The volunteer’s shovel scrapes against what I think is a rock but turns out to be the dead kid’s skull. The last shovelful of mud he flings over his shoulder is a wet, brownish-yellow goop that used to be the kid’s face. Dark gray clouds tinged with streaks of black, like rot in the sky, move closer to us. I hope we can get this done before the rain hits. My shoes are comfortable, but not made for wet weather, and the idea of trudging back to my car with soggy feet does not appeal to me. I know the earth will cling to them, and I know it’ll be a pain in the ass to get my shoes clean again because nothing sticks to soles like dirt from a shallow grave.
When he sees what he’s done, the volunteer begins crying hysterically. It’s something to see, this tall guy with an advancing gut but arms like tree trunks, screaming like an overheated tea kettle. I’m thinking, It’s not even your kid, man. Take it down a notch, but I don’t say it. His naked display of emotion is unseemly, but it’s typical behavior for a Leo. He falls to his knees and starts puking into the shallow grave, coating the kid’s overalls, which honestly seems like a new outrage being committed on his body. If ghosts are real, then this volunteer is definitely going to be haunted by a half-faced, vomit-soaked third grader until the end of forever.
When we paired off together a little more than an hour ago, I asked the volunteer his birthdate. He said he was born on July 31st, 1978, which puts him in the year of the Horse. This means he is ruled by the Fire element, has clear goals and dislikes change, and has a general sensitivity in the thorax, making him prone to sickness in the stomach. Digging up a flyblown and worm-eaten dead kid is not going to help his sensitive thorax. Neither is the full body sobbing he’s doing in between gouts of upchuck.
I make a mental note to later slip the volunteer my business card (“Your life is written in the stars, and Jade can read the handwriting!”), then I blow the whistle given to each pair of searchers, alerting everyone that little Bobby Calloway’s been found. When we started out this morning, the volunteer coordinator told us to blow three times in quick, sharp bursts when we found Bobby alive. He said this was extremely important, so everyone could quickly pinpoint the location and render aid. He didn’t mention what we should do if we found Bobby extremely dead, so I just keep blowing one long burst, loud and shrill, as long as my lungs can stand it. I wait, looking to see if anyone’s coming. Other than my desire to get out of the rain that’s sure to come pouring down soon, there’s really no need to hurry. It’s not like everyone getting here as fast as possible is going to do Bobby any good. He’s way beyond any aid that could be rendered to him.
So, now this makes three bodies I’ve found, and my life story officially has way more dead kids in it than I would have imagined. The whole “finder of lost children” thing is making the cops suspicious. They’ve been burned, they said, by psychics before, people who just want attention. I tell them I understand, but I’m not a psychic, and I’m not out for attention. This statement has the benefit of being two-thirds true, which is enough to not be a lie. My newfound powers of discovery (“I am guided by the stars to the souls of the departed”) have greatly increased my business traffic, though. It’s nice to have a steadier income nowadays, having relied so long on word-of-mouth and infrequent walk-ins.
My shop is located in the north end of downtown, sandwiched between a place that sells old-fashioned candy and soda and a hardware store that despondent men visit when they’re looking for rope that won’t break when they slip on the last necktie they’ll ever wear. The painted glass on my storefront window says, “Written in the Stars.” I wanted an exclamation point, like on my business card, but then I thought better of it. It felt too tacky, like it didn’t respect the delicate art of astrology being practiced inside. When you’re selling a service, you have to act like it’s worth something even when you know it’s not.
In the front of my shop, I have a small reception area with two antique-looking but cheap chairs, an equally atmospheric but inexpensive table, and a bookshelf with Practical Magic and a few user guides for unearthing the power of the zodiac to promote wealth and wellness. In the middle of my table, there’s a gazing ball. Once it was worth more than anything else in the room, but now it’s just a molded sphere of glass, since cheapened by a sizeable chip. Occasionally someone will take a look into the ball or leaf through one of the books. You can trust me, I’m an astrologer, these things say so I don’t have to.
In the back of my shop, there’s a surprisingly spacious storage room, although the backed-up drainage line in the center of the room makes storing anything of value there very undesirable. The clogged drain produces an ungodly stink I cover up with mountains of air fresheners. Other than the suicides, I must be the only thing keeping the hardware store alive, with my weekly purchase of deodorizers. The drain also occasionally produces muffled noises that sound like moans, if your mind drifts that way, which I tell my customers are encouragements from spirit guides.
My customers—the true believers—don’t bother to ask if I’m for real. It doesn’t matter, anyway, since they don’t really want me to read their horoscopes. What they want is someone to hear them, to bear witness to them, to track their lives with delicacy and care so it seems like they mean something. They don’t, any more than anything does, but that doesn’t matter, either. With gentleness, I tell them what they need to hear. With something like certainty, I say “Everything is connected. The signs are there if you know how to read them. Every moment of your existence, every single detail, is significant and will come back into play at some point. Your life is special—there have been none like it before, and there will be none like it when you take your place among the stars.”
