“I’m just delivering a message from god,” I say and pop my hat back onto my head. I’m acting again, keeping true feelings repressed—I’m aware of that, but I can’t help it.

Lauren looks at me like maybe I’m a demon from hell or the Antichrist, and says, “Why did you do that?”

“What did you do to her?” the rent-a-cop asks, trying to look official and tough.

“I gave her a cross on a silver chain and tried to tell her I love her—I do love you, Lauren; I really do—then I kissed her passionately.”

She looks at me with her head all cockeyed and her wet lips parted.

She’s so confused.

I’m kind of confused too, because I’m not attracted to Lauren at all anymore and the kiss was a spectacular failure.

I can tell that some part of her deep inside liked the kissing, because it’s natural for teenage girls to like kissing, but she feels conflicted, like she’s not supposed to like it, that she’s supposed to deny her instincts here, like her religious training bids her, and that’s what’s really eating her up inside.

Maybe that’s how rapists justify their actions.

Maybe I’m a monster now.

Because I can see the thought process happening—it’s written all over her face.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

No.

No.

No.

I can’t.

I really can’t.

I really truly absolutely can’t.

Why did you do this to me?

Why did you make me feel this way?

Why?!?

Lauren says, “I have to go,” just before she drops her stack of religious pamphlets and runs away.

I hate myself.

She literally runs.

I really fucking hate myself.

And I don’t have the heart to chase, mostly because I used up whatever courage and strength I had just to kiss her.

There’s a part of me that still wants to believe the kissing was wonderful.

Black-and-white Bogie-Bacall perfect.

Even though it wasn’t.

My dad used to say that the last drink of the day, when the work and thinking is over and you’re just about to surrender to unconsciousness, that’s always the best drink regardless of how it tasted.

Maybe Lauren was my last drink of the day.

The tracts blow all over the concrete sidewalk like dead leaves in the breeze.

“You better work on your delivery, Romeo,” the rent-a-cop says. “Now keep moving.”

“Aye, aye,” I say and give the kid a military salute, making my body rigid and stiff, karate-chopping my eyebrows. “Good job keeping people with guns away from the subway. You really are a fantastic rent-a-cop.”

He looks at me and puts a hand on this two-foot club strapped to his belt, probably because they won’t let the kid carry a gun. He makes this evil twisted face, like beating me to death would really make his day. The rent-a-cop actually intimidates me a little, which is ironic, since I’m going to kill myself. But I haven’t shot Asher Beal yet, and death by rent-a-cop is probably even worse than death-by-übermorons.

“Here’s me moving on,” I say, and he lets me, because it’s the easiest thing for him to do.

He probably makes what—eleven-fifty an hour?

A rent-a-cop’s not exactly going to take a bullet in the line of duty for that type of wage, and who would?

As I walk away, my backpack feels lighter.

I’ve delivered all of my presents, so now it’s finally time to kill Asher Beal.

Let’s get this birthday party started!

I’m so ready to be done with this life.

It will be so so beautiful to finally be end-of-the-road done.

This will be the best birthday present ever; I’m pretty sure of that.

TWENTY-FOUR

I open my birthday present in the woods behind Asher Beal’s house—feel the familiar cold heaviness of the P-38 in my hand—and then wait for my target53 to come home.

I’ve been doing reconnaissance for a few weeks now, so I know that on Thursdays my target arrives home around 5:43 from wrestling practice, and then usually goes into his first-floor bedroom for an hour before dinner.

The target usually surfs the Internet while waiting for feeding time, at which point the target will relocate to the kitchen.

The glow of the laptop screen lights up the target’s face and makes him look like an alien or a demon or a fish in a lit tank, and watching the target’s dead expression illuminated by the screen has also made it easier to visualize killing him—the weird lighting really dehumanizes the target.

I’ve practiced shooting my target from the tree line, using my hand as a gun.

But today I’m going to creep up to the window, shoot the target through the pane at point-blank range, stick my arm through the jagged glass teeth and pop the target six more times—mixing head shots with chest shots—to ensure the target has been eliminated, and then I’ll escape into the woods, where I will off my second target with the last bullet in the magazine before the local cops and maybe even the FBI arrive.

That’s my plan.

All I have to do is wait for my target to flick on his bedroom light, which will be the first falling domino to set the chain of events in motion.

TWENTY-FIVE

It’s cold and dark in the woods and I wonder if this is what it’s going to feel like when I’m finally dead—like a stupid unfeeling unthinking unnoticed tree.

I’m hoping to feel nothing.

Übernothing.

I’m hoping that I merely cease to exist.

What dreams may come? Hamlet and Lauren would ask.54

None, I’m betting.

