Botched
by Jim Martin

I’ve got a surprise with me today for that special someone. I can’t wait until I get the chance to give it to her. It’s been a long time coming, and now that the day is finally here I feel wonderful. I can’t believe how everything seems just perfect.

            It’s a wonderful morning, and that isn’t just because of the way I feel. It’s late in the fall, but we’re having a really strong Indian summer, and the morning is beautiful and still, sort of like the middle of summer. The leaves stayed really late on the trees this year, and are only starting to fall now. In a few weeks we’ll have a snowfall and they’ll get rotten and horrible, but for now they are spectacular. I guess beauty really is fleeting.

          I get to school and prepare for my first class, which on a Monday is always Chemistry. That’s a class I really don’t enjoy. I’m not a scientific person, being more physical and less disciplined than a scientist needs to be. I’ve always enjoyed watching science shows, but coming up with hypotheses and following the scientific method is just a real drag. I don’t understand how you can create a hypothesis for something you haven’t done before. I mean, if I don’t know what happens then there really isn’t any way I can make a guess. A hypothesis is supposed to be an educated guess, but what education am I basing that on?

        If you think about it, the whole concept of creating hypotheses for problems is rather ridiculous. I mean, if you want to really assess the ability of someone to come up with a plausible reaction to a stimulus, then try making them find the hole in a really good defensive blitz to avoid the sack. Guessing that two chemicals turn red when added to a boiling glass of water simply doesn’t make you special.

         Don’t get me wrong, there is a practical side of chemistry. The fine art of bomb making is always interesting when it is done properly. I know a guy who has been blowing up things since he was a kid using nothing but tools he can buy at local hardware stores, and it’s quite impressive. Again, I don’t have the mind to bother with it, and I have always known the dangers in fooling around with these things when you don’t know what you are doing, so I leave the explosions to him.

         On my way to class, I stop by my locker and pick up the note she wrote. I like having it on me, even just sitting quietly in my pocket, because it gives me confidence to remember the things she says about me. My locker is a lot like any other locker in the hallway. There are pictures of several female archetypes in various poses of bored seduction, several inches of garbage lining the bottom, and a pair of tennis shoes for gym class that have a gram of weed hiding in a hole in the sole. They’re a little uncomfortable, but I like knowing I’m standing on my stash. It’s like there’s a joke going on and only I know about it.

        I sit down at the back like always. I wouldn’t say that I’m one of the cool kids, but certainly I’m popular and lots of people like me. I play senior football, but the season is over right now so I mostly just hang out with some of the other kids in my classes. I like football, and I like what football has done for me. I used to be sort of quiet and awkward, but playing football gave me a sense of confidence that I didn’t possess before, and it was nice to feel that way. I guess that that confidence just sort of invaded other areas of my life, and the more confident I got, the more people noticed me.

        There is a fallacy that the cool kids all hide in the back of the class and don’t pay attention. At least in the classes I am in, the only people who are always at the back of the class are the drama weenies. I don’t understand why it is that these kids are always so skinny. I mean, the girls are cute but the guys aren’t doing a whole lot to shatter that whole drama/faggot thing, are they? My chemistry class has six of them, two guys and four girls. Honestly, I don’t know what those girls are doing with the guys. But then, my friends don’t really like going to plays, so I guess it works out nicely.

        Class seems to move really slowly, and I start to get a little fidgety. I suppose it’s just nervous anticipation or something. I’ve been waiting for so long, trying to read her signs and figure out if she liked me or not. After all this time I just have to get through to the next period, which is my spare, and then I’m going across to the mall she works in because today is the day.

        She’s really incredible. Her name is Karman with a K, which is uncommon enough. She says that her mom wanted to call her Karma, but at the last minute added the N because she didn’t want her daughter to get teased. Well, I don’t think anyone has ever teased her. She has got to be nearly six feet tall, blonde, and in really good shape. I think she mentioned once that she goes to the gym. She’s really not all that smart, but I don’t really like smart girls. My mother says they intimidate me, but I just hate it when some know-it-all bitch tries to show me up.

