An Episodic Release
Look, regardless of what people are saying, you are not pro-murder. No one is pro-murder. People just so happen to enjoy true crime, and you are providing them with a storytelling service.
I slid my phone back in my pocket. Marissa Waters is profiting off the tragic lives of the deceased — please. Where do they get off? Right, I forced everyone to listen, I forced everyone to develop an appetite for hearing about bad things happening to good people. Fuck you, you’re just a critic who’s jealous of my show.
I walked up the steps to my brownstone. I made it, I don’t have to listen to you. Sure, it’s an ugly truth, but the machine has rewarded me with popularity. It must feel pathetic to envy, right?
There’s a stain on the coffee table. You’d have to look for it to find it, but if you shift your head when the light hits the surface just right, you can see rings of semi-translucent circles. Some weeks I don’t notice at all, but as I sat down, it was visible today.
The sofa felt nice against my back. The sofa, by the way, is only comfortable because it cost money. Real money. An expensive amount of money that I earned from making this podcast. I will not apologize for that.
On my laptop, the analytics site was open. It tracked the number of listeners, showed which countries they’re from, and how long they listened to each episode. I hit refresh, but everything remained the same. I hit it four or five more times until I watched a number, which had already been in the millions, increment by one.
Sure. You could argue that the show has stagnated. But that’s just because every late night host, every stupid, perfectly milquetoast Hollywood suit, wants to reach in the vault and grab some money, by starting a show. And then, all these morons too dumb enough to have good taste are lining up to listen.
I whispered to myself that the numbers don’t define me. I took a deep breath, and tried to clear my thoughts, but right before I exhaled I made a mental note to bring this up to my therapist.
The water kettle in the kitchen beeped. This water kettle is not something to “make do” with, it is a gooseneck kettle made out of stainless steel. I will not apologize for that.
“What do you mean we have no murders left?” I asked.
“We’ve done the Golden State Killer. We’ve done the Zodiac, we’ve done random small town murders but the numbers dip if it’s not noteworthy. Or, if the murder is…boring. The only murders, excuse me, widely known murders left are politically harrowing shootings. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to reopen those wounds.” Anna replied. She was my co-host.
“We could always get a guest. At least then we’d pull in new listeners.” Chris, my producer, our producer, said. “What about Conan?”
“Fuck Conan. I don’t want to validate a single one of those late night creeps. It’s the oldest men asking young actresses insulting questions masked as comedy, as an industry.”
“He was nice to us at the Variety party.”
“He was drunk.” I replied. There was a long silence. “I just want people to listen to the show again. Remember how nice it was, at the beginning, to get fan mail? We don’t even get fan mail anymore.”
“The hosts from Basket Heads just had an unbelievable week, numbers wise. Apparently one of them got into a car accident and they still recorded from the hospital. Their fans sent all these flowers, and, you know, basketballs as a sign of support,” said Chris.
“Well, we can’t all be making High Art.”
I sighed. I flipped through my notebook, first through the journal entries from years ago, then to the current day show notes. Every episode: The Town. The People. The Death, underlined.
“Hey, I’ve um, got some…” Anna looked down. “Well, never mind.” She saw the both of us look up. “Actually, you know um, that cooking-slash-travel show that’s been in development for a while? We just got greenlit for a pilot so, pretty soon I have to go to Atlanta. To shoot.”
“Oh.”
“Holy shit!”
“It’s probably not going to go anywhere! It’s just pilot season, and there’s a lot of veterans with new series coming out — ”
“That’s incredible!” Chris said, his smile too big. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Yes!” I remembered. “I’m really, really happy for you. Does this mean, you know, we have to stop doing the show?”
“I should still be able to record. If hell freezes over and it gets picked up, it might get a little tricky.” The three of us paused.
“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
The double walled glass felt cool, but not cold, even with all the ice inside. I swirled the gin around. The gin was from a Vulture writer, a congratulations and thank you for an interview.
Shows die all the time. I mean, it’s not like we were going to talk about murder forever, right? Something else will come along. It always does.
In that moment, the moon was visible through the curtains, and the living room was cast in a peaceful light. Two ice cubes were stuck to one another in the glass, and right as I was falling asleep, they broke apart. The slight noise brought me back.