Outside, the clouds are now congregating directly over the unquiet grave of Bobby Calloway. I feel a drop down the back of my neck. It might be sweat, but I doubt I’m that lucky. I look down at what’s left of Bobby in his not-quite-final resting place, trying to recall what I know about him for sure. He didn’t like chewy candy and was disappointed by anything other than chocolate. He liked green apple-flavored Rock N’ Rolla Cola. He was a Libra, and his Mars alignment indicates that he would’ve been passionate about establishing relationships, but also prone to making decisions on the spur of the moment. I’m picturing an enthusiastic head nod to the question “Wanna go for a ride, kid?” I blow the whistle again. It’s taking forever for people to show up. You’d think they’d be more of the Bobby-on-the-spot types, but they aren’t. They never are. I speak from my experience as a grizzled veteran when it comes to finding dead kids. Volunteers are rarely quick about anything, except crying and lighting candles at vigils.
Finding Bobby wasn’t a surprise. Just like it wasn’t a surprise when I found where Margie Jackson and Khaleesi Daniels were buried, too. Each time, a volunteer did the actual uncovering as I checked my star charts and looked to the skies, homing in on the precise location where the kids laid underground. Knowing where the burial sites are does not come from any actual ability I have. The stars did not tell me where to find Bobby or Margie or Khaleesi.
Their killer did.
Also, for the record, I swear to God I’m not making up that last girl’s name. The dead kid’s dumbass parents actually named her Khaleesi.
I blow the whistle again and finally start to see people approaching in the distance.
“Hey there, guy,” I say because I’ve forgotten the burly Leo’s name. “You might want to, you know, get yourself together a little bit. People are coming.”
It’s like he doesn’t hear me. He falls all the way over, rolls onto his side, and curls up into a little human S of pure grief.
“Maybe just wipe your mouth off a bit?” I say, with more hope in my voice than I actually feel. There’s a handkerchief in my pocket, and the guy could definitely use some cleaning up, what with all the mud, rot, and vomit on his face and clothes, but it doesn’t seem like he’d take it, anyway.
“It’s ok,” I say, kneeling down next to the S. “Bobby’s done all the hard work, guiding our way from the border between life and death. That puts a lot of strain on a spirit, but he can finally rest easy now that his unfinished business is complete.”
“Bluh-blurgh-muh-meep?” the S says through puke-slicked vocal cords.
“Sorrow is a heavy weight,” I say, having no idea what the S said but recognizing a question when I hear one. “And that weight ties us down to this world.”
The people in the distance are getting closer, and I can make out some faces, so I blow the whistle again, just once.
“But!” I say, doing my best to sound uplifting, “Bobby does not have to carry the burden of his pain any longer. He has taken his place among the stars.”
And yeah, it’s not the cleverest or most meaningful thing anyone’s ever said, but it seems to do the trick. The S turns into a P, then sits up into an L. At this rate, we’ll be at the beginning of the alphabet before the storm hits. Now there’s a swell of people flooding into the little valley between the hills where Bobby Calloway lies half-buried. Two volunteers are outpacing all the others. They’re wearing t-shirts that read “#BringBobbyHome.”
“He’s home now,” I say, loud enough so the L to my right and the front-runners can hear me. The front-runners soften their pace a bit, exchanging worried glances. They are not ready to see what flowers are blooming in the valley today. They hang back for good once the odor hits them. It’s assaultive, this stink. It’s an outrageous smell, which seems appropriate given that it’s coming as the result of outrageous actions. I’ve developed a tolerance for this kind of thing, though. I’m used to the bad smells that accompany bad things, like clogged drainage pipes and murdered children.
Some other helpful folks trot forward on the downslope, ready to render aid to the newly formed L at my side, but they suddenly halt their progress. They, too, don’t want to get any closer to the reality of the hole. It’s not like Bobby is hidden. He’s almost totally uncovered, particularly in the face area thanks to the enthusiasm of my brawny Leo. From a distance, they can pretend they’re not really seeing the eggshell-white gleam of a dead kid’s skull. They can pretend there’s not a dead body in front of them, and if there is, then it isn’t necessarily a little dead boy, and if it is, then it’s not necessarily Bobby.
But it’s Bobby, for sure. He’s exactly where his killer said he would be. The murder weapon is not here, though. That tool was needed elsewhere, for other lives needing to be extinguished. Despite the veil of vomit, there’s an unmistakable hole in Bobby’s chest. It’s situated center mass, right where the killer said it would be. Like the others, little Bobby Calloway was shot through the heart at close range, leaving a star-shaped entrance wound. Forensics will show that the bullet was a hollow point, which expanded outward when it hit Bobby’s soft tissue. This kind of bullet opens up like a blooming flower, increasing its axial diameter and its damage path. This is known as mushrooming because the tip of the bullet becomes bigger than the base, like a lethal portobello. A shot at that range must have seemed like mercy to Bobby after what had already been done to him.
“My little heartbreakers,” the killer called them, the kids and the bullets he used on them.
I pat the L’s shoulder and finally offer him the handkerchief in my pocket. He doesn’t take it, and I’m thinking That figures, but I don’t say it. I wipe his face a bit then stick the handkerchief in his limp, clammy hand. He looks ok. Ish. At least he’s not wearing a beard of semi-digested food and bile.
I walk a quarter circle and stand at the grave’s edge, little Bobby Calloway silent as a toppled memorial. I wear a mask of solemnity, but I’m actually pretty impartial to the whole experience. If you’ve seen one rotting corpse, you’ve seen them all, and there’s nothing terribly new or exciting about this one. You’d be surprised how quickly you get used to things you’d otherwise thought were impossible to become inured to. It’s a remarkable bit of psychological adaptation.
