Play Time
Still lazing around on her float, Junior’s mom was going on and on about his dad to whoever was on the other end of the phone. As usual when she mentioned him, her voice was slurred and boozy and caustic. She talked on the phone incessantly, usually trying to manipulate party invites to celebrity homes. A few minutes later, she finally hung up. She rose up on one elbow and found his place on the chaise longue.
“Junior! Go fetch me a cold drink! Hurry it up, I’m dying of thirst out here!”
Oh, yeah. Junior wished. He sat up. She had turned over on her stomach now. He’d never seen anybody wear a bikini bottom that tiny, not even in the porn flicks he sometimes watched. His father had called her a slut the night he walked out for good. Junior had viewed their knock-down-drag-out fight through the upstairs bannisters. That had been the very moment she started on her way to being the richest divorcée in Los Angeles, and there were lots of wealthy women in that First Wives Club in southern California. All Junior liked about her anymore was her cash, so he had to remain docile and obedient until his twenty-fifth birthday, when his gigantic trust fund kicked in. That’s the only thing his dad had ever done for him, but Junior should really send the thank-you note to his mom’s greedy attorneys. He stood up and walked down the patio to the outside kitchen area. He pulled a frosted cocktail glass out of the fridge, poured booze all the way to the brim, and popped in the green olives and lemon twist, just the way she liked it. She hardly ate anything anymore, just drank, all day, every day. Her goal was to be the skinniest woman in her group of anorexic skeletons. She really was so unbelievably neurotic. Absolutely pathetic. She needed a shrink in the worst way possible.
Good old Lucky had disappeared now, probably inside the house, stealing their silverware or waiting naked in his mom’s bed. Nauseating, all of it. Junior walked to the edge of the pool. “Here you go, Mom. I fixed it just the way you like it.”
His mother didn’t deign to open her eyes. “Well, bring it out here to me. You sure as the devil need to get some exercise. All you do is lounge around the pool or hide yourself down in that dark and gloomy game room. You act like you’re some kind of creepy vampire or something. You better start swimming laps. You’re getting pudgy.”
Junior resented that. He was not getting pudgy. Not even close. She just said things like that to put him down. He had some weights downstairs that he lifted every day after school. He swam laps every morning while she slept till noon. Truth was, he was probably as strong as Lucky. He just didn’t have those kinds of bulging muscles, but he was smart. He was going to be the valedictorian. He got off on knowing more than anyone else, understanding everything thrown at him. That’s why he loved to play games. Especially brain games, board games, or video games. Any kind that made you have to think.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Junior? Get out here with that drink. I said I was thirsty. Can’t you hear me? What the hell’s the matter with you? You’ve been moping around for months.”
Sometimes when Junior had to listen to her degradation and insults, he got this weird feeling twisting up inside his gut. It struck like lightning and burned, a rapid internal streak of tamped-down fury, red and lethal and hot. This time, too. His throat went dry and his palms got sweaty. He tried to shake off the murderous impulse sliding into his mind, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been lying out there for hours internalizing his rage. Day after day after day.
Junior took a deep breath, then descended the steps in the shallow end and waded out to where his mom was floating. Her body looked hard and shiny, and the smell of the tropics enveloped him. He hated that smell now. He hated anything with lime or coconut in it, too. Even coconut cream pie. He held out her glass. “Here you go, Mom.”
“Thank you, sweetie.” She took off her sunglasses and actually smiled at him. “See, darling? You can be adorable when you want to. You were the most darling little boy. I really hate it that you grew up to be such a pain in my ass. Please try to do better.”
“I will, I promise.”
They shared a phony smile that had not one iota of true feelings. Sometimes she was okay. Not often, but right now, she was sort of, almost, okay. Well, not really. He still hated her guts and wished she were dead. Sometimes he just wanted to kill her, wring her scrawny neck and be done with it. He envisioned putting his hands around her throat and pressing his thumbs into her gullet until he heard bones crunch, then watching her face turn purple. Just the idea made him feel good inside. He often gazed at her and wondered if he could get away with it. Right now, even. Wouldn’t that just be great? To just do it, end her, once and for all? That sounded downright sublime.