The light, which moments ago seemed friendly, crept and crept, until it hit the legs of my TV stand. I could see the small, fingerprint-sized wad of paper I folded underneath one of the legs to keep it from wobbling. The last TV stand had this problem, too. I still remember the employee’s face, his smirk as I tried to return it — sorry ma’am, it’s been more than two weeks. I started to feel more awake as I remembered how the smallest amount of power imaginable had corrupted this pathetic furniture salesman.
All this momentum and then to suddenly start walking backwards —
We had our opportunity. That could’ve been my life, I wouldn’t be here thinking “what else, what else” because I could’ve bought a house with fuck you money if our podcast was picked up and turned into a TV show. All because fucking Chris —
How hard was it to prepare? How hard would it have been to double check your fucking laptop you fucking insect?
The glass hit the wall and left a stain. The water mark slid down towards the floor, and joined a mix of shattered parts and ice cubes. I will not apologize for wanting. Not ever.
We’ll be fine. Anna’s not talented enough for her show to get picked up. My stomach dropped and I turned onto my side.
I’m going to fucking kill him for ruining my life. I needed water, I pulled myself up but the blanket wrapped itself around my neck. I grabbed at whatever I could but rolled with my arms behind me, and my forehead connected with the edge of the coffee table.
Thank god. Thank god this carpet is dark. The blood was only slight, but there was a mark. Probably some baking soda will get it out. I’m going to kill that motherfucker and it’ll be so perfect.
I mean, could you imagine: True Crime Podcast Producer Is Murdered. Just fucking imagine how delicious that would be. The news stories. The basketballs.
The sympathy.
I smiled and let my teeth graze at the uneven tufts from the carpet.
It’s not enough. Killing him was the easy part, having his death mean something was the hard part. I looked at the bottle of opioids in my bathroom cabinet. A relic from a knee surgery. Crushing these up into a mixed drink would work, but it’s not flashy enough. Even worse, it might make Chris into a martyr.
Gloves. I’ll find some gloves when I go to my sister’s place this weekend. Once he’s down, and presumably already dead, I’ll choke him enough to make marks.
Should I leave a note? No, that’s tacky.
The gloves will go in a public trash uptown. The pill bottle will come home with me. I’ll have an alibi because I’ll be live-streaming, but I’ll set it up so it’s playing a pre-recorded video instead. A quiet evening of co-working alongside me, and I’ll be “focusing” so I won’t have to address any of the comments either.
I closed the cabinet. The hinge was broken, you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at it, but if you put your fingers against the creases of the mirror, you could feel that it didn’t close properly. In reality, the mirror was tilted a few degrees downwards. Money and time.
Our studio was located in Brooklyn, and there was a lock on the door, one that unlocks where you press your key fob into it. That wouldn’t do. I could wait for someone else to exit, but then they’d see me. I could wait for Chris to exit, but he’ll need to die in the studio.
I’ll wait until everyone leaves the Wednesday night Basket Heads record, and then I’ll knock. Chris will undoubtedly open the door, and it’s fine if he sees me.
I ran through all the murders that came to mind, the ones that we’d covered on the show. I thought about some of the pitfalls, the ways they got caught. I suppose, to them, it wasn’t a hobby.
“Hello Christopher.”
“Christopher? Am I about to be grounded?”
“No,” I laughed. “I wanted to try calling you that.” I put down my coat and looked at his eyes. Those round, blissfully unprepared eyes. The scraggly facial hair on his chin.
“What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to chat. We haven’t talked about the show in a while, and I figured it’d be good, with Anna getting her pilot. Do you mind if I get us some drinks from the kitchen?”
His body was heavier than I expected. I thought about just choking him right there in his chair and calling it a day. So long as there were marks, that would be enough, right?
I’ll admit, right before he drank, I thought about stopping him. But the clock was already past midnight, meaning this week’s episode was already out, meaning that we’d have to start working on the next episode. I took a deep breath.
Chris’ death will be good for us. Anna won’t be able to do her show in light of this news — she’d be seen as heartless to abandon us now.
Maybe now was the right time to buy a new fridge. The hum of the old one, well, you could hear it in the living room sometimes. It always moves forward, it always has to.
I gathered my things. I took one last look at the studio and noticed dog hair on the couch, black specs in the white carpet, and from the way the light was shining, a stain on the coffee table.
