Copyright © 1996; 2018 by Peter Weiss
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The car pulled up behind the car before it and stopped in the morning rush hour traffic. Other cars immediately lined up and the two lanes waiting for the approach to the bridge sat still.
The man behind the wheel stroked his mustache. He was bald-headed, about fifty. For All Those Years played on his car stereo. Hearing the song and the voice, tears welled up in his eyes. Traffic rolled slightly, a little ahead, but his car sat still.
Though the morning was cloudless, he’d lost sight of the traffic, of where he was. He hesitated, then he opened the car door and stepped out. Immediately horns from the cars behind his blasted, but hypnotized, he left the car door open and headed to the tree-filled embankment. There, he drew a Smith & Wesson from inside his belt, chambered a bullet and blew off the top of his head.
The shot was unmistakable to those stuck in traffic, a single pop like the slap of a hammer against a board. Some people recalled a movie or a book. Others heard the rustle of the underbrush as the body fell. Everyone knew they would be late for work.
Melina rolled her skirt at the waist then opened the top two buttons of her blouse so you could see cleavage. Next, she took a lipstick from her school bag and with several deft strokes left a slick, smooth coat of red on her lips. She pressed her lips together, tossed the lipstick back in her bag and waited for the bus.
She found a window seat and took out her iPod. Eyes closed, she listened to Come to My Window. A breeze swirled from the window through the open blouse and over her breasts. She pictured one of her pop star idols and she felt creamy down there. She crossed her legs and squeezed tight.
She kept the iPod on as she crossed the Bruckner overpass toward school. The breeze stiffened her nipples so they pressed through her bra against her blouse. If her mother saw her now… But her mother was on her way to work in Manhattan, and her father too, and she was on her way to the prissy all-girls high school, where, before she could enter, she’d roll down her skirt and wipe off the lipstick. If she didn’t, she’d get detention and the Sisters would call home. Fuck that.
Public high school kids passed her in the opposite direction. She recognized some faces, boys and girls who passed her daily. The boys who stared at her breasts she gave the finger or blew kisses. The girls she sucked her lips at. “Ooh, baby,” she said once or twice. Already a black belt in karate, she waited for the pathetic being that might challenge her.
