Dostoevsky cheated. He took the easy way out and never made himself answer the hard questions. Could Raskolnikov have killed the old pawnbroker without his conscience eating away at him? We will never know, because Dostoevsky wrote Lizaveta into that scene as well.

Sweet, tender Lizaveta. The lazy man’s way out of deciding what he really believed. Dostoevsky never had to choose whether his character could do it or not. Killing the innocent girl negated any hypothesis he had created.

I let this thought roll around in my mind as I formulated my plan. Without the second girl, maybe Raskolnikov could have done it. Maybe that’s how my dad did it; maybe there was just not enough good in that man to nag at his conscious.

The bell over the door jingled and a couple walked in, giggling. The boy grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her along the aisles to the back; she kept one hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter. Typical teenage couple in Vicksburg: too embarrassed and ashamed of their sex life to buy condoms in town, they’ve come all the way out to this dump so they won’t be caught. That way they can play it to their parents like everything is very Donna Reed, while in reality it’s more like The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

I knew they’d be a while. It always takes a few minutes for them to get over the giggles and come check out, so I leaned back in my chair and resumed my daydreaming.

Raskolnikov used an ax, but that wouldn’t work for me. Nobody needs to chop wood in Vicksburg, so I wouldn’t be able to steal one like he did. And it’s not like I could buy one down at Vee’s Hardware without it being traced back to me in a heartbeat. So I would have to figure that out.

Finally, the couple came up to the counter and slid their condoms across to me, with a Slim Jim and bottle of Cheerwine. The boy’s face burned red beneath his cap, and his girlfriend hid her face in his shoulder.

“Will that be all?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the counter.

“Y’all know the Cheerwine is two for a dollar, right? I could run back and grab another for ya, if ya want.” I didn’t really care about the sale; it’s always fun to drag these transactions out and watch them squirm.

The girl looked up from behind her boyfriend for the first time. “Damn it, Reid. Just ring up the damn condoms already.” Savannah’s stare bored into my eyes.

“I dunno, I don’t think I’m allowed to sell contraceptives to teenagers.” I don’t know where that came from. It was something Ryan would say, not me. But something inside me had snapped. I was sick of letting Savannah walk all over me; I was sick of being a leper in my own town. Which, I suppose, is why I said, “Maybe I should call Mr. Nielson and make sure it’s alright. Speaking of, isn’t he on the church board of directors with your Mama? Maybe I could tell her to say ‘hi’ for ya while I’m at it.”

Her face burned a deeper shade of red. “Reid! Come on.”

I stared at her, wondering how long I could hold off until either I caved or her head exploded. Finally, she turned to the boy. “Damon, I can’t even handle this right now. I’m going outside. You talk to him.”

“Damon? I thought you and Brent were going out.”

Damon looked at her, eyes wide. “What? I thought you and Brent were over.”

“We are,” she said, “really.”

“So when I saw you and Brent making out behind the gym earlier, that was what? Your breakup?”

If possible, her face got more red. “Fuck you, Reid!” She picked up the box of condoms and threw it at me before turning on her heel and stomping off toward the door. Damon skulked off after her. Strange, I hadn’t actually seen Savannah and Brent together, but that sure struck a cord with her. I listened to the jingle of the bell as they left.

I hadn’t even noticed someone else come in. I was sitting behind the counter, daydreaming about Raskolnikov, when the counter bell dinged, jerking me back to reality.

Sadie Marks stood in front of me, smiling a sad smile. “Hey,” she said, “What are ya working on?” She gestured to the schoolwork I had spread out in front of me.

“Oh, nothing really. Just an English project.” I held up my book. “We’re reading Crime & Punishment and my friend Ryan got an extra assignment that I’m trying to help him with it.”

“Ah,” she said, “The Raskolnikov Project. Sounds interesting.” She grinned, and it seemed that some of her sadness left her.

The Raskolnikov Project…it had a certain ring to it.

“Want some help?” Sadie asked. “I read that book last year.”

“Sure,” I said.

Help would be great.

“Married?!” Ryan’s eyes looked as if they would pop out of his head at any moment. “As in, ’til death do us part married?”

“Yeah.” Ryan was handling Dawn’s news about as well as I was. His mouth had hung open the whole drive to school, a look of shock and awe plastered on his face. The look picked right back up when we sat down at the lunch table. It pretty much mirrored how I had looked all weekend. Every time I tried to get Dawn alone to ask her what was going on, she had some ready-made excuse to get away from me. This morning, she wouldn’t leave her room until five minutes before Ryan picked me up, even though I knew she was awake. Dawn has always been a morning person.

