This is the second time since I started this blog that I am sharing one of my fictional short stories, I love to write and not always about business… let me know what you think!
He had hit it big when he snagged a 5 year contract to be the Goodman’s Goodies spokesperson. That’s the reason I started hating him I suppose, because he had made it in showbiz so fast and I hadn’t. Maybe not made it per say, but at least he had gotten his crunchy, brown foot in the door.
I was a screenwriter, though I had never actually finished a complete screenplay. So I guess it would be more accurate to say I wanted to be a screenwriter, someday. To pay the bills I had been reduced to writing scripts for shlocky late night reality dating shows. Every night I sat alone in my dingy living room watching one of the morally reprehensible episodes I helped create, and every night I would have to watch his smiling, round face pushing Goodman’s Goodies during the commercial breaks. I knew as I sat there alone on my out of date sofa that two doors down was the guy who had been parading all over the television screen that evening in the company of chocolate chips and lollipops. He was probably sipping champagne and toasting his success in a hot tub full of young starlets that hung on his every word. It made me sick.
He didn’t deserve the success he had fell into, just because of his color and what he was. He even had the nerve to rub it in my face. Earlier that day when he was out walking his dog (or should I say the dog was walking him) he had idled in front of my humble abode just to rattle on about how star struck he was now that he was working with some of the industries greats. He had met Mrs. Butterworth, the Pillsbury Doughboy even the Keebler Elfs, granted he said the elves were kind of divas but it was the principle of it all. He was bragging, watching to see my eyes glaze over in jealousy. Watching to see me squint from the stars glow reverberating off his hard body.
I couldn’t sleep that night so I lay in bed eating Crack n’ Snack (Goodman’s Goodies knock off version of Rice Krispy squares) and watching an investigative reporter countdown the top 10 perfect murders that had been pulled off over the last century. Murder number ten included a lover’s quarrel and a wood chipper, murder nine was a mob hit and a body sinking to the bottom of the Hudson. By murder number 3 I realized there was a common thread between all perfect murders, leaving no evidence. As I pondered this the investigative reporter said “after the break we’ll here the true story of a child murderer who got rid of her victims by feeding them to swine”, then he appeared, big as life, dancing with marshmallows shining into my darkened bedroom. At that moment I knew what I had to do.
I dressed in the dark and left the house resolute. Two houses down I rapped on the door lightly. After a moment my neighbor, looking sleepy appeared. He looked at me quizzically and I explained I needed to talk to him. He ushered me in and I asked him if anyone was home, fortunately no. I took it as a sign from above that this was the night it had to be done. My neighbor asked me if I’d like anything to drink. “Milk” I said solemnly. He brought me a large glass and sat across from me. “This isn’t right,” I started, “I shouldn’t be made to feel inferior everyday by the likes of someone like you”. He looked confused and started to ask what I meant by the likes of him. “You know what I mean” I said irritably and lit a cigarette. It was time. I got up and walked over to him, towering over him as he sat there. “What are you doing friend?” he said his voice quivering but still with the hopeful, perkiness that landed him the Goodman’s Goodies deal. “Neighbor, pal?” he asked, pleading at this point. Then I snapped his head off just like that.
About an hour later I had destroyed all the evidence. Finished the rest of him off with the large glass of milk he’d handed me himself. Now that’s irony. Tell you the truth it was quiet nice. I’d always had a taste for gingerbread. Granted eating a whole gingerbread man was a little daunting but I had finished what I started and there wasn’t a crumb. It was truly the perfect crime, no evidence, no known motive. One day he was here and the next he wasn’t. No one would be the wiser. Goodman’s would have to find a new spokesperson, maybe the Peacan Sandies girl, she never got very much attention. The gingerbread man had always had a monopoly in the living cookie arena but that day was over. I’d imagine if they knew I’d be getting thank you cards from Oreos, Shortbread and Oatmeal Raisins everywhere.
Two days later the cop cars were in front of his house. They talked to everyone on the block. I was the one that suggested maybe he got tired of the spotlight, maybe he decided he wanted a simpler life, maybe he pulled a Thoreau and took off to find himself. After a few days the news crews stopped doing segments from his front yard and the cops came by less and less. By the time a month had passed everyone in the neighborhood had pretty much moved on. Some thought he ran off with a starlet, some thought he disappeared and most just didn’t care. I should have been celebrating, toasting myself and the fact that I didn’t have to feel like a failure anymore, but I wasn’t. It was the oddest thing, and I think it might have been brought on by the fact that I had been reading through Poe’s the telltale heart. But every time after that I saw a Goodman’s goodies commercial late at night or walked by the sweets isle at the grocery store I got a sharp, throbby ache. Instead of a guilty conscious I had developed a guilty gut.
