A Simple Plan

three feet away, turned his back to me, and stooped down to retrieve a funnel-shaped hunk of glass from the wreckage. It was in the center of the puddle, and he had to lean forward on his toes to reach it.

He was getting it to use as a weapon, I knew. When he stood up, he was going to cut me.

I glanced toward the storeroom. I was fairly confident that I could make it there if I sprinted. The cashier was off balance, in a crouch; I'd catch him by surprise. And when I pushed away from the cooler, that's what I thought I was going to do -- I thought I was going to run. But I didn't. Instead, without planning to, I found myself stepping toward him. My hands grasped the machete like a baseball bat. I lifted it over my head, my eyes locked on the back of his neck. Then I brought it down with all my strength.

It was only as I did it, only as I heard the blade hiss through the air above me, that I realized it was what I'd yearned to do all along.

He seemed to sense the blow coming. He started to rise, twisting his body to the right. This was the side I hit him on, the machete coming down at an angle, striking him just below the chin, its blade burying itself into his throat. It cut deep, but not nearly as deep as I'd hoped. Brutal as it sounds, I'd wanted to chop off his head in a single stroke, ending it in an instant. I didn't have the strength, though, or the blade wasn't sharp enough, because it sank about two inches in, then stopped. I had to jerk it free as he collapsed to the floor.

There was another silence, another pause.

The radio echoed through the store: 'And Christ said, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' That is to say, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?''

The cashier was lying on his stomach, with his hands tucked in at the sides of his chest, as if he were about to do a push-up. There was a tremendous amount of blood, much more than I would've expected, more even than I would've thought his body could contain. It came out of his neck in thick cords, rhythmically, mixing with the pool of wine.

I'd severed his carotid artery.

'And so if our Savior in the moment of his passing was brought to the point of questioning God, what is to keep us, mere mortals, flawed individuals that we are, from questioning Him likewise?'

I stood there, watching him bleed. I held the machete away from my body, to keep it from dripping on my pants. I could see that it was simply a matter of waiting now, and I was relieved by this. I felt too drained, too sluggish, to hit him again.

'Something goes wrong in your life. You get sick, you lose your job, and you say, 'Where is the Lord's hand in this?''

I stepped forward, into the puddle, switching the machete from my right to my left hand. Blood continued to surge from the man's wound, but his body was very still. Although I didn't think he was dead yet, I was sure that he was close to it, approaching the boundary, slipping beyond its edge. I thought to myself, quite clearly, You're watching him die.

But then a surprising thing happened. Very slowly, as if he were being pulled from above by a set of strings, he climbed to his hands and knees.

I was too shocked to step back. I stayed right beside him, watching in astonishment, my body bent forward at the waist, my head tilted to the side.

Somehow, in an awkward, disjointed series of movements, he struggled onto his feet. He stood there, stooped over, his hands on his thighs, a thick stream of blood still pulsing from the gash in his neck. His T-shirt was soaked a deep red with it, and it clung to his body. I could see the shape of his nipples through the fabric. His face was perfectly white.

'You say, 'Either the Lord has forsaken me or He is purposefully sending hardship my way.' And you see no reason why you might deserve this. You're righteous, you're faithful, you're loving, you're steadfast, you're gentle, and yet the Lord chooses...'

I took a step back from him, toward the cooler, and he raised his head. He stared at me, his eyes blinking very rapidly. His breathing made a watery sound in his chest; his lungs were filling with blood. He put his hands on his throat.

I took another step backward. I knew that I should hit him again, kill him, knew that this would be the humane thing to do, but I didn't feel like I had the strength to raise the machete. I felt spent, finished.

He tried to speak: his mouth opened and closed. There was no sound, though, simply the gurgling in his chest. And then, very slowly, as if he were moving underwater, he pulled his left hand away from his throat and extended it to the shelf at his side. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of a ketchup bottle sitting there, and, more shoving it than throwing it, propelled it toward me through the air.

It hit me in the leg. It didn't hurt; it bounced off, cracking into three nearly equal pieces on the floor. I stared down at it, another tint of red.

'And you say, 'The Lord moves in mysterious ways? What does that mean to me?' You say, 'Isn't that some sort of cop-out? Some sort of escape clause for when things go bad and you preachers have no explanation?' You say, 'Where is Responsibility? Where is Justice?' You're angry and you feel you deserve an answer...'

He put his hand back up to his throat. The blood pumped out between his fingers, but more weakly now.

When he fell, he did so in stages, hesitating for an instant between each one, like an actor overplaying his part. He dropped to his knees first, landing on a shard of glass from one of the jugs, crushing it with a horrible grinding sound beneath his weight. He paused, settled back on his rear end, paused again, then sank sideways to the floor. His head banged into the base of the shelf, bouncing off it at an awkward angle, his hands falling away from his throat.

All of this happened in slow motion.

'Let's say that someone tells you, 'The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away.' What does that mean to you?'

I stared down at him, counting in my head as I had with Pederson on the edge of the nature preserve. I counted to fifty, breathing once between each number. As I watched, the blood slowly stopped pulsing from his neck.

I stuck the machete through my belt, like a pirate. Then I pulled off the ski mask. The air felt cool against my face, soothing, but the smell of Jacob's body remained stuck in my nostrils. It seemed to cling to my cheeks, like grease. I took off the sweatshirt, dragging it over my head. My back was drenched with perspiration. I could feel it running down in little rivulets along my spine, soaking into the waistband of my underpants.

'Or they say, 'A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps...''

I wanted to check the cashier's pulse, but the thought of touching his wrist gave me a loose, sick feeling in my stomach, so I let it go. He was dead. I could tell that just from the amount of blood on the floor -- it was a huge puddle, spreading out along the rear of the store and seeping down the center aisle. Mixed with the wine and ketchup and shattered glass, it looked surreal, ghoulish, like something from a nightmare.

'Or they say, 'The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble...''

I stood there, listening to the preacher's voice. He was in a studio somewhere, and it sounded like there were people with him, offering up an occasional 'Amen!' or 'Glory!' or 'Hallelujah!' And then there were hundreds, maybe thousands of people all across the region -- Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania -- sitting in their homes, driving in their cars, listening. Each of them was connected to the others, and all of them were connected to me, simply by the sound of this man's voice.

And they don't know, I thought. They don't know about any of this.

Very slowly, I felt myself begin to calm down. My pulse slackened; my hands stopped shaking. I'd almost ruined everything by coming here, but now I'd saved it. We were going to be all right.

I lifted my shirt to look at my chest. It was already starting to bruise, a deep purple flower blossoming across my rib cage.

'Let me talk to you about fate, Brothers and Sisters. What does that word mean to you? If I say to you that you are fated to die someday, is there one among you who would question me? Of course not. And yet if I were to say to you that you are fated to die on one particular day, at one particular hour, and in one particular way, you would shake your head and say that I was a fool. And yet that is what I do say to you, I say...'

I shook myself, as if from a stupor, walked quickly down the center aisle to the front of the building, leaned over the counter, and clicked off the radio. There was a SORRY, WE'RE CLOSED sign hanging from the front door,