Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

Strangle, Strangle by Jacqueline Freimor

“Tiffany’s beautiful naked body was shining in the firelight. No, change it to: Tiffany’s beautiful naked body was shining in the tub. She sat up and saw the doorknob starting to turn. It was her husband! But he wasn’t supposed to be home until eight. Today she told him...” Alicia stops talking and looks at me accusingly. “I hope you’re getting all this down.”

“I’m up to the naked body part,” I say.

“Wil-liam,” Alicia says. Not Will, but William, emphasis on the first syllable. “Now I’ve lost the flow.”

“You could just use your tape recorder,” I point out. “I don’t write fast enough.”

She doesn’t say anything but flops down on the maroon leather sofa and covers her eyes with her hand like she can’t stand looking at me. It’s not so bad. At least it’s not The Look. I can’t stand The Look. Sometimes when Alicia gives me The Look I feel like my head is a balloon just about to bust into a million limp little pieces.

We’re in her father’s study because Alicia is writing a blockbuster bestseller so she can become a millionaire before she gets to college, maybe even before she gets out of ninth grade. She’s not doing it for the money, though, but to get famous. Alicia’s biggest wish in life is to be famous by the time she hits twenty-one. I tell her if anyone can do it she can. As for me, I’m just happy to go along for the ride.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” says Alicia now, sitting bolt upright on the sofa. “Ready?” She closes her eyes and speaks very fast. “Tiffany didn’t even have time to scream before he was on her like a wild animal. Her naked, glistening body flopped as helplessly as a dying fish as he squeezed her neck harder and harder. He wouldn’t stop no matter what she did. Something terrible was happening to her. She couldn’t breathe. She was passing out. She thought, he’s trying to strangle me, I can’t believe he’s trying to strangle me.”

I am writing as fast as I can. When I look up, Alicia’s face is a little pink. “Did you get it all?” she says.

“Yeah,” I say, “it’s great.”

Later, in my room at home, I try to read it back and see that I was writing too fast. Most of it is just a squiggle, but two words leap out at me, the only two I can read: strangle, strangle.

Sometimes in school I time out the teacher and remember things about Alicia. Like:

Alicia spits into her right palm, and I spit into mine. We grind our palms together to mix the spit, then wipe our hands on the grass of her lawn.

“Now we’re really married,” she says. We run into her house, where the cook gives us lemonade and sugar cookies.

Today, in Mrs. Hennessey’s English class, one of the bad ones is starting, but I know by now that I can’t do anything to stop it. I just have to let it play out and out until it’s done. It’s the one where Alicia and me are six years old and playing hide and seek. Alicia’s It, and I have a really good hiding place under her parents’ bed.

“Shh,” I tell Suki, Alicia’s new Siamese kitten, who’s rubbing against my head and purring so loud I am sure Alicia can hear it. Suki meows loudly, twice, then streaks across the room. I see Alicia’s bare ankles and her new red Keds start to walk past the doorway, then stop. I freeze. My heart is pounding hard, and I’m trying not to sneeze as a dust ball tickles my nose.

“I know where you are,” Alicia says, almost singing it, her feet coming slowly toward the bed. “I know where you are, and I’m gonna get you.” I’m so scared I fling up my head and hit it hard on the wooden frame. Tears spring out of my eyes. All I can think of is to get away. I scuttle over to one side of the bed, but Alicia’s hanging over it, her face upside down and red, her pigtails hanging to the floor.

“Boo,” she says.

I yell and crawl over to the other side. Her face is there, too. Her eyes are crossed, and she’s sticking out her tongue.

Back and forth we go. She doesn’t get tired, and I can’t fake her out. I can’t stand it under the bed. It’s hot and itchy, and I feel like I can’t breathe. Finally I just give up and start to cry.

“Crybaby,” Alicia says, and jumps off the bed. She gets down on the floor and reaches toward my hand. I look at her face, at her hand. “Come on,” she says, smiling.

I put out my arm, thinking she’s going to pull me out from under the bed.

She laughs a nasty kind of laugh and smacks my wrist with her palm, hard. “You’re it,” she says. She runs from the room, away from me, fast.

