Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”

The good girl
Short story with a twist
By
Jude Kyrie

*Randy Evans was the ultimate family man at least in his own mind.
He had married Eva 18 years ago. He consumated their marriage on the wedding night.
This was the decent and proper way he mused.
He loved his daughter Janie now 16 with all his heart.
He brought her up to be the kind of woman he regarded as proper no friends without his approval of them and their parents.
Certainly no boy friends allowed at all.
She kept an A average at school and never gave them an ounce of trouble.
He hardly ever had to use his belt on her these days just a look would be enough to keep her in line.
Although the odd strapping did her no harm at all
It never hurt him in the long run when he father used it on him.
Yes he was the complete family man.and good father.

Janie came home and asked her father if she could sign up for the school trip to Washington it was three nights away from home.
Randy immediately said no those kids drink and smoke dope no way you can go.
You are a decent girl.
Yes Daddy said Janie not a inch f disagreement in her manner.
She had no intention of getting her bottom belted again.
Now help your mother prepare dinner Janie
She stood in front of the kitchen window looking into the  back yard edged by a wooded area.
Randy had moved them to the country away from the filthy inner city full of drugs and violence.
She was sobbing at the sink
What's up asked Randy is it because you can't go on the school trip?
No daddy I don't care about the trip he's back out there again I thought he was in the mental home.
He was four weeks ago well he's out there again daddy
Just staring at me like before.
Randy looked at the boy he was mentally challenged and had taken to stalking Janie.
Randy took his hunting rifle and went to the boy
Get away he yelled go home
and never come back or I will **** you with this ******* rifle you hear.
He was shouting a the top of his voice.the neighbors lights went on faces at the window.
He repeated I will I'll you get it?
But I love her sir she is my soulmate
the young disturbed boy whispered softly.
She loves me and I am going to marry her.
Randy fired a warning shot into the air.
The boy ran away into the woods.
Randy persuade him.
He lost him in the woodlands

He called Sheriff Black a  big man
Told him of the stalking it's back he cried.
Yep they said he was not dangerous the shrinks.
He said listen no more guns you hear that's my job.
I don't want to arrest you for criminal violence.

The next day Randy got home the women were crying
What's happening he shouted.
Someone broke in and ransacked Janie's bedroom
My ******* are missing and my bras.
Randy was beside himself
He went to the boys house his parents opened the door he just past them
Where is he that ******* ***** of a son of yours.
He's out the place was a disaster *****  washing and dishes all over the kitchen
Maids day off said Randy
Where's his ******* room.
Oh don't go there he will get mad with us please don't.
He pushed past her and saw his bedroom draw
It was locked Randy booted it open in contrast to the house it was organised spotlessly cleaned and neat.
A hospital made bed and neat closet all over the walls were pictures of Janie
She was naked in her bedroom her breast Photoshopped and enlarged
On the bed was was her bra and ******* laid out with a picture of her naked next to them
Alongside the bed the garbage pail was full of tissues he knew exactly what he had done
He's bashing the bishop watching her picture and undergarments.
Randy yelled I will  **** him I will  **** the ******* perv.
Rushing through the door he screamed threats all the way to his truck.
Then knocking the gatepost over and spilling the garbage cans he tore off leaving rubber marks on the tarmac.

He could not find him and returned home at midnight.
Sheriff Black was waiting
Where you been he said I was after that ******* kid
Did you get to him.
No I couldn't find him
He's dead beaten to death with a baseball bat with your name on it.
But I didn't do it.
The cuffs slipped on Randy's wrist.
The court case lasted two days
The jury was out in fifteen minutes.
Guilty of first degree ******
The witnesses telling of the threats to **** the boy the rifle discharge
The broken door of his bedroom the raging outburst leaving his home.
He go life without parole.

The TV in the prison was set to the news
He sat in the waiting room Janie was being interviewed by a lipstick covered reporter.
You have been through a terrible ordeal Janie
Yes but it's over now I am OK
What are your plans honey
Well I am going to Washington next week with my boyfriend and school friends for four days.
I am going shopping for new underwear mine was stolen.

He got it
He ******* well got it
It was Janie the little *****
He would tell her mother to get the ******* strap to work on her bare ***.
The penny dropped
She had given the slow boy her ******* and bra herself.
He thought she loved him.
The photos were hers she had taken them.
she had given them to him
The boy was a pawn
He was in love with her
He was just acting like any infatuated teenager.
And he was a ******* Patsy.

Janie fastened her new lacy bra it showed her beautiful breast off
Particularly with the **** low cut clinging shirt
Her boyfriend was going to love it.