saying she was here illegally and trying to marry an American for her green card. The dead man was supposed to be the American though he was actually the one here illegally and just got the address wrong when he went to kill Marvin. He had transversed two numbers when he entered them into Google maps and got the wrong house. Mabel was home on a zoom interview when Chen walked in her backdoor. They were both surprised and she grabbed her gun when she saw the gun in his hand.

“You Marvin?” Chen asked Mabel.

“Mabel,” she responded. He pulled out his phone and opened his translation app.

“Say again,” he demanded. The phone heard maple and described that instead.

“I’m not a tree,” she responded.

“Where’s Marvin?” he demanded.

“Ms. Li,” the interviewer asked from the zoom call, “Are you still there? What is going on?” at the same time Mabel said:

“Who the fuck is Marvin?” Marvin had been wandering around peeking in doors looking for Marvin.

“Hey,” Mabel said, “Get out of my house!”

“Ms. Li!” the interviewer called out again.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wang,” she explained. “Someone just entered my house with a gun.” She had been interviewing with a company in China in the hopes of getting a job where she could get in touch with her roots. Plus, she wanted to get out of Texas.

“A gun!,” Mr. Wang exclaimed. “Call the police!”

“Good idea,” Mabel said as she shut her laptop.

“Hey,” she yelled again. “Get out of my house!” She walked into her living room wondering where he had gone right as Chen tripped. The gun dropped and fired which scared Mabel, so she fired back. Chen was now gunless so she chased him around the house. Her TV which now had a bullet hole, he tipped over behind him as he ran into the kitchen. From there he had a knife which he threw at her when she entered the door. She shot at him again as he ducked into the garage and tried to run out of the door. She slammed the door down and trapped him inside. HE got in her car and locked the door so she opened fire on her own car. When it got quiet, he popped up bullet free and jumped out of the car.

“Crap,” Mabel said as she was out of bullets and ran inside. She had bullets in the kitchen if she could just get to them in time. She didn’t. They fought. It was more like wrestling.

“Why are you attacking me?” she cried.

“I’m not,” he answered. “I’m looking for Marvin.” In the mayhem, the furniture was overturned and tschotskes were broken.

“You shot at me and destroyed my house for nothing!” she screamed.

“I didn’t shoot at you,” he informed her, “I dropped my gun.”

“You imbecile!” she yelled. Once again he pulled out his phone and asked her to repeat that for his translation app.

“You imbecile!” she yelled again. This time the translator got it right.

“Hey,” he exclaimed. “I not imbecile!”

“Well, I’m not Marvin!” Then something clicked in her head.

“I think the cute guy next door is Marvin,” she announced without thinking. Chen ran past her towards the backdoor he entered through. She stuck out her leg and tripped him. The imbecile fell so hard he cracked his skull and died instantly. Mabel put a new clip in her gun and opened fire. One bullet ricocheted around the room after striking the gun still in Chen’s hand and struck her in the back of her head, also killing her instantly. Since Chen had no gunshot residue on his hands and Mabel couldn’t have shot herself in the back of the hand with her gun, the police initially assumed there was another shooter. This baffled them for months. Mabel’s parents weren’t sure what to do, but they eventually decided to bury Chen next to their daughter. They figured she must’ve loved him.

A few weeks after their deaths, Hazel was killed when a drunk driver swerved into her lane. Marvin was inconsolable. For the few months they were together, he had experienced a deep, unconditional love with his forever doting wife that created an expectation for relationships he vowed to always live up to. He also got that job he applied for making twice his old salary and he moved into a better neighborhood because staying in that home reminded him of tragedy. On top of that, he got a substantial amount in the lawsuit that followed as the drunk driver was working at the time and driving a company vehicle, in addition to the life insurance payout he received. It took a couple of years for him to try love again, but he found his soulmate who truly appreciated what a kind and thoughtful man he was.