“William,” Mrs. Hennessey says, “have you heard a word I’ve said?” I look up, and my vision starts to clear. I see Mrs. Hennessey’s face all splotchy, the fat under her chin wiggling with every word. I start to laugh. And then, right in front of the whole class, she sends me to the guidance counselor because she says I have problems concentrating. As I leave the room, Alicia gives me The Look. I know she won’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

Basically, The Look is a mixture of things. Part of it is the face you make when you step in something soft and squishy in the street. And part of it is pity, like when teachers give you the textbook when everyone else in the class has to buy it.

Mostly, though, it’s hate.

You don’t want someone giving you The Look. Trust me, you don’t.

And what did I do that was so bad? I really ask myself that sometimes. That first time I got The Look, it was an accident. I swear.

I mean, it happened so quick. One minute I’m in the playroom with Suki, and the next minute Alicia’s crying and the kitten is lying on the carpet all broken and still.

“It was an accident!” I say. “She was scratching me, and I had to pull her off. I guess I squeezed too hard. I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

I tell this to Alicia over and over again, and finally she believes me. We bury Suki in the lot across from the railroad tracks and tell Alicia’s mom that Suki ran away. Alicia swears never to tell anyone, but she gives me The Look for the first time.

I don’t know why. It really was an accident, just like I told her.

What I never told her is how much I liked it.

Alicia and me are in my room doing our Spanish homework. I have to help her every Tuesday and Thursday after school because for some unknown reason this is the only class where I do better than her. I’m glad she’s here, in my room with me. I like it in my room. I’ve decorated the walls with more than thirty horror-movie posters, like The Thing and Phantom of the Opera and Mutant Nuclear Wasteheads from Hell.

“Tengo, tienes, tiene,” I say.

“I have, you have, he-she-you-have,” she says.

“Quiero, quieres, quiere,” I continue.

“This is boring,” she says and flops down on the bed to stare at the ceiling. Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street leers down at her, five silver knives flashing. “So’s this,” she says, pointing at Freddy. “Do you think you’ll ever outgrow this stuff?”

“Quiero, quieres, quiere,” I say again.

“Really, Will. You’re kind of obsessed with it. I think it’s sick.”

“I already have one madre,” I say. “Do you want to pass this test or not?”

“Fine,” she says, and sits up suddenly, rattling off the words. “Quiero, quieres, quiere, I want, you want, he-she-you wants.”

“Right!” I say. “Now: deseo, deseas, desea.”

“It’s... wait.”

“Okay,” I say.

“I’ll get it. I... no.”

“Keep trying,” I say.

“Look, I give up. What is it?”

“Never say die!” I say, and pose like I saw once in a picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware.

Alicia rolls her eyes and peeks at the workbook. “Hey,” she says, “it’s not even in this chapter!” She glares at me. I say nothing. “So what’s it mean, already?”

She looks so pretty sitting there that before I know it I push her down on the bed, pinning her shoulders with my hands. I am trying to kiss her, but she’s struggling to push me off, twisting her head around on the pillow to avoid my lips.

“Hey!” she says. “Cut it out!” She sounds more surprised than anything else.

I don’t let go. She fights harder. She’s pretty strong, but I’m stronger.

“Stop it!” she says, sounding scared this time. Then she rakes my cheek with her long, polished nails. My hands go up to my face and come away bloody. Alicia wriggles out from under me and stares at me, breathing hard. “What’s the matter with you?” she says. “Are you nuts?”

She grabs her books and runs to the door. Her face is pale, and she’s shaking. She looks madder than I’ve ever seen her.

“You better keep away from me,” she says. “If you ever come near me again, I swear I’ll call the cops. I swear!”

“Deseo is another word for I want” is the only thing I can think of to say. But she’s already down the stairs.

After she leaves, I sit in my room and think about doing this thing I do. I’ve done it so many times now that I don’t even have to think too hard about it. The secret is to cut off their air before they know what’s happening. A scarf is really good for that, or some string, because you can play with them first. They love to chase stuff like that around the room. They don’t even mind when you trail it over their necks, but you have to be able to loop it fast and yank hard. You have to do it fast, before they have a chance to scratch you. That’s really important.

Of course, you also have to be really careful to pick only strays. That way no one ever finds out. Especially Alicia.

I go downstairs to get my jacket.

It seems like all I have in my head lately is pictures of me and Alicia: me and Alicia collecting shells at the beach; me and Alicia with milk mustaches, eating chocolate chip cookies; me and Alicia in last year’s school play, she as Sleeping Beauty, me as the village shoemaker. I tried out for the prince, but Jason Silver got it. When he woke her with a kiss, she gave him this huge smile. I really admired her then. That’s when I first realized that she could be a great actress if she wanted.

