Second Chances

by P. D. Cacek

  He never attended the gatherings, naturally, but would stand either at the end of the upstairs hallway, if the gathering was indoors, or at his parents’ bedroom window that overlooked the expansive back deck if the festivities moved outside, and observe the various male invitees who would inevitably collect there. With the exception of discussions relating to what was being called ‘The Traveler Situation’, whatever that was – biased news reporting had never held any interest for him – at some point the conversations inevitably turned to the mother’s appearance.

  She was, according to seventy-three per cent of the overheard discussions, ‘still a looker’.

  Which seemed overly charitable at best. The mother was an archetypal female specimen of average height (161.8 centimeters), with brown eyes (consistent with fifty-five per cent of the population of the United States) and brown, going gray, hair (eleven per cent of the world population).

  The father was a much rarer specimen with blue eyes and red hair (0.17 per cent of the world population).

  Curtis had inherited his looks from the mother, which should have created some sort of bond between them, thus offering some measure of affection that would have dissuaded her from her continual attempts to kill him.

  And although he’d yet to ascertain positive proof that the father was willfully involved, Curtis had witnessed the father watching while the mother crushed a small orange pill and mixed it into his breakfast juice. A small orange pill from the empty bottle now concealed in the pocket of his slacks. He had taken the remaining sixteen to provide evidence for the coroner during his autopsy.

  He was a genius and geniuses left nothing to chance.

  The mother was still speaking.

  “What?”

  The mother took a step back. “I just asked what you were doing.”

  Knowing the probability that he might be discovered in the kitchen was high, Curtis had provided himself with a plausible motivation for his actions. Picking up the can of heat-and-serve split pea with ham soup that he’d opened all by himself, Curtis stepped away from the stove and turned around.

  “I was getting something to eat,” he said, stating the obvious.

  The mother’s face shriveled in on itself. It was not a pretty sight. Curtis felt his stomach churn…but that might have just been the poison he’d consumed. Before coming downstairs he’d left a file on his computer labeled In the Event of my Death that explained how the mother had been systematically poisoning him over the past…God only knew how long…and implicated the father as her co-conspirator. The police would be sure to check his computer when his body was found and they’d take the mother and father away and put them to death for his murder.

  They didn’t deserve to have him as a son.

  “Oh Curtis.” The mother began walking toward him. “Why don’t you let me make you lunch?”

  “No!” He thrust the open can toward her. The mother backed up another step as if he hadn’t already calculated that the distance between them was too great for an accurate hit. Her reaction was as funny as it was predictable and he gave a moment’s thought to laughing out loud, before dismissing it. If he laughed, and even though the mother was definitely not a genius, she might guess the reason behind it. “I already told you I made my lunch. Do you think me incapable of doing that, Mother?”

  “No, no, of course not.” The mother tried to smile and failed. “But, at least let me warm it for—”

  “I want it this way!”

  The mother nodded. “Well, can I get you a spoon?”

  Curtis looked down at the can of semi-coagulated greenness. His stomach churned again. The poison wasn’t working fast enough.

  Curtis crossed the room and opened the narrow drawer where he knew the mother kept the cutlery and took out a spoon. He wasn’t hungry and the poison was making him feel a bit sick, but he dug the spoon into the undiluted soup and shoved it into his mouth.

  It was horrible, but he ate another spoonful because she was still watching him.

  “Did you want something, Mother,” Curtis asked as a gas bubble broke against the back of his throat, “or did you just come in to spy on me?”

  The mother licked the red/purple stain on her lips. “I just wanted to remind you that I’m going shopping. Do you need anything?”

  Curtis thought a moment. If he hadn’t decided to deny them the glory of his intellect and the pleasure of filicide by taking matters into his own hands, he might have given her a list of items that would keep her away for the rest of the afternoon, but he wanted her to find him as soon as possible. Besides the file that would either incarcerate them for life or execute them for his murder, Curtis had left a note taped to his computer monitor with instructions on how to open the file and the phone number for the Harvard Brain Tissue Research Center.

  The only disadvantage to his killing himself was that he wouldn’t see the looks of adoration and awe on the faces of the doctors when they harvested his brain. But he could imagine it.

  “No,” he said, pushing the spoon into the can, “but don’t take too long, I may want something later.”

  Holding the can out in front of him like a banner, the spoon handle upright and firm, he left the kitchen without another word. The mother followed him as far as the front hall.

  “All right, dear. I’ll be home soon. ’Bye.”

  Curtis watched her exit the house by the garage egress and remained on watch until he heard the sound of the garage door opening a moment after a car engine rumbled to life. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thous—

  The engine sound became lower as the car backed out of the garage, a perfect example of the Doppler Effect that was cut short when the garage door shut.

  —and, four-one thousand, five-one thousand.

  Curtis only got to twenty-one thousand when a cramp doubled him over. The can fell, splattering the mother’s prized oriental hall runner.

