literature

The Conductor.death wishes.

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DEATH WISHES

4:15p.m. and I was like a ball of nervous energy in still, sitting on some steps, glaring at a gleaming chrome bumper some distance from me.

The sun was setting, that weird apocalyptic color overtaking the sky from all the smog. You know that orange-brown death from above kind of color that smothers the azure pallet  in the afternoons in the crux between summer and autumn? Yeah. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki and The Terminator films all blasted up overhead. It cast a gloomy, sick dusk over the Southland. I felt like it bathed me in filth. I hated it but it also felt fitting to my state of mind then.

There was a short flight of narrow concrete steps at the back of the Auditorium building. It was an entrance to the standing room above the seats of the auditorium. They faced the student/faculty overflow parking lot. I had stopped there when the final bell had rung, while flowing with the crowd  outside the gates, feeling scattered and miserable. As I was taken along towards the park that bordered the school football and track field, I caught sight of the perfect cherry red 1994 Chevy Camaro convertible and it stopped me dead. There it rested in the parking lot, like the slumbering toy of ill-gotten-gain it was. It even had plates in the school colors hanging from the impeccable chrome bumpers. The machine beamed like a holy grail, prying something dark and sinister from me slowly but surely.

In the mass of student body quickly dwindling away like the end game of a tsunami, I slumped down on those steps just beneath the mural of our beloved steroid-pumped pug/bulldog mascot, Stanford. The gnarly little bastard loomed over me like a vulture, sort of encouraging me as I glowered purely at the deep crimson hood of Caleb’s car parked two rows up and three from the right in the lot. It’s tires were newly Armoraled, glistening so pretty in the nasty forest fire glow.

Caleb’s beloved cherry convertible. A gift from the Bulldog Booster Club for a his performance in the varsity season. I hated that thing with a passion, what it stood for, what it influenced, his fucking status. Such a beautiful car turned ugly by greed and power and the horrors of human nature.

My fingers carefully turned over an old army switchblade that my grandad had given to me so many years before. Each turn marking a step closer to fruition of some kind of retribution in my mind.

Caleb and his Mungo friends would be off practicing on the field with Coach Simmons still. For another hour at least. Until the flood lights came on. And maybe even beyond that. If there was a game that weekend.

My gaze true. Those tires looked real enticing.

Stanford drooled grey-tinged white paint above me. Go on! Do it! No one’s around. Who’ll know? I could almost hear the mascot’s gruff, bullish growl.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been made to feel so worthless by a member of the football team, or anyone else for that matter. In all actuality, it was just another in a long string of debasements. Caleb had become somewhat of a composite of them all though recently. The epitome of every single piece of abuse that had ever stained me. Lewd, mean, demeaning, morally corrupt, and praised for all of it.

My jaw clenched over and over, my muscles growing sore. The blade turned again in my hands, the sharp caressing my fingertips in kind.

They’d never be able to trace it back to me, I thought. I could do it quick and just be done with it. Avenged, and it’d be just my little secret.

I almost heard Stanford slurp above me. In like Flynn! Faster than virginal sex! Come on, do it!

My mind made up with that little push, I straightened my back and stood. I scanned the parking lot for any sign of campus security, or anyone else, and then crouched down a little. Weaving in and out of the remaining parked autos, I approached that payola car like a cat stalking after a bird.

The blade felt comfortable in my hand, as it should’ve, I had the same hands as my grandad.

At the passenger side of Caleb’s car, my fingertips balancing me on the rough gravel asphalt of the parking lot, my eyes traced the tread of the new Goodyear rubber all-purpose tire hungrily. I picked my spot and swung my fist outward, and then in, slamming the blade hard into the sidewall of the front passenger tire. Yanking it out, a nasty hiss followed, blowing hot petroleum-rubber scented air beneath my nose.

I gasped lightly, the feeling was exhilarating! I crawled to the rear passenger tire and did it again, then around to the driver’s side and again and again. Within five minutes, all four tires were flat as pancakes.

And I felt absolute and vindicated.

Triumphant and breathless, I knelt there before the grill, grinning at my reflection in the chrome bumper. I felt so much better, I practically wished I could do it again.