Then there are those other pictures that make me feel kind of excited and ashamed at the same time. I try to make them finish fast; sometimes, though, they get stuck and stutter in my brain like those old black and white filmstrips they showed us last year in junior high school: “The Healthy Heart,” or “You’ve Entered Puberty!”

Yeah, right. Like it was some room you could just walk into and be turned into a different person.

I wish I were a different person. Maybe then Alicia would talk to me. She doesn’t call me up to help her do her novel. She walks down the hallways at school like I don’t exist, laughing with her stupid girlfriends and even talking to some of the guys. I want to tell her not to tell anyone, that I know what I did was wrong, and that I’ll never even think about it again, never. But whenever I get near her, she crosses her arms over her chest and narrows her eyes into evil little slits. And she turns away.

Jason Silver comes up to me in the locker room after gym, toweling off after his shower. He’s about six inches taller than me and has muscles. All the girls think he’s a hunk, according to Alicia.

Jason is not at all self-conscious as he flicks me with his towel. “Hey, Billiams,” he says, and grins. He thinks it’s hilarious that my name is William Williams, so the few times that he speaks to me at all he calls me Billiams. I don’t know why everyone thinks he’s so cool.

“Hey,” I say, “what’s up?” I’m suddenly aware of how white and freckled my skin is, and I quickly pull my jeans over my shorts.

He leans against the lockers with his arms crossed over his chest. “Let me ask you something, Billiams,” he says. “What’s going on between you and Alicia?”

I don’t like how he says her name, I don’t know why. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he says, “you used to hang around together all the time. Now you don’t.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “We had a fight. No big deal. She’ll get over it.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, and looks at the scabs on my cheek. Then he looks away, down the row of lockers. Finally he turns back to me. “Listen, she ever say anything about me?”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the way he says it and his grin, like he knows the answer already but he just wants to hear it from someone else, that makes me say it.

“Oh yeah,” I say. “She talks about you a lot.”

“Yeah?” he says. His face brightens up for a second, and then he fights really hard to look unconcerned. “So what does she say?”

“Well...” I say. I act like I don’t want to tell him.

“What?” he says, pushing.

“I don’t think you wanna know,” I say finally.

For a second he looks hurt, but then his eyes get hard and he laughs.

“Oh sure, I get it,” he says. “You’re such a dork. I don’t know why she ever hung around with a loser like you.” And he gives me a look of disgust and walks away, his towel trailing over his stupid musclebound shoulder.

“Dork!” I shout after him. “She thinks you’re a dork!”

I mean, she’s never said anything like that to me about him, but I’m sure she thinks it. I’m positive. How could she ever be interested in a loser like him? And then, without meaning to, I start remembering another bad one.

Alicia and me are eight, and there is a new girl named Karen in our third grade class. She’s skinny and has red hair and freckles. Her eyelashes are the orange color of SpaghettiOs.

“Karen wants to know where your father is,” Alicia says to me in the cafeteria. Karen nods.

“You know,” I say, “he’s dead.” I take a gulp of my chocolate milk.

“When did he die?” Karen says. It’s the first time she’s talked to me directly, even though she’s been in our class for two weeks already and follows Alicia around like a puppy.

“When I was a baby.”

“What did he die from?” Alicia says.

“Want to see something?” I say. I turn my eyelids inside out and roll my eyes up into my head. I make snarfing noises.

“Big deal,” Alicia says. Karen just looks disgusted.

“Let’s see you do it,” I say.

“So you don’t remember what he looks like or anything?” Alicia says.

“I told you this a million times,” I say. I take a big mouthful of chicken and rice and peas and chew it. Then I open my mouth so Alicia and Karen can see. “See food,” I say. “Seafood. Get it?”

“You’re so gross,” Karen says, wrinkling her nose.

“And you’re a stupid idiot,” I say. I am mad. I hate her.

“See, I told you,” Karen says to Alicia. “I bet his father’s not dead. I bet he never had a father.”

“Liar!” I say.

“He’s a bastard,” Karen says, again to Alicia. She turns to me. “You’re a bastard,” she says, “and your mother’s on welfare.” Her mouth is closed in a tight little smile, like she’s sucking on a lemon slice.

