The Bloody Valentine

Celo Delecto

So there I was, lying in bed thinking about a girl. I was not thinking of just any girl, oh no, I was thinking of Mary Burnham. Mary was not the usual girl you would sit in bed and think of. You would not find her on a magazine cover. Mary was the kind of girl that you had to stare at for a good while just to see how remarkably beautiful she was. She had that hidden beauty which eludes most of us. Mary was unusually tall for a girl; she stood at six feet; it was one of the things that made her so special. She had dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and an abundance of freckles.

I looked around my bedroom; it was a nice cozy room. In the corner of the room, adjacent to the door, was my computer. My computer was just your standard computer, a black case with a flat panel monitor. In the opposing corner was my bed. The bed was nice and soft, it was perfect for a teenager like me. On the wall that both the computer and bed share, there were hundreds of pictures of Mary – I was not a stalker, I just had an eye for beauty. There were various movies and books scattered all over the floor, among them are my favour-ites: The Silence of the Lambs and American Psycho, both in novel and film flavours.

I glanced at the computer monitor and saw my reflection. I was a couple of inches taller than Mary. I, too, had brown hair. I had blue eyes and short hair. I did not like long hair; it made me feel cheap, like I could not afford to get a haircut. I had no facial hair, facial hair was just too barbaric for me; we did not evolve from those hair primates to become hairy once again.

I sat up; I had had one of those urges again. You know that feeling you get when you just want to kill somebody? I got those a lot back then; I could manage them so I never thought much of them. I had never acted on any of the urges, and thought I never would. It was most likely caused by stress. I should not have worried about it, it was not important. Every-body gets these urges so why should I be any different?

***

The silence of the early morning was inter-rupted by my father’s muzzled voice. It was September seventh, in other words, the first day of school. I could not make out what he was saying, but nonetheless I would soon find out, I thought to myself. He had a tendency to tell the same stories over and over again, until you can recite every last word of it.

I could hear him running up the stairs. He was short and fat, a product of the fast food industry. I braced myself for the door to swing open and the light, which will be turned into my face, to be flicked on. Sure enough, it was what happened everyday I had school so I should not have been surprised when it hap-pened. “Time to get up! School starts today!” He screamed. He seemed unusually chipper that morning, he was surely going to tell me some stupid story later, and he would be so proud of himself for telling for it. “It’s unreasonable to expect a teenager to get out of bed before noon,” I managed to pronounce. I was still dead. He ignored me, “You’re a senior now! Get up!”

He had that uncanny ability to just blurt out any useless fact and make it sound important, I hated him for that. He could say it as plainly as he just did and it would sound important. His experiences as a politician was where it came from, I thought.

He left my room, practically leaping with joy as he went. I had not seen him that happy since time the local brewery gave away free samples, he took thirty samples. He had to be on drugs, there was no other possible explana-tion for his behaviour than drugs.
I started preparing for school; I grabbed my clothes and razor then headed for the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, I did the usual. You know, showering and the like. After I finished that I began to shave, and let me tell you, shaving early in the morning is like playing a game of Russian roulette, it was like an attempt at suicide. After shaving I looked into the mirror: no cuts, alright! I finished preparing for school, I dropped my old clothes in my bedroom; no point in being clean about it.

I made my way down the stairs. Maybe If I sneak out the door he would not tell me whatever story he was obsessed with, I thought. That notion was shot down as I saw him standing at the head of the stairs, waiting for me, with look of a child on Christmas morning. “I’m off to school,” I said as soon as I get to the bottom of the stairs. “Uh, okay, see ya later.” He said with a look of disappointment. I dodged a bullet there! I did not know how many more of his stupid stories I could take.

I went outside and began walking to school. There was a stillness in the air, it was crisp and hinted at the winter to come; the calm before the storm. Down the street I saw a mother try to get her three little boys into a min-van. It was amusing, and a reminder of the past. It reminded me of the innocence of childhood, where the most important thing to you was having fun. You did not have to worry about finishing assignments, girls, parents, or any of the other big things I had to worry about. I would have given anything to be a child again, but those days were gone and there was nothing I could do about it.

I finally made it to school; it was a five kilometre hike. After spending an hour walk-ing, I was tired and sweaty, even in the cool, tender air of autumn. My legs were killing me; it had been a long time since I had been so active. The laziness of that past summer had caught up to me, all the television and computer usage did not seem like a good idea after all, I should have been more active that summer.

