Work Text:
Dear Andre Kriegman:
It’s been a while since the last time seeing you. I didn’t die that day. On that May 1, 2001. Surprised? You asked me to count down three two one shoot, and you obeyed without the slightest hesitation. You dumb ass. I always felt I was cleverer, and it was proved right. You pulled the trigger, I didn’t.
After you shot yourself I stood up beside your body. I had never looked so close to a body with a hole under his chin. I expected a shattered skull, but no, only a string of blood came out of your head. I was amused, so I picked up my .30 carbine and pointed it at your face and fired four times until it ran out of rounds. Your silly pulp of brain scattered out, nothing but pinky red. What else could I expect?
Satisfied. I dropped the guns and arranged them around your body. I bent your legs flat from that dumbfound kneeling posture. The phone ceased repeating itself with “Andre, Andre CAN YOU HEAR ME?” because they knew you were dead. They didn’t know my name yet.
Before the media people arrived there was silence. Into the bathroom I strolled to check my appearance, maybe comb my hair a little, although I didn’t have my comb, so it won’t appear so fucked up in the newspaper. I looked into the mirror, and whoa, if there was blood, it was yours.
I lied on the shit-green carpet. I climbed onto bookshelves, I stamped on the tables, I threw chairs to the window, I pulled out Lord of the Flies and The Great Gatsby and the New Testament and teared them into pieces. In the library there was no one but me. After, I think, twenty minutes, finally the din rushed towards here. There were flashes, snaps, microphones, warning tapes, those yellow and black ones, people with cameras and golden-rimmed glasses, people with black helmets, black tactical vests, much thicker than those in your closet, with fully loaded semi-automatic rifles, I wished what we held was them, with badges that read "SWAT". Funny that five such armed men were sent to take me.
They flung me to the ground and my arms were pulled aback. "Out of bullets! I'm out of bullets!" I screamed, as my head was crushed to the floor by a huge hand. I tasted the carpet. I was handcuffed, stamped once more, gun barrels and microphone pressed against me. Somewhat I thought we will die in the same manner. In an instant people backed away holding their noses. I found myself vomiting and almost choked.
The orange uniform was like the one you wore on last Thanksgiving, when I was startled by how dumb you looked in that bright color. I had to hold the pants up to keep it from revealing my underwear. In this little room the cop breathed in my face, "tell me, Cal, what kind of person was Andre Kriegman?" I looked down to my bruised hand. Since met you I had quitted biting my nails, now they were full-grown. What they asked me, sometimes bluntly and sometimes whispers, were all meaningless humming which kept stirring my concentration. Can I see his body? I asked, and was denied.
I was brought to custody, to where they sent my relatives and friends. "Why? Cal, fuck you, why?" Rachel slapped me twice. I let her. "Brother had stolen something in Walmart. Something very bad, very serious, okay? We will meet at home soon ... " Mom whispered to Eric, covering his eyes when they exited the door. Useless effort; Eric had been fascinated in you since your first visit to my house when you told him what it is like blowing someone’s head up with a .44 magnum. "Was the Kriegman German? Neo-Nazi? ... No?" "Cal's a good boy! He never even cursed! He never ... he never ..." Good boy, am I? Fuck, you tell her. The TV was filled with our names. We’ve fucked up this country and every high schools. You know they were now taking all the students who wear camo T-shirts and cargo pants?
I asked once again to see your body; a picture was good. No, they said before shutting the door. In jail I barely slept, killing time by picturing your face, a bloody pulp, and suddenly it became plain, freckled, stupid. I recalled your plumpy cheeks, which appeared fatter than usual in the DV and your rearview mirror. I recalled when you were driving across the streets to Iroquois. I recalled, whenever I watched you saying the lines you’d written to the camcorder, you see me leaning aside, while I was picturing to wobble my fingers into that mouth, into your nostrils, gouge out your eyeballs, crack open your skull, put my arm into it and stir, to prove me you were not a shit-talking robot. Your brain smelt like SPAM, ‘cause we were having SPAM for lunch.
The trial started after four months and lasted for three weeks. I had been biting nails again that my fingers had never stopped bleeding. Our Zero Day tapes were played in the court. You don’t know how they enjoyed your Home Gun Review and “awwed” when we pat the cat. Some of them were already itching to try your skirt trick. A Chevrolet was parking right outside Iroquois. I threw my carbine away, dragged your body through the backdoor and stuffed you into the driver’s seat. Your disfigured lips parted and started, “You may ask, what do we do after this? Well, there’re a few options like hiding, plastic surgery, suicide” – your fingers counting – “Not very effective, so we have this Chevrolet” – you patted the steering wheel – “to take us to Canada. So how do you do this if you’re wanted? That’s why fake IDs are needed …” I heard your voice when the DA lifted our fake passports from the evidence table.
It was time for my testimony and I stood up. Don’t you all said that, you can do anything you put your mind to? I said, didn’t you all tell us, with a friend you can achieve anything that you’ve never imagined, anything you’d never success on your own? Didn’t you all tell us we will be something? Didn’t you all said we are born to change? A pack of lies! We did what we ought to do! We’ll steal a motor, get out of this fucking town, we’ll shoot up Mithill High, shoot up Yale, and we'll hijack a plane and crash the Empire State! I was almost shouting with the loudest voice I’d ever made. The whole court burst out laughing. We pulled out masks of Jason for you and leather face for me from our sports bag, I shouted hands on your heads to the passengers as you and I rushed to the cockpit, you hold the captain, I point the gun at his forehead. You get to the control table, start swiftly – I always think you may be a talented pilot – and we are heading straight to Wall Street.
I was charged with twelve murders, eighteen injuries and one mutilation of a corpse. Funny that you fired five more rounds than I did. My attorney tried to fight for me with insanity, but the twelve people told me that I should die. I’ve known that already.
I’m in a little waiting room now. Two cops are at my side. They said, in an hour I will be taken from here to the injection bed. I asked for a piece of paper and a pen, which is in the shape of a soft cock and is definitely not designed for human use but I’m sure you can still recognize my handwriting and this letter will be simply dumped in the bin after all. It’s been more than a year since Zero Day, while a month later will be two years since the day we started planning. I’d been no longer comforting myself by making up that I wanted to die in the first place, I’d been no longer lying to you that we were done, these thirteen months I found myself believing what you’d said about our future, while anyway all of them were gone in a gunshot like an empty mag. I’ve been dead already since that day. But we won; you won, I won, and the ARMY OF TWO should meet in hell to celebrate.
Cal
5.20.2002