Bringing up the rear, Sheriff Hill waddles his way down on be-gouted, jelly feet, undoubtedly accompanied by sweaty skin on either side of his grotesquely flopping FUPA. I’m sure Sheriff Hill will assume control of the situation just in time for cameras to get into place. He was born in early May 1964, in the year of the Dragon, making him a Taurus ruled by Venus and the 2nd House. It also means he has a tendency toward stubbornness and obesity. Unrelated to his zodiac sign, but of equal importance to his world approach and the people in it, is the fact that he’s a fat fucking prick with beady eyes and an upturned, piggish nose.
He doesn’t like me.
Sheriff Hill has told me in private that he disapproves of my lifestyle and that the bible says not to suffer a witch to live. It’s that kind of no-nonsense, progressive, forward-thinking that the public really responds to, which is why the fat piece of shit has won two terms as a tough-on-crime, light-on-basic-human-decency Republican.
The sheriff makes a show of pushing his way through the crowd, even though none of the volunteers or officers offer up resistance. “Clear the way, people!” he shouts to no one in particular and therefore everyone in general. He’s wearing a weather-beaten MAGA hat with pink sweat stains. It’s not surprising to see him bring retrograde politics into this situation. That’s what he ran on, and it’s what our highly intelligent and thoughtful electorate voted him in to oversee. Apparently, there’s no attire more appropriate for greeting a gunshot victim. I wonder to what kind of bygone era Sheriff Hill wants to return, given the current circumstances. I suppose he’s yearning for a time when missing kids had the decency to stay that way, when bodies knew their place and stayed buried.
“Good, sweet, ever-loving Jesus Christ Almighty,” he says, and I’m thinking There’s a tolerance level on adjectives, and you’re running dangerously close to overrunning the limit, but I don’t say it. No sense starting off confrontationally.
With a grunt of strain that sounds like something essential in him is being squeezed out, Sheriff Hill bends down on one fleshly knee and looks into the grave. Sweat drips from under his MAGA hat, spilling down his brow and spattering the soil around Bobby. He pinches his nose three times, as if that will drive out the smell, then looks up at me, with disgust in his eyes.
“Mizz Spencer,” he says. When he thinks he can get away with it, he calls me “Mizz Spinster” because 36, green-haired, and unmarried is gross, wrong, and offends him in a way that seeps into his bones. In fact, Sheriff Hill’s entire body is composed of raw nerves in my presence, and me just breathing can set him off. However, amongst the volunteers and the moldering corpse of the boy they came to save, the sheriff attempts cordiality.
“Want to step back?” he tells me. “You’re standing at the edge of a crime, here.”
I could argue the point, but why bother? I back up a couple paces so the sheriff can feel as though he’s an important authority figure.
Returning his attention to the remains of Bobby Calloway, Sheriff Hill says “God. Damn. Shame.” He spaces out the words just enough to, once again, marginally avoid blasphemy.
God is important to Darren Hill.
Before Sheriff Hill became Sheriff Hill, he was Darren, the spiritual warrior. He had a son, Bartholomew, from a previously failed marriage and occasionally felt guilty about not being around the seven-year old tyke more often. During this phase of his life, Darren’s holy calling required a significant investment of time and spiritual energy, sadly leaving precious little time for Bartholomew. It also left little time or energy for his other grown children from other failed marriages, but that was of no great concern to Darren. All that mattered were babies, like Bartholomew.
Darren prayed about it, and swore the spirit renewed within him a vibrancy and vigor he hadn’t felt since he was a young man. He told the family court that he loved and missed his boy and wanted to spend more time with him bonding over father-son activities. Already armed to preach his evangel, Darren now felt ready to assume his fatherly duties for several hours every other weekend, minus holidays. After all, a father should take his son with him wherever he goes during that formative age, to guide, shape, and twist the boy into the man he will one day become.
One day, Darren’s proselytizing, in the name of his all-loving, benevolent deity, led him to become one of a dozen pudgy, sweat-slicked faces protesting in front of Planned Parenthood. Darren knew this provider of life-saving healthcare was a great source of evil. Wickedness and corruption flowed thicker than the streams of factual information about pregnancy, birth control, STD prevention, and health screenings. It was a nest of sin, and Darren knew it was his duty to scream bible verses at the women coming in and out, bookended with shouts of “whore of Babylon!” This was necessary to bring them closer to God, and now at Darren’s righthand side, stood Bartholomew holding a sign that showed an aborted fetus. It wasn’t a real image of an aborted fetus, but facts have a terrible habit of cockblocking emotions. The text on the sign read “I died so they could put me in your vaccines!” I like to think that before they left that morning, Darren gave Bartholomew a choice between two signs. The other option for the day’s festivities showing a doctor in a white lab coat wearing a head mirror emblazoned with a swastika reading “60 MILLION LOST TO NEW HOLOCAUST AND COUNTING.” I also like to imagine even Bartholomew dimly recognizing swastikas are unsavory, making a more tasteful choice in choosing the sign with jellied, bloody fetal tissue, instead.