“Hey!” A voice cried out behind me from across the parking lot.

I jumped a mile, my heart in my throat and my grin gone. Spinning around, I found Caleb sprinting through parked cars towards me from the field, his eyes bullets of rage beneath a sweat-drenched neanderthal brow. Dread sandbagged me a moment as I watched the white and red blur of uniform gym clothes shooting straight for me. And then I was off, running as fast as I could while still in a crouch position, hoping if I stayed low enough through the cars, I might lose him. I headed towards campus as well thinking security might appear and at least keep Caleb from killing me at least.

On the edge of the lot, I craned my head up and found that Caleb was still hot on me, his mouth a froth of indecipherable obscenities. I cursed myself in panic and bolted through the glossy beige painted gates, back onto school grounds.

I had to think fast but it felt like I was standing still. My mind was racing all too quickly to make heads or tails of anything. I ran blindly, it seemed, aimless, taking a sharp turn once inside the gates and heading inside a building corridor. I ran the length and exited, cutting through the freakishly small Freshman/Sophomore quad.

Caleb was screaming, and I could hear a couple of his teammates had caught up with him, to join in the beat down. All of them yelling that they were going to get me, beat me into submission, kill me. I was frightened for my life and my heart was slamming back and forth through my rib cage. I wished I hadn’t given into the damnable urge for revenge. Running so hard, I wanted to throw up.

There was an open door into one of the health classrooms on the ground floor of building D and I ducked inside. No one was in there. I skidded on my knees to the back of the room and behind the teachers big heavy desk. Scrambling beneath it, I yanked the chair towards me as far as it would go and sat, hugging my knees to my chest, my backpack between my feet. My pulse was deafening in my ears and painful in my temples, a trickle of sweat rolling over my ribs and down my spine beneath my shirt. I held my breath and began praying. Either for them to run right past or for my death to be quick and painless.

I could just hear the goons approaching the classroom, sneakers slapping concrete and then vinyl-tiled flooring. They came to a slowed halt in the room, prolonging their hunt of me, prolonging my torture of knowing what was coming to me. All the adrenalin had me shaking and taking wasp breaths there beneath that desk, though I wanted to gasp for much-needed oxygen.–I really had to cut down on smoking. My lungs were killing me.–

“Come out, you whore! Take what’s coming to you!” Caleb barked, his voice echoing like doom in the classroom.

“Yeah, you little cunt, get your freak-ass out front and center!” One of the teammates followed suit.

Frozen, I saw my miserable little life flash before my eyes in the dull, milky varnished blond wood underside of the table. It looked a bit sparse and dim and lonesome. How pitiful. And here, my death by the hands of 600 plus pounds of sweaty, angry, hormonally imbalanced boys... and they were coming closer. It was only a matter of time before they found me there under the desk. I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes tightly.

“Hey!” A sharp and threatening voice took the room like thunder. It sounded too gruff to be Caleb’s or one of the other jocks.

The boys had stopped, sneakers squeaking on the floor once, and become silent. I heard different footsteps in the following silence, crisp snapping like boot heels, calculated and easy.

“Can I help you boys with something?” Kind of slithering, the voice was familiar and exacting.

Damain? My eyes shot open and my head turned towards the voice in reaction, only seeing more varnished wood. Hopeful, I waited for verification.

“We’re just lookin’ for someone, Dr. D.” One of the boys replied with an snotty attitude.

“Oh?” It was Damian!

I clamped my hand quickly over my mouth to keep my gasp quiet.

“Yeah, we’re just lookin’.” Caleb said.

Boot heels snapping, Damian was coming closer, approaching the desk and me.

“Looking for what? Or, more, whom?” He was smooth.

“This cunt bitch that dissed Big C, man! We saw her come in here.” One of the guys answered like a sparkplug in gasoline.

There was a quick and hissing ‘shut up man!’ afterward from Caleb, I think. I couldn’t tell through the wood.

