A Buzz Word For Kill

Brandon sat on his bed and thought about how he would kill his dad. He didn’t hate his dad much more than he hated his mom, but it was enough to sway him.
Brandon’s parents were separated and getting a divorce. With five years still to wait until he became a legal adult, Brandon’s future stretched ahead of him in a bleak straight line. He would be changing houses every other weekend. Both parents would vie for his attention and favor. One or both would remarry and maybe even provide him with half-brothers or half-sisters. Exhaustion at the thought of such a life overwhelmed Brandon. One of them would have to die.
Still fine-tuning a simple but practically guaranteed plan, Brandon rose from his bed and walked his desk where a large aquarium held his pet iguana, Ike. Brandon and his mother had bought Ike on Brandon’s twelfth birthday, with the agreement that he was a special pet for just the two of them.
Ike stared at Brandon from the aquarium, looking completely disinterested in everything beyond his four glass walls. Brandon wondered if Ike felt more emotions than he showed, or if Iguanas lived their whole lives bored and calm.
Brandon knew how he was going to do it.


When Brandon finally emerged from his bedroom, his father, Dale, was in the kitchen, sorting through mail. Dale worked construction and returned to his house each day very sore and very sweaty. Dinner and a bath, both featuring a beer or two, preceded any evening activity.
Brandon joined Dale in the kitchen and began his conversation in a heavy tone.
“Why is mom such a bitch?”
Brandon didn’t usually call his mother a bitch, and he knew his father knew this.
“I’m the one she’s pissed at, what’d she do to you?” Dale asked, throwing a handful of letters and newspapers on the nearest counter. Brandon knew that his dad would be curious about any tensions between Brandon and his mother.
“It’s Ike.” Brandon said, sighing heavily. “Mom called me after school today and told me how since Ike was our special pet he shouldn’t be at your house and I should leave him with her when I visit here.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Dale barely hid his happiness at the idea of his son and his soon to be ex-wife at odds. “She’s just doing this to get at me, you know. She probably wants you to hate me for splitting you up from him.”
“I know.” Brandon hid his satisfaction much better than Dale hid his happiness. “I don’t even care anymore, she can have the stupid lizard. I just wish she’d stop trying to make me hate you all the time.”
“She tries to make you hate me?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s always ‘your father this’ and ‘your father that’ like she was some perfect saint the whole time.” Brandon wanted his father to start talking about how it took two people to destroy a marriage.
“It takes two people to destroy a marriage, you know.” Dale was on repeat like a bad album. “Just because I was the one who stepped out physically doesn’t mean shit. She checked out emotionally a long time ago, and a man has needs.”
Brandon wondered how his dad would reconcile the idea of his mother crying herself to sleep each night with this “emotionally checked out” version.
“She just wants someone to blame besides herself, I bet.” Brandon only said this because he’d heard his dad say something very similar on the phone once.
“You’re right.” Said Dale. “Absolutely right.”
“I don’t want to play her stupid mind games.” Brandon declared. “We should just leave Ike on her doorstep tonight and drive away before calling to tell her!” Brandon made an effort to sound like he had only just invented this plan.
“Ha!” Dale laughed, thrilled that his son clearly preferred him. “That would turn her guilt trip back on her, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Brandon laughed as well, forcing it, but doing so convincingly. “We shouldn’t even call! We can leave a note on the cage. She’ll just get all annoying on the phone.”
“You know your mother too well kid.” Dale patted Brandon on the back.
Brandon knew his dad well enough to know that he would jump at the chance to help his son hurt his wife.
“How should it go?” Brandon asked?
“Um, just a second.” Dale said. Brandon waited while his dad left the kitchen and returned a few seconds later with a sheet of blank paper and a permanent marker. “What do you think?” Dale asked.
“Something short and sweet.” Brandon watched his dad scribble out a message. “Perfect… but we should make it a little meaner.” Dale grinned at his son and added a comma and one more word. “She can have the stupid lizard for all I care.” Brandon said picking up the paper to look it over.
Dale’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the display and said, “I gotta take this. Dinner when I’m done.”
Dale went outside through the front door, closing it behind him. Brandon watched his dad pace back and forth on the front lawn. He took the note to his bedroom and left it sitting on his bed until he would need it again.


Dale’s house had only one bathroom, but it was a spacious one. It was technically two rooms. A bathtub, shower and two sinks were in the main room, and within that larger room there was a smaller room exclusively for the toilet.
