Your Phone a Stethoscope by Chris L. Robinson
from Betrayal: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
She called and you let your cellphone ring. Four times. Five times. Six.
You’d set it to vibrate once home from your crappy job and your wife couldn’t hear it rattle like a snake in your pocket. Seven times. Eight times. Nine.
Denny, your only friend from your old life, had given her your number after you’d gotten out of prison. You’d never talked to her again, but hadn’t been able to make yourself block her number.
After kissing your sleeping baby boy’s cheek, you’d snugged the phone under you in bed.
That junkie was the only one that knew you’d killed a man during one of those early robberies, your three-year sentence for another crime a gift compared to a murder charge. You’d thought many times about how she could trade your freedom for hers.
But she never had.
And now you know she’s in trouble because Denny told you.
Missing dope money. Her boyfriend already dead. You, her only hope.
So you lay next to your wife and do nothing, knowing it will be enough.
Because you know that when your phone stops beating against you, she will be gone.
Shortly before daybreak, your tears soak your wife’s hair.
This story appears as part of Betrayal, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series, originally published May 2024.
Bio
Chris L. Robinson is a writer born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Also an essayist, he writes about fatherhood and masculinity. He has a beautiful wife and a son that is gradually winning all of their wrestling matches. Send help. He can be found on Twitter as @ChrisLRobinson3.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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Excellent story!!!