Burning Bridges: A Renegade Fiction Anthology

  Jody’s the driven one of the two of us. She always did need to be better than me. Maybe because she’s four minutes younger. Better grades, better boyfriends, better hair. So now she’s going to be a fancy doctor. Well, good for her. I intended to get my Associate degree, because I like learning stuff. But I didn’t quite finish community college, due to circumstances beyond my control. Jody makes sure everybody else knows how great she is. To her, she’s always right and I’m always wrong. Like the day she comes over and lets herself in right when I’m shooting up. I mean, I do enjoy recreational drugs on occasion. What’s wrong with that?

  “What’s this?” Jody picks up the syringe and waves it at me. She looks disgusted.

  “It’s a syringe, Missy Pre-Med. What does it look like?”

  Anyway, I’m the strong one, the twin with a black belt in karate. I mean, we’re both shrimps, but I’d like to see Jody do 50 straight-back push-ups on her knuckles on a cement floor. She’s more of a wimp. Plus, the blood connection isn’t as important to her as it is to me. That business with Grandpa really bothered me.

  So this guy Douglas is in room 4. No, wait, they call it the Island room. Like it was in freaking Hawaii or something. It’s got green palm trees and an ocean painted on the walls. Looks pretty nice, actually, especially at Christmastime in Massachusetts. He’s an old guy – same kind of long white hair as Grandpa, and the same electric-blue eyes.

  “You ever been on a real island?” I ask him.

  His voice is kind of weak, but he smiles as he says, “Never set foot on an island in my life.”

  That makes two of us, but he sure isn’t going to get the chance now. At least he has some nice scenery to look at. No green outdoors around here.

  Douglas’ entire family consists of the son who never comes to visit. He stopped in once, a dark-haired dude with really deep lines between eyebrows that looked like the ones on those plastic glasses you wear at Halloween. He didn’t seem to actually like his father very much. I don’t get it. This so-called son clearly doesn’t understand the importance of blood, or he’d be here more. Tons more.

  I told him, like I tell a lot of people, “Family’s important, you know.” He didn’t appear to care. I don’t understand people like that.

  Douglas has maybe a month, maybe a week to live. Some holiday season. Metastasized melanoma. Basically nobody survives it. He used to be a professor in California, taught languages and stuff like that. Pretty famous, he let on once. Then he moved back here to Springfield, where he grew up. He thinks it’s fun to get me to pronounce sentences like “The farmer’s kittens are bad” and “Milton is in the area.” He likes me.

  He’s got a big book on the windowsill. The American Encyclopedia of Regional English. Says he wrote it. I check out the book one night after he’s asleep and the nurses have gone home, except for George on the desk. It’s quiet in the room, with a little moonlight making those palm trees look almost real. A pile of cash is tucked in the book. Like several dozen 100-dollar bills.

  Douglas is already on morphine for the pain. They keep it at a minimum so he can still look out the window during the day. And pretend to read. He’s having trouble concentrating these days, because of the tumor in his brain. He tells me he just wants to go, before his mind precedes him.

  I sign out of my volunteer shift. I walk home in the cold to my crappy apartment, thinking. I am currently almost out of recreational substances of any kind, so my thoughts are actually pretty clear.

  I look up a few things on the Internet. It’s important to stay current in your field, even if you’re a volunteer. The Hospice & Palliative Care Federation conference is in North Carolina pretty soon.

  I call my twin the next day. “Yo, Jody, you got a night shift at the Greenwell next week?” I bounce on my heels while my sister looks up her schedule. “I can take it off your hands if you want.”

  “I can give you January 12. But why do you want it?”

  “I wouldn’t want to miss Douglas’ death.” Most clients at the Greenwell die at night. I say I’ll change the sign-up sheet next time I’m in. “Hey, can you loan me a few bucks until payday? We’re family, you know, even if you don’t think it’s that important.”

  “Forget it, Katie.”

  That’s no surprise, but it still pisses me off.

  I sign in as Jody on the 12th with a little extra something in my backpack. Everybody says they can’t tell us apart, plus I wear the knit beret she made me that matches hers. I walk home eight hours later. Douglas went peacefully. Right before the next shift, as it turned out.