After dinner Dale promised Brandon that he would take a bath and then drive him over to drop off the Iguana and the note.
Dale left his dirty work clothes in a pile under the towel rack and climbed into the bath. Five minutes later Brandon knocked on the door.
“I’ve gotta pee.” Brandon said.
Dale sighed. “The door’s not locked.”
Brandon entered the bathroom, walking past his dad to the small toilet room, closing the door behind him.
Brandon found the extension cord and toaster where he had left them while his dad was talking on the phone in the front lawn. He pulled the yellow latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. He plugged the toaster into the cord and the cord into the wall. He pushed both handles down to start the toaster. He opened the door, walked out and dropped the toaster into the bathtub without looking at his dad’s face.
Brandon left the bathroom after dropping the toaster. He went to his bedroom, took the note from his bed and returned to the bathroom. He placed the note on the bathroom counter and left, locking and closing the door behind him.
Brandon returned to his room and dialed the number to his mother’s cell phone. While he listened to the ringing on the other end of the line he poked at Ike with his free hand and thought of the note he’d left in the bathroom.
“If you want him, you can have him, bitch.”

Hell of a Way

Jim Wade thought he could like his extended family if they weren’t so damn loud all the time. He pressed his back firmly against the wall of his living room and tried to look uninteresting. It was Christmas Eve and Jim wondered if he had seen any of his relatives since the same party last year. The answer, for the most part, was a resounding no, and Jim was happy about that. If he were subjected to their questions and empty praise on anything more than an annual basis, he was certain he would have killed one of them already.
Jim gulped down wassail from the mug in his right hand. While the adults had been having their white elephant gift exchange (a yearly travesty of worn out jokes and tired rivalries) Jim had poured a generous amount of sangria into his holiday drink, which gave him smug satisfaction while he drank it. He would sneak out and smoke a cigarette in the snow later, he decided, because none of them had any idea he smoked, and he liked the distance their ignorance put between them and him.
To the extreme that Jim abhorred his extended family, he thoroughly enjoyed his immediate one, loved even. The most annoying thing, in fact, about his aunts, uncles and cousins invading his home for the night before Christmas was that he could imagine a much cozier and more meaningful scene involving he, his brother, his sister and brother-in-law and their parents. Who’d asked his Dad’s siblings, offspring in tow, to descend full force upon his quiet secluded house anyway? Certainly not he. He wanted them finished and gone so he could salvage the last of the evening with the family that meant something to him.
Jim’s brother Anthony crept up beside him and whispered a thrilled message in his ear. “Grandma’s giving out gift cards!” Finally the singular highlight of the evening! Jim didn’t feel guilty accepting money from a grandmother he rarely spoke to. If it weren’t for her he wouldn’t exist, fifteen dollars a year to Wal Mart was not that much to expect.
As Jim’s cousins became aware of money being distributed, a halfhearted queue formed, made up of sticky fingered kids murmuring “thanks” and “love you grandma” as they pocketed gift cards decorated with pictures of snowy houses and stockings. Jim moved away from the wall but did not walk right up to his grandma. He wanted to let her find him and hand him his gift, so she would feel like it was a surprise, like he wasn’t already expecting it of her.
His grandma began passing out white envelopes to the married/divorced adults in the room. The envelope addressed to “Mike and April” went to Jim’s Parents. The envelope for “Leah and Jeff” went to Jim’s aunt and her husband. Jim’s uncle Riley, divorced for just over a year, was handed one, as was Jim’s uncle Todd, also divorced but for much longer than a year. Finally, Jim’s older sister Alyssa and her husband of three years, Micah, received their envelope. Jim knew that each envelope held five hundred dollars in cash. Like the cousins with the Wal Mart cards, the adults depended on this yearly gift from the matriarch of the family.
Jim wasn’t approached. His grandma made a general statement of “Well, Merry Christmas guys” to the group at large. Jim could not believe what he was witnessing. Where was his gift card? For that matter, where was a little fairness? He was twenty for the love of god, and his sister was only four years his senior, but somehow since she was married she deserved thirty-three times as much of a gift as her siblings and cousins! Jim didn’t want to think of his grandma as being so unfair, so he made sure to find her and kiss her on the cheek before she left the party. She kissed him on both cheeks, said it was so good to see him, and left. No gift card.