I entered the school, entered the cafeteria, and sat down near the entrance. School starts in an hour, why had my father woke me up two hours in advance? That’s when it happened: I got another one of those urges, but this one was much stronger than all the others. I should have told somebody about the urges, but then what if I had been shipped off to an asylum? People would think I was crazy! Mary would think I was crazy!

Was my father the cause of these urges? I just did not understand, and still do not under-stand, what was causing them. The urges usually did not last so long. I felt like running home and ripping off his head, but that quickly faded as I realised that running five kilometres was not something I could do. I was not well, but I did a good job at hiding it. There was few kids here so early; I laid my head down on the table in front of me. The coldness of the table helped to cool me down, but it also helped the urge grow stronger, like it was feeding off of the contradictory feeling of my face.

I lifted my head off of the table, and then ran by hands through my hair; something did not feel right. I looked at my hands and they were full of blood! I jumped out of the seat and fell onto the floor; the other kids looked at me. I ignored them then looked down at my hands, nothing was there. I sat back down, what was going on? Had I lost my mind?

I glanced around the room; I wanted to kill everybody I saw. I got up and headed for the washroom, I can hide out there until the urge goes away, I thought. As soon as I entered the washroom, I broke-down. I collapsed to the ground and started to cry, uncontrollably. I was afraid of what I was going to do, I was afraid I would never get over this urge. I managed to pull myself together, I went and sat in an empty stall; there I just sat and waited. I waited for something, anything that would take my mind off the urge.

That was when a small guy came in, he must have been fourteen, but he looked like he was ten, I felt like killing him and I knew I could get away with it, which was the scary part. He started to use the urinal; I got up and exited the stall. I then proceeded to approach him; I snuck up behind him and raised my hand. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity with my hand ready to strike. I slapped him on the back and said, “You new here kid?” He looked at me, then regrettably said, “ye-y-yes, umm, sir.”

That was a close one; I had almost killed that small guy. I decided it was time for me to go back to the cafeteria; I was in control of the urge and nobody was at risk, or at least that was what I thought. I began to walk towards the door, but then I stopped. I turned around with a determined look on my face, I stared at the guy, he was quivering as he was urinating; it was quite a sight. I then approached the small guy; he had not noticed me for the second time. I placed by head right next to his right ear, I was going to do something clever; then I shouted “Boo!” He jumped and got urine all over the place; I left and headed back to the cafeteria, laughing the entire way.

I sat down at the table I was at before; there are a few more students here but not a lot. A few minutes later the small guy comes strolling in, he looks at me and I give a long, hard stare; you’d think I was looking through his skin and into his weak, worthless soul. The small guy trembles then hurries along to his worthless friends, they reminded me of myself when I was that age.

***

A bell rang and all the students jumped, as they were conditioned to at the sound, and raced down the halls to their lockers or their friends’ lockers. It was lunchtime, the one period of the day that everybody enjoyed.

I lingered at my locker for a few minutes; I did not want anybody to notice me slip into the cafeteria, I was not well and feared that somebody would say something or do some-thing and I would kill them.
I walked into the cafeteria and found a seat at a table close to the entrance, nobody saw me sit down. Beside me there were some little ninth graders playing cards, I watched them, like a scientist watches his experimental mice, but I saw nothing of real interest, that fasci-nated me. How could it be that a group of high school students had nothing to discuss? How is it they could do nothing but play cards in silence?

I looked over at another table; a group of Goths were sitting there, possibly discussing Satan and the like. It was funny, in their desperate attempt at being original, or so they claimed it was what they were doing, they all have the same ideas, making them the very thing they hate.

There was a group of girls sitting at another table, they were all looking in the same direction, they were obviously checking out the fish in the limited sea. They were about as deep as a puddle, which was for sure.

That was when it hit me: Everybody else in that school was an idiot. Everybody else did exactly what they expected people to want; nobody was real, well except for Mary.

***
The long, ear-piercing sound of a “bell” tolled to signify the end of the school day. It was an uneventful day in the classroom; I just received the usual course outlines we got each semester. My locker was on the second floor between two fat kids, a sign of things to come I was sure. I was standing in front of my locker waiting for the fat kids to finish, then somebody called my name, it was Mary, and she was walking towards me. She then piped up, “Where’ve you been man? I haven’ seen ya all day!”
“You know how it is, senior year, wanna fit in with the cool kids, can’t hang out with a nobody.” I said with a smirk.
“Ouch! Hey ya busy tonigh’?”
“I might be, why?”
“Me and Pat are gonna go see a movie, you wanna tag alone?”
“Nah I think I’ll pass.”
“Oh c’mon man, we haven’ seen ya all sum-mer!”
“Yeah you said that. I gotta go, catch ya later.”
“Okay, see ya.”