  If the pain hadn’t been so intense, he would have smiled. He didn’t know what type of poison the mother had been giving him. The prescription on the bottle indicated it was Thorazine and in his name…which only proved the mother’s cunning. She’d somehow convinced Curtis’s doctor that he was the one suffering from a mental disorder and, for the briefest of moments, he acknowledged her innate animal cleverness. But it wouldn’t save her.

  Another cramp, slightly stronger than the one previous, squeezed the contents of his stomach up into his esophagus and required considerable effort to swallow it back where it belonged.

  As he straightened, a new and horrible premise asserted itself.

  If he continued with the sequence of events as planned, there was a better than average chance (63.4 per cent by quick calculations) that he could pass out and choke to death on his own vomit. The thought horrified Curtis. Besides possibly damaging his magnificent brain from the slow depletion of oxygen, he’d leave behind an undignified corpse.

  His genius deserved better!

  He’d miscalculated, but there was an easy solution: Given his height (6’¼” or 183.51 cm) and weight (142 lbs) he would only need a drop of some five to seven feet to efficiently and cleanly snap his neck, and the railing that spanned the landing at the top of the stairs would do nicely.

  When bitter drool filled his mouth, Curtis found it easier simply to spit it out than swallow it. The sputum was frothy and slightly green, probably from the soup, and when he started up the stairs a wave of vertigo crashed over him. It would have been so easy to give up and just sit down and wait for death.

  But it wouldn’t be as memorable.

  Half crawling, half dragging himself, Curtis entered his bedroom and, after a quick codicil to the file which stated he had to kill himself because of the pain, a quick perusal of the internet showed him how to fashion a noose from two belts – one over the neck, the other around the anchor point.

  Apparently
death by belt was all the fashion in some circles.

  Securing one end of the double belt around the railing before slipping the buckle-noose over his head, Curtis leaned forward and looked over the railing. The house must have gotten taller because the first floor looked so far awa—

  * * *

  Arvada, Colorado

  “Hey, Jessie! Wait up!”

  Carly’s voice echoed through the halls like a song. Jessie could already feel her heart start to race even before she turned around. When she did it only got worse and her heart skipped a couple beats. Abbie said it was so obvious how Jessie felt that Carly had to know, but while her sister had a tendency to look at the world through a rosy haze, Jessie was more of a realist.

  She had to be.

  “Hey, yourself,” was about all Jessie could manage when Carly caught up to her.

  The girls’ school uniforms, knee-length red plaid skirt, loose white polo shirt under a one-size-fits-most red sweater, seemed to have been designed to conceal rather than accentuate the various underlying shapes, but Carly could have been wearing a black garbage bag and still have taken Jessie’s breath away.

  Carly was beautiful, maybe the most beautiful girl Jessie had ever seen, and she’d been noticing girls for a while now; but it wasn’t just the long ash-blond hair or clear bright hazel eyes or the willowy figure and long ballerina legs, Carly had a great personality too.

  And best of all, she was Jessie’s best friend.

  So maybe she did know.

  But Jessie wasn’t ready to find out just yet.

  “What did you put down for number seven?”

  It took Jessie a minute to remember the question, let alone the answer. Carly was wearing perfume that made Jessie think of sunshine and blue skies. It smelled wonderful.

  “Battle of Hastings, 1066.”

  “Oh good!” Carly exhaled and leaned her head against Jessie’s shoulder. “At least I got that one right.”

  The perfume had kicked up Jessie’s heart rate to the point where it was pounding inside her head. She would have been happy to stand there for the rest of the day with Carly’s head on her shoulder, but the first passing bell had already rung.

  “You probably aced it,” Jessie said, and shivered when Carly moved her head away. “You know that stuff backward and forward.”

  “Only because you helped me study. Has anyone asked you to Winter Fest yet?”

  Jessie shook her head. Carly, along with every other girl in school it seemed like, had been obsessing about the annual mini-prom since right after winter break. It was just a dance, for Christ’s sake, the only difference was that they were both juniors and Carly seemed to think that if she didn’t go she’d die.

  “Has anyone asked you?” Please say no. Please say no.

  “No.”

  Yay! “I’m sorry, but there’s still time. Maybe you’re just too pretty.”

  Carly’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “Um…I mean…. You know how guys are.”

  “Idiots?”

  Jessie laughed. “Yeah. So how ’bout I take you?”

  “What?”

  Jessie stopped laughing. What did I say?

  “Um…. I mean, you know, we go together. Stag…or hen or whatever they call it when girls do it…I mean…. You know, if nobody asks us.”

  Carly bumped Jessie with her hip. “You goof, we’ll get asked, but yeah, if we don’t let’s do it. We’ll go by ourselves.”

  “Together.”

  “Together,” Carly said and turned toward the classrooms across the hall when the second passing bell rang.

  “Want to get together tonight?” Jessie called after her. “To study? Or something?”

  “Can’t,” she shouted back over her shoulder, “have pep squad tonight. See you at lunch. Save me a place, okay?”

  Jessie waved at the same time a hall officer stepped around a corner and pointed at Carly.

  “Hey, no running in the halls.”

