1.
Today’s the day, Melvin tells himself, this has to be it. Today’s the day.
Melvin sits on the edge of the bed, wearing only a towel, his hands wringing together in his lap. Forty years old and looking like 60, what little remains of his hair has firmly gone grey and is plastered to his scalp, still wet from his shower. Cigarette butts, beer cans, and fast food wrappers litter the floor of his tiny, cramped motel room. Most of the room is taken up by the bed and dresser, there’s no room for chairs and a table. A lit cigarette wavers between his lips as they move, unconsciously, in anxiety. Ash falls from the smoke down his thin, sunken chest, which never had more than a feeble suggestion of chest hair, into his lap, inside his robe, atop his shrunken, atrophied genitals. Melvin doesn’t notice. He’s too busy waiting.
Today’s the day. Today’s the day they know they’re not safe, they know I coming for them. Has to be. Has to be today. They have to know. Have to. The fourth one yesterday. . .they have to know now. Have to know. Four dead, they have to know.
Melvin relived the moment in his mind, of waiting for Ted Sypes to come out of his office, shooting him in the back as he tried to get into his car, shooting again as Ted lay dying, making sure Ted got a good look at his face and knew the man he’d wronged had come for him. . .but Ted hadn’t recognized him, not like the other three had. “You lost a game,” he’d told Ted as he left this world, “but I lost my entire life.” Did he see recognition in Ted’s eyes as he died? Melvin thought he had, and the thought satisfied him, but he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter anyway. After Ted stopped breathing, Melvin had stripped of his cheap suit and cheap shirt and cheap tie and cheap watch – cheap, but more than Melvin could ever afford, after they ruined his life – and put the jersey on him, just like he had done the other three. The deserted lot and bad neighbourhood ensured he’d had all the time he needed. Once he was 10 blocks away, he used Ted’s phone to call the police, making sure the body would be found quickly, then tossed the phone in a trash can before getting onto the bus. No muss, no fuss, easy, brilliant.
And now they’ll know. They’ll know I’m coming for them. They’ll know what they did, they’ll know the man they ruined is still alive, and they know I’m gonna get my revenge on those fuckers, those stupid, game-losing fuckers, they. . .
Melvin’s hacking, rasping cough interrupted his thoughts. That’s their fault too, he thought, I didn’t start smoking until after they took all my money. The cigarette fell to the floor, and, barefooted, Melvin stamped it out, reaching for the crumpled pack of Dorals and pulling out another as he ground the old one beneath his calloused heel. It hurt, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but them, nothing mattered but getting revenge for his ruined life.
There was a knock at the door. Melvin jumped up, barely able to control his excitement. The manager would leave the paper on the step and go on by, leaving Melvin alone with his triumph. . .
. . .except that when Melvin opened the door, Steve the manager was still there, holding the paper in his hand.
“Your rent’s late, motherfucker,” Steve said, his stogie bobbing up and down with his words. Steve was in his fifties, pot-bellied, greasy, and smelled back; like his motel, he had seen better days.
“Right here,” Melvin said, fishing in the dirty bathrobe’s pocket for the money he’d taken off Ted’s body. He didn’t want to cause trouble now, because that’s the sort of thing that gets people noticed by the police, and he didn’t want that much of their attention yet. “Sorry for the delay.” Melvin tried to sound humble, even though he knew that the day he didn’t need this ratbag hotel would be Greasy Steve’s last fucking day on Earth.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Steve said, straightening the crumpled wad of bills. He handed the paper over and walked away. “Next time, don’t be late, cocksucker!”
“Yes, sir,” Melvin replied, grinning with all the luster his brown, broken teeth could muster. “Won’t happen again. . .because I’ll fucking kill you in seven weeks,” he added as he closed the door.
Melvin was trembling with excitement as he walked back to the bed. Stretching out, he looked at the paper on his lap, still folded, the top half down. He could see the bottom halves of pictures of his victims, and knew that this was it, this was recognition, this was the part of his revenge he’d looked forward to the most. His quivering lips curled into a smile as he turned the paper over and. . .
And. . .
“WHAT THE FUCK?”
2.
“Nick Netherton, The State Sports and News.”
“Mr. Netherton?”
“Yes?”
“Ummm, hi, my name is Mel. . .dred. Meldred. Yeah, that’s my name. I’m Meldred and I’m calling you about the article in today’s paper?”
“Well, which one, Mr. ‘Meldred,’ I’ve got three or four in there.”
“The one on the front, about the serial killer.”
