The One Percenters

by John W. Podgursky

  You want to squeeze all the life that you can out of life.

  Here it’s different. Nothing I might say or do has any chance of saving me. I can say anything I want to say without repercussions. Like I said, you can’t die twice and you only live once. It’s actually quiet Page 146

  peaceful. I feel like I’m in a very special Hall of Fame, where entry requires only extreme hideousness. In that regard, I didn’t deserve the honor to be bestowed upon me. I was no evil bastard. I was just Joe Regular who happened to be given a very special task to complete. I wasn’t about to tell them that and spoil their little death party. Why leave them feeling guilty?

  I know what you’re thinking, you son of a bitch. It first occurred to me when I started all this, and it is still eating me up inside. I realize the nature of my words thus far. The truth is, this world is not all rainbows and butterflies, although those are very nice parts of it.

  Rather, the world can be a dark and pragmatic place.

  Within all that pragmatism, I had a purpose, and my purpose involved death.

  So, yes, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong, Doctor. I did not kill my Jill. As I said, that was the work of a man with an accountant’s name. There is so little light in here, it is difficult to write this. That was the work of a man with an accountant’s name. Ed Caine is no accountant. Ed Caine is no killer.

  It would have been easy to murder my wife. But my wife was raped, and I wouldn’t have raped her, as there would be no cause for that. I had no power issues with the love of my life. She usually let me have my way in the first place; she was very giving. Now I feel like a prick for that. Anyway, she had married me, so she must have felt something for me. Although that might be a debatable assumption in today’s society.

  People marry for riches and status and all that crap. It’s all so empty, really. I don’t know what’s wrong with them. You. Me. Us. We’re all just (by)products of what’s around us. I don’t know if we have no control over the world or if we have total control and just fucked it all up somewhere along the way. I don’t know which is worse.

  But it would have been easy for me to kill her.

  At the time of her death, the police were already all over Simmons [sic]—if not in name, at least in profile. I spelled it wrong to show you how obnoxious that little

  [sic] symbol is. There was so much evidence against Page 147

  him. If I had killed Jill before Simons got there, the police would still have assumed it to have been his handiwork.

  Had I murdered her like he murdered his bitches, the police never would have thought twice. I’m sure of that. They didn’t exactly pore over the murder site as it was. I told you so. I could have taken her. I admit that, for I have no reason to lie. They can add on life sentences, but they can’t add on death sentences. I have only one life to give, as I had but one life to live. (Pretty faces and shallow, wanton desires) The thoughts are coming furiously now.

  I think it’s time to shave. Ha. ha, ha. Like I got a straight edge lying around here. I fucking wish, so that I could leave your ass here. This was fun at the start, but now I’m just pissed off and want to get it over with.

  Give me a straight edge, damn it! And make it a double.

  Fuck math! Fuck routine! Fuck “trying to figure it all out.” Fuck waiting in the doctor’s office and having your teeth crowned and writing the same checks this month that you did the last and fuck nine-lame-song sets on the radio and cloudy beach days and bacon fat in my egg and cheese and fuck having to visit ‘cause it’s a relative and fuck ties—in sports and on necks—

  and fuck those little dogs-in-purses that only exist in Manhattan and fuck _____. That one I’ll leave blank for your name. Fuck you.

  Page 148

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  It’s getting rather warm in here, warden. It’s always so goddamn warm. Would you mind turning down the heat? To which he would no doubt reply, “Son, where you’re going, there’s heat enough for everybody and his brother. Get used to it.” To which I would rebut, “Warden, sir, king of kings, I was righteous in my intent. If your books limit your understanding of the truth, rewrite the books. It’s easier than changing the world to suit what’s written within.” And he would smile and drink his cold coffee. I don’t trust people who prefer cold coffee. Cold coffee or warm beer.

  Warm beer.

  Beer.

  Bee.

  The bees are doing their waggle. They’re pointing the way and laying the eggs. Stupidity is nature’s medium. The few fight the many. We have neither numbers nor irrationality on our side. The night will be especially dark.

  The warden. I only wish I had the chance to meet him for real. If I was alone with him in a dark alley, I wouldn’t kick his ass. That’d be letting him get off easy. Instead I would teach him as much as I could about goodness and kindness and love. Because the more you love and feel, the more you realize how hateful the world is.

  There’s nothing you can do to change this, though we’d never let our kids hear us say so. And the realization that you cannot create change is punishment far beyond the liquids he will have injected into my vile, timeworn veins. When you realize that the world is not as you once saw it, with rainbows and recess and field trips, you want for your skull to crack open and your brains to leak out onto the sidewalk and fry up like a side of bacon. Then you could really enjoy life.

  It’s all the thinking that brings us down. Blessed are Page 149

  the ignorant.

  The time is coming, and the buzzing is nearly driving me mad. But I can sleep easily tonight knowing one thing: I didn’t kill my wife. God as my witness.

  “God” is so close to “good.” What hogwash. If we were truthful, we’d call him Meenbasterd. Could you imagine shouting that out during sex?

