What Doesn’t Kill Her

My love for Italian food is, I’m afraid, one vice I just can’t resist. I’m afraid I tend to lose control, eating too much and too quickly, and while gluttony is, perhaps, a minor sin, it is still a sin.

So this evening, this very special evening, I force myself to eat slowly, to savor every bite of a single delectable portion. I will savor tonight’s task, as well. After a satisfying repast, there is nothing quite like doing God’s work to boost the metabolism. My deed for tonight is doubly delicious. Not only will I be doing His work, passing His judgment down on another unrepentant sinner, but I will be sending (rather graciously, if it’s not ungracious of me to say so) a gift to my reward, my prize, my Jordan.

Now that she’s back in the world, my world, it’s time I reintroduced myself to her, to let her know that I’ve been waiting for her, for such a very long and lonely time.

I have just the thing to welcome her back. I’ve been keeping track of a sinner who has an apartment at Archwood and 32nd Place. I could have dealt with her at any time, but there are too many sinners for me to address each and every one — I am but one simple man, after all. Once I started studying her, however, He showed me The Way. First, she bears a striking resemblance to my Jordan — the same long, black hair, same facial structure, same body type. One who didn’t know better might suspect them of being sisters.

This sinner is a fornicator. Fornication has its place, in the repopulation of God’s green earth. But this fornicator seeks only pleasure and self-gratification and, most of all, is an unrepentant, even casual killer. Do I exaggerate? She killed her own child by having it aborted. It is hard to imagine such brutality.

Or such shameless sinning. Mere weeks after committing the abomination of killing one of God’s children, she has lain with men who are not her husband. This woman (her name is Clare Deems) I have come to think of as the anti-Jordan. Please understand that any resemblance between this sinner and God’s Reward to Me Whose Name is Jordan is physical only. Clare is harlot-like whereas Jordan is pure, filth where Jordan is purity. Still, in a symbolic sense, Clare might be seen to represent the old Jordan. The Jordan before I came into her life to rescue her from a sinning world. (In Jordan’s defense, this was the world she was born into, and she did her best navigating it, and let us not forget she delivered herself to me as a virgin.) So Clare represents the past, and must be eliminated so that the new, the purified Jordan can take her rightful place.

At my side.

I’ve been watching this sinner for a while now. She is one of many that I check on from time to time, knowing they won’t change their wicked ways, knowing that sooner or later I may be called upon to visit them as a manifestation of the metaphorical Grim Reaper, to mete out His will for them. I can’t be everywhere. I can’t do everything. I have a lot on my plate, especially now that Jordan is back in this sinful place. Suppose she were corrupted before we could come back together? But no, such thoughts must not deter me. Keeping her close is a priority, but not my only responsibility. I am still busy with God’s work. After all, who was it that said, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop”? It’s not in the Bible, although Matthew 12:43–45 comes rather close.

Tonight, I’m standing in the shadows at the north end of the half-block-long apartment building where Clare Deems lives. I am in a raincoat, though there is no sign of rain. An inveterate sinner, Clare must be commended for her work ethic and regularity of habit. When her shift ends at ten, she will pull into the parking lot before ten thirty. The restaurant where she works stops serving at nine and, even if she picks up one of the male customers for purposes of fornication, she will manage to get home by ten thirty. It’s actually very impressive, but a well-organized sinner is still a sinner.

I check the lighted time on my cell phone — ten twenty. Any minute now. I glance east, looking for headlights, but nothing yet.

He will provide. I have faith. I have stood here several nights and kept vigil for Clare and every night, without fail, she has arrived on time. Now, it’s just patience that is required of me. And it doesn’t take long before I am rewarded. The headlights of her Kia Soul appear in the drive and I watch as she swings through the lot to her usual parking place.

As soon as she puts the car in park, I’m moving fast, but not running. I’ve rehearsed this a hundred times in the theater of my mind. She will turn off the lights next. There, good girl. She’ll open the door and when she gets out, her back will be to me. It will be the only mistake she needs to make. The last she ever will make...

