Read Don't Kiss Me: Stories for Free Online Page B

couldn’t smell the urine anymore. He got used to it. She wheeled away and he figured that meant follow. He figured he had to start somewhere.
    A JOKE, PUNCH LINE FORTHCOMING:
    Once there was a man who wanted to build his wife the house of her dreams. He began working for a contractor, building other people’s houses, and each day he’d steal a brick, hiding it under his shirt or in his lunch pail and bringing it home. On his final day the contractor caught him. Please, the man said. This is the last brick I need to complete my house. I’ll do anything for that brick. Well, the contractor said, I’m going to throw it up as high as it’ll go, and if you can catch that brick it’s yours and I won’t come after you for the others. The man agreed that it was a fair proposition. The contractor took a few steps back, breathed deeply, and flung the brick high. The sun flashed behind it. The man’s heart pounded desperately.
    THE DETECTIVE:
    The detective began to feel the effects of the whiskey and Afrin. He put a few gobs of Vicks under his nostrils and talked to himself in the rearview. A man is dead, we can all agree on that. Count to ten. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Oh hell. Ten. Remember that God and murder are in the details. He noticed that the area around his mouth was a bit pink from the bloody underwear. He got stern. You’re makin me sick. Stop talkin to yourself and get out there and do it. The Vicks made his eyes water.
    The MacGuffin squeaked along in front of him. The tears in his eyes and the headlights smeared everything and he lost her. He circled back to the office so he could start again, retrace his steps.
    THE WIFE:
    In my opinion she couldn’t tell she existed. That’s why she does it (did it) to us.
    He had a tattoo of a heart over his heart because he said that’s how he knew where he ended and we began.
    I still have those notes. I wonder if she kept mine. Oh God, all that blood? Is he a ghost now? Is he a white face in a window? Were we married?
    THE SISTER:
    We love(d) you more than all the bricks in Brooklyn.
    THE DETECTIVE:
    If this is tedious to you, Tin Ears, there’s a desk job with your name on it.
    Murder’s tedious.
    That’s just a label. We got a ransom letter. Prints all over it. Pubic hair taped in a circular clump—looks like it might be the point of the exclamation point.
    Cripes. What’s it say. (come on come on)
    Search me. I don’t read shouting. Bad for the eyes. Jameson, read it to me.
    And.
    It says if you want the body you’ll have to kill for it.
    That doesn’t make any sense.
    It makes perfect sense, Tin Ears. Perfect sense.
    What’s it askin.
    It’s asking you to produce the body. No body no death.
    THE SISTER:
    Dearest love, let me count the ways. Dismemberment, garroted, poisoned, drowned, named. I read that as soon as a species is named it begins its travels up the endangered list. Discovery meaning death.
    He asked me to cut him. I did. The blood, disappointingly, did not drip. It seeped. We gathered it with a tiny blue washcloth.
    THE CORPSE:
    Ahem. I believe I’ve earned the right to step in here. At least as some kind of oxymoronic metaphor for this plus this equals that. The dimple in my tie filled with blood. I was wived and I made my wife a widow. And is this really me speaking? Am I being imagined?
    Somebody tarred Daddy to the floor. My ears splitting, off they went.
    THE DETECTIVE:
    The detective took the letter down to run its prints, find out if the pubic hair was of the male or female persuasion. He held its corner with red tweezers and it flapped along beside him. Smith cut out the whole exclamation point with an X-Acto knife and his eyes got round at all that possible DNA. He said, Hopefully there’s a root or two. His breath smelled like onions. The detective’s stomach turned. Jenny took the letter minus the exclamation point and promised to dust for prints before her shift ended. The detective noted her waves of red hair and the