Turnabout Is Fair Play

by Bill Willoughby

  All of these thoughts came flooding back to me and for a few moments I forgot about my passenger. I checked him in the rear view mirror and he had that deer in the headlights look. He had no idea what I had planned for him but I guess he figured it couldn’t be good.

  I came around a bend in the road and spotted the cabin in a clearing. It looked a lot older and worse for wear but I knew it immediately. I stopped the truck and got out and looked around. It was deathly still with only the sound of the engine ticking as it cooled off and an occasional bird singing out in the distance.

  I looked at Resnick and then turned and walked to the cabin. I saw it still had the padlock on the door. I reached above the door and touched the key. It was right where it was left all those years ago. I put it into the lock and although it was stiff it finally gave way and the hasp separated from the lock.

  I pushed the door open and smelled the musk of hundreds of days that old building had been shut up. I looked around and memories hit me as I looked at each object. Surprisingly the place was pretty clean. When they had built the cabin they had done a good job of sealing it up. I saw an old kerosene lantern hanging from a peg on the wall. Of course the tank was empty so I’d have to find another source of light. It was obvious I was going to have to stay here tonight.

  I wished I had thought to bring some food but I guess I’d be without a meal. Good thing I had eaten those burgers in Hopewell.

  I checked the bunk I used to sleep on. The thin mattress was rolled up tight and I cut the string that was tied around it. It didn’t flatten out completely so I flipped it over and sat down on it. More of that musty smell but not bad enough that if I threw a blanket on it I couldn’t sleep. I had brought a couple of them with me so I’d be okay.

  I walked outside, threw a glance at Resnick and walked around the side of the cabin. I turned back and peered around the corner to watch him. As soon as he thought I was out of sight he began squirming, trying to loosen his bonds. I didn’t want to take any chance of him getting away so I walked back to the Tahoe, opened the door and punched him just below his ear on his jaw. He went out like the proverbial light.

  I walked to the right of the cabin towards the outhouse and lean-to. I opened the door to the outhouse expecting that familiar stench I remembered from years ago. Surprisingly there was very little smell. I stepped in and took a leak.

  I backed out of the small wooden structure and looked at the lean-to. It was actually bigger than I remembered. Hanging from the center rafter was a pulley and a chain. That’s where Dad or whoever killed the deer would string it up to part it out. I knew then that would be where Resnick would be spending his night.

  When I got back to the truck he was just coming around. I released the seat belt and pulled him out. He tried to charge me but his legs were weak from sitting so long and he just kind of lurched over. I grabbed his skirt collar and dragged him back up. I checked the handcuffs and made sure they were tight.

  Then I began to drag him across the clearing. He stumbled several times but I held onto him. His head turned from side to side and his eyes searched every inch of the place. Suddenly his shoulders slumped and I guessed he figured there was no way out.

  I got him to the lean-to, ran the chain under his arms and around his body. I tightened it up and linked the chain with a threaded chain clip. I grabbed the other end of the chain and hoisted him off of the ground. He began to kick so I let him back down to the ground and kicked him hard in the knee. He crumpled.

  I went back to the truck and grabbed some rope and tied his legs together then I lifted him off of the ground again. I could see the chain cut into his chest as he squirmed. It must have hurt bad. I didn’t care. He’d hurt more tomorrow.

  I walked back to the truck, got a roll of duct tape and went back to where he was hanging. I ripped the rag out of his mouth and he screamed, “Help! Help me!”

  “Yell all you want. There’s no one around for miles.”

  Just to make sure he’d keep quiet though I put two pieces of duct tape across his mouth. I walked back to the Tahoe and looked at my work. I decided to sleep in the truck so I could keep an eye on him.

  I didn’t want anything going wrong. So far this had gone real easy. Almost too easy and I wasn’t going to take any chances. I started up the truck and angled it so it was facing him. All I had to do was flip on the lights and he would be illuminated.