  I never was a big eater, and I certainly haven’t upped my intake in jail. Institution. Situation.

  Calibration. Infatuation. Fascination. Masturbation.

  Elaboration. I’ll deny you the latter. I told you of the loneliness which invades our lives from time to time.

  Well, now is one of those times. For now you have caught up with me. I am writing this real time. And I’m doing it essentially alone. It’s an awful feeling living in the present.

  I think of Charles McIntyre. “Crazy Chuck.” I bet he’s in a better place than I am. Where’s the justice in that? Screwy fucker never did a damn thing to help the world. All he did was light a fire. His mind is mush.

  It must be fun, such blissful ignorance. I need a break.

  Please remember, it’s not the shark’s fault that it must feed. Blame your god.

  What scares you, Doctor? And why do you turn your head? Do you think your money and degrees and carefully constructed circle of friends will help to protect you? That’s why we do it, you know. We build our lives to help us forget our fears in the great beyond.

  But when you go to sleep, Doctor, you are nothing but human. And so I ask you once again, bitch, what scares you?

  Page 150

  Chapter Forty

  I know what you’re thinking. It’s been a long time since last we spoke. They really take their time with this death process. What’s the rush, I suppose? They have me right where they want me. Soon I will be no more than a name in a file filled with paperwork, most of which was typed up by some lonely intern in some lonely city. It’s always the same. Despite our individual claims to fame, in the end we’re just a name. We’re all just names and addresses on forms in doctor’s offices and car dealerships across this great nation. Yup, they’re playing with me like a cat and its chewed-on mouse.

  Death is a bad thing for those who were successful in life. For the rest of us—the majority of us—it is a new leaf. I could use one of those. I remember as a teenager wishing I could peel off my skin and remove all of the warts, the scars, the pimples that accumulate during a lifetime. Now I wish I could do the same with my soul.

  I am dirty. I was nature’s bitch. Her litt
le ten-dollar whore, which is more than most can venture to say.

  Ten-dollar whore skippin’ rope on the corner. When AIDS shows up, who’s gonna mourn her? Not I, said the man with the dripping right eye, I’ll rob her, and leave all you suckers to cry.

  There isn’t much light in here. There isn’t much light out there. Somehow I don’t imagine there’s much light where I’m going. I don’t know why I’m talking to you, Jill. I have better things to do with my time, even here. I just have to wait for another pill. I sure hope they kill me before I get to finish this nonsense. I want to screw you one last time.

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  Chapter Forty-One

  (Like 40, but more so!)

  I’m better today.

  I remember when I was young—maybe twelve years old—I went for a walk with my Granddaddy. He was a tall man and seemed immense to me at the time.

  This was before he was dead.

  We were getting ice cream at Bartholomew’s, over on Spring Street, by the record store. I remember he got vanilla, while I opted for Rocky Road. I thought his was such a silly choice. Why would anyone get vanilla when there are sweeter and more interesting choices? I suppose the question applies to more than just ice cream.

  The answer reveals itself over time. Eventually we lose our sweet tooth and find enjoyment in the understated and non-complicated. At some point we realize that simplicity can be the greatest gift life has to offer. It is predictable and comforting and exceedingly rare. Binges are wild and welcome from time to time, but they often leave us feeling hollow and confused. At the end of the day, I’d gladly take a vanilla cone; I’d sure love one now.

  That day, the day we went for cones, Granddaddy and I passed a beautiful woman on the street. Now, this was about the time in a boy’s life when he begins to take notice of such things. She was probably twenty and had a firm, lean body. And big tits. This was before I learned about the perkies. Some tits bounce and some tits lay; some tits got ‘em growing back, back the wrong way.

  Inverted nipples. Nature is comically cruel.

  I noticed men on the street were ogling as well.

  The attention afforded the woman was something else indeed. I spoke to Granddaddy hesitantly, softly.

  “It must be great to look like that.” I wasn’t an attractive kid. Few ugly adults were.

  Granddaddy was no beauty himself, but I’ll never Page 152

  forget his words.

  “Eddie (he was the only one who called me that), there goes the most miserable creature you’ll ever see.” I didn’t ask him at that time why he said that. I don’t think it really registered there on the street. I did, however, ask him later in life. He couldn’t recall the incident, for by that time he was into his seventies, but he did offer a guess as to his thinking that day outside the ice cream parlor. He told me that the people who had it worst in this world are beautiful women and rich men. Neither will know, ever, if they are truly loved.

  Granddaddy died a long time ago, and is resting in grave 34N at Allpines Cemetery as I write this, but I carry his words with me in my head to this day. I realize now that one thing I can be assured of is that Jill did in fact love me. She had nothing to gain by faking it. I can only hope that she knew that my love was real, too, but I suppose that isn’t the case. She was, after all, a beautiful woman. Granddaddy was a very wise man.

  He would have made a very good one-percenter. I sure hope he’s at peace somewhere.

