CHAPTER 1

The P-38 WWII Nazi handgun looks comical lying on the breakfast table next to abowl of oatmeal. It's like some weird steampunk utensil anachronism. But if youlook very closely just above the handle you can see the tiny stamped swastikaand the eagle perched on top, which is real as hell.

I take a photo of my place setting with my iPhone, thinking it could be bothevidence and modern art.

Then I laugh my ass off looking at it on the miniscreen, because modern art issuch bullshit.

I mean, a bowl of oatmeal and a P-38 set next to it like a spoon—thatarrangement photographed can be modern art, right?

Bullshit.

But funny too.

I've seen worse on display at real art museums, like an all-white canvas with asingle red pinstripe through it.

I once told Herr Silverman about that red-line painting, saying I could easilydo it myself, and he said in this superconfident voice, "But you didn't."

I have to admit it was a cool, artsy retort because it was true.

Shut me the hell up.

So here I am making modern art before I die.

Maybe they'll hang my iPhone in the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the oatmealNazi gun pic displayed.

They can call it Breakfast of a Teenage Killer or something ridiculousand shocking like that.

The art and news worlds will love it, I bet.

They'll make my modern artwork instantly famous.

Especially after I actually kill Asher Beal and off myself.

Art value always goes up once the artist's associated with fucked-up things suchas cutting off his own ear like Van Gogh, or marrying his teenage cousin likePoe, or having his minions murder a celebrity like Manson, or shooting hispostsuicide ashes out of a huge cannon like Hunter S. Thompson, or being dressedup as a little girl by his mother like Hemingway, or wearing a dress made of rawmeat like Lady Gaga, or having unspeakable things done to him so he kills aclassmate and puts a bullet in his own head like I will do later today.

My murder-suicide will make Breakfast of a Teenage Killer a pricelessmasterpiece because people want artists to be unlike them in every way. If youare boring, nice, and normal—like I used to be—you will definitelyfail your high school art class and be a subpar artist for life.

Worthless to the masses.

Forgotten.

Everyone knows that.

Everyone.

So the key is doing something that sets you apart forever in the minds ofregular people.

Something that matters.

CHAPTER 2

I wrap up the birthday presents in this pink wrapping paper I find in the hallcloset.

I wasn't planning on wrapping the presents, but I feel like maybe I shouldattempt to make the day feel more official, more festive.

I'm not afraid of people thinking I'm gay, because I really don't care whatanyone thinks at this point, and so I don't mind the pink paper, although Iwould have preferred a different color. Maybe black would have been moreappropriate given what's about to transpire.

It makes me feel really little-kid-on-Christmas-morning good to wrap up thegifts.

Feels right somehow.

I make sure the safety is on and then put the loaded P-38 in an old cedar cigarbox I kept to remember my dad, because he used to enjoy smoking illegal Cubancigars. I stuff a bunch of old socks in to keep my "heater" from clanking aroundinside and maybe blasting a bullet into my ass. Then I wrap the box in pinkpaper too, so that no one will suspect I have a gun in school.

Even if—for whatever reason—my principal starts randomly searchingbackpacks today, I can say it's a present for a friend.

The pink wrapping paper will throw them off, camouflage the danger, and only areal asshole would make me open up someone else's perfectly wrapped gift.

No one has ever searched my backpack at school, but I don't want to take anychances.

Maybe the P-38 will be a present for me when I unwrap it and shoot Asher Beal.

That'll probably be the only present I receive today.

In addition to the P-38, there are four gifts, one for each of my friends.

I want to say good-bye to them properly.

I want to give them each something to remember me by. To let them know I reallycared about them and I'm sorry I couldn't be more than I was—that Icouldn't stick around—and that what's going to happen today isn't theirfault.

I don't want them to stress over what I'm about to do or feel depressedafterward.

CHAPTER 3

My Holocaust class teacher, Herr Silverman, never rolls up his sleeves like theother male teachers at my high school, who all arrive each morning with theirfreshly ironed shirts rolled to the elbow. Nor does Herr Silverman ever wear thefaculty polo shirt on Fridays. Even in the warmer months he keeps his armscovered, and I've been wondering why for a long time now.

I think about it constantly.

It's maybe the greatest mystery of my life.

Perhaps he has really hairy arms, I've often thought. Or prison tattoos. Or abirthmark. Or he was obscenely burned in a fire. Or maybe someone spilled acidon him during a high school science experiment. Or he was once a heroin addictand his wrists are therefore scarred with a gazillion needle-track marks. Maybehe has a blood-circulation disorder that keeps him perpetually cold.

