THE MURDER EQUATION

THIS IS A SHORT STORY

Matter and energy can’t be created or destroyed. Supposed to be some kinda law. And yet here we are. Somebody ain’t playin’ by the rules.

…

I held Alexander’s hand when he passed. It seemed peaceful. He was sleepin’ and he didn’t wake up. Seemed peaceful. I hope it was. Seemed like it. But what do I know? I do know that when he went limp I felt my throat tighten and my shoulders slump. Stuff felt like it was relaxin’ that I didn’t know I had. Like realizin’ a pebble been in your shoe all day. And that made me sick, thinkin’ about a pebble in my shoe when I just murdered my son and he lay there dead, eyes open. Lookin’ up at nothin’. Hopefully lookin’ up at somethin’. But he ain’t never looked too close at nothin’, wouldn’t make much sense if he started focusin’ now.

It was a long time comin’. You don’t think too much about the time passin’ til you see an old photo. Like the picture is more real than you are. Like it’s somethin’ truer than you can be. A man is filled with a whole lotta nothin’ but a photo’s somethin’. I saw a photo of Katherine and I looked at Katherine and saw too much nothin’. So much nothin’ takin’ so much. She weren’t the same woman and I weren’t the same man. I tell myself I weren’t the same man anymore but sometimes it feels like I never changed. Like I been the same my whole life. Like I been the same before I was born and would be the same when I died. Sometimes I felt totally unchanged and eternal. Like the equal sign in an equation, two lines on top of each other. You can do anything on either side of the equation as long as you do it to the other side. That’s what them two lines mean. You can do anything.

Alexander looked like the other babies but after we took him home and months passed, we realized somethin’ was different. He didn’t look at ya like the other babies and he didn’t cry so much and who knows what he was lookin’ at. Hopefully somethin’. Harder to tell when he’s just a baby, lackin’ words and whatnot, but this weren’t our first rodeo, and Katherine could tell. She worked with kids who didn’t talk, who would never talk, it was a great fear of ours. Well of hers anyway, I didn’t really know much about it, but her fears were mine. I seen how she look after work. The usual stories she eventually stopped sharing. Too much nothin’ to share. An unbearable burden that’s your office every day. I never knew how the woman did it. She worked with families in their homes, tryin’ to help ‘em as best she could. She told me they were all hopeless, but we had bills to pay.

And maybe the fear was why Alexander were like that too. Somethin’ like a self-fulfilling prophecy. A woman fearin’ that her child be born a whole lot of nothin’, never talkin’, never lookin’ at ya, never lookin’ at anything, the most expensive house plant you ever seen that don’t know how big and strong he is, don’t know you’re his daddy, don’t know how much his momma loves him, don’t know nothin’ and can’t ever do nothin’ but take. Who broke his sister’s arm for God knows why. Who were bigger than me when he turned thirteen. Who would scream any hour of the night, makin’ up for lost time when he was a quiet baby. Who took so much from his beautiful momma. If it were a prophecy, then it sure don’t seem like a self filled it.

It was the picture that did it. Maybe it could’ve happened any other time or maybe I’m makin’ up excuses, doin’ anything I want then justifyin’ it afterward. It were me that did it. Weren’t no picture. But I saw the picture and I saw my wife and I saw that she weren’t the same woman anymore and not in that way that everyone grows and changes, in a way where something were stealin’ from her day in and day out. Like she were possessed. What had this woman done to deserve this? These years? She worked with families just like ours now, and then she couldn’t work no more. She needed to stay home with this creature that possessed her, who she loved so much. Who could take and take and take and never stop. Like a whole lot of nothin’. If zero’s on one side of them two lines, then you gotta take everything from the other side. Ain’t nothin’ can be created or destroyed. Maybe he weren’t a zero but them two lines just like his daddy.

I saw the picture and I saw my wife and the quiet fury ignited. Like a silo goin’ up in flame from all the dust. Just needin’ a spark. Years of nothin’ eatin’ you and your wife and your children and suddenly a picture—then boom. I hadn’t been thinkin’ bout it but I immediately knew what I was going to do like I had been thinkin’ about it a whole lot. Like I was fillin’ a prophecy. But I never thought about it, I never thought about killin’ my boy, but in that moment I knew so much. Weren’t no plannin’ and schemin’. Who knows why a man dreams of his particulars, fact is he dreams, fact is in that moment I knew exactly what I was going to do. I would sneak insulin out of the pharmacy considering I was a regular there and I knew about Joanne’s diabetes and the pharmacist saw me every week, would be as simple as a sleight of hand during a busy afternoon. Joanne had more insulin and mistakes happen. A whole lot of nothin’.

It were night and no moon and I injected my boy in his foot. He were lookin’ at nothin’ and didn’t stop.

…

I read in one of them magazines with a pretty cover of colors in space you never seen that can’t nothin’ be created or destroyed. So are we a whole lot of nothin’? Matter and energy on both sides of two lines, seems to me that’s what the learned men think. That weren’t how I were raised but truth be told I were brought up readin’ a book without pretty pictures and with a whole lotta words might’ve been equations ‘bout matter and energy. Some kinda formula. Felt like formulas leavin’ me with more questions than answers, same as the magazine with the pretty cover.

And I weren’t thinkin’ it then because I weren’t thinkin’ bout nothin’ then but I think about it all the time now, maybe I was just balancin’ an equation. Takin’ on sin so my wife and my children don’t gotta bear more. Take on all our burdens. I ain’t supposed to do that. Ain’t supposed to murder. Ain’t supposed to murder my boy. But I weren’t thinkin’ I just did. And now I think all the time about nothin’ and bein’ nothin’ and bein’ two lines on top of each other. How it don’t matter what I think and now my boy sits on a shelf and my wife don’t cry all the time. I still carry my boy and he weighs more now.

We was gonna eat each other no matter what.