Thirty-Two

Daniel Addas






It's way past noon and I'm lying in bed. On top of blankets. Staring at the ceiling. Plotting my revenge. Clara betrayed me. I don't take kindly to this sort of offense.
I'll need something quiet. Something not quite as big as Papa.
I think: I could push her onto rush hour traffic.
Naw: too messy. Eye witnesses. Cameras. Police. Lot's of questions. Arrest.
I think: I can't shoot her. If I do they'll think I'm behind Papa's death as well.
Just so we're clear. I don't want to kill Clara. I want to hurt her. Maybe humiliate her. Maybe I should get hair. Lot's of it. Lay it on top her while she sleeps.
That'll give her nightmares for weeks. I'll pretend I have no clue how the hair got into her room, how the person managed to bypass security. But then... I curse: Fuck. Clara will know. Smart brat.
Oh this is bad. I know it's bad. I shouldn't be thinking like this about my sister. She's not stupid. I imagine every possible way I could take my revenge on her with blatant eagerness. I need to distract myself. Think of something else. Think about...
Oh... Maybe I could just stab her to death. To kill a living creature. The moment of sticking a knife into something. The little sigh. It goes something like this: Hmm Ah. Soft. A lovers whisper. The disbelief in the eyes. I find it comforting. Alright fine, more than just comfortable. It's erotic. I come almost immediately. No girl can do that for me.
No Daniel no. She's your sister. Clara. You love her. She gets you. I have to remind myself this often and not succumb to the permutation of the violence in my head. Make this my motto. Like, uh, something I live by. Every one is game except Clara. Any living thing except her.
Game. There it is. That forbidden word. Game. As if taking the life of someone I don't know personally is some sort of sport
The only problem here is... I really don't view people as people, you get? I'm bad and instead of feeling guilty I sometimes look at the mirror and smile. I'm not a cliché. The good son. The perfect student. An amazing boyfriend. You know? The kind that only exist within the pages of a romance book. The Superman type. Not Superman as in the movie Superman but superman as in the kind of man that can be a brother, boyfriend, son, student, friend. The kind of guy people can (and do) depend on. The nice guy. Average Joe. I'm not any of those things.
I can't look at people and see good.
I'm weird. Or at least that's what Clara says. Weird can be good. I have friends, sure. But can they claim they know me? Really know me: the deep folds of me. Absolutely not. I don't even know myself.
And Wendy? The one person other than Clara to know enough to nail my ass. Well she didn't know me as well as she thought. When she found out all my secrets she ran out the door and I never saw her alive again. I had nothing to do with her death, I swear it. I think she bumped into something more evil than me and as they always say in situations like these: she was simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time. How Innocent. How simple it all sounds. That phrase never gets old. Irritating, yes. But boring? Not a chance.
Wendy had an angelic face.
Her coat hangers were built with exact precision. Like some higher being was showing off when creating her.
The only thing that stood out (and not in a good way) was her womanly fragrance.
I'm pulled out of thought. In the kitchen someone is opening the cupboard. Clara. There's only one person that can bang them that way, you know that way? The angry lover way. Hit the door so hard that it BAAM and then SKWEEK open only to KREEE closed again. She's mad. At the universe, I suppose. At Papa for dying. At me. At the the strangers walking the streets.
I track her movements by the sounds she makes. The PAAT-PAAT sound of her footsteps follows a chair dragging across the floor. She throws herself in it so hard that I tense my ass cheeks and suck in air through clenched teeth. Is the girl fucking nuts? Does she want to break her spine?
I listen to her cry. Wailing chicks make me edgy. Though my sister shouldn't fit in this category. Chicks. Shouldn't it be reserved only for the girls I'm seeing? I don't go down to the kitchen. How do I comfort her exactly. I can't even lie and say I know how she feels. I don't. He may have been my father but we weren't close enough for me to be devastated by his death.
I don't necessarily hate my father. Love him actually. Just (didn't) like him very much as a man.
See that's tricky. Usually people, especially those who are best friends with their parents, just don't get that there are some of us who just don't get along with their parents. It's not that I didn't want to but these things just happen. It's that bitch. Fate. She's cruel. To me especially. Nothing ever goes my way.