The Murderer

Randy McGillicutty. That's the name he would use. Sometimes he forgot his real name, the one his mom gave him at birth. It was something like Rudy or Robin.

Doesn't matter.

He sat outside a Greyhound bus stop in Arizona, on thick metal mesh benches graffitied over with gang signs, person "X" loves person "Y" forever, and the standard crude jokes, pentagrams drawn as if by children, and even a few "Jesus Saves." It was the smoking section of the bus stop.

There was a thick, muscled man with red hair and mustache, almost like a fireman mustache but growing out to look like a handlebar. There were the Mexicans over in the corner next to the wall, the standard immigrants bussing in from Mexico or near the border, on their way to a new city in a foreign land to mow someone's lawn. There was the thick bearded sunken eyed pilgrim, who kind of looked like a bum, sitting across from Randy, and of course the odd assortment of travelers stepping out for a single cigarette, who would rush back into line as if the bus was going to be there any faster than its scheduled two hours from now.

"I just got out of the Army," the sunken eyed pilgrim had said. "I am on my way to a monastery."

When Randy had heard that, he knew he would have a little bit of fun with the guy. Anyone who would grow a beard that big as a Christian couldn't be that smart.

"I'm a Christian, too. You're a Christian, right?" Randy asked.

"Yes, I am."

"What, a Catholic?"

"No, Orthodox."

Randy wanted to see how far he could get under the sunken eyed pilgrims skin.

"I didn't know Jews had monasteries."

The pilgrim chuckled.

"No, not Jewish. Orthodox Christian."

Failure. If the pilgrim had gotten mad, or insulted the Jews, Randy would, without blinking an eye, tell of how his family was Jewish, and his grandmother suffered in Auschwitz, and he became a Christian but hated all the racism found in the religion.

But he couldn't do that now. The pilgrim acted like it was no big deal, but kept smoking his cigarette.

"What did you do when you were in the Army?" the man with the fireman's handlebar mustache asked.

"I was an electronic technician."

"That's cool."

The pilgrim looked at Randy and Mr. Mustachio.

"Did either of you serve?"

"No," they both said.

Randy decided to try his hand at having some more fun.

"I used to work for an atomic energy agency. We worked on nukes."

"Wow," the pilgrim said. His simple sincerity was a crack up. "Where at?"

"Oh, some place in Arizona."

Randy got a kick out of making it sound like a secret.

There was a pause. The only sound was the long sucking on cigarettes, and the roar of bus engines pushing their passengers to their boring lives. But the pilgrim did not seem that interested. What, was he crazy?

Randy had a full story ready, of the time he worked on a project, and there was an accident of pushing the wrong button, because nobody knows there really is a red button, and if it wasn't for a stick of chewing gum Arizona would have been declared no man's land.

But the pilgrim did not seem to care. Randy tried a different tactic.

"Why do you want to be a priest?" Randy decided to ask.

"I can't be a priest," the pilgrim said, "but I can be a monk."

"I was in seminary," Randy said. "That's when I left the Catholic Church. Too many homosexuals."

That would get the sunken eyed, bearded retard. They all hate homos.

"Wow," the pilgrim said. He said nothing else.

Randy smiled, making sure to turn the corners of his eyes up. He wanted to scream, to grab the pilgrim by the neck and throttle him, just to see some life in the retard. But Randy had had enough.

"Where you going?" Randy asked.

"St. Anthony's monastery. I'm gonna have to walk through the desert a way. But hey, I was in the Army, should be no problem."

"I always do my walking at night," Randy said.

It was something he heard from a grunt once, and thought it would be cool to say. The fireman nodded slowly, but the pilgrim became rigid, holding his new cigarette next to his thigh.

"I thought you said you were never in the military," the pilgrim said.

Randy felt himself tremble. He took a deep breath, nice and slow. He needed air to push the adrenaline out of his muscles so he could remain calm.

"I wasn't," Randy said.

Silence. More bus engines roaring. Off in the distance, a crow called to no one in particular. The three were all alone now in the smoking section. Mr. Mustachio looked at his watch, then stood up.

"My daughter's bus is going to be here soon," he said. He walked through the side door and into the station. The door closed behind him slowly, then at the last minute hit the frame with a bang.

"Let me tell you a story," Randy said.

"Ok."

Damn that retard. Did he only have a one word vocabulary?

"There was a couple, a man and woman. They had a child, a nice young man about eight years old." Randy felt his body begin to tingle.

"They were driving to this one city, and on the highway stopped off at a hotel and decided to eat at the diner. At the diner there was a stranger who decided to follow them back to their room."

The pilgrim kept smoking, eyes never leaving Randy's mouth.

"The stranger cut the bodies up good. There was blood everywhere. No one knows why it happened. It was in the papers, you know."

Randy watched the pilgrim's eyes. Then he saw it. The slight narrowing, the pupils growing larger. The pilgrim knew. The pilgrim realized what Randy was trying to say.

"Wow."

"What bus station are they dropping you off at?"

"Casa Grande is the closest I'll get to Florence."

"That sucks you have to walk all the way from Casa Grande to Florence," Randy said, hoping for a bite.

"Yeah, but I'll be ok. God always takes care of me."

Randy was relieved there was confirmation, and relieved the pilgrim put his hope in God. Everyone Randy had killed had prayed, but not once did God intervene.

Randy got up and offered his farewells, then went inside. He walked around the open floor and thick wire mesh benches sitting in a row inside the station, with the standard travelers taking naps, the standard graffiti, the standard Mexicans with their bags and suitcases. He left through the front door.

Walking up and down the small parking lot, he found nothing that interested him. He turned to the small street that ran parallel to the station. There it was, a Honda Accord from the early eighties. Randy walked up to the window and smashed it.

The car started easy enough, and Randy revved the engine. He sat there for a minute or two, choosing a radio station to listen to.

"Country music," he said to himself. "Perfect for Arizona. Nah, maybe tejano." He switched the station to KNAI. There was some song on about El Cid, or by El Cid, Randy couldn't tell.

"Doesn't matter," he said again out loud, then started singing.

"He's gonna die, die, and it doesn't matter why...die, die, and it doesn't matter..."

"It does matter," said a voice outside the truck. "It matters why you're in my truck."

It was Mr. Mustachio, the silent lip monster. Randy started laughing, and kept laughing, as Mr. Mustachio shoved his maglite over and over in Randy's face. Randy felt a tooth crack, his ears were ringing, and he could barely see.

"You can laugh yourself to hell," Mr. Mustachio said.

When his throat was cut, Randy laughed that he could only gurgle, and that he still got away with a murder spree through Arizona.