While Junior stood beside his mother’s raft, she took a long drink of the martini he’d prepared. Then she turned over onto her back again. She relaxed and closed her eyes. That meant he was summarily dismissed, menial labor done, so get the hell away. Junior gritted his teeth. She was displaying her body for Lucky to see, as if she were up for sale, even right in front of him, her own son. More anger erupted inside his chest. Suddenly, and almost before he knew what he was doing, he grabbed her by the fat bun of bleached blond hair on top of her head and jerked her body off the raft. For the first few seconds, she seemed too shocked to fight back. Then she started screaming and struggling and cursing him. That’s when he grabbed her oil-slick shoulders and pushed her head down under the water. Clamping his jaw, he exerted all his strength and held her under so she couldn’t come up for air.
When his mom finally managed to jerk out of his brutal grip and make it up long enough to suck in a big lungful of air, her big brown eyes were bulging with anger and panic. After that, she fought against his tight hold for all she was worth. Probably because she was close to death now, and at the hands of her very own son. She knew that any minute could be her last on earth. She knew all that full well, and somehow Junior found that gratifying, that she would die knowing he hated her and wanted her dead. That he was ending her life with his own two hands and watching it happen, calmly and objectively, with no emotion whatsoever. Actually, that even surprised him a little bit. His mom had never been a quitter, though, and she fought harder and harder. Her legs came out of the water, kicking furiously as she jerked her body from side to side, splashing and roiling the water like a freakin’ alligator, for God’s sake. She was so oily and slick that Junior was afraid for a second that he wouldn’t be able to hold her under long enough, not now that she was in this all-out, to-the-death fight. The actual act of murder wasn’t turning out at all like those fantasies he’d enjoyed when he was in bed at night. Maybe he should have murdered her in her bed with a pillow.
Somewhere outside the roar filling his head, he heard someone shouting at him. The sound burned through his blood enough to make him look up. That’s when he saw the pool boy. Lucky was standing on the side of the pool, yelling and gesturing, but Junior couldn’t hear anything over the splashing and the noise in his ears and his own determination to put his mother down for good. He tightened his grip when he saw Lucky jump in the water and head out toward them. Junior continued to wrestle her under, yelling for Lucky to back off and mind his own business.
“Get outta here, Lucky! I mean it!”
Lucky was already to him, but he didn’t do anything, just laughed and watched and didn’t try to help Junior’s mother at all. At first, Junior couldn’t believe his eyes. Then the pool boy grabbed his mother’s legs and trapped them under one arm. The violent kicking stopped. Then he grinned at Junior. “If you lay on top of her to hold her down, she’s not gonna have bruises that’ll look suspicious to the cops. Hold her head down by her hair. Then you won’t leave marks around her neck, either.”
Junior was more than happy to give Lucky’s suggestions a whirl. As it turned out, Lucky’s techniques worked rather well. Lucky held tightly to her legs while she bucked and tried to twist loose. After a minute, he started chuckling. “Your mom’s such a freakin’ bitch. I saw the way she bossed you around and called you names. But she’s stronger than she looks. You better be glad I forgot my phone and came back to get it or she would’ve gotten loose and sicced the cops on you. You’d’ve spent the rest of your life in Folsom Prison.”
Still holding his mother down, Junior stared at him, waiting for her to swallow enough water to drown. Grinning at each other, they both held on to her for dear life until she finally gave up the ghost. Then they kept her down a little longer after that, too, just to make sure. After a couple of minutes, Lucky let go of her legs. They both watched her sink slowly down to the bottom and then float back up to the surface. Then Junior let go, too. His mom’s body bobbed slowly away, floating facedown in the water, her long blond hair loose now, and streaming out on top of the surface.
Lucky rubbed an open palm down the back of her naked thigh. “She was a good lay, I’ll give her that. When she wasn’t too drunk to give back.”
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” Junior said, very serious. Lucky jerked a quick look at him, and then they both laughed together. Junior felt nothing but relief. No sadness, no guilt, no remorse, nothing at all. He was truly happy for the first time in ages.
“Yep, a witch she surely was. Congrats on a job well done.” Lucky held out his hand, and Junior shook it. In that brief moment, they became partners in crime and inseparable friends.
“Thanks for the help,” Junior said, really meaning it.