He picked at his food. “Isn’t Dawn a little…young to be married?”

“I don’t know, man. She’s nineteen. I guess that’s old enough.” I was beyond trying to make sense of this. Maybe someday Dawn would stop avoiding me and just explain things. For now I was just going to pretend things were the same as always and forget about the last few days.

Ryan continued to pick at his slice of pizza, carefully pulling any bit of bacon he could from between the other toppings. “I just,” he started quietly. His pause was way long, before he finished with only, “wow.”

It was no secret that Ryan had long harbored a crush on my sister. When we were kids, he used to leave anonymous love notes for her taped to the back door. I’m not sure if she ever let him know that she knew it was him the whole time, but I bet he realized by now. I wondered what he was thinking. It was unlike Ryan not to have something concrete to say.

An ear-splitting shriek yanked me out of my reverie. Savannah Heaton stood at the end of lunch table five, her shirt and mini-skirt dripping with milk. I watched as her face blitzed through five different shades of red, before settling on a deep reddish-purple. It seemed as if her skin was glowing.

Beside her, holding a now empty tray, stood Sadie Marks. What on Earth was she doing at school today? Her eyes were red and puffy; the tray shook in her trembling hands. For a while I thought she was going to break down crying right there, but eventually she squared her shoulders and faced Savannah.

“I’m so sorry,” she said boldly, “I didn’t see you there.”

If possible, Savannah’s face got even redder. “How the hell didn’t ya see me? Look what you did, you whore!”

Gasps reverberated throughout the entire cafeteria, and Sadie’s gaze dropped to the ground. She set her tray on the table and turned and walked silently out of the cafeteria.

“What a bitch,” Ryan was saying beside me. “Seriously, she’s a piece a work. This school would be so much better if Savannah wasn’t here.”

I was still thinking about what Ryan said when I left school that afternoon and saw the flyers. They were everywhere – posted to all the pillars out front, tucked under windshield wipers of all the cars in the lot. Savannah and her followers were handing them to anyone who walked by. Numbly I took one, knowing it couldn’t be good.

The glossy paper advertised the only strip club in Vicksburg, the Oasis. Of course, we didn’t call it a strip club; that wouldn’t be proper. It was a Gentlemen’s Lounge, because that was so much classier. All I knew about it was that it was even farther out of town than the crappy little gas station I worked at, Ryan’s older brothers loved going out there on the weekends, and according to Savannah and her mama, anyone who frequented such a place was earning a one-way ticket to hell.

So why was she advertising for such a place? Sure, she might change into sin clothes on her way to school everyday without her mama knowing, but even I didn’t think she would support a place like the Oasis. I studied the paper closer, trying to figure out what she was getting at.

My heart jumped into my throat. Oh, no.

“Classy, huh?” Ryan sidled up next to me and grabbed the flyer out of my hand. “If my mama wouldn’t skin me alive for hittin’ a girl, I swear I’d lay Savannah right flat in this parking lot.”

I couldn’t even form a response. My mind was still burned with the image of Sadie Marks on the flyer. Featured dancer, it said. No wonder Mr. Marks was so upset about her having work.

We reached Ryan’s truck; he pulled the flyer from beneath the wiper and shredded it, throwing the pieces into the bed. It was just after I climbed in to the passenger side that I saw her: Sadie Marks sat on the curb across the street from the parking lot. She had her knees tucked up to her chest with her head resting on them. Even from this distance I could see the glisten of her tears. My stomach churned and anger burned hot through my veins.

I was beginning to think Ryan was right at lunch. This school would be a much better place without Savannah Heaton.

My mama was going to tan my hide when I got home. She had very few rules – I get home in time for dinner, which we eat together, and I bring my paycheck home every two weeks to help with the bills – and I had broken them both today.

I glanced at my watch before entering the house, 8:47. Man, I was going to be feeling this for a while. Maybe I could sneak past her to my room. She would be gone by the time I got up in the morning; if I avoided her long enough, would she eventually forget about this?

Not likely. Maybe she would let the missed dinner slide, but she would not forget about the missed paycheck. Her job cleaning rooms at the hotel did not bring in enough money to pay the bills – even living in this dump – and she depended on my money from the gas station to fill in the gaps. She would miss that money, and so she would not forget to punish me for this.

