Method 15 33 (17 page)

I’m better than this
.

I checked my nails, displeased with jagged cuticles. Waiting. Preening and waiting.

Fortunately, he fell into my trap and came on cue.

Strike the rumbling kettledrum
.

He opened the door. I handed him the tray.

Whole wash my face, body, teeth, and drink from faucet routine—this time by just splashing water. I wasn’t about to use the nasty washcloth anymore.

The orchestra shifts closer to the edge of their seats, gripping strings and filling lungs. A violin joins the drum to heighten the passion. Anticipation crawls up the spine of the stiff-backed pianist
.

I waddled back to the room. I considered this phase of 15/33, successfully completed,
check
.

The minutiae of this day is so ingrained in my mind movie. Microseconds of actions and observations are burned so deeply I practically see them play out now: seventeen years of replay. When he thrust me back into my confines after the morning bathroom trip, the iciness of his grip on my forearm was so cold I thought he might stick to my skin, like lips on an icy glass. Slowly I craned my neck to see a stain on his chin, stuck within the stubble he’d failed to shave. The yellowy blotch looked to be egg yolk, which I presumed he’d horked down after giving me my muffin and before picking up my tray.

He gets protein in a hot breakfast but gives me empty calories in a cold pastry
.

I wanted him to have the decency to wipe his face before being in my presence. I wanted him to have the grace to apologize for breathing his hot stench around me, for clouding my air with his BO and halitosis, for thinking he could enjoy a meal while I was in the same house as him, for having no warmth in his touch, for not seeing the plan unfold around him, for his blindness, his stupidity, his existence, and his past, a past that made me a victim—trickle-down torture. I wanted that yellow stain to not exist. I wished I’d never seen the gooey mass on his blackhead-filled, dry-skin, lazy face, but it was there, and I was there, and hard work had to be done that day.

He’s out of my hair for a good three-and-a-half hours. Get to work. Phase II
.

I really didn’t need three-and-a-half hours. I needed perhaps an hour for the set-up. With the extra time, I practiced.
I must stand here
. I stood there.
I must drop this then
. I pretended to drop a cord.
I must pick this up and push, right away
. I practiced with the floorboard.
I must unhook this as I leave the room
. I didn’t practice this last part for fear of squandering my
coup de grace
, my grand finale, my triple insurance for death.

The hour approached. If I were a ballerina, I’d be on point, my toes, my legs, my whole body in a stiff cement posture. The child growing inside me turned; his foot moved across my belly. Five toes and a heel were visible from him pressing within.
I love you, baby. Hold on. Game time
.

A fast wind rustled through the treetop outside the triangular window and in its wake, the sky darkened, and a sudden shower fried in a flash.

The team of flutes sounds like swarming bees, the violins are in a fury, kicking up a cyclone, the grand piano is on fire, the ivory practically pounds to dust
.

Minutes later, the sky remained gray and dripping, not fully giving up on rain, but not raining outright either. If the air had been warm, the day would have been steamy, like summers in Savannah at Nana’s house. But since the air was cool and we were on a non-exotic, flat farm, the wetness was the kind to chill bones, crack marrow.

My son will not be born here. He will not enter the world, cold and damp. My child will not be taken
.

My condition, this condition, propelled me to action. Because I was a full eight months then, I could not afford to physically attack my captor, even though he’d given ample opportunities. I could have jabbed a dagger of broken china or the sharpened end of a TV antenna into his neck. I could have dismantled the baseboard and beat him with a bedpost. Trust me, I thought of all of these options. They were ruled out though
because they would require agility and lunging and jumping, abilities I lacked in my late condition. Besides, I might miss. I could not do the necessary deed entirely physically, and I did not want to stress the baby with a foolish attempt. Instead, I used as many assets as I could, the power of physics, basic biology, systems of levers and pulleys, and unbridled vengeance.

My father is a physicist and a black belt in jiu-jitsu, trained by the navy. With these two industries, he taught the benefit of using an aggressor’s weight and movement against him in battle. I knew from my mother, a hardened cynic, “You should never underestimate a person’s stupidity or laziness.” Any opponent will eventually slip up, and thus, to her teachings, “Never waste an opponent’s moment of weakness. Do not hesitate in slicing an exposed jugular.” She meant it figuratively, but I tried in vain to apply it literally.

