A Town Called Drill

The seasons in Drill cycle from long, busy, dry falls, to winters cold and dead, to short springs heavy with allergies and an onset of bloody noses that plague the town for almost a month, and then quiet summers starved for any love. Although it is only September, dead leaves skitter across the ground, and those that remain on the gnarled trees around Drill are mostly orange and brown, and the sky is a permanent, grey haze. Richter, a rarely seen phantom of Drill, treads amongst the leaves, completely alone in this moment, lumbering down the sidewalk like an upright bear. He stops suddenly, unable to move past a worn telephone pole as the fluttering of paper upon it catches his eye like a punch.

The ad duct taped to the telephone pole is simple, and handwritten, and covered in Lisa Frank stickers. In messy chicken scratch blue pen, bleeding through the page in purple splotches, reads a request that makes Richter’s heart jump. Looking for someone to murder me.

Underneath it, someone stuck a post-it note that reads: “Are you alright? Meet me at church on Sunday. God can Help.” The message played out in masculine, self assured handwriting, to which the original poster responded by writing over this, in the same blue ink, “Shove off. I’m trying to get stabbed.” Richter reaches up, and pulls off the little yellow square lambasted to the printer paper adorned with stickers, and keeps reading.

Looking for someone to murder me. Goes the large header, and underneath, in very small print, it continues: I will make it worth your time. I have a very specific murder fantasy, and I’m sure you do too, if you want to take me up on this. I’m sure we can compromise. I can make it quick, or draw it out. Meet me at 10 PM underneath Heckler’s bridge to discuss details. I’ll be waiting there every night until Halloween.

Richter crushes the post-it in his hand in excitement, his meaty fists clenching involuntarily. For a moment, he almost takes the paper from its post, and then resists. He wants to make it his, and keep it for himself, and prevent anyone from taking the opportunity that is exciting a sympathetic response in his body, making his mouth and eyes water eagerly, like a dog watching meat that has fallen from the table to the ground. He twitches in his boots, that are caked in mud and ruddy black colors, and the hungry jittering rises from there up his body, until he is trembling in the coat that distorts his body and makes it formless.

Finally, it feels right to think evil thoughts. Someone is moving him along the edge, slender like a knife’s blade, cutting into his belly. Pushing, pushing into a territory he pretends not to know. The urge to wrap his large hands around tender neck and squeeze, the need to take something sharp and jab it through cartilage and softness, which will resist and pull and tear. Drool is wetting the corners of his mouth, and beginning to move down his patchily stubbled chin, and finally, realizing it, he takes his thick arm and wipes his wide mouth on his sleeve, which is the dusty black of dusk, and waterproof, seeming like a dragon’s hide in its density.

Richter jumbles about his body, reaching into many hidden pockets, touching countless secret things with his uncareful, clumsy hands. He finds a prize very dear to him, and for a moment he simply holds it tightly where it is concealed, enjoying the little shard of privacy he lavishes. Finally, he gingerly produces a badly scraped and nicked grey camera, with a roll of film wound tight in it like guts, the kind Richter has labored intensively in learning how to process, and he makes low, agreeable utterances as he steadies and preps the camera, moving more methodically than he would normally be able to muster.

Once he feels ready, sucking a deep, rusty breath into his barrel of a chest, he makes another satisfied grunt and takes a photo of the personal ad, complete with friendly, hypocritical feeling stickers. He roughly unrumples the added note, by the hand of someone righteous, and though he only succeeds in creasing it in different ways, making it more worn, he manages to unfurl it without completely tearing it, and holding it up to his found prize he takes another shot with both in frame, focused so that the two may be legible together. This time, he makes a chuffing noise under his breath, and decides to keep the post-it note and leave with the memory stored safely on his mechanical diary, a dear keeper of his thoughts, the kind he wouldn’t privy to a person.

Richter will hurry to process these. He would love to add the letter left, seemingly just for his eyes alone, to his collection of precious things. He has trophies hidden throughout his home, and a shoe box under his couch, made deliberately hard to get to, easy to cut your hand and wrists on the jagged metal poking through the bottom of his couch made more dangerous by Richter himself. Inside it are a trove of reminders. Mementos from small and large conquests, along with warnings hard learned, and trinkets from remarkable moments. The advert could be a first step in a journey most sumptuous. Though, he’d like to finish the roll of film, really striving for every picture to be choice, but this does seem tantalizingly special.

Heckler’s bridge isn’t very far at all from his apartment. It is deep in the woods around Drill, which are already becoming scant leafed by Autumn, and the overpass used to hold up a now long abandoned train track. Someone would be very stupid, or very brave, to hang around there at night. There were a series of rapes there, several times throughout Drill’s recent history. There have been murders too, the most infamous three girls and a little boy killed there on Halloween. It was five teenage boys who executed that one, only fifteen years ago. Clearly, the writer of the request, which makes Richter become so unstable and giddy, knows what they are implying in the location. This stranger is serious in the need to become history.

But to meet them there would be to seal fate. If Richter comes in contact with this person, he knows the pull of destiny, given the temptation he will take the offer. It would be too hard not to, whether consent still stands or not. Someone who wants him to kill, who needs it, seeks it like heat, its too much to bear. A purpose, a quest, something to sink his teeth into. Again, accompanied by him beginning to sweat, his mouth is spawning warm streams of fluid down his jaw, and this time he doesn’t think to wipe it away.

Richter realizes he has been standing at the telephone pole for far too long now, so regretfully he begins to amble away, not bothering to check for onlookers. If they saw him, it is already too late to stop whatever assumptions they may be having. As he shuffles onwards, Richter weighs his options. He is too stupid to not get caught by the police, and probably not lucky enough to prevent it either. Unless, of course, his prey, his willing prey, works with him, aids him in its own death. Richter’s body tingles at the thought, goosebumps raising beneath his coat. Could it be so easy? Could something be so perfect?

Richter abandons his errands. He was just going to pick up oil for the squeaking hinges of his apartment's door, and milk, as well as bread. Those hingers can keep screaming, for all her cares, burdened by the pain of rust. This possibility is taking up his mind, and he needs to dwell on it, taking it in, and apart. He turns, not far up the street from the telephone pole, and begins to amble home, his camera safely back in his pocket, and the yellow, rumpled post-it note, and he moves slowly homeward without taking in anything else around him. His mind chugs away at what he’s seen, dissecting it mentally, taking a look deeply at the way it reflects his heavy desires. He wonders, deep down, what other trophies he could take from this.