I couldn’t help it, really. On my way home, I passed old man Kramer on his way to the mortuary. I don’t know what came over me – maybe it was pity, maybe a desire to help someone, who knows – but the next thing I knew I was giving him all my money to help pay for Mr. Marks’s funeral. I didn’t think about how badly I needed it myself; the image of Mr. Marks weeping as he told me and Ryan about losing all the family’s money crowded my mind. His family would not be able to pay for his funeral, and every little bit I could give would help.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that I was ready to walk into the lion’s den, I wasn’t so sure about that anymore. Okay. Deep breath. I can do this.

I entered the house quietly, trying to not draw any attention. Three steps into the living room, and -

“Reid!” Dawn ran across the room, all curly hair and white teeth, and threw herself into my arms. “It’s about time you got home, Short Stuff.” She reached up and tousled my hair. One would think that after I began to tower over her a few years ago, she would have given up the old nickname, but she still used it every time I saw her.

“What are you doing here?” Happy as I was to see her, I was also worried. Dawn lived with a family in Montgomery, working as a nanny, and almost never came home. Last time I saw her was when she came back for Gramma Irma’s funeral last year. What was she doing here now?

Just then, Mama came in the room. Luckily, she was smiling; apparently Dawn’s visit was going to sideline her rage. She gave me a peck on the cheek and put her arm around dawn. “Go on, sweetie,” she said, “tell your baby brother the good news.”

Dawn beamed at me and held up her left hand. A diamond ring sat on her third finger, catching the light from the window and throwing it back onto the walls all around us. She wiggled her fingers and jumped up to hug me again.

“You’re getting married?” I hadn’t even known Dawn was dating anyone. “When did this happen?”

She pulled me to the couch, and turned to face me. I could tell she was ready to launch into a story, so I made myself comfortable.

“Well,” she started, “his name’s Peter and he’s a lawyer. Well, he will be just as soon as he finishes law school and stuff. And guess what? He says we can come back here and he will practice in Vicksburg so I can be with you and mama! The weddin’s this summer, but I’m gonna stay here until then.”

“What about your job?”

“Nothin’.” She turned away from me, but not before I could see the blush rise to her cheeks.

“Dawn?”

“It just didn’t work out, okay?” I knew that tone. She had used it with me over and over throughout the years when I tried to get her to talk about what happened when dad left. It was the tone that said, “drop it, Reid, I don’t want to talk about this.” It was the tone that let me know that if I pushed her I would be regretting it for days. My sister could be real nasty when she wanted to be.

So I let it go. It sounded like Dawn would be around for a while, and I would get it from her eventually. For now I would let her continue to keep mama’s attention away from the fact that I had no money for the bills.

I stared at the man clutching my arm. How the hell was I supposed to help him? Tears continued streaming down his face, and I wondered what my chances of escaping the bar were. Surely I could move faster than him – I wondered that he was still upright, drunk as he was – but he still had my arm held in a vice grip.

Thankfully, Ryan walked into Sloppy Seconds just then, probably wondering why I hadn’t come out yet. Usually I was in and out as fast as possible, trying to not linger in the filth for long. A smirk crossed my friend’s face as he saw my predicament.

“Hello, Mr. Marks,” he called as he crossed the bar to us, “why don’t we go home now?”

The man’s grip loosened slightly when Ryan reached us. I looked at Ryan incredulously.

“My mama works with him at the counseling center,” he explained with a shrug. Ryan’s mama worked with addicts, trying to help them wrestle the demons down and clean their lives up. Clearly it wasn’t working so well with this man.

“Help me,” he repeated his plea, to Ryan this time.

“Of course,” Ryan pried Mr. Marks’s hand from my arm. “Let’s get you out of here and you can let us know how to help you.” It was amazing how different he was when he put on clinic-voice, the demeanor his mama practically beat into him when he helped out down at the center.

Half an hour later, we sat at Bubba’s, Ryan and I on one side of a booth and Mr. Marks on the other, clutching a mug of coffee. He had stopped crying, but his red-rimmed eyes gave away his distress. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He stared into his drink as he told us his story:

Sam Marks used to be a respected man. He worked for the state government, climbing in rank and earning a Country Club salary. That was before he found the bottle. Once he started drinking, he lost his job. He lost the beautiful house he and his family had lived in, and definitely lost the respect of his peers. He took to gambling, trying in vain to win back the money he was dumping into booze. His world was falling apart around him, and he didn’t know how to get it back.

