Time For A Killing
Gregory Jackson

 

"It's time for a killing." Jerry calmly announced to his wife as she struggled with the threaded rope he had tied tightly around her wrist and ankles.  This was a job over due he thought to himself.  "Hell, I aint' no coward.  I could kill without even the blinking of an eye." He thought aloud as he paced the dirt floor of the tin roofed shed behind his grandfather's house.  The mumbled profanity coming from his wife as she tussled with the rope only quickened Jerry's pace.  She had tried screaming her usual obscenities earlier, but Jerry had removed the bandana from around his dampened forehead and tied her mouth shut with it.  Over and over again his thoughts ruminated his refusal to believe that he could be considered a coward.  And to show those who thought he was, a killing would be needed to end all doubt.

He knelt before his wife whose face was contorted in anger and began to explain to her what was in on his mind. "When I was a boy I kilt snakes wit my bare hands woman.  I caught and kilt rattlers.  Big rattlers!  When theyed jump at me to sink in their venom, then just like that, I'd jump back and catch um wit my hand right behind their triangle heads."   He demonstrated this by grabbing the back of his wife's bound wrist with his left hand and shaking her to impress his grip upon her.  She tried to struggle against him and Jerry rose again to engage in his pace. Dust rose from his boots with each step of his circular pace.  He was entranced in some far off place where the buzz of a sawmill echoed in his head.  The vaguely familiar embrace of a mother's love cut short.  A dark place where a hand forced itself upon him and a feeling of abdominal sickness rose.  Then he saw his axe.  It was clean, strong and purposeful.

"Jerry! You out there boy?  Damnit, come here and help me up out of this dang blasted outhouse!"  The scratchy voice of his grandfather cursed. "Damn no good for nothing mongrel of a grandson." The old man mumbled below his breath then spitting out tobacco juice, which lined his bottom lip and angled below his chin and neck. Drunk, the old man tried wiping the spittle juice with one free hand and mistakenly spread feces on the collar of his already worn shirt. "Damn! Jerry, get out here!"

Shut off from the light of day by the dusty darkness of the shed with his wife, Jerry inspected the sharpness of the ax by streams of light emitted through the crevices. Marveling at its glimmering effect, he was in a state of momentary bliss.  The blade itself was sharp enough to slice through bone; leaving not a fracture or cause for splinter.

"Where the hell are you boy? I done messed myself all over!  Jerry!" The old man was unyielding in his aggravating squalls of insensitive obsession.

Interrupted in his train of thought, Jerry lowered the ax turned toward the door and responded.  "Be there directly Pa'! Hold on to your britches!"   He looked at the struggling woman on the dirt floor and laughed.  Kicking up dust with her bare feet, she was engulfed in a cloud of dirt, making her dusty and matted by the mixture of sweat and dirt solidifying on her hair and skin.  She banged her head against a wooden pillar and tried to scream through the bandana.  Jerry smiled at her and said," I told him to hold on to his britches. Did you get it?  That was a funny."  Wild eyed, the woman continued her struggle.  The door closed behind Jerry and she heard the lock secure.

Jerry walked slowly to toward the outhouse.  In the distance he saw the old man fidgeting within the outside lavatory wiping a hand on his chin and soiling his self.  He was a horrible man and mean as well, but he was kin. Even though throughout the years he had lied to Jerry about every thing decent and good, he was after all kin.  His blood ran through his veins. And whatever consequence the heavens had in store it would be determined by the nature of their ways.  He hated yet respected his Grandfather.  He had to respect him because for better or worse, he kept him clothed and fed. Barely fed and scantly clothed his inner thoughts rose up.  The old man tried getting up and fell back hard onto the wooden seat of the makeshift toilet.  As Jerry approached the place where his grandfather sat, a stench filled the air.  Familiar as it was, it made it no less unbearable. "Hew wee Pa' what in the hell did ya' eat?  A rotting coon? Man, you stanked up the place a might terrible more that usual."  Jerry smiled and thought the old man would find some humor in what his young grandson had said. "Shut up you no good for nuthin waste of sperm!  What do you think of this as a funny?  Your Daddy had more fun choking his chicken than messin' in ya' Ma'.   His grandfather said as he wiped his feces covered hand along the interior wall of the outhouse.

Jerry's slight smile vanished and a seriousness over took him and he responded coolly, "Well, I didn't know my Ma' now did I old man?  You and my Pa' saw to that.  Besides, that aint no way to talk me, specially since I the one helping you off the damn shitter."

"You disrespect me boy!  To hell with ya' Ma!  She ran off with that colored boy from down the way after you was born and never heard tail of her since. I aint' surprised ifn' you aint' got colored blood in ya' with that kind of Ma.  So don't tell me what way I can talk.  You and especially her ain't got no grounds for telling me how to talk to nobody.  As for your Pa' he was a good son-in law.  Did every thing I told him to do.  Even beat that heffer of a daughter of mine when I told him he had to.  Hell I beat her, but she was wild tailed from the day of her birth." The old man reached mid point of his monolog forgetting his grandson standing in front of him.  He talked to invisible strangers through an intoxicating haze.

"Damn shame about that boy, my son in law.  Got himself caught on that conveyer belt down at the sawmill.  Jerry could have helped him, could have stopped that thing before it sawed that poor man in half. " Jerry stared at his grandfather as the old man rambled on.  Inside his own thoughts, Jerry remembered that day well.

