Pick Up

by Zvi A. Sesling

Harvey used to get his kicks by going to rock concerts and copping feels from stoned girls.

Sometimes he would pick up one, take her home, screw her, and get her out before she knew who he was or what they had done. Harvey would tell himself, There must be a thousand girls having sex in town tonight, probably ten thousand in the whole state; millions in the country. All those rear ends moving up and down. All that moaning and wiggling. Sometimes he wondered why all those women were having sex with someone else and he had to drag a druggie home and get her out of here before she knew who he was.

Harvey thought, What if I knocked her up? I don’t want her to know who I am. I really don’t.

          The angry whistle of the teakettle snapped Harvey back to reality. He remembered that not being able to laugh at himself meant he couldn’t look at anything objectively. But this was not a laughing matter, and he could look at his situation objectively and he knew what to do.

          Last night the girl woke up. She screamed. She made a scene. She said she’d call the police. He could not let that happen. He knew if he went to prison, he’d be some brute’s bride.

Harvey knew what to do. First, he sat on her and strangled her. Then, he stuck the pillow over her face to make sure she was dead. He felt for a pulse and felt none. Then he went into the bathroom and ripped the shower curtain down and wrapped her in it. Then he carried her to the service elevator and down to the basement and out to the back of the apartment building while everyone was still sleeping. Finally, he hoisted her into the building’s dumpster.

The problem Harvey had was that there was a garbage strike in progress. A garbage strike in New York during an August heat wave leaves a dumpster smelling like a whore’s unshaven armpits after running a marathon.

Back where the dumpster was located, it became very unpleasant to go to one’s car or return. Since Harvey did not have a car, he did not realize the smell, which also attracted rats, cockroaches, and other vermin. That led the building’s superintendent to bring his pickup truck to the alley. Wearing a mask against the smell, he opened the top of the dumpster and looked in.

          When the police arrived, they made short work of the investigation. They found traces of the shower curtain that had scraped off on the dumpster’s top when Harvey was disposing of the body.

Then they found more scrapings against the door leading to the alley. There were additional particles at the elevator door. Then, stopping at each floor, they finally arrived at the sixth, where more pieces of the curtain were adhered to the elevator door. The police then checked each door until they came to Harvey’s. They knocked.

          “Who’s there?”

          “Police. We need to talk to you.”

          Harvey opened the door.

          A sergeant who resembled a linebacker said, “Your name, sir.”

          “Harvey McElroy.”

          “You live here?”

          “Yes. Is there a problem?”

          “May we come in?”

          Harvey’s face flushed with a pink tinge. “Don’t you need a search warrant, or something?”

          “We do, but you can save a lot of time and trouble by cooperating with us.”

Harvey capitulated and let them in. Two of the police went to the bathroom, where they found more plastic shower curtain particles which they collected and placed in a small plastic bag.

          “Looks like you’ve been having a bit of exercise,” the sergeant said sarcastically.”

          “Exercise?” Harvey asked meekly.

          “Weight lifting. Human weight.”

          “I-I-I d-don’t know what you mean,” Harvey stuttered.

          “I’m sure you don’t, Mr. McElroy,” the sergeant said, “but I am sure one of the detectives down at homicide can help you figure it all out.”

The Color Red

by Zvi A. Sesling

          The motel in Hyannis is modern on the outside and worn inside, sheets frayed, comforter with holes, furniture scratched, finish rubbed off in spots. But the place has a bar, The Light Bulb.

          A woman sitting at the bar drinking a Mojito or Marguerita smiles at me, probably because I am the only other one in the bar besides the bartender who is a woman, so I smile back and ask her name.

          “Maya,” she tells me. “What’s yours?”

          “Brent.” I move over to the barstool next to her.

          Maya is a redhead. I always prefer redheads. In fact, those are the only women I ever go out with because there is something unpredictable about them, a bit volatile, fresh, frisky, and as I said, unpredictable.

          I also like the color red, and she has on a brown sweater and a red scarf, brown slacks, and red shoes.

          I buy a round for us and then a couple more drinks. We are both a bit tipsy.

          “Your place or mine?” she asks, but before I can answer she says, “Mine, of course.”

          We hold on to each other and the wall as we stagger to her room, go in and fall to the floor laughing.

          “I’ll go to the bathroom and get ready, we’ll meet in bed, you, me naked.”

          She crawls to the bathroom, and I wait what seems an hour but is only ten minutes according to the clock on the night table.

          She comes out sober, naked, and holding a knife over her head and charges toward me, yelling some incoherent words.

          I throw a pillow at her, then grab another one which takes the knife thrust. It gives me the second I need to grab her wrist and force her to drop the knife. She tries reaching for it, but I am quicker and, holding the handle, jam the blade into her chest. Red blood spurts, then oozes out. To make sure she will not survive I slit her throat. Now there is lots of red.

I put on my clothes and go to my car, an old red Chevy and begin driving west. One hundred miles later, on a bridge over some river, I toss the knife in the water. I think of the twenty or so other knives soaked in red that I disposed of as I drive cross country meeting redheads along the way.

Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.