  Jessie smiled as Carly dropped into a fast walk. She was so graceful.

  “What are you smiling at?” the hall officer asked. Jessie lost the grin. “Get to your class before I report you.”

  Jessie saluted and kept to a steady semi-slow walk until she rounded the corner before breaking into a full run.

  Fortunately, the meetings never started until everyone had had a chance to vent and grumble. Jessie entered the student counseling office to thunderous applause.

  “Thank you,” she said, bowing before she sat down, “you’re all too kind.”

  Hoots and hollers followed. Ms. Samuels cleared her throat loud enough to be heard over the commotion.

  “Are we ready to continue?” the school’s counselor/life coach asked. “Good, now let’s get back to it, people. Jessie, we were applauding Mickey. He came out to his parents last night.”

  Mickey, small and frail, his blue eyes owl-big behind glasses that could probably cause major forest fires on a sunny day, blushed and ducked his head.

  “Yay, Mickey,” Jessie said. “How’d it go?”

  “Good. I guess they already knew but were just waiting for me to tell them.”

  “Cool.”

  “That’s usually the case, people,” Ms. Samuels said. “We think it’s going to be so hard, that the people we love and who have loved us all our lives haven’t already guessed. True, there are some families who are gobsmacked when the truth comes out because they never saw it coming, and turn away, but most of the time it’s not that hard.”

  “But they still aren’t happy about it.”

  Ms. Samuels smiled. Jessie didn’t know how long Ms. Samuels had been a school counselor, but the principal and her dad thought it might be a good idea if both Jessie and Abbie talked to her after their mom’s death. Abbie stopped going after a month.

  Jessie stopped the private one-on-one chats a few weeks later and, at Ms. Samuels’ suggestion, began coming to the LGBTQ meetings.

  Ms. Samuels liked to say she’d never faced a problem too difficult or turned away a soul too broken, and it worked. Even with everything else that had happened, Jessie began to feel better about who and what she was.

  But she hadn’t told her dad.

  He’d had other things on his mind then and still did…they both did.

  “Let me think,” Ms. Samuels said, “are they happy about it? Yes. No. Maybe. The honest truth is that in the long run it doesn’t matter what they feel or think. Except it does, I know. But they don’t live in your skin, you have to remember that. I know my own parents weren’t pleased, but it was a very different time and place. But what’cha gonna do?” She waited until the laughter died. “The thing is, I’m happy with who I am…not what I am, because in the end it’s only me and pronouns don’t count. Okay. Blair, I think you’re next in line.”

  The school’s varsity lineman stood up and cleared his throat. “Hi, I’m Blair and I’m gay.”

  Applause, applause.

  “And last night I found out I’m getting a full football scholarship to the University of Tennessee when I graduate.”

  Cheers competed with the new round of applause. Ms. Samuels got up to hug him and looked like she’d been swallowed by Bigfoot.

  “I am so happy for you, Blair! Oh my God, your parents must be over the moon.”

  He was in full force blush when he sat down. “Yeah. My dad already bought a ton of stuff from their online store.”

  “Hope he likes orange,” Ms. Samuels said. “Jessie?”

  Jessie took a deep breath. Up to this point her weekly revelations had been pretty much: Hi, I’m me. I’m trans. I sort of like this person but haven’t said anything.

  Same old, same old.

  But that was all going to change.

  “Hi, I’m Jessie and I’m transgender…still haven’t tol
d my dad, but today I asked a girl to Winter Fest.”

  And the room went wild.

  Chapter Five

  Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

  “But I don’t understand,” Eva said, “I was only gone a few minutes. It couldn’t have been more than a few blocks when I noticed I’d forgotten my phone and I needed it. I always have it with me in case Curtis needs something or…. So I had to go back for it, but I wasn’t gone for more than ten minutes, maybe not even that long.”

  Eva knew she was rambling and repeating the same thing she’d told every police officer and paramedic and doctor who’d come to talk to them since she walked in and found Curtis hanging…strangling…clawing at his neck….

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again she knew she looked calmer even if she didn’t feel it.

  “Please, you said Curtis was awake when he arrived.”

  The doctor, the first who’d seen Curtis in the ER, took a deep breath. Eva thought she looked much too young to be a real doctor, maybe an intern but not a real doctor.

  “Mrs. Steinar, Mr. Steinar, as I told you, Curtis was semiconscious and stable when he arrived. There was some difficulty in his breathing from both the neck injury and broken nose.”

  “It was an accident,” Eva said, “or an experiment. He’s always experimenting. He’s a genius.”

  The doctor nodded but Eva could tell she was just humoring her. The doctor couldn’t care less about Curtis’s mind; she was only interested in his poor, broken body.

  “After we intubated him and were assessing his injuries, we discovered that his abdomen was rigid.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Your son was bleeding internally.”

  “Oh God.”

  “It was my fault,” Eva said. “I should have helped him back onto the stairs but he was choking and I got one of those scalpel things from his room…he dissects things for his experiments…and cut the belt. I tried to hold on to him but…he fell.”