Bartholomew was an Aquarius, born on Valentine’s Day, ruled by Saturn and Uranus, and likely to enjoy creative teamwork with like-minded individuals. As such, he appreciated the opportunity to display outright aggression toward strangers surrounded by a Christ-crazed cadre, a life skill currently being stifled by his mother’s side of the family. It was enjoyable to compassionately yell at the Planned Parenthood women. The fact that his father said they were doing it for Jesus made it all the better, even though the idea of Jesus was still somewhat nebulous and confusing, much like the Tooth Fairy. Bartholomew believed in one just as much as the other, which is to say, as a seven-year-old, he didn’t trouble himself with their mechanical functions and simply enjoyed the rewards they brought.
On Sunday, August 4th, Bartholomew held his new sign up as high as he could for the sinners to see. If consulted, the stars would’ve revealed that it was unlucky for an Aquarius to be out and about on the 4th of the month, especially on a Sunday. As proof of this, another of God’s anointed decided the best way to bring about deliverance unto the Lord was to plant a bomb in the outside trash can near the front entrance. This man, a hero in the name of Jesus, knew how to make a bomb but not how to make it stable until you wanted it to go off. Unfortunately for the faithful, it exploded within their ranks and ripped through the righteous. The Lord, indeed, works in mysterious ways. The bomb’s explosive core was surrounded by ball bearings, like strings of black pearls, and when Darren was in the act of lifting up little Bartholomew to raise his sign closer to God, the explosion hit. Black pearls are normally lucky for an Aquarius, but at that exact moment, poor Bartholomew was in front of Darren’s face.
The byproduct from this type of explosion is technically referred to as fragmentation. News reports often call this shrapnel, but that’s a specific type of explosive shell. Any old bomb that sends shit flying at high speeds in search of a fleshy docking station produces fragmentation, not exclusively shrapnel.
Bart—his name shortened hereafter like his life—caught a concentrated load of fragmentation in his chest, shredding through skin, tearing through tissue, and blasting through bone. Happily for Darren, his son acted as something of a bomb shield. Bart got the better part of the exchange between man and high explosive. Just like Jesus, in whose name Darren and Bart intimidated others, the son died so the faithful could go forth and multiply, in the name of the father, the son, and the holes in both. Amen.
But, it wasn’t all clear and sunny skies for the soon-to-be-sheriff in the aftermath of his son’s death. Bits of the boy’s ribcage surrounding his heart were blown backward into Darren’s face. This is called biological shrapnel, which technically seems to be inaccurate; however, a more technical term for shards of former humans violently separated from their hosts and become permanently lodged in current humans has not yet been codified. The placement of the biological shrapnel within Darren’s face made removal a risky prospect, so he now lives with frequent, painful headaches. The silver lining is that Sheriff Hill finally takes his son with him wherever he goes.
Again, I feel the need to reiterate that there are way more dead children in my life story than I would have imagined.
Confronted with the reality of another fun-size corpse, Sheriff Hill absentmindedly scratches his aching biological shrapnel scars, as if trying to exhume Bart and get his expert take on dead children. I’m thinking I don’t think that’s gonna get the job done, but I don’t say it. Instead, I watch Sheriff Hill watch Bobby Calloway, and say something about tragedy and God’s tears as he turns his eyes skyward looking for answers that aren’t there.
It finally starts raining in earnest. I should have brought an umbrella. This sense of personal discomfort weighs on me heavily, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had it worse than just about everyone here, minus Bobby. And Bobby is just a minus now, one less little heartbreaker.
I’ll be ok, though.
The cops cordon off the area to secure the crime scene and usher away the disheartened volunteers. The same cameras that were welcomed before are now being pushed aside by the police, more out of a sense of showmanship than of anger. The cops have fully transitioned into the righteous indignation portion of their floor routine, and they don’t want to lose points for missing a step. Meanwhile, I’m walking back to the car on fatefully wet feet, when Sheriff Hill calls out.
“Mizz Spinster, we need to have ourselves a little chat, you and I,” he says, and I’m thinking, That’s an awful lot of pronouns to be tossing around, especially for a man of your size, but I don’t say it.
Instead, I say “Feel free to stop by my shop sometime. The hours of operation are online.”
“I was thinking we do our talking downtown, smartass.”
“My shop is downtown. I’m only a few blocks away from your department. It would actually be a nice walk,” I say.
And then because my solemnity mask is slipping and I can’t stop myself, I add “It’s a good opportunity to stretch your legs, pick up some exercise.”
Sheriff Hill’s face darkens. If I hadn’t recently looked at Bobby Calloway, the expression of raw contempt on his face would be the closest thing to murder I’ve seen all day. He’s so furious his mouth quivers, chewing over the words he wants to say, yet unable to spit them out with the most venom.
The rain continues to fall, but I wait, staring unblinking at Sheriff Hill. This is the second most fun I’ve had today.
He gnaws on a few phrases, most of which probably contain “cunt,” before finally hissing “We’ve got a precious little life here that’s been extinguished, Spinster. You somehow manage to find him when no one else in three weeks of searching has been able to. Just like you did with two other kids in other counties. Now, I talked to their sheriffs, and it seems to be common consensus among the law that we don’t trust you very much. You care to tell me how it is that you made these discoveries?”
“The truth is written in the stars, sheriff. You need only learn how to read the handwriting. It’s good of you to exercise your curiosity with colleagues this month, by the way. As a Taurus, January is great for making connections and learning new things.”
“YOU. Are. Trying. My patience.”
“I certainly don’t mean to, sheriff,” I say, raising my hands over my face to block the rain.
