Bloody Knuckles

I press the rewind button on the phone’s answering machine with my bloodied finger. The message always starts out the same. “Hi, It’s Laura”, she says with her always matter-of-fact voice. “I was hoping to come by later to talk. Talk about your son. Don’t let this message get your hopes up either, Adrian. You and me…we’re never happening again. But your son misses you.” I sit in my chair in the hallway, the home is dark and swimming with the calm of silence. I take another long, hard puff from my cigarette and push the clouds upward, surrounded by the aftermath of what I’ve just done. She came to my home hours after she sent that message, pounding on my front door. I opened it, graced by the sight of her once again.

She’s wearing her favorite green denim jacket, her striped black-and-white T-shirt, her leather boots, and she’s coated with that expensive fragrance that she always wore. The memories began hitting me like a hammering right jab from a professional boxer. I remembered how much I loved the crispness of her lips, the soothe of her voice, the oceanic blue of her eyes, but especially, the warming color of her crimson hair. God, that hair gets me every time. “Blood Fire” I used to call her when we first met. I used to tell her she’d always be my blood fire, because Death be damned, I’d never let something come between us. But that was all before I began picking up the demon in a bottle. She barged into my home without even greeting me, or so much as looking at me, for that matter. Not even a full minute in her presence and she’s already pissing me off. “It reeks in here. More liquor-binging, I presume. Typical of you.”

I meet her judgmental statement with silence and sit myself on the couch in the living room. “Tell me what you want from me or complain some more about the shit-hole you’ve reduced me to. Either way, you’re leaving here quickly.” She takes a long glance on the floor for a moment and exhales audibly. “Your son…he wants to see you again. He…keeps asking where his father is and I can never give a clear answer. As much as it pains me to do it, I think I’ll let you come see him every other weekend or so. My home only. And only for an hour or two, tops. No more than that. Take it or leave it.” I almost forgot how much she hates me. Probably from how much I used to beat the ever-loving hell out of her in my drunken and not-so-drunken stupors.

I never let my son, Billy, see me like that though. I could’ve beat her to the bloodiest pulps all I wanted. I mean, with the amount of fury she always conjured up in me, she deserved it. Not my son though, not my dear, precious bloodline. I always protected Billy from daddy’s fists and abominations. “Don’t worry Billy, mommy was just being rude to daddy. We worked it out though”, I used to tell him whenever he asked about his mother’s consistent bruising and bloodied lips. I always told him that with a genuine smile on my face too. It's amazing how comforting a smile can be to a young child, even when he doesn't fully understand. I mulled over her offer for a moment, whilst giving a good stare at her eyes. Soon after that, I found myself staring at more than just her eyes though. Soon, my eyes were wandering, analyzing every piece of her body now. Her face, her legs, her breasts, her ever-so-angelic hair.

God, she’s so beautiful. It reminds me every time how much I lucked out when I got to be with her at all. How could so much anger and hatred be directed toward such a gorgeous human-being? I asked myself that every time when I’d bloody or redden my knuckles from punching her so hard, but to be frank? I could never give an answer. At least, not a truthful one. Some things don’t have explanations for how or why. Some things just are. I loved her though. I loved the way she moved, the way she looked, the way she spoke, hell, even the way she breathed. It’s easy to destroy beautiful things like her, but hard to love them unconditionally, I suppose. “Well? Do you want to do it or not? Doesn’t matter to me either way.” she said, disrupting my train of thought. I give her a slight nod and the response she’s been dreading. “Fine, I’ll take your compromise. But Laura? I want to ask something. How many years have we been apart now?”. She frustratingly put her head in her hands, “Adrian, I know where you’re taking this and I told you this isn’t what’s going to happen. Ever again. Now, I’ll let you see Billy next weekend. After an hour, you’re done.”

She began walking towards the front door, but I leapt off the couch and caught her by the hand. As she turned around to me, she gave me a furious stare that only she could achieve. It’s ok to me though. She’s cold, but she melts like snow. “I want you. And this isn’t me in a drunken daze right now, this is me. And I’m telling you, I want us to try again. I miss Billy more than anything, but Laura? I miss you.” Laura loses her expression of anger and contempt but swaps it out for one of disgust and pity. “Are you out of your damn mind? Let go of me.”, she replies as she tries to get out of my grasp, but I tighten my grip on her hand. I didn’t want to let her go, I didn’t want to let go of a future of me and her and Billy as a big happy family. This time I’ll make things right, I’ll make her believe in me again. “I know you like what’s on my mind, Laura. I know it eats you up inside. Just let me show you how we can be like we used to.”, I tell her sternly. Laura stops trying to wiggle out of my grasps for a moment and pierces my very soul with her gaze. It doesn’t hurt to admit, that for a moment there, she actually briefly put the fear of God in me.

“Let me be clear to you, in a way that someone as fucked-up in the head as you would even understand I hate you. If it were up to me, and I wasn’t trying to please Billy…I’d let you rot in your filth. I’d never contact you for the rest of our lives and let you die. Die alone, like the scum you are. You, Adrian, are truly beneath me.” The future is shattered. There is no us, there is no me and Billy, there is nothing. Laura looks despicably upon me and I hate it. To my own dismay, I began tearing up. I haven’t cried for years, but the words she said. I lose my grip on her hand. She begins going for the door again. No, no. Not like this, I tell myself. I couldn’t let her win. Not like this. I shove my hand on the door just as she begins opening it, effectively trapping her there with me. What she said and what she’s done has awoken something in me. I feel it all rushing through my body, so pure and so unbridled. I don’t know what it is, but it fuels me, nourishes me. This isn’t just anger or rage, no. No, this is primal instincts. Tears are flowing down my checks, but I can feel the power emitting from my stare in the reflection of those blue eyes.

