Killing Them Softly

by Glenn, Roy

  "Have some fun!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  Once I had my bikini on, and my hair and makeup just right, I went down to post up at the pool to people watch. I know, I know, posting up by the pool for yet another day didn’t seem all that risqué, but you never can tell what might happen.

  Just for a change of pace, I decided to have lunch in one the restaurants in the hotel. Even though it was after noon, I still wanted some breakfast food. A lot of people think that it’s taboo to eat breakfast food after noon. My soon-to-be ex-husband was one of them, but I was living on the wild side from here on out, so what the fuck!

  A funny thing happened to me while I was eating that afternoon. I realized that I was alone. It scared me at first because I had never been alone. I went from my parent’s house to college, and then to Tyrone. I wondered was I ready for that; ready to make my own choices. In addition to drinking, I thought a lot about where my life had been, and where I wanted it to go.

  And that was the problem. All I’ve been for years is Mrs. Petrocelli. Volunteering for this cause or the next, attending this function or that important fundraiser. I’d been to so many of those things I was starting to think my first name was, and his lovely wife. Now, that all was behind me. My name is Avonte, and unfortunately, beyond that, I didn’t know very much about who I was.

  When I got to the pool, the usual suspects that were there the day before were there again.

  "Afternoon, Manuel," I said to my bartender as I sat down.

  "How are you today, Miss Avonte," he said, then placed a bar napkin in front of me and handed me a menu.

  "I feel great today." It wasn’t too long after, that Manuel had my drink ready, and had sat it on the bar napkin. "I won’t be needing a menu today. I ate in the Ocean Terrace."

  When I said that I had eaten inside, the look on his face distorted. Like he was really hurt that I wouldn’t be eating there. He dropped his head and went away without another word.

  "Whatever," I said softly. I spun my chair around and looked out at the beach. As it had been the previous two days, the weather was beautiful, and the water was calm.

  That’s when I saw him. There was Devin, walking down the beach. And much to my surprise and sheer joy, he was alone. "Charge the drink to my room, Manuel," I said, and got up. "I’m gonna have some fun."

  I walked down to the beach and headed for Devin, and I had to hurry just to catch up with him. I started to call his name, but two things stopped me. One, wifey may be around, and two, it would be just too ghetto.

  While I followed behind Devin, wondering where he was going, I considered inviting him up to my room to finish the job I had imagined him doing before I drifted off to sleep. But then I thought that I’d like to have some fun today. "What? Fucking ain’t fun?" I asked myself. It is, but I’d been in San Juan for two days, and other than going to Rumba the night before, I hadn’t been anywhere.

  Today, I wanted to play tourist. I wasn’t really all that interested in going on any kind of sightseeing tour, but I wanted to see San Juan. Have an island adventure. And Devin’s sexy-ass would make the perfect escort. "Hello, Devin," I said when I got close enough to him.

  He turned around quickly and he smiled like seeing me was the best thing that ever happened to him. "Hey, Avonte!" he said, and ran back to me. "How are you doing today?" Devin asked, and devoured me with his eyes. "You look—" he started, but couldn’t finish his sentence. Devin shook his head and finally said, "You are wearin’ the hell outta that bikini."

  I laughed a little and said, "Thank you, Devin. You’re looking pretty nice in those trunks." And he was. The trunks were tight on him, and the longer he looked at me, the more the print of his dick became prominent.

  "Thank you."

  "So, I wasn’t expecting to see you today. I just knew you and wifey had a romantic day planned."

  Devin smiled at me, and I got a little wet.

  "Yeah, well, to be honest with you, Avonte, I did have a romantic day planned. But when I woke up this morning, Taye was gone, again, and I haven’t seen her all day."

  "What’s up with you guys anyway?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you said yesterday that you’ve spent more time with me than you have with her, and here we are again. So what’s the deal?"

  Devin took a deep breath, and then he told me his story. He went into this sad story about how they had lost two babies, and the effect that had on his wife and their marriage.

