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Lifting Up Her Belly
The nest was black and blue because anything goes and it all goes... in, into the booky brooky booky book. Like “a casual hospital
to ward off a prison.” Baked skin, baked lines, baked groups of opinionated voters. She slipped and fell like a French broad from
somewhere in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. And then a group of us narrowed our focus to exclude pissing and shitting on each
other’s belongings.
Just then Ben and Jen, both would be murderers if only they could find the courage, were caught by the truant
officer cutting class. Ape shit! Pipe tobacco! Learner’s permit! Ben was 17 and Jen was 15. They would often
tell each other they loved each other.
I called Ben on his cell and caught him on the bus going home. Jen was with him. The cigarette I was smoking tasted briefly
like some kind of cough medicine or something. Disgusting. Sordid and holy and I told Ben all about the loser I’d seen at
school that day. I went to a different school than Ben and Jen. They went to normal public school. I went to this special
school. It was supposed to be for the so-called “gifted.” They should say it’s for the weird. The kid’s name was Stuart.
He was this skinny loser type. I said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was anorexic and puked up everything he eats.”
And I said he was a perfect candidate. I told him to tell Jen. Ben whispered into Jen’s ear so none of the other
passengers could hear. He could see that Jen approved and was excited and this time maybe really ready and willing
and brave enough to go through with it.
There was this garbage machine out back of the restaurant where I worked. You put the garbage in and press a button
and it crushed everything and makes it all much smaller and compact. Finally my fantasy was going to come true.
I’d always wanted to put a human body in there and press the button. The cool thing about it was the odds of being
caught were very slim. I said I wanted to put Stuart into the garbage crusher while still alive. We’d tape his mouth
shut so he couldn’t scream not that there was anyone nearby to hear a scream. And we’d tape his hands together behind
his back and his feet together.
The cop asked me what I’d been doing the night we put Stuart into the crusher. Somehow he’d been found. I told him I
was washing dishes at the Roach and Four which was the family restaurant where I worked part time. And when the dog
was brought onto the bus and started to sniff I knew I was done for. Eventually they took me off the bus and let
everyone else go and the bus continued on to New York City without me. I got tricked by one of their questions.
I said yes when they asked me if I’d work if someone offered me a job while I was in the States. My dish washing
partner at “the Roach” convinced me to check out his beautiful home country of Chile. Needless to say I didn’t
make it there. And for some reason Stuart refused to tell who put him into the garbage crushing machine that
night. It was a miracle he survived the crushing. It must have been because he was so skinny. He was hardly
even there. We should have gone with a fat guy.
I can see a fat guy in the crushing machine. I can see him being crushed so tight that his belly bursts
and his guts burst out and he bleeds to death.
Jen said, “Next time we’ll try a fat guy.”
I said, “Next time?”
To which Ben mumbled almost incoherently, “Of course.”
And then my brain started to sing to itself. The words included, “In the desert you can’t remember your name because
there ain’t no one for to give you no name.”
And then the song changed to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
I was watching Ben and Jen making out on the couch.
The plan was we’ll all go to college right after High School and become lawyers or something.
Meanwhile I was going to enjoy the Northern Lights whenever I was way up north.
Greg Evason
Email: Greg Evason
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