Fear doesn’t even begin to describe Laura’s look. “Adrian, what are you doing? I want to go, let me out. Now, goddammit!”, she says. Something finally snaps within me and with force I didn’t even know I had, I pick her up by the throat with both hands and chuck her on the hard-wood floor behind me. She tries to scamper away from me, but I clamp my hands on her leg as she’s on the ground and begin to pin her down with my body. I’m towering over her, as she’s frantically trying to get from underneath me. She’s crying and screeching to the absolute best her precious lungs can do, almost as if she hopes God himself will swoop down from the Heavens to deliver a swift justice. But God's not here, Laura. I am. I begin punching her with all the might my fists and elbows can conjure up. Then I hit her again. And again. And again. Over and over again. Each hit more explosive than the last. Each punch vibrating with strength. I can feel her skull resist against the forces but it's futile. I crack that fucker like a newly bought egg. The screams emanating from her slowly turn into groans. The groans slowly turn into silence. And I look down upon the bloodied work I have created with my bare hands.

Her face, once so beautiful and angelic, now a hellish host of blood and exposed bones. My hands are quivering from the sheer amount of force I was releasing with each rage-induced blow and my knuckles are soaked and dripping with blood, partly her own and partly my own. The adrenaline is still pumping at full force throughout my body, so I don’t even feel the pain. It’s done. The wicked bitch of the west was dead and gone. And all of the land of Oz was going to live happily ever after from it. I stand up from the corpse, grab a band saw from my garage, pick up the body and plop it into my bathtub. What came next was a surgical operation the likes of which even the world’s most skilled brain surgeon would marvel at. I sawed and ripped through every flesh, muscle, bone, and cartilage with such ease and patience, ridding the corpse of all its ligaments, viscera, and blood, all within my own bathtub. It was a dirty process, but I don’t mind. I’m a dirty man.

I finally began sawing off the head and once it was done, I looked into its eyes for one solid moment. There was barely much of its former self left from my wrath-filled assault, but the eyes remained perfect. They remained blue, oceanic, and bright as ever. Even in these moments, they remain ever so captivating and beautiful. I guess that’s the one beautiful thing my hatred couldn’t destroy. But I couldn’t help but gloat for a moment. I gave a sly smile toward the mangled, severed head and declared silently to myself, “I win.” Afterwards, I finished draining the body of its fluids, dumped the head, the torso, organs, and the other limbs within a garbage bag and tossed it in the trash bin in the back of my home. The body is the problem of others, and no longer my own. And here I am. I sit in the hallway, puffing a smoke from my favorite pack of cigs, taking pleasure in the battle scars of my bloody knuckles, and marveling at the pool of blood that I wish to remain there as a trophy of my victory.

I rewind the last message that she sent to me just before coming here on my answering machine. “Hi, it’s Laura.”, it says. “I was hoping to come by later to talk. Talk about your son. Don’t let this message get your hopes up either, Adrian. You and me…we’re never happening again. But your son mis- “, the message cuts off abruptly. Damn answering machine’s getting old, it’s nothing much to it. I take an observant look at it for a moment and find nothing wrong with it. I press the rewind button once again to hear her soft voice. This is the last time. After this, I’m done, I’m wiping myself clean. Her presence will no longer be a burden on my damn conscience. “Hi, It’s Laura.”, she says. “I was hoping to come by later to talk. Talk about how you killed me, Adrian. How you murdered me, you son of a bitch.” My skin runs cold for a moment and I immediately drop my cigarette on the floor, without even noticing.

“What the fuck?”, I blurted out in a frightened, shaken voice. “You heard me. You. Murdered. Me! I know it was you. I know, and so will everyone else! I KNOW IT WAS YOU!”, she’s yelling at this point and I can feel the vibrations of her voice practically running on across my skin. How the hell is it possible? Di-did I even kill her to begin with? I immediately unplug the answering machine to no avail. She’s still screaming and going on about how I murdered her. On and on, over and over again. I murdered her! I murdered her! I murdered her! “Shut the hell up!”, I screeched, nearly blowing out my own lungs. She begins laughing, practically cackling at me. “Oh, what’s the matter, Adrian? Are you afraid? Are you afraid of me? After years and years of dealing with being underneath your thumb, now I scare you? Well, get used to it. It’s time you feared ME!”, she says in a demonic voice that feels like it was concocted by Satan himself.

“You think I’m afraid of you…? You!?! You’re even more delusional dead, than when you were alive!”, I reply with a stern voice of authority that I used each time I beat her down to her goddamn knees. She’s beneath me. Below me! I pick up the answering machine, still hearing her distorted cackling on about me being pathetic to Billy and smash it on the ground. I do it over and over again, until there seems to be nothing left, but she’s still going. She’s still going and God, it won’t stop! Make it all stop! “Aww, Adrian doesn’t like hearing me, now does he? I’m here to stay. Forever, Adrian. Each day you wake up, you eat, you breathe, you shit, you piss, I’ll be here mocking you and spitting on your very soul with my voice. I’m never leaving you, like you wanted Adrian. Never”, she says in a maniacal, mocking voice.

I can’t do it. I can’t let her win. I beat her once, I sure as hell can do it all over again. I go up to my room and grab the .44 Magnum from the drawer. It was always meant to be used for protection. In this case, I must protect my pride. I must protect my image. For Billy's sake. She thinks her filthy mouth will remain with me forever. Not in her wildest dreams. You’re not winning this, Laura. You’re never winning this. I put the tip of the barrel in my mouth. Cold steel never tasted so damn delicious. I sure hope they serve beer in Hell.