  I pulled a blanket out of the back and sat it on the passenger seat. Then I watched him swaying back and forth. Every once in a while he’d struggle but I could see the pain in his face when he did. That chain around his chest must hurt like a bitch.

  My eyes grew weary as the sun went down. It had been a long day and I was exhausted. I leaned my seat back and fell into a fitful sleep. I dreamed of Miranda.

  Spring of 1991. Old Dominion University in Norfolk. I was engineering major. As I walked across the quad heading for the parking lot I saw her. Long strawberry blonde hair blowing in the wind as she sat alone on a bench. Khaki capris, sandals and a flowered shirt that tied in the front. It was pulled tight over her breasts. Not too big. Not too small. She was wearing glasses and reading a book.

  I was pretty shy back then. But she was like a magnet pulling me in. I slowly walked towards her and when I was about six feet away I said, softly, “Hi.”

  She looked up at me and smiled. That smile was like a 100,000 watt light bulb. It nearly blinded me. Well, not really. It was beautiful though.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Um, my name is Don and I just saw you sitting here and I…” I what? Just had to meet you? If I don’t make this work I’ll die an old and lonely man? Stop being stupid.

  “Yes?” She said with an amused look on her face.

  “I wanted to meet you. Get to know you.”

  “Really?” She asked as she raised an eyebrow.

  Oh my God that was sexy!

  “Well, yeah. Why not? You’re alone and I’m alone and it is a beautiful day and there’s just no sense it being alone on a day like this.”

  She laughed. “Run on sentence much?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt like a fool.

  “Sorry to have bothered you.” I said. “I’ll just go now. Enjoy your book.”

  I turned to walk away.

  “Wait! Where are you going? I thought you wanted to share this beautiful day with me? Do you want to sit down?”

  I sat and I stayed by her side until that day she was killed. I kissed her and went to work. She was getting ready for work too. She had majored in English Literature and now taught that at a private school in Virginia Beach.

  That last kiss would have to last me for the rest of my life.

  I woke up a couple of times during the night and flashed my lights to check on Resnick. He was just hanging there with his head down on his chest. Really? Was he sleeping? Maybe he had passed out. Did I care? No. I went back to sleep.

  When I awoke the next time it was light out. I stepped out of the truck and stretched. I went to the back and pulled out a small suitcase and walked over to Resnick.

  I reached out and kicked his foot and he jerked awake. He had been sleeping! I reached up and yanked the duct tape off of his mouth.

  “Ow, man, that hurts!”

  I stared at him. The time was here and now and he was worried about his mouth? Of course he had no idea what I was going to do to him. But then that made two of us. I wasn’t sure either.

  “You’ve got to let me go! I don’t know who the hell you think you are but I don’t know who you are and I’ve never done anything to you.”

  “Well, Daryl, that’s where you’re wrong. You’ve done a lot to me. In fact you have destroyed my life. And now I’m going to destroy yours.” I set my case on a small table that was used to hold the knives when they were skinning the animals. How appropriate! I opened it up and reached inside for a manila envelope. I pulled it out, opened it up and pulled out an 8 X 10 picture. A picture of Miranda.

&nbs
p; “Do you recognize this woman?” I asked as I held her picture up.

  “How the fuck would I know who she is? Just some bitch I reckon.”

  I shook my head. “Respect, Daryl, have some respect.”

  I reached over to my case and pulled out a piece of pipe about eighteen inches long. I swung it high and hard and brought it down on his left shin. I both heard and felt the bone break. He screamed and when I pulled the pipe back there was blood on it.

  “You’re crazy motherfucker! You can’t do this!”

  Spittle flew out of his mouth and I stepped back. I watched in fascination as blood dripped off of his leg and puddled on the ground. I had never in my life intentionally hurt anyone. I had mixed emotions. Part of me wanted to run away in revulsion and part of me knew I had to keep going. For Miranda. My beautiful Miranda.

  Tears dripped down his cheeks as he gasped for breath.