“The worst of it is,” he said, “poor, gentle Sadie has to work now to keep us in the house.”

My head snapped up in recognition. Sadie Marks. Before now I didn’t make the connection that this could be her father. Sadie was a shy, unassuming girl. She wore plain skirts and cardigans to school every day and never went anywhere without her Bible. Which really wasn’t that different from the other girls in our class, except that, unlike them, Sadie never used the book as a weapon. She kept it because she truly believed it.

“Mr. Marks,” Ryan was using his most soothing voice, the voice he might would use if he were trying to approach a wild dog, “teenagers have to work all the time. It’s okay that Sadie has to work. Just keep trying, Mr. Marks. You can make things right.”

Without warning, he started sobbing loudly again. The other diners were turning to watch us. Ten years of being invisible, and in one day this man was going to attract the attention of the whole town to me. Great. I shielded my face with my hands.

“I can’t go back,” he muttered, “I can’t go back.” It was becoming a mantra; he repeated this over and over again.

I nearly jumped out of my seat as Mr. Marks grabbed my hand. He pleaded with me with his eyes. “You made it without a daddy,” he said, “you gotta help my kids. Help Sadie know she is better without her daddy around.” He sobbed again, and it echoed in the diner, “Tell her I am sorry. So, so sorry.”

And with that, he was leaving. His gait was surprisingly steady as he crossed the diner; he walked through the doorway without even a glance back at our table.

Ryan and I watched him go, unsure whether we should follow him or not. With a shrug, Ryan turned back to his plate of fries – his stomach was like a bottomless pit.

“We tried, man.” He said. “He’ll sober up and go back home.”

We finished our meal in silence, which was rare for Ryan. I knew where his mind was, and I didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts. Ryan lost his own daddy to alcohol when he was a kid; the experience with Mr. Marks couldn’t have been easy for him. I let him think about his daddy as I did my best to forget about my own.

Finally we left the diner. Ryan’s car was still parked outside Lou’s – he didn’t trust Mr. Marks drunk in the back seat, so we had stumbled to the diner – so we had to walk the four blocks to pick it up. We rounded the corner and were assaulted by blinking lights.

Police cars, a fire engine, an ambulance. This was a lot of action for little Vicksburg. A throng of people crowded the scene, and Ryan and I pressed forward to see what was going on. I broke through to the front of the crowd – one benefit of being such a beanpole is that I can squeeze through tight spaces. The driver of the car looked shell-shocked as he and a police officer talked at the back of a squad car. He motioned toward his vehicle, and that’s when I saw him.

Sam Marks lay on the ground, his body bent in an impossible angle. Blood pooled slowly around him as the paramedic prepared a black bag.

I awoke the next morning nauseated and slightly ashamed of myself. Ten years of blaming my dad for all our problems; tens years to build up my anger. And did I tell him how angry I was with him? No. I hugged him. I acted like the same seven-year-old little boy he left behind that day. Even worse, I found myself admiring him for what he had done.

Thinking back on my visit, I realized that he must know that I am not the same little boy, but he didn’t bother asking me how my life was going. Maybe he knew how shitty things had been and he didn’t want to have to listen to me tell him. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

I couldn’t think about my father anymore, so I called Ryan, knowing he would be good for a distraction. He didn’t disappoint. We sat on the railroad bridge, our legs dangling out over the water, a bag of greasy burgers and fries from Bubba’s Diner between us. When we were kids we would come out to this bridge and lay side-by-side on the pylon as the trains raced overhead on the track. It was exhilarating. The trains stopped coming around these parts a few years back, though, so now we just came here to hang out.

Ryan was downing his fourth burger; I had barely touched my first. Luckily, he was too distracted to notice my lack of appetite.

“So then she leans across the table at me, and she is totally fallin’ out of her shirt, and she tells me that she wants to go up to my room. Just like that! And so I’m thinkin’ I’m pretty hot stuff. I mean I know I am, but the chicks down there don’t care that I’m a Jew.”

He’d been telling me about the impromptu trip he and his older brothers had taken to New Orleans Friday night. Mostly I had been listening silently, with a couple “mmms” and “uh-huhs” and well-placed laughs, but I sensed he was looking for a little more from me now.

“So, what happened, man? Did y’all go back up to your room?”

He laughs, “Yeah. And there I am, puttin’ my very best moves on her,” – I didn’t bother pointing out that he didn’t have any moves – “and she says, ‘ya don’t gotta romance me sweetie, I’m a sure thing.’ But I keep going with the mushy stuff, ’cause I know chicks like that, and you know what she says then?”

