I receive a death sentence in the mail.
It’s not a death threat. It’s a lot more sure of itself.
U WILL DIE
5:37 PM
It’s written in crayon and, even though it was in the mailbox, was not delivered by the postal service.
I look around the neighborhood, thinking maybe it had been left recently and whoever left it might still be around.
The neighborhood is as dead as ever.
I look back at the death sentence. If it’s true – and I don’t really see any reason why it wouldn’t be – I have just over three hours to live.
I know I should make the most of it but I’m drawing a blank.
I could buy a prostitute but I don’t really have that much money and stealing a prostitute is really just rape, I guess.
I could walk to the park but it would take me about a half hour to get there. Plus it’s kind of hot out and there will probably be a bunch of irritating kids and their more irritating parents there.
It’s kind of an odd amount of time. Not really enough to go anywhere.
I could watch a movie or listen to a couple of my favorite records but that seems too static. I feel like I should be moving, doing something.
I decide to go on a crime spree.
I don’t own a gun or anything more dangerous than a kitchen knife so it’ll have to be a petty crime spree.
I head to the gas station on the corner, leaving my house unlocked. I don’t even know if I’ll be back. Besides, there isn’t anything in it worth stealing. And, maybe, if I’m not at home, whoever’s job it is to kill me will just give up.
I haven’t allowed myself any beer or cigarettes lately, so I decide to steal those.
At the gas station, the teenage clerk has an afternoon talk show up really loud on the television and he’s leafing through a porno magazine. One of the really sleazy kinds.
I grab a case of beer from the cooler. The cigarettes are behind the counter, practically under lock and key. I’ll have to fight the clerk for them.
I put the beer on the counter and say, “Now I’m going to fight you for a pack of cigarettes.”
The clerk has already scanned the beer.
“Huh?” he says, looking at the monitor of the cash register.
I don’t feel like repeating myself so I just blurt out the brand of cigarettes I want and he smacks them down on the counter and gives me the total.
I pay him and leave.
Outside the gas station, I tear open the cigarettes and throw my trash on the ground. I go back inside and buy a lighter. I open the case of beer and take one out.
Instinctively I head for home. I should probably go anywhere but there really isn’t much to see in this town and home is really where I want to be.
I’ll just go sit on my couch and drink and smoke and wait.
Nearly home, a cop pulls up to the curb and beeps his sirens at me.
I think about running but then think, “No. What if that’s how I die? What if I run for like two hours – exhausting myself when I could be drinking and smoking – and then I end up getting shot by the police?”
I walk over to the car.
“You can’t be drinking on the sidewalk,” the cop says.
“I just figured it didn’t matter,” I say.
“Why wouldn’t it matter?”
I fish the death sentence out of my pocket and hand it to him.
He reads it and says, “You better get in.”
I start to open the handle of the passenger door and he says, “In back.”
I get in the back.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not unless you’re not going to share.”
“You want a beer?”
“And a cigarette.”
I can’t pass him anything through the wire mesh separating me from the front and there are no handles to open the door.
He gets out of the car and comes to the back. He opens the door and gets in next to me.
I hand him a beer and a cigarette, the lighter.
He lights the cigarette and takes a deep, satisfying drag.
He pops the can of beer and sucks off some of the foam.
He looks out the window, at a distance that doesn’t really exist, and says, “Five thirty-seven, huh?”
“That’s what it says.”
“Not much time.”
“No. Not really.”