An online literary journal dedicated to minority writers

Murder, She Yawned
Text Box: I was born Rosa Carlotta Silvana Grisanti, but in the mid-Eighties, I legally changed my name to Eve. I did it to save money on the future engraving of my headstone, a conviction my husband, Henry, found unforgivably morbid. “Must you always think like that, Eve?” “Like what?” “So final.” “We’re all going to reach the finish line someday. I’m just thinking of you.” “Of me? How so?” “In case I die before you. I don’t want you to go broke writing my name on my headstone.” “I’d be so wracked with grief I wouldn’t care.” Of course, that was before Henry started wanting me dead. How he went from being wracked with grief at the thought of my death to planning it himself, I couldn’t say. We had no marital troubles. There was no infidelity. No deep, dark secrets, illegitimate children. No squashed dreams, no failed anything. Just typical marriage stuff. What makes a man want to kill over being asked to take out the garbage, I just don’t know. But Henry wanted to alright. A fortunate fact about Henry is that he was never terribly bright to begin with and could never seem to survive outside the circle of his hapless friends. That and the fact that after twelve years of marriage I knew every move that Henry was about to make ten seconds before he did are the reasons I’m still alive today. Henry wasn’t born with much of a gift of secrecy, either. “The bathroom cabinet is loose again. Can you fix it this weekend?” I asked one Saturday, sauntering through the living room where he was firmly planted in his recliner. “I’m going to have you killed,” he answered, looking embarrassed rather than tough. “I flicked a piece of lint from my shirt. “And while you’re at it, there’s a nail on the deck that needs to be pounded back into place.” “You’ll be dead by the end of the week,” he tried again. His face was beet red and his body shook from his betrayal of himself. “I heard you. Did you hear me about the deck?” “You won’t know when it’s coming.” “You just said by the end of this week.” “But I won’t tell you when this week. And you won’t know where. It’s just going to happen.” He actually mustered a look of anger. “Okay, okay. I’ll be surprised, I promise. But could you at least make my last days happy ones and fix the bathroom cabinet?” He growled and pulled himself out of his chair, clenching and unclenching his fists. The first assassination attempt was on that very Tuesday. His most indigent friend, Tom, came by in the middle of the afternoon, while Henry was at work. Tom and Henry had been friends since high school and he’d been the best man at our wedding. “Hey, Eve,” Tom said, standing on the front porch, his hands already twisted into claws. “Tom,” I said, “Henry’s at work.” “Oh, I know,” he said, sort of baby-stepping toward me. “Can I come in?” His hands twitched. “Are you going to strangle me, is that it?” He jumped and his hands twisted so tightly his fingers were white around the air. “I’m only asking because, you know, you leave your fingerprints behind when you do that. It won’t take the police any time at all to figure out who did it.” “Oh,” he said, looking at his fingers. “Golly, Tom, won’t Meg be upset if you go to jail for murdering her Bunko partner?” What I said dawned on Tom slowly and his fingers drooped one at a time. “Well, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Eve. It’s just that Henry wants you dead.” “Yeah, yeah. Go on home now.” “Yes, ma’am,” he said, stepping off the porch and heading for his car, his hands slack at his sides. He turned. “See ya’ at church Sunday?” “Sure, Tom. I’ll be there.” Henry nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw me standing in the kitchen that night, then spent the rest of the night sulking in the basement.

By Jennifer Brown
The Red RabbitText Box: A couple months later, during our annual camping trip, it was his buddy Lewis’s turn. Lewis was charged with drowning me in the lake, but the water was so cold he couldn’t stay in long enough to hold me down. I ended up pulling Lewis back to the bank, chattering and shivering. Henry had to drive to a convenience store to buy enough food for three for the rest of the trip. He pouted for the entire weekend. Lewis tried again, inviting us over and slipping a poisonous snake into my purse. But before I could reach in and meet my demise, the thing slithered out of my handbag and into the depths of his living room. We had to call Animal Control to come find it and take it away. His friend Carl tried to push me in front of an ice cream delivery truck, but slipped in a patch of mud when running at me and shattered both of his kneecaps. I sent flowers to the hospital. After Henry’s pal Jimmy nearly tore off his own privates while practicing lethal blows with a fireplace poker, the murder attempts just sort of died off. Occasionally Henry would give it a feeble try on his own, but his inability to find anything in the house proved his downfall. “Hey, Eve, where’s the rat poison?” he’d ask. “I’ve already made dinner,” I’d answer. “Damn.” “Evie, have you seen the bullets for my rifle?” “Yes, in the back of Tom’s truck.” “Hell with it anyway,” he’d pout. “Where is the chainsaw?” “You lent it to Jimmy last summer.” “How about my hammer?” “Carl’s got it.” “Crap.” It became so everyday, Henry’s killing me, that – like all everyday things were with Henry – he eventually forgot to do it. Soon a week would go by without an attempt. Then a month. Then a year. Before long he became lazy enough about it to settle on suggesting suicide. “Isn’t life horrible?” he’d muse from his recliner. “No, why?” “Don’t you just feel like taking every pill in the medicine cabinet and being done with it all?” “The only thing in the medicine cabinet is a box of Bandaids and some hemorrhoid ointment.” “Wouldn’t you just like to kill yourself?” “Not before you get the garden weeded.” I guess that as the years go by and we get older, Henry is planning on nature exacting my demise, as he rarely brings it up anymore. Not one to admit defeat, however, he still feels it necessary to hurl a feeble threat at me every now and then as I get on his old, worn nerves. “Henry, tell me you love me,” I’ll say. “I’ll love you when you’re six feet under,” he’ll growl, stabbing a crooked finger in my direction. I don’t take his threats any more seriously now than I did back then. His reflexes have slowed with age and two of his friends have died off from unfortunate accidents and I just can’t see him actually catching me unawares anytime soon. But the truth is, I’m not exactly youthful anymore either and I’ve slowed with age, too. So last week I got in my car and drove to the city hall and got the paperwork all filled out to legally change my name back to Rosa Carlotta Silvana Grisanti, just in case.