I sat silent longer than normal conversation allowed, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice. “Well, what did she say?”

“Get this. She says, ‘really, son, your buddies paid good money for me. Don’t go and blow it on all this sappy stuff.’ Can you believe it? Brett and Tony paid for a hooker for me.”

Ryan’s older brothers were always getting on him about his lack of action, but this was taking it a little far even for them.

“You’re kidding,” I said,

He held up two fingers, “Scout’s honor.” Ryan had never been a boy scout.

“So did you do it?”

He blushed. “Nah, man. I let the girl keep their money and we played cards all night. I can get my own girls. I hope they lost a lot of money on that little game.”

I finally finished my burger and checked my watch. Shit. It got late fast. I jumped up from my seat. “Man, I gotta get to pick up my paycheck before Lou won’t cash it for me anymore. Let’s go.”

Lou ran a little dive bar downtown called Sloppy Seconds. His business practices were shady and I am pretty sure he would be shut down if a health inspector came within a twenty-mile radius of his place. I felt dirty just going into the bar, but it was the only place in town (other than the bank, and I learned long ago that going in there was not worth the looks the tellers gave me) that would cash my paycheck for me. Lou always took my check without complaint, just so long as I got there before the evening rush picked up.

I was assaulted by the usual wall of smoke when I opened the door to Sloppy Seconds. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light as I stood in the entry way, blinking back the tears brought on by the thick haze. The faint smell of maraschino cherries pushed through the stench. How is it that no matter how strong the other smells are, the cherries always manage to hold their own?

Lou had to go to the back room to get my cash, so I took a seat at the end of the bar, as far from any of his patrons as I could. The jukebox in the corner played a classic rock anthem through crackling speakers. My eyes burned. God, could he hurry up?

A book of matches hit the bar in front of me and I looked up to see where they had come from. A man with red-rimmed eyes and clothes that looked as if he had been wearing them a week slumped onto the stool next to me.

“S’your daddy who kilt that bastard, huh?” His speech was terribly slurred.

I stared at him. Never in ten years had anyone talked to me about my dad, and now this stranger asks about him just when I want nothing more than to forget him completely. Great.

I didn’t respond, and the man fell silent. After a few minutes, he shuddered. I turned to see fat tears rolling down his flushed cheeks. He pulled at his hair, grabbing great tufts in his chapped hand.

Before long, he was sobbing uncontrollably. I stood and slowly made for the door – I could get my money from Lou later. Two steps from the bar a rough hand grabbed my arm. He was surprisingly strong for how wasted he was.

“You gotta help me, son.” He sobbed loudly. “Help me.”

He looked exactly the same as he had looked when he left the house in handcuffs ten years ago. Only when he crossed the room and sat across the table from me was I able to see the grey strands peppering his dark hair, the only indication of the time he had spent behind bars.

“Reid.” It wasn’t really a greeting, more like a statement of fact. Like he thought to himself, Reid is here. Ten years gone, and now he is here. That is all.

The sound of his voice shook something loose inside me. Should I be mad at him? I mean, he was the reason our lives had fallen apart. The man across the table was why I had no friends growing up; it was because of him that I learned to become invisible.

He sat across me silently, as if he could only say the one word. I looked at him; his face was open, inviting. I realized that he was waiting for me to speak, giving me the chance to control to conversation.

“Dad.” I tried to keep my voice as level as his had been, but my emotions betrayed me. In an instant, I was leaning across the table, and we were hugging as best we could with the cold plastic separating us. We held each other until my back grew stiff from the awkward angle, then we let go and sat back down.

He coughed. I shuffled my feet. It shouldn’t be so hard to talk to your own father, but what could I say? He had missed more than half of my life. There was no way we would be able to fully reconcile, to make up for all the time lost in the tiny amount of time we had today. So I skipped the catch-up and jumped right to what I wanted to know.

“Why?”

I know he knew what I was talking about, but still he said, “Why what, Reid?”

“Why did you do it, dad?” My voice caught in my throat, but I continued, “why did you kill that man?”

He sighed, and for the first time he looked old. Not just a couple-streaks-of-grey old, but worn-down-tired old. His face was drawn, his eyes pained. He dropped his head into his hands and gripped his hair in tight fists.