The footsteps had arrived to the desk and I watched as Damian’s black-jeaned legs appeared to the right of the chair before me, turning, stopping. The bright steel points of his boots glinted at me. He stood a moment, then leaned over the desk, planting his hands on the top. Wide-eyed I stared up at his form, at his hip which was the top most point I could see of him from my perspective. He wore a dark t-shirt and a black dress shirt unbuttoned over it, the tails of it flowing like gossamer almost as he moved.

“And you saw this ‘cunt bitch’ come in here?” He asked, carefully putting into quotations the boys cruel epithet for me.

“Yeah. We just want to–” Caleb started by reasoning, but was cut off as Damian’s body jerked slightly.

A long pause followed and Damian slowly straightened his back. I heard him breath in deeply through his nose. “Maybe we should talk to Coach Simmons about this. Hmm? Or Professor Montessori? See what they have to say about this?” Damian’s tone was condescending. His arms moved smoothly before him as he spoke, making some kind of gesture that I couldn’t see.

The room seemed to go deathly still and quiet then and I could feel the tension in the air like the L.A. Basin smog bank. Damian’s hands appeared, holding onto the edge of the desk and I could almost swear I heard him grin. The long bony fingers of his right hand were inches from my forehead, slowly drumming the wood, vaguely mesmerizing me in their smooth wavelike motions.

“Uh no, Dr. D. It’s ok. Don’t go to Coach, ok?” Caleb’s voice was nervous, scared even, pleading with that last line.

“So you boys aren’t looking for anyone, are you.” It wasn’t a question. It was a command.

“We’re not looking for anyone at all, Dr. D.” Caleb replied with resignation.

“Exactly. Now,” Damian paused. “Get out.” It sounded darker than I’m sure it was.

I listened closely as Caleb and his mongrel cohorts quickly exited the room. When I was sure they were gone, I released a long-held breath loudly and dropped my forehead onto my forearm. I still wanted to throw up, swallowing repeatedly to repress it.

Damian pulled out the chair from beneath the desk I hid under, remaining still where he stood. I lifted my head, slowly leaned outward and stared up at him. His strict face revealed itself from behind the desktop, hard and smooth. He stared coldly out the front windows with his teeth gritted beneath razor-sharp lips, apparently watching the boys run back across the quad. His expression sent a chill down my spine. From my viewpoint, he was about as direful as Caleb and his jock friends could be.

Damian’s chest inflated slowly, and his steel eyes drifted down to look at me. It felt like they grabbed me and I twitched a little visibly.

“You can come out now, Jess. It’s safe.” He told me, his voice light.

For a moment, I couldn’t move, his eyes pinned me to my spot. But then my body just yanked itself out and upward, onto my feet, almost involuntarily. I stood beside him, hoping my face didn’t show the apprehension I felt. I set my jaw and blinked, pulling my backpack up onto my shoulder.

Damian smiled carefully at me, like one smiles at a little two-day-old puppy, and turned to face me. The dread I felt dwindled then, a calmness spiraling outward from my chest through my body replacing it. I don’t know why though. I seemed to release another breath I’d apparently been holding as well.

“What did you say to them?” I asked, sounding a little small to myself.

“I just suggested we all have a little chat with Coach Simmons and the principal.” He replied.

“Yeah, I-I heard that, but you d-did something. What’d you do, Damian?” I was adamant and stammering a little. But I wanted to know; whatever he did, it saved my life and I wanted to know what it was.

He laughed in his throat. “Everyone has dirty little secrets. I just happen to know Coach Simmons doesn’t know about theirs.” Raising his eyebrows suggestively, he made a quick movement with his right hand against his left forearm, suggesting something like a syringe injection.

“Drugs?” My brow furrowed skeptically.

“Steroids. To be exact.” He said.

That didn’t surprise me, and it actually made sense, with Caleb’s jerkiness and quickness to utter rage. Not to mention his sudden ‘growth spurt’ over the summer between sophomore and junior year.

What did surprise me though was the look on Damian’s face. He had such a cruel expression, it was impressively wicked, I had to admit. I stared unflinchingly back into those grey irises, feeling a thrill that I began to like a little too much run through me. He was an amazing guy, I thought to myself.  

