Submitted for the March 2025 prompt: Begin at the Big Ending

Years ago, before the bodies stacked up, I murdered an innocent man with a dollar bill.

 

That’d be a paper one, all wrinkled and worn, creases frayed by countless fingers before they ended up in mine. Should you happen to be of a certain age and understanding this unremarkable bill was one vending machine battle away from circulation retirement.

 

But this dollar didn’t retire. It killed, though I didn’t know why that might be at the time.

 

Believe me, I didn’t kill any of the first few on purpose, but I certainly did for the others. The jackals who deserved it, that is. I sealed their fates with a full understanding of the power I’d been given, and for far less than the cost of a pack of gum.

 

* * *

 

Not that you asked, but I gave that deadly George W to a man named Elliot.

 

I liked Elliot. He was good and decent, homeless but happy. I didn’t mean to snuff out his life for half the price of a Powerball. Even today, with this conga line of corpses extending out behind me, I can see him back at the beginning.

 

Elliot’s sitting there, like he did every morning, on a milk crate throne padded thick with the free metro paper. His gap-tooth grin beams at me through a wiry, unkempt beard as I walk by from the renter’s side of Beacon Hill to my ad agency downtown.

 

On this unremarkable morning, Elliot’s last, he was doing his thing, chirping hello’s and tapping a tune on an iced coffee cup bongo only his scattered mind could hear.

 

It was also his birthday. That’s important; it explains the dollar that stopped his heart on a dime.

 

“Today’s my birthday!” he says, eyes wild and glistening from beneath a ratty knit beanie. He punctuates each word with an exuberant sway, the crate throne creaking in mild protest beneath his generous frame.

 

“Elliot, happy birthday!” I say with legitimate warmth. It feels good to see someone experience genuine elation about something, especially with the way things had been going those days (story for another time, as they say).

 

I extend the dollar. It’s a simple gift, a pittance, but nevertheless given with good intent.

 

Elliot dies with a smile on his face.

 

* * *

 

Despite what happened to Elliot, I did not act with ill intent. For most of the others, yes, malice aplenty, but not him. Or Sarah from work, now that I think about it, or my friend Ted, whose many exes would say he deserved an early death — but not me.

 

“Jenny had a weird laugh, ok? You know how important a girl’s laugh is to me.”

 

That’s right, Jenny. Ted’s latest. Laughed like the first few seconds of a motorcycle turning over, or something. Too much vocal vibrato for Ted in any case.

So, I do him a solid. I pick up our tab. No biggie. Just something people do a thousand times over every day.

 

But that’s not what happened with Ted. The second I sign he pitches forward, smacks his skull on the bar, and drops to the hardwood like a sad sack of hammers.

 

Ted met his maker missing a tooth.

 

* * *

 

Sarah croaked soon after Ted. She was a designer at my agency and had the misfortune of trailing behind me as I went through our building’s froofy glass facade.

 

Raised the way I was by Midwestern parents, which is to say politely, I held open the door and the aneurysm hiding deep in her brain blew open like the world’s most terrifying balloon.

 

In that moment of horror, as I stood over her crumpled corpse feeling this dumb mix of fear and shame, it clicked.

 

Within me lay a gift of terrible irony. My good deeds meant death.

 

Inevitably, when I think about these three souls I recall the first death that made a difference. The murder that removed a blight from this earth instead of an innocent.

 

* * *

 

There was this wretched man on the T. That’s the subway as spoken in Boston. He surfaced every so often like human-size herpes to menace the city’s public transit class.

 

“Nice rag, raghead,” he spews, predictably slurred, and a bit redundant. Wasn’t his best.

 

He targets two Muslim women, their hijabs an offense to his ignorant eye, though to me they look as bored as any other rider who wanted the damn train to run on time.

 

His screeches intensify as the handful of neurons firing between his ears get up to speed.

 

“I gave you a compliment. They do those in I-ran? Or do they just chop off heads?” He likes that one. Gave himself a real giggle.

 

The harassment continues, rising above the rumbling madness of the subway car. But then—

 

“Today’s my birthday!”

 

Elliot flashes before me, eyes glazed, flannel-swaddled form toppling from its plastic perch. Then there’s Ted, temple smacking the corner of the bar on his way down to oblivion. Sarah’s there too, reflecting up at me in the glass, eyes rolled up, white and empty. Finally, pure indignation.

 

The next stop arrives. The train grinds to a halt, and soot-smudged doors tumble open. The man senses tears from his prey and stands with smug satisfaction. In his overconfidence he drops his phone. It tumbles to the muck-stained floor with a crack loud enough to stir the few remaining folks into looking up with interest.

 

Schadenfreude sits heavy in the air. I relish it, though my audience will never understand what is about to happen. They will see darkness die, and that is enough for me.

 

I help the man, this petty vessel full of fury, with a simple gesture. One of common kindness that occurs all over the world, but not as often as it used to.

I move toward him. I act with good intent.

 

“My friend,” I say, “let me get that for you.”

 

I remember the dollar. This death doesn’t cost me a cent.