This is How you Commit a Crime

It starts where all good ideas start. Television. Thursday night on Criminal Minds: the cops are investigating the murder of a man who’s been stabbed in the heart by his crazy revenge-seeking wife. You’ll turn off the TV because the situation hits a little too close to home–you have some first hand experience in the field. You try to forget about it. It’s just over-dramatic writing intended to keep the audience wanting more. He left you, kicked you after you had already fallen, took his things and was gone without a second look. Ten years you spent with him, married, dogs, jobs, bank accounts. He said he was in love. He lied. You only found out because the fucker was stupid enough to leave his phone open. Now you’re not loveable anymore and the woman down the street is “everything he’s ever wanted.”

You move on and try to forget, but you can’t. Be- cause what starts as a figment of your imagination, has now become an idea. It’s terrible and horrible. No good person should be thinking what you’re thinking. But it’s there, and now, your thought has turned into a plan. It’s breathing and it’s born, and you’re cradling it in your hands like a newborn, nursing a sin that shouldn’t be alive.

Now, you’re trying to find the weapon. Something light, easy to conceal. Something like a gun, a pistol that fits in the palm of your hand. A pistol so small, it’s a single round. After that, you’d need to reload and that would take time and effort and your victim could run and tell the cops and then it would be over. One cartridge, one bullet, no hesitation.

You buy the gun at the store that sits between the gas station and the town’s one public bathroom. A place no one would ever go looking. Somewhere no one would remember your face. You pay the guy in cash so he doesn’t track you, you keep your hood down and hope he doesn’t ask questions. He won’t. This is America.

You decide the crime will be committed by the lake off a popular trail. You’ll take your own truck so clean up is quicker. You’ll invite them out for a pleasant Sunday hike, make false amends, pretend all is well. Then you’ll shoot him in the head.

Now comes the hesitation. I won’t judge, we’re all human. Are you prepared to do this? Are you prepared to take a life? Ask yourself that before we move on, because it’s no small feat, I’ll tell you that. You’re going to kill someone’s child, someone’s friend, someone’s long lost love. You’ve just robbed someone of a soulmate. Are you prepared to handle that?

You are. You thought you were his soulmate.

Now you’re driving your old Chevy down a winding road, passing a babbling creek and tall crooked trees. It’s an idyllic day, so perfect a narrator better than myself would call it irony. Your hands at the helm of the wheel, you can feel a bead of sweat trickle down the side of your head. You turn up the AC and hope they won’t notice. They never do, it’s always about him. You chose that pistol because it was supposed to weigh like a feather. You can feel it sitting like a stone, cold in the front pocket of your coat.

You’re standing at the shore of a lake. It’s a pretty lake, the water is clear and blue and the fish swim merrily along in their lazy circles. He’s blabbering about something you don’t really care about, something about making amends and moving forward. You update him on the dogs, and listen to him praise his new boss. You turn to look at them, smiling. It really is a beautiful day.

You’re moving so fast, you don’t even realize what’s happening. One second your finger is anxiously rubbing the handle of an innocent pistol sitting in your innocent pocket. The next, your finger is pulling down on the trigger, and suddenly that innocent pistol just became a murder weapon. That innocent pocket just became the pocket of a criminal. A crack, a scream, and then a bird’s wings flapping as it flees. You weren’t quite fast enough.

There’s a jagged hole in the center of their chest. Blood oozes out in urgent, desperate, currents and their eyes are opened up the sky, wide and unblinking. You roll their body out to the center of the lake, watching it sink, sink, sink, until it disappears. The merry fish don’t swim within a foot of the body.

Four days later, a hiker will find the body on the opposite shore of the lake. Don’t be surprised they found it, it’s not like you’re an expert at this. They’ll find the gun you half-destroyed buried under a bush. Some bystanders will come forward and say they heard a scream. They’re witnesses now. Your neighbor will come forward, say they saw you with the victim that same day, and tell the police about the muddy Chevy you were driving. The police will come knocking at your door with a warrant for your arrest. You go in peace. There’s nothing left to be done.

You’ll sit in jail for a few months because there’s no one you know to bail you out. They’ll take you to court and you’ll confess because you have nothing left to do. They all ask you, why? Why, why why? You don’t say a word, you let the lawyer do the talking. You stare at the judge silently as you’re sentenced to a lifetime in jail.

Crime is a funny thing. You’re the only one convicted, but look at all these people that conspired your crime. The writer, who wrote that episode of Criminal Minds? He’s not going to jail. The guy who runs the store between the bathrooms and the gas station, the police aren’t banging on his door. And me? The one who’s been telling you what to do this whole time, plotting and directing your every action? You won’t see me in orange anytime either.

And what about your husband? The asshole cheated on you with some other women and ruined everything. If you want to get technical, this whole thing is really his crime.

Call me if you ever get out of prison, okay? It was fun working together.

Blinding Lights

Photography

Jordan Jacoel

It starts as all the others do, In a cozy little life Told it has potential. Believing it, too, Because others of its kind have succeeded And gone on to fulfill their purpose in this life.

Then one day, finally, (it says), it goes off to the place That promises to change you, To reward ambition, To bring you to your fully-formed final self. But then it hesitates, Then it waits too long for an answer That it seeks within its soul. Maybe all it wanted was a little time to breathe. But instead it just drowned (and boiled) And watched as all its friends left on time Took their place in the world, Embarking on the path that they had planned.

And then all it could do was cry. Salty, endless waves flowing through its cage the one it made the journey to itself But nobody notices (they never do).

Then a kindred spirit Pulls it out of its little hell In which it had been forgotten, Dumping it with its peers More experienced, more worldly, more secure. And what can it do? Just pretend.