"I stopped it Pa'.  Right as it got to his belly button.  I looked at him as the blood gurgled in his throat.  He spit blood like they do in them movies when they get shot in the stomach.  Like you, spitting out your curse words and tobacco, he tried to spit out my name.  Only making a worser mess of his face.  Big spots of blood flying all over the place, running down his face like from ah upturned spicket.    He cursed out my name.  Never did he ask for my help.  Just cursed through blood, saying when he got his hands on me what he was gonna do to me.  I remembered when he put his hands on me.  So helping him wasn't entering in my mind.   I sat down and watched his arms and legs shake like a rattler's tail.   Then I set that machine on again. But you don't know any of that; do you old man?" Jerry relished his thought. "Said he was at the creek killing snakes and couldn't hear nothing.  I lost my son-in-law that day and was left with nothing but the memory of a whoring daughter and a no good ten year old grandson to feed."  His eyes began to swell as if beginning to cry.

"Let it go Pa'."

"Huh?"

The old man looked passed Jerry and could see that someone was trying to break open his shed's door. Barely making out what looked like a female foot and ankle through a slit in the door, he yelled.

"What the hell you doing with that whore in my wood shed boy?  Take that bitch out to the woods!"  He yelled loud enough in her direction so she could hear him.  He propped himself up standing with both hands along the outhouse doorframe.  But his stance was wavering and he made one step out side of the little shack.  He peered at Jerry for what seemed to be more than a minute.

And with a sinister look the old man asked.  "What the hell you gawking at boy?  Pull up my britches!" Obeying the old man Jerry kneeled and began to pull up the old man's pants, whereupon urine sprayed Jerry 's forearms. "Oopps."  Was all the old man said while enjoying what he thought humiliating to his grandson.    Still standing with his pants and underwear around his ankles, he laughed and spit tobacco close to where Jerry stood. Smiling, he revealed brown rotting teeth within the haggard face of generational poverty, bigotry and hard times.

Snap! Something broke inside Jerry's head.  An intensifying relief of weight seemed to lift off his entire body.  Jerry smiled, stood upright and said.

"You think that was funny, huh? Well how about this for laughs."  With his axe still in his back pocket, Jerry raised it from behind and split the old man's head in two.  Jerry's eyes brightened with disbelief.   The break was even and swift.  Straight down the middle.  He held the ax steady watching the old man's body collapse.  "Damn.  I should have used this ax a long time ago. "  He turned the ax handle back and forth so blood ran slowly from edge to edge.  It was briefly hypnotic.  The crimson roll of liquid strands as drop by drop of it fell to the capturing earth.

The excitement was rapture to him and the repeated blows were as good as the first.  After marveling at his and the axe's work, he gathered the dismembered parts of the old man and distributed them in the hog pen.  Upon which the sourly beasts snorted and devoured the remains of the dead man's body.  Behind he could hear the woman trying to escape by forcing her weight against the locked door.  This irritated him to no end. For he felt she was becoming a bit too impatient for his likings.  Ignoring her attempt to escape, he raised his head and felt the warm sunshine landing on his face, making him feel good and sweaty.

Turning toward the sound of the banging, he took his time going back to the shed.  But he noticed the bloody remains of hair, cartilage and torn flesh on his axe.

"Hmm. Better clean up this mess out here."  He changed direction and went to the nearby well.  Laying the axe on the grass Jerry pumped water into a pale.  After, he set about cleaning up the spilt blood.  His wife was still beating heavily on the door.

"I should have strapped that whore to a pole." He said to himself. When he had finished cleaning the blood from outhouse door and wetting the ground so that any blood would not be seen, he decided it was time to take care of the woman.  He made his way to the relentless sound of her pounding against the door of the shed.  From his back pocket where he placed his now clean axe, he grabbed it and haled it toward shed impaling the steel object into the shed.  It quieted her pounding for only a moment. From where Jerry stood, it sounded like she had fallen to the dirt floor.  Then the pounding resumed.

"Dumb ass girl."

Reaching the shed, he leaned his back against it.  The pounding sent her frustration through his body like the beating of a bass drum.  Becoming all the more irritated by her, his anger was seething inside him and he could see the veins of his muscled arms bulge with the adrenalin increase. Counting in whispers, Jerry felt cool breath pass his lips.  The taste of salty sweat beaded on his upper lip and he licked it between breaths.

"One. He grabbed onto the lock.  "Two." He unlocked it.   "Three!"   He swung opened the door as quick as he could and his wife fell out of the shed with a rush, crashing her body into the hard ground.  Stepping over her before she could gain any composure, Jerry yanked her up by the hair and slammed her body up against the rickety shed.  One of the planks gave and he maneuvered her to one that was sturdier.  Holding her by the neck with one hand, and lifting her dress with other he inserted himself by force inside her. She lifted her legs coupling his buttocks and fell hard onto him. Their pelvic regions were in raging thrusts.  He eyed her with lust and disgust.  But was overcome by an emotion which had joined them together.  It was not hate, nor was it true love.  It was a passion for some things they shared in common.

While moving inside of her, at a rapid pace and she reciprocating, he licked the mixture of dirt and sweat that had settled between her teenage breasts.

"I told you it was time for a killing." He said through grunts of breath and sweat. "I said I wasn't no, ugh, . coward."  At which point the woman managed to remove the bandana tied around her mouth then spoke in pace with their movements. " But .you .didn't .let me .see! You. hmm!  Selfish bastard!  You .didn't let me .see!"

 

 

Copyright © 2004 Gregory Jackson
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"