Smiths' Meat is Murder Read Online Free Page A

pharmacy at the sufficient speed. The paper ran a photo of the remnants of what was once a fully functioning automobile, all smashed up and twisted, jutting out of a fresh breach in the wall, blocking the sidewalk. Four o’clock in the afternoon. They died just as a syndicated episode of
Magnum P.I.
lit up my tiny black and white TV.
    A newspaper article said an employee’s leg was broken by one of the victims who had been ejected from the car. They were pretty wasted (on “vocka” as they say in the suburban Boston vernacular), but there was no mistaking their intentions. They all signed a suicide note, and fixed it to the other girl’s refrigerator with a souvenir magnet, probably from Sea World or Freeport, Maine. The quadruple wake had already come and gone before anyone discovered it, camouflaged by the usual refrigerator clutter accumulated by a family of six.
    There was a lot of speculation among the kids at school as to the contents of the suicide note. Me, I wasmore interested in knowing exactly who wrote it and when and where. Did they all write a paragraph? Did they vote on the method? Were they concerned with the possibility of surviving and spending the rest of their lives crippled, unable to, among other things, have sex, wipe, or cut up their own chicken? I was still waiting for my maiden voyage on the SS Intercourse. At the time, suicide was not so high on my to-do list, and Denise the person faded from my consciousness like a much hyped TV serial canceled during its first season.
    “They did it because they were in a cult,” or “Nobody would ever accept them for what they were, a gay/lesbian foursome.” People were really saying things like that. My favorite came from this balding sixteen-year-old named Flaherty who later joined—and was subsequently asked to leave—the seminary: “They did it because of despair.” No fucking shit.
    Anyway, all of the talk got the higher-ups at school concerned. Monkey-see, monkey-do, and all that. Monkey-lawsuit is more like it. I was mildly sad and all, but I couldn’t help thinking of Allison. Death and mourning made me want to marry her. I was alive. She was alive. Add it up.
    Outlandish schemes of exodus and teenage codependency began to seem possible and worthy of goal-like status after I’d found myself alone with her in The Lung one day, during lunch period. It was a sunny afternoonfollowing a heavy morning shower. You could still smell the rain. Allison was standing at the edge of a puddle that was as big as a black Crown Victoria. Her reflection grooved languidly, reclining on what would be the hood. I positioned myself so that I could see both of her.
    The bell signaling the end of lunch had sounded. Kids scrambled for the door, flicking their heaters against the ash blackened wall and blowing huge gulps of smoke back into the cafeteria just to piss off anyone inside who might take offense. Allison stayed behind to work on a brand new dart. I could taste the filter burning in my mouth, but I made it last while my glances shifted quickly from the real her to the reflected her, to the real her.
    “How’s the band?” she asked while exhaling a long drag. It was so quiet in The Lung with everyone else gone, and her voice and cigarette smoke were one and the same. I was momentarily, for obvious reasons, breathless. Then I leaned in toward the second hand cloud and inhaled some of her words as if they were kisses. It was all terribly romantic, at least for me. What had been in her was now in me. I kept it there until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Danny who? Denise who? And then I doubled over, coughing uncontrollably.
    “Are you okay?” she asked, moving closer to me. I could see the white leather fringe on her boots approaching.I could hear the little bells on their zippers tinkle then go quiet.
    “Fine,” I choked. Tears streamed down my face, and clear phlegm worked its way from my nose to my saliva-wet lips. God, I loved her. I continued