Patrick was Mary’s boyfriend; he was on the school basketball team and was an asshole. Patrick was one of those people who would do something only if it made him look cool, if it did not make you look cool, he wanted nothing to do with it. The funny thing was I had not noticed it until he started dating Mary, before that he was just a good guy; you could say I was trying to find flaws in him, but that was would be untrue, I just did not like him any-more.

Mary gracefully walked back in the direction she came from. I turned back to my locker and the two fat kids were gone, but their aroma lingered on; or was that me? A noise down the hall magnetized my attention, it was Ashlee Gatts; she was staring at me. She noticed me notice her and smiled. She had blonde hair and mesmerizing blue eyes; she was quite attractive, but she was no Mary.

I grabbed my school back and headed for the exit. Along the way I noticed a few kids were doing lines, they always claimed it was because they liked to do it – it made them feel like they had a purpose in life, but I know better: I know they did it to feed the addiction.
I left the school and was immediately overwhelmed with refractions off the cars in the parking lot, I tried to look away but then I noticed one car that was dull – it had no refraction, as if it was too ugly to obey the normal laws of physics. I looked closer at the car; a feeling of trepidation overcame me as I realized that it was my father’s car.

I tried to ignore it and walk past, but my father noticed and he honked the horn then yelled my name, some kids looked over and laughed; this was the perfect way to end the “perfect” day, or so I thought.
I got in the car but not by choice, I had to live with him, making that even more difficult than it already had been was not an option. The seat was uncomfortable, the cushion had worn off and the frame was poking me in some awkward places, a perfect way to describe this incident as well.

I sat in the car, waiting for him to turn the ignition and leave before anybody important saw us. He just sat there, looking straight in front of him, like he was in a sitting coma. “Would you drive already?” I barked at him. He snapped back to life but did not start the car; instead, he looked at me. Great! He is going to give me a lecture here, I thought to myself. He started the car and began to pull out, the only sounds I could hear were the whimpering cry of the engine as it chugged out of the parking lot.

He was not talking, this was new, he had something up his sleeve! Just then, he burst out, “John, I want to talk to you about something. You see, uhhhh, there’s plenty of fish in the sea, and, uhhhh, obsessions never end pleas-antly. Do ya get what I’m sayin’?”
“No Webster, please explicate,” I said with a feeling of pride, he looked confused. “Elabo-rate,” I said, gleaming with pride.
He went on, “I want you to take down those photos you have in your room.”
“What if I don’t? Are you gonna kick my ass?” I said with a sense of amusement.
“Why is everything a joke to you? Can’t you be serious just this once?” He said, “I want ya to take down those pictures in your room.”
“Oh fuck you!”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me-“

A loud thump and a violent jolt interrupted the argument. “Hey we just ran over your brain!” I said but he ignored me. It was then that I noticed the frame from the seat I was sitting on had punctured my waist. The car came to a stop and my father left the vehicle; he got down on his hands and knees to see what we hit. “Shit! We hit a cat!” He yelled. For most people, hitting a cat is no big deal; you just drive off and let the local pest control take care of it, we did not have this luxury. My mother loves cats, if she found out that we hit one she would have exploded. Hell, if she saw a dead cat on the road she would have ex-ploded.

I sat in that car, bleeding from my wounds, realizing that my father would want to bury the cat, he would not want my mother to come home from work only to discover the corpse. He picked up the tender corpse and dropped it in the backseat. He got back in the car and just starred at me for a good five minutes, he scared me out. It began to rain as soon as he turned on the car, this scared me even more, and it was as if he was controlling the weather! The rain was the perfect way to end the perfect day. The rest of the drive down the road to our house was silent.

We pulled into our driveway; our house looked eerily like a photograph in a magazine: it was perfect on the outside, from the neatly trimmed hedges, to the calculated placement of the porch chairs; on the inside, however, it was a nightmare.

