Forgive me, Leonard Peacock

TWENTY-SIX

I’ve been watching the target’s mom framed in the kitchen’s bay window, the soft overhead light making it look like she’s in a film and the bay window is like a drive-in movie screen.

I decide to call the movie Mrs. Beal Makes Her Perverted Son His Last Meal.

It’s a boring picture in the literal sense, but it conjures up a lot of emotions inside me for personal reasons.

I remember Mrs. Beal being really stupid[55] but sweet on the surface when we were kids.

She would always order us a pizza whenever I was over at their house, regardless of whether we were hungry or not. There was always pizza. Pizza was ubiquitous. It’s like that was an official rule in their house—when guests under fourteen visit, there shall be pizza, pronto.

She was also always singing songs from the musical Cats. So much that I can quote the lyrics of many of the songs, even though I have never seen the show, nor have I ever listened to a recording of the musical.[56]

“Memory” was her favorite.

Although she also liked “Mr. Mistoffelees,” who was apparently clever.

It’s funny how I’m remembering all of this right now when I’m trying to use military euphemisms, and it makes me sad, because Mrs. Beal has no idea what a Charles Darwin-type favor I’ll be doing by killing her son, mostly because she has no idea who her son is—what he has done and of what he’s capable.

Not in a million years would she believe what her son made me endure.

She wouldn’t believe it because if she did, I don’t think she’d be able to sing songs from silly musicals while doing housework, and that’s her favorite thing to do in the world, or at least it was when I used to hang out with Asher back in middle school.[57]

I try not to think about her hearing the gunshots, her running into Asher’s room, her screaming, her maybe even cradling Asher’s blood-soaked head in her arms, trying to put his brains back into his skull,[58] and her endless weeping for a fictional boy who didn’t ever exist—the son she never had—because she believes her Asher is an absolute angel.

She never saw him change, or if she did, she chose not to believe it, which makes her just as guilty, just as culpable.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; I could never shoot Mrs. Beal in the face, because she’s always singing songs from Cats and never wronged me personally.

But when you really think about it, she’s to blame just as much as Linda is—and my dad too, regardless of whether or not he’s still alive in Venezuela.

These people we call Mom and Dad, they bring us into the world and then they don’t follow through with what we need, or provide any answers at all really—it’s a fend-for-yourself free-for-all in the end, and I’m just not cut out for that sort of living.

Thinking about all of this gets me feeling so low, and I’m shivering now.

“Come on, Target Asher. Ollie Ollie in come free. Come home so I can finish this once and for all,” I whisper as I watch gray-haired Mrs. Beal pull a small chicken from the oven.

The huge window frames her perfectly as she slices the meat and moves her mouth.

She’s singing again.[59]