Harmless Read Online Free PDF

living room:
    I felt a presence
behind me.  I pivoted, swung the bat, and whiffed at the open air, which was
followed by a sharp, solid thunk on my temple.  I saw sparkles.  (The
knock-on-the-head kind, not the cat kind.)
    The immediate, dizzying
sensation didn’t last long because, well, rock of strength that I am…I blacked
out.
    When I woke up—minutes
later, according to my watch—I was face down on Kerry’s floor, laying there in
a glob of my own drool, with a screeching, skull-splitting headache.  I’d never
felt pain so intense and I nearly barfed when I tried to move.  Hangovers
aren’t that bad.  Migraines aren’t that bad.  If you’ve never had one, they’re
incapacitating.  Sounds, lights, movement—everything makes it worse.  Shayna
often thought my migraines were an excuse to get out of things like household
chores, work, and ballet recitals.  Sometimes she was right.
    My baseball bat was
gone. 
    Why didn’t I freak out?
    A couple of reasons. 
    One, whomever he was,
the attacker had vanished, and I was alive.  If he’d wanted me dead, I wouldn’t
be here telling this story.  Why would he kill Kerry and leave a witness
alive?  Best guess is that the former was a crime of passion, unintended, and
by the time I came around, he was already feeling guilty and simply wanted to
get away.
    So there’s that.
    Two, even though I was
already at odds with the local law enforcement and considered them to be
ignorant fools (my position hasn’t changed), I’d gathered they were remotely
intelligent enough to realize I wasn’t the culprit.  I’d been trying to do
their job for them.  I don’t have a violent bone in my body. 
    Again, Shayna will tell
you differently, specifically citing three broken dinner plates and a
fist-sized hole in the basement door.  Those are consequences of circumstance
and in no way an indicator of character.  If I told you the reasoning behind
each instance, you wouldn’t believe me, regardless.
    Factoring in my
abhorrence to violence, certain that my innocence would be upheld, I stayed
calm.
    And why not have a look
around while I was inside?  Maybe see if I could come up with something, some
reason for the injustice.
    I owed it to Kerry. 
She’d been so nice, and gracious, and thankful every time I offered to help
with whatever she needed—it didn’t matter that she’d said no thanks and
scampered away.  She’d been kind enough to close her blinds whenever I was
outside, hot and sweating from working so hard, just so I wouldn’t be jealous
of seeing her inside where she was cool and relaxed.  Such a sweet, sweet girl,
and she deserved better than having the police botch her case.
    Knowing that I’d been
out for some time, and that the average response time of 9-1-1 was about four
minutes—according to Officer Planck—I assumed that none of the other neighbors
had made the call and it would be safe to search for evidence.
    Being inside Kerry’s
house, finally, still held this untouchable, magic feeling, considering the
situation.  Just hours before, I would’ve given my appendix to be standing
where I was right then.
    Aside from the fish
tank that nearly got me killed, there was a couch, a coffee table, a dying
potted plant, a stereo, and a small flat screen television.  And that was it. 
Bare bones emptiness, as if she’d moved in yesterday instead of months ago. 
There were no photographs of smiling children.  No magazines.  Nothing that
could be considered “personal effects” like the boxful I had to remove on the
day of my firing.  (The words “exile” and “banishment” might be more
appropriate.)
    Needless to say, I
expected more.  Honestly, it was like playing those tacky carnival games where
you toss a ring onto a bottle and win a stuffed animal.  Or maybe knock down
the weighted milk jugs with a softball, win a bigger stuffed animal. 
Entertaining, but still a disappointment.
    In the kitchen, there
was more of the same