“It won’t get you far with me, and I doubt it’ll help you any with the state police detective that’s coming to visit you.”
I almost feel bad, as he clearly meant for this revelation to cut deep, but as with dead bodies, if you’ve seen one cop, you’ve seen them all.
“Us sheriffs got together,” he says, “to see what could be done about all these murders that have you as the one link between them.”
I think: Well, me and the fact that they were all similarly abused, were killed by the same person with the same weapon, and were buried under similar circumstances, but I don’t say it.
Instead, I say “I’m glad to hear that you’re working collaboratively to solve this problem. Finally. I look forward to hearing from the detective and learning how I can be of assistance. I’m always happy to cooperate with law enforcement.”
“You got a real sick way about you, Spinster. There’s evil inside. I’m as certain of that as I am of God’s justice. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out you’re involved in these deaths. You’ve got the look of someone who’s killed before. I’d stake my reputation on it.”
I let Sheriff Hill think I’m absorbing this, that his judgment means something to me. My mask shifts, showing how much it hurts to be out of his good graces. I transfer my weight from foot to foot, the earth itself favoring the shift and change. The raindrops running down my face could almost be perceived as tears. I lean into that semblance of feeling, wearing it easily. It fits well, like a tailormade second skin.
But I may have overplayed my hand. Sensing weakness, Sheriff Hill decides to pounce one last time.
“I wonder what the stars’ll have to say about this, Spinster. When all is said and done, and the truth of you has come out. Can you tell me that?”
I’m thinking The stars won’t say shit unless I collect my fee upfront, but I don’t say it.
Instead, I turn my face upward to the falling rain, looking to the sky. When I make eye contact with Sheriff Hill again, I say “January is also a good month for self-reflection, especially reconnecting with those parts of yourself you thought were lost. Perhaps you should get in touch with your inner child. He might have some interesting insights.”
I walk away, Sheriff Hill’s curses, cries of “murderer!”, and other invectives accompanying me, seemingly getting louder the farther away I move.
It’s a long walk on soggy feet back to the car.
***
Sheriff Hill is wrong.
My hands aren’t exactly clean, but I haven’t murdered anyone.
Yet.
And when my heartbreaker is found, it will look like a thoroughly depraved, masochistic suicide. There’s a lot of work involved in applying that mask of self-destruction to someone, though.
It had been 22 years since I last saw Gideon the day he came into my shop for a reading. Time had not been kind to him. He looked at least a decade older than he actually was. His teeth, which were running full speed on a downward slope when I first met him, had since turned the color of pages in old, forgotten books that had been pissed on by animals. I knew his eyes right away, though. Mostly how his left one wandered north like a defective googly-eye. I remembered long ago staring up at that eye as he loomed over me, grunting obscenities as he tried to thrust himself into me like a midnight drunk trying to get his key into an elusive lock.
That’s the kind of formative experience that really leaves an impression on a 14-year old girl and twists her into the woman she will one day become.
He walked into the shop carrying a bottle of Rock N’ Rolla Cola (blueberry peach flavor) and a half-empty box of Jem and Jams (cherri-bubb flavored, a rare and discontinued combination of cherries and bubblegum). His front pocket bulged with a can of chewing tobacco.
It took some time, but finally, the stars had aligned.
My timeworn plan was put into practice spur-of-the-moment, but ever since getting my well-deserved abortion at Planned Parenthood (the same one Sheriff Hill’s devotional group would try to blow up 15 years later), I knew what I’d do to Gideon if ever given the opportunity. I went to sleep every night reassured by the comfort of thinking awful things. The old outrage happened the summer before I started high school, so we were both technically kids, but I felt like he killed who I used to be, and in turn I wanted to kill him in the most terrible way possible.
And, again, my life story has way more dead kids in it than I would have thought.
Gideon is the first person I’ve seriously hurt. He’s racked up quite a few firsts in my life. He was my first real date, my first real kiss, my first time being pressured into sex, the first to push the back of my head, insistent upon oral, the first to leave his genetic material in and on me, and the first guy to drop me off at home and say, by way of goodbye, “Don’t tell no one, ok? This is just ‘tween us.” He was foundational to my development as a human being, throwing me into the deep waters of sex like a father forcing his child to swim or die.
And, the fucker had no idea who I was when he walked into my shop.
Now, it soon became clear that Gideon had a lot on his mind, but still, having your nemesis not even recognize you cuts pretty deep.
A curious thing about practicing astrology: most of my regular customers are men. Women talk about it more among their friends, and are stellar at spreading my business by word-of-mouth, convincing friends, coworkers, and other acquaintances in their social strata to try it out. They each want to see what secret knowledge can be gleaned by sidereal survey, what words from the cosmos they should take to heart. Maybe women’s thoughts more effortlessly expand to realms far beyond than those of men because men are a much different story: their thoughts solely orbit around themselves in an egocentric rather than heliocentric universe. By-and-large, men just want someone to talk to, even if that means paying them. I’m an outlet for men who desperately want to unburden their souls but for whom the idea of seeking psychotherapy is anathema. The cores of their masculinity quake at the idea of needing therapy, which is obviously for the weak. Also, it’s a reactionary thing, getting mired in the past. Astrology, what the future holds, is not only more progressive but also a better investment of time and money.
