Pump Six and Other Stories Part 22

Suns.h.i.+ne. After months of winter gray and drizzling spring it had suddenly turned warm. That was the cause. The elms had budded green and the lilacs had bloomed purple and after years of gritted-teeth dutiful attendance to work and marriage and home owners.h.i.+p and oil changes, he woke to a day permeated with electric possibility. He woke up smiling.

The last time he remembered feeling so alive he'd been in fifth grade with a beat-up blue BMX that he'd raced through subdivision streets-jumping curbs and stealing chromie caps all the way-to pour his entire allowance into Three Musketeers, Nerds, and Bubblicious at a 7-Eleven.

And then Pia had rolled over and poked him with her elbow and reminded him that he'd forgotten to do the dishes.

Jonathan stirred the bath water. Their naked bodies rippled under the thinning suds: his pink, hers increasingly pale. He leaned out of the tub, jostling Pia's body and almost immersing her before he got hold of the bubble bath. He held the bottle high and let soap spill into the water, a viscous emerald tangle that trailed over her legs. He upended the bottle completely. Green Tea Essence: Skin Revitalizing. Aloe, Cuc.u.mber and Green Tea extracts. Soaks away Tension, Softens and Moisturizes Skin, Revitalizes Spirit. Green Tea Essence: Skin Revitalizing. Aloe, Cuc.u.mber and Green Tea extracts. Soaks away Tension, Softens and Moisturizes Skin, Revitalizes Spirit. He tossed the empty bottle on the floor and turned on the water again. Scalding heat poured over his shoulders, filling the tub and gurgling down its overflow spout. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He tossed the empty bottle on the floor and turned on the water again. Scalding heat poured over his shoulders, filling the tub and gurgling down its overflow spout. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

He supposed this fit some pattern of domestic violence, some statistical map of human behavior. The FBI kept statistics: a murder every twenty minutes, a rape every fifteen, a shoplifting every thirty seconds. Someone had to kill their wife every so often to make the statistics work. It just turned out to be him. Statistical duty. In his job, he expected a certain amount of instability from the servers, from the hardware and software that hosted the applications he wrote. He planned for it. Just like the FBI did. s.h.i.+t happens. While his friends were catching the last of Colorado spring skiing, or running to Home Depot for renovation projects, he was fulfilling statistical requirements.

From where he lay, he could just make out blue sky through the high bathroom window. The optimistic blue, infused with gaudy unrestrained suns.h.i.+ne. All he'd wanted was to do something nice with that suns.h.i.+ne. To go for a jog. Or a bike ride. Or go for brunch and read the paper. And then Pia said there were dishes to do and all he could think about was that: the scabby lasagna pan, the stained sauce pots, the filmy wine gla.s.ses, the bread board crumbs, and the dishwasher that he'd also forgotten to run so he'd have to do more dishes by hand. And dishes led to taxes, April 15 bearing down on him like a tank. He should have talked to his investment advisor about his 401(k) but now it was Sunday and there wasn't anything he could do, and he'd probably forget again on Monday. And that led to the electric and phone bills that he'd forgotten to mail and that he should have set up for direct deposit but he kept blowing it off and now there was probably going to be a service fee and then there was his laptop lying on the living room floor where he'd dumped it, a beartrap of billable hours just waiting to get its jaws latched onto his leg. The Astai Networks project kept refusing to compile and his demo was set for eleven on Monday and he had no idea why the program was suddenly so completely screwed.

Lately, he'd been looking at Starbucks baristas and wis.h.i.+ng he had their jobs. Tall, grande, latte, cappuccino, skinny, whatever. Not much complexity there. And when you left work at the end of the day you didn't have to think about a f.u.c.king thing. Who cared if they made s.h.i.+t for money? At least they wouldn't have to pay much in tax.

Taxes. Did murderers even do taxes? What was the IRS going to do? Arrest him now?

Jonathan frowned at the thought of arrest. He should call the police. Or Pia's mother, at least. Maybe 911? But that was for emergencies. And while the murder had been an emergency, this slow, soaking aftermath wasn't. He stared at Pia's dead body. He should cry. He should feel bad for her. Or at least for himself. He put wet fists in his eyes and waited for tears, but they didn't come.

Why can't I cry?

She's dead. Dead as doornail. You killed Pia. Everything about her is gone. She won't wear that blue and red peasant skirt you bought for her in San Francisco. She won't ask for a German shepherd puppy again. She won't call her mother and talk for three hours about whether to plant acorn squash or zucchini in the back yard.

