The Online Profile of a Teenage Killer

Posted April 12 (fifth post)

This semester I have last periods off. I'm walking home now with all the other lucky shits who get to leave school early everyday.

I'm playing with my phone. Relief spreads through my veins when I see it's working perfectly fine, despite being cracked. It's annoying, seeing the cracks obscuring what's on screen, but I can still see passed the cracks. It's good enough.

On the other side of the street, Darren, or is it Darryl, and some other fuckboys are heckling Polish Tom who's walking ahead of them. Darryl was put back a year in elementary school, so he's bigger than anyone in our grade. He has a big head and a crew cut. He's not quite a fuckboy, more of a dumb jock, but he hangs out with all the fuckboys on the football team, so he's a fuckboy by default.

The kid they're heckling, Tom, is a short scrawny kid who resembles the Pinocchio marionette hanging from his hand. He has a thick Polish accent and I think he has OCD because he has to open, close, then open a door before he can go through it. He also goes home to take a piss. One day, a fuckboy pushed him through a door before he could open and close it. He just went home after that and didn't come back for the rest of the day.

I see him making that puppet he's holding everyday in art class. I even catch him playing with it at his desk.

"Stop," orders Darryl.

Tom obeys, head lowered.

Darryl and his two minions circle around him.

"Let me see that doll," Darryl motions at the marionette.

Tom hands him the thing, a look of doom on his face.

"Hey, fuck my nose," Darryl says in a Smurf voice, dangling the marionette on the sidewalk. The two minions are cracking up.

A truck rumbles by.

"Why did the puppet cross the road?" says Darryl.

"Can I have it back?" Tom squeaks.

Darryl spins around and sling shots the marionette onto the road. It lands in the middle of the passing lane. Tom dashes to the curb and stops, looking both ways.

Darryl and his minions stroll away, laughing like idiots.

Tom freezes by the curb, his eyelid jittering. He makes a face like he doesn't know what to do, even though it's obvious to me.

I dart across the street, grabbing the puppet by it's dangling torso, raising my hand up to an oncoming car that slows down to let me pass.

"Here," I give Tom the puppet, tangled in its own strings, and he takes it from me, cradling it in his arms like he still doesn't know what to do with it.

"You don't J-walk?" I say.

He shakes his head no.

Darryl is further down the street now.

"Fuck that guy," I motion in Darryl's general direction.

"Thanks," Tom keeps his eyes lowered. He never looks anyone in the eye.

"You have to stop being an easy target, man. For starters, stop being an alter boy at church. You're too old for that now," I put a hand on his shoulder.

"Okay," he nods.

I glance down the street and I don't see Darryl anymore. "Let's go."

We start walking together. Tom is untangling the strings of his puppet but it looks like it's getting worse.

"You live over by Kidron, right?" I say.

"Yes."

Tom gives up on untangling the thing and has a spaced out look on his face.

"That's pretty cool, that thing," I say.

"Thanks."

"Seriously man, it's dope."

I look for some reaction from Tom, but nothing.

"Those assholes are just jealous. You have real talent, man. Look at Jim Henson. Look how rich that fucker is. You think those guys can make something like that? You can be like that guy who made Elmo."

"He got arrested for sex abuse."

"Oh," I stammer. "Really?"

Tom nods.

We keep walking for a while not saying anything, a puzzled look on my face. I turn to Tom again.

"Elmo?"

At home, I melt mozzarella onto my macaroni and cheese in the big pot. The exhaust vent is drowning out the TV sounds in the living room.  The smell of butter fills my nostrils. I stir the wooden spoon into the macaroni making wet noises. Mozzarella strings hang from my spoon as I lift it. I fumble with my phone in my other hand, aiming the camera over the mac 'n' cheese. The picture is blurry because the lens is fogging up from steam rising from the pot. I wipe the lens, and raise the phone higher, zooming down into the pot before snapping a pic. I study the photo and I'm happy with it. I use the Lo-Fi filter and post it to Facebook.

In the living room, I watch Friends on Netflix while I eating the mac 'n' cheese from a large bowl. I sipped unsweetened lemonade and let the tangy sourness spread across my tongue.

I just finished a Friends episode before this one, and will probably watch another one after. Sometimes it's hard to tell when one episode ends and the other begins, like Instagram Stories that keep playing one after the other.  Sometimes I don't know when one person's life starts and the other begins.

Ross, Rachel and Chandler are carrying a sofa up a staircase. With a full belly and a bowl empty in front of me, stained orange, I tilt my head back and make the lemonade disappear.

I swipe my phone open. I have 11 notifications. My mac 'n' cheese photo has 11 likes, and satisfaction washes over me in glorious waves.