I was just beginning to think he wouldn’t answer me when he looked back up; his eyes were red-rimmed. “She was only nine,” he said. “My baby girl was only nine years old and he ruined her. He took her childhood, her innocence. He took her life.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. He made no effort to stop them, letting them splash on the table.

My blood ran cold, and everything began to click into place in my mind. Why Dawn had suddenly stopped playing. All those years of her wearing sweaters and long pants even in the summer time. Then her high school years when she flaunted her body and reveled in the attention of men. My sister had never been the same since dad left, and I always thought she had been changed in the same way I had. I always thought it was his leaving that made her the way she was. Never had I considered that the change in her was what made him leave.

I didn’t know what to say. How would I be able to look at Dawn again without revealing that I knew her secret? Nausea began to take seed in the pit of my stomach; bile rose in my throat. The edges of my vision blurred in anger.

“Good.” My voiced sounded hard even to myself. “It’s good you killed him then.”

Was that a shadow of a smile I saw play across my dad’s features? “I am up for parole next month,” he said, “I think your mama might come to testify even.”

“That’s great, dad!”

He laughed. “I am up for parole, Reid, but there ain’t no way they are letting me out of here.”

I stared. “Why not? You did your time. Any parole board will side with you when they learn why you did it.”

“I know how it works, son. They will ask me if I feel penitent for what I did. And I don’t think I can lie about that.”

The guard motioned for us to wrap things up. I hadn’t know how close I was to the end of visiting hours when I showed up. I stood to leave, but before I went, I had to know one more thing.

“Do you regret it, dad?”

He smiled and pulled me into another cross-table hug. “I regret leaving you and Dawn and your mama. But I will never, ever regret what I did. That man deserved to die.” He paused. “I did the world a service.”

When I got home, I ignored my mama’s calls from the kitchen, wondering if I wanted any dinner heated up. I couldn’t face her right now. My mind was buzzing with activity.

My dad was living proof that you could kill a man without feeling any guilt. He had done it. Could I do it too?

That’s where everything started, in English class that day. I suppose, though, if the therapist and psychologists and researchers got to me, they would say things started much earlier than that. They would probably say it all started with my father.

Things were nice before my dad left. We lived in a pretty house in a decent neighborhood; my parents were invited to social functions, us kids went to slumber parties and on play dates. People liked us. It was a good life.

Everything was different now, though. We lost the house shortly after he left; mama was too depressed to keep a steady job (still is, really) and she couldn’t keep up with the bills. So we moved out to the crappy, run-down single-wide at the end of a deserted lane. People stopped calling, the invites ceased. Kids at school avoided me and Dawn, not sure how they were supposed to treat the murderer’s kids. I suspect Ryan only stuck with me out of sheer stubbornness, but he was still the only friend I had left after that day, and for that I am fiercely thankful.

It’s been ten years, but I still remember that day like it was only yesterday. Surely it is a day I will never, never forget.

We had fried catfish for dinner. I remember because I tried to make some joke about it at the table, but my parents weren’t paying me any attention. They both sat in their seats, not touching their food, staring blankly ahead. Dawn was upstairs still – she had been sick for the past three days, and my parents were worried about her. I was worried about her too, because she hadn’t wanted to go to school and Dawn never missed school. But I still wanted my parents to laugh at my joke. I was only seven; couldn’t they at least pretend to pay attention to me?

My parents’ silence filled the room. The dinner table was usually where they talked about their days, but I guess that day they didn’t have anything they needed to share. It’s amazing how deafening silence can be when you aren’t used to it. It was eerie, and somehow I know it was a weighted silence, so even I stopped joking and just sat there.

It must have been the numbing silence that made the doorbell seem so shrill when it rang, followed immediately by a loud bang on the door. I nearly fell out of my seat, it startled me so badly. Neither of my parents even flinched, like they had been waiting for the sound. Slowly, my dad reached across the table, squeezed mama’s hand, then stood and went to open the door.

A police officer stood on the other side of the threshold – a real life policeman! Back then, I wanted to be a policeman when I grew up. I know better now.

My dad didn’t struggle, he didn’t argue at all. He stood silently as they cuffed him and led him to the back of the car. He didn’t have to make a sound – my screams were loud enough for both of us. I tried to run to him, to tell the police that they had the wrong guy. No way my daddy did anything wrong. But mama held me back by the shoulders. She had always been strong for such a small woman.