None.

Hellfire is not in the plans.

Heaven is not in the plans.

Cold and dark are not in the plans.

Übernothing.

That’s what I want.

Nothing.55

TWENTY-SIX

I’ve been watching the target’s mom framed in the kitchen’s bay window, the soft overhead light making it look like she’s in a movie and the bay window is like a drive-in movie screen.

I decide to call the movie Mrs. Beal Makes Her Perverted Son His Last Meal.

It’s a boring picture in the literal sense, but it conjures up a lot of emotions inside me for personal reasons.

I remember Mrs. Beal being really stupid56 but sweet on the surface when we were kids.

She would always order us a pizza whenever I was over their house, regardless of whether we were hungry or not. There was always pizza. Pizza was ubiquitous. It’s like that was an official rule in their house—when guests under fourteen visit, there shall be pizza, pronto.

She was also always singing songs from the musical Cats. So much that I can quote the lyrics of many of the songs, even though I have never seen the show, nor have I ever listened to a recording of the musical.57

“Memory” was her favorite.

Although she also liked “Mr. Mistoffelees,” who was apparently clever.

It’s funny how I’m remembering all of this right now when I’m trying to use military euphemisms, and it makes me sad, because Mrs. Beal has no idea what a Charles Darwin–type favor I’ll be doing by killing her son, mostly because she has no idea who her son is—what he has done and of what he’s capable.

Not in a million years would she believe what her son made me endure.

She wouldn’t believe it because if she did, I don’t think she’d be able to sing songs from silly musicals while doing housework, and that’s her favorite thing to do in the world, or at least it was when I used to hang out with Asher back in middle school.58

I try not to think about her hearing the gunshots, her running into Asher’s room, her screaming, her maybe even cradling Asher’s blood-soaked head in her arms, trying to put his brains back into his skull,59 and her endless weeping for a fictional boy who didn’t ever exist—the son she never had—because she believes her Asher is an absolute angel.

She never saw him change, or if she did, she chose not to believe it, which makes her just as guilty, just as culpable.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; I could never shoot Mrs. Beal in the face, because she’s always singing songs from Cats and never wronged me personally.

But when you really think about it, she’s to blame just as much as Linda is—and my dad too, regardless of whether or not he’s still alive in Venezuela.

These people we call Mom and Dad, they bring us into the world and then they don’t follow through with what we need, or provide any answers at all really—it’s a fend-for-yourself free-for-all in the end, and I’m just not cut out for that sort of living.

Thinking about all of this gets me feeling so low, and I’m shivering now.

“Come on, Target Asher. Ollie Ollie in come free. Come home so I can finish this once and for all,” I whisper, as I watch gray-haired Mrs. Beal pull a small chicken from the oven.

The huge window frames her perfectly as she slices the meat and moves her mouth.

She’s singing again.60

TWENTY-SEVEN

There’s part of me—deep down inside—that feels the need to make a confession here, especially before I go through with my plan and therefore will not be able to make any sort of statement ever again.

A few months after we went to the Green Day concert, Asher spent the weekend with his uncle Dan fishing somewhere in rural Pennsylvania—I think it might have been the Poconos. He loved his uncle Dan, who was tall and confident and funny and drove a cool truck and was always taking Asher places—like to the movies and car races and even hunting. Uncle Dan seemed like the kind of uncle every kid dreams of having. I remember liking him immediately when we first met. He really seemed like a great guy, which makes it all the worse.61

But when Asher came back from this particular fishing trip—something wasn’t right.

We had this project for school we were working on—about ancient civilizations—and we had picked the Incas. We were putting the finishing touches on a miniature Machu Picchu at his house the Sunday night after he returned from fishing with Uncle Dan. I remember Asher wouldn’t look me in the eye and kept saying “Nothing!” way too loud every time I asked if anything were wrong. Finally he said, “If you ask me what’s wrong one more time, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.” He stared at me—like he wanted to kill me and was capable of doing it too.

I didn’t say anything as we finished creating our Machu Picchu. We had built the skeleton out of LEGOs, had used real sod for the grass, and had been making little cube-shaped papier-mâché buildings for weeks. In my memory, the project looks magnificent—like I’d never made something so beautiful before or since. And Asher had been really proud of it just the week before—excited even. But just as I put the final bit of paint on the last structure, Asher started to smash the project with his fists.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, because we had spent weeks on it.

He just kept punching and smashing, sending down fists from above like some cruel boy-god.

It was so fucking awful to watch—not just because he was ruining all of our hard work, but because I could clearly see he was coming undone.

I tried to grab him and he punched me in the face hard—giving me a black eye.