“Listen to that wind,” she said. “Do you think
a storm is coming?”
He didn’t want to answer her. Yeah, there is a storm coming,
honey, Evan said to himself. Just you wait and see. He wished he never
had to hear her voice again. He had enough of her. The lies, the deceits.
Look at her, standing there in those tight jeans, as if nothing had
happened.
Well, nothing had happened as far as she knew. But he knew. He had
proof of her infidelity. Or should he say infidelities? One, two,
three . . . fifty. Who knows, who cares. Let the whore shake her pussy
wherever she wants. All he knew now was that he had to get away from
her and their sham marriage.
For ten years he had been faithful, ten grueling, fruitless years.
Their lives went nowhere, did nothing. No children. No stunning careers.
No bang, no kick, no rush, no thrill, no surprises. Marriage to her
was boiled grits breakfast, lunch and supper every day.
“Can you smell that Evan? Can you smell the wheat waving in
the wind? Oklahoma is so beautiful when the wind comes sweeping down
the plain,” she said.
The only thing I can smell is your treachery, he said to himself.
Maybe their lives were like a desert because she had been letting
strange men pick her garden of earthly delights bare.
She was definitely getting her rocks off with Steve. Evan heard him
on the phone with her over the partition at work. Evan wasn’t
in his own cubicle. He was in a co-worker’s, looking for a purchase
order, when he heard Steve mention her name. Kissimmee. That was her.
That was his wife. Which other parents would name their child after
the city she was born in, especially if that city had such an odd
Indian name. Kissimmee. Why the hell didn’t they name her Tohopekaliga.,
after the lake the city is on, he used to ask himself. “Kissimmee
means ‘Heaven’s Place’,” they always said
in defense of their choice. “She is our gift from God.”
Steve made a lunch appointment with her. At Evan’s home. Steve
had sex with his wife in their marital bed. The bed was carefully
made when Evan got home. Supper was ready to serve. She was showered
and casually dressed, and honey pleasant and southern smooth.
But every time he looked at her, he saw the face of a crone who had
wasted her marrow on sexual debauchery. Every betrayal was carved
in a wrinkle on her face.
Enough. He took the knife he had hidden in the seat next to him and
plunged it into her back. Thus to whores!
The next day, her body neatly buried in the basement, he sat dawdling
in his cubicle. Steve came along. “Hi,” he said, “I’m
introducing everyone to my future wife. We’re getting married
in a month. Her name is Casey Mae, Casey Mae Tyler. She works on the
fourth floor.”
Ron Pasquariello has written nonfiction most of his
life.