  "I can’t even imagine what that must feel like," I said, as we walked along the beach together. I don’t know how far or how long we walked, because I enjoyed the conversation so much. Like everything else in my life, conversation, or more to the point, conversation with a man other than Tyrone, was non-existent. Devin told me what he did for a living and where he worked. I purposely told him very little about myself. I felt like if I started talking about my life, that I would start to cry. "So, Devin, tell me about this romantic day you had planned for wifey?" I asked when we got back to the hotel.

  "We’re doing the first part of it. I had planned to take a walk along the beach, some good conversation, maybe play in the water. Then I was thinking about wandering around old San Juan. Maybe even hire a car and go out to the areas that most tourists don’t see."

  "You mean the stuff that you don’t get on the packaged sightseeing tour?"

  "Exactly." Devin smiled at me, and it had the same effect it had on me the last time. "Then after a fine meal, I wanted to top off the evening with a horse and buggy ride in the moonlight."

  "Well, I may not be your wife . . ." I began.

  "Taye."

  Whatever. ". . . But, I’m not doing anything, and I would hate to see a great plan go to waste."

  "You serious?"

  "Don’t I look serious?" I stopped and held out my arms for effect. Devin looked me over for a second or two longer than I thought he should.

  "Avonte, you’re a very serious woman."

  "Give me a few minutes to change, and I’ll meet you in the lobby," I told Devin.

  "Sounds good."

  After a quick change, I met Devin in the lobby. I looped my arm in my escort’s arm, and we caught a cab to San Juan’s Old City.

  Even though I said I didn’t want to, we took the walking tour. We walked behind the crowd. So far behind that we lost them at Fuerte San Felipe del Morro or El Morro Fortress. By the time we came out of the Cathedral de San Juan, we had lost the tour entirely. "I really did want to go to La Muralla."

  "What’s that?" Devin asked in a tone that let me know that he was less than enthusiastic about doing more sightseeing.

  "La Muralla is the City Wall," I said all bright and bubbly. "It’s a city by the bay that they built a wall around."

  "Okay, let’s go," Devin said, and checked his watch. We got directions and found our way along the curve of the bay that led to La Muralla. It was completed in 1782 to protect the city against enemy attacks.

  At that point, I had done enough walking for one vacation, so we went for drinks at a little place called La Bombonera. Devin and I talked for hours while we drank and dined on rice with squid, roast leg of pork, seafood asopao, and pineapple pie for dessert.

  The sun was going down when we left La Bombonera. Devin, as he’d done throughout the day, checked his watch. "Do you have to go?" I asked, hoping he’d say no, and wondering how far I was willing to take this with a married man.

  I could tell by the way he talked about her that he still loved her. But she seemed to be pushing him away, driving a wedge between them. Along with his love I could feel his anger at her; anger for something that wasn’t her fault. His wife made him feel unwanted. I knew what that felt like. I felt pretty unwanted, too. Maybe that’s why I could feel his pain. It made me want him.

  "Even if I did, I don’t want to," Devin said.

  "So, what should we do now?"

  "How adventurous are you feeling, Avonte?"

  "I’m ready for whate
ver—within reason, of course."

  "Of course."

  "So, what do you have in mind?"

  "Come on," Devin said, and took me by the hand. We got in the first cab we could find. "Coliseo Gallistico," he said to the driver.

  The driver let out a sneaky kind of laugh and drove on. "Where are we going, Coliseo—where?"

  "What happened to your sense of adventure?"

  "Okay, this is where the within reason part kicks in. See, I’m probably gonna be down for whatever we’re going to do, but the common sense part of me, go figure, says you’re in a foreign country with two men that you don’t know very well. Maybe I should at least know where I’m going," I said sort of jokingly, but I was serious.

  Devin inched a little closer to me in the backseat. "It’s nothing illegal, and it’s nothing sexual either. But it is violent, and some people find it distasteful."

  "Si, si," the driver agreed.

