Almost-A- Murderer: BACKFIRED Chapters One & Two
BACKFIRED
Prologue
“Sure, I knew he was capable of murder… I’d groomed him to be,” reasoned Micah’s mom, as she struggled with the rope binding her hands behind her back, thinking: “Doesn’t every mom wish their son could commit murder for them?… I just didn’t think in a trillion years it would be me… How could he?… Surely, he can’t or he would’ve done it by now,” she mouthed under her breath.
“Not after all I’ve done for him!… And he could have gotten me a more comfortable chair,” she winced and whined until both her wrists and ankles were chafe, burning, with her constant irritated shifting. Micah had looped the thick new rope between the four legs of the wooden straight chair placed far enough back from the small circular attic window, so that if she tried to escape or attract someone, she would trip and he would hear her.
Toting her comatose body was quite an ordeal. For, although he was strong, and he had flipped her over his shoulder like a sack of old potatoes, the staircase was narrow and warped… He wasn’t sure about both their weights on the creaking steps. And after he had plopped her onto the wooden seat and roped her up just before she came to, he’d found himself sweating profusely and quite famished.
He figured that he still had a few hours before finishing what he’d been subconsciously planning for weeks now. Though, the desire had been building over the years… His mom had taught him to think only of his desires, after hers, of course. That ‘sentiment’ was useless and for fools. And that only extreme intelligence would carry one into the future. And she always had a way of letting him know that he was a tad deficient. She held that intellectual steering wheel firmly in hand.
“Look at who you married!” always her final throwback. “And don’t you dare believe that your wife can even fly beside me during my luxurious aspirations—high, and not for hire.” As far as she was concerned, Micah’s wife, Rachel, was of no more concrete value, if she couldn’t pull her weight.
“Having a baby in your fifties, even if it’s your first, and even if during a prolonged pandemic does not grant you crying privileges!”
So, when Micah’s mother starting feigning chronic illness, she had no idea that it would backfire.
CHAPTER ONE
While quickly downing a beer before ripping off a bright yellow wrapper on his deluxe chicken sandwich, Micah thought about the best way to set his grandmother’s old wooden house ablaze. “The wiring is ancient,” he mumbled through the huge spicy bite he had taken, glancing around at discolored outlets along the chipped dusty baseboards of the kitchen and on the back wall of the small yellowed linoleum counter. It was a tiny room with a dirty white four burner gas stove and a mismatched black heavy refrigerator digging into the sagging floor.
He was familiar with doing electrical and carpentry work on homes, since his mother came into the habit of ‘flipping’ old houses after his dad fled to Florida with her male workmate on his arm. At that time, Micah’s mother was a young tired waitress assisting her griping husband with credit card payments jointly made. So, Micah learned his craft as a sad young lad following along after many skilled laborers, who traded service for physical favors from his mom in payment. She had no idea he was well-aware of what was happening.
So, that day, they were there to do a walk-through, so that she’d have a good idea of what price she’d quote, if deciding to sell her mother’s home ‘as is’. But Micah had determined that she would not see that accomplished after the incident. It would be her last time to belittle him.
It happened so fast… Wearing a tan linen pantsuit and with an elevated three inches added to her height in beige pumps, Gloria, Micah’s mom, leaned her shoulder against the living room door frame with arms folded beneath her breasts and a black mask dangling from her fingers. She repeated: “What did I ask you to do?… Can’t you get anything right?” Her eyes boring into her fifty-four-year-old, good-looking, bearded, good-natured son. She didn’t want to spend any unnecessary funds on the house.
He’d turned his back on her to continue examining the floorboards, to see if he’d need to lay down another floor. Or, could he get away with just removing a few damaged boards and refinishing it.
“Mom,” he said; “It won’t take much effort or money to at least make the house presentable… You’d get more money in the end. I can have it finished next weekend.”
“If I needed you to think for me, I’d have asked,” she flipped rapidly back. “And when have I ever asked you what you thought about anything?… I don’t need a man to think for me.”
At that point, Micah spun around and slapped her so hard that her head hit the frame and she slid to the floor… He felt that it would eventually come to this, just not this soon. But he went casually quick out of the front door and down the three chipped cement steps to his truck out front; unlocked the backdoor, and from the back seat removed the rope that he’d bought weeks earlier when visiting a Harold’s hardware store in the city.
When indoors, he grabbed her up; slung her over his shoulder and used the skeleton key to open the attic door. He flipped the switch on the wall, carefully taking the creaky steps slowly and gently up until he entered the cluttered area under the rafters. Previously, he’d cleared an area out for himself, when he needed to take a break and hide out for brief moments. So, there was already a wooden chair centered under a single dangling blinking bulb.
Micah had no idea how much longer she’d be out, so he quickly dropped her onto the seat; grabbed her hands, tying them behind her and threading the rope to the front of the chair. Pulled it taut, before tying her feet together.
Dripping sweat, he returned downstairs, deciding to leave on the light, but still locking the door and putting the key into his khaki’s pocket. Earlier, he’d had purchased lunch for them at the corner deli and had put it and a case of beer inside the refrigerator. They had picked up the refrigerator at a repair shop a couple of years back, because Gloria had begun to use the house initially as a start-up office. She said the bleakness of the atmosphere at her childhood residence was enough to propel her out and upwards. Now, she wanted no reminders of her tragic past. And neither did Micah.
As he polished off the remainder of his lunch in three more bites, he calculated: “It would be easy enough to overload the circuits;” wiping the crackling paper across his mouth. And swiping the crumbs onto the floor. Grabbing the last beer from the refrigerator, he dropped back into his seat at the table.