But I suspect the truth is more serious than that—like maybe he tried tokill himself once and there are razor-blade scars.

Maybe.

It's hard for me to believe that Herr Silverman once attempted suicide, becausehe's so together now; he's really the most admirable adult I know.

Sometimes I actually hope that he did once feel empty and hopeless and helplessenough to slash his wrists to the bone, because if he felt that horrible andsurvived to be such a fantastic grown-up, then maybe there's hope for me.

Whenever I have some free time I wonder about what Herr Silverman might behiding, and I try to unlock his mystery in my mind, creating all sorts ofsuicide-inducing scenarios, inventing his past.

Some days I have his parents beat him with clothes hangers and starve him.

Other days his classmates throw him to the ground and kick him until he's wetwith blood, at which point they take turns pissing on his head.

Sometimes he suffers from unrequited love and cries every single night alone inhis closet clutching a pillow to his chest.

Other times he's abducted by a sadistic psychopath who waterboards himnightly—Guantánamo Bay–style—and deprives him of drinkingwater during the day while he is forced to sit in a ClockworkOrange–type room full of strobe lights, Beethoven symphonies, andhorrific images projected on a huge screen.

I don't think anyone else has noticed Herr Silverman's constantly clothedforearms, or if they have, no one has said anything about it in class. I haven'toverheard anything in the hallways.

I wonder if I'm really the only one who's noticed, and if so, what does that sayabout me?

Does that make me weird?

(Or weirder than I already am?)

Or just observant?

So many times I've thought about asking Herr Silverman why he never rolls up hissleeves, but I don't for some reason.

Some days he encourages me to write; other days he says I'm "gifted" and thensmiles like he's being truthful, and I'll come close to asking him the questionabout his never-exposed forearms, but I never do, and that seemsodd—utterly ridiculous, considering how badly I want to ask and how muchthe answer could save me.

As if his response will be sacred or life-altering or something and I'msaving it for later—like an emotional antibiotic, or a depressionlifeboat.

Sometimes I really believe that.

But why?

Maybe my brain's just fucked.

Or maybe I'm terrified that I might be wrong about him and I'm just makingthings up in my head—that there's nothing under those shirtsleeves at all,and he just likes the look of covered forearms.

It's a fashion statement.

He's more like Linda than I am.

End of story.

I worry Herr Silverman will laugh at me when I ask about his covered forearms.

He'll make me feel stupid for wondering—hoping—all this time.

That he'll call me a freak.

That he'll think I'm a pervert for thinking about it so much.

That he'll pull an ugly, disgusted face that'll make me feel like he and I couldnever ever be similar at all, and I'm therefore delusional.

That would kill me, I think.

Do my spirit in for good.

It really would.

And so I've come to worry that my not asking is simply the product of myboundless cowardice.

As I sit there alone at the breakfast table wondering if Linda will remembertoday's significance, knowing deep down that she's simply not going tocall—I decide to instead wonder if the Nazi officer who carried my P-38 inWWII ever dreamed his sidearm would end up as modern art, across the AtlanticOcean, in New Jersey, seventy-some years later, loaded and ready to kill theclosest modern-day equivalent of a Nazi that we have at my high school.

The German who originally owned the P-38—what was his name?

Was he one of the nice Germans Herr Silverman tells us about? The ones whodidn't hate Jews or gays or blacks or anyone really but just had the misfortuneof being born in Germany during a really fucked time.

Was he anything like me?

CHAPTER 4

I have this signature really long dirty-blond hair that hangs over my eyes andpast my shoulders. I've been growing it for years, ever since the governmentcame after my dad and he fled the country.

And my long locks piss Linda off something awful, especially since she's intocontemporary fashion. She says I look like a "grunge-rock stoner" and back whenshe was still around caring about me, Linda actually made me submit to a drugtest—pissing into a cup—which I passed.

I didn't get Linda a good-bye present, and I start to feel guilty about that, soI cut off all my hair with the scissors in the kitchen—the ones we usuallyuse to cut food.

I cut it all down to the scalp in a wild orgy of arms and hands and silverblades.

Then I mash all of my hair into a big ball and wrap it in pink paper.

I'm laughing the whole time.

I cut out a little square of pink paper and write on the back.

• Dear Delilah,

• Here you go.

• You got your wish.

• Congratulations!

• Love, Samson

I fold the square in half and tape it to the gift, which looks quiteodd—almost like I tried to wrap a pocket of air.