My captor displayed numerous moments of weakness, of stupidity, of laziness. I’ll sum them up: the van, the Kitchen People, the pencil sharpener, the setting and following of patterns, the inability to fight his own weakened ego, the decision to put the barrel of a gun on my unborn baby, the offers for more water, the TV, the radio, and finally, the act of leaving his ring of keys in the door whenever he unlocked it to enter.

By Day 33, I was secure concluding the Kitchen People would be absent until Day 37. The Doctor and The Obvious Couple would not visit, for I had shown no signs of labor—nor would I have shared them with my captor anyway. Brad, I presumed, had been successful in flying the coup.

It will be him and me alone, just as 15/33 requires
.

The dangling radio said it was 11:51, nine minutes to showtime. I stood in my designated spot and tried to fix upon the time, suspended in the air on the radio which spun on the rope to which it was tied. The minutes were so slow then, and so was my heartbeat. I believe the only anxiety I felt was the anxiety of getting this gig over with. The practice I’d had to this point was as though I’d memorized a passionate love speech, one that
at first writing might have elicited trembles of heartbeats and perhaps even tears, but after ten thousand recitations had become a mass of words, disconnected to human feeling—much the way a President might read from a teleprompter or a bad actor might deliver lines when reading straight from a script. “I love you” is said as three robotic words, no dip of voice or shoulders, no hand extended on the “love,” no pupils dilated, no crease of the forehead to emphasize the point. “I. Love. You.” is simply said while the speaker simultaneously checks the time on his watch.
There is no love with such a declaration if he checks his watch; but love is felt, indeed the room pulses, when he says as much and fights his knees from sinking to the ground or fails to blink from the blinding light invading his widened eyes
.

And so, much like the tin man declaring love, my practiced hand itched to complete the task. I probably could have killed him blindfolded and asleep at this point, the actions I planned had been repeated so often.

At 11:55, I signaled my star, a bag of bleach, to take its place in the spotlight. Bleach is corrosive. I once read an article in which Scott Curriden of Scripps Research Environmental Health and Safety was quoted as saying, “Bleach can drill a hole through stainless steel.” So I waited as long as I could to pour my ¾ gallon of bleach into the flimsy plastic bag and pinch the bag by loosely tying the top with some of the red yarn I’d unraveled. Next, standing by the door, I pulled the other end of the yarn, which was thrown over the beam closest to the door, along with another cord holding another item—wait for it—so the pouch of bleach rested beneath this other heavy item. Both objects dangled directly over Floorboard #3.

Bleach is corrosive, as I’ve mentioned, which we know from scientists. And bleach burns like a Mother You-Know-Whater when it’s splashed in your eyes or your mouth or your face, which we know from common sense.

The clock ticked to 11:59 and the sun simultaneously flared, sending a beam to cut through the dust particles in the
air. The smell of my own sweat fogged me in the tight space I quarantined myself to, firm against the wall by the door. I’m sure my odor hadn’t increased due to any nervousness, but rather was abundantly apparent as I prepared to say goodbye to all the details of that horrible den.

An ever-so-slight tremble began. The floorboards rattled.
Lunch
. I plastered my back to the wall, solid in the designated spot by the door. Outside, he placed the tray on the floor. The click clack of plastic against wood signaled me to stand rigid and ready.

Keys jingled and metal scraped within the keyhole.

The door opened.

He opened it wide, just what I needed, just as always, just as expected, as planned
.

After collecting the food from the floor, he bent without looking up and stepped to the exact spot he always did, just as I had marked and measured three times a day since Day 5. Floorboard #3. He looked straight ahead at the bed, which was now a contraption of death. What did he think, expecting me to be sitting there waiting for lunch but seeing…the mattress tipped, wedged between the bed frame and the wall, and the box spring on the floor, cut open and hallowed, lined with that plastic, and filled with water, and thus, transfigured into a literal pool. A quarry with cotton sides
in
the house, only steps from the door. In the second of insight I allowed him, I hoped he saw a ready canvas, waiting only for its main subject, him, and thus would be my completed masterpiece. I hoped he would chastise himself for giving me plastic on that box spring, chastise himself for being too lazy to remove it and properly place the bed on slats. His vision would be of that box spring now expertly layered in the plastic, half-filled with water, and the standing mattress against the wall, like an opened lid to this well, waiting to close once he entered. The wood frame of the bed, he should have noted, had several skinny rungs missing. Did he wonder where those had gone? And hanging and twirling and singing in the sky above was the radio on a rope made out of a red knit blanket. The radio’s plug was in the socket at the foot of the bed.

