Killed Somebody
Killed somebody down by the lake. In a dream. They were wearing an emerald ball gown and about to give me the keys to a rented cabin. The murder was just one of those things. We’ve all been there. The corpse, I must have gotten rid of it. Into the lake. Or into the woods. But no blood. People were already arriving for the party and there was work to do. Shrimp to chill. Records to put on. Champagne popped. We danced the night away. Told jokes around a bonfire lit up on the cabin’s treacherous log roof. And in the morning, the guests had all limped off with their hangovers. I walked to the road, mists aswirl. I realized I had dropped my wallet at the scene of the crime. So I turned back. With the sunbirds and new panic ringing. As I searched the cabin I kept finding more of my things. Conclusive evidence pinning me there. Clothes. Postcards addressed to moi. Piles of home movies. VHS tapes of me fumbling touchdowns and getting pies in the face. A binder with my fingerprints taken every state fair from when I was a little boy until yesterday. I scooped this up all and brought it outside. The dream had sent me a U-Haul. I heaved my possessions into the back and went back inside the cabin to look for my wallet. There. There. The murder weapon. And the victim’s pearl earrings. Also found in that strange kitchen: my entire home gym, barbells and bench and squat rack and five hundred and seventy five pounds of Olympic weights. This too I dragged out to the U-Haul. Sweat raining. Every time I cleared my things from an old room a new room was found with more of my things. I kept going. Until the truck was packed absolute to the ceiling and the back door couldn’t close on the track. And then I went back in and saw a coffee table book of what my prison cell would look like and other photos of my death row cell and then photos of me getting the lethal injection as an old gray man. Found: more mere junk to deal with too. Every board game I’d ever lost, all the missing tokens and trinkets and playing cards, boxes of stamps and trick candles from birhdaycakes long past. Found: the ashes of both my grandparents on both sides. The urns all inscribed, Go Easy Judge. I was carrying this all down the path in search of a place to dump it when the police crested the hill and shouted for me to stop right there. I threw the last of the evidence in the lake. But I hadn’t had to do that, the dream had shifted again. The cops said I had been framed. Now they were counting on me to solve the case. They gave me their guns and evaporated. I began my investigation. I looked down every barrel. I asked each bullet if they had a lead. None did. A squirrel squirreled away. I lapped the lake, looking for a suspect. A fisherman in a wooden boat was my first interrogation. After only a few questions, where were you last night around dusk, what’s your favorite color—gunshots rang out. I rolled into the ferns and shot back. Got em. Won the gunfight. Killed the real killer. Sank the boat with the rest of the ammo. Stood there waiting for hours. Hours. Hours. Little bubbles bubbling up every once in a while. Now. Look. Such a show. A rainbow scaled fish playacting a dolphin. Breeched. Fins splayed. Mouth agape. Then not even a splash. Gone beneath forever.