He kept listing things that Pia wouldn't do again: no more lectures about flossing, no more holding hands after movies, no more Jelly Bellies and reading in bed... but it felt like a farce, just like the tears. A bit of play-acting, in case G.o.d was watching.

He pulled his knuckles from his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. It was an accident. It was an accident. He closed his eyes and concentrated on G.o.d, whatever G.o.d was supposed to be like: a man with a white beard, some fat woman Gaia thing like in some of Pia's books, some round Buddha guy from when she'd been on her meditation kick. He closed his eyes and concentrated on G.o.d, whatever G.o.d was supposed to be like: a man with a white beard, some fat woman Gaia thing like in some of Pia's books, some round Buddha guy from when she'd been on her meditation kick.

I didn't mean to kill her. Really. You know that already, don't You? I didn't want to kill her. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned..He gave it up. He felt like he had when he'd been busted for stealing candy from the 7-Eleven after his allowance ran out. Faking the crying. Acting like he cared even though he couldn't summon sincerity. Mostly just wis.h.i.+ng that they hadn't noticed the bandolier of Pez dangling from his pocket. He knew he should care. He did care, dammit. He didn't think Pia deserved to die with a pillow over her face and s.h.i.+t in her panties. He wanted to blame her nagging, but he was clearly the one in the wrong. But mostly he just felt... what?

Angry?

Frustrated?

Trapped?

Lost and without redemption?

He laughed to himself. That last one sounded trite.

Mostly he felt surprised. Stunned by his world's complete realignment: a life without a wife or taxes or a Monday morning deadline. I'm a murderer. I'm a murderer.

He tried the thought out again, saying it out loud. "I'm a murderer." Trying to make it mean something to him other than that he wasn't going to bother with the dinner dishes now.

A knock sounded at the front door.

Jonathan blinked, returning to the world around him: the dead wife rubbing against his hip, the cooling water. His hands were wrinkled with the bath. How long had he been soaking? The knocking came again. Louder. A thumping, insistent and authoritative. The police knocked like that.

Jonathan leaped out of the bath and ran dripping across the floorboards to peek out between the shades. He expected cruisers and red and blue strobing lights and the neighbors all standing out on their porches, watching the drama unfold right on their quiet tree-lined street. A murder in the Denver suburbs. Instead, all he saw was his neighbor, Gabrielle Roberts. Gabby. A hyper-kinetic get-things-accomplished kind of girl he kept hoping would eventually be worn down by the disappointments of everyday life.

She spited him with summer mountain-biking expeditions, winter snow-boarding jaunts, a continuous stream of home improvement projects, and apparent pleasure in a job that had to do with telecom customer relations, the kind of thing that seemed perfect for deadening the soul, and which she nonetheless seemed to love.

She stood on the porch, black ponytail twitching, brows wrinkling as she leaned forward and beat on the door again. Bouncing from one foot to the other, moving to some internal techno beat that only she could hear. She had on shorts and a sweaty T-s.h.i.+rt that said "Marathoners Go Longer," along with soiled leather gloves.

Jonathan grimaced. Another home improvement project, then. He'd helped her move flagstones into her back yard one hot summer day a few years past, and she'd nearly broken him doing it. Pia had given him a back ma.s.sage afterward and reminded him that he didn't have to do everything that people asked, but when Gabby had shown up at the door, he hadn't known how to refuse her. And now here she was again.

Couldn't she just stop and do nothing for a day? And why now, with Pia's body floating in the bath less than twenty feet away? How was he going to keep Gabby quiet? Would he have to kill her too? How would he do it? Not with a pillow, that was for sure. Gabby was fit. h.e.l.l, she was probably stronger than he was. A kitchen knife, maybe? If he could get her into the kitchen before she saw Pia in the bathtub, he could put a knife to her throat. She wouldn't be expecting that..He shook off the thought. He didn't want to kill Gabby. He didn't want a mountain of bodies and blood piling up around him. He wanted this all to be over. He'd just tell Gabby what happened, she'd run screaming and call the cops, and he could wait on the front porch for them to arrive. Problem solved. They'd find him sitting in his bathrobe and his wife macerating in the tub and he'd go to jail for murder one, two, three, or four, or whatever it was and the neighbors would get their show.

They seemed like such a perfect couple.