“Liar liar liar liar liar liar liar,” I yell. Everyone is looking at me, so I sit down.

“Come on,” she says to Alicia. They stand up, grab their trays, and start to walk away. I pick up a piece of chicken and put it in my plastic spoon. I aim carefully, and the chicken hits Karen smack on the side of her skinny neck.

“Hey!” she says. Now she’s mad. I’m glad to see there’s a little red mark where the chicken hit her.

And Alicia turns and gives me The Look.

“Hey, Billiams,” Jason shouts from his locker down the row. “You in a coma or something?”

I raise my head from where it’s leaning on the locker door. The cold metal is all fogged where I was breathing on it. Jason snickers, and the wetness disappears, leaving no mark.

Of course I believe it when I hear that Jason asked Alicia out, but I still can’t believe she said yes. It must be because he’s so popular and she wants to be popular, too. She told me that once.

So I’m following them. Who knows what he might try to do? She might need my help.

They go to the movies, some stupid movie. I don’t know which one, I barely watch it, but I think it is Terminator 2. Alicia is squealing at the scary parts and squeezing Jason’s arm. I can’t believe she’s squealing! I want to jump up from behind them, I want to yell, get real, who’re you kidding? Alicia is definitely not the squealing type.

After the movie, they go to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. I can’t go in because they’ll see me, but I can watch them through the big glass window from across the street. Alicia is walking up and down the store, staring at all the different flavors like she can’t make up her mind what to get. More lies. Whenever we go to Baskin-Robbins, Alicia gets Rocky Road. She always gets Rocky Road.

When they finally come out of the store, I see which flavor she picked. Strawberry.

They cross the street and sit on a bench right in front of the tree I’m hiding behind. They’re so close I can almost touch them.

“So,” Jason says, like he couldn’t care less, “you’re not going out with anyone, are you?”

“No,” Alicia says. “Why?” Her voice is breathy and high. I’ve never heard her sound like this before.

“I don’t know,” Jason says. “I sort of thought, like, maybe you and Billiams...”

“Oh no,” Alicia says, very fast. “He’s just a friend.”

Jason snorts. “How could you even be friends with him? He’s such a dweeb!”

I wait to hear what Alicia says. My heart feels like it’s being squeezed by a giant fist.

She laughs her nasty laugh. “I don’t know. I’ve known him forever — his mother used to come in to clean for us sometimes, and she always brought him with her. I mean, I’d never go out with him. I guess I feel sorry for him, you know? At least I used to.” She lowers her voice. “You know what he did to me a couple of weeks ago?” And she tells him about what happened in my room and how disgusting it was. They both laugh about it like it’s the funniest joke they’ve ever heard.

I stop listening. My heart is exploding, and I can’t breathe. All I can think is I can’t believe it. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

Until he kisses her.

He. Kisses. Her.

Right out on Northern Boulevard! I almost run to her then, no matter what she said about me. To help. To pull him off her, that pervert, that sex maniac.

And then.

She’s kissing him back.

All I can do is stand there. The kiss goes on and on. It will never end. People are looking at them, old people are looking at Alicia and Jason and then at each other, smiling. They are happy for them. One old lady points to Alicia’s ice cream cone, which she still holds in her hand. It drips slowly onto the ground.

And then I know what to do. What I have to do.

Even though it’s almost eight thirty and the sun went down half an hour ago, it’s still really warm out, and I’m sweating. I don’t mind admitting that I’m nervous, I’m really nervous, which just makes me sweat even more.

The thing is, I called Alicia yesterday and apologized to her. I begged her, really begged her, to forgive me for what I did that day in my bedroom. She finally gave in. I didn’t think she would at first, but she finally did. She even agreed to meet me at our special place down by the bay.

I bought her a present. Alicia loves presents.

God, it’s hot. My hands are all slippery. I wipe them on the sides of my pants, and suddenly Alicia’s here, walking toward me. She’s so pretty that I smile at her and for a second I almost forget. I almost forget, and then I remember.

What I remember is this:

She doesn’t love me. She’ll never marry me. She loves Jason.

Alicia opens the box with the scarf in it and smiles at me.

I almost forget, then remember.

The secret is to cut off their air before they know what’s happening, before they have a chance to scratch you.

Once I remember that, the rest is easy.

Strangle, strangle.