        She started working in the store opposite the food fair a couple of months ago. A bunch of us were over cutting class for an early lunch when she walked by that first time, and every one of us just stopped talking and stared at her. It took a few weeks before I got up the guts to say hi to her. I figured out when her break was, and I would cut class and sit next to her.

        I think I bummed a light off of her to break the silence. We started chatting, and she was really flirty. She is about 3 years older than I am, but that never made her bat an eye. I ran into her once at the Ballroom before the cops confiscated my fake ID, and we were kissing on the dance floor, but she hasn’t mentioned it so I think she was drunk and doesn’t really remember.

        We’ve been flirting pretty hard for a while now, and I am really getting into this girl. I told her how I felt, and she didn’t really say anything. She got this smile on her face. It wasn’t a cruel or a happy smile, it was like she got off on the fact that I told her that more than the news itself.

        God, this class just drags and drags. I pass some time by reading what the minds have scrawled on the desk. Some of it is classic graffiti, some of it innovative, and some of it is just dead stupid. There is nothing more pointless than the musings on a desk, but it passes the time.

        My teacher is droning on. Why do scientists have to look like that? They all have those big thick beards that haven’t been trimmed in years, the thick glasses, the white smocks with the coffee spots, and those terrible combovers. But worse than all of that is the way they talk, like everything is so damned obvious. Do they know how boring they are? Science should be exciting, like when those people who narrate science shows on TV talk about it. The sound like they moonlight as the guys who write the copy for Columbia House.

       Finally the bell rings. Getting out of the school is tough, because for some unknown reason, all of my friends want to talk to me at the same time. It takes some doing, but I make my way through the gauntlet and slip away to the mall. I feel like a geek because I have to keep adjusting my pants. I’m really looking forward to this.

       There she is. The store isn’t open yet, and the mall is lit with that sort of half-light they use before the stores are all opened. She is counting the cash in the till for the morning float, and she doesn’t notice me at first. When she does, she gets a little grin on her face and opens the gate. She wants to know what I want, but she and I both know that she already knows. I can tell by that same smile on her face.

        That confidence again. I slip through the door before she can stop me and take her by the hand to the back room. She pauses long enough to lock the security gate again, and then takes me to the back, where all the boxes and schedules and things sit bathed in the clinical glow of the fluorescent lights hanging above. I’ve always been amazed at how shabby the back rooms of the most attractive stores always are.

        Suddenly she grabs me and kisses me long and passionately. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good. A shudder starts inside me that begins where my heart used to be and spreads throughout my body. I fall to my knees with tears in my eyes. I imagine she has a pretty confused look on her face right now, but I just grab on to her and cry. I don’t know why I’m crying, but suddenly I feel absolutely powerless. I can’t stop myself from crying like a baby with those great big heaves and shudders that you can’t control. I think I almost pulled her legs out from under her a few times. She started to run her fingers through my hair like my mother used to do, and I don’t know what to say, so I just don’t say anything. I just sit there crying.

          She had to get back to work and I had to pull myself together. I tried to sneak out of the gates without anyone noticing, but I’m sure they all saw me. I guess it isn’t going to be so bad, because they all saw me sneak out with a red face, but they wouldn’t have been close enough to see the tears, and they’ll just assume that I was slipping away from having sex with her.

          I ran on autopilot for a while. I can’t believe how badly I broke down. This was nothing I hadn’t done before, and Karman was really no better than the others, but it took me a few hours to get my head straight. Don’t worry, I’m back to being myself here. I’ll just hand her some line and make her understand so she doesn’t think I’m some kind of wimp or something.

         Next time will work out better. I know now that she was ready, and next time I won’t bother kissing her first. That’s what did it, I think. I don’t think I kissed any of the others, I just grabbed them from behind and buried the knife in their throats. I’ll know better for tomorrow morning. It’s just hard because she’s so beautiful.

© August 15, 2000  Jim Martin

Jim Martin is a writer, systems analyst, father, husband, and musician living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He works as a contractor through Klay Information Management Consulting Ltd. (http://www.kimc.com), spends some of his free time working as a webmaster and assistant editor for 3 A.M. Magazine (http://www.3ampublishing.com), and dreams of life as a political activist and public speaker. He has been published in several periodicals, both in print
and electronic format.

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