“Oh yeah, that one’s a real tragedy. Normally I don’t cover crime, but as the head sports writer, they figured it was best for me to cover this one. I’m real proud of that piece.”
“Oh, ummmmm. . .yeah, I guess it’s all right and all that, but, you know, do you think it was wise to insult the killer like that?”
“What do you mean, insult him?”
“In the headline you called him ‘The Cock-Hunter.’ In the article too.”
“Was that the headline they went with?”
“Yeah, I’m lookin’ at it right now. ‘Cock-Hunter Strikes,’ in big black bold letters.”
“Awesome! I didn’t think they were gonna go with it. It was my idea, but you know, the editors don’t always. . .”
“It’s an insult!”
“How so?”
“Calling the guy – or woman, you know, it could be a woman doing this – The Cock-Hunter makes him sounds queer, don’t you think?”
“Well, when you put it like that, I guess you could say that, if you take it out of context, I mean.”
“Context?”
“Look, the guy is killing former South Carolina football players. Killed four already, probably gunning for more. USC’s mascot is the gamecock, so it makes perfect sense to me to call him The Cock-Hunter, since he’s hunting Gamecocks, right?”
“Why not call him The Gamecock Hunter, then?”
“Because – hey, hold on a second.”
“. . .”
“Hey, I’m back, sorry about that. Around here, people often call our team just The ‘Cocks, so I went with the local lingo. Besides, according to the profile, the guy’s gay.”
“Like fuck I’m. . .I mean, what profile? Who says he’s gay?”
“Oh, the FBI worked up a quick profile last night. Showed it to me and everything. Yeah, their profiler definitely believes the killer is gay. It’s all in the article.”
“But. . .but why would they think that?”
“Let’s look at the facts in the case. The guy killed four men, took off their clothes, and redressed – after doing God knows what to their bodies – in their old football uniforms.”
“Maybe he’s trying to make a point?”
“He made the point that he’s gay. Clearly it’s some sort of man-love-thing gone wrong.”
“Mother. . .maybe he’s trying to say that they did him wrong when they were playing football.”
“I don’t wanna how they did him, if they did, wrong or otherwise.”
“Wait, that’s. . .that’s not what I meant. See, maybe he liked football, and he, and he, ummmmmm. . .”
“He what? What could justify killing them and stripping them?”
“Maybe he had a lot of money and, like, lost it on a football game.”
“So that’s why he’d be killing them, 20 years after they last played college ball? That seems kinda stupid to me.”
“No, no, see, you don’t get it. What if it was a lot of money, all the guy had when he was a kid, and he lost it all and. . .and maybe dropped out of school or something. . .or his life went downhill because they lost. It all makes sense now, right?”
“Hmmm. When you put it like that. . .nope, I still think the guy’s gay. I’m going with the FBI on this one.”
“I’M NOT. . .I mean, the killer probably isn’t gay. I think it’s like a revenge or money thing, like they ruined his life, so he’s getting revenge. . .”
“Nah. That’s boring.”
“But it might be the truth. . .”
“I doubt it. More likely he had a crush on the ‘Cocks when he was in school, and they like rejected him or something, and he’s still bitter about that. Hell, maybe he even tried out for the team and didn’t make it? I dunno the exact circumstances, but ‘gay’ seems to be the best fit to me.”
“That’s fucking retarded, calling a man gay when he’s just trying to get revenge for his fucking life that those fucking bastards ruined when they lost. . .”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, if that’s why he’s killing them.”
“I’ll tell you, ‘Meldred,’ the guy’s as gay as a San Francisco parade.”
“You fucking-“
“Tell you something else: he’s stupid, too.”
“What do you mean, ‘stupid’?”
“Stupid. As in ‘dumb.’ As in ‘moronic.’ Like, stupid enough to call a reporter that insulted him from a landline phone in a cheap motel.”
“What? I. . .I. . .”
“Say ‘hi’ to the Sheriff for me.”
“What?”
BAM!
“SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW! HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM! NOW! NOW!”
“Hello?”
“Nick?”
“Hey, Sheriff, what’s up?”
“Got him in custody. It was pretty easy. Thanks for your help.”
“No problem, Sheriff. Glad I could help.”
“Thanks for that plan, too. How’d you know he’d call you?”
“Eh, I remember some guy being real angry when the ‘Cocks lost to Clemson in ’91. I didn’t know him real well, but saw him around campus, had some classes with him. Stood to reason it might be the same guy, and you could make him lose his shit by calling him gay.”
“We got him now, so I guess it worked out.”
“Oh yeah. He wasn’t gay, but even back then he was a fucking moron.”
July 14-31, 2011
©PCB 2011
