Blow them away

As any normal child, I wished for people I didn’t like to die. Schoolyard bullies, strict teachers, my mom’s boyfriend. I’d imagine how much better the world would be without them. I was a good kid so it was only natural to consider, and quietly revel, in the net positive of their absence. A green flag, really.

At ten years old I did not know what acetaldehyde was but I knew to stay away from people, especially men, that smelled like it. They stare a little too long, they get in your space, and if they are sitting down they’ll ask you to sit on their lap. Watching my little brother lift dollars from their wallets while they complimented how “grown up” I looked almost made up for it.

My uncle, though, he was a different garden variety of rot.

He lived with his mother well into his forties, a permanent fixture on her couch and her grocery bill. He drank the cheap stuff and still owed everyone money. He smelled like old sweat, stale beer, and stomach acid. He left a trail of disgust everywhere he went. Crumbs, ash, dented furniture, nail clippings, cracked mugs, sweat-stained sheets. You couldn’t sit on the living room without wondering if something had previously soaked your seat.

The morning of my eleventh birthday I woke up early, excited. I had a new dress. My aunt promised cake and a surprise. I felt ecstatic. I ran to the bathroom, buzzing. I grabbed the mouthwash, took a big swig, and immediately gagged.

Vomit. Sharp, bitter. Old.
Someone else’s bile coating my tongue.

He had used it to rinse the vomit out of his mouth from the night before and spit some of it back in the bottle. I brushed my teeth until my gums bled. That was his gift to me. Happy Birthday.

So when they brought out the cake and the candles flickered in front of me, I didn’t hesitate. I closed my eyes, smiled, and wished: That he dies drowning in his own sick.

When everyone that attended to my birthday came down with a cold the next couple of days I assumed it was divine punishment. Karmic backlash for wishing someone’s death. But by the end of the week everyone was fine except him. His cough was wet, deep. He refused to see a doctor. He much rather be at home with his elderly mother caring for him around the clock than help himself. God help her, Grandma did everything she could. Tending to him with damp cloths and warm soup. She wouldn’t shut eye worried he’d stop breathing in his sleep.

He wouldn’t eat.
He wouldn’t move.
He just laid on the couch, wheezed and leaked.

Then, before the end of the week at 2:30 a.m., he collapsed on the kitchen floor, gasping, clawing at his throat. A slick trail of sweat and mucus mixed with Vicks vaporub extended from his bedroom. His skin was stretched tight and shining, his lips blue and blistered, his limbs stiff with fluid. He looked waterlogged. Like something fished from the bottom of a lake.

The coroner cited pulmonary edema caused by pneumonia.

The next year, I blew out twelve candles and aimed my wish a little more strategically.
And the year after that, and the year after that. By fourteen, I didn’t even flinch when our band director suddenly lost all his teeth and died of a hemorrhage on stage. His eyes filmed over like slow-cooked eggs. Some people just don’t deserve to make it to fifth period.

I turn seventeen next week and I’m just so excited to see all the good I can do in this world.