She is as accommodating to me as she would be with any of her many lovers. She gets out of the car, yes, her back to me. She never hears me coming. From behind, lit only by the streetlight at the lot’s far end, she looks like Jordan. Though I know His will, I am tempted to do more. She reminds me so much of my prize, My Reward, that I feel myself having impure thoughts. Even as I do, my hand snakes out, wraps around her flat belly, and I pull her to me as my other hand covers her mouth with the cloth. I’ve soaked it in chloroform and it will render her unconscious quickly. In the meantime, she bucks and fights, rubbing against me, multiplying my impure thoughts, but she is no match for my strength much less my spiritual resilience. My face is buried in her neck and she smells good, but not like Jordan, who smelled so fresh and clean that sacred night. Clare’s scent is a combination of sweat, spilled beer, and some cheap perfume mixed with a sale brand shampoo. Earthly scents that one must admit have their carnal appeal.

Just as I wonder if I’m going to be exposed too long in this lot, she goes limp in my arms. Working quickly, I hit the unlock button on the key fob as I drag her around to the passenger side, tuck her in, as if she were slumbering or slumped drunkenly, and close the door. I walk back to the driver’s side, start the car, put on my seat belt, and pull away. Check my watch. Elapsed time, not even two minutes.

I could have dispatched her right there, but I have better plans. As we drive through the night, I glance over. She’s really not as pretty as Jordan — even with only the passing streetlights as illumination, that much is clear.

Twenty minutes in a car with an unconscious female might be dangerous, but she is important in my plan to remind Jordan of our time together.

When I get to the Ohio City Historic District, the neighborhood where I know Jordan now lives, I can’t resist driving by her apartment. I reduce speed as I pass her building, look up at the light barely visible through her closed venetian blinds. I smile as I suppress the urge to alert Jordan that I am so close.

But no. I am no hormone-rattled teenager, honking for his date to come join him. She and I will have a much more meaningful relationship than that, our bond already formed but soon to be forged into something eternal. And it will happen soon enough. Tonight, I have God’s work to do.

I consider leaving the body near her door, but that seems too obvious. While I want her to know I’m thinking of her, there’s no reason to be boorish.

Fairview Park is less than a mile from both her apartment and St. Dimpna’s. Close enough to make my point, and nice and quiet at this time of night.

I pull to the curb, extinguish the lights, then the ignition, before sitting and watching. The neighborhood is quiet. These are working-class people and will be up early to get to work. By now, nearly all of them are asleep. My only concern is the lonely soul out walking a dog or the insomniac who thinks a stroll in the cool air may make him drowsy.

Once I’m satisfied that Clare and I are alone, I get down to business. She has moaned softly once, and she may be close to coming around. I doubt she will regain lucidity before it is too late to matter for her. God has passed his judgment on her already — mine is simply the duty to carry out that sentence.

I get out of the car, go around to her side, and remove her from the passenger seat. Still no sign of another soul as I walk into the darkness of the small park, Clare slung over a shoulder. When I’ve reached the tiny grove of trees that passes for nature in this area, I drop her to the ground. She lands on her back, a tiny whimper emerging, but no movement.

Even in this darkness, it’s clear this is not Jordan. For tonight, she’ll do. Kneeling next beside the unconscious sprawl of her, I wipe stray strands of her dark hair from her face. In a cheap way, she is pretty. My arousal is returning, so I concentrate on my work. Removing the hunter’s knife from its scabbard in my waistband, I close my eyes, picturing the exact pattern of stab wounds I lavished upon Jordan’s mother. That should provide resonance, and a nice reintroduction. Showing Jordan I haven’t forgotten how cooperative her mother was, sacrificing herself. The woman thought she was protecting her daughter, when in reality what she did was deliver her to me.

Just as I raise the knife, Clare’s eyes drift open. They seem hazy and I can’t tell if she’s aware or not, though her body heaves at the first blow, ejaculating blood, then jerks a little thereafter, spurting more blood, but soon it is like stabbing a bag of grain, and bags of grain don’t bleed. The knife follows the pattern of Jordan’s mother. It performs its duty with divine guidance, as He works through me to hand down his justice. Technically, I suppose, I have taken her life. But He has taken her soul.

After, I lean over her, panting, unaware I had worked so hard, and from my exhilarated exhaustion, one might think I had followed my worst instincts and committed fornication upon this creature. But I have maintained control. To be with anyone but Jordan, from here on out, would be a sin, and I stay on the other side of sin.

I wipe the blade clean on Clare’s clothing, then put it back in its scabbard in my waistband. I take off the latex gloves I have been wearing since arriving at Clare’s building and wrap them and the chloroform rag in the raincoat. This package I will drop in a sewer or Dumpster later.

For now, it’s time to go.

But not until I’ve said a prayer for Clare.

Amen.