David Erlewine

His Face

The boy next door never used to wave back when I drove by. Sometimes he gave sideways glances. Once he started glaring, so did I.

After my accident, he asked me, real somber-looking, if I planned to have any more kids.

He constantly points out to friends the spot where I ran over my boy.

Last Saturday on our deck I heard him tell friends in his backyard that I was Bill the Butcher. My wife claims not to have heard him.

Yesterday he grinned at me as he peeled out of his driveway, waving like I was a child.

I plan to tell him there should be a phrase describing people like him -- “I don’t know you, but I hate your face.” That’s exactly how I felt the day we moved in and his Dad carried him over and forced him to say hi.

My wife’s got bone cancer now and I think when she goes I might find a way to get him into my house, show him that after killing one boy the second is like slicing cake.

David Erlewine is a fiction editor at Dogzplot. His stories appear in The Pedestal Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Hobart, Word Riot, elimae, and a number of other literary journals.