  I was just being an angel of mercy for Douglas. He really wanted to die. He told me so. Isn’t extra morphine a dying man’s best friend? All I did was send him to a happier place. I’m happier, too, with those Ben Franklins. Plus I took the book. Maybe I’ll learn some new stuff. And they’ll never figure out it was me. The fee I paid YourAlibi.com placed me in Charlotte. Registration receipt for the conference, boarding passes, the works, including a phone contact for me there.

  They arrest Jody for murder a couple days later. Even though we have identical DNA, we don’t have identical fingerprints, which makes latex gloves such an awesome invention. I wore two pair, just to be safe. And, okay, I did leave the coffee mug she used at my house next to Douglas’ bed. And the syringe she’d picked up that I repurposed for Douglas’ instrument of dispatch. Probably still has a little morphine in it. Jody tries to tell them I took her shift but they don’t believe her. Blood never was important to Jody.

  The End

  Edith Maxwell writes mystery fiction and has published short stories in several Level Best Books anthologies. The first book in her Local Foods Mystery series,”A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die,” will appear in Spring, 2013, from Kensington Publishing. She can be found at https://www.edithmaxwell.com, and on twitter and facebook. She also writes the “Speaking of Mystery” series under the name Tace Baker.

  The Last Injustice

  ~ Benjamin Sobieck

  Grandpa is supposed to be dead. Mom and Dad said he died last night. They lie a lot. Like maybe right now. He’s standing at the foot of my bed.

  “Hey, are you awake?” Grandpa says. He’s still got on all the hospital gear. Wires dangle like vines down the crusty jungle of his seafoam green hospital gown.

  Is this what ghosts look like? I expected different. I always thought they’d be like a 3D movie character. Present, but hollow. This is something else. More lifelike. Like a meat shadow.

  I pull the covers over my eyes. I’m 15, but I don’t care if you’re 150. You’re going to act like a scared puppy at the sight of a ghost.

  “Relax, kiddo,” Grandpa says.

  I stay still under the covers.

  “Hey. Hey,” Grandpa says and shakes the covers.

  I’m surprised he can do that. Unless...

  He’s not really dead?

  I slip an eyeball above the covers. He’s smiling with that loose, gaping jaw. As real as the heap of crap on the floor Mom is always bugging me about.

  “Stop acting like I’m some sort of ghost. I ain’t. Not yet, anyway,” Grandpa says.

  I pull the covers off, embarrassed I chose Batman pajamas. Not that Grandpa cares about looking cool, but still.

  “Mom and Dad said you died last night at the hospital,” I say and touch his hand. It’s as cold and dead as a winter sidewalk.

  “Yeah, I was the one who told them that. Felt good to be dead,” Grandpa says. “I play a pretty convincing doctor on the phone. Wasn’t too much of a stretcher. I’ll be a goner for real soon enough.”

  “Wha...?” I start to say.

  “Don’t worry about making sense of things. Just know we’re going for a car ride tonight. Keep it quiet, though, we don’t want to wake your parents,” he says.

  I look back at the bed and around the room. “Grandpa, I have school tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be back at the hospital?”

  “I’ll go back to the hospital and die like I’m s
upposed to. But tonight, I need to show you something. It’s important. You’ll be back in time for school, I promise.”

  Grandpa takes my hand. His fingers are still cold by the time we reach his Cadillac in the driveway. My pink palms, heated by the kiln of sleep, can’t warm them up.

  He starts the car up and struggles with the gear shifter. I help him put it into “D.”

  “Where are we going?” I say.

  “You’ll see,” Grandpa says. He turns on the radio and cranks the golden oldies until the mirrors shake.

  * * *

  2 a.m.

  Grandpa stops the car next to the house Mom and Dad say to not go near. It’s the only one in the neighborhood with all its lights on at this hour.

  Grandpa gives me a wobbly grin and heads out the car door. A stray wire gets snagged in the hinge, and he cries out. I shake it free. He tries to say “thank you,” but chokes on something. Opts for a thumbs up and a wink instead.

