The Interview (30 page)

It was harder to get him in the car than it was to kill him, but I
managed. I crumpled him into the passenger seat, leaning his head
against the window. The keys were in the ignition. I returned to the
shop, found the controls for the roll-up door and closed it. It would
have been nice if the side gate was automatic, but alas, I had to
open it by hand, then drive the car through, then close it behind us.

I took the 91 out to the 15 and the vast wasteland that exists on the
drive to Las Vegas. There are roads out there that go nowhere as far
as I can tell. They cross the 15 and run out of sight in either
direction. I chose one 30 miles past Barstow. I took the off-ramp and
headed deeper into the nothingness. I drove for a half hour without
seeing anything other than nothing. I went another fifteen minutes,
then doubled back to a thin dirt track. I followed it for three miles
before it just ended in a pile of rocks. The spot worked for me.

I got Jerry out of the car and dragged his body fifty feet away from
the road. I stripped his body naked, then covered him with rocks. I
observed my impromptu burial mound from different angles and decided
that it looked like nothing more than a pile of rocks. From where I
had parked it looked just like the rest of the area. I climbed into
the hated El Camino and drove away. After some debate, I headed to
Vegas. Upon reaching Sin City, I parked Jerry's car in a neighborhood
that looked ripe for destruction. I left the keys in the ignition
then walked to The Strip where I caught a cab to the airport.

I landed in Orange County just after ten. I took another cab back to
Orange and got out in front of a Starbucks in The Circle. I walked to
the Cougar, and was home and in bed by 11:30 PM.

The rumors about Casey's husband started a week later.

I LAY IN MY MOTEL bed, unable to sleep, and thought about the demise
of Jerry and how it related to the events of the last week. Mostly,
though, I tried to figure out how Mr. Bat had deduced that it was I
who ended Jerry's life. For the life of me, I couldn't come up with a
single explanation. The body was never found. His car never turned
up. Casey had embraced life without her husband and the police had
never asked me a single question. What it came down to was Mr. Bat
made a lucky guess. But it was a guess that had to have been based on
research into my life. When had it started? When did I show up on
Mr. Bat's radar?

I don't know how long these questions circled my mind until sleep
finally took me. I woke refreshed and guilt-free at two o'clock in
the morning. I had no answers, but at some point in the night I had
reached some kind of conclusion as to where my life would be headed
in the coming days. I showered, checked out of the motel, and was on
my way home before three AM.

I felt good. Really good. Right up until I took the bullet to my
head, I felt absolutely perfect.

ANNETTE WAS IN THE KITCHEN when I walked in a little after seven.

“Morning, Sunshine!” I gave her a big hug.

“Good morning to you, too, Kelly.” She returned the hug
with enthusiasm. There is something completely comforting about
hugging Annette. It's different than a hug from anyone else. Her hugs
reach into me and find that little boy who could still feel things
like love.

“Kim still around?” I asked.

“She left early this morning. We had fun this weekend.”

“Excellent. I'm glad.”

“It doesn't bother you, does it?”

“Why would it bother me?”

“Routine is important to you. I could see how Kim might upset
the balance.”

I shook my head. “I do what I do, Annette. Kim could move in
and it wouldn't slow me down for a second. Just not in my room.”

She squinted, her version of x-ray vision. “There's really
nothing going on with you two?”

I rolled my eyes. “Nothing is going on. She's cool. A major
trip, but cool. We had an interesting night the other night. We
kissed. That's all. You know me. Emotional attachment is not
something I do.”

“Does she get that about you?”

“Probably not, but if she hangs around long enough she will.
Listen, if you guys want to hang out, it's cool with me. If you want
to rent her a room or be one of her couch stops that's fine by me,
OK? If she's here on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday then we can go
running here. Save me a trip to Newport. She can even sit in on our
Rummy games and drink classes.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” she said with a protective
smile. “That's my time.”

“That's why I love you, Annette. I gotta go.” I kissed
her on the cheek and turned to leave.

