After the First Death Read Free

chest, because this was an important occasion. I knew little about his work except that it was secret and my mother and I were not supposed to ask questions. I knew, however, that his work was very special and separate from the regular Fort Delta routine. How did I know? Slips of the tongue. Phone calls I overheard. My father often spoke in a sort of code, but I cracked some of the code. Like, on the phone, he’d say: “Peripheral.” After a while, I realized that meant I was around someplace, on the edges, and he wasn’t free to talk.
    I also knew the nature of his profession but not its details. Psychological stuff, behavior intervention, whatever that means. I ran across an old university journal in which he wrote out his theories and although the stuff was mostly double-talk to me, I noted the introduction in which he was described as a pioneer in his field, worthy perhaps of a Nobel Prize someday. To complete the portrait: my father was a professor at New England University in Boston before he accepted the commission and took my mother and me to Fort Delta when I was, like, three years old.
    Anyway. I sat in the office and my father began to address me. Not talk to me but address me. As if I were not his son but a stranger who had suddenly becomeimportant to him. I hadn’t connected my visit to the office with the bridge and the hostages until he began to talk. As he talked, I felt a drop of perspiration roll down from my armpit like a small cold marble. But at the same time I was happy and excited. Scared, too, of course, but somehow happy, knowing that I was suddenly a part of the secret life of my father.
    No more room on this particular postcard.
    Call it amnesia.
    Emotional amnesia, maybe.
    Or whatever the hell you wish.
    Who the hell are you anyway, out there looking over my shoulder as I write this?
    I feel you there, watching, waiting to get in.
    Or is anybody there?
    I once read the shortest horror story in the world. I don’t know who wrote it.
    It went something like this:
    The last person on earth sat in a room.
    There came a knock at the door.
    Who will knock at my door?
    When he arrives, will my father be wearing his uniform? Check One: Yes ____ No ____ Unsure ____
    Will I be able to look him in the eye? Check One: Yes ____ No ____ Unsure ____
    Will he be able to look me in the eye? Check One: No ____ No ____ No ____
    Maybe I should make another and final trip to Brimmler’s Bridge before he arrives.
    And take that sweet plummet into nothingness as the wind whistles through the tunnel in my chest and the hole in my heart.

part

2
    Miro’s assignment was to kill the driver.
    Without hesitation. As soon as the bus arrived at the bridge. Everyone must know without any delay that the takeover of the bus was critical, and that sudden death was fact not probability. When Miro was handed the revolver by Artkin, it felt heavy in his hand, although he had used the small automatic weapon countless times in target practice. But always a cardboard target. Now the target would be a human being. Miro swallowed with difficulty as he squeezed the barrel of the gun. The smell of the weapon, that peculiar slippery smell of oil, agitated his nostrils. He almost sneezed.
    “You’re pale,” Artkin taunted.
    Which Miro expected. Artkin had always tauntedhim, and Miro had learned to absorb the taunts without comment. Perhaps he would not have been able to answer, anyway. His throat was tight, constricted. He was afraid that if he tried to talk he would not be able to gather enough saliva and would somehow choke.
    “You’ll be all right,” Artkin assured him, his voice suddenly kind. That was Artkin—abrasive one moment, gentle the next. He had also killed three people in Miro’s presence in the past two years, each of them in cold blood. And now it was Miro’s turn to follow Artkin’s example.
    Artkin smiled. But now contempt edged the smile. “After all, you are sixteen.”
    Miro tried not to show his anger.