  “Shut up, Daryl. Let’s finish our little talk. To answer your last statement though, yes, I can do this. And I am going to do this. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt bad. You’re going to wish and pray for death. That is if you’re a praying man. I expect you will be soon if you’re not now. Then it will be over. Really over. For you anyway. I still have things I need to do.”

  “And that takes me back to this.” I held up Miranda’s picture again. “This is my wife, Miranda. You and Marcus Garvey broke into my house a month ago and raped and killed her while she was getting ready for work. She was a gentle soul who had never hurt anyone or said a mean thing in her life. She was a teacher and she was a very good teacher. Her students loved her. Her family loved her. I loved her more than life itself and you and your friend humiliated her, hurt her, raped her and finally killed her. Do you remember her now Daryl? Do you remember her now?”

  I realized I was almost shouting when I finished. I stared at him. He was still crying but not from pain I think but from the realization of what he had done and what I was about to do to him.

  “I’m sorry, man, I’m really sorry. We were high. We didn’t mean anything by it. We were high. It was just a thing.”

  I raised the pipe again, “Wrong answer dumbass.” And I brought the pipe down on his other shin much harder this time. I actually saw the bone snap in half and he screamed again.

  “Stop it! Just stop it! Okay? We can work something out. What do you want? Money? I can scrape some together, man.”

  “What I want, Daryl, is to have Miranda back. But that’s not going to happen is it? She’s dead. I buried her. I’ll never see her again. I want to hold her. Kiss her. Make love to her. Go grocery shopping with her. Cook together. I want to spend the rest of my life with my wife. But that’s not going to happen because of you and that guy you decided to get high with. Why did you do it, Daryl? Why did you do it? Tell me. Now!”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know man. We were high. It was just something to do.”

  Just something to do? The hatred rose in me like a white hot flame. I felt like my hands were on fire. My head throbbed. My vision narrowed. My breaths were shallow.

  I stepped away from him and walked away. I had to relax. The hatred would be there when I got back.

  “Hey man, where’re you going? Are you going to let me down or not? You need to take me to a hospital. You can just drop me off at the ER door and I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

  I quickly turned on my heel and rushed back to him.

  “Don’t you get it, Daryl? You’re not getting down from there. You’re not going to the hospital. You’re going to die. And it’s going to hurt. And as you die I want you to see Miranda’s face so I’m going to stick her picture on this post and if you take your eyes off of her for even a moment your death will be a lot longer in coming and the pain will be so much worse.”

  He spat and looked me in the eye. “Man, fuck you. And fuck that cunt, Miranda, or whatever her name is. Do your worse. I can take it. I’m a man.”

  So I walked over to the table, pulled out my sharpest knife, reached up and sliced his throat. He never even got a chance to scream.

  Chapter 2

  I was headed back to Norfolk down I-64. I had sliced Resnick’s throat and watched him bleed out, wrapped him in a tarp and dragged his body about one hundred yards away from the cabin. I dug a grave and dumped his body into it, covered it up and threw leaves and sticks over the loose dirt. I doubted anyone would go back there but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  I had washed up with some bottled water I had in my truck, changed clothes and drove off without looking back. I was numb. Maybe I was in shock. I don’t know. I guess once my mind processed this and the adrenaline that was surely coursing through my body ebbed I could think straight.

  For now all I wanted was to get as far away from Hawk’s Nest as possible. As I got close to Williamsburg it dawned on me that I hadn’t had anything to eat since yesterday afternoon. I pulled off onto the Lightfoot exit and headed for Rochambeau Drive and Pierce’s Pitt Bar-B-Que Restaurant. The parking lot was about half full as I parked and walked inside. I ordered a J. C. Special; a “jumbo" pulled pork barbeque sandwich, cole slaw, French Fries and a large drink.

  As I sat and ate it seemed like everyone was watching me. That was ridiculous of course. No one knew what I had done. How could they? It was just paranoia working on me.