“Kelly?” I turned back around and waited for her to
finish. A strange expression crossed her face that I couldn't read.
Odd, because I knew all of her expressions, but this one was new to
me. “Have you given any thought to what we talked about on
Friday morning. You know, standing up for those who can't.”

“Definitely,” I replied.

“Did you come to any kind of conclusion?”

“Definitely,” I repeated with a smile. “I gotta go.
See you tonight. We will talk then.”

Of course, I didn't see her that night. Gunshots to the head can
wreak havoc on a guy's plans.

I WALKED TO WORK. IT felt really good to walk. I love having three
days off in a row, but my muscles get all out of sync. Throw in my
1,000-mile round-trip drive from yesterday and my legs didn't quite
know what to do with themselves as I cut across the school field.

I half expected Mr. Bat or Officer Bradford to be waiting somewhere
along my route. I encountered neither of them, however, and I pushed
through the Post Office doors at 7:30 AM, or 07:50, or 0730, or 8:15
by the clock on the wall. Good to know some things never change.

I slid my time card and headed over to my route. Thelma was working
on Casey's route. I needed to remember to call her later when I got
home. There were a number of people I needed to talk to. It was
weird. I couldn't remember a time when I actually wanted to call
someone. Now I had a list. At that moment, I wanted a cell phone. I
should have known my world was coming to an end.

I slipped my earbuds in.
Tesla
started me off right
with “Lil' Suzy“. At nine o'clock, Graciella gathered
everyone around for a stand-up and announced that she was now the
acting postmaster for Placentia. She might have explained the why and
how, but I was back in my case working with the volume cranked so I'm
not sure. Lucinda was out. Graciella was in. Sucks.

The mail was light, and I was in an incredible groove. I clocked onto
the street at quarter to nine.

Thelma caught up to me as I loaded my truck.

“Hey, Kelly.”

“What's up?” She looked like she might drop dead any
second. Her skin was so pale. Her eyes were bloodshot. She had a long
scratch down her right cheek. The blood crusted in a jagged line.
“What happened to your face?”

“My cat did a little dance on my face last night. It was an
accident.”

“You should clean it up, maybe.”

She ignored me. “Did you hear about the fire?”

I played dumb. “Been out of town. What fire?”

“A bar down on Orangethorpe. Burned to the ground Saturday
night. It was one of the Devil's play palaces.”

“Really?”

“Yes. All manner of evil things went on in that place.
Placentia isn't a nice place anymore. I'm glad it burned down.”

“OK.” I love not feeling guilt. It makes these kind of
potentially awkward conversations much easier.

“What happened with the Turins?”

“What do you mean?”

“There's a rumor that you got into it with Mr. Turin.”

“Just a rumor, Thelma. Pay it no mind.”

“OK.” She looked away for a second then leaned in close
to me and whispered, “Be careful today, Kelly. Your aura is all
crazy right now. Usually you are blue and white, calm colors. Today
you are orange and red and black. Angry, violent colors. Be careful.”

“My aura is angry?”

“Yes.” She turned and walked away.

I watched her go back inside. That was weird. If anything, my aura
felt super calm. Not angry. Thelma’s radar must have been off.

An hour later, I grabbed the flats and letters for the loop that
began with Mrs. Hicks' house. I walked across her front yard and onto
her driveway. I heard a car pull up behind me, but paid it no mind.
My head was down. My fingers did their thing with the letters. The
front door opened. I looked up, curious about what version of Mrs.
Hicks I would be treated to this fine morning.

The gun in her hand was small compared to the other guns that had
been pointed at me over the last week. It was still a gun, however,
and the sight of it stopped me in my tracks.

“Mrs. Hicks . . .”

“I'm tired of you stealing my checks,” she said in a very
calm voice.

“Mrs. Hicks I-”

She pulled the trigger. It sounded like a cap going off. A sharp
crack. The bullet hit me right above the right eye. My head snapped
back. It felt like I had just been hit in the forehead with a hammer,
and then the physical pain was drowned out beneath a flood of
emotions.

