Slice

CENTERBURG

Jenny Weiss had come out of one disaster of a marriage and wasn't about to leap into another just to bed down with Marc Thompson, cute though he was. She had little Jerry for one thing, a wild and precious two-year-old from the train wreck of a liaison that had swelled her belly with child and left her penniless and bruised and alone in Dayton, Ohio. When the grand and glorious and spectacular Mooney Kyle Shows came through for a week, compliments of the Dayton Jaycees, and Jenny had wandered down with Jerry to take in the sights, she'd seen Marc and Marc had seen her and the idea of a kid was no problem to this fast-stepper and first thing you know she was Cincy-bound in the passenger seat of the aging Thompson pickup, a decrepit house trailer locked to the tow hitch.

She'd taken to the carny life at first. The family-under-siege mentality had appealed to her and for the first year Marc hadn't let her come up for air to see the one-nighters and fortnighters of shows and carnivals that were their on-the-road life-style. Marc was a ride supervisor, and he'd gotten Jenny work with a variety of flat joints, including an alibi joint that she'd taken to pretty good and she'd worked alibis from then on. But she was starting to get the itch to settle down. Enough is enough. She was going to have to give Jerry more than this constant moving.

Jenny was twenty-three, with good legs, a great butt, a nice face wreathed in long, auburn hair, a sexy smile spoiled only by a cheapo cap job that dated back to her years in foster homes, and nice, high breasts, still firm after little Jerry. Nice little hooters that made the town creeps and marks drool and come back to drop more coins at the alibi. She didn't know what a bra was, and with her hair combed, some makeup, and a tight yellow sweater she could still make some heads turn and put a rise in some Levi's.

She saw the man in the car saying something to her but she ignored it. Townies were always yelling some shit—she didn't even listen. She was going to feed their dog and then ... Well, for Christ's sake.

“Huh?” She couldn't understand what the guy was yelling.

“...dering if you were with the show.” Something or other, the word “show” triggering a familiar note. She wandered over to hear what he's saying.

“What?” A big fat guy was sitting in the car, sunburned, smiling a friendly smile.

“Sorry. I was wanting to know if you were with the Mooney Kyle Shows."

“Yeah,” she admitted. Not thinking that it would be obvious to anybody passing the rides to see all the cheap trailers parked beside one another in back of the rides. Those would be the spouses of the show employees back there.

“Your last name is what?"

“Thompson,” she lied, warily.

“Doesn't your husband work over there?” He gestured toward the midway area. He must know Marc.

“Yeah."

“His name is—what?"

“Marc."

“Sure!” His face lit up, “Marc Thompson. I know him. Helluva dude."

“Really?"

“Me ‘n him use to work together."

“You're kidding. When?"

“Here's a photograph of Marc—I got it here somewhere when we were, uh—” She leans forward to see what he's got and sees him pointing the pistol and her heart almost jumps up in her throat, “HEY!"

“Listen to me. I won't hurt you if you do exactly what I say, but that sucker you're married to owes me money and if you don't do what I tell you right now, I'll put a hole in your head and you'll be dead in this fucking street."

“Hey, come on now—"

“Shut up,” he rumbles, keeping the barrel pointed at her and reaching under with his other arm and opening the door. “Get in here a minute—I want to ask you some questions."

“Huh uh, I ain't—” She's shaking her head and he raises the barrel up on the back of the seat where anybody can see the pistol.

“I SAID GET IN THIS CAR OR I'll SHOOT YOU I SWEAR TO YOU."

“Okay, okay, be fuckin’ careful with that thing,” she says, and slides in and there's people all over the place why aren't they helping me? She's right on the edge of screaming for help, so he lets her have one above the left ear. Not anything serious. Just a good firm slap with the long barrel of the pistol and she goes, “Owwwwwww!” Her head seems to drop to her knees and he rather gently pushes her to the floorboard as he gives the gas pedal a tap and they pull away from the spectacular Mooney Kyle Shows employee parking area. Soon they are where nobody could hear her. Her hand was just about broken as he pulled it back, cuffing it ferociously, all but dislocating her arm as he jerked her to a nearby tree.

“You shit-ass son of a bitch,” she cries.

“Get over her and suck this,” he demands halfheartedly unzipping his fly. But he was thinking about where he'd bury her.

“Fuck you, you fat slob."

“Suck it or die. Which will it be? You have three seconds and please no help from the audience.” He is just going through the motions and she is too angry to be afraid.

“Suck it yourself, fatso,” she tells him, straining at the cuff.

“Right,” he says calmly, pulling out the big fighting bowie and smiling his biggest smile. “You're going to be nice and tasty, I can tell that right now.” And he slashes her open across the front as she screams.

There is a second before he goes into the chest for her heart while she is still aware and in that beat she has time to think of her little Jerry and that she never got to settle down and she'd just learned to run the alibi and wasn't it a shame to die so young, and unfair and, shit, all of that in the one heartbeat or so, proving that sometimes your life does in fact flash before your eyes at the moment of death.