almost okay

As I made my way towards home numbly striding over cracked and crumbling sidewalks, I replayed over and over in my mind what I could remember of our fight the night before, and each time it seemed to me that Jackie was just as much to blame as I was for how things had turned out.

Jackie and I had no kids - not together, not from previous relationships. Both of her parents had died in a boating accident while vacationing in Hawaii years ago, and she and her sister weren’t particularly close. Except for one or two cousins like Andy, she rarely spoke to the rest of her family, and Jackie had few close friends. All-in-all she wasn’t very well liked. I wasn't just rationalizing, I told myself; it was simply the way things were. She wouldn’t really be missed all that much.

Sure, I felt bad for her. Who wouldn’t? But I couldn’t see how confessing and going to jail was going to do either of us any good. Odds are I’d never come out alive, and if I did I’d be a broken man. So, by the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right rationale, I decided to get rid of her body. No body, no murder. End of story.

Once inside the house, I carried Jackie into the bathroom, took off her clothes and carefully laid her in the tub with her head near the drain and her feet propped up. A quarter turn of the hot water tap produced a slow, steady stream of water. I went to the kitchen, put on a fresh set of gloves, started a pot of coffee and grabbed my chef’s knife. It was already pushing nine o’clock.

Once back in the bathroom, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and made a slow, sure stroke across Jackie’s throat with the knife, being careful to keep the cut side away from my body in case any blood squirted out. I was surprised at how easily it sliced the flesh. All my knives had stayed much sharper since I started storing them on that magnetic strip I had installed on the back splash by the stove. Thirty bucks at Crate & Barrel sounded like a lot when I bought it, but it seemed like a pretty wise investment under the present circumstances.

Again, to my surprise, the blood didn’t squirt, but oozed towards the drain, mixing with the water. Before long I realized that hot water wasn’t such a good idea. The odor of the draining blood was intensified by the steam that began to rise from the tub after several minutes and I choked and gagged as I hovered over Jackie, struggling to turn off the hot tap and replace the stream with cold water. But once that was done, it was just a matter of waiting.

While Jackie drained, I poured a cup of coffee and headed to the garage for tools.

I found a pair of large bolt cutters, some channel locks, two or three types of hand saws and an old food dehydrator that I had bought at a garage sale just two weeks prior for two bucks. The chef’s knife and a boning knife that I rarely used would round out the implements I’d need to finish the job. By the time I got back inside, she was pretty much dry and I spent a few minutes trying to figure out the best way to cut her up before diving in.

Jackie was in good shape for her age...about five-five, one-thirty or so. And a lot leaner than two years ago, thanks to all of that liposuction I paid for prior to the divorce. It really didn’t seem like it would be all that much work once I got started.

I stripped naked to keep from getting blood on any of my clothes, straddled Jackie’s body and began cutting strips of flesh away from the bone. When joints were exposed, I sawed carefully through them and slowly began assembling two piles of remains on either side of the tub...one, a stack of naked, grisly bones and the other, a limp, wet heap of flesh.

It was sweaty work and it took some time, but by mid-afternoon I pretty much had the arms, legs and head removed and, along with the torso, stripped of flesh. I carefully cut into the stomach, trying not to puncture any of the internal organs, but a nick of the colon produced horrific odors to the point I thought I would have to stop.

After wiping the sweat from my eyes, I steeled myself and went back to work, eventually getting used to the stench. It occurred to me that I hadn’t had to be so careful anyway, since I was planning on chopping the organs into pieces that were small enough to flush down the toilet. It took another hour or so, but eventually liver, lungs, heart and kidneys had all been cut into flushable chunks.

I grabbed a pan from the kitchen, piled in some of the organ bits and dumped them into the toilet, bumping the handle down with my elbow. The water swirled crimson clouds and the level rose in the bowl. My heart nearly stopped when I realized that the chunks had clogged on the way out and an overflow was imminent. I quickly put the pan back in the tub, stripped off the plastic gloves as the water neared the top of the bowl. Just in time I managed to remove the lid from the tank and lift the mechanism to kill the flow of the water. When the tank had refilled, I reached into the bowl, scooping back through the pile of Jackie's guts and let the water drain. Then I flushed again.

From then on I carefully measured tiny portions into the bowl making sure that they would flush easier. It took longer than I had hoped, but an hour later the organ chunks had all been sent straight to the Detroit River.

I checked the time. It was half-past five and I had never been more in need of a drink in my life.


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