“Where the fuck does she get off!?” Jim was venting to his little brother later that evening, and it felt good.
“Shhhh, Mom and Dad are still up.”
“Oh go to hell.” Jim didn’t mean it. He wasn’t even mad at Anthony. He just wanted to rage about this for a while and have someone as stingy as himself agree that a terrible injustice had been practiced on him. “It’s easy for you to tell me to be quiet, you’re the one with a fucking gift card!” Anthony had been one of the younger cousins in the queue; he was still young enough to be that shameless.
“It’s not my fault you didn’t get one, maybe she forgot?” Anthony said.
“Is that an excuse? That’s her excuse? She forgot?” Jim paused for effect. “I KNOW she forgot, retard! I didn’t get a gift card, BECAUSE she forgot! That’s my point! I’m her grandson! Thanks for the love, scrooge!” Jim was raising his voice, and, though the door of his bedroom was closed, he was still risking his parents hearing him curse and complain about his grandmother.
“Did you ask her about it? Maybe she thought she’d already handed it to you or something.” Jim knew that Anthony was trying to make him feel less snubbed by his grandmother, and he was grateful for that, but being verbally abusive to his younger brother was too self-affirming to stop.
“I didn’t need to ask her about it, moron. I saw her start with a handful of gift cards, which she’d already written the names on by the way, and she finished handing out all of them! She didn’t just slip up and forget once she got here, this was planned!” Anthony opened his mouth to speak but Jim talked over him, raising his voice to continue. “And what’s worse is, she gives all those adults five hundred dollars! What the hell did they ever do besides get married, make her a bunch of snotty obnoxious grandkids and then get divorced!”
“Mom and Dad didn’t get divorced.” Anthony was trying to distract him, Jim thought.
“Yeah, because they’re not fuck ups like all of Dad’s siblings, thank God! My point is, even Alyssa and Micah get five hundred dollars now! I’d get married at twenty-one if it got me a check every year, I’m just not that horny or stupid!”
“Wow.” Anthony remarked dryly. Jim didn’t think his brother was really that surprised.
“Look,” Jim said, trying to make himself sound less angry, “I’m not mad at you or Alyssa or Micah or anybody, anybody except grandma I mean. Really though, where the hell does she think she gets off? Me of all people! I’m in college. I actually know the value of fifteen dollars. All you brats are going to buy is LEGOs or some crappy DVD that you’ll lose in two months anyway. I just mean, it’s not fair and you know it.”
Anthony nodded his head and said in a very understanding tone, “You’re right. It isn’t fair. I’m pissed for you. But it’s Christmas tomorrow, and you’ll get all sorts of shit from Mom and Dad and you won’t even remember that your grandma doesn’t love you enough to fork over fifteen dollars.”
“You little ass, she gave you fifteen dollars to Wal Mart,” Jim emphasized the name of the store, “I think she hates you more than me.”
“Is it snowing again?” Anthony asked, looking out the windows into the night. Jim didn’t answer. “Son of a bitch.”


Christmas morning had passed beautifully. Jim had forgotten his rage of the previous night, and by the time immediate family gifts had been exchanged Jim was feeling positively Hallmark about the birth of Christ. This changed after brunch.
Jim’s mother pulled him aside and began her instructions to him with a knowing expression on her face. “I know he’s not your favorite person, but we forgot to give uncle Riley his gift last night and your Dad and I need you to drive it over to him.”
“It’s Christmas day, are you kidding me?” Jim could not believe he was being asked to leave the house on Christmas just to take a gift to his pathetic uncle.
“Jim. Look, Riley let Laura have the kids today so they could come to the party last night. He’s alone and your Dad wants him to know that we’re thinking of him today.”
“It’s not my fault that he screwed a million flight attendants and tore his family apart, why should I have to waste my Christmas day driving crap over to him?” Jim knew he had pushed it too far with this last remark. He half expected his mother to slap him. She didn’t respond angrily.
“Honey, he’s alone. He deserves it, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s by himself for the whole day. It would mean a lot to your Dad.” Jim couldn’t argue after that. His Dad had given him a camera for Christmas, a camera he’d wanted but been too modest to ask for. He knew he was stuck with the job. Unfair.


