The Godfather King (Part 3)

I felt terrible after I hid Polly’s ribbon in my cigar box that I keep under the loose floorboard in the corner where you climb out to the rope swing. If you climb way out on that branch, you can see in Heather Reynolds’s bedroom window. Well, it’s not her window anymore. Her family moved away after the fire, which wasn’t my fault. I used to watch her and her boyfriend in the afternoons before her parents got home from work. She used to babysit me sometimes, before the fire. The fire wasn’t my fault.

I’m probably too heavy for the branch to support my weight, especially now that I’m old enough to drink beer. I like the way the third one, or maybe it’s the fourth one, makes my head all blurry. And I can dance, maybe not as good as Elvis or James Brown, but they’re both dead, so I guess I dance better than both of them now. Maybe I’ll call myself the Godfather King.

And it wasn’t my fault that Polly had Eve’s blood coming out of her, but it was Polly’s fault that it tasted good, putting her sweetness in Eve’s poisonous blood. Polly won’t be doing that anymore, won’t even want a cracker. I’m the only cracker she ever had.

I was raised Catholic, but Mom didn’t make me do real confessions. When we had to start going every Friday at school, she told me to just make up some stuff to tell the priest, God knows what’s what, and we don’t have to tell our mortal sins to some prissy priest who’s never known a woman’s love.

She said everybody has Eve’s blood on them, we all get covered in it being born. You know, the moon affects it—some of them bleed on the full moon, some on the new moon. I don’t know which ones are backwards.

I like the blue ribbon, and I tie it around one of the cigarettes I stole out of Heather’s purse when she was making out with her boyfriend instead of watching me, like Mom was that time I fell out of my tree fort. So I know that nobody is really watching me, maybe not even God. Nobody will ever know because I confess sins I never committed. Unless that lady at the gas station tells. Her eyes said they know everything, even how Eve’s blood tasted on Polly. I might have to make her go away with her evil eyes full of the knowledge of Eve’s blood.

There’s a salt marsh not too far away. I could take her there to be with the bottom feeders. Maybe she’s working tonight. But I can’t let her eyes see me. They might tell before I can make them go away. I might have to feed them to an alligator or a snake. That would be perfect, a snake eating those dead snake eyes. No, wait, not a snake, a shark. Sharks are the ones with the dead eyes. But they don’t come all the way in to the salt marshes. Wait, maybe something a shark eats could eat her eyes. It would require some sort of fish as a middleman, but I bet I can pull it off. I’m really good at fishing, don’t even get squeamish baiting my hook. I should go ahead and pack my cooler. Maybe I’ll wear my favorite fishing hat. It used to be my gtandpa’s. He’s the one who taught me how to fish.

I hate these stupid tags on my shirts. Mom used to cut them off so they wouldn’t itch me, but she’s dead and I’m not allowed to use scissors. Maybe no one will know if I use scissors just this once. I hate itching. And it’s not my fault that Mom is dead. She should have been watching me instead of doing nasty things. I know she did nasty things because I watched her even when she wasn’t watching me.

I’ll wait until the sun goes down to go to the gas station. I have until then to think up a good reason for her to come out to my car. I don’t think I can carry her all the way from behind the counter to my car, so she’ll have to walk. I’ll probably knock her unconscious with my baseball bat. I think I might like the sound it will make when it hits her head. If I hit it in the back instead of the front, maybe it won’t be so messy. It won’t be my fault if it is. I’ve never hit this lady in the head with my bat before, so I don’t really know what will happen. It’s an experiment.

It continues in Coming and Going.