The Squeaky Fromme School of Assassins

I looked forward to returning to the Squeaky Fromme School of Assassins today. It was Final Exam day, and I was just one test away from getting my double-aught degree, i.e., my 00º.

Fromme’s is a fine school; I had originally chosen it for its famous silent strangulation program, an area in which I was weak. (Noisy strangulation not only calls attention to what’s happening and who’s doing it, but it’s also just rude.) Also, the Fromme School’s laser marksmanship, creative impaling, and untraceable poisons are hidden-world renowned—second to none surviving assassins’ programs anywhere.

The faculty, I found, had always been very imaginative. The Kill-Off Challenge is a great annual event where they even supply all of the blasting caps. The instructors are also extremely motivating. For example, last semester I won the award for the Best Mortal Blow, a much-sought-after prize, for which I've already apologized to two families. (The guy was an extraordinary bigamist, but now he's just an ordinary dead Mormon.)

You’d think the religious wouldn’t have to worry about the likes of us assassins. I got extra credit for doing that guy in the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program. I only stabbed him once because, without transfusions, he wouldn’t even survive a lengthy and heroic admission to the ER.

This year I had to repeat my Ninja Murder curriculum and Bleaching Forensics. I had hoped my lab partner would return, and I was a bit surprised when he did. I say this because one of the most sobering things about coming back to school each day is seeing who doesn't make it back.

There’s a bit of a turnover.

But fear not, I was back in school; along with the handful of surviving assassin wannabes and been-there-done-thats.

There was Harold Wilbert, infamous for his handling of that entire Plaquemines Parish thing in Louisiana. Jack Gravelet was at his seat, smug over that change or regime in Somethingsomething’stan. Dick Peneguy was there, too; I don’t even know what he did, but when the media’s so quiet about something, you know it had to be badass. Mike Deiciedoux was there in all his glory. Considered an artist in his field, black market impresarios tremble at his call name—"the Dash.” Charles Meistovich, “the Bolshe'dick,” looked like he hadn’t slept in days and still had some dried blood on the front of his neck. Les "More" Himel, however, looked very well rested, after taking some time off after handling all of the extended family business in Southie.

The final exam was a written one. It was considered only a formality, for although we were all armed and dangerous, this was the ivory tower of assassination academia. Herein we wouldn’t be tested heuristically, for we few remaining were way past that; nor ballistically, because it doesn’t take an advanced degree to acquire a firearm; nor even philosophically, because the philosophical discourses on targeted murder had already been exhausted by the erudite apologist and epicurean gourmand, Hannibal Lecter, who has recently made a political comeback.

Yet, all there wondered what that one question would be. Only a perfect answer would earn the double-aught. Even points off for grammar and syntax would relegate one to the single-aught, licensed to merely thwart, not kill.

We all turned our heads to each other in silent greeting, nodding here, winking there. There were here, now, the surviving dozen.

The test booklet was handed out. We were not to open it until the proctor said so. For this auspicious occasion, our final official act at the Fromme Academy, our proctor was none other than the notorious Col. Heineas McSanguin, Assassin Emeritus from the Dallas Grassy Knoll Institute.

The room fell silent.

I think I even saw a bead of sweat on Chuck Glueck’s temple, accruing toward the critical mass that would send it trickling down his temple. This was saying something, because Glueck was known to have interweaved, serpentine—untouched, unscathed, and un-shot, through the “blood-Ba’ath” on the killing fields of Mosul, the slaughter whose body count required actual mathematics theorists.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Col. McSanquine announced, to which we all laughed because there were no ladies—and certainly no gentlemen—in the room, despite our vodka martinis always being stirred, not shaken. “You may open your booklets,” he instructed.

I thought I had prepared well. I thought I was ready. Through my MI6 connection, I had last year’s final test question:

“Describe in detail the existential earworms traveling through a man’s head just ahead of the bullet chasing it. Compare and contrast this final thought meander to that of a woman’s head.”

"Buddy" Parks’ famous answer was forever commemorated by being etched in a headstone hung on the venerable walls of the Fromme School. What an honor!

The year before’s question I had pilfered from my stoolie in the NSA:

“What is the most frequent cause of death in our profession, as perpetrated by us?”

Of course, this question was only slightly less famous than its famous answer:

“Heart failure.”

Because no matter how we accomplished any assignment, that heart always failed.

But I had had no way to prepare for this year’s final exam question. When I had opened my booklet, simultaneously with the others, there it was:

“Should you consider assassinating the classmate sitting to your right, and if you’re on the end of a row, the one of your choosing?”

A trick question?

I mean, yeah, I’d consider it. But was this code for actually doing it as some sort of loyalty test? Did the double-aught require thinking outside of the box, to commit the act that was the intended extrapolation? The power of suggestion?

So, yes, I considered it. Only. So far. My No. 2 pencil, freshly sharpened, would make a nice shiv that could result in heart failure.

I looked to my right, where “Mouse” Munson sat. He was living off of his estranged uncle’s fame—the guy who had pulled off the Tylenol murders.

It suddenly occurred to me. Was it me, or did it smell like almonds in here?

Mouse himself was looking to his right as that thought raced through my head, which I now wondered if it, too, would soon be chased by a bullet from my left. I looked to my left. There was Eddie Sheepak looking at me. (He was the one who had orchestrated the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide” from an intake area where he had been incarcerated on a 24-hour hold.)

There was a moment. A moment that shrouded the room with indecision, confusion, half-baked intents, and self-imposed skulduggery. It was strange, because of everyone’s reaction. The brain, when it cannot process something, has a faux-anticipatory reflex, and it engaged among us.

We all began to laugh. Spontaneously. Nervously. Awkwardly.

That’s when the next moment passed. A moment that shrouded the room in decision, straightforward intent, and suspension of conscience, which had always been on shaky ground, anyway. No one was laughing now.

Everyone was shooting, slitting, stabbing, choking, pummelling, and bludgeoning.

After the tumult settled into a pile of silent carnage, Professor Emeritus Heineas McSanguine collected his things, placed them into his briefcase, rose, and walked out of the room, just shaking his head.

What a great class! Such promise! he thought.

He reached into his pocket to shake out two extra-strength Tylenols, because mass gunplay and vocal death throes always gave him a headache. Just the sheer noise, he reflected.

All of the students were awarded posthumous A+/100s, as the finest class to graduate from the Squeaky Fromme School of Assassins. They moved on.

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This was originally a 100-word entry into the August 2024 Drabble-of-the-Month challenge, by @Ferryman (https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14646, won by @toddbeller). Ah...from little seeds...