  A few minutes later, he’s back with a plastic container. Like the ones that have aspirin.

  “Never you mind what this is,” Grandpa says.

  * * *

  2:12 a.m.

  Grandpa rolls the car through a stop sign, then passes out.

  It’s not the first time. It happened a lot before he went to the hospital. Mom says him passing out was a wake-up call. His health headed south after Grandma died, but he never wanted to admit it.

  I’ll have nightmares about his brief comas to the day I die. It’s like having a corpse dropped in front of you over and over again.

  I shake his arm. It feels like how a tomato gets when it’s past its prime. Spongy, like you could put your fingers right through it.

  I wonder if my learner’s permit would let me drive with a comatose passenger. I don’t have my license yet. Not that Grandpa would chastise me for ignoring the law. He never thought most of them were worth the trouble.

  “I...ah...sorry about that, kiddo,” Grandpa says. “Guess I need one of these pep pills.”

  “I want to go home,” I say.

  “Ah, uh, you will. Don’t worry,” Grandpa says. He reaches into the plastic container and dumps a few capsules into his mouth. It only takes a minute for red to swirl like steam in his gray cheeks.

  “Ohhhh, yeeeaaaahhhhh. That’s better. Now I’m ready,” Grandpa says.

  He floors the gas. The car skirts down the road like a wandering wind.

  * * *

  2:46 a.m.

  We pull into Guardian Angels Senior Villa. It’s where Grandpa lived before going to the hospital.

  “Here’s something you won’t learn at school tomorrow,” Grandpa says and kills the car. “I lived in this shit hole for the last year. Every Friday we’d play Bingo. And every Friday this dirty bastard named Al would cheat. I don’t know how, but he won at least one round every time.”

  “So?” I say.

  Grandpa was always one to play peacemaker, something Mom told me we’ll never replace. The family will splinter at the seams, she says. Peace never looked like this, though. Grandpa used to pop egos, not pills.

  “So? So you can live an entire life doing the right thing. Playing by the rules. But one day, you’re going to realize it’s bullshit. All of it. The rules are there to benefit certain people. Mostly, the cheaters,” Grandpa says.

  “You’re not going to hurt this Al guy, are you?” I say.

  Grandpa keeps talking like I’m not there. He says, “There’s no justice in this world any more. Things aren’t fair. And they never get made right.”

  “Grandpa, please, what’s going on?”

  Grandpa heads out of the car. I stay inside, not wanting to be seen in Batman pajamas.

  A minute later, I hear a muffled thud. Then a sound like someone cracking a hard-boiled egg against the counter. I look to one of the dorm windows across from the car.

  No way.

  Grandpa is pounding the skull of some old guy - Al, I assume – against the inside of the dorm window. I see a web of cracks spread like infected veins across the glass.

  He’s lost it.

  * * *

  3:05 a.m.

  Grandpa collapses into the driver’s seat. He slurps at the air, struggling to get a deep breath. The cabin stinks like the parts inside of him that are already dead.

  Once again, he passes out. And once again, I get him awake. Only this time, I have to pound on his chest.

  Tears pool in my eyes. This isn’t how I want to remember Grandpa, all doped up and angry. He’s not the same person who took me fishing, taught me to work with tools and explained why the news was always wrong. This was someone - something - else.

  “Remember that time we were at the lake, and you learned how to swim?” Grandpa says as he becomes lucid again. He reaches into the plastic container.

  “Yeah, that was a fun summer,” I say and wipe my eyes. That was back when Grandma was around. Grandpa, too.

  Grandpa goes silent. Did he die?

  No, his mind slipped along with his foot. It pummels the gas pedal. We’re off into the night again.

  * * *

  3:23 a.m.

  We pull into another house. This one I don’t recognize. Grandpa does, though. He produces a wad of cash.

  “You’re not buying more drugs, are you?” I say.

  “Nope. The woman who lives here took good care of me in the senior home. Got paid shit to do it, too. Never complained. Always had a smile on her face,” Grandpa says. “Some people who get screwed, they need a bit of justice.”

  “Wasn’t she just doing her job?”