When I was seven, my best friend hit me in the head with a baseball
bat. It was an accident, but that didn't make it hurt any less. We
were playing golf with the bat. I was standing too close. The next
thing I remember is my mom waking me up and asking me why I was
crying. I went to the hospital. The doctor gave me a sticker and a
lollipop, patted me on my head and said, “He's got a thick
skull. Nothing wrong with him.”

Doctors are idiots in my opinion. I understand that in 1977, the
medical profession was still in the relative stone age when it came
to head injuries. I also understand that doctors told my mom to put
me on my back when I slept as a baby. Twenty years later they were
telling parents to have babies sleep on their stomachs. Now they sold
wedges for little kids to sleep in. Doctors don't have a clue. But
that idiot with the lollipop was the dumbest one of the bunch.

Nowadays there is some general agreement between the idiots as to
where emotions come from: the amygdala. In addition, they have
decided, for the moment, that the frontal lobe of the brain is
important to controlling emotions. How it does this is a mystery, but
not knowing something has never stopped a scientist. The amygdala
spits out the emotions and the frontal lobe controls them. Kind of
like a traffic cop. When people can't control their emotions, some
mysterious something in their frontal lobe is sleeping on the job.
I'm the opposite. My frontal lobe is in permanent lockdown mode when
it comes to emotions. Nothing out. I have no idea if my amygdala even
works, but there have been a few times I have felt things that could
be emotions. And, occasionally, muted feelings register with me,
stuff like interest or curiosity. The last one is a killer of cats so
I wasn't sure if it was a good thing for me or not. Therefore, after
careful consideration, this idiot has decided that the baseball bat
did a number on my frontal lobe.

Anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, acceptance,
and joy are the primary emotions according to Plutchik. These eight
emotions are all closely tied to the fight or flight response that
everybody learns about in their first college psych class. In other
words, survival. Stuff like love, admiration, hate, and loathing are
more complex emotions that combine two or more primary emotions. I
can't process the basics, so the complex stuff is way beyond me.

The people who love me suffer the most.

My parents had seven years of a loving child. I think that made it
easier for them. I have memories of that love, but that love is a
child's unconditional love for their parents. Romantic love is
something I have not experienced. Probably never will.

Frankie learned this the hard way.

I have always wondered what happened to the emotions generated in my
amygdala over the years. Did they wither away after a few days like
sperm? Or did they just keep knocking on my frontal lobe begging to
be released? I got my answer as an infinite number of emotions
suddenly gushed through my body. They came so fast I couldn't even
begin to process most of them.

I saw Frankie for the first time and my heart raced as intense
emotion attached itself to the memory. For the first time, I knew
that I loved Frankie. I felt it in every cell in my body. It was the
single greatest thing I have ever experienced.

I opened my mouth to say thank you, but could only manage, “Treunh
wil.” There is a large downside to a bullet in the head. There
are side effects, mangled speech being one of them. I could live with
it.

Mrs. Hicks made a startled sound. I shook my head and watched as tiny
drops of red splattered the ground.

The memory of Frankie was replaced by another, then another, then
another in a rapid-fire succession that I couldn't keep up with. One
instant I was overcome with love, then nearly driven to tears with
loss, then onto another emotional moment in my life that up until
right then meant absolutely nothing to me. Now, everything had
meaning. Good, bad, awful, amazing, everything gushed up and out of
my amygdala because my frontal lobe was no longer on lockdown. It had
done a 180, and was now letting everything out.

As I opened my mouth to try and speak once more, the gun went off
again. This time the bullet took me in the chest. Small bullet or no,
this one knocked me on my ass. I sat down hard, my teeth came
together with a crack. I stayed upright for a moment, then slowly, my
upper body fell back. My head slammed into the concrete. Rather than
stars, I saw more images that had been without context for too long.
It was beautiful. It was painful. It was-

Then she shot me again.