Stacy Wyatt 2-28-04 Creative Non-Fiction True Crime: Murder It is my turn. I take the stand before the lawyers, jurors, judges and audience who have come to see my life weighted against their ideas of “common decency.” They judge me while silently hoping their own actions will never come under such scrutiny—after all, everyone has secrets—and these trained discerners will not get mine, if I can help it. I state my name and age for the record as I’m prompted, “Ian Huntley. Twenty-eight years old.” There is some more reading of documents, “facts,” my police record, national and district. The national, previously entirely uninformative, thus allowing me to start over without the stain of reputation when I moved with Maxine four years ago; while the district record seems to ooze with memory for me whether the incidents I nostalgically favor most were reported or not. Oh those strings of girls, the way they walked without the slightest idea of their bodies in the beginning, and the way that their walk would change later as they began to realize all the lovely things their parents had tried to shield them from, and then their curve-less hips would swing just so, and I knew why. I was why. Ah, yes, here it comes, my turn—to tell of that afternoon, it was such a lovely afternoon. They were ten years old, struggling, not like that year of the fourteen year old harem. They were all so easily convinced, their parents couldn’t press charges, the girls loved me, but then it was so much less satisfying than the struggle and the beautiful shattering in their eyes. If they’re willing you don’t get that, your body is satisfied with their little gifts but you soul will never be content without that wonderful dazzling moment of rupture. “It was about half past six on August 4th of 2002 when I saw Jessica Chapman and Holly Welles walking down the street outside my and Maxine’s home--” “Ms. Carr’s previous home, please,” says Maxine’s stuck up lawyer. “Excuse me, ‘what had previously been the home of Ms. Carr and me,’” I say it as if I were actually apologetic. I still love Maxine, and she has rejected me for my little differences. I had tried to keep her clean of it knowing she wouldn’t love me past it. She was always the romantic, over and over, ‘our love will concur everything.’ Ha. I’ll remind her she loved me every chance I get, to make her remember and love me, or remember and taunt her since she’s forsaken me, my only consolation prize besides my gorgeous memories. As I was saying, “—I saw the girls walking by the house from inside, through the bathroom window, I was brushing our dog. I thought I recognized the girls from a class picture, one of Maxine’s—excuse me, Ms. Carr’s—classes.” Maxine had left in a huff earlier. She could be a bitch sometimes, getting willful, leaving chores undone, talking back. Then the girls walked by. They were so beautiful, even without plaid skirts—that delicious hallmark of feminine education in our fine land—they were still so beautiful with their innocent smiles, their laughter still without self-consciousness, and their almost boyish bodies. Ah, ten years old is a wonderful age. “I didn’t think much of it. I waved at them, it’s a friendly neighborhood.” “As they were walking they were laughing rather hard about something and the darker girl, Holly, began to have a nosebleed. I invited them in to clean up.” They were suspicious at first, such good little girls; they relaxed a little after I confirmed that Maxine lived there, that I was a friend of hers. As they passed me in the doorway I could smell them, their little girl smell—sweat without a deodorant, a sort of out-doors dust and grass smell, a small amount of the mustiness that in larger quantities defines women from girls, and then hiding behind all that a light wisp of baby powder as if their mothers had only very recently ceased caring for the state of their bottoms—, they would have lost it soon, all that vague hinting at their temporary perfection, you could tell they were about to start becoming women in not long at all, maybe a mere few months, that would have been fine, but they were so perfect, the very youngest of mine. “In the bathroom Holly sat on the edge of the tub while I passed her paper towels I was cooling with cold water from the sink. Jessica was sitting on the edge on the other end near the door. There was water in the tub as I’d been about to wash the dog. As I handed Holly a towel I bumped her and she fell into the tub.” I tried to not get them worried right away. I tried to take Holly’s jersey off, saying I would wash the blood off it. She argued with me. I told her she wouldn’t want Maxine to hear her being such a bad argumentative girl. She gave me the jersey, but fumed standing there in her undershirt. I said Jessica had some blood on hers too and she started to take hers off. She was so much less trouble. Holly said there wasn’t any blood on the other jersey. She was going to start arguing again, I shoved her backwards into the dry tub. She hit her head against the other side knocking her unconscious. “Then Jessica began screaming, ‘You pushed her! You pushed her!’ I was afraid a neighbor would hear her and think something was amiss, so I put my hand over her mouth; I’m not sure for how long. Suddenly I realized she was limp and let go. She fell to the floor. I checked both of the girls, neither was breathing.” If that were true the next few hours wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. Holly knocked out, quiet for the moment. Jessica shut up too once she realized I had not qualms about putting her in the same condition, then she was quiet as any boxed in mouse, not much louder at all. I took her to the bedroom. I had my little delight, her eyes transformed so wonderfully from fright to pain and hopelessness, little cracking crystal mirrors, above my hand on top of her mouth and loosely over her nose. In the midst of that wonderful metronomic squeaking coming from the bed frame, I tightened my hand completely as I slid over her one last time. Small girl, small lungs--it didn’t take long, I watched her eyes go as still as marbles. As she stilled I could hear Holly in the bathroom, just beginning to wake up…such perfect timing. Holly had spirit—kicking, fighting, yelling; I got a few bruises from that one, good study kicks to my legs. It was lucky for me her nails weren’t longer or she might well have shredded up my arms, especially after she saw her friend laying there like a sack of potatoes. Her lack of success certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. I got her down shortly anyway, she wasn’t as small as the other but I got a hold on her. She was the best of it, such eyes she had, brown, almost amber, and all that willfulness, like Maxine, flaming in her eyes, and then the breaking, like a candle being blown out. She wasn’t easy, wouldn’t go quietly like the other, I had to strangle her which is a bit nastier business but I’d do it again to get her eyes like that again, to watch the flame flashing in angry fear and be the one to huff and puff until the flame goes out. She was such a wonderfully spirited girl. Their parents are in the front row, right behind the lawyers. They aren’t buying a word of this, them or the jurors either, not even my own self-righteous lawyer, the idiot. I can feel the eyes of the jury burning into the side of my face. I can’t see the eyes of the mothers,’ their faces are puffy, tears I suppose. The fathers’ faces are unmoving, eyes like ice, but ice with fire behind it. Damn, if only their little bodies had burned better… .