  “Exactly. Meanwhile, the fatties at the top collected what she should be making,” he says and opens the car door.

  I hide the jealousy in my eyes after Grandpa comes back empty-handed.

  * * *

  3:30 a.m.

  As the curtains of sleep unfurl onto my eyes, I hear Grandpa mumble something as the car stops. “Nothing to learn here, kiddo. It’s that jerk over there who needs a lesson.”

  I wake up a few minutes later. Grandpa coughs like cannon. He’s slapping himself on the chest. I try to help, but he pushes me away.

  “It’s no use,” he says through an oily filter of blood and tissue. “Don’t get my lung juice on you.”

  * * *

  3:45 a.m.

  I slip back into consciousness to see Grandpa’s hospital gown flapping like a flag in the wind. His frail form squats next to a political sign in someone’s yard.

  * * *

  3:52 a.m.

  Grandpa hangs out the open window. He says into a speaker, “You heard me. I want all the bacon, cheese and onions you can stack on that bad boy. Then, double it.”

  * * *

  4:27 a.m.

  I don’t wake to a noise. It’s the lack of it. The car is stopped.

  I look out the window. Nothing beyond the thick guard rail but a shade of night that matches the feeling in my gut. We must have stopped on the short bridge on the way back to my house.

  Grandpa isn’t in the car.

  The dread in my stomach boils into panic that spreads to my limbs. My excited hands slap the door handle until it opens. The white light from the moon stencils the outline of a man slumped over the guard rail.

  “Don’t do it, Grandpa,” I say as I run up to him.

  His collapsed form inches back to life like a raft inflating. “Hey, kiddo. I ain’t jumping over no bridge,” he says.

  I give him a deep hug, more for my sake than his. I’m not sure his body can take it. Not that it matters much.

  Grandpa stares at the moon. “I should’ve gone first,” he says. His voice is clear and strong for the first time tonight. “If there was any justice in this world, I would’ve died before Grandma. I didn’t think it’d be this bad.”

  “I miss you,” I say.

  “Yeah, I know. I haven’t been the same since. Not the guy who taught you to swim or read the paper or whatnot. I’m sorry for that. It’s just more than can I can deal with.
It’s not fair.”

  Fair? I wanted to tell him all about fairness. That I was angry. Had been for a while now. Why did he have to change into this animal? Why did he stop caring about his family? Why couldn’t he be the Grandpa I knew from before Grandma died?

  That’s when I realized it. Grandpa isn’t Grandpa without Grandma. They’d been married for 55 years when she died. He couldn’t reset himself.

  I remember Mom and Dad saying the doctors thought Grandpa had an excellent chance of beating his illness. All the medicine and treatments were there. Only thing missing was a will to get better. Grandpa didn’t want to live any more.

  “You don’t have to apologize. I knew you took Grandma dying hard. We all did,” I say.

  Grandpa shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t right to treat people like I did. Sour to everyone who crossed my path. There’s no excuse.”

  Now that our guards are down, I say, “I’m still not sure why you brought me out tonight. I mean, it was cool to see you do all those crazy things, but still. If you were trying to teach me something, I didn’t get it.”

  Grandpa chuckles. “Really? You mean poppin’ dope and beating the snot out of a Bingo cheat isn’t a solid lesson?”

  “Uh…no,” I say.

  Grandpa sighs and says, “It’s not like when I taught you to swim. It’s something else. You can’t see it unless you lose it. Guys like me, we see too much of it.”

  “What is it then? What are you trying to show me?”

  Grandpa smiles in a way that creases his face like a frown. “I hope you never have to find out.”

  We sit on the pavement and stare up at the stars. I wait until I can’t hear him breathe before calling 911.

  I slip Grandpa’s keys into the ignition and drive toward home, the first time I’ve done so by myself. As the fiery red lights of the ambulance burn the bridge behind me, I wonder how I’ll find what Grandpa lost.

  The End

  Benjamin Sobieck is author of the “Cleansing Eden” crime thriller novel, the Maynard Soloman crime humor series and numerous short stories. His website is CrimeFictionBook.com.

  An Idea for Murder