So, in the guise of focusing on the future, men come into my shop and tell me about the past. They ask me what their star alignments show about love, then tell me about failed relationships. They ask me what lucky signs they should be on the lookout for, then tell me of opportunities passed. They ask me what the heavenly bodies reveal about career advancement, then tell me how that uptight bitch doesn’t deserve the promotion.
Eventually, after enough visits, they begin confessing their transgressions. I hear about affairs, and frauds, and lies. I hear about thefts, manipulation, and ghosting. I hear about hit-and-runs and assaults, all of them justified because “my insurance company would screw me to hell and back on the premiums” and “she’s a very difficult woman who just refuses to listen to reason.” I hear, on occasion, about sexual assault, usually defended with “it’s not like I raped her, or anything.”
Two months ago, Gideon came in to see what the stars had planned for him. Born on December 25th, 1981, Gideon is a Capricorn ruled by the 10th House and Saturn. His symbolic animal is the goat; he was also born in the year of the rooster. These make him a virile man who, without the proper guidance, can tend toward the dictatorial by enforcing his will onto others. His element is Earth, his lucky color is a brownish-yellow. Like the pissed-on pages of old, forgotten books. Or the goop that used to be the face of a dead child. Things for him to avoid include the number three, the direction North, and the color green.
After three hourlong sessions, he mentioned that he had, maybe, gone too far with a kid. Well, two kids. Actually, kind of, yeah: three kids. He let me know that “too far” went way farther than I thought. He said I had to keep what he said a secret (he struggled to find the word “confidential” for an uncomfortable length of time before giving up the search). “I couldn’t never talk to no one,” he said, about what we discussed together.
It was, of course, just ‘tween us.
Raising it toward the heavens, one quick downward stroke left a chip in my gazing ball and a possible fracture in Gideon’s skull, which he recovered from quite well, to the extent that I wanted him to.
If I had ever given it any thought, I would’ve assumed that torture, like any other activity, had a limited shelf-life, the fun and satisfaction lasting only so long before becoming a duty. Happily, that has not been the case. Every session I have with Gideon is just as fulfilling, if not more so, than the last. It just doesn’t get old.
You’d be surprised at how quickly you get used to enjoying things you’d otherwise thought were impossible to like.
Now, it’s a bit sick, but I suppose my personal favorite is working on his Jem and Jams, chub and dubs-flavored. Twisting brings a hell of a lot of joy. In my excitement, I’ve come close to going all the way and just tearing the damn things off, but I’ve found restraint. It’s important for them to look well used and abused, but not like something he couldn’t have done to himself.
Generally, while his dangly bits rest for a day or so, I work on insertion. As Gideon well knows, there are so many things that should never go in holes that size, but just like Gideon, I don’t let that stop me. With the right amount of grease, you can fit just about anything into just about anywhere. It’s a fun activity, counting how many of one thing or another I can squeeze in like passengers on a Tokyo subway.
Gideon is having significantly less fun with the whole thing than I am.
When he’s able, Gideon says things like:
“Why are you doing this?”
“Please let me go.”
“Oh my god!”
“STOP! STOP! STOOOOOOOOOOOP!”
And so on.
When we started our new relationship, I realized that now I was the first to torture the truth out of Gideon. He said I was the first girl he ever called “little heartbreaker” (shortly after I told him I didn’t want to have sex in his car). He said I was the first girl he shared his proclivities with (when I told him I was 14, he said that he was usually interested in younger girls, and I naively assumed, or hoped, he meant older). He said I was the first girl he ever thought about killing, which is why he took me home so soon after finishing. So, if you think about it, I am the first to open up Gideon in a whole lot of ways.
Nowadays, though, Gideon is unable to say anything intelligible. I keep him gagged pretty well. Lying naked and spread-eagled on the floor of my storage room, his no-no places poised above the drain line and surrounded by air fresheners just out of thrashing distance, Gideon is securely bound with reliable rope procured from the hardware store next door. On each wrist and around each ankle, I’ve secured a tiny noose.
It was important, I felt, to practice for the big one: the first and last necktie Gideon would ever wear.
The way you tie a noose is, first you place the rope flat on the floor into a C shape. Next, you make an S, where the bottom part is longer than the top in a sort of cursive-but-not-really fashion. Then you pinch the S together until you create a nice bowtie effect. Then, you start coiling, going from right to left. You want to leave about three or four inches of unwrapped rope from the loop, which allows you to adjust the tightness. You can place your fingers from index to pinky on the rope to get a general idea of how much to leave. Just be sure to measure from knuckle to knuckle. When you finish coiling, tying, and adjusting, you’ve got yourself a functional noose.
The best part about these small nooses is that, when properly made, they can be secured by oneself by pulling in the right direction with the bound limb. Like finger cuffs, pulling away just makes the rope tighter. An enterprising and adventurous person, like a Capricorn, could bind themselves for hours of enjoyment. Also, a person like me can make it seem like a serial murderer and rapist liked to engage in self-bondage.
Google tells you a noose makes an excellent Halloween decoration. This comes after the first result, which is for the National Suicide Hotline.
“If you need help,” it says, “call this number.”
Gideon’s phone has called the number several times, always hanging up without speaking.
Gideon’s phone has also visited several pages about the pedophilic serial killer and cannibal Albert Fish. The pages have been visited over and over, including the linked tabs for words like “auto-erotic,” “sadomasochism,” “urophilia,” “coprophilia,” and “self-harm.”
