John Brandon - Citrus County

Mr. Hibma pressed his thumb into his jaw. “That hasn’t been decided yet,” he said.

Toby had gone against his own closely held wisdom, had gone and tried to bring something important to an adult, and he was getting what he deserved. He felt he could breathe again. Mr. Hibma didn’t seem to have anything else to say.

“I better go,” Toby said. “Before the pizza’s all gone.”

“None of this is personal,” Mr. Hibma told him. “Nothing, you’ll find, is personal.”

Mr. Hibma taxied past several pawnshops, a barber, a new chain restaurant that had decided to give Citrus County a whirl. He passed a sign warning drivers to watch for bears. stor. There it was, the mini-storage complex owned by Mrs. Conner and her husband. Mr. Hibma parked and went into the office, where he was greeted by a woman about his age who wore a ball cap. The Conners weren’t around, the woman told Mr. Hibma. “Just you and me,” she said. She smiled and jutted her hip. It seemed to Mr. Hibma that this woman liked him, and he combated this by acting businesslike. He asked for a price list and chose a 13 x 9 unit that went for $51 a month. Mr. Hibma picked out a heavy lock. He wrote the woman in the ball cap a check, waited for the code to the gate, then went into the storage area and drove around until he located C-63. It was cool, and taller than it was wide. Mr. Hibma fetched a lawn chair from his trunk, a pad and pen, and a tall can of iced tea. He pulled the door of his storage unit down, sequestering himself inside.

Renting this place was the next phase in Mr. Hibma’s campaign of friendliness toward Mrs. Conner. He’d begun bringing her coffee each morning, delivering it right to her classroom, and she was more or less eating out of his hand. When Mr. Hibma told Mrs. Conner about his acquisition of one of her storage units, he would gain her absolute trust. She would say nice things about him behind his back, stick up for him if other teachers gossiped about him.

Mr. Hibma had unfettered himself from the delusional project to mold himself into a standard-issue teacher, and he’d come to realize that all the energy he’d expended winning his victim over had not been in vain. It had been necessary. Everyone knew Mrs. Conner and Mr. Hibma were getting along now. When she turned up dead, Mr. Hibma could cry and express outrage like everyone else. He could say, “Why now , when I’d just realized what an inspirational, dynamic person she was?” He would mourn with the passion of the convert that everyone believed him to be. Everything was setting up for Mr. Hibma. He had to grit his teeth and weather the home stretch of the school year. It would take forever but it would also go by in a blink. If he couldn’t bring himself to do what needed to be done, it would be because of his weakness and nothing else. Mr. Hibma didn’t especially feel like a murderer, but maybe you didn’t until you murdered. He had never felt, particularly, like a non-murderer. Someone had to commit all these murders that were always being committed. Why not him? Why couldn’t his story be the story of a killer?

Mr. Hibma placed his lawn chair near the back wall and stayed quiet, the only noise the air conditioner, which was humping to keep the place at 78 degrees. He wondered what secrets were hidden in this place. What darkness had West Citrus U-Stor witnessed before Mr. Hibma happened along? What damning evidence was tucked away in these shadowy alcoves? None, maybe. Maybe it was all disassembled futons and china sets.

Mr. Hibma knew what the place smelled like. It smelled like his childhood attic — not a unique odor, just cardboard and mothballs. He wished he could remember more about his childhood, the period before adolescence, before his harrowing navigation of puberty. Those years when Mr. Hibma was a simple little fellow, wanting only to play and be fed and kept warm, looking up at the world without suspicion, were blurry. He recalled them in unsatisfying flashes.

He looked at the ceiling. He felt like he could hear his organs working, the muffled swishing of his heart. He felt the weight of his body pressing down on the chair. Mr. Hibma wondered what would have happened to him had he not been rescued from that nurse as an infant. She must’ve wanted a child badly, to give up her profession and commit a felony. Maybe she didn’t want just any child; maybe she’d fallen head-over-heels for Mr. Hibma, she who’d seen thousands of newborns. It was plausible that the love the nurse had for Mr. Hibma was the strongest anyone would ever have for him. On the other hand, maybe Mr. Hibma would’ve died had his parents not reclaimed him. On the other other hand, maybe he was supposed to have died. Maybe he was only supposed to have been in the world for several days, not several decades.

Mr. Hibma put his pen down. He opened his can of iced tea and drank from it. He’d figured out what to do about his lost grade book. He would institute an unfathomable system of extra credit. The system would be applied retroactively, muddying the waters of quiz averages and presentation scores to the point where even the most fastidious kiss-ass could not question her grade. Mr. Hibma’s new grade book would be a tornado of asterisks, checks, plus signs, plus signs within circles, smiley faces, and all in different colors, all blown about the columns at random. Under this system, the rich would get richer and the poor would also get some help.

Mr. Hibma heard a woman in clackety shoes enter the building. She walked past his unit and stopped a ways down the hall. There was the sound of a sliding door, what sounded like a huge deck of playing cards getting shuffled, and then the door sliding shut. The click of a lock. When the woman walked back by, her steps made a cushiony sound. She was wearing sneakers now. When the woman had exited and the door had closed behind her, Mr. Hibma took up his pad and pen. He had waited a few days so he wouldn’t seem anxious. So he wouldn’t say more than he wanted to say.

D,

My victim is tiny-minded and big-footed. There are several million like her but she is the one who matters to me. It is meant to be my plight to be tortured by her and women like her my entire life, and to never do anything about it except grow bitter, but I will shape the story of my life the way I want it shaped. I am no one’s sad sack character.

Mr. H

Toby walked onto the school grounds and went into the common area and sat on some carpeted steps until the warning bell sounded, then he rose and trudged toward the library to return his pole-vaulting manual and pay his fine. He sat through math and biology, skipped Mr. Hibma’s class, then, during lunch, went outside near the portables. He’d avoided Shelby all day. He didn’t want to be at school at all, but he didn’t want to be at home either. The pole vault season was ending that evening and if he hadn’t shown up at school then he wouldn’t be allowed to participate. For some reason, he cared about finishing the season. He wanted to do something the way it was meant to be done. One thing. Toby had been the first alternate for this final county meet and the kid ahead of him had come down with bronchitis. Toby was going to face the Asian kid.

That afternoon, at the meet, Toby felt an odd lack of pressure. Shelby, sitting in the stands with her knees together and her lips pursed, did not make him nervous. Coach Scolle did not make him uneasy with his disdainful looks. Toby knew that it was all busywork. You were supposed to be cheerful about the busywork and worry about the busywork, but Toby could do neither at the moment. All he could do was succumb to it. This track meet was busywork. Dreaming was busywork. Coin flips were busywork. The Asian kid called tails. The coin broke the peak of its arch and began zipping toward the ground and Toby shot his hand out and caught it.