But they were both so nice.

We had them take care of our cats when we went to Belize last year.

Fine. Bath time was over. Real life was starting up again. Time to face the music. He went to find a bathrobe and came back just as Gabby hammered on the door again.

"Hey! Jon!" Gabby grinned as he opened the door. "Didn't mean to wake you. Lazy Sunday?"

"I just killed my wife."

"Could I borrow your shovel? Mine broke."

Jonathan goggled. Gabby bounced expectantly.

Had he confessed or not? He thought he had. But Gabby wasn't running and screaming for the cops. She was breaking the script completely. She was bouncing back and forth from the ball of one foot to the other and looking at him like a golden retriever. He replayed the exchange in his mind. Had she not heard? Or had he not said it?

Gabby said, "You look really hungover. Late night last night?"

Jonathan tried to confess again, but the words lodged in his throat. Maybe he hadn't said it the first time. Maybe he'd only thought it. He rubbed his eyes. "What did you say you wanted?"

"I broke my shovel. Can I borrow yours?"

"You broke it?"

"Not on purpose. I tried to pry a rock out of the back yard and the handle snapped."

I killed my wife. She's soaking in the tub right now. Could you call the cops for me? I can't decide whether I should call 911 or the police department's main line. Or if maybe I should just wait until Monday and call a lawyer first. What do you think? Finally he said, "Pia had a shovel in the back shed. You want me to get it?" Finally he said, "Pia had a shovel in the back shed. You want me to get it?"

"That would be great. Where's Pia?"

"In the tub."

Gabby seemed to notice Jonathan's bathrobe for the first time. Her eyes widened. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"It's not what you think."

Gabby waved her hand, embarra.s.sed, and stepped back from the open door. "I shouldn't have barged over here. I should have called. I didn't mean to interrupt things. I can get the shovel myself if you tell me where it is."

"Umm. Okay. You can go around through the side gate. It's in the shed, hanging off pegs by the door." Why didn't he come clean? He just kept playing the charade, pretending that he was still the man he'd been a few hours before.

"Thanks a ton. Sorry for barging in." Gabby turned and bounded down the steps, leaving Jonathan standing in the open doorway. He closed the door. Gabby's ponytail flashed briefly outside the living room window as she jogged past and slipped into the back yard. Jonathan wandered back into the bathroom and sat on the toilet's edge. Pia was floating.

"n.o.body really cares, do they honey?"

He studied her stiffened body and then turned the faucet to add more hot water. Steam rose. He shook his head, watching as it poured into the tub. "No one pays any attention at all."

People died all the time. And yet people still did their ch.o.r.es and went to the store for their groceries and dug rocks out of their back yards. Life went on. The sun was still bright outside and the lilac-scented air was still there and it was still a beautiful day, and he wasn't going to have to do his taxes ever again. He shut off the water. Electric energy tingled in his limbs, an antsy youthful hunger for sun and movement. It really was a wonderful day for a jog.

The nice thing about completely ruining your life, Jonathan decided, was that it was finally possible to enjoy it. As he ran past his neighbors and waved and called out to them, he thought about how little they truly understood about how glorious this warm spring day had become. It was a thousand times better than he'd even guessed when he woke up in the morning. The last day of freedom felt so much better than a million days of daily grind. Sunny days were wasted on the guilt-free. Warm spring air enfolded him as he ran. He stopped at every stop sign, jogging in place and luxuriating in a world that was exactly the same as it had always been, except for his place in it.

It almost felt as if he was jogging for the first time. He felt every sweet breeze, smelled every bright flower, and saw every warm person and they were all beautiful and he missed them all terribly. He observed them from an incredible distance, and yet with extraordinary clarity, as if he was viewing them with a powerful telescope from the surface of Mars.

He ran and ran and sweated and gasped and rested and ran again and he loved it all. He wondered if this was what it was to be Buddhist. If this was what Pia had sought in her meditations. This centered sense, this knowledge that all was transient, that everything was effervescent and lost so easily. Perhaps it would never have existed, except for this sudden nostalgic love spurred on because he was about to lose it all. G.o.d, it felt good to run. To simply work every muscle and feel the pavement hit his shoes, to see the trees with their newly greened neon leaves, and to feel for once that he was paying attention to it all.