I felt suddenly very warm and I realized then how close I was standing to him. I blushed and stepped back. His lips parted in a grin.

“So what did you do to get those cretins so worked up anyway, Jess?” He asked, leaning his hip against the desk and crossing his arms loosely.

Shyly, I looked down in mock guilt. “I sort of slashed the tires on Caleb’s ‘94 red Camaro convertible.”

Damian laughed. “That’s a dangerous thing to do; fucking with a man’s car.”

“He deserved it.” I stated bitterly and felt myself grow solemn with memories of every nasty thing that bastard had ever done to me.

Damian nodded in agreement and his head turned to an odd angle, coy-like, or something.

I remembered how bad I felt at lunch that day and how Damian had seen it all and I wanted to leave then, really badly. The quickly building disgrace was clawing at my self-esteem as his eyes looked at me. I wanted to get away from his eyes and whatever they might think of me. I just didn’t want to know.

I looked down abruptly and began to back away from him. “I-I gotta go.” Mumbling, I turned and headed towards the door.

“Wait!” In a flash, almost like a singular lightyear blink of an eye, Damian was there, standing before me, blocking me from the exit. His quickness startled me and I stared up at him. He seemed towering. His mouth was thin. I felt very small and meek.

“Wait.” He spoke to me softly. “Don’t leave just yet.” His voice was careful as he lifted his arms up and outward in a strange innocuous gesture.  

I took a step backward and he paced me. I stilled, my body tense and ready for anything. I couldn’t read his face just then, and it disturbed me deeply.

“It’s ok, Jess. I want to ask you a question. That’s all.” He tried to assure me.

I studied him with wide eyes, watched his lips smile a little. On auto-pilot, I nodded once, slightly. “What?”

“How badly does that rotten son of a bitch make you feel?” He asked under his breath, slitting his eyes curiously.

I stared at him, the hairs all over my arms and neck standing rigid. I could see my reflection in his pupils. My body shivered. I still felt like I needed to throw up so I swallowed again and again. I wanted him to let me leave. Badly. I was terrified and feeling my wounds too visibly

His right hand slowly came to my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Has he always done this much damage to you?”

“Yeah.” I bit out. I gritted my teeth, trying not to let the wretched tears spill from my eyes.  The thought came to my mouth pure and quick then; “I want him to die a horrible death.”

I watched his eyes for the briefest second before the embarrassment and fear shoved me past him and out the door. My feet were moving without any more thought and I was quickly running towards the back end of campus, to take the side streets home.

Something in Damian’s eyes seemed pleased that I had spoken that desire for Caleb’s demise. But I could’ve been mistaken. It was so quick. And I was gone before I could really think more about it.
ever wish you could get even with those bullies? i almost did.

edit: did a bit more work on this one. needed a bit clearer views i think.
---
The Conductor part one: [link]
part two Lunch Hour Blues: [link]
part three Death Wishes: [link]
part four White Flag: [link]
part five Homelife: [link]
part six Morning: [link]
part seven Fear Itself: [link]
part eight Wounds: [link]
part nine Cleansed By Fire part a: [link]
part ten Cleansed By Fire part b: [link]
part eleven Missing: [link]
part twelve Mahler: [link]
part thirteen Deliverance: [link]
part fourteen Quiet: [link]
part fifteen Hangman's Jury: [link]
part sixteen March To Gallows: [link]
Part seventeen Conducting: [link]
part eighteen Nostalgia Sake: [link]
---
i'm a little lost as to where to put this, seeing as it's sort of going in all directions.

but anyway, if you want the truth, this is semi-auto-biographical. that's the reason for the first person and the angsty bitterness, disjointed sentences and all that. i went to high school in the 90's kids. it sucked back then too.

if you need me to explain something, metaphor or refference, please let me know. this is pretty much my life here though beefed up for amusement. but i realize not everyone gets the inside jokes.

um... yeah... so... there it is...
© 2008 - 2024 RUNNrabbitRUNN
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CapriceVaudeville's avatar
This is great ! and for the autobiopart, I can understand that, but in my case the "bad guys" weren´t "rich kids" , but the more "underdogs".