“Stay here,” my father ordered. He got out of the car and trotted towards the garage, with each heavy, damp step he took a distinctive splash overwhelmed me. All the colours meshed in a beautiful dance of disorientation, distorting my visual perception. With each step, the colours meshed more and more, I felt as if I was looking at the world through a funhouse mirror. I snapped out of the trance as my father returned to the car with a shovel, he tossed the shovel in the backseat, on top of the corpse of the dead cat, then he entered the car. “We’ll finish our discussion after we bury this cat,” he said. He heard no argument from me; it was not a good time to be smart, there was no sense in making a bad situation worse. He drove to the outskirts of town.

There was a small forest with a river run-ning down the middle; we found an open area near a bridge, we did not have to look hard to find it. My father handed me the shovel, he wanted me to dig a grave for the dead cat, “Dig,” he commanded. I began to dig up the marshy soil, and then he turned his back towards me. He gazed out past the tranquil, dancing river and in the direction of the giant McDonald’s arch, then he began to rant. “John, it’s, it’s just not healthy, to uhhhh, you know? Why don’t you get a hobby? I mean, Jesus John, you just sit in that room all day. Don’t you want to do something with your life? Why don’t you get a hobby? Dammit John, you’re just wasting away your life and you don’t give a damn, you just think it’s funny but it’s not.”

I stood there, listening to him put me down again, he gave me this speech everyday and I had grown tired of it. That was when it hit me, so to speak. I was holding the shovel, and his back was towards me, the solution could not have been any more obvious. I started walking towards him, slowly as to not make any squeaks on the wet ground, when I was standing right behind him, I swung the shovel hard and hit him square in the back of his head, he fell to the ground where I hit him repeatedly until his head no longer resembled a human head.

I stepped back and looked at what I had done. What have I done? I have killed him! I thought to myself. I fell to the ground in a state of shock. I had always told myself that I would never act on the urges, but I had not had one of the urges since the morning, so why had I killed him? What was I to do? The courts have little sympathy for a teenager who kills his own father. Think dammit think!

I devised a plan that I thought would not fail. I got up on my feet, picked up the shovel, and smacked myself in the face but it did nothing but cause a lot of pain in my jaw. I have had many bad ideas in my life and that was one of them. I devised a new and better plan. I started running towards the police station, tossing the shovel in a dumpster on the way. As I got to the end of the second block, I collapsed. I was out of breath, why was I running? I looked down at my feet and saw some mud on my shoes, where did it come from?
I walked the rest of the way to the police station. I entered and, staggering and crying, I yelled, “My God, he, he killed him!”

A young detective rushed towards me, he looked naïve, all I had to do was pull the right strings and watch him dance, or so I thought. He asked me to enter his office, so I did, and then he sincerely asked me to explain what had happened, so I did. “My dad, he, he was picking me up at school but then we, we hit a cat. So we went home to get a shovel, and then we went to bury it, that’s when the murderer appeared! He killed my dad! He killed him!”
The detective looked confused; he did not have the look of a man who believed me. He inquired, “Why didn’t he attack you?”
“I don’t know.” I retorted.
“What did the killer look like?” he asked.
“He was tall, very tall. Built like a tank, and uh, he had a hood!”
“Could you step outside for a minute?” He said, it was more of a request than a question.

I left the office and another detective en-tered. The two detectives talked, all I could hear was the slight sounds of their voices. They often glanced at me, it made me feel uncom-fortable; they knew I was not telling them everything, they were note buying my story, I should have gotten up and left, but I stayed; however, if I did that, they would have known I was lying. I had no choice but to sit there and wait for them to finish their discussion, it seemed like hours but in reality, it was only a couple of minutes. They exited the office and approached me, the young detective asked, “Can you show us where this happened?” They seemed to be more concerned with catching a murderer than comforting a potentially broken teenager. “Okay,” I said shyly.

I got up and the young detective stops me, he points at my bloody waist and asks, “What happened there?”
“We hit a cat, remember?” I replied.

We left the station and entered an unmarked cruiser, I entered the backseat, and a seat I would be sitting in again very soon I thought. As we got closer and closer to the forest, I felt more uneasy, I knew they would find lots of evidence that I did it; I did not do a good job of covering it up.

We arrived and the older detective went to the trunk, he pulled out a camera and started walking around, as he was walking, he snapped pictures of some areas of interest.

I looked over at my father’s corpse and was horrified at what I saw: He was lying in mud with only his footsteps and mine. Surely, the detectives would notice this; I had to think of something to say quickly. Sure enough, they noticed. They escorted me over to the mud, and asked me to put my foot over one of the footsteps; it was a match.