A. Homes: The End of Alice

“Shhh. The neighbors will complain.” I don’t know why, but I reach for the knife, take it away.

“Give it back,” she says. “Give it back.” She comes toward me.

“I didn’t touch you with it,” I say. “I didn’t touch you. This is touching you,” I say, touching her with the knife. “This is fucking touching you. I didn’t touch you here.” I poke at her skirt with the blade. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then why did you do this to me?”

I have no answer.

“Why did you do this?”

“Why do you make me?” I’m crying. “Don’t make me.”

The first time it plunges in, there is resistance, but I’m angry, full of fire. I force it into her gut. The next one goes into her neck, a bigger splash, bright spray, the hiss of an artery. A hot, sticky fountain of blood douses everything. She makes a face and falls back on the bed, gurgling like a little girl, a baby with her rattle. Again I plunge in. She looks surprised. Again and again. I can’t stop myself. I have in mind only the beginning and the end.

She’s in pieces, splattered around the room. Rivers of blood form small tidal pools. I don’t know which blood is which, from whence it came. The scent is meaty, the putrid stink of slaughter. I’m embarrassed by the vigor, the extent of my outburst. It is as if I’ve lost myself, broken away.

Have I made my point?

I go outside. Blood is caked under my fingernails, leaving rust stains on my skin, dried flakes of it fall off my face. There is blood everywhere. The lights dim and stay that way. Sheets of rain move across the parking lot. A distant pop. A transformer blows and the lights go out completely. The red neon title of the place and the orange vacancy sign are gone.

On a night like this, one gets the false feeling that the rules have been waived, certainty is suspended. I am wet, cold, soaked. My bare feet are on the cement sidewalk. There is dark blood on my instep; I stick my foot out into the rain, it washes off, runs away. My cigarette sputters, burns unevenly. I spit twigs of tobacco. Far off, lightning flashes like someone flicking a switch in a house, wanting only to check something for a second, to look in and then turn the light off again and pretend it never happened.

It never happened.

It is morning. I am still outside. The cleaning lady comes.

“Can I go in?” she asks.

I don’t answer. Her cart is filled with everything she’ll need, towels, soap, deodorizer. She’ll make everything all right again. It will be clean and neat as if it never happened. She wears a mustard uniform, white apron, and yellow rubber gloves. She looks at me. I nod. Frankly, I’m glad to see her.

The end has arrived. I make a noise, a scream, a cry.

There is no real word for the sound I make, but it is large and loud and from the bottom of this pit, an open throat. Startling myself, as if awakened from a nightmare, I’m back in the room, but not out of the woods.

They are at the heart of things. The heart. A painful squeeze in my chest.

“Are you all right?” the black woman asks.

I remember everything.

“We really should get on with it,” the man says, looking at me carefully. “We’re running out of time.”

“Go on then, read the rest,” the white-haired lady says. “Cut to the quick.”

The secretary reads aloud: August 9, 1971, Chatham, New York, twelve-and-a-half-year-old Alice Somerfield is found dead in a motel room. Cause of death: multiple stab wounds — coroner counts sixty-four. Initial five on upper torso, jagged, indicative of struggle; remaining fifty-nine, smooth cuts, most likely occurring after death. Victim decapitated, her head positioned between her legs, weapon recovered at the scene — jammed in victim’s vagina. Buck hunting knife. Fingerprints on handle match accused. Lab identifies menstrual blood and semen in vagina, anus, and mouth of deceased. Accused apparently continued relations with victim after her death. Victim’s face and body covered in kisses. Accused dipped his lips in victim’s blood and then kissed deceased repeatedly. Victim’s blood found on accused’s clothing, hair, fingernails, ears, painted over his lower torso and genitals. Photographs and samples taken. End note: Accused oddly calm at time of his arrest, expressing gratitude to arresting officers.

It is enough now, more than enough.

To you alone I’ve told the tale, do with it what you will. That’s all there is, there isn’t any more. I’m out of breath.

The deal is done. I’m taken out, carried, permitted to pass. Finally free. It is summer, the end of summer now. I feel the tired heat that comes in August. There is sky and trees, a high wire fence, a long road, and at the end of it you are there, waiting for me.

So glad to see you, I say. Missed you so much, thought about you every day.

The author would like to thank Karl Willers, Amy Hempel, Jill Ciment, R. S. Jones, and JL — who listened so attentively from the pay phone — along with The Corporation of Yaddo and William Sofield/Thomas O’Brien and Aero Studios for the desk and title of Writer in Residence. And for their support along the way, the author thanks Sarah Chalfant, Andrew Wylie, and Nan Graham.