Jim climbed the steps to his uncle’s rickety doublewide, dreading the conversation he was about to have. At least with confrontation something gets done, but jawing on and on with a relative who is excessively interested in sharing life details leads nowhere slowly. Jim knocked on the door. It produced a muffled, weightless sound. He wondered if the door were composed exclusively of vinyl over Styrofoam. It opened, revealing Jim’s uncle Riley, wearing slacks, a buttoned shirt and a far too welcoming smile.
“Hey, Jimmy, come on in.” Jim did not want to come in. He wished the entire exchange could take place with him on the cheap porch and his uncle on the other side of the threshold. He crossed through the doorway and glanced around the room. It was more depressing than he ever could have imagined.
Third hand furniture was spread across a brown, tan and burnt orange carpet that was in need of vacuuming. A glass door cabinet held an ancient television set and a video game system that Jim assumed was for Riley’s sons to use when they visited their father on weekends. Dirty shades hung at varying lengths over the windows of the living room. In the corner a roll top desk stood, its top rolled back, revealing a mess of papers and years of accumulated paperweights.
Jim handed Riley the wrapped box he’d been sent to deliver. “Mom and Dad send their love and say Merry Christmas.”
Riley took the box and opened it immediately, which made Jim uncomfortable. He was of the opinion that delivered gifts should be opened in privacy, after all the gift might be something the sender didn’t want the deliverer seeing. This one was a box of expensive chocolate.
“Should we open this up now?” Riley asked. Jim could see what his uncle was doing. He’d expected it. His uncle was trying to rope him in, coerce him to stick around for a while. Jim didn’t like it. But he took the bait.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t say no to one.” Jim could see that Riley was happy to hear this response. The man opened the box in a slightly hurried way, eager to offer his nephew one of the rich chocolates, eager to be a successful host. When the lid of the box was off Jim made a show of choosing one, even though he’d already decided. Jim thought about his uncle, a forty-year-old man, who was looking for approval from a nephew half his age. When did that happen? When did Jim become the one who granted approval? Shouldn’t he be looking up to his uncle? Instead this grown man was practically bribing him to linger in his bleak home, five extra minutes for a piece of chocolate. “This one looks good.” Jim said finally. “I think it’s caramel and peanuts.”
“I always worry about getting coconut.” Riley said, trying to turn the wheels of conversation. Jim bit into the chocolate. It was caramel and peanuts, as he’d known it was.
“Coconut I don’t mind much, as long as it’s not cherry in the middle.” Jim knew his uncle liked chocolate and cherry flavored things; he too was trying to turn the wheels of conversation.
“Ah, no!” Riley said. “See, I love cherry in the middle. Those are my favorite.” Jim thought his uncle was looking to draw the visit out even longer. Riley moved toward the kitchen but kept talking. “Do you want something to drink? I was about to have a little something before you showed up. I mean, right before you got here.” Riley was in the kitchen banging around in cupboards for glasses at this point.
“Uh,” Jim thought for a second, “yeah, I’ll have something to drink. Can I use your bathroom?”
Riley’s voice was muffled from the kitchen. “It’s the first door on the left.”
Jim didn’t know why he’d asked to use the bathroom, except that it was something to ask. He stared at himself in the dirty mirror and wondered if he would ever wind up in a situation like his uncle’s. For effect, he flushed the unused toilet before he left the bathroom
Back in the living room, Jim sat down on the couch and noticed that his uncle had turned on a radio in the kitchen, a local classical station. Jim thought that it was a wise move on his host’s part. Riley returned from the kitchen with two shot glasses, a battered can of Coca Cola, and an almost full bottle of vodka, all on a cheap serving tray.
“You’re twenty-one, right?” Riley asked. Jim was almost certain that Riley knew he wasn’t.
“Not until March.” Riley sat down in a pale blue armchair opposite the couch, at the same time setting the tray on the coffee table between he and Jim.
“Ah, you’re close enough. I’ve got some coke, too, we won’t mix it though, one after the other.”
Jim didn’t want to sound rude. “I gotta drive back though. The roads aren’t great.”
“I’ll pour you one if you feel adventurous. You can start with this though.” Riley handed Jim the can of coke, which Jim suspected had sat a long time in the refrigerator. Riley poured vodka into the two shot glasses, set down the bottle and then picked up and drank one of the glasses in a single practiced motion. Jim opened the can and took a drink.
“Someone told me once that vodka was only for getting drunk.” Jim said. Someone had told him that. It was Riley’s ex-wife, before the divorce, before she knew about her husband’s multiple infidelities. “I don’t really know much about alcohol, though, so it’s probably not true.” Jim hadn’t meant to offend with his remarks, but he worried that he had.
