Calvin

Calvin

The kid did it again. What's so difficult about getting a newspaper on my porch? I think the little pinhead throws it in the bushes for kicks. He shouldn’t upset me like that.

Calvin, a taxidermist by trade, read the newspaper religiously. Clipping and saving articles about homicide, death and other terrible events had become an obsession the recluse found pleasure in. Once the print was neatly trimmed from the pages; he'd tack his favorites on his living room walls.

Placing the latest newspaper edition face up on the kitchen table, Calvin poured his first coffee of the morning. The Tuesday, September 19, 2006 edition's unusual thickness made his fingers twitch from anticipation. A smile crossed Calvin's sullen unshaven face when he thought about all the articles of gore and tragedy he might discover.

He didn’t read beyond the first page before he began to carefully remove an article with his sharpest knife. A composite of a “Wanted Man” stared back at him from the tabletop.

You slime ball, how dare you take our children. Killer! You are a beast that should be killed the way you kill your victims. How the little ones must have suffered before you plunged your knife into their hearts. I would make you pay if I ever wrapped my hands around your throat, you bastard.

Calvin tacked the killer’s image on his wall, putting push pins through the madman's eyes. For an instant, the face looked familiar. Someone he knew perhaps?

I should bathe and shave this morning. My doctor tells me I would feel better about myself if I did and mingled with people. But what does he know? Like most shrinks, he’s crazier than I am. Besides, last time I shaved I didn’t recognize the face looking back at me from the mirror.

Calvin went to the kitchen and reached for his knife and whetstone. Back and forth went the blade, glistening under the overhead bulb.

Satisfied the blade would slice through the thickest flesh, Calvin belched and muttered, "Tomorrow morning I will hide in the bushes and have a word with the paper boy."