  "But I assure you, Avonte, you’ll be perfectly safe. And anytime you’re ready to go, you just say the word."

  And that seemed to hold me until we arrived at Coliseo Gallistico, and I realized that it was a cock-fighting arena. "Cock-fighting?" I asked with my hands on my hips. "You into this?"

  "No. This will be my first time," Devin said, as we continued walking toward the door. "I wanted to do something different."

  "Well, it’s definitely that."

  Devin stopped and turned to me. "If you don’t want to go, I mean if it’s too much for you, we don’t have to go in. We can find someplace else to go. I just thought, you know, this kind of stuff you can’t do in New York."

  "’Cause it’s barbaric, not to mention illegal."

  "We don’t have to go," Devin said and turned away.

  I looked at him as we began walking away. His shoulders had dropped, and his once proud and confident walk that I found so sexy, had all but disappeared. He was really looking forward to doing this, just like I was all hyped about the Wall City. Now I felt selfish. And I wondered should I care.

  I had decided back at the Cathedral de San Juan that I wasn’t going to sleep with him tonight. We’ll probably never see each other again. So do I really care if he’s upset that I don’t wanna see mindless violence masquerading as a sport?

  The answer was no. But I’m not a selfish person and my opinion of me at this point, was much more important than what Devin thinks of me. So I stopped.

  "Wait a minute, Devin."

  "What?" he asked and sulked back to me.

  "Come on." I looped my arm in his and began walking. "We’re going to a cock-fight."

  "You sure?"

  "Yeah, I’m sure—sure I never wanna see that spoiled child look for the rest of the night."

  "Was it that bad?"

  I didn’t bother commenting. The answer was obvious.

  When we got inside the arena it was almost full, but still kind of quiet. We took our seats in time to watch the handlers as they teased the birds with a third bird, before teasing them with each other to make them more aggressive—I guess. All roosters were outfitted in white or blue ankle bands.

  As the fight began, the roosters knew what to do. The atmosphere totally changed from the second the first bell sounded. People were shouting bets all across the arena. "Five hundred on azul!" Azul means blue in Spanish.

  At first it was quite shocking, then it got a bit disgusting, but after a couple of matches, I was surprisingly into it. By the fourth match I was making bets, and during the match I was on my feet yelling at the top of my lungs, "AZUL, AZUL, AZUL!"

  After ten matches, I had had enough and was ready to go. We took a cab back to our hotel, and Devin checked his watch. "What’s that wife of yours gonna say when you drift in after midnight?"

  "Nothing. We’re leaving in the morning, so she’ll probably be asleep when I get there. And if she’s awake, I’ll tell her that I went to the cock-fights. She’ll say, fine, because that’s her answer to just about everything when she’s like this."

  When the cab arrived, I walked through the lobby with Devin. But since I decided he wasn’t getting any, I stopped at the elevator. I saw no point in tempting myself by saying good night at the door. "I think we should say good night here."

  I had to laugh a little to myself, because the look on his face was priceless. It went from "I’ma tear that ass up" to total shock. Then confusion set in, like he was trying to figure out what he’d done wrong, to spoiled child. "I told you about that look."

  "That bad?"

  "It’s worse this time."

  "You just don’t know."

  I rolled my eyes. "Believe me, I do."

  But a promise is a promise; especially to yourself. The solution to Tyrone cheating on me with Blondie was not to become a cheater myself. I had more pride in myself than that. But I wasn’t stupid.

  There was a man sitting by the elevator fooling with his laptop, and taking notes. Poor guy, working on his vacation, at this hour. "Excuse me, Devin."

  I borrowed the man’s pen and wrote down my cell phone number. "Call me some time. We’ll have lunch, or whatever," I said, as the elevator door opened.

  "Or whatever."

  I got on the elevator. "Good night, Devin. I had a really good time hanging out with you."