“The thing about vodka is, and really about all alcohol I guess, the thing you have to remember is that you’ve got to be responsible. You know?” Riley had taken on a very instructive tone, one that Jim didn’t like hearing from an adult he considered to be a failure at life. However, Jim nodded understandingly and continued drinking his cola. Riley kept talking. “On the one hand you might down a whole bottle and get rip snorting drunk, or you might have a shot or two and relax on Christmas day with your buddies.”
Jim noticed that Riley said “buddies” and not “nephew.” Did his uncle see him that way? Riley was not one of Jim’s “buddies.” Jim didn’t have “buddies.” He had “friends,” and he had “pitiable uncles.”
Even while disagreeing with his uncle, Jim felt the pitying need to affirm him. “Fair enough,” Jim said, “Nothing wrong with relaxing.”
Riley poured and drank again. He didn’t grimace when he swallowed.
Jim still didn’t touch the shot glass poured for him. He thought of a conversation topic. “Did you go to church this morning?”
Riley laughed, a gruff laugh. “No, I don’t think they have church services on Christmas morning. Why, did you?”
“No we were… at home,” Jim had meant to avoid the topic of immediate family, “I just thought maybe since you were dressed up, you’d been to church.” If Riley was distracted by Jim’s indication of a Christmas morning spent surrounded by family, he didn’t show it.
“Yeah, I took a shower earlier,” Riley nodded and Jim waited for him to continue, “figured when I went to get dressed, since it was Christmas, I figured I wouldn’t wear just jeans or shorts or anything.”
“Makes sense.” It was Jim who nodded then, as though Riley’s wardrobe decision deserved much consideration. “I mean, if you feel like you ought to dress nice, and you didn’t, that would be like choosing to scoff, right?” Jim didn’t agree with his own words at all. Talking to adults was such an act, most of the time. Riley began nodding again, thoughtfully, and helped himself to another shot. Jim didn’t know much about alcohol, but he thought to himself that if Riley didn’t slow down he’d be drunk soon.
“No more about me, bud, what about you?” Riley was steering the conversation back to safety, Jim thought, keeping focus on his clean nosed little saint of a nephew. “You still dating Whitney?”
Jim smirked, not an act this time. “Whitney and I ended things a year and a half ago.”
“No!” Riley sounded sincerely surprised. Jim suspected that the vodka was taking effect. “You must be joking, I thought you two were dating.”
“I think maybe you’re mixing up two girls.” Jim said. “Whitney I liked for four years, but she never really liked me back. We tried it out but she said ‘no, not ever’ around the end of our freshman years of college.”
“Oh, ok. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, I got over it. Didn’t really talk about it.”
“Aren’t you dating someone, though?” Riley seemed genuinely interested in his nephew’s love life.
“I was dating someone until recently.” Said Jim. “Alice was her name, Alice Kennedy. But we called it off. Recently actually. Like, last week.”
Again Riley seemed shocked. “You’re kidding! Just last week no less?” Jim didn’t answer. A muffled voice interrupted the classical music on the radio announcing a change in pieces. Riley asked Jim, “Why?”
“Um… a lot of reasons. Most of them are pretty dumb. Things we could have seen coming, some of them I kind of saw coming. There was a lot of distance.”
“Yeah?” Riley asked, clearly interested in hearing more.
“Yeah, though honestly,” Jim wanted to close this topic now, “we tried mostly to play things pretty close to the chest, so it’s weird talking to people about it now, because most of it no one knows the context.”
“Oh.” Realization spread across Riley’s face. “Right, right. I know what you mean. I can respect that. That’s wise bud, wise. I respect that.” Jim thought that if he were a good nephew he would have said something when Riley reached for the bottle again. Jim didn’t say anything, though. After he had swallowed a fourth shot, Riley slammed the shot glass down on the table in a giddy manner. “Did she like you more than you liked her?”
Jim was surprised by the question. “How do you mean?”
“It’s the same in every couple. I’ve seen it. In every couple one of the two likes the other more than the other likes them. You follow?” Riley wasn’t slurring his words, but he was talking differently than he had been when Jim first arrived.
“I don’t know which one of us liked the other more.” Jim said.
“See, now that’s the truth though, and not just for romances, but for all of it. Someone has to like the other one more, right? It’s like…” a labored pause, “math.” Riley nodded and squinted at Jim, expecting him to follow. “If you tear a piece of bread in half as perfect as you can, it’s still not perfect. Listen this is true. Two people have to work for a couple to work. But one of them is working more than the other. The one who likes the other one better than the other one likes them is working more. They’re working more because they’re more afraid of losing the other one than the other one is of losing them. Are you listening to me?”
Jim was listening to his uncle, and part of him agreed with the ramblings he heard. “Yeah, I’m listening. What’s your point?”
“My point is, which one of you, you and Whit- sorry, you and Alice, which one of you liked the other more?” Riley peered at Jim out of the tops of his eyes, waiting for an answer.
“I really couldn’t say.” Jim didn’t like his uncle cross-examining him.
“Who broke it off?” Riley demanded.
“It was mutual.” Jim tried to sound nonchalant.
“Like hell it was.” Riley seemed playful and serious simultaneously. “One of you got sick of the other and broke it off. That’s how it works. The smaller half of the bread gets sick of it. The person who cares less gets bored and cuts and runs.”
Jim had no reply for his uncle. He realized that Riley had probably practiced this speech, honed his opinion, long before this conversation. Jim was hearing the drunken regurgitation of previous revelations.
“Who do you think likes the other one better,” Riley asked, “your Mom or your Dad?”
“Careful.” Jim warned. “That’s not even an issue. They are staying together and screw your two-pieces-of-bread theory.”
Riley wouldn’t be stopped. “They probably will stay together, but you know one of them has to like the other more than the other, right? Do you think it’s your Mom? She idolizes your Dad, kind of, doesn’t she? Does he idolize her?” Riley was slurring his words at this point. “I don’t think he does. I think he likes her fine, but she idolizes him and if he got bored and left he’d get over it and she’d be wrecked.”
In twenty second’s time Jim had become furious. “Listen here motherfucker,” Riley didn’t respond to this vulgarity besides a snort of laughter. “Dad isn’t you. He’s not going to ‘get bored’ and wander off with some flight attendant whore or a dozen. He actually works at his marriage, and so does Mom.” Jim knew the next part would hurt his uncle. “That’s why they spend their Christmas mornings with family, not surrounded by shitty furniture in a shitty dive of a hell hole house, alone.”
Riley didn’t react. Jim had expected that this would get a reaction out of his uncle, possibly even a violent one. Instead Riley sat on the couch, staring at the vodka on the table. He reached for the bottle.
“Really?” Jim asked. Riley’s hand lingered over the bottle, before he grabbed Jim’s glass instead and swallowed the shot, his eyes wide open. “Isn’t that you’re fifth?” Jim asked.
“Aha,” Riley laughed very slowly, “no… I had two before you came here.” Jim could see his uncle was fading fast. He wondered if this man had slept much the night before. Probably not.
“Hey, I’m sorry for that, just now.” Jim said solemnly. “I didn’t mean it.” Jim was sorry he’d snapped. His uncle was pathetic and there was no reason to kick a man down.
“It’s… it’s ok, I… you’re right, that’s me.” Riley’s eyelids were dropping. Jim realized the man was about to fall asleep. “It’s not news… that I’m like this.”
Jim didn’t know what to say. He stood and moved over to his uncle’s side, leaning down to talk quietly to him. “You don’t have to be. You could call Mom and Dad, or Uncle Todd. You don’t have to be drinking all day.” He felt like his words meant nothing to his uncle.
“Jimmy.” Riley was almost gone. “Bud, I don’t know how to change,” he put his right hand on Jim’s left shoulder, “I don’t know how to change. I can’t ask for help.” Riley’s hand dropped from Jim’s shoulder, and his eyelids fell shut. He breathed in and out heavily. Jim stood next to his unconscious uncle for a minute. The radio still played in the kitchen.
Jim walked over the roll top desk. He didn’t have to search. It was there on top of a month’s worth of bills and ads. Jim opened the white envelope marked “Riley,” looked inside, closed it again, and pushed it into the pocket of his pants.
He let himself out through the shoddy door, sparing one last glance backward at his uncle, still sleeping. Jim climbed into the car, buckled his seat belt and started the engine. He’d be back with his family in fifteen minutes, an hour total of his Christmas day given up. One hour for five hundred dollars. A hell of a return on his investment. A hell of a way to spend Christmas.