Debby’s choice
"Then shoot me too I am one of them shoot I’m an Arab and you shoot I was wrong to be born I’m an immigrant and you shoot and I’m poor and you..."
("Spara", 99 Posse)
"What about these?"
There, now I remember. I remember very well the face of Deborah when she saw the guns. For a moment she assumed the idiotic expression she has when she doesn’t understand. She widens her eyes, opens them as if she wanted to look inside of you, find out who knows what hidden mystery.
"What about these?" she repeated, staring seriously.
It was obvious that she didn’t dare to ask anything more, but she thought I was gone crazy. She looked down to the table, incredulously, then moved away from me, pushing with her feet to move the chair as far away from the table as possible, as if unwilling to have contact with the mysterious entity.
"Have I missed something? Where did you get them?"
She didn’t dare to touch them. We were smoking in my house, it was one of those cheap afternoons, with Liga playing like crazy from the computer – I use the PC for listening to CDs too – and I could think about nothing but convincing her to shoot Eleonora with me. I had already imagined the whole scene, I had seen it in my imagination a thousand times: us in the classroom, the carnage, us masters of the situation and the other kneeling on the floor, ready to be executed. The Northern Leaguer in tears, begging for mercy, and us laughing before killing her. Epic movie stuff. A total blast. Debby was still keeping her eyes lowered, an unprepared student in front of a professor. We were not in tune, we really were not in tune. That's what I thought.
"Come on. Meet the solution to our problems", I announced triumphantly, putting down the little animals on the table, still wrapped in a red and yellow scarf.
Then I opened the envelope in front of her. Gently, as if they were eggs just delivered by the farmer, fresh, fresh, still a bit dirty of straw, ready to be drunk. My mother always made the same gesture when I was little and she returned from shopping, happy. She pulled out that little gem of nature from the white towel and immediately prepared a beaten egg for me. It is one of the tastiest memories of my childhood. I loved that ritual, my mouth waters at the simple thought. I remember with joy how I dived the spoon into the cup. I was blessed. Sure, eggs and guns are not the same thing, but I in front of Debby, in that moment, I felt like that, a mother who’s offering her daughter a delicious treat.
"Where did you get them?" my baby repeated, incredulous and worried.
When Deborah is tense or distracted she pulls hair off her head. She starts touching it with apparent indifference, slowly, then rolls a curl around a finger, turns, turns, turns, then pulls violently and the lock comes off. At that point I always choke up because I think that it hurts, that she feels pain. I would not be able to pull off my hair, I even have trouble when I have to remove a patch. She says that's fine, that it is an instinctive gesture. Sure it hurts, she explained once, but at least it takes away her thoughts. Over the years she made a hole, like a bald spot right in the centre of her head, by continuously pulling hair. Crazy stuff. Sometimes I helped her to conceal the crime by combing other tufts over it. Fortunately no one ever notices it. Who looks at you on the head? Deborah claims that hers is a little obsession, a tic, that she’s been doing that since she was a baby. It's like a habit, a rash gesture. Besides, we all have our way of venting anger. I, for example, kick when I am anxious. I sit down and kick, feet back and forth and I feel like a football player. Or a boxer, maybe, who knows. I do that at school too, and the teachers never notice. No one notices our tics. I do it at home, when I think about Eleonora and her red and curly hair. I do it if I think about my mother or my new brother I've never seen.
"Massimo gave them to me. A gift, and if I keep them he will give us free smoke and cocaine."
"Free? But what are they, stolen?"
Deborah doesn’t understand when she doesn’t want to. But now she seems quieter, she stopped tormenting her hair and she’s sitting, almost lying on the chair, with her hands folded in her lap. She seems thoughtful, and a thoughtful Deborah is dangerous because you never know what she will do.
"I don’t know, maybe his friends used them. Suppose they made a robbery or killed someone with those. But what do we care, tell me? We do not give a damn about it. Massimo only has to hide them, and he gave them to me, because I'm clean."