“Guess you’ll get all her money now, huh? That’s why you killed her, right? For your inheritance?”
“Yeah, I’ll get every penny. But I killed her because I hate her guts.”
“Don’t blame you. I hated my mom, too, before I took off.” He glanced back at the dead body and nodded, content. “All that money can buy us some big-time fun.” Lucky started laughing again. “Bet she didn’t expect you to just up and murder her. You do have some guts, I’ll give you that. Very impressive, Junior. I wouldn’t’ve thought you had it in you, man.”
Lucky’s high praise made Junior feel good. He was beginning to like this pool boy a lot. “How about we spend it together? Unless you intend to turn me in to the cops or blackmail me. Then I’d have to kill you, too. Don’t think I won’t. Because I will, Lucky, better believe it.”
“Maybe you would. Or maybe I’ll kill you first. But hey, know what? No need for us to talk tough like this. I won’t tell anybody what we did. What? You think your mom’s the first woman I’ve killed?”
Junior didn’t know what to say to that. Surprised by Lucky admitting to committing murder, Junior just stared at him. But he was seeing the guy in a whole new light now.
Lucky grinned back, then turned and waded out toward the shallow end. He stopped at the steps and glanced back at Junior. “If I were you, man, I’d get the hell out of here right now and get yourself a damn good alibi. Looks open and shut to me. Your mom’s been drinking like a lush all day, that’s the good thing about all this. She’s got to have a huge blood alcohol level. The cops’ll think she passed out and rolled off that float and drowned. You might even get by with a few bruises on her, the way she works out at the gym every day. You’re home free with the cops, trust me. But right now, we gotta get going before your cook shows up. She comes in at four to cook dinner, right? That doesn’t give us much time to work out our alibis.”
Junior sloshed out, too, and watched Lucky pick up a fluffy white towel and dry off. He was really curious about Lucky now. He grabbed a towel. “Hey, Lucky, you really mean you’ve actually killed somebody before?”
“What do you think? Don’t know you well enough to start spilling my guts. This your first one?”
“Yes.” Junior glanced back at the body. “Just my mom. Never really wanted to kill anybody else.”
“No worries, you’ll get used to it. And then you’ll like it, trust me. I’m just glad I was here to help you hold her under or you might be headed off to the hoosegow right now. And know what would’ve happened then? They’d have thrown you inside a loony bin for the criminally insane. That’s what they did to me when I was thirteen, but I escaped after a couple of months and took off. They never caught me. Thus, the name Lucky.” He laughed some more.
“Who’d you kill?”
“I don’t know their names. Didn’t ask.” He hesitated, and then he said, “I guess I can trust you after what we just did. Who’re you gonna tell without me telling on you? Once, when I was driving my truck over to clean this lady’s pool, about seven or eight months ago, I guess, I just ran this guy down who was crossing the street with his little dog. It was over in Glendale, and nobody was around. Street was completely deserted.” He shook his head and rubbed the towel over his hair. “It was crazy, bro. I just got this sudden, uncontrollable urge. Probably like you just did with your mom out there. That’s what happened to you, right?”
“Yeah. I didn’t plan to do it, not really. I got mad, and it just happened.”
“Looks like we got a lot in common, huh? C’mon, let’s get out of here. You got someplace to go, where they’ll remember seeing you and can alibi you later?”
“I guess so. There’s a big chess tournament at UCLA that started at noon. I’m sure it’s still going on. Everybody’s concentrating on their games and stuff, so nobody will probably notice when I come in. They’ll just notice that I beat the crap out of them.”
Lucky nodded. “That’s right, you’re the big brainiac at school, aren’t you? Something tells me that we’re gonna have some fun together, you and me. Just wait and see. I’ll be the brawn and you’ll be the brains.”
Junior hoped so. He glanced back at his dead mother’s corpse. She had floated over and bumped the top of her head against the side. Strange, but he felt exactly nothing. Just an overwhelming urge to smile and congratulate himself on a job well done. Right now, however, Lucky was right. Junior needed to get as far away from his house and his mom’s dead body as humanly possible. Lucky had already disappeared around the side of the house, heading for his old Dodge truck. Junior ran down to his bedroom in the basement, threw on some clothes, and headed for the triple car garage.
His day was certainly looking up.