Posts on Craigslist, among others, originating from his phone seek out like-minded, 420-friendly chill partners who are into “personal security” and “disciplined workout routines.”
His phone’s GPS app also has pinned locations—these ones actually placed there by Gideon—for the burial sites of Margie Jackson, Khaleesi Daniels, and Bobby Calloway.
I pace in front of the storage room door, trying to decide if I have enough time to haul Gideon out the back and into my trunk before the state police detective gets here. As fun as it’s been, it’s seeming like less and less of a good idea to have Gideon onsite much longer. I’ll take him to the woods bare-assed and shit-smeared, toss the noose around a tree branch, and loop it around his neck. When he’s unconscious, I’ll put his gun in his hand, point it at his heart, and fire. It’d be a hell of a lot easier with a partner, but there aren’t many people you can rely on to help with this kind of thing.
The front door opens with what sounds like a regretful ring of the bell, letting me know someone’s here. A man tentatively steps in. He looks apologetic for just existing.
“Let her go,” I say. “She’s not worth it.”
His eyes go wide, and he leaves in a hurry, never taking his eyes off me. He’ll be back, guaranteed.
A series of moans comes from behind the storage room door, and I could just kick Gideon in the balls for putting me in this position. Zero consideration for other people.
I debate whether or not I should go in and shove the gag further down his throat, but I think better of it. I haven’t the time. I go to the table in front and sit down, taking out my phone. I turn on some semi-spooky but spiritual mood music. It sounds good and any errant moans blend in nicely.
When the detective arrives, I stand to greet him, my gaze finding his before he has time to adjust to the dimness of my shop.
“Detective,” I say, “won’t you please have a seat and let me know how I can assist you?”
He frowns. He has sandy blond hair that looks totally out of place with the rest of him. He wears a gray suit that looks lived in. Like a lot of detectives, his eyes are haunted with the ghosts of murders solved and unsolved. He looks like someone’s idea of handsome, but not mine.
“You think I’m a detective?”
“Definitely.”
“How can you be sure?”
Smiling, I point to the painted glass on my storefront: “Written in the Stars.”
“And is that how you came to know where Bobby Calloway, Margie Jackson, and….”
He stops speaking, looking like he’s stuck in conversational mud.
“And Khaleesi Daniels,” I say.
“Right. So, where each of them was buried, that was written in the stars, too?”
“Yes,” I say. “Would you like to have a seat, detective? It may be more comfortable than standing.”
I gesture to one of the chairs, the one on the opposite side of the gazing ball. The detective sits down, then I walk to the front door and flip my Open sign to Closed. When I sit down across from the haunted-eyed cop, I smile broadly.
We stare at each other, each of us resolved not to speak first.
My resolve wins out.
“You know why I’m here, Ms. Spencer.”
It’s not a question.
“I do.”
Clearly, he was expecting more in the way of a response than what I just gave. He raises one eyebrow then turns his attention away from me and to the gazing ball.
“How useful is that?” he says.
“It can be very useful when applied to the right purpose.”
“Does it tell you where to find murder victims, Ms. Spencer, or is that a stars-only function?”
Although it’s a reasonable question, he asks it in a shitty way. I smile at him again, my only response.
“Ms. Spencer, do you concede that it’s odd for you to know where to find the bodies of three missing children when the only other person to seemingly have as much information as you would have to be their killer?”
“Not so much ‘odd’ as atypical, I’d say. Detective, do you have a name?”
“What,” he says, with flat intonation and no attempt to make it a question.
“You know my name. You called me Ms. Spencer, but I have no idea what to call you. If you’re happy with ‘detective,’ we can continue that route, but I have to say it’s not a great set-up for this kind of relationship.”
“Relationship?”
“You have questions you want to ask, and I want to know how I can help you. We’re about to engage in an informational tête-à-tête, and as much as possible, I think we need to be on the same level in order to maximize the potential benefits.”
He looks quizzically at me for a bit. I look on, unblinking.
“My name is Morgan.”
“First or last?”
“My name is Alan Morgan. Detective Alan Dean Morgan.”
“And what do you prefer to be called, in an official setting?”
“Detective Morgan.”
“And in a relaxed setting?”
“Is that what this is?”
“It’s what it’s meant to be.”
“Sorry, but what’s that noise I keep hearing?”
For a split second, my mask of warm calmness tries to slip, but I keep it in place through sheer force of will.
“It’s part of the music.”
“No, this is something else.”
“Are you sure? My selection draws from an eclectic array of world music. I have some wonderful Mongolian throat-singing coming up next.”
“It’s not even on the beat. Listen.”
Gideon moans through his gag. I’ve gotten pretty adept at deciphering his different noises, and this one is definitely him trying and failing to expel what I’ve thrust inside him.
“Is something funny?” Detective Morgan asks.
“Hmm?”
“You’re smiling. You look like you might start chuckling.”
“I identified the noise, detective. That’s the drain line in my storage room. It’s quite seriously jammed up. It produces errant noises and a terrible smell. The building owner has yet to find a plumber cheap enough for his liking.”
“If it stinks that bad, it’s probably hazardous to your health. You could call a state inspector to take a look, then file a grievance against the building owner. That would force the issue.”
“That’s excellent advice, detective. I’ll do that.”
“You can call me Alan,” he says leaning in. I mirror his posture, establishing trust.