  I was still hungry when I finished the first sandwich so I went up and ordered another, smaller platter. I drank lots of iced tea; it seemed as if I couldn’t quench my thirst. My heart was pounding and I was shaking some. I hoped no one would notice. I ate slowly and watched everyone in the place.

  Suddenly a state policeman walked in the door. He looked around the room and it seemed as if he stopped and stared at me. Someone waved at him and he walked over with a big grin, shook hands with the man and they began talking. I lost my appetite.

  I stood up, took my tray, threw the trash away and quickly walked to my truck. I unlocked it, crawled into the seat and sat there shaking harder than I had been inside. It suddenly dawned on me, I was a criminal! A murderer! I started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot and back to I-64.

  Once on the highway I began to think about what I had done. I mean really thought about it. Before I killed Resnick I was working on anger and what I thought was a duty to Miranda. I knew she wouldn’t have approved about what I had done. She was a peaceful person. An infinite source of love and gentleness.

  After that first day we were together as much as was possible. We didn’t take the same classes so we were apart those times but other times we were inseparable. We didn’t put a label on what we had. We simply were us. Miranda and Don. Don and Miranda.

  Suddenly the semester was over. By this time I had pretty much decided that engineering was not what I really wanted to do so when the semester was over I told her I wasn’t going back to school. She seemed okay with it and asked me what I was going to do. I told her I was going to get a full time job.

  Then I asked her something. She was from West Virginia and neither of us wanted to be separated for the summer. I had an apartment with an old high school friend, and he was going back to Yorktown for the summer. So I asked Miranda to move in with me.

  That was a big step. We had been dating for just over a month. We had never been intimate. But I loved her and I knew she loved me. Her answer? “I don’t know. I was raised in a strict Christian family and I don’t think my parents would like me living with a man.”

  Without missing a beat I dropped to my knees, held her hand and said, “Miranda, I can’t imagine life without you by my side. Will you marry me?”

  She beamed at me, nodded her head and said, “Yes, of course.”

  So we took her stuff out of her dorm room, moved it to my apartment and went to West Virginia to tell her parents.

  They were surprised and her father was a little bit suspicious. (I guess I would be too in his place.) But once they got to know me they welcomed me into the family. After a couple of days I
left Miranda to get her things together and went back to Yorktown to tell my parents. Not only the good news but the other news too, that I was leaving college.

  Dad was angry at me at first but once I told him and Mom about Miranda and showed them a picture of her they sort of caved some. Dad asked me what I was going to do and I said I’d find a job. He told me he thought he could get me an entry level job where he worked.

  Dad worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton. He oversaw a contract that RCA had to provide sound solutions, or public address systems, throughout NASA. It would mean that I’d have to commute from Norfolk every day but a job was a job.

  I went back to Beckley the next weekend with my parents to get married. Her parents and my parents got along great and we all agreed to a small, private wedding. It was done in her church with a few of her friends in attendance. Dad was my best man.

  After the small reception we loaded Miranda’s things in my car and headed for Norfolk. We’d rent a truck later and come back to get the rest of her belongings. We decided to stop in Williamsburg for our honeymoon.

  That night was wonderful. I actually felt like we were one person we were so close. We got up early the next morning and walked around Colonial Williamsburg. Miranda had never been there so everything was new and exciting to her.

  We had dinner at Christiana Campbell's Tavern. I had the Waterman’s Supper

  Which was a three-course meal starting with a cup of Sherried Shrimp and Clam Stew. That was followed by Southern-fried Chicken with Corn Pudding. Miranda ordered the crab cakes with lemon-caper sauce and onion crisps.

  After dinner we walked hand in hand past the Capitol building and down The Duke of Gloucester Street past the shops and taverns. Along the way we stopped at the silversmith’s and I bought her a simple sliver bracelet that had been popular with the girls in high school when I was young. She never took it off once I placed it on her wrist.