He kept waiting for someone to notice his difference, to recognize the fact that he was now a murderer, but no one did. He stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought a bottle of Gatorade, grinning at the clerk as he got his change and thinking, I'm a murderer. I smothered my wife this morning. I'm a murderer. I smothered my wife this morning. But the old man behind the counter didn't notice Jonathan's scarlet letter M. But the old man behind the counter didn't notice Jonathan's scarlet letter M.

In fact, as Jonathan chugged his green electrolytes, he suddenly felt that he was not at all different from this lovely man behind the counter with his orange vest and corporate convenience logo on his back. He had the feeling that he could invite the wrinkled guy home and they could pull a couple bottles of Fat Tire Ale out of the fridge, or if the old man preferred something lighter, PBRs perhaps, whatever the guy wanted, they'd open their cans of watery beer and they'd go into the back yard and lie on the gra.s.s and soak up suns.h.i.+ne, and at some point Jonathan would mention casually that his dead wife was soaking in the bathtub and the man would nod and say, "Oh yes, I did something similar with mine. Do you mind if I take a look?"

And they would both go back inside and stand in the bathroom's doorway, studying Jonathan's floating lily and the clerk would nod his snowy head thoughtfully and suggest that she'd probably prefer to be buried in the back yard, in her garden.

After all, that was what his own wife had wanted, and she'd been a gardener, too.

On Monday, Jonathan emptied his bank accounts and IRAs and changed everything into cash: fifty and hundred dollar bills, fat wads of them that he stuffed into a messenger bag so that he walked out of the bank carrying $112,398. His life savings. The wages of sin. The profits of dutiful financial planning. The clerk had asked if he was getting a divorce, and he blushed and nodded and said it was something like that, but she didn't stop him from clearing out the account, and mostly seemed to think it was funny that he was beating his wife to the punch. He almost asked her on a date, before he remembered the reason she was counting all that cash onto the counter for him.

He came home and dropped his bag on the couch and carried the phone into the bathroom to sit with Pia while he bought himself some time. He called his job and told them his wife had family troubles and that he needed to take vacation and sick time early. Sorry about the Astai demo. Naeem could probably sort it out. He told a few of his and Pia's friends that Pia had a family emergency, and that she'd flown back to Illinois, to help. He notified Pia's work, saying that she'd be in touch when she knew more about what kind of emergency leave she might need. He chatted with Pia's parents and told them he was taking her on a surprise vacation for their anniversary and that phone service in Turkey would be unreliable. Every conversation closed doors of friendly inquiry. Every conversation lengthened the time between suspicion and discovery.

The steadiness of his voice surprised him. Somehow it was hard to be nervous when the worst was already done. He bought a pair of plane tickets in his and Pia's names to Cambodia with a departure a month away. From Vancouver, just to confuse things a little more. And when he was done, he made himself a gin and tonic and sat and soaked with Pia one last time in her macerate. There was a smell about her now, the rot of her guts, the ga.s.ses of her belly. The ruin wreaked by hot water on dead flesh. But he soaked with her anyway and apologized as best he could for remaking his life via her dead body. Then he went over and reclaimed his shovel from Gabby.

By the light of a few alley street lamps, he buried Pia in the back yard under a part of the garden. He left a note for the police, describing generally what had happened-including an apology-for when he was finally caught and needed some faceless court to forgive him and let him out in less time than they would have demanded of a pot grower. He scattered sunflower and poppy and morning glory seeds on the mound and thought that the 7-Eleven clerk would approve.

That night, he drove across the mountains. He wondered if he had finally crossed the line between Manslaughter and Murder, or Murder Two and Murder One, but didn't really care. A bit of travel just seemed in order. A long vacation before a longer prison sentence. Really, it wasn't much different from changing jobs. A bit of a break before the new job started.

He sold his car in Las Vegas for another five thousand in cash, pretending to be a gambling junkie sure his luck would turn around. Then he struck off down the road, headed for the interstate and the wider world beyond.

On a desert on-ramp he stuck out his thumb. He wondered if his luck would keep holding and then he wondered how much he really cared. He marveled that he had ever worried about something as trivial as a 401(k) allocation. He was on the road to Mexico with its sun and sand and pleasant rhythms and... who knew? Perhaps he would be caught. Or perhaps he would simply disappear into his strange new life.

Jonathan had once read that j.a.panese samurai lived as if they had already died. But he doubted even they had any idea what that really felt like. Standing beside the hot Nevada interstate with gritty winds and big rigs blowing past him, he thought he might have an inkling.