  When you look back at your life and calculate the time you’ve spent sleeping or eating or tying your shoes even, it’s amazing we ever have the time to get anything done. We are all taught the accomplishments of those in the past, and with each generation, the list of people past grows longer, and we are forced to leave out some of the details. Eventually we are forced to omit more and more history, meaning that there are brilliant artists and writers and thinkers that the world has long forgotten. It makes you wonder if it’s worth getting up in the morning.

  Time might heal all wounds, but it leaves scars in the process, and it serves to erase your existence.

  You might make someone smile today, but chances are good they won’t remember you for very long. It’s a transient world, to be sure. They say what comes around goes around, but only a fool buys into this. We are but mortal men with immortal dreams, and that is a dangerous and frustrating combination.

  I am nearly to death-day. There is one more story I’d like to share before it arrives. Jill and I had Page 153

  been dating about six months at the time, which means we married just three months later. This was the day I realized that what I felt for Jill wasn’t puppy love or infatuation or anything like that. We had rented a canoe and were traversing a river, the name of which I can no longer remember. It might have been Myers River, but I don’t think so. I’m sure it wasn’t the Hudson.

  We were eating sandwiches out there in the middle of the river. It wasn’t much of a river, actually, not like Darien’s. The current was very weak. I asked her if she’d like to take a dip after lunch. After all, we were both wearing shorts and it seemed like the natural thing to do. Jill then informed me she had never learned to swim. I was surprised it hadn’t come up before.

  There were no life vests or floats on the boat. This wasn’t the Pacific Ocean, for sure, but still I wondered how she could appear so calm.

  I asked her if she was worried about the canoe capsizing or something like that, and she told me she wasn’t. I asked her how this could be. Jill told me she’d rather die than not live. I liked her attitude, for sure, but why not bring a life vest, just in case?

  And she said, “Why have the loops in roller coasters? Why not just sit in the car on a hard, steel track? You have to get the most for your four dollars.” It might not seem like much of a statement, and the analogy is hackneyed for certain, but it did more to convince me that we were meant to be together than did her beauty and smarts and humor all rolled together. If you don’t understand that, you’ve never been in love.

  I realize now that I haven’t been in full control in quite a while. I find that my thoughts are more and more muddled. I’m not sure if this is because of the drugs or if my mind is just growing tired. Waiting for death can be quite exhausting.

  Maybe they are slipping me something to keep me quiet. A man on death row has nothing to lose.

  Maybe they’re afraid that somehow this little man will find a way to take out a guard who would do well in professional football. I suppose the pills are paid for with tax revenue. In that case, why not spread them around?

  Page 154

  Chapter Forty-Two

  My time is now. I have waited an eternity, it seems, and today is the day. I am looking forward, as you might expect. Now is the time when I go to a better place and learn that I was right.

  It is a gray day, which I assume is only appropriate.

  At least the Good Lord provided a proper setting. I came in with nothing, and that’s all I have now. I am fortunate to have somebody to help me with this each day. They will not afford me a pencil. I suppose I could take out an eye with it if I wanted to.

  It took a lot of hard work to find someone to help, and it is time now to thank him. Guilt for the damned, I suppose. I also have to thank all of those people in my life who helped me find some measure of peace in this unpredictable world. I need to thank those who I loved; you know who you are. None of that award-ceremony nonsense.

  I’m not going to go out with a hissy fit, Mother; I want you to know that. I will take my medicine with dignity and honor. Not that I should, mind you. I have more than one reason to gripe. The abuse as a child.

  The abuse as an adult. I had to suffer through a world I didn’t understand just because you and dad got the itch one night to raid your foul-smelling hole. Maybe it’s not me. Maybe you wanted a child like some people want a dog. Someone to feed and to give shelter to and to turn to for self-assurance in a hostile world. Trouble is, I didn’t always bring back the stick. Sometimes
I chose to run far and wide with it. To meet other dogs and to explore. This bothered you; I know it did.

  The women in my life have held me back, and the men have pushed my head beneath the surface of the water.

  I don’t regret what I’ve done, and when I’m gone, the papers will all write that I showed no remorse.

  Remorse for what? I ask you. For thinking on my own two feet? For trying to feel? I cannot and will not feel Page 155

  shame for that. I hope that after I go, the man beside me will take these papers and continue them, so that my story will be written and I will have died with purpose.

  I can only hope for that. Perhaps I’ll even make it into come college kid’s term paper.

  But now it is time for me to go. I wish to enjoy my final hours in golden silence, daydreaming of high, blue skies and of better places than this, where the showers are always hot and dreams really do come true. I’ve been in and out of a haze for quite a while now. I know my obituary will not be a thing of beauty. It will be written by an underpaid employee at the newspaper who knows me only as a natural born killer.

  I’ll be labeled as “sick” or “disturbed” or some such euphemism. It won’t look to explain my actions, though my lack of children might be suspected as contributing to my “illness.” He’ll turn his copy in to his editor and return to his home, where he will spend the rest of his days wondering how it is that he should spend his time writing about other people’s lives rather than living his own. He will crawl beneath the covers of his bed at night in the thirty-dollar pair of underwear he can’t afford and wonder where it all went. And one day his time will come, too, and all he’ll be left with is the wish that he be remembered and the knowledge that he won’t.