Wiping his hand across the top of his head, he looked around the outdated kitchen of his mom’s old home, actually surprised that he had any fondness of memories as a child there. He seemed to hazily remember a giant of a man tossing him into the air, riding him on his back like a pony, and the same man bouncing him on his knee…
Suddenly, he shook his head and glared instead at the ceiling. He heard his mom trying to scoot; scraping the wooden floor with her chair. A tick began pulsating at his right temple. Closing his eyes for a moment, he gritted his teeth. Squeezing one fist into the palm of the other, he forced a stillness upon his rising anger. He knew he had to quiet her before the first-time home buyers appeared.
A young couple interested in a ‘fixer-upper’ were to stop by early afternoon. He’d try to carry on as normal as possible as he sent them apologetically away. But Micah had forgotten that Gloria had parked her Mercedes further up the road beyond the thick bushes to avoid parking in a little mud.
Micah knew that Gloria would soon be hungry, but thought he’d make her wait until she was good and thirsty… “I’ll nuke a sandwich for her and pour her a coke.” His plan to also add her sleeping meds which usually put her out for hours… Ever since he could remember, she’d had an inability to sleep long. He put his head down on his folded arms to think. In no time at all, he was fast asleep and snoring. Sleep never being a problem for him.
CHAPTER TWO
Gloria was furious. Hot and stale attic air dried out her mouth, yet caused her sleeveless silk shell to stick to her sweaty flesh. She wanted to rip off her jacket to wring her blouse until drips could fall to cool her tongue… No… No. She’d rather race down the attic steps, karate kick open the door and wring her son’s neck. Yes! Then afterwards, she’d stroll satisfied to her car, pop open the trunk where she always carried bottled vitamin water and vodka inside a canteen and drink greedily. Then, she thought, she’d get inside her car and blast the air-conditioning until she was suitably frozen, before thinking of how she would dispose of her wicked son’s body.
These thoughts kept Gloria gloriously occupied for a good hour. Until the heat became unbearably oppressive. Her energy level sank fast. Unfortunately, she also began to weep; “wasting even more fluid,” she moaned.
She never fathomed that inside her car, every fifteen minutes or so, her phone would ring. There weren’t too many reasons for anyone to call her on weekends. Maybe spam calls. She’d gave no consideration to the fact that the young couple were to tour the home later that day. They would only call if something were to prevent them from viewing her home. Therefore, she had no reason to believe that anyone would be interested in her where-about. However, her daughter-in-law, Rachel, was.
Ten minutes away, in their newly renovated ranch home, Rachel stared out of the bay window onto the tree-lined street wondering why neither Gloria or Micah picked up their phones, as she still admired the sun’s rays streaming through sparse branches. She was planning on ordering out for lunch and thought that it would be a good gesture to invite her mother-in-law.
Rachel knew that her mother-in-law’s brashness drove others away. Like, when Rachel was allowed to work for a few months in the real estate office with Gloria, because Gloria thought a young attractive female would bring in many clients. However, Gloria did not like the fact that, although attractive herself, many were drawn to Rachel’s kind and helpful demeanor. Therefore, Rachel was forced to find another agency to work from. Now, she works from home while awaiting the birth of she and Micah’s child. “That incident and many more like it,” thought Rachel, was why “Gloria won’t have any plans.”
Letting the sheers drop back into place, Rachel decided not to leave another message, thinking: “She’s probably showing the couple the house and she or Micah will call when they’re through… I’ll just be obedient and do as the doctor says, “stay off your feet” until they get here.”
Sliding past the glass coffee-table, Rachel eased her increasingly heavy frame onto the floral sofa, slipped off her house shoes, then raised her thickening legs, sighing. She recalled the night she’d gotten herself into this situation sadly. Usually so careful, knowing that menopausal women got pregnant often, Rachel allowed her body to comfort a sorely distressed Micah venting acid anger at his mother’s frequent abusive comments. With no time to leave, prepare and return, Rachel knew that her life was about to take another un-expectant, expectant turn. Her premonition proved to be correct. A doctor’s appointment a month later confirmed what she’d already felt.
Rachel picked up the magazine Psychology Today, then began to finish reading an article she started earlier about caustic mother and son relationships. She subconsciously prayed that their child would be a female. Not that she wouldn’t love a son. She just didn’t know how she and Micah together would do as parents of a male. Would he be jealous of their mother-and-son bond? Would he be interested in him? Could he even love him? Were questions that consistently plagued her.
Rachel knew that for the safety of her child’s disposition, she must concentrate on pleasantries. So, she closed the magazine and picked up another magazine entitled AWAKE! left earlier by a middle-aged couple. They highlighted the theme entitled: Wisdom for Life and Happiness. https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102021002.
The Table of Contents drew her:
3 Wisdom for Life and Happiness
4 Wisdom for Family Happiness
6 Guidance for Peaceful Relationships
8 Keys to Contentment
10 Why Do We Suffer, Grow Old, and Die?
12 Teachings That Give Hope
14 Knowledge That Draws Us to God
15 Wisdom Within Your Reach
16 Would You Like to Learn More?
Matter-of-fact, their leaving the porch was the reason she stood at the window in the first place. Also, when about to depart, they made congratulatory mention of her pregnant state, showing her a two-minute video entitled: Little One, that she found so charming. They left a card where she could locate the video and others like it, for she and her future child’s enjoyable.
Rachel laid back on the sofa pillow, took her phone, typed in www.JW.org, then typed Little One in the search box. “There it is!” she cried. The darkness brought to her soul upon reflection of Micah and his mom’s relationship receded as Rachel repeatedly played the little song until she knew it by heart.
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ITH & SB 