“Alan, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s your birthdate?”
He laughs, which is kind of shocking to hear, but welcome. It’s good to know how disarming I can be.
“Are you trying to find out how old I am?” he says. “Old enough to have been married for a little while and be divorced for the foreseeable future. Unless you can see something different in the stars?”
“Sorry, it’s a professional habit.”
“I was born on June 27th.”
“Making you a Cancer. You’re ruled by the Moon, making you very caring and loving, especially to family. You’re sympathetic, but tend to be passive-aggressive. How am I doing so far?”
“Not bad, actually. You’re quite good at your job.”
“It’s a calling as well as a passion. You’re the opposite sign to Capricorn, did you know that?”
“No,” he says in a way that tells me he not only didn’t know, but also wants to know more. He leans in a bit further.
“I know a Capricorn I think you’d be particularly opposed to.”
“Why’s that?”
“Your sympathetic nature. This Capricorn is not troubled by sympathy.”
“So, this is a bad person, is it?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s a bad person.”
I notice the indentation on his ring finger. He keeps touching it absentmindedly, used to feeling something there that he still can’t quite believe is gone.
“Do you have children, Alan?”
“I had a little girl.”
“Had?”
“When we got divorced, my wife tried to change my little girl’s last name. She didn’t want anyone in the family she was making to be a Morgan anymore.”
“Can she do that? Just change a last name?”
“Not legally, but she did such a good job of spreading it around that it doesn’t matter, anymore.”
“Except to you, of course.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Except to me. So, Jade, what’s your sign? I mean, you know so much about me, but I know very little about you.” He smiles and continues “It’s important, I think, for us to be on the same level for this kind of relationship, so we can maximize its potential.”
“I’m a Gemini,” I say. “My birthday was always right after school ended for the summer. When I came back in the Fall, it was almost like I was a new person. Older and more experienced.”
“That must have been hard for you. Exciting, too, but nerve-wracking, like you weren’t sure if you’d fit in again.”
I find this a particularly trenchant insight, hitting too close to the bone.
“Yeah,” I say, “it was hard.” Which, it was. And he seems like a caring guy, the way he’s lowering himself so he doesn’t loom over me, looking up at me with compassion in his eyes. He’s a perfect exemplum of a Gemini.
“Jade?” he says, and I lean forward, my body drawn to his kindness. It’s nice to have someone to talk to, to confide in….
“Who do you have in your storage room?”
And, fuck. It seems like a good time to exercise my right to remain silent.
“Jade, you can tell me, ok? I’m not like Sheriff Hill.”
Displaying sympathy, just like a Gemini. Grifted by a fucking cop.
“Whoever’s in there, I’m sure you have your reasons. Are they ok physically, at least? There’s a decent-sized chunk missing from this gazing ball. I’d hate to think about the damage it could do.”
He leans forward almost out of his chair, his hands palm down on the table, inching closer to mine. I cast my thoughts out to the universe, asking for guidance on what to do.
I’m thinking, I’m not talking again until I have a lawyer present, but I don’t say it.
Instead, I say “You never showed me your ID.”
“What?” Detective fucking Morgan says, pulling his hands back.
“You eventually said you were a detective, but you never showed me your badge, or whatever you have. I’d like to see it.”
“I don’t have it on me, Jade,” he says trying to reassert his sympathy hooks under my skin, “we need to resolve this, and we need to do it the right way, right away.”
That’s weak, and he knows it. I can almost see him mentally wince at having actually said it.
“Don’t you concede it’s a bit odd not to bring your identification when you’re conducting official police business?”
He doesn’t respond, just stares at me, dumbstruck.
“Unless you’re not officially here on police business. You’re not the detective originally assigned to come talk to me, are you?”
“I don’t…. Listen—”
“Friend of yours, I’d guess. And if you have a friend willing to do that for you, I have to assume it’s because you have a personal connection to this case. Your little girl, did her mother change her last name to Jackson after you got divorced, or Daniels?”
Detective Morgan says nothing. He cocks his head, looking like a confused dog. We stare at each other, each of us resolved not to be the next to speak.
My resolve wins out.
“Daniels,” he says. “My wife’s maiden name.”
“And because Khaleesi is a family member, you were kept off the case.”
“Right,” he says, looking like he wants to hit me.
“She meant a lot to you.”
“She meant EVERYTHING to me.”
“And if you had the person who took her in front of you, what would you do?”
“I’d make sure that every breath they took on this earth from the moment I found them to their last would be spent in agony, to get some kind of justice in this world,” he says, his voice rising as his hand moves toward what I assume is a gun holster.
“And what if I had that person locked in my storage room?”
His hand stops.
“Would being a cop interfere with you carrying out justice?”
This time, his resolve wins out, but it’s ok. It’s going to be so much easier with a partner, and it’s lucky to have found someone I can rely on for this kind of thing.
“Alan, do you think it’s dark enough to head out to the woods yet?” I say. “If not, I’ve got some Rock N’ Rolla cola we can drink until dark, then we can guide our mutual friend into the night, so he can take his place among the stars.”
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About
Zach Davis is a writer and comedian whose work has appeared in print in journals such as Carve and The Berkeley Fiction Review and onstage at places like Zeider’s American Dream and Push Comedy Theaters. His award-winning short play “This’ll Only Take a Second” has been translated for performance internationally.
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