Love, The Hitman

It may be a gun

It may be a knife

But either way,

You’re gonna lose your life

Love,

The Hitman

Those are the words I scratched out in black ink on the torn out corner of some notebook paper. I wrote them southpaw so nobody could identify my handwriting. I even waited until a few more rounds of bells ushered in and out some other classes. I slipped in, unnoticed among the cattle call of eighth graders getting herded out to their next class. I tossed the folded piece of paper onto Mrs Bauers desk in a casual but calculated way and it landed crease down, leaning against a blue coffee mug that housed an assortment of pens. The note went unnoticed for a couple of hours, until Ruth, snacking on a wedge of green apple, reached down and picked up the scrap of paper. She almost threw it out without cause, but something stopped her.

Ruth brought down the hand that was attached to the apple wedge, uncrunched by her knobby smoke stained teeth. She flipped open the fold and read the words. The apple wedged fell from her mouth, richocheted of her desk and landed two inches from the wall, unedibly coated in chalk dust and hair.

Ruth didn’t know what to make of it.

Her eyes bounced around in their sockets, desperately hoping to focus on something.

Anything.

She was frightened by the empty classroom in front of her, but simultaneously relieved there weren’t any students watching her, especially any student that would write down such angry words. She pulled open the right top drawer of her desk, yanked out an envelope, tucked the note inside of it and dropped it back into the drawer. She slammed the drawer so hard, that the metallic crunch frightened her into a scream.

I had placed similar notes in a dissimilar pattern, sporadically over the last three weeks. I didn’t tell anyone about the notes. Well, almost. I did laugh about it with my buddy Tim, as we practiced Cross Country after school. I know that was stupid, but we both had Bauer for English and we ran several miles together everyday. We had to talk about something.

He got a kick out of it.

Besides, it wasn’t like I was the only one fucking with her. Well, maybe I started it, but like I said, nobody knew… at first.

It turns out the lady was a nut job and prebucent teens can be the evilest pieces of shit in the world.

I’m sure all of us that tormented that women just thought we were being funny.

I’m sure that woman didn’t think us tormenting her was funny at all.

She somehow let her personal diary get out into the school population. Her deathly fear of cats and dalliances with her personal Psychiatrist, Dr. Fishbine became the fodder for every atrocity a teenager could think of. Nightly crank calls, notices of her infidelities burned into her front lawn and the run of the mill TP’ing and egging plagued her the entire year.

Oddly enough, my little prank went on in the beginning of the year and ended before the New England trees even thought about changing color.

I had completely forgotten about the notes, four in total, that I had slipped onto Ruth Bauers desk. They were just a joke and I thought she would get it because one of the book she had us read was by Paul Zindel. That is why I was shocked to see my dad standing in the Main Office as I went to the Library. I knew I was in trouble…fucking duh…but I was trying to figure out what exactly I had been caught doing. I had skipped a few classes, my math teacher caught me smoking and had moved the librarians car down to the IGA when she gave me the keys to put some boxes in her trunk. All of those things could have been enough to bring Dad down to school.

I wasn’t surprised when I was called out over the schools PA to “Come on down to the Front Office.”

I was surprised, a little, that I didn’t have to park my butt for fifteen minutes in one of the green vynled chairs with metal arms that are riveted together agains the glass wall that shields all the administration staff from the populace. I was told to go right in.

Nothing sucks more than walking into a room full of cops.

They even had an F.B.I. agent and a handwriting expert.

They all admitted they couldn’t pin it on me but a bunch of people had said it was me.

I looked at my dad.

I didn’t give him that “Save Me Daddy!” look.

I just looked at him and saw his expression. He didn’t want to be there. He hates cops. I know he hates cops.

I looked at him and I knew he knew I did it.

That feeling was more punishment than any of those jarheads could bring on me.

I confessed.

I was then promptly handcuffed and led out the front doors to a squad car.

As I was escorted to the squad car, my buddy John Chase yelled out from his classroom window, “Hey Ferguson, How does it feel to get cuffed and stuffed.”

For a second it seemed pretty cool, then I wondered if it was really worth it.

The officer palmed the back of my head and pushed me into the backseat of his squad car. I heard the cackle from the radio under the dashboard. I looked out the window and saw a bunch of adults pretending that any of this will matter in a hundred years. It was just some words.

Placed in the right order, at the right place and at the right time, words can mean everything.

Was it worth it?

Yeah, it was.