"Clean?"
"Come on. Wake up Debby. It means I have a clean record, no one would suspect me. I'm just a student who smokes weed, who might think that I have two guns?"
"Yeah, well, so what?"
"Then I thought, what if we used them?"
"You and I?"
Here she goes again with her hand in her hair. Oh dear oh dear, fuck Deborah, you'll hurt yourself.
"To kill Eleonora."
"To kill Eleonora?"
She remain motionless, she swallows, she looks serious, grave. I think she will say no, we won’t do anything, I'll have to shoot alone. Cause I won’t stop. She knows, and I'm sure she will not betray me, she won’t tell anyone.
"To kill Eleonora, yes, do a carnage like American students do. They do one every two or three months and us? Shit, we just watch? You know what it means to shoot in your classroom? You turn from a failed nonentity into a terrific bitch. You are the only one star in control of the situation. We’ll become famous, end up on the internet. We will show that we are cooler than males, that we too are able to think and act big. A slaughter. You and I – two stupid and ignorant students, only considered like goats to be killed – getting the opening of the newscast and forcing Bruno Vespa to conduct hours and hours of programs to explain how violence in schools is born. Can you imagine? They click our names and thousands of websites dedicated to us pop up. Silvia and Deborah, together and famous, forever. And you know what? Before shooting this way and that, we send a video to YouTube and everybody will watch it. You and I, forever famous."
She smiles, smiles at last, no, better yet. She starts laughing. She’s bent over and she laughs.
"You're completely crazy, totally."
She laughs, laughs like crazy. I've never seen her like this.
"If you make another joint and explain well I think we can do that. But what is gonna happen to us?"
She stops laughing and looks at me seriously.
"They put us in jail? I don’t want to go there."
"Either they kill us or we do."
Silence. She doesn’t say anything. And I started kicking with my feet
"We kill ourselves. I don’t want to go to prison", she says seriously.
It's done. I know it doesn’t take me much to convince Deborah. She doesn’t like to let me go alone in important events, she comes with me, no matter what. This is friendship. Bosom friends.
"Then it’s done! Are you in?"
"Fuck, I’m not gonna let you become famous alone. But..."
"Yes?"
"May I touch them?"
And she stretches her hands. Her slightly stubby hands that always make me smile. She takes one of the two Beretta and she pretends to pull the trigger, pointing the weapon at me.
"Come on. Be careful, if it shoots we’re done."
"Cool. Do you remember the song by 99 Posse? "
"Which one?"
"Then shoot me too... I think. I like it."
"Shit, I don’t remember."
"Fuck it... I’d like to be Carl Brandt."
"Carl Brandt? The one who killed his family twice and enjoyed decapitating the corpses? Or that sixteen-year-old boy who killed twelve people? What's his name?"
"What the fuck do I know? Debby, we are a team, we should not imitate anybody, but create a new genre. The slaughtering students. The female rebels, the kick-ass of the school..."
"Cool."
And she kept looking at the gun, studying it with meticulous attention.
"A Beretta you said?"
"That's how it’s called. I studied all
over the internet."
"You know, I've never shot."
"Even an idiot can. Remember we did that research on child soldiers? Those shoot like crazy. It's like a game, you pull the trigger and it does everything."
"If you say so. I trust you."
"And then, come on, first we make some tests in the country, alone. Maybe kill some dog. I've never stood them. We’ll have a nice day out."
"Tests, yes, it will be better. I'm not really sure I could shoot. But if you say so, I will."
"You must. You are my accomplice. And then there's the computer.”
"The computer? Silvia, what the fuck are you saying?"
"Come on, don’t act dumb. You know how many shooting games are there on the internet? You stay there, take aim and learn."
"What luck. The computer too. You always know everything."
"I know where I want to go. And who has to pay."
We decided like that. We did it like that. I believed it. I believed in Debby.