Page 13 of Caution Tape

Bee-woop.

Now it’s Monday.

Bee-woop.

Friday. I’m losing days.

Bee-woop.

I’m still in the store, and a customer is talking to me. An old man with a white halo of hair circling a liver-spotted bald scalp that shines under the fluorescents.

He’s asking about extension cords and my mouth goes dry. I’m looking deep into his runny, watery green eyes, the word “cord” sticking in my head.

Bee-woop.

“We have some of the waterproof ones in aisle nine,” I tell the man. “Orange ones, all on the rack.”

“Thank ya, thank ya,” he says. He totters away from me, shuffling along the rows of gardening tools and weed wackers.

His eyes would bulge so sweetly if I wrapped that orangecordaround his throat. Thecordsin my arms would stand out as I pulled both ends so fucking hard that the rubber insulation would dig into his flesh.

Would his head pop off? Would it pop off like that little fucking piggie that went wee-wee-wee all the way home?

A thin line of drool leaks out of my mouth and rests wetly on my chin. I sway on the spot, a dizzying impulse to run after the old man on all fours and kill him in front of everyone. I could drag him by the neck to the checkout lines, screaming “BEE-WOOP! BEE-WOOP!” as I smashed a register onto his head, over and over and over—

and over and—

red rover, red rover, send Nolan rightover.

Bee-woop.

The checkout line goes off again, and it snaps me out of it like a smelling salt waved under my nose. I retreat to the backroom and place my forehead on one of the cool, smooth bags of bird seed.

I manage to get through the work shift without committing homicide. There were plans to meet Natalie for a movie, bowling, or perhaps a card game night with her friends—something like that. My phone hasn’t stopped blowing up with notifications all day. I should have turned it off but on some level, I was enjoying the escalating rage. In contrast to the hollow feeling, it was nice to burn with a churning, heinous feeling. Even if it made life increasingly difficult to handle.

I finally take the time to check my phone as I leave the store and see that she sent me a picture. A small, woodcut sign with etched stars and sparkles on it that says, ‘in this house, we believe in magic’. Another message is right under it.

Natalie: Maybe I should put this above my bed after last night ;) That WAS magic.

I sit quietly in my car for a moment. I feel feverish, a clammy seasickness at the very act of existing. After staring blankly at her text message for a long time, I somehow manage to open my car door and vomit onto the sidewalk.

Oh, Nolan. You used to be so in control.

I start the car and begin driving, with no destination in mind, just the visceral need to be on the move.

I’m still driving when the radio begins speaking to me.

It’s one of those talk radio shows. Two grating voices going back and forth—and what do you know—the reliable American subject comes up.

Serial killers.

“How do you not notice?” the gravel-voiced host says. “You know, you live with a guy for years—years! And younevernotice he’s hiding bodies in the basement? Sticking bones in the walls?”

“What I want to know is where these guys get the type of wives that’ll leave them alone that long,” the sneering, higher pitched host replies.

“Thank you! I can’t get through a playoff football game without hearing it from my wife, meanwhile John the Axe Murderer has a house of corpses, and his wife is like, “Well he works late sometimes and has his hobbies—“

“He’s a little quiet sometimes—“

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