Then I stick the present in the refrigerator, which seems hilarious.

Linda will be looking for a chilled bottle of Riesling to calm her janglednerves after getting the news about her son ridding the world of Asher Beal andLeonard Peacock too.

She'll find the pink wrap job.

Linda will wonder about my allusion to Samson and Delilah when she readsthe card, because that was the title of my father's failed sophomore record, butwill get the joke just as soon as she opens her present.

I imagine her clutching her chest, faking the tears, playing the victim, andbeing all dramatic.

Jean-Luc will really have his professionally manicured French hands full.

No sex for him maybe, or maybe not.

Maybe their affair will blossom without me around to psychologically anchor poorLinda to reality and maternal duties.

Maybe once I'm gone, she'll float away to France like a shiny new silver little-kid birthday balloon.

She'll probably even lose a dress size without me around to trigger her "stresseating."

Maybe Linda won't return to our house ever again.

Maybe she and Jean-Luc will go to the fashion capital of the world, the City ofLight, auw-hauh-hauw!, and screw like bunnies happily ever after.

She'll sell everything, and the new homeowners will find my hair in therefrigerator and be like What the ...?

My hair'll just end up in the trash and that will be that.

Gone.

Forgotten.

RIP, hair.

Or maybe they'll donate my locks to one of those wig-making places that help outkids with cancer. Like my hair would get a second shot at life with a littleinnocent-hearted bald chemo girl maybe.

I'd like that.

I really would.

My hair deserves it.

So I'm really hoping for that cancer-kid-helping outcome if Linda goes to Francewithout coming home first, or maybe even Linda will donate my hair.

Anything's possible, I guess.

I stare at the mirror over the kitchen sink.

The no-hair guy staring back at me looks so strange now.

He's like a different person with all uneven patches on his scalp.

He looks thinner.

I can see his cheekbones sticking out where his blond curtains used to hang.

How long has this guy been hiding under my hair?

I don't like him.

"I'm going to kill you later today," I say to that guy in the mirror, and hejust smiles back at me like he can't wait.

"Promise?" I hear someone say, which freaks me out, because my lips didn't move.

I mean—it wasn't me who said, "Promise?"

It's like there's a voice trapped inside the glass.

So I stop looking in the mirror.

Just for good measure, I smash that mirror with a coffee mug, because I don'twant the mirror me to speak ever again.

Shards rain down into the sink and then a million little mes look up like somany tiny minnows.

CHAPTER 5

I'm already late for school, but I need to stop at my next-door-neighbor Walt'sso that I can give him his present.

Today, I knock once and let myself into Walt's house because he has to walkslowly with one of those gray-piped four-footed walkers that has dirty tennisballs attached to protect his hardwood floors. It's difficult for him to getaround, especially with bad lungs, so he just gave me a key and said, "Come inwhenever you feel like it. And come often!"

He's been smoking since he was twelve, and I've been helping him buy his PallMall Reds on the Internet to save money. The first time, I found this phenomenaldeal: two hundred cigarettes for nineteen dollars, and he proclaimed me a heroright then and there. He doesn't even have a computer in his home, let alone theInternet. So it was like I performed a miracle, getting cigarettes that cheapdelivered to his doorstep, because he was paying a hell of a lot more at thelocal convenience store. I've been bringing over my laptop—our Internetsignal reaches his living room—and we've been searching for the best dealsevery week. He's always trying to give me half of what he saves, but I nevertake his money.

It's funny because he's rich, but always keen on finding a bargain. Maybe that'swhy he's rich. I don't know.

A "helper" comes and takes care of him most days, but not until nine thirty AM,so it's always just Walt and me before school.

"Walt?" I say as I walk through the smoky hallway, under the crystal chandelier,toward the smoky living room where he usually sleeps surrounded by overflowingashtrays and empty bottles. "Walt?"

I find him in his La-Z-Boy, smoking a Pall Mall Red, eyes bloodshot fromdrinking scotch last night.

His robe isn't shut, so I can see his naked, hairless chest. It's the pinkish-red sunset color of conch-shell innards.

He looks at me with his best black-and-white movie-star face and says, "Youdespise me, don't you?"

It's a line from Casablanca, which we've watched together a milliontimes.

Standing next to his chair with my backpack between my feet, I answer withRick's follow-up line in the film, saying, "If I gave you any thought I probablywould."

Then I follow it with a line from The Big Sleep, saying, "My, my, my.Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains," which feels pretty cool andauthentic considering I have the Nazi P-38 in my backpack.