Her third summer here, rain fell like the tears of a widow. It flooded the local sewage plant, bringing to the streets those parts of us that we would have much rather forgotten. A few children fell ill and by August it was rumored that the second Black Plague was upon us. It felt as if God Almighty Himself was trying to flush away the human scourge from the face of the planet. Of course, the rest of the planet barely knew or cared about our little wet nightmare but the thing about living in a small town is that you sometimes forget that there is anything bigger.
By September 3rd, much of the town’s infrastructure had been resurrected. At about 9:30pm that day, Maria passed the playground; that beloved place where children learned to be children. By that time, most of the windows had been darkened and slow, heaving breathing issued from most of the homes. I swear, our town could have slept through the end of the world.
Moving past thinning trees, she thought about how autumn was essentially one glorious striptease. She looked across the street and watched a few saplings undress themselves-one pretty leaf at a time-until they were completely bare, vulnerable and ready for the green stuff that will inevitably follow. Her mom used to be a stripper.
She didn’t talk too much about it, but there was this one night when she looked at Maria and said in her smooth Spanish voice, “I always was so close to them; to their chests, their eyes, their lives, their wedding rings. And when they looked at me, they saw something more than me and yet something less than me. It was a sad place, Maria, full of sad people.” By then however, she was working at a private orthopedic shoe store. It was the town’s only Cinderella story.
After walking another mile, Maria spotted the descending stair case. She made her way down to a door with a red light bulb blinking above it. She remembered reading the Great Gatsby back in high school and being especially interested in the green light that called out to Gatsby from across the water. Red lights were her “green-light.” Red was the color of love and death and cherries. But most importantly, it was the color that told you to stop, which made it all the more fun to go. The door snapped open.
“Hello,” he said, smelling of alcohol and depravity, “come in, won’t you darling?”
“What do you want?” she said, more calmly that either of them were used to.
“Maybe I just wanted to chat, sweetie. Don’t you want to chat with your Uncle Tim?”
“Don’t call yourself that, you pervert. You’re not my goddamn uncle.”
“Aw, not biologically but I like to think we have that kind of relationship after all we’ve been through. Besides, my beautiful exotic bird, are you not really in any position to be questioning anyone’s identity?”
“You said if I gave you that night, you wouldn’t bother us again.”
“Well if that’s what you want, I can easily have you shipped off to Mexico. I bet mommy and daddy will be thrilled to see each other again.”
Silence.
“I want you to know something, babe. Compared to you, I’m immortal. They got me on paper. I’ll forever be a part of this country; it’ll never forget me. But, you-baby, you don’t even exist. As long as it’s like this, I own you and you owe me. So listen, I need $4000 by the end of this week.”
“Actually, I don’t think you will need it.” She reached inside her coat and pulled out the semi-automatic her mom used to keep in her purse for special occasions such as this.
His spirit left his body. He fell back against a stack of chairs.
“Oh,” she smiled, “don’t worry. No, I’m not going to kill you. Your ruptured spleen or your deflated lungs or your torn blood vessels will kill you. All death is suicide; you taught me that, Uncle Tim.”
“I’ll-I’ll give you all the money I took. More. Please. I’ll give you everything.”
“You can’t just pay off destiny, you bastard.”
A bang, a thud, and then blood. Red. Red. Red. Like the leaves that fell outside. Wet. Wet. Wet. Like the water that had dried.
She tucked the pistol into her coat and walked out the door, up the stairs, and down the street. She walked away from the fresh body, the weeping summer, and into the sunset that had been clawed into the sky.
Eventually, she found the town’s only 24/7 diner and ordered a bowl of tomato soup. Tomorrow they would have to leave. She quickly gulped down yet another last meal.