WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE

Rachel Shea

They’re getting married tomorrow. Big! And tonight, literally the night before, she turns to him and goes hey, I have to tell you something

Crinkly bag of chips. They’re on the couch. Wholesome. He’s scrolling twitter with his left thumb. Yeah what’s up

You know how earlier today I went to go pick up the flowers?

Yeah

Well …

He’s watching a video on his feed. Sorry sorry I don’t wanna interrupt but holy shit. Someone killed a homeless person on 4th and Samson

It’s a familiar street, and a man standing in the direct line of traffic. His hair and clothes are unkempt. He looks dirty. Maybe he’s homeless. His arms and hands are gesticulating erratically, and he’s making noises that are unable to be deciphered into language: it’s unclear whether he’s ‘just’ having a really bad time or whether he actively wants something. The light changes and he still hasn’t moved. Cars begin to honk. The light changes again, from green to yellow to red. People roll down their windows and curse. And then the moment which everyone has been dreading and hoping for: the gray SUV at the front of the line of cars accelerates straight into the homeless man.

His head hits the asphalt. His dirty hairy legs splayed out in the driving lane.

Cars begin to roll by under the speed limit. A red Prius. Black Mazda CX-5. White Tesla Model S. Wait. He pauses the video and rewinds. White Tesla Model S with a familiar license plate. That’s our car.

She says, I was about to say. I was gonna tell you

Tell me? he says. Tell me that you drove straight past? You should have done something. His voice is louder than he realizes, and it echoes through their sparsely furnished apartment. Something .. something .. something

How is it possible that she didn’t see? How is it possible that she saw and didn’t care? How much suffering can you ignore until you become the one who inflicts the suffering? How can not a single person have gotten out of their car?

She frowns. To ask me to have done something? What should I have done? What would you have done? A stranger was suffering and it’s a shame, and I’m sorry, as sorry as anyone else, but by the time I saw him he was dead, okay?

She’s not a selfish person, he thinks. We’re not selfish people. She just doesn’t understand. But as he says the words to himself, he realizes that he’s wrong.

(It was her who taught him that trick, actually. That you can decide what you believe by talking out loud. And that you don’t need to get offended at the out of pocket things other people say because it’s not really them, they’re still deciding what they believe by talking out loud, just like you. Trying out horrible thoughts like ugly scarves at the mall.)

She scoots towards him on the couch and touches his arm. He knows that touch. It’s a gesture of attentiveness, a jittery reassurance. A woman touches a man’s arm like that to remind him that she’s grateful for him, for him doing for her sake something that bores him or pisses him off.

He looks down at her hand on his forearm — light pink manicure, long slender hairless fingers — and feels an appalling rush of fondness and recognition. It’s unbearable, unbearable. Lord help me, he thinks. I really do love you.

We’re getting married tomorrow. We’re going to be happy. We’re going to have so much happiness. We’re not going to let anything — anything — stand in the way of that

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