And then my dad was gone and our lives fell apart. I asked mama – I pleaded with her – but she wouldn’t tell me what had happened. Dawn wouldn’t talk to me at all, it was like something was broken inside her. I tried to get her to go outside and play with me, but she never wanted to. I asked her to watch her favorite movies, but she said she didn’t like them any more. Before then we were inseparable, but after my dad left, she was not the same person at all. I lost my dad and my sister that day.

The next week I went back to school, but none of my friends wanted to play with me anymore. Except Ryan. He sat next to me in the cafeteria and swung from the monkey bars next to me at recess. He threatened to beat up any kid who made fun of me – and he even hit a couple – but that didn’t stop me from hearing what they were saying. It was on the playground that first day back to school that I learned my dad had killed a man.

I’ve asked mama over and over throughout the years about what happened, but she has always refused to tell me. She just says what’s done is done and I should move on. She washed my mouth out with soap when I told her that I would move on when she did. It had lye in it and left my mouth blistered for a week. I quit asking her after that.

But I didn’t quit wondering about what happened, which is why I was standing inside the prison’s visitation area, preparing myself to see my dad for the first time in ten years.

“Did ya get the Bible?” I called to Ryan when he finally left Principal Harper’s office. I had been waiting in the dreary hallway outside the office door, trying to find images in the texture of the sickly, mint-green walls for nearly half an hour. This had been one of the longer lectures Ryan had gotten.

“Nah, man, it’s way worse.”

I stared at him quizzically, waiting for him to go on. He scowled at the closed door and headed toward the exit at a near run. Nothing ever got under Ryan’s skin, and I couldn’t imagine what Principal Harper had said to put him in this mood.

“Well,” I ventured, “what did he say?”

“The normal – you oughta learn to respect the Good Lord, Ryan. and Jesus died for you, and you need to appreciate that. and Even someone with your upbringin’ should know that one of the great commandments is ‘thou shalt not kill.’”

“Hey, that’s a new one!” I smiled, hoping to break him of his mood, but he just glowered at me, pushing the smile off my lips.

“That man is really somethin’. I’d like to -” he stopped, balled his hands into fists at his side, and screamed out into the open air. “Well, I’d just like to is all.”

Wow. I had never in my life seen Ryan like this. “He’s always been like this, man. Don’t let it get to ya. Really, it couldn’t have been that bad; he didn’t give you another copy of the NT. Unless you already have all his spare copies.”

“Oh, he still has a plenty. I’ll probably get a new copy by tomorrow. But this time it’s way worse than the Bible.”

I expected him to go on, but he didn’t; instead he kept walking toward his truck, his own personal storm cloud keeping him company. So I prodded, “Well, what is it?”

“An essay. That bastard is making me write another essay on top of all the stuff Mrs. Childs is givin’ us.”

Nothing got to Ryan like extra schoolwork. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t even go to school; he would spend his days behind his drumset, practicing to be the next great Rock God. As it were, he was old enough to legally quit school, but Ryan’s mama might be the scariest woman under the son. You didn’t want to ever cross her – once when we were seven, we picked her corn stalks bald before it was time. To this day, I can’t walk past her garden without cringing. To her dropping out of school is the worst kind of evil. It was the only thing keeping Ryan going to class every day and doing his homework every night.

“Lemme guess,” I said, “he wants you to write about how Dostoevsky’s relationship with God influenced the book. Or about how Raskolnikov carrying the cross through the town square was symbolic of Christ carrying his cross to Calvary. Am I right?”

“Wrong.” He sighed. “He wants me to write an essay about how I would be able to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Murder someone. He says that if I think a guy can kill another guy without feelin’ guilty, I oughta be able to put that on paper. So now I gotta write an essay about it – complete with sources. I ain’t gonna read Nietzsche. I don’t care if my grade does depend on it. Fuckin’ Savannah.”

Things must be really bad to get Ryan cussing. Cussing was almost as bad as dropping out of school as far as his mama was concerned, and I am pretty sure I saw him look over his shoulder, checking to make sure she couldn’t hear him when he said it.

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry man. She’s a bitch – everyone knows it. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t a had to go to Harper at all.”

We reached his truck and he threw his books unceremoniously into the bed. “It’s worse. I was in there, doin’ my normal repentance act, makin’ him think I was sorry for what I said. He was reachin’ behind him to get me another copy of the NT when Savannah burst into the room and started goin’ on about how if I thought I could kill a guy I should prove it and that the Good Lord would prove me wrong in the end and blah, blah, blah. It’s like a light went on in Harper’s mind. That bitch gave him the idea.”