Did he connect water with electricity? Did he feel the rising zap in the room, coming from the socket, my plan, my head? Did he sense the tension so high in the blaring opera above the bed, so high I thought bolts of lighting flashed around the room?

I’m sure if I had allowed another second to pass, he’d have cranked his head to see me standing to his left and by the opened door. He’d have asked a bewildered and grunted
How?
I never gave him the opportunity, of course, but I have a chance now for a quick explanation.

On that working night from Day 4 to Day 5, I used the razor from the pencil sharpener, which had been summarily dismantled by the sharp end of the bucket handle, and cut the plastic covering and the fabric on the inside of the box spring. The cutting is what took so long. I had only the razor to work with and it was small. Even a microscopic tear might foil the plan, so I worked methodically, like an art restorer to a damaged Rembrandt, precious square inch by precious square inch, ensuring each cut was surgeon-worthy straight. I kept the plastic on the sides and bottom of the box spring and secured it in place with the flat tacks, collectively Asset #24. I’ll explain about the tacks in a minute. I lined the box spring between its now exposed support boards with the cut plastic and secured the inner well—now an empty pool—with more of the flat tacks. I reinforced certain spots with a patchwork of pieces of my black raincoat, which I had torn apart. He never noticed it missing.

“Your opponent will often be blind to your design, being consumed with his own. Do not subconsciously seek accolades of your ingenuity and thus call attention—be sated by your own approval. Be confident you will win,” so said the quote, scrawled on a napkin and framed in my mother’s home office. My father was the author, having written the inspiration before jumping from a plane in his navy wetsuit to extract some kidnapped figurehead from an island prison. Such were the subjects of our family dinner conversations, even after mother’s trial wins became the norm and even after my father retired to a full life of science.

On Day 33, he likely could not believe the spectacle of this box spring well, filled with the lukewarm water he offered me at every meal—by the way, when I guzzled water from the bathroom faucet, this is how I got the hydration needed for my condition. Above the bed-pool hung the radio, plugged in to the outlet on the wall by the headboard. A symphony of unparalleled voracity blared.

Wild notes. Oh wild melody. Rage on
.

Just before my captor arrived on Day 33 to deliver my lunch, I marveled at this scene myself.
When I said, “Thank you,” each time you offered me more water, I meant, “Thank you. Thank you for letting me drown you, electrocute you.”

The band is beyond divinity at this point, so furious I can no longer hear a single note. What music, what rapture. I am overcome
.

One second after he entered the room and stepped in the place I had studied for weeks, I let go the pouch of bleach (Asset #36), and also the ultrasound machine’s extension cord (Asset #22), which held the TV suspended above his head. The pouch hit first and burst, only to be squished further a millisecond later by the crash of the television. Both missiles hit squarely on what was once the soft spot of his newborn skull.

The bleach must have reached his eyeballs because instead of cradling his crushed head, his weak arms, weak because he was passing out, went to his eyes as he gave out a high-pitched moan. I hold freeze-frames of his actions from this point on. Frame-by-frame, he rocked his left eye with the back of his left hand, while his right arm did the same with his right eye. Even in memory, I do not hear, as I did not hear in those microseconds, what must have been spitting swears and screaming coming from his wide-open mouth. I heard that radio offering praise from an opera. I heard a violin scream a high note of approval. And I heard the crackle of urgent electricity, seeping from the socket and anxious to play its part. Water in the box spring rippled from the sudden thud of the TV when it crashed to the wood floor, after falling from his head to his
right shoulder and bouncing off his back. A metal corner gouged somewhere along his neckline, releasing blood to run down his spine—like a ribbon on a balloon.