By the time he'd pulled Pia from the bath and buried her, he'd feared she would fall apart from all her soaking. His mother used to say that if you stayed in a bath too long you'd shrivel up and disappear. But Pia had held together all right, even after a couple days. She was gone, but still recognizable. He, on the other hand, was still around-and yet utterly changed.

A sporty RAV4 hit the on-ramp. It whipped past him in a flash of white, then slowed suddenly and pulled onto the margin. Jonathan jogged after it, his messenger bag of cash jouncing against his hip. He yanked open the little SUV's door. A kid with a crushed cowboy hat studied him through mirrored Ray-Bans.

"Where you headed?"

"San Diego?"

"You pay gas?"

Jonathan couldn't help grinning. "Yeah. I think I can help with that."

The kid motioned him in, gunned the little engine and accelerated onto the highway.

"What are you doing in San Diego?"

"I'm actually going to Mexico. Somewhere with beaches."

"I'm going to Cabo for spring break. Gonna get drunk, suck t.i.tties, and go native."

"Sounds nice."

"Yeah man. It's gonna be great."

The kid cranked up the stereo and whipped the RAV4 into the pa.s.sing lane, zipping past eighteen-wheelers and late weekend traffic returning from Vegas to L.A.

Jonathan rolled down the window, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes as the stereo throbbed and the kid yammered on about how he wanted to be in a skateboard video someday and how much he was going to get laid in Mexico and how you could buy phat weed down there for nothing.

The miles sped by. Jonathan let himself relax and think again about Pia. When he pulled her from the bath, he'd been amazed at how soft her skin had become.

The next time he got married, he hoped he'd be softer, too.

Pump Six.

The first thing I saw Thursday morning when I walked into the kitchen was Maggie's a.s.s sticking up in the air. Not a bad way to wake up, really. She's got a good figure, keeps herself in shape, so a morning eyeful of her pretty bottom pressed against a black mesh nightie is generally a positive way to start the day.

Except that she had her head in the oven. And the whole kitchen smelled like gas. And she had a lighter with a blue flame six inches high that she was waving around inside the oven like it was a Tickle Monkey revival concert.

"Jesus Christ, Maggie! What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

I dove across the kitchen, grabbed a handful of nightie and yanked hard. Her head banged as she came out of the oven. Frying pans rattled on the stovetop and she dropped her lighter. It skittered across the tuffscuff, ending up in a corner. "Owwwwww!" She grabbed her head. "Oooowwww!"

She spun around and slapped me. "What the f.u.c.k did you do that for?" She raked her nails across my cheek then went for my eyes. I shoved her away. She slammed into the wall and spun, ready to come back again. "What's the matter with you?" she yelled. "You p.i.s.sed off you couldn't get it up last night? Now you want to knock me around instead?" She grabbed the cast-iron skillet off the stovetop, dumping NiftyFreeze bacon all over the burners. "You want to try again, trogwad? Huh? You want to?" She waved the pan, threatening, and started for me. "Come on then!"

I jumped back, rubbing my cheek where she'd gouged me. "You're crazy! I keep you from getting yourself blown up and you want to beat my head in?"

"I was making your d.a.m.n breakfast!" She ran her fingers through her black tangled hair and showed me blood. "You broke my d.a.m.n head!"

"I saved your dumb a.s.s is what I did." I turned and started shoving the kitchen windows open, letting the gas escape. A couple of the windows were just cardboard curtains that were easy to pull free, but one of the remaining whole windows was really stuck.

"You sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

I turned just in time to dodge the skillet. I yanked it out of her hands and shoved her away, hard, then went back to opening windows. She came back, trying to get around in front of me as I pushed the windows open. Her nails were all over my face, scratching and sc.r.a.ping. I pushed her away again and waved the skillet when she tried to come back. "You want me to use this?"

She backed off, eyes on the pan. She circled. "That's all you got to say to me? 'I saved your dumb a.s.s'?" Her face was red with anger. "How about 'Thanks for trying to fix the stove, Maggie,' or 'Thanks for giving a d.a.m.n about whether I get a decent breakfast before work, Maggie.'" She hawked snot and spat, missing me and hitting the wall, then gave me the finger. "Make your own d.a.m.n breakfast. See if I try to help you again."

I stared at her. "You're dumber than a sack of trogs, you know that?" I waved the skillet toward the stove. "Checking a gas leak with a lighter? Do you even have a brain in there? h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo?"