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  Qianna

  Fresh outta Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, and back in the city. The charge was aggravated assault. It wasn’t my first time in jail. My first bid was at juvenile when I was fifteen. I came home one night from having sex with my boyfriend, and heard my mama screaming. I went in the apartment and saw my mama’s drunk-ass man slappin’ her in the face, while he raped her in the living room.

  I jumped on his back and started hittin’ him, you know, tryin’ to get his drunk-ass off her. He got up off my moms and came after me. That bitch just laid there and watched that nigga beat my ass, and then he raped me, too. My own mom didn’t do shit to help me.

  After he was done with me, he left the house. My moms got up and came to me. I was cryin’ and shit. She helped me get up. "You all right, Qianna?"

  "He raped me, Mama," I yelled, and pushed her off of me. "Why the fuck didn’t you help me?"

  "What the fuck was I gon’ do?" she said, and took me in the bathroom to clean me up. "No! We gotta call the cops!"

  "No!"

  "But he raped me, Mama!"

  "No!" she yelled back at me. "We ain’t callin’ no damn cops."

  "Why not?" I yelled through my tears.

  "He didn’t mean it. He just drunk, that’s all. You know how he get when he like that. He don’t mean us no harm."

  I couldn’t believe the shit that bitch was talkin’. That drunk-ass nigga beat and raped my mama. Then he did the same shit to me. And this bitch didn’t wanna do shit about it.

  I knew what I had to do.

  The next night I waited until he was drunk again. Him and my moms was sittin’ in the livin’ room watchin’ TV, like that shit never happened. Her on the couch; him in the chair. I went in the kitchen and got the biggest knife I could find. They were too into whatever bullshit show they was watchin’ to pay me any mind. I came up behind him, grabbed his head, and slit his fuckin’ throat. While my moms screamed her fuckin’ ass off.

  I had just killed a man, and you know what?

  I liked it.

  Got off on it.

  Somehow ending his life began mine. I felt powerful and strong, like I could do anything, and nobody could stop me.

  That was, until the cops came and took my ass to jail for murder. And do you know that bitch wouldn’t testify for me at my trial? She told the cops that he never touched me, and he didn’t rape either one of us. Stupid bitch, scared to death of a dead man.

  On my second day at the juvenile facility, this big burly lookin’ girl cut in front of me in the food line. I let that pass, ’cause I didn’t give a fuck.

  But I started paying attention to this bitch, seein’ how she ro
lled. She had everybody in our buildin’ scared to death of her. I stayed out of her way for the next couple of weeks. At the time, my thinkin’ was, you know, mind your business, stay out of trouble, do your time and get out of there.

  It didn’t work out that way. Shit never fuckin’ does.

  Our next confrontation came in the cafeteria again, when she knocked my tray out of my hands.

  "You shouldn’t be so clumsy, bitch," she said to me.

  "Who you callin’ a bitch, bitch?" I said, and stepped to her. Then the poo-lice came and got between us.

  "What’s goin’ on here?"

  "She threw her tray at me," the bitch lied.

  Not only did I have to clean up her mess, but since the bitch told them that I threw the tray at her, they took me to the detention unit. Might as well call it what it was—they threw my ass in the hole for two days.

  I knew what I had to do.

  When I got out and went back to my buildin’, I played it cool, but I had a plan for that bitch. For the next few days, I walked around the yard, picking up rocks.

  Once I thought I had enough, I put all the rocks in a sock and waited for my time. After lights out that night, I made my move to her bed with the sock full of rocks behind my back.

  "What you want, bitch?" she asked when she looked up and saw me standing there.

  "For you to die," I said, and beat her wit’ it. I don’t know how many times I hit her, but there was blood everywhere. Then I took her pillow and put it over her face until she stopped moving.

  She was dead.

  The feeling I got while I was killin’ her was indescribable.

  I went around to everybody and gave each one of them a rock, and told them to get rid of it. After that, I was the big bitch in the room. Now they were all scared to death of me. And nobody fucked wit’ me for the rest of my bid.