A Murder of Crows by David Rotenberg

College’s janitors.
    He fast-forwarded the tape to the part where he told her, “Look, Ms. Lavin, even the cat is allowed to watch the king.”
    Her perplexed look so pleased him that he replayed the section, several times.
    But he knew that he owed Ms. Marcia Lavin.
    Without this bitch’s complaint he’d never have met the young janitor who microwaved human shit—Mr. Walter Jones, Esq.
    He turned to the window and stared at the neatly manicured campus and remembered when the idea first came into his head.
    Popped in—God given, actually.
    He was adjusting his girth in his theatre seat at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as the lights were going down. They evidently made theatre seats narrower now than they used to. Must be so they can stuff more seats into the theatre, even though the prices they charged were outrageous. He couldn’t believe it when they told him it was $140 a seat to see the RSC!
    But as the play began, he found it glorious to hear Shakespeare spoken by his countrymen. And Julius Caesar had always been a favourite of his.
    He’d played Cassius in college and had for a while considered a career on the stage, but he’d been rejected by RADA, the CentralSchool and the Old Vic—no doubt Jews were in charge of those places then. No doubt. Then there were those ahead of him: Ralph Fiennes, Kenneth Branagh, Timothy Dalton, et al. They put me in the shadows, and now they’re famous and rich and have women for the choosing .
    His reverie was broken by a familiar speech about brilliance hidden beneath the shadow of Caesar.
    Know how you feel brother. You tell ’em .
    And what did he do to ol’ Caesar—ate two—is what he did!
    Ate two—why stop at two?
    How’s about six or sixty or six hundred? In for a penny . . .
    Ouch—the damned seat pinched him!
    Show them all. All of them .
    A smile crept over his face. Yeah, time to get back at every one of them who put him in shadow, who rejected his brilliance. Who refused him admission to their damned club. Well, I’ll grant you all admission—admission to hell.
    And as he watched the third act he thought of how simple it was to make an explosive device—kid’s stuff really. But where to put it? That was the question: where to put it?
    Then he saw the mob gathering onstage to hear Anthony’s speech over Caesar’s dead body—and he knew. A mob gathered to listen. Oh, yes. Universities have such gatherings once a year. We surely do.
    He ran the three necessities for a crime in his head:
    Motive: in spades
    Means: you bet
    Opportunity: he’d have to work on that. Bombs need to be planted. And what would a professor be doing digging in the ground or lifting platforms. No, he’d need an assist with that.
    Then he remembered the janitor who had given “unwarranted attentions” to bouncy Marcia and smiled . . . and to his surprise he felt comfortable in his theatre seat. He had lots of room; it fit just fine.

17
A VOID OF CARING—T EQUALS 1 MONTH PLUS
    WALTER APPLIED THE HOT WAX TO HIS CHEST AND GASPED. THE smell almost made him puke. He counted to twenty then ripped the wax off—with his body hair. He hated body hair.
    He waited for his breathing to slow down then he applied more hot wax to his upper thigh. This time although he gasped he also smiled—because things were going along just fine. Better than things had ever gone for him. And soon, so soon . . .
    He peeled off the hot wax, then pried open a can of soup and put it on the hot plate. “Dinner,” he said aloud to the emptiness of his basement apartment. That used to piss him off—him eating soup out of the can while those students had the choice of more than ten different things to eat at their dining halls. And people like me to clean up after them, he thought.
    But that didn’t bother him now.
    Cause this will show her and that snot-nosed professor