“And he gave you the essay. That sucks, man” I said again, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

If he hadn’t hated Savannah before, there was no doubt Ryan hated her now. “I’ll prove it to her, alright,” he muttered under his breath, “and I won’t feel guilty at all.”

I am pretty sure Savannah Heaton changed her clothes on the way to school. Her skirt is way too short for a girl whose mama prides herself on being the most conservative woman in town – and that’s saying something in a town smack-dab in the middle of the Bible Belt where the only place more crowded than the Piggly Wiggly on Free Sample Day is the Baptist Church on Sunday Morning. There is no way Mrs. Heaton would have let her darling daughter out of the house looking like a two-bit hooker (her words, not mine). Though when she said them she was not talking about her daughter. Oh no, her daughter would never dress like that.

The incredible amount of thigh showing beneath Savannah’s worn denim skirt told me that Mrs. Heaton wasn’t so in touch with how her daughter would or would not dress. I wondered where Savannah hid all her trashy clothes. I was imagining a secret panel in the back of her closet – hidden behind all the conservative, demure church dresses she wore on Sundays – full of short skirts and slinky tanktops, when she noticed I was still staring at her legs.

“Ew, perv, stop tryin’ to look up my skirt.” If looks could kill, I would be on my death-bed by now. Then again, Savannah might not have any looks other than killer ones. She certainly had never given me any.

Blood rose to my face and I turned back to my book, trying not to look back at her again. Not that I could really help it. I mean, Savannah might be a bitch, but she was just asking to be stared at when she put that much of her flawless skin on display. She thrived on the attention she got from her outfits – she must to keep wearing them – but she only wanted that attention from boys like Brent or Tristan. Boys with fast cars and a lot of money to throw at her. Attention from a boy like me was only going to get her one thing: irritated.

And you don’t want to see Savannah Heaton when she gets irritated. No one in school was in a position to ruin a reputation faster than she was, and no one in town (and probably on the planet) derived as much pleasure from doing so than she did. Not that I had much of a reputation to uphold, but just the memory of what she did to Jeremy Davies last semester was enough to remind me not to push my luck. I stole one more quick glance – really, those legs were like magnets to my eyes – and then forced myself to pay attention to Mrs. Childs.

“Now, who can tell me why Raskolnikov gets the fever after the murder?” Mrs. Childs fingered the cross that hung around her neck as she waited for one of us to answer.

Savannah raised her hand, but didn’t wait to be called on to answer, “well, it’s ’cause he was feelin’ guilty for his sins, ma’am. He got sick ’cause he didn’t go to the Good Lord for forgiveness.” She sure knew how to spread her honey-sweet act out thick.

Mrs. Childs beamed at her, and from the back I heard laughter. I closed my eyes and prayed he wouldn’t -

“He’s not a feverin’ because of his sins. He’s sick ’cause he killed the nice sister too.” Ryan, my best friend, never knew to just sit back and be quiet. Because of this, he was one of Savannah’s favorite punching bags. Surely, he would pay for laughing at her answer later.

Savannah whipped around to face him, eyes narrowed, “Are you really sayin’ that he would be fine killin’ someone as long as they weren’t nice?”"

“Nah, I’m not sayin’ that. I just think he did it all wrong. He shouldn’t have killed anyone he knew. If he really wanted to kill someone without feeling guilty, he shoulda picked a random person is all.”  Ryan smiled right at Savannah, and I envied his ability to not let her under his skin.

“Mrs. Childs, are you a hearin’ this? Ryan thinks he can kill a man without havin’ to answer to the Good Lord.”

Our teacher worried at her necklace cross some more. “Now, Savannah, I don’t think that’s exactly what he was saying.”

“You heard him! He just said as long as he don’t know the person, he could kill them without guilt. What if the random person was  good, church-goin’ folk? Which is more than we can say for Ryan.” She stared at him pointedly. In her eyes, Ryan had already committed a sin bigger than murder – he was Jewish. “Now, Mrs. Childs, I don’t think that’s a kinda thing we should be teachin’ in schools.”

Here’s the thing about growing up in a town like Vicksburg, where everyone goes to church and can pull a Bible quote for any situation (usually they quote them out of context for their benefit, but there’s no telling the Thumpers that): the fear of God trumps all, even in a public school. So Savannah won, and Ryan was sent to the office to talk to Principal Harper. Probably he would leave school today with a copy of the New Testament. It wouldn’t be the first time.