The Juror by George Dawes Green Read Free Book Online

Trac-ball.”
    “I know what it is.”
    “Will I get one?”
    “No. And if you breathe a word of this to anyone—you hear me?—you’ll get a Trac-ball built in to your little throat.”
    “Momba.”
    “What?”
    “That wasn’t funny.”
    “Wasn’t supposed to be.”
    “It was kind of stupid.”
    “Good.”
    “Ha ha ha!” he mocks. “A Trac-ball built in to my little throat! Ho! Ha ha!”
    He rises up and pushes down on the pedals. The lake breeze whips up around him. “Ha ha
ha
!” he shouts as he speeds away from her. Think of Momba famous. We’ll buy the Dills’ house up on Horsepound Ridge, and Mom’s
     friend Juliet can come over to use the pool.
    He calls back, “
Move
it, Mom!”
    Soon they’re cruising together up Seminary Lane. They pass Shawn Cardi, who gives them a nod and a quick cool fartlike honk
     from his bike’s electronic horn. Makes Oliver feel a little sheepish to be seen hanging around with his mother. However Shawn
     Cardi has his own problems. He’s a buzzbrain, for one thing. And
his
mother is the funeral director in town. So Oliver returns his nod sort of curtly and leans way back on his bike like he’s
     riding a Harley, and he thinks pretty soon it
will
be a Harley he’s riding. I mean we could buy a lot of land, right? And I wouldn’t need a driver’s license on my own property,
     would I?
    Theoretically, he thinks, I could be riding a Harley tomorrow.
    And once I get good at it, by say sometime next week, I can start letting Juliet ride behind me.
    Home stretch now. Past the snippety lawn of Mr. and Mrs. Zoeller and their lawn troll (all three of whom Oliver despises).
     Then their own wild yard. He banks to the right, arcing into the driveway just ahead of Mom. Rides around to the back, by
     the Indian bean tree, and jumps off. He walks the bike to the back stoop, and he’s about to reach up to open the screen door
     when he sees the skull.
    “Holy shit,” he says. “What is
that
?”
    Stupid question, though—it’s plain what it is. It’s a human skull, hanging in front of the screen door.
    Mom comes up behind him. She gasps.
    A tag, like a laboratory ID tag, hangs from the skull. It reads OLIVER LAIRD.
    Then Oliver feels something drilling against his temple and into his ear and slashing down his neck, and he wheels. Another
     burst of water hits him between the eyes. His assassin is up in the Indian bean tree. Juliet.
    “You’re dead.”
    She’s peering around the trunk, with a Super Soaker submachine gun held against her shoulder. Green-eyed, red-haired Juliet,
     Mom’s best friend. Squinting down the sights.
    “Down, you’re dead.”
    “Not fair!” Oliver cries.
    “Fair? Death is not fair.”
    “I’m not armed!” He opens his mouth to raise further objection but she blasts it.
    “It’s time to die, Oliver.”
    He shrugs, and lets his bike fall, and drops to his knees, and slowly pitches forward. Winds up in a sort of kowtow. Looking
     up at her sideways. She jumps out of the tree. She’s 6’2”. She has sort of a boyish body but with a few soft confusing female
     turns. When she’s gossiping with Oliver’s mom, or when she’s horsing around with Oliver, she slouches a little, she relaxes.
     But he’s seen her flirting with men at a restaurant and once at a barbecue, and once in a parking lot with another resident
     at her hospital, and on those occasions she rose up to her full height and even leaned back a little, and swayed slightly
     as she talked, swayed like a snake, and Oliver wishes she would stand this way around
him
once in a while.
    From his dead-man’s kowtow he asks her, “Whose skull is that?”
    Juliet gives his mother a hug, but she keeps her rifle pointed at Oliver. “Yours, loser. Can’t read your own name?” Then she
     asks Oliver’s Mom: “So what’s this earthshaking news?”
    Says Oliver, “Hey, is it
real
? Where’d you get it?” He jumps up and unhooks it from the screen.
    “Neurosurgery resident gave