Middle Rage

Oma -- Part 17

I sit in the Vons parking lot, setting up the burner phone I just bought with cash. For a moment, I turn the radio on to channel my nervous energy, but the news is about the latest mass shooting and they're interviewing a victim who was also in the Las Vegas attack. The interview switches to a woman saying, "A new study shows more than two-thirds of mass shootings or domestic violence incidents are perpetrated by shooters with a history of domestic violence. Gun laws targeting individuals with this kind of history could reduce mass shootings in America."

I have already heard this argument on the internet. They will never enact this law, a commenter wrote. Because cops need guns and a huge proportion of cops are spouse-beaters.

When the Las Vegas shooting broke, the news reported it was the 273rd mass shooting in America of the year, on the 275th day of 2017. Almost one mass shooting a day.

The news moves on to news of allegations a well-known comedian has sexually harassed five women. Things are looking up, I suppose. He was only harassing them, not drugging and raping them. He didn't just grab them by the pussy, believing himself a star. He asked permission to jerk his junk in front of them.

I flip the radio to easy listening, then turn it off entirely. I listen to my body. I listen to the whoosh of traffic. The world is on fire. My sons reported at dinner last night that they have been instructed during their school active shooter drills not to leave their classrooms if the fire alarm goes off.

"Why on earth?" I asked them. Their nervous, pale faces.

My youngest pipes up in this tone like he was embarrassed by my naiveté. "Because shooters pull fire alarms to make it easier to kill kids as they come out."

"But what if there's actually a fire?" I had asked, then immediately felt tremendous guilt and anxiety for confusing my children, for putting them in the position I was in, of only having two wrong answers in the question of whether they would die in that situation.

"That won't happen here," Scott had said with his Dad-voice, all timber and assurance.

We had all nodded, agreeing to the lie, because it was that or live in the terrible uncertainty.

Most days, I want to crawl into bed and never leave. Not figuratively either. Sometimes I have to bribe myself to get up with promises of real cream in my coffee, or a small internet shopping spree so that for a few days, I can channel my thoughts only on the packages coming through the mail.

But not today. Today my plans are far darker. The upside to this chaos is that no one will look too hard at the death of a certain wife-beating asshole.

I've decided to meet Dan at the Adventist Church Parking lot in our neighborhood. I think they must run AA and community groups there during the week, so there is always a small but ever-changing set of cars in the parking lot when I jog past. Once for variety, I ran behind the church instead of around the front and happened upon two people embracing next to a parked car in the hidden section of the lot obscured from the main road by three close-set trees and a dumpster. An affair to be sure, the way they separated as I came into sight; the presence of two cars instead of one. I'll tell Dan to meet me there. As soon as I have the time and date, I'll have Aimee and Maria set up Jenn's intervention, so Jenn will have an alibi.

I feel like I have a pretty good crime car, so my plan is to get Dan to go to a second location with me. Our minivan is a silver Honda Odyssey. On the drive home from purchasing it five years ago, upon hearing the boys in the back seats playing the game of, "There's one like ours! There's another! There's one!" and seeing that we were flanked on the freeway by three other Honda minivans in the silver/tan/fog green spectrum, Scott laughed under his breath, "If this was one of those transformer movies, all the Odysseys would become sentient and revolt. Look, there's two back-to-back! They've completely infiltrated modern society."

Plus! Our minivan has a trap door under the middle seats, which my husband uses to hide our laptop when we go on trips. This is where I will keep the more dangerous elements of my kill kit: duct tape, rubber gloves, rope, a small bottle of bleach, and two very pristine steak knives we got as duplicates in our wedding gift registry. I'm sure Scott has long forgotten about them, tucked for years on the highest kitchen cabinet shelf, along with a set of fancy olive skewers and four martini glasses, even though Scott and I hate martinis.

When we meet at the church parking lot, I will tell Dan it's more risky than I thought. We might be seen by the infrequent passersby, he should get in my car, and we'll drive to a more secluded place. He'll see the logic: we are in our own neighborhood, there are witnesses.

The sun sets early in November — by five pm, and dark by 6:30. I'll drive him to the beach, which will be cold and deserted in the evening. Maybe we'll go up to the bluffs to watch the sunset, and I'll push him off a cliff onto the rocks below.

Or I take Dan into the sandy dunes with the promise of blow jobs. Maybe I could offer him a drink spiked with the Vicodin left over from Scott's hernia surgery. In the darkness, whatever I do to Dan will be obscured by the thundering crash of waves and the shadowy dunes. After I'm done, the seagulls will come and eat his eyes.

His car, abandoned in the church parking lot, will be quite a mystery, throwing off the police. I tell myself to double-check for CCTV cameras the next time I case the church. Hopefully, it will give nature time to denude his body of any evidence I might